“In fact, he’s taking me for lunch.”
“I see. Somewhere nice, I suppose.”
“Goff’s at Langwith.”
Very nice too. No pub lunch, then. Something a bit better than I’d be tackling later on, anyway. I watched a gold-coloured Range Rover nose its way onto the grass a few yards down. Michael Cavendish got out and began to stroll casually towards us, brushing his suit as if he’d got bits of real life on it from having to use the same car park as the plebs.
“So I’m a spare part?”
“Don’t be like that, Stones. I’ll make it up to you some time.”
She put her hand on my arm. She thought I was being jealous again, when I was only concerned about her safety. I couldn’t have cared less if she’d zoomed off with Cavendish in his Range Rover to live in his mansion and never come back. But would he be able to protect her from Lump Hammer Stan and his mates?
Cavendish hesitated a few yards away, as if he didn’t want to speak to me for some reason. But now Lisa saw him and gave a wave, and he kept coming.
“Hello, Lisa. Hello, er... old chap.”
“Stones they call me. As in rolling, standing and you can’t get blood from.”
“Ah yes. And what are you doing at the moment, rolling or standing?”
“Well, just standing, I suppose. As you do.”
“A change from last time we met here, then.”
I stared at him. The bugger was being cleverer than me. In another minute I might have to call on all my intellectual reserves and punch his lights out.
Cavendish smirked. “Are you ready, Lisa? There’s nothing keeping you, is there? Our table is booked.”
“I’m ready,” she said. She looked at me a bit nervously. “I hope you really do get your problem sorted out, Stones.”
“Oh? What’s that?” asked Cavendish, his ears pricking up for further signs of my inferiority.
“Nothing to do with you,” I said. “It’s not something that can be sorted out with a cheque book.”
“You never know, old chap. I might be able to help. I could suggest an alcohol addiction clinic, for example. A good psychiatrist. I’ve had some experience in welfare work. I doubt if I can do anything for your dress sense though, I’m afraid.”
“Piss off.”
“Or your lack of vocabulary. Shall we go, Lisa?”
They walked off and got in the Range Rover. Cavendish revved the engine and gave me a little toot of the horn as they went past towards the gates. Lisa stared at me, almost expressionless. Somehow Cavendish had got the better of me, and I’d let him do it. What was wrong with me?
Well, Lisa was the only person I could have asked a question like that. But she wasn’t there any more.
I met up with Slow Kid and Dave and we went to the Cow’s Arse. The usual crowd were in, some of them looking at me a bit sideways and keeping clear. Word soon gets around when you’re in trouble. But word getting around was just what I had to rely on.
I went to the bar myself to get the drinks. Baggy Prentiss has known me a long time, and he’s not about to snub a good customer.
“Hey up, youth. Everything all right?”
“Between you and me, I’ve been having a few problems recently, Baggy.”
“Aye, I heard.”
“But I’ve got it all sorted now. I’ve worked out the situation, like. Spotted where the problem is.”
“That’s good, Stones.”
“Me and some good mates, know what I mean?”
Baggy slid the glasses onto the bar. “I know what you mean.”
“So things are going to be picking up again very soon.”
“Bloody marvellous. That’ll be five quid twenty-eight then.”
I took the drinks back to the table, where we chatted loudly about how good things were going to be again and laughed about someone being sorted. On the way to the loo I passed Moggie Carr and gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder. He almost spilled his beer on my feet again, but I dodged in time.
“I just want to say thanks, Moggie, old mate.”
“Eh? What for?”
“The bit of information you gave me the other day. It really helped.”
“Yeah?”
“I know who I’m dealing with now.”
“Who’s that?”
“Oh, can’t say.” I gave him a big wink, right there in the middle of the pub. “But you’ll probably hear.”
“Right.”
Across the room, Slow Kid had got into conversation with a couple of drivers he knew. They were all nodding knowledgeably, tipping bottles back and looking cool. Metal was leaning over to the next table, where a thin bloke in overalls was sitting with a Guinness. I had a suspicion they were probably talking about car engines. Nobody was talking to Dave, of course. He was just there for decoration.
Next I sent Slow Kid and Metal down the Q Tip snooker club for a game while I went with Dave to the Ferret. Mick Kelk wasn’t playing pool today, just watching. This was probably to do with the plaster cast that he wore on his arm and the swelling over his eye that limited his vision.
“I don’t know nothing,” he said straightaway. “I didn’t know nothing then, and I don’t know nothing now. I told those blokes of Craig’s, I haven’t got any names.”
“That’s all right, Mick. I just came to say thanks for your trouble. We managed to get what we wanted in the end.”
“It was nothing to do with me.”
“Here — this is to pay for the cue that Dave broke, and a bit extra to buy a few drinks for you and your mates.”
Kelk looked at the fifty quid note. I thought he was going to refuse it. But he couldn’t have been doing much driving recently, not with one arm. He pocketed the note with his left hand. I stood back to make sure his mates saw him do it.
We didn’t hang around at the Ferret, but got in the car and drove back through the village. As we passed St Asaph’s I saw activity in the churchyard and pulled in.
“Morning, Councillor.”
Welsh Border straightened up from the grave he’d been tidying. Dad’s plot is near the east side. Not the newest graves, but still well tended. The older memorials are crumbling with the effects of weather and general neglect. Some of the dead are long forgotten by their descendants. Now and then vandals visit and smash up someone’s stone for a bit of fun. If they ever do that to my dad’s grave, I’ll stick their baseball caps so far up their arses the elastic will get stuck on their teeth.
“What do you want, McClure?”
“I’d just like to shake your hand, Councillor.”
“What?”
“I know we haven’t seen eye to eye sometimes, but we can’t bear grudges, can we? Not on church premises.”
Border glowered at me. He made no move to put down his garden shears, let alone take off his work gloves to shake hands.
“Mr Bowring said there was some trouble here yesterday,” he said. “Was that caused by you, McClure?”
“Did the Rev say it was?”
He pulled his face. “He was vague about it. But I have my suspicions.”
“Actually, the Rev has been helping me work through some personal problems. I won’t bother you with the details.”
“I don’t want to know.”
He took a step towards me, not to shake my hand, but to peer more closely at my face. He was clutching the shears like a bayonet and he smelled of soil and freshly cut weeds.
“Have you been fighting, McClure?”
“Like I said, I’ve had some personal problems. But I’m on the way towards getting them sorted out. That’s why I wanted to make peace with yourself, Councillor. What about it?”
“I can’t ever tell what you’re on about,” said Border. “You’re just taking the micky again, aren’t you? You’re always taking the micky out of the vicar.”
“Not at all. We’re practically best mates.”