Simon Kernick - A Good day to die

Tonight, though, it was possible to forget all this. Tonight, families ruled the streets and Christmas carols blared out of open shopfronts. Smiling dads carried their babies in those kangaroo-style pouches you sometimes see; mothers, some of them laden down with shopping, shepherded their overexcited offspring and tried to keep them off the road and out of the path of the seemingly endless stream of red buses rumbling by in both directions. It was what Christmas was all about: rampant consumerism, and spending some quality time with the family. I began to feel a bit jealous, remembering my Christmas Day the previous year, just after we'd bought the lodge. The cook, Teo, had been off sick (with food poisoning, rather worryingly) and I'd had to sweat away in the kitchen preparing the food for our guests, while they'd got drunk out the front and Tomboy entertained them with his wit and bonhomie. Until, that was, he'd been forced to retire, incoherent, to his house up in the hills. It hadn't exactly been memorable.

As I turned the corner onto Edgware Road, I saw three kids of about sixteen across the street who'd surrounded a smaller kid. They had him in the entrance to an alleyway between a restaurant and a shop, and were making him empty his pockets. I watched as he handed over a mobile phone and some money, his face a picture of humiliation as he tried to catch the eye of the many shoppers walking past. But the shoppers kept going, either oblivious to the scene being played out only feet away from them, or choosing to ignore it; hoping that by shutting their eyes to what was going on, it would somehow stop it happening to them. It wouldn't. Let a criminal commit a small crime unchecked, and he'll commit a second, larger one the next day, and be a lot bolder when he does it. These shoppers reminded me of the peace-loving people in H. G. Wells's The Time Machine — the Eloi, I think they were called — who accepted that some of their number would always be killed and eaten by the stronger, more aggressive Morlocks, and simply let it happen. And like the Eloi, these shoppers would one day find that steering clear of trouble was no defence when trouble came calling.

I stopped and went to cross the road, but muggers tend to be swift workers and, having got hold of his mobile and money, they'd disappeared up the alley by the time there was a break in the traffic. The kid gazed about him in some distress, probably wondering why the adults who told him how to behave were such hypocrites, and then disappeared up the road, running fast, before I could catch his eye. Poor bastard.

I watched him go, wondering what I would have done if I'd caught up with him. Comforted him? Given him forty quid for a new phone? Told him to buy a knife? Probably all of those things. He'd learn a lesson from this, anyway. When you head onto the streets, you're on your own, so you've got to be prepared and ready to protect yourself. I'd made a similar mistake that morning, and it had almost cost me a lot more than humiliation and lost innocence. I wouldn't make the same one again. I hoped the kid wouldn't either.

I'd just turned into London Street and was only about a hundred yards from the hotel when my mobile rang. I put down my bags and checked the screen, immediately recognizing the number on display.

It was Tomboy.

'Sorry I didn't phone you earlier,' he said with the same sort of forced breathlessness that I used to put on when returning calls later than I should have done. 'I've been up to my eyeballs, working like a dog. Everything all right?' The placating tone in his voice told me he knew it wasn't. I wondered whether he'd spoken to anyone here since the incident that morning.

'How long have I known you, Tomboy?'

'You've heard from Pope, then?'

'That's a good question, I'm not sure. I met a bloke who was roughly the same age, eye colour and build as the Les Pope you described. But I'm beginning to get the impression they weren't one and the same. Describe him again.'

'Fuck, mate, it's been a long time.'

'Is Pope good-looking?'

'Was this geezer?'

'That's not what I'm asking,' I snapped, stepping into an alleyway away from the traffic noise, and thinking that I'd really been slipshod not getting this sort of information earlier. It could have saved me a lot of trouble.

'Well, I don't think anyone's ever called him good-looking, as such. He used to dress well, mind. Savile Row suits and all that.'

'Did he have a thin face or a fat one?'

'Well, fattish really.' The face of the Pope I'd met had been more on the slim side. 'He weren't a fat bloke, particularly, but he weren't thin either.'

'Well, in that case I haven't heard from him,' I said, convinced now that it hadn't been the same man. 'But I've heard from some of his friends and they weren't too interested in talking. Why did you let on that I was coming over? You must have known it would land me in a lot of shit.'

I heard him sigh at the other end of the phone. The line was remarkably clear. It didn't sound much like he was in the Philippines. Or maybe I was just getting paranoid.

'I'm sorry, mate, I really am,' he said, ladling on the contriteness. 'What's happened, then?'

'Suffice to say that your friends wanted me out of the picture, and they went about it in a very direct manner. If they'd had their way, I wouldn't be talking to you now. In fact, it's unlikely I'd have been talking ever again.'

'Listen, I had nothing to do with any of that. Believe me on that one, please, for Christ's sake.'

'So, what did you do?'

He coughed, and I heard him take a lug of a cigarette. The line was that clear. 'I phoned Pope. That's all I did. I phoned him 'cause I wanted him to have a word with you, tell you what he could about everything, and, y'know… smooth things over a bit. Then persuade you to get back on the plane so we can all get back to normal again. Which is what I want to happen.'

'It's a bit late for that now. Your talking to him almost got me killed. You must have had some idea that would happen.'

'I didn't, I promise you. I thought he'd just have a word.'

'Where can I find Pope?'

'I don't know. He used to live up somewhere in Mill Hill, but that was years ago. He's probably moved now.'

I exhaled loudly, concluding that he was telling the truth. 'Why did you do it, Tomboy? Did you think I'd thank you for grassing me up? I thought you'd retired from that game. Obviously I was wrong.'

'Fuck you, Mick, I was just trying to protect both of us. Pope's involved with some heavy-duty people; I told you that before you decided to go off on this fucking adventure. If I'd let you go straight after him, you'd definitely have got killed, and then they probably would have started looking for me.'

'Ah, that's the real reason, isn't it? You're watching your own back, never mind mine.'

'Listen here, I've built myself a decent business over here, and when you came over, on the run from just about everyone, did I turn you in? Did I? Did I fuck. But I could have done, you know, and I'd have made a few quid doing it, too, but I didn't, and the reason I didn't was because you was a mate of mine, and you treated me all right back in the old days. So don't give me all that about being a grass. I was trying to help you out again.'

'It didn't work.'

'And I'm sorry about that, but I did it for your own good. All right? And I'm going to tell you this for your own good, too: get the fuck out of there. Get on a plane and get back here. While you still can. Because otherwise you're gonna get into stuff you really don't want to.'

'Like what?'

'Just do it, Mick. Not for me. For you.'

And he hung up before I had a chance to say anything else.

I shivered. The cold was beginning to bite. For some reason, I felt guilty for being angry with him. He'd played the injured-innocent card like he played most situations in his life: with just the right amount of acting skill to sound genuine. He was right, too. I was getting myself into a dangerous situation. But there was no way I was changing course now.