Peter Guttridge - The Thing Itself

Simpson grimaced.

‘My feelings are my own and not to be shared with others — especially with you.’

Watts wanted so badly to hit him. To drag him to the floor and give him a good kicking. This man was his brother? He scowled at Simpson, though actually he was scowling at his father for doing this to him. He scowled at his father for many things.

‘What are you caught up in, William? I thought it might be Cuthbert or John Hathaway putting the screws on you but they are both out of the picture. Is it Charlie Laker, sending you a warning.’

‘Charlie Laker?’

‘Don’t play innocent, for God’s sake.’

Watts examined Simpson’s face. Nothing. Just that cold sheen of complacency.

‘You don’t have your government support now, William. You can’t call on the intelligence services to help you out. You’re on your own. In fact, you’re fucked.’

‘Well, there’s fucked and there’s fucked, Bob. I’d say you’re fucked big time and I’m. . inconvenienced.’

‘William, I admire your resilience. But I loathe your lack of feeling for your daughter.’

Simpson flushed.

‘Bob, in a world of change it’s good to see that some things don’t. You’re still a sanctimonious prick. You have no idea what I feel about my daughter and what’s happened to her. No idea. But I’ll tell you one thing. Those who did it will suffer. Have no doubt about that.’

‘You’re sounding confident. Who are they? Maybe I can help.’

Simpson laughed and waved the waitress over.

‘I’ll take another gin martini and get my comedian friend whatever he wants.’

‘The same,’ Watts said. ‘With olives, not lemon.’

‘You sound like your father,’ Simpson said. ‘How is he?’

Simpson was putting on a good front — his lifetime’s work — but Watts could see the strain behind his eyes.

‘He’s in hospital. He’s had a stroke.’

‘Sorry to hear that. Always liked him — he was a bit of a buccaneer. I never knew my father, of course. The cancer. .’

‘William, I’m not here in any official capacity. I will get you for the Milldean Massacre but that’s not for today. A lot of shit has gone down in Brighton. Tell me about you and Charlie Laker.’

The waitress brought their drinks. Simpson watched her walk away.

‘There’s nothing quite like an arse, is there?’

‘You’d know better than me, William.’

Watts was deflated. He’d been dreaming for months of bringing William Simpson down but due to the blood ties he now found himself in some sort of Shakespearean drama.

‘You and Charlie Laker?’

‘I’ve met him a few times over the years.’

‘What does he want from you?’

Simpson watched him over his martini glass.

‘How’s your pal, Tingley?’ he said.

Watts shrugged.

‘Doing your job somewhere in Europe.’

Simpson took a sip of his drink.

‘You’re not with him?’

‘Clearly not. I have family matters to sort out.’

Simpson put his drink down carefully on the table. He smiled without warmth.

‘Life, eh?’

‘Morning, Willy. How’s it hanging? Is it hanging? Probably only hanging, the stress you’re under.’

Laker was standing in the entrance hall of the Notting Hill house, hands on hips. William Simpson put his briefcase down and looked up the stairs. He tugged on his goatee.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Willy, you’ve got a big debt to settle. I did you a massive favour getting that blackmailing scuzz, Little Stevie, off your back. But you seem reluctant to keep your part of the bargain.’

‘I paid you for that,’ Simpson said indignantly.

‘Willy, the dosh was only part of it — you know that.’

‘I never agreed to the other — and stop calling me Willy. My name is William if you must call me anything.’

Laker reached out and almost lazily smacked Simpson open-handed across the face. Simpson staggered, his hand to his cheek.

‘Watch your mouth, Willy. You promised to put a cabinet minister in my pocket.’

‘We’re not in power any more,’ Simpson said. ‘Or haven’t you noticed?’

Laker made to move forward and Simpson stepped back, colliding with a spindly-legged table. The vase of flowers on it toppled over and smashed on the tiled floor. Water and broken glass exploded across Simpson’s shoes and trouser legs. Laker hopped back.

‘Steady on, Willy. Those flowers look like they cost a quid or two.’

‘Where’s my wife?’ Simpson said. He called up the stairs: ‘Lizzy?’

‘Never mind about her. Focus on me. I want you to get me one of the new lot — we know for sure that one half of them can be bought.’

Simpson looked down at his sodden trouser bottoms.

‘ I’m not in power any more,’ he muttered. ‘My sway was over the other side.’

‘I’ve heard you’re still doing stuff for the new lot.’

‘That’s small beer.’

Laker shrugged.

‘Well, you’re going to have to come up with something, old son. Do you want me to go after your daughter again?’

Simpson glanced upstairs again.

‘What have you done to my wife?’

‘She’s upstairs. I’m afraid she’s a bit of a mess. She’ll be right as rain in a few days — just not as toffee-nosed. I was thinking of bringing her into my stable but I don’t think she has the stamina.’

Laker could almost see Simpson’s brain working angles.

‘I’m going to give you a week to arrange a meeting with someone in the cabinet.’

‘Why is it so important to you anyway?’ Simpson said. ‘I thought most of your business interests were in the US?’

‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head about that.’

Laker pushed past Simpson and opened the front door.

‘One week or your daughter’s mine.’

Jimmy Tingley drove south in a thunderstorm. Lightning leaped between wooded hills, thunder rumbled along the valleys, rain fell in sheaves across wheat fields and olive groves. He drove slowly for the road was treacherous. Twice his car slithered on steep bends.

He dawdled through the soft Tuscan countryside, then observed it become harsher south-east of Siena. The road through San Quirico passed between crumbling chalky cliffs and on either side of him the rocky ridges that separated the river valleys were without the familiar blanket of trees.

He ate a melancholy lunch in the sullen perfection of Pienza’s renaissance square. In the late afternoon he stopped at the village of Montepulcello, high on a promontory. He stood in the rain at the medieval gateway, gazing blankly at the seashells embedded in the yellow stone.

Around six, he came to Orvieto, a beached galleon stranded on a rocky plateau, wreathed in mist. He entered through the west gate and the bleak buildings that lined each narrow street swallowed up the sprawling hills beyond.

Lost in the one-way system, he parked carelessly in a large, deserted square, then sat for a moment, squinting through the fast beat of the windscreen wipers. Old palaces with stained walls and blank windows on every side. The rain drubbing the car roof.

Jimmy Tingley, ex-SAS tough guy, marooned in the rain. So overcome with exhaustion he did not even want to leave the car. Jimmy Tingley, killer, trying to hold himself together.

He knew he was fragmenting. He’d known it was inevitable for years. Years of not allowing himself to show that he cared. Years of the serpent in his belly.

A quote from Thomas Wolfe, the Yank writer, constantly ran through his head. Read years ago in an essay entitled God’s Lonely Man and memorized.