I Watson - Director's cut

“How are you?”

“Mr Lawrence?”

“You're looking better.”

“Mr Lawrence, what are you doing here?”

“I brought you some grapes. I should have posted them.” “You shouldn't have.”

“You're right. The postman might have squashed them.” “You shouldn't have bothered coming.”

“You're right again. How are you?”

“I'm fine. Just fine. They're keeping me in overnight. I'll be out tomorrow. It's the heart, irregular or something. The shock, I expect.” “I expect it was.”

“Funny that. They use electric shocks to start a stopped heart and they use a pacemaker to keep a heart ticking over yet electricity sent mine the other way. Funny.”

“Yes, I see what you mean. But changing the subject for just a moment, someone's been asking about you.”

He frowned.

“A big chap. A big…chap.”

Paul sighed and shook his head. “You didn't tell him I was staying with you?”

“No. No I didn't and nor did Sid.”

He relaxed.

“Albert did.”

He grimaced. “Everything's going wrong,” he said. “Stuck in here innI? Haven't got time to find a place. Christmas's coming, you want me out by the weekend and now that bastard's looking for me.” “Who is that bastard exactly?”

“Someone I lived with.”

“My goodness, come again, exactly what does that mean?” “Inside, Mr Lawrence. Prison overcrowding, innit? You don't get a cell to yourself. Not unless you write books or something. I knew him inside, see. Shared a cell.”

“And now he's outside. Is he dangerous?”

Paul shrugged white bony shoulders.

“Why is he looking for you?”

Paul looked up appealingly and said meekly, “He's in love with me.”

“Love!”

“He thinks he is. He probably is.”

“Love! Goodness me, now that's a complication I hadn't considered. Do you love him?”

Paul pulled a face. “Leave it out, Mr Lawrence. Do I look like a rear admiral?”

“I can't answer that, dear boy. I wouldn't know what to look for. I have often wondered how you tell.”

“I think it’s an earring in the left ear, or it might be the right.” “I shall look out for that.”

“Or it might even be both ears.”

“Forget the ears, Paul.”

“He forced himself on me. Inside, you don't have a choice. You stick your arse in the air or you get beaten senseless and your arse goes in the air anyway.”

“That’s terrible but that's all right then. Now I know that, you can stay until Christmas, Boxing Day I mean. No longer and, only if you make yourself useful in the shop.”

His face softened in gratitude. “I won't be no trouble. Honest. I'll teach you to play chess. I'll do the cooking. I'll look after the shop. I'll get us a Christmas tree with lights.”

Mr Lawrence shook his head in wonder. Today’s youth! Who’d have them with their erratic enthusiasm and marvellous ambitions? “Chess. I'll settle for chess.”

“I'm a master at that, innI? The old Reti, the old King's Indian. Sound as a bell, that, that is. You saved me a lot of worry.” “Worry?”

“I was thinking about the turkey in the squat. They keep turning the electric off, see?”

“Well, I hope my electric is back on by then.”

“No sweat, Mr Lawrence. I've got this mate…”

“No, Paul. NO. I'll use the Yellow Pages.”

“Right.”

“But what about this rampaging lover?”

“Come again?”

“The bastard?”

“Yeah. He could be a problem.”

“You'll have to break it gently.”

“Yeah.”

“That his affections are not returned. It’s a sad business when love is not returned.”

“Sad, yeah, that’s it.”

A nurse walked through, stern and alarming. She paused at the end of Paul’s bed and glared at the two of them. Mr Lawrence busied himself with the grapes, slipped one in his mouth and stuck it in his cheek. The nurse shook her head and went on her way. Mr Lawrence watched her go. There was something about women and uniforms. There always had been, he supposed, ever since Boudicca had been riveted into her breastplates.

By the time Mr Lawrence left the hospital the Sally Annes had changed their tune. They had moved on to While Shepherds Watched but the women, striding about flat-footed, were thrusting their War Cries and collection boxes with even more aggression. To get back to the bus stop and to avoid the women Mr Lawrence was forced into a detour around the block.

Lunchtime the following day there was bad news to come in The British. Rasher had given the road outside a crimson glow. The tarmac had been washed in claret.

Bad news like that was enough to turn a man to drink but the woman was coming later so that would have to wait.

Rasher was a casualty of the night.

It happened last night, shortly after Mr Lawrence had left. Behind the bar, between the ranks of down-turned bottles riding on their 25ml measures – seventy proof rotors – the packets of tearaway peanuts waited to be plucked from their card. Beneath the nuts was a photograph of a naked lady and every time a packet was pulled a little more of her was exposed. So far on view there was one perfectly formed breast with a sixpenny nipple and three-quarters of a thigh. Next to the nuts was a calendar used to note the up-and-coming darts tournaments and December’s photograph was of a bullfight in Spain. The nuts and the calendar hung directly opposite Rasher's usual position at the bar. And when Mr Lawrence left him the night before, there he was studying the girl, perhaps remembering his wife, then blinking at the bullfight, and then he gave his minders the slip and went bullfighting on the main road. And the bull got him.

His minders were now in mourning.

The bull, a silver 306 turbo-charged diesel Peugeot, driven by a social worker, had hit him and dragged him fifty yards along the steel railings.

Albert was a late arrival that lunchtime. He arrived only moments before Mr Lawrence. His stoop was more apparent, his shoulders rounder. He'd spent a large part of the night searching the road for the gold that had flown from Rasher's broken body. Albert was a prospector. He'd found a finger, he told them, but it was the little finger, the only one of Rasher's fingers that didn’t sparkle. Sod's law, really.

“We'll have to tighten security,” the colonel said seriously. “They got to him. She got to him. Lured him on to the rocks, or rather, into the road. Beware of the women's sweet song.”

Mr Lawrence interrupted. “She left him.”

“Exactly!” The colonel refused to see the point. “She left him knowing that he would be destroyed. My God, how I hate women. They never fight a single battle face-to-face, bayonet-to-bayonet. They come at you in the night, in the dark, in the back. Listen to an old soldier. Stay away from them. Just like the wops, really. Women and wops have a lot in common.” To a young woman in a hugging black dress behind the bar he shouted, “You there, you with the Polish accent, another drink if you please." And while she poured it he kept his eyes open for the possibility of poison. He turned as Mr Lawrence put on his hat. “Are you off, then? Is it that time already?”

“Yes, it is. I have an early sitting.”

“The woman?”

Paul must have told him.

“Yes.”

“Good grief! You be careful. Take care. Can't stand any more casualties at the moment. Not until we get some reinforcements. Watch your back.”

“I'll try to.”

He left them to their mourning.

Two customers were waiting for his return. Three if you counted the woman. She stood aside while a young couple chose a painting: ducks flying from a pond surrounded by trees in grand seasonal decay. Even as he wrapped it and wrote their card number on the back of their cheque he cringed at the thought of it hanging anywhere outside a garden shed.