Mike Carey - Thicker Than Water

‘Where’s Anita?’ I asked him.

‘Why?’ Richie snapped back.

‘Because Matt’s in jail.’

This seemed to be news to Richie, and it gave him a moment’s pause. He blinked twice, staring at me. ‘What for?’ he demanded at last.

‘Murder. Kenny Seddon’s murder. Someone sliced him to ribbons in a parked car, and the police think it was Matt.’

Richie laughed, but it was from incredulity rather than amusement. ‘Kenny’s dead?’

‘Yes.’

‘Kenny Seddon is dead?’

‘Still yes.’

‘And your brother did it?’

‘Well, that’s where me and the official version part company,’ I said. ‘I don’t think he did. He was in the car with Kenny — they’ve got his prints on everything up to and including the murder weapon. But he says he didn’t kill him, and I believe him.’

Richie shook his head in wonder. I waited for him to say something, but he took out his fags again and lit up first. ‘I don’t care who did it,’ he said, blowing smoke out of his nose. ‘I’m just glad the cunt is under the soil. That’s the best news I’ve had all year, Castor. Thanks. Thanks so much.’ His voice shook a little.

‘You’re welcome,’ I assured him. ‘But at the risk of repeating myself, where’s Anita? She was living with Kenny until a couple of years back. She might know who the real killer is.’

Richie held my gaze for a moment, his expression turning into a grimace of remembered pain. Then he looked away, up into the branches above.

‘Richie . . .’ I said.

‘I get it.’ He waved me silent. ‘You want Nita to get your brother out of the shit by fingering someone else.’

‘Well, ideally, yeah. And if she can’t do that, then maybe she could give me some leads. Something to go on.’

‘I could ask what he’s ever done for her,’ Richie said, still staring at the sky through the interlacings of the chestnut branches. ‘For any of us. But I won’t bother, because you already know the answer. Give it up, Castor.’

‘Why?’

‘Because Anita’s dead.’

The words hit my stomach like slingshot stones: or rather, not so much the words as the absolute conviction with which he said them. Here we were, then: at ground zero.

And it looked like I’d come all this way on a fool’s errand.

We sat with our backs against the stone, facing towards the cemetery gates because Richie still wasn’t sure that some unspecified enemy wasn’t going to try to sneak up on him while we talked. Consequently his gaze wasn’t on mine and I could watch him while he talked; look for any chink in that heavy armour of certainty.

‘She was living in Derby when he found her,’ he said, his beautiful voice elegaically lowered. From his tone, you knew that as far as he was concerned, that was where Anita’s death had begun. ‘He paid some private-detective bloke to chase her down, with some bullshit cover story about how they were separated but he wanted to give it another chance, and then he turned up on her doorstep one morning.’

He stared into the past, saw nothing there to give him any comfort. ‘She was in a bad way,’ he said, flatly. ‘She had a bit of a habit. Heroin, I mean. And sometimes . . . You know how it is. Some times are worse than other times. When Kenny showed up, she’d just been thrown out of a job and she didn’t have any money coming in. He practically said he’d keep her fucking supplied. Anything to get her to go back and live with him.

‘I told her. I frigging told her. You know yourself what he’s like. You know he can’t control himself. Even as a kid he was fucking dangerous, so what do you expect him to be like as a man? People like Kenny Seddon don’t change. He’ll hurt you, Nita. He’ll hurt you worse than . . . worse than you’ve ever been hurt in your life.’

It was as though he were having the argument with her now. As though she was standing there on the grass in front of us, visible only to him, talking only to him. The cigarette between his fingers burned down unnoticed, growing a longer and longer beard of ash.

‘She didn’t care,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘She knew I was right, but it didn’t make any difference. “I don’t deserve any better,” she said. “Look at me, Richie. Look at how I’m living. He’ll put a roof over our heads. He’ll be a father to Mark. Fuck knows, somebody’s got to be. I can’t go on like this.” And all the rest of it. Like it was a rational decision. Like what she was doing made sense. But it didn’t, Castor. And I’ll tell you why.

‘She knew. She went back knowing what he was going to do to her. In fact, that was why she went back. Because Kenny could be relied on to treat her the way she thought she deserved.’

The cigarette burned his fingers. He gave a convulsive start, let it drop and put the tip of his finger in his mouth, tears gathering in his eyes. I didn’t think it was because of the blister.

‘How can you be so sure, Richie?’ I asked gently. ‘What makes you think she’s dead?’

He shot me an impatient look, as if it was a stupid question that didn’t deserve an answer. ‘Because she moved a hundred times in ten years,’ he said, examining the damaged finger irritably, ‘and we never once lost touch. Now she disappears without a trace. No, Castor. It doesn’t work like that, not between us. If she was still alive, she’d have called me. She always called me. And she would have taken Mark with her when she left, like she did every other time.’

‘Unless she thought Kenny was doing a good job of being a dad,’ I suggested.

Richie swore caustically. ‘If that was meant to be funny,’ he said, ‘I’m not laughing. He was as good a dad as he was a human being, Castor. You can’t bring out what isn’t there in the first place. I saw him with Mark, and he never even tried to pretend he gave a fuck.’

‘There was another man,’ I said, changing tack. ‘A builder’s merchant or something, from what I heard. Did Kenny find out that she was seeing him? Do you think he was jealous?’

‘Roman,’ Richie said.

‘Roman what?’

‘That was his name. And yeah, maybe . . . that could have been what happened. I don’t know.’ He gave a weary, barely perceptible shrug. ‘It was a game they played,’ he said glumly. ‘Nita found guys to sleep with, and Kenny beat her up. They both knew the rules. But . . .’

‘But?’

‘But Roman wanted her to leave with him. Set up somewhere else. See, normally she picked guys who were cynical enough to just use her and then get out when things got complicated. But this time she made a mistake. Roman seemed to really care about her.’

‘What was he like?’ I asked. ‘Did you ever meet him?’

‘Only the once.’ Richie considered. ‘I was up there for the weekend and we slipped out for a curry behind Kenny’s back. He was . . . good-looking, I have to admit. Sort of Mediterranean looks. Open shirt, lots of bling, leather jacket with the sleeves rolled up. You know the sort of thing. He didn’t really push my buttons, but I could see where he’d push Nita’s.’

‘Did he have a piercing?’ I asked. ‘Over his right eye?’

Richie looked at me in mild surprise. ‘Yeah,’ he said after a moment or two. ‘He did. Why? Do you know him?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘Not to talk to, anyway. But I’m starting to feel like I didn’t know Anita very well, either. Richie, is there some connection between this and you living like a submarine? Who are you hiding from?’

I wasn’t expecting the reaction I got from that question. The corners of Richie’s mouth quirked up and he smiled: a smile that most reasonable people would have wanted to back away from.

‘From the Seddons,’ he said. ‘Because I hit the bastards back, where it hurt them. And I’m going to keep on hitting them back until there’s nothing left of them but fucking greasy stains. If your brother took Kenny out, then it was the best day’s work he ever did in his God-bothering life — and if it was someone else, then whoever he is, he’s got my blessing. I love him. I take him to my bosom. I would have done it myself if I had the bottle, but I don’t. I couldn’t kill someone. So I got Ronnie the best way I could.’