Louise Welsh - A Lovely Way to Burn

‘You need the code number.’

A man was standing in the doorway beyond the counter. He took a drag from the cigarette in his hand and said, ‘You another joker wants to bet on whether you’re going to make it or not?’

‘Have you had a lot of those?’ Stevie smiled, as if it was normal to meet strange men in unlit betting shops, but her voice wavered like a flame caught in a sudden draught. The bookmaker held Stevie’s gaze for a moment, and she had a feeling of being weighed and measured, then he shrugged. He was handsome, if you didn’t mind your men scruffy and over fifty.

‘Some. More betting they’ll make it than not. Not much point otherwise. There’s a few wanted to bet the Queen would snuff it. I told them to sling their hook and learn a little respect. I did lay a few that the Prime Minister wouldn’t come through. He’s fair game. I even took an accumulator that the PM, the Mayor and the Chancellor would all shuffle off to Buffalo in the same week.’ The man’s voice was slow and monotone, as if he had been drinking. ‘Should have given it lower odds.’

Stevie said, ‘I’m not here to place a bet.’

‘We’re not taking any right now, as it happens.’ He looked at the cigarette as if he was surprised to see it in his hand and then took another drag. ‘What are you here for?’

‘I’m looking for Hope Black.’

‘She’s not here.’ His face was half hidden in smoke and shadows, but she thought the bookmaker might have smiled. ‘I’d say come back later but . . .’ He let the unfinished sentence hang in the air.

‘But what?’

He shrugged again. ‘She may not come back, or I may not be here when she does.’

Stevie couldn’t think how to ask why the woman had been in Simon’s flat. She said, ‘Do you mind me asking where she’s gone?’

‘Ask away.’

This time there was no doubt that the man was smiling, a small, unhappy twist of the mouth with nothing of joy in it. He lifted the cigarette to his mouth again and she saw that it was a joint. Stevie wondered if she should tell him that Hope was dead and that she had found her. She asked, ‘Are you Hope’s husband?’

The bookmaker took another drag from his joint, narrowing his eyes against the smoke.

‘Do I look like I’d want to get hitched to an Irish-Jamaican bookie? Hope and me are strictly colleagues, or should I say strictly boss and lackey, no prizes for guessing which is which. She inherited this place from her dad and me along with it.’

Stevie detected injury in his voice and wondered if he was closer to his boss than he was admitting.

‘I found her card in my boyfriend’s flat. She must have put it through the letter box. He’s dead. He died before all this happened, but he wasn’t into betting and I wanted to know why she had left it there.’

The man was wearing an antiquated beige cardigan that seemed more holes and tears than wool. He leant against the door jamb and pushed a hand deep into one of its pockets.

‘You know the best bit of advice I could give a young person like you?’

‘What?’

‘Learn when to take advice.’ He glanced towards the street, the sun blazing against the pavement. ‘I never took any when I was your age, but I could have saved myself a lot of bother if I had. See this scar?’ He leant forward and turned his face to the side so Stevie could see the white line that ran from the outside corner of his eye to the edge of his mouth. ‘I got that because I didn’t listen to a piece of advice.’

‘What was it?’

The bookmaker shook his head, as if she had missed the point.

‘It doesn’t matter what it was. My advice to you is, cherish good memories while you can and don’t go looking under too many stones. So Hope left her card at your boyfriend’s flat? So what? There’s enough trouble in the world – don’t go looking for more.’

‘I need to know.’

‘Why?’

‘Because . . .’ She paused, trying to think of an answer that would make him want to help her. ‘Because the past wasn’t the way I thought it was, and if I don’t find out what really happened I might go insane.’

Stevie didn’t bother to add that she was scared whoever had killed Simon and Hope might yet find her.

The man snorted. ‘Sanity’s overrated.’

Stevie held his stare, giving him the half-promise smile that had won her countless sales, and he let out a sigh and stepped out of the doorway. The security screen between them was grimed with a thin layer of dust and he looked spectral behind its fog.

‘People always think they need to know. What’s the betting the sweats were made in a test tube by someone who needed to know something?’ The bookmaker slid open a cupboard in the wall. ‘Just like Eve with that bloody apple. Look where it got her.’ He squatted and tapped a code into the small safe concealed inside it. ‘Flung out of Paradise, didn’t know a good thing when she had it. Like the rest of us, as it turns out.’ He took a ledger from the safe and set it on the counter. ‘Hope went out to collect outstanding debts.’ He must have seen the surprise on Stevie’s face because he said, ‘An excellent example of someone not taking good advice. I told her to leave it and sit tight until all this was over, but Hope got nervous at the prospect of creditors leaving town, especially the ones that were leaving in wooden boxes. She reckoned that even if they couldn’t take it with them, they sure as hell wouldn’t leave it behind to pay their gambling debts.’

‘I told you, Simon wasn’t a gambler.’

‘He was, if Hope paid him a visit. What’s his full name?’

‘Simon Sharkey. I thought perhaps he and Hope were seeing each other.’

‘Simon Sharkey the doctor?’ The man stared at her as if she had suddenly grown more interesting.

Stevie nodded.

‘No,’ he said. ‘They weren’t seeing each other.’

Stevie smiled with relief. A thought occurred to her and she asked, ‘Did Hope have a sick child?’

The man shook his head. ‘Not so’s you’d notice.’ He leant closer, the screen still between them, the ledger still resting on the counter. ‘I’ve got good news and bad news for you. Bad news first. I did know your boyfriend, knew him pretty well at one time. He was what you might call a regular. The good news is that I hadn’t seen him for a while. He made a heroic effort and kicked the habit. We did our bit by agreeing, at his own request I might add, that we wouldn’t serve him again, even if he begged us to.’

‘And did he?’

‘Not to my knowledge. Which still leaves the question, given that she wasn’t one for social calls, why was Hope at his house?’ The bookmaker flipped open the ledger and began turning its pages.

Stevie asked, ‘Are your computers down?’

She thought again of Iqbal, a life half-lived on the Web, and hoped he was okay.

The bookmaker gave her a grin. His face was long and thin, the kind of face Stevie realised she had always instinctively mistrusted, though she could think of no reason for her prejudice.

‘As the boss says, a book can be tossed in the furnace. A computer has magic ways of holding on to information that you might not want to share.’

‘Why write it down at all then?’

‘Even Old Nick makes you sign a contract, or so I’ve heard.’ The moving finger paused and he raised an eyebrow in an expression that made him look as if he might be on intimate terms with the man himself. ‘Okay, this is interesting. Naughty Hope.’

‘What?’

‘It appears that my boss isn’t the cold-hearted harridan I cursed her for all these years. She seems to have lent the doctor rather a lot of money.’

‘How much money?’

He turned the ledger round so that Stevie could see the entry his finger was resting on.