David Belbin - Bone & Cane

Nick thought Caroline’s feelings for Joe were as casual as Joe’s for her, otherwise he would never have made a play for her. He invited her out for a drink. At first, it went badly. All she wanted to talk about was Joe. Then, after drowning her sorrows with Nick, she spent the night at his flat. The morning after she let him seduce her, she made Nick promise not to tell.

‘I thought your split with Joe was mutual,’ he’d said.

‘Is that what he told you? No, I finished with him. I didn’t want to share him. But I don’t want to hurt him.’

Then, as if to show that the deception was nothing personal, she made love with him again before breakfast. Back then, Nick and Joe had very similar bodies. During their fling, a total of six or seven nights spread over as many weeks, Nick sometimes suspected that Caroline was sleeping with him because of his physical resemblance to Joe.

Their affair lasted until Joe persuaded Caroline to go out with him again. She’d told Joe that she was seeing someone else, but not whom. Later, in prison, Nick developed a theory that Caroline went out with him in order to find out more about Joe, to get the knowledge that would allow her to get inside his head, learn how to lure him back and keep him. Nick was a means to an end. But Nick had had a lot of paranoid thoughts in prison, many of them unfounded. Caroline was lonely. Nick was available. They had teaching in common, and got on, without any grand passion on either side. To Caroline, Nick was a casual conquest. Joe was her prize.

Every woman he’d slept with had chucked him, that was another thing Nick often reflected on inside. He could add Polly to that list. The only one who hadn’t chucked him was Sarah. Instead she’d taken a job that made it impossible for Nick to stay with her.

Prison did strange things to you. For a while, he’d convinced himself that Joe found about the affair with Caroline and, thinking it was still going on, had betrayed him to the police to get Nick out of the way. Joe was the only person in Nottingham who knew about the skunk operation. He’d been right to turn down Nick’s offer of a partnership. If Joe had taken Nick’s money for the cab firm, Cane Cars might have gone down with him. Instead, six years later, Caroline was having Joe’s baby and the cab company was the city’s third biggest. Joe had chosen wisely. So had Caroline. Back then, when Joe persuaded Caroline to start seeing him again, Nick had lost it. He’d begged her to stay with him instead. Caroline said she loved Joe. Nick, foolishly, slagged his brother off. He warned Caroline that Joe would never be faithful to her.

‘We’ll see,’ was all she’d said.

‘Why? Why him, not me?’ he kept asking, until she snapped.

‘Because he’s younger and better looking than you, if you really have to have a reason. And better in bed. Because I love him. Is that enough reasons?’

‘That’s enough.’

‘He must never know. I don’t want us to come between him and you. You’re his only brother. So this stays our secret, right?’

‘Right,’ Nick had said, and he had kept the secret from Joe. Now he was keeping a secret from Caroline. Or maybe she knew about Nas. Caroline was the sort of woman who knew a lot more than she let on.

Halfway through his shift he rang Sarah but only got the machine. He didn’t know what kind of message to leave and hung up. He realized it was time to make a decision. He worked through the night until he had thought it through.

‘I’m packing this in,’ he told Bob when he returned his taxi early on Monday morning. ‘Today.’

‘Going back to the teaching?’

‘Something like that. I’ve been taking too big a risk.’

‘Aye, well, I can’t say the extra money’s not been useful but it was always a short-term thing.’ He glanced outside. ‘Your cab’s here.’

It was five in the morning, so the car didn’t sound its horn. Nick left Bob to his breakfast. He’d been lucky to get a ride this early. He’d thought he might have to hang around in Wollaton until Bob went on shift. When he got outside, he wished he’d waited.

‘A’right, kidder? Had a long night?’

‘You’re usually off by now,’ Nick commented, getting into the front passenger door.

‘You’re my last call. Been waiting for you, as it happens.’

Nick wasn’t slow to spot the menace in Ed Clark’s voice. But what was the point of running? Sooner or later, they had to have it out. He fastened his seat belt.

‘Wasn’t expecting to see you on Friday,’ Nick said as they hit the ring road.

‘Sounded like it.’

A responsible driver, Ed didn’t turn round when he talked. Nick, too, stared straight ahead, not wanting to see the expression on Ed’s face.

‘Maybe I got the wrong end of the stick, but I was under the impression that Polly wouldn’t want to go anywhere near you.’

‘Understandable mistake,’ Ed said. ‘But things have changed. That’s why I wanted to see you.’

‘To warn me off?’ Nick asked, keeping his voice light, tentative.

‘You’ve had your fun. That’s all it was, is what she tells me. Bit of fun, like me giving that MP a poke. Nothing serious. But Poll’s wi’me now. Understood?’

‘No,’ Nick said. ‘I don’t understand why . . .’ He stopped himself.

Ed knew full well what Nick couldn’t understand, yet he didn’t fill the silence. He turned onto Alfreton Road. They were nearly at Nick’s place. Nick spat it out.

‘How can she be with you if she thinks you killed her brother?’

‘She doesn’t think that,’ Ed said. ‘I won my appeal, remember?’

‘Sure, but . . .’

‘But nothing,’ Ed interrupted. ‘This is you.’

Nick got out of the car, dragged himself up the steps to his flat. Throughout the conversation, Ed had been firm but friendly. Had Nick got him wrong? He needed to think. A smoke would help, but when you got home in daylight, smoking a joint felt out of whack. He made himself a mug of hot chocolate and went to bed. He was knackered, but it took a long time for him to drift off. Even if Ed was innocent of murder, the taxi driver should still be the last person Polly would want a relationship with. How could someone who wanted Nick also like being with Ed? And why did Ed keep going on about Sarah? The thought that he might have swapped girlfriends with Ed kept Nick awake for hours, then crept into his shallow, restless dreams.

26

Sarah found a free hour to see Nick for lunch on Tuesday. They met in the Indian social centre at the back end of Forest Fields, a venue where Sarah liked to be seen.

‘I don’t know this place,’ Nick said, wiping a thin line of sweat from his glowing forehead. Sarah couldn’t get over how healthy and well built he was these days.

‘I thought it was your kind of thing,’ Sarah said, hoping he wouldn’t read too much into her words. The centre served a very cheap vegetarian lunch, mainly to Asian OAPs, in a cavernous former church hall. They queued up for their food, which was served in stainless steel airline-style trays, then got one of the long tables to themselves.

‘This is good,’ Nick said, dipping one of his chapatis into the thin dal, which was accompanied by rice, vegetable curry, yoghurt, chutney and a sickly-sweet barfi. ‘A big lunch that’s within my means.’

‘You’re not that badly off, are you?’

‘I am now I’ve packed in the driving. It was too big a risk.’

‘I’m glad you’ve done that. You’ll find something else.’

‘I will, given time.’

Sarah tried to meet his eyes with a sympathetic look, but they darted from side to side, a trait she remembered.

‘There’s something on your mind. What is it?’

Nick gave a facial grimace that she also remembered, but hadn’t seen for a long time – a sign of embarrassment. He used to do it when he’d broken something, or had bad news for her.