Мик Херрон - Real Tigers

To borrow an assessment, Dreadful piece of work .

To coin another, “Honky twerp,” muttered Marcus.

“Hate speech,” warned Shirley.

“Of course it’s hate speech. I fucking hate him.”

Shirley glanced at the TV, shrugged, and said, “Thought you were one of the party faithful.”

“I am. He’s not.”

Ho was looking from one to the other, as if he’d entirely lost his place.

Shirley returned her attention to him. “So when did it start, this insane notion you might be in with a chance with Louisa?”

Ho said, “I can read the signs.”

“You couldn’t read welcome on a doormat. You seriously think you can read a woman?”

Ho shrugged. “Bitch is ripe,” he said. “Bitch is ready .”

Shirley backhanded him. His spectacles went flying.

Marcus said, “That’ll be my round, then.”

•••

Friend orfoe?

There was no getting round it, anyone from that time of her life was a foe.

Catherine lived in St. John’s Wood, but had no intention of heading there yet. Laying a false trail came naturally—alcoholics learn to dissemble. So she walked north, heading vaguely for the Angel; a woman with a destination, but no great urgency about it. Everyone she passed was thirty years younger, and wearing about as much clothing as covered her own arms. Some shot her glances full of wonderment at one or other of these facts, but this didn’t concern her. Friend or foe didn’t cover all contingencies. These strangers were neither, and she had other things on her mind.

Sean Donovan was a foe, because anyone from that time of her life was a foe, but he was a decent man, or so Catherine’s memory suggested. He was a soldier, and while this was in some ways an error of tense—Sean Donovan had been a soldier; Sean Donovan was demonstrably, dishonourably, no longer such—it remained the most accurate description Catherine could summon: you only had to look at him. Mid-fifties now, by rights he should be taking salutes on parade grounds, and having his opinion sought by Whitehall mandarins. Not difficult to picture him before cameras justifying the latest military action. But the last time he’d been before the cameras had been as he was led from a military tribunal in cuffs: found guilty of causing death by dangerous driving, and sentenced to five years.

For Catherine, this had been a newspaper item rather than a personal shock. She was sober by then, and part of the process of becoming so had been avoiding the company she’d kept when she’d been otherwise. This meant men, of whom Sean Donovan had been one; not a particularly important one, or no more important than any other man from that period, but then again, that was a long list.

She crossed a road. This made her a little dizzy; not the action in itself, but emerging from her memory to concentrate on doing so. It took effort, peering back into her past. It wasn’t pleasant. For some reason an image of Jackson Lamb swam to mind, cloistered in his gloomy office, but it swam away again. Safely over the road, she risked a look back. Sean Donovan was not following. She hadn’t really expected him to be. At the very least, she had not expected to be able to spot him doing so.

He was part of her past, but other than knowing that much, she had little to go on. Of their actual lovemaking, if it could be so described, she had no memory. In those days, two drinks in, her immediate future became a blank slate, with everything scrawled thereon erased within moments of its appearance. He could have written her sonnets, or transcribed arias, and it would all be the same to her. But she knew that was never the case; that it had been fuck-buddy sex like always, because in those days anyone would have done, just so long as she had someone to cling to as she slid into the dark. Poems and operas were not required. A bottle would do the trick.

But while it was true that there were many she’d forgotten, of whom she’d barely been aware even while they were inside her, Sean Donovan had at least been there in the morning once or twice. Fond of the drink himself, he’d done her the false kindness of pretending they were bad as each other. Man, my head this morning. We pushed the boat out all right. But what for her had been blackout territory, for him had been a night on the tiles. She’d been a willing enough partner in this, because she was always willing back then. And if she’d been otherwise, Catherine wondered now, if she’d been sober, would they have stood a chance together? But there was no answering that.

She wasn’t far from a tube station. From there she would make her way home, but first she took out her mobile and made a call. At the other end a phone went straight to voicemail. She didn’t leave a message.

Phone back in her bag, she continued up the road.

A hundred yards behind her, a black van idled.

Shirley watchedRoderick Ho scrambling for his glasses, and wondered whether she should have slapped him like that. A backhander gave you the drop, sure, generally surprising the backhanded, but if she’d made an effort and formed a fist she could have broken the little bastard’s nose. After informing him of her intention in writing, if she’d felt like it. Forewarned wouldn’t have meant forearmed in Ho’s case. Forewarned would have meant being punched in the nose anyway, after worrying about it first.

What was mildly disquieting about the incident, though, was that it didn’t seem to have calmed her down.

In the general order of things, getting physical was releasing a valve, releasing endorphins, so afterwards you felt that sweet high, halfway between an ache and a caress—by rights, she should be watching Ho’s cack-handed fumbling with a great big grin on her face, at peace enough to lend him a hand even, though the ungrateful little sod wouldn’t thank her. Instead, she still felt wound to full pitch, enough to want to give him another slap. Which wasn’t out of the question, obviously, but might put a strain on the remainder of the evening.

Marcus wasn’t at the bar; he must have gone to the gents, unless he’d snuck off through the side door. Which must have been a temptation for him, but the way things stood, he wouldn’t dare.

That morning, he’d said to her, “You know what that little shit’s doing?”

There were any number of little shits this might have been, but top of the list was always going to be Roderick Ho.

“Cyberstalking you?”

“Well, duh. Apart from that.”

“He’s dobbed you in?”

“Not yet. But he says he will.”

“Bastard.”

“You’ve not heard the half of it. Guess what his price for keeping shtum is.”

Shirley reflected now that it might have been a better idea not to laugh when he told her.

“A night in the pub? That’s it?”

“I’d sooner give him cash.”

“Oh, that is fabulous. Take notes. I’m gonna want to hear all about this.”

“That’s not a problem. You’re coming too.”

“Dream on.”

“’Cause if it’s just me and Ho, who knows where the conversation might lead? Once we’ve run through sport and politics, we might end up discussing our colleagues. Like, you know, who sneaks off early when they think no one’s looking, and who leaves their dirty mugs in the sink.”

“Enthralling.”

“And who snorts coke.”

Shirley dropped her pen. “You wouldn’t.”

“Won’t get the opportunity. Not if you’re there too.”

“That’s blackmail.”

“What can I say? Learned from a master.”

So here she was, here they both were, suffering the company of Roderick Webhead Ho. No wonder she was feeling . . .

But she didn’t want to use “uptight.”