What Goes and Comes Around Page 9

  Chapter Nine

  For long seconds, Cameron Hunt blushed in astonishment at his Blackberry screen, and then he laughed. It was a strangely lewd cackle for a boy, certainly not an expression of innocent, heartfelt joy, and chubby Eddie Woods and gangly Billy Haigh had to see what had stirred it. They dropped from high corners of the metal climbing frame, the soles of their trainers slapping and scuffing on the gritty concrete. Eddie's flame mop and Billy's mousy crew crop were exposed when their respective brown and grey hoods slipped in the short race to Cameron. With his grey hoodie up and his wicked chortle, he sat cross-legged over the fulcrum of the see-saw, resembling a young Jedi pivoted between the light and dark sides of The Force.

  'What you got?' Billy giddily demanded, his long legs hurdling the see-saw. The air steamed with his hot, faint panting as he craned his neck round Cameron's shoulder.

  'Only this.' Smirking Cameron raised the screen level with Billy's hazel gogglers.

  'Disgusting hound!'

  'The bitch or the Alsatian?'

  'Huh!' Billy's phiz screwed up. He scratched his spotty, angular beak. 'Both!'

  'Is that real?' Over Cameron's other shoulder, Eddie stared uncomprehendingly at the video clip.

  'Half-human, half-mutt - the puppies will be genuine mongrels.'

  'How much will she get paid?'

  'A month's supply of Bonio and a basket in a top kennel, walks not included.'

  Billy and Eddie exchanged a stealthy look that agreed Cameron just wasn't funny sometimes. 'Who sent it?' Billy asked.

  'Ryan Towner. He's a king of porn.'

  'If that's his thing, watch him when he visits your house - he might want to splash around in your goldfish bowl.'

  'It's an aquarium, minnow-brain.' Cameron stood up on the see-saw so that he towered over his pals. The beam remained perfectly balanced. 'And Ryan's not that much of a weirdo.'

  'No, he's more of a freak.'

  'You wouldn't say that to his face, Billy.'

  'Come on, Davie, get down and see this,' Eddie called, looking over to the climbing frame.

  With his scarlet hood up and his arms crossed over his chest, Davie Randall remained prostrate on top of the freezing cold monkey bars. Thoughtfully puckering his lips, he gazed into the heavens.

  'She's a howling mad dog,' Eddie elaborated, not sounding convinced himself that such information was enticing. 'They've got her wearing a studded collar. It's totally sick.'

  Davie's aloof search for patterns in the dense grey clouds went on. He could see that rain was coming. And that everybody needs shelter. 'When I get down, I'm off,' he said, eventually.

  'Why?'

  'I've already told you - I'm meeting my dad.'

  'Oh yeah, right.' Eddie turned to Cameron and Billy: 'What are we doing?'

  'Turning into icemen. It's too frigging cold to do anything else.' Cameron jumped down from the see-saw. He was an inch or so shorter than Eddie, let alone lanky Billy. 'My fingers and toes are numb.'

  'We might as well go in.'

  'But it's Saturday,' said Eddie, edgily.

  'It's also, like, winter.'

  'It's not that bad.'

  'The sunloungers are all yours.'

  'Heh heh.'

  Of late, Eddie always preferred company other than that of his own. Alone, he'd come to find himself imagining a silent, drawn, pale visitor that even his happiest family memories couldn't exorcise. A newspaper agony aunt suspected he'd tired his mind by dwelling on 'things'. She'd urged him to get his dad to take him to their GP. Though Eddie didn't go for that school assembly stuff, he'd tried praying instead. The notion of being passed on to a headshrinker was as intimidating as his 'ghost'.

  'My dad won't be bothered if we go into my room and mess about on my Xbox'.

  Momentarily, Cameron and Billy seemed to be telepathic - Eddie's bedroom was never heated but it beat freezing your 'nads off outdoors and being hassled by overbearing parents. Mr Woods was usually cool. 'I'm in.'

  'Me, too.'

  'When are you going, Davie?'

  'There's a bus into town in a few minutes.'

  'We might as well get off now.'

  'Catch you later, Randall.'

  'Yeah.'

  'See you.'

  Davie sat up on the monkey bars. His legs dangling through them, he watched his pals trudge, hoodies up, hands in their jeans' pockets, across the frosty-white grass. They pushed each other between the unused swings on the way to the aluminium railings. Davie knew they'd scale them, cross the road, sneak through a gap in a hedge and an empty house's garden, and be down the road at Eddie's in no time. Unless larking around held them up. A few yards from the railings, Eddie leapt on Cameron and, as the pair wrestled, they toppled, thud, to the frozen earth. 'Timber!' Billy yelled through megaphone hands before flopping, spread-eagled, onto the collapsed pair. The heap of tangled limbs started bawling, laughing, protesting, but any exact meaning didn't carry to Davie's ears. He briefly let himself swing by both hands from a monkey bar, and then he let go. His feet stung warmly on impact with the concrete as if experiencing an aftershock of the events that had ruined his great enterprise.

  Alex had been busted at work. The factory bosses had whacked him with a first and final warning and the mean promise that he'd got off lightly: if security had forced open his personal locker and discovered illegal merchandise - otherwise known as evidence - a most serious investigation would have ensued. Luckily, Alex had left his bag at home - he'd overslept and been in a frantic rush that morning. Not that he'd got away with everything. 'You deserve a belt round the lughole, Davie, don't you know? I haven't had any peace over a pint in the club. Loads of your bloody copies stick and our customers don't rate not finding out what happens at the end. The jokers want to know about free replacements and money back guarantees. As soon as I put them straight, they ridicule me. The name Honest Al had better not stick, for your sake.'

  'It must be one of the old computers,' Davie mumbled, staring at his laces to avoid the heat in Al's eyes. His desire to laugh was plain dangerous! 'I'll work out which…'

  'Too late for that!' Al prodded Davie in the chest. 'Didn't I tell you reconditioned computers were a bad investment? Count me out and then count your lucky stars you're not on your back seeing them. You can push the patience of even family only so far. See you around, little twat.'

  On the one hand, it was a great consolation that Davie wouldn't be dealing with his thuggish, steroid-abusing cousin again; on the other hand, someone might as well have dumped a tin of splodgy, shit brown paint over Davie's big picture. No salesman with access to the wider market equalled no big profits. How was he expected to get enough money behind him so he could go on to make his fortune? Maybe his dad could advise him. There again, if his dad knew, how come he wasn't loaded?

  Rich or poor, Davie had eagerly looked forward to meeting up with Dad ever since he'd answered the house phone: 'Hello. The Randall asylum.'

  'Hey Davie, how are you? I'm thinking it's time we got together.'

  It was almost as if he'd forgotten what Dad sounded like. Already.

  'Are you there, kid?'

  'Yes.'

  'What about it, then?'

  'It'll be… Hey, get off!'

  'I need to speak,' Mum asserted, prising the phone from Davie's fingers.

  'That's not fair.'

  'Leave the room.'

  But Davie refused to budge, ignoring Mum's strained, sour expression and her impatient pointing to the open door.

  Talking to Dad, Mum sounded like an irate customer complaining about dodgy services and trying to make a bad deal good. Some advertisement for marriage, thought its offspring. To Davie's approval, Mum stressed that Alicia wasn't yet ready to see Dad. She turned up her nose as if her estranged husband's reply stank like a festering, maggoty wound. 'And I'm not altogether sure you're quite up to it either, no matter what you say. No, I can't discuss her any further - our son won't allow me any pr
ivacy.'

  Davie's eyes blazed angrily and his lip curled into a sneer: didn't his mother's reaction prove that Alicia had something to do with the split? Surely Dad would set him straight? Then Davie would do whatever he had to do.

  Lost in thought, the teenager put his butt on the chilly metal seat of the Perspex bus shelter as his very worst luck cockily strolled round the corner. The split-second he eyed Davie, Liam Briggs recklessly shot over the road, forcing a silver Renault to jerk and screech to a standstill. The shaken, furious motorist honked his horn before vrooming off, leaving burnt rubber to mark the spot where Liam might have copped it. Instead, Davie was snared. He'd outrun Liam twice in the past week alone, something his tracksuited pursuer acknowledged: 'Third time lucky,' he crowed, stepping into the shelter and grabbing his victim's arm. 'Slow off the mark today, boy.'

  'Hi Liam…'

  'I'm not in the mood for any of that. You owe me. Remember our deal?'

  'I told you I never made much money.'

  'And I didn't believe you.' Liam crushingly headlocked his captive. 'Going into town?'

  'I can't breathe!'

  'How come you're still whining, then? You know what I think?'

  'Wha-urgh!'

  'I think you should pay my fare into town so we can access the lovely cash machines.'

  'I haven't got…'

  'Find it. I'm sure you can be persuaded to look that little bit harder.'

  Liam's grip caused a desolate, harsh rasping to spew from Davie's throat.

  'I'll take that as a yes.' Smiling deviously, Liam let go. 'Isn't it the sweetest feeling when we get along?'

  'I'm not lying, Liam. I've had to stop making films.' Tearfully flushed, Davie rubbed his sore neck. 'Our Alec's been done for selling them and my computer's packed in.'

  'Don't give it to me about teething problems. I'll knock yours out if you make me sick of hearing you. You. Are. Paying. Me. Understand? Ah, here's our bus.' Liam signalled to its driver with an outstretched arm. The green single-decker's brakes made a flat whooshing sound as if the vehicle was deflating as it slowed down. Liam pushed Davie in the back. 'After you.'

  'Ok, ok,' said Davie, nervously realising he had a chance yet. A risk worth taking. He hopped on board. The driver also worked as a Robert De Niro look-alike, and he arrogantly sniffed, chewing gum - dealing with kids cramped his style. 'One into town, please,' Davie said quietly, putting his money on the ticket machine's metal tray. De Zero - as his colleagues called him - pressed buttons and a single ticket whirred off the roll and out of the machine. Davie quickly tore it off and scooted down the aisle of the bus. From the back seat, he watched Liam fail to steal a ride.

  ‘He's got my ticket,' the youthful bruiser claimed, raising his voice and pointing down the bus.

  'He bought a single,' De Zero insisted, holding out a hand. 'Give me your fare or get off my bus.'

  'Hey!' Liam shouted. 'You forgot my ticket.'

  Several passengers followed his line of vision and turned to Davie.

  'Because I remembered I'm going into town on my own,' he defiantly announced.

  Even along the length of the bus, Davie could see Liam's eyes filling up with tears of rage. Ker-ching! The trick had paid out. His foe's pockets really were empty, and it's too damn easy to be outmanoeuvred when you've nothing. De Zero impetuously revved the engine. Liam looked pleadingly at the passengers in the front seats. Either no one had spare cash or no one was willing to give him any. Putting a twisted, ugly face on defeat, Liam jumped off the bus and onto the pavement. The doors closed. As the vehicle pulled away, mad Liam banged the window beside Davie with the ball of his fist. He'd so have dragged the brat off the bus if it wasn't full of witnesses! Davie gleefully waved through the grimy rear window. Liam's threat grew smaller, more distant, disappearing when the bus turned a corner. Or had it gone? Realising Liam would vow to make him pay in every which way, Davie's grin vanished.

  Though it was a relatively short ride into town, the stop-starts to drop off and to pick up had Davie wriggling in his seat. It got worse. De Zero was ahead of his timetable, and he parked up at the stand alongside the row of empty and dying shops at the heart of that downbeat estate. William Hill's, Kiosk News and Boden the Family Butcher's were the only lasting concerns. Davie couldn't even pass time by noseying through the latter's window - the pig carcasses lynched on big hooks concealed the shop's insides. Nevertheless, its comings and goings clearly had much less to do with pop glory than they had to do with the knacker's yard. Alicia's nothing but a lamb to the slaughter, her brother reckoned. Karma might work, after all.

  After a quick puff on the pavement, De Zero got going again. Davie started biting his nails at the traffic lights from where the bus would turn left, go up a steep little hill, past the post office sorting office and - a right turn - into the station. He'd grown out of the habit last year, but, of course, things change and change again. Before Dad had left - and as cold and strange as it might sound - Davie couldn't say that he'd felt especially close to him. In fact, the whole family just seemed to be 'there', and each member did whatever they did, which as often as not annoyed the hell out of a parent, a spouse or a teenager. Anarchy was a simple enough system while Mum could be relied on to put everything back in its place. Only they'd taken it for granted that she'd remain happy with hers.

  The shock of turning into a boy from a broken home had made Davie think like never before. His parents had worked since he and his sister were infants; but was that all they'd ever done? Davie reckoned he'd learned much of what he knew about right and wrong from his grandparents, picking up other stuff at school, from books, TV, hearsay. If Mum and Dad sincerely believed that education only matters because qualifications supposedly help you into work, in a world of fewer and fewer jobs that require brain power or that pay enough for a decent standard of living, they probably figured learning's value had crashed. Were they so uneducated that they could never put two and two together and calculate that their too low wages and credit cards were a formula for ending up at each others' throats? The whole ridiculous set up made staying together impossible, irrespective of whether they did the 'right' things like put food on the table and clothes on their family's backs. Humph! When he thought along those lines, Davie went some way to understanding - as much as it hurt - why Mum had cheated. And that's why you had to sympathise with Dad. What did it feel like in his shoes? That question led to a bizarre, gigantic puzzle: who were his parents other than the roles assigned by the names 'Mum' and 'Dad'? Getting off the bus, Davie guessed he was taking the first steps to finding out about Mr Ian Randall.

  They'd arranged to meet for a bite to eat at the Wetherspoon's round the corner from the bus station and in the direction of the precinct. It was a plan that had sent Davie's mother up in arms: her son initiated into hard drinking? Over her dead body! In a flash she was back on the telephone. Dad responded, so Davie gathered, by pointing out that it would be good of her to see his best intentions for once, and, as he was out of work - remember? - how could she expect him to afford a snazzy gaff? As far as Davie was concerned, nothing was up for debate. It wasn't as if Dad drank more than most other people. 'He isn't a flaming alcoholic!'

  'And I'm making sure you don't turn into one.'

  'I'll be having a soft drink. And look at the places our Alicia sings in. Try to stop me seeing Dad and I'll move out to Grandma's!'

  'Have it your way, Davie. Don't come running to me when it ends in, oh, blast!' Mum slammed the phone down by way of goodbye to Dad. She pushed past Davie and ran upstairs to her room.

  The moment Davie saw him waiting on the pavement, he knew Dad had kept his word about staying sober, and it was a source of relief, vindication and confidence. Did he somehow look different? Not unrecognisably so, but, of course, yes, he was thinner - far less paunchy - and his hair had grown a tad scruffy. Not that it was an embarrassing stranger to shampoo. What's more, Davie had never seen his father dressed like an old rocker i
n a casual, unfashionable suit of Levi denim. His green, suede Samba trainers and faded navy T-shirt with the Greek islands print were familiar enough. They solemnly shook hands before falling into a restrained yet emotional hug. 'Let's get inside, son, it's enough to freeze the what-nots off brass monkeys,' Dad said, shakily, wiping his gleaming eyes. He bounced up the few steps to the entrance. 'Had breakfast?' Dad paused with his hand on the door, scrutinising his reflection in the glazing. 'Or is it dinner time?'

  'What's on the menu?'

  'Not food poisoning, hopefully. You'll have to read it. I'm going for a fry up and a coffee. Cheap and cheerful, and they can't get them wrong.'

  'I'll have the same,' Davie said, shyly, all fidgety hands, scratching his elbow and then his head.

  While Dad went to order at the bar, Davie looked around for seats. Many of the tables were taken; more by shoppers filling hungry holes or sipping one or two for the road home as by the hard drinking drop outs and goons of Mum's fears. The wit of a colossal bald man with a warrior Boudica tattoo on his left cheek had a gang of Leeds United supporters in stitches at the end of the bar. Good thing he didn't feel like making anybody need stitches, Davie thought. Though he'd later boast to his mates that he'd stood tall amongst tough guys, the young lad preferred the seats along the back wall; they were more securely tucked between partitions of wood panels and pea green frosted glass. He picked his way towards an unoccupied pod as if the carpet was made of eggshells, almost dying of embarrassment when a fresh-faced waitress with her silky black hair in pigtails crossed his path: Jodie was the elder sister of one of his schoolmates, Ben. 'Hello,' Davie said, affecting an unnaturally deep voice.

  'Hi.'

  'I'm…'

  She swished onwards with plates of scampi, salad and fries.

  'Yes. Right.'

  Davie slipped into a seat and furtively watched people doing nothing special. What was the big deal about drinking?

  After what seemed an age, Dad brought their coffees over. Having put them on the table, he ruffled Davie's hair. 'Everybody at home ok? School ok?' he chirpily asked, squeezing onto his seat between the table and the partition. 'No new disasters to overcome?'

  Davie studied his dad. Was it really him? This man had a go easy manner - Dad had shouted around the house, making up pointless rules as he went along.

  'You haven't lost your tongue?'

  'Everything's sort of ok.'

  'Sort of?'

  'School's the same as ever.'

  'And home?'

  'It's different at home.'

  'I expect it is. We'll get there in the end.'

  'Get where?'

  'Wherever we're going.'

  'Are you' - Davie gazed intensely across the table - 'going away?'

  'I'm staying down the road at Uncle Dan's house, kid.'

  'Oh, I haven't seen him in ages...' Davie faltered, unsure of what to say next. 'Do you…?'

  'Do I what?'

  'Does he still like motorbikes? What's his place like?'

  'He does, and messy.' Dad chuckled.

  Davie noticed that his dad continued to wear his gold wedding band. Force of habit or a clue regarding the contents of his heart?

  'Uncle Dan's at his girlfriend's most of the time. I've slowly got his house into some kind of state fit to live in. Well, the kitchen no longer classifies as a hovel. You'll be able to come over for tea soon enough. You're still a fan of pizza?'

  'Is it that hard to find work? I mean a paid job.'

  'I expect something will turn up. It had better do - my redundancy money went nowhere.' Dad tried not to look peed off, but, beneath his awkward smile, he was worried about the money he was spending on breakfasts. 'I'll end up having to rob a bank.'

  'With Uncle Dan's gun?' Davie was awestruck.

  'You remember that? And I'm joking, son. Don't tell your mother what I said, for Christ's sake, or I'll need the gun to shoot myself.'

  'Oh right… Erm, ha ha!' Dad doing the funnies might take some getting used to. In the meantime, serious issues needed explaining. 'I can't understand,' Davie said, his face straightening, 'why people can't get jobs straight away. They say on the television that…'

  'No, Davie, no,' Dad grimly shook his head. 'Don't believe everything you see on the goggle box.'

  'I don't. But they say stuff like people who want it and look for it, get it. Everything is there for…'

  'Everything looks easy when your hardest task in life involved removing a silver spoon so you can mouth off,' Dad again interrupted, peeved.

  'That's what I was wondering about, sort of. How do you start out when you haven't got any money in the first place?'

  Dad sighed heavily.

  'Well, how do you do it?'

  'In reality, ordinary people who get breaks are few and far between. Money generally stays with the people who were born into it.' He lightly punched his own palm. 'Hard work only ever gave me a bad back - and that's the truth - though I don't suppose I should be telling you it.'

  'Should you lie to me?'

  'In spite of the odds, a young lad should never think about giving up. What's the point of living if you do that? Just don't go out of your way to hurt people unnecessarily. Too many rotten souls are willing to do that. Got that?'

  Davie nodded. Looking down into the froth of his coffee, he knew that he was none the wiser.

  'Are you fretting because you're leaving school in the near future?'

  'I'm going to college. That's if Mum can afford it now.'

  'We will find a way.'

  'One day, I want to set up a computer shop. I could easily succeed with money behind me.'

  'We could all do anything if we had the money behind us. I suppose this explains why you've been pirating movies and music.'

  'It's done with,' Davie said frankly, assured by Dad's calm tone that a roasting wasn't on the way. 'Alex got busted flogging them at work and some people said my copies weren't up to scratch.'

  'So you'd gone into business with hopeless Al. Getting out of business with him can't be the end of the world.'

  'Meathead Liam Briggs might bring it on. He thinks I'm sitting on top of a multi-million pound industry.'

  'He does? I want to know about it the next time he tries to menace you. I can nip that in the bud if I can't dip into any family fortune. Do you hear?'

  'Loud and clear.'

  'Now about home: what's the story?'

  'Mum isn't with him anymore…'

  Ian seemed to have trouble controlling his facial muscles. He squinted, sat back, drummed his fingers on the table.

  ‘…And I don't get on with them. I wish I could move out.'

  'Did you and Alicia ever get on? How's it got worse?'

  'After what they did.'

  'And what was that?'

  'What they did to you. I know Alicia did something.'

  'Look Davie…' Leaning forward, Dad put his elbows on the table and his palms together, as if praying with open eyes to his son. 'Maybe it was always on the cards. Over the years you drift apart or lose yourself, and one fine morning you wake up and you're someone else. Someone you never wanted to be. It hurts like mad. But you've got to face up to it so you can get through it and change for the better.'

  Davie didn't look too convinced.

  'You're probably too young for that to make sense - just trust me and let it go. Holding grudges against your mum or your sister - people you love at the bottom of your heart - will mess you up in the end. Alicia's such a naïve kid…'

  'She's slyer than you all realise!'

  'Calm it. She didn't turn me or your mother into god knows what. Our marriage did that. We lived wrong. Our priorities were wrong. We became so much like the overpriced rubbish we bought into, we were never going to last. I don't claim to understand everything - how can anybody get it all? - but I do know it isn't for you to dig our holes any deeper. And that means your sister - my daughter - is one of us and always will be.' He hel
d out his hand. 'No crossing your heart or swearing on the bible, shake on it, man to man.'

  'But…'

  'No ifs or buts. We've got to make peace now or risk being a warring family forever. And I've seen too many people fall into that trap.'

  Davie reluctantly acquiesced. They sombrely shook hands over the table.

  'And while we're on the subject - let your mum know I want to come over some time it's convenient. We've important things to discuss and I need to go into the attic.'

  'What's up there?' Davie's curiosity overcame his simmering ire.

  'A guitar, a few books, maybe some other bits and pieces.'

  'You play guitar?'

  'I did, and I've enough time on my hands to give it another shot. I can always sell it when it sinks in that I'm useless. It's probably worth a few hundred quid.'

  'Did you play in a band?'

  'Don't be so amazed.'

  'You were better than Alicia, I'll bet.' Davie felt oddly proud.

  'Be careful what you stake on that.' Dad smiled modestly. 'Alicia can sing and she looks good - it was her temperament that was letting her down. We'll see how she goes now she's gained some experience. For now, can you remember to let your mum know?'

  'You can rely on me. And I'll really give Alicia the benefit of the doubt.' An instrument collecting dust in the attic? Who was this musician who hadn't tried to enforce one dumb rule? Who was behind Mum's glam? Davie realised that, if he had no idea about his parents, he couldn't be sure, one way or the other, about his sister.

  'Good lad and, ah, here's our nosh.' Dad rubbed his hands together.

  'The cutlery and condiments are on the table in the corner,' pretty Jodie informed them, putting two warm plates on their table. Each plate contained a couple of crispy rashers of bacon, two well-browned sausages, a fried egg, beans, mushrooms, a fried tomato and toast. 'Enjoy your meal.'

  Watching her hips sway as she zipped between the busy tables towards the serving hatch gave Davie an indescribable feeling. He couldn't even say whether it was a pleasure or a pain. Would life always stir and shake him up?

  'You wanted tomato ketchup?' Dad dropped a generous variety of sauce sachets on the table and handed his boy a knife and a fork. 'I've hankered for this all morning,' he declared, squeezing brown sauce over his bacon.

  'I'm half-starved, too. I just had toast before going out.' Davie bit the corner off a tomato ketchup sachet.

  'You've been someplace else?'

  'Knocking about with a few guys.'

  'It's time us guys cleared our plates. Tuck in.'

  Just a few minutes later, mopping up the juices on his plate with toast, Dad opined that, although their fry-ups are generally decent, chain pubs lack character and atmosphere. 'We could move on and contest a game of pool,' he concluded.

  'You'll have to wait on - I can't eat as fast as you.'

  'I'll help you.' Dad winked and pinched a sausage from Davie's plate.

  The pub down the street had a handwritten sign in the window that welcomed families in the afternoon. Even so, a lonely landlord propped up the other side of the bar, entertained by the Sun's horse racing section. 'Exactly how I like it sometimes,' Dad said, slotting a fifty pence coin into the pool table after buying a pint of lager and a coke. The pool balls rumbled through the belly of the table. Dad racked them up in the triangle, one by one. 'Got any better at shooting a cue for real?'

  'I don't live on my games console.'

  'No?'

  'No.' From the rack on the wall Davie selected the sleekest cue. He treated its tip using the blue chalk that had been left on the baulk cushion. 'You won't beat me easy, Dad.'

  'Glad to hear it. Heads or tails?'

  'Heads.'

  'Shall I break?'

  As he'd always done on family holidays, Dad proved to be a rusty player. After potting difficult balls and expertly controlling the cue ball with spin or side, he suddenly missed an easy shot that made him moan about realigning his senses. He edged the first game, and made it too obvious that he let his son win one back. 'I'm not a cry baby,' Davie complained. 'I can take a loss.'

  'Excellent. Because this one's the decider.' Dad drained his pint down to the last few mouthfuls.

  Davie drew first blood, neatly tucking away a couple of yellows. Dad riposted with a couple of reds. A yellow dropped. Two reds. Three yellows. In no time they were down to the black. Davie's attempted cut into a centre pocket rattled in and out of the jaws: the black settled tight against the baulk cushion. Dad's eyes narrowed; he passed his cue from one hand to the other and back again as he figured out angles. Finally, he crouched to a shooting position, powerfully slamming the cue ball into the black. Almost too fast for the naked eye, both balls zigzagged from one end of the table to the other. A bottom pocket swallowed one. The white. 'Two shots.' Davie punched the air.

  'Hold it. The black's still rolling.' Gradually slowing. Trickling towards the bottom right hand pocket. It hovered on the lip, and then dropped. 'You win.' Dad seemed pleased in spite of his defeat.

  'You meant to pot both balls in the same pocket?'

  'They were in the position, more or less, of an exhibition shot someone once taught me. I wanted to see if some magic had stayed with me. We both kind of win.'

  'Even if the black was supposed to go down first?'

  'You don't miss a trick.' Dad placed his hand on his son's shoulder. 'You know, it's time to put you on a bus... Sugar, I almost forgot to mention it.'

  'What?'

  'Someone will want to meet you soon.'

  'Who?' Had his dad got a new woman already? Did that fact explain why he'd been so cool? Davie's suspicious indignation manifested when he snapped: 'And when?'

  'Soon enough. He's a Jack Russell called Sherlock.'

  'A yapping dog?'

  'Man's best friend other than his son. So let's stay in your mother's good books and get you home punctually.'

  Liam Briggs was smoking a roll-up at the entrance to the bus station. Davie refused to meet his eye. Dad issued a quick, mean glare. Though Liam audaciously scowled, he didn't follow them to the stand where Davie's bus was ticking over, ready to pull out.

  'Mind how you go. I'll be in touch shortly. Phone me whenever you need to. All my love, son. And pass my love on to Alicia.'

  'And I won't forget to mention the stuff in the attic.'

  'Bravo.'

  Ian Randall discreetly waved as the wheels of the bus rolled forward. Didn't do too badly there, old man, he thought, hurriedly backtracking to the station's entrance. But Briggs had gone. He wouldn't present too much of a problem, would he?