Ardent Justice Read online

  She ate the rest of her cake and neatly folded the napkin and dropped it into the paper cup.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Ade, ‘that’s the point. My Dad said you had to let other people look after themselves, but when Mum had her fall the waiting list was too long and there wasn’t anyone to look after her. He kept saying he didn’t understand it. He sort of gave up. When they took his shop, there was nothing for him. I tried to help but he said I should have my own life. One day, when I was at college, he took Mum’s pills, all in one go, and that was that.’

  Morwen squeezed her hand. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. He couldn’t even do that right. I called an ambulance and they pumped his stomach out. Now he’s a frail old man and it’s my turn to send him money.’

  She was silent, staring down at her hands.

  They sat there for a few moments, not talking, until Morwen said, ‘Let’s get some more cake.’

  Ade watched Morwen as she went over to the counter and came back with two large cappuccinos, spilling the froth over the rims of the cups, and two pains-aux-raisin.

  ‘I love those,’ said Ade and smiled at her. Then she started crying, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand.

  ‘It’s OK,’ said Morwen. She took Ade’s hand and held it lightly in hers. After a while she started speaking again. ‘I lied. My Mum never worked in a family centre and my Dad wasn’t a social worker. Don’t know who my Dad was. My Mum worked in a shop some of the time and sometimes in a pub, she wanted to do the best for me but she didn’t know how.’

  She paused, then continued: ‘Didn’t work out for me of course. She lost her flat and I was sent round various foster parents. I really missed her. She loved me and she wanted me back, but she couldn’t cope with her own life and I knew the only person who’d look out for me was me.’

  She’d stopped stroking Ade’s hand. She gripped so tight it nearly hurt. Ade kept her eyes on Morwen’s.

  After a pause Morwen continued: ‘So I made something of myself. I hate those bastards at the top who don’t know what most people’s lives are like, who can buy their way out of any problem, who shove past to get their snouts in the trough first. I decided I was going to make them pay some tax, so the rest of us can live decent lives and bring up our children, so there’s social workers who’ve got time for you and decent housing and…’ she smiled. ‘But I’m going on. Actions speak louder. Let’s get back.’

  She picked up her coffee and led the way out of the café. Ade followed with her own drink and the two pains-aux-raisin in a napkin.

  Later that day, in the pub after work, she told Morwen something else about herself: about Colin, with his spare, delicate face and his impossibly well-cut suits, how he’d seemed so bowled over by her, and how maybe he had been. For a month her life was a whirl of meals and pubs and the office and meetings and clubs and spreadsheets and weekends in Nice and Venice. He had taken her to the Adelphi and the Littleton and the Donmar and she had taken him to the Wallace and the Courtauld and the Tate and the RA and the National. Then he moved in and she felt her life was being lived on a larger scale, more splendidly. But something happened, she never knew what, and it all changed. He moved to the job in Canada Square that paid so well. He’d never say exactly what he did, but he seemed to work all the hours there were. One day he told her that he’d spoken to the senior partners and they’d said they could use her experience and they’d pay twice what she got in the Revenue. They had a blazing row and they both said things you can’t take back. Then he was gone. No note, just a door-key on the mat.

  4

  The Model had been Morwen’s big idea: a web of inter-linked spreadsheets where you put together all the fringe firms, the consultancies, the management experts, the risk advisors, the back offices, the outsourced accounting, the marketing people – all the specialist services that everyone seemed to buy in. After a while you began to see the patterns, the networks of ownership through intermediaries, the interest-free loans, the shared directorships, the exchanges of staff. Suddenly all the little micro-businesses, the ten person companies, the web-sites with nothing behind them but an office, a list of phone numbers and contacts with just the right people, didn’t look so small. They all linked together like chain-mail. And you saw something else: how much money went out of the major players into the small fry, meaning they weren’t really small fry after all.

  The Revenue never bothered too much with the mini-businesses, not enough money there to make an investigation worthwhile, and if you do get something to stick, they just go bankrupt and start up under a different name somewhere else next week. When you saw the whole picture you realised how it all added together, and how city businessmen could buy a ten-million-pound town house as well as a place in the country. It explained why there was never enough tax coming in to finance a decent NHS or provide care for old people or keep the beggars off the streets or build housing that families could afford. And Webster wonders why I hate him.

  A vacuum cleaner started up at the other end of the office. Ade looked round. Everyone else had gone. Time to make a move and get back to Whitechapel, but what was there to go home to? Images on a screen, something to eat and wine or gin. She should get an hour in the gym, but she always felt she was in the wrong place with all those lycra-clad bodies, everyone intent on their own programme. She needed a detox diet, she needed a personal trainer. Put it on the list.

  She picked up her briefcase and remembered the laptop. She slid her hand down and felt something lying against it: a used brown A4 envelope, like a thousand others in city waste-bins that day. Webster. She opened it and stared at the card, a grinning Father Christmas with a sackful of money, and the wad of red-brown fifty-pound notes, the colour of the back of her father’s hand, folded inside it. She felt the breath come fast in her throat. It was more money than she ever expected to see in one place in her life. A business expense, Webster would call it. She remembered the expression in his eyes when he held up the briefcase. He thinks he’s bought me. I hate him.

  I can’t leave it here. If I spend it, he’s got me. It’s a test. So I give it to Denny first thing tomorrow morning. It’ll be the police in the office, not a good career move. His word against mine. But nobody leaves that kind of money lying around. He’s so damned certain of himself. Denny’s OK, she did her best for Morwen.

  She looked up. The safe was locked for the night. The cleaner glanced at her and turned her back. She closed the envelope and tucked it into her jacket pocket. But what if I don’t care? If I take the money and don’t accept his figures? There’s no-one else who knows about it, what’s he going to go to the cops about? He accidentally left a wodge of cash in my brief-case?

  She was walking now, down the empty stair-well and out of the building, the wad of notes pressing against her chest. Her breath misted in the December air. She wrapped her overcoat tighter round her body. Office blocks rose up on either side, above the glow of the streetlights. She moved between pools of light and dark. Is this how it felt for Colin when they made him the offer and he went over to the other side? “We’ll triple your money, all you have to do is help us, tell us about your old friends. It’s OK, no-one can touch you, none of it in writing.”

  She kept her eyes ahead of her, staring down the street, south, across the river. On both sides shop-windows gleamed bright with Christmas displays. Giant crackers were strung across the street. They glowed amethyst, turquoise, crimson, the colours shifting, slowly merging into each other. Right in front of her stood a Christmas tree, the branches so dark that she only realised what it was from the outline in golden lights. Christmas, she thought. Happy Christmas, Mr Webster.

  She heard a sudden rattle of detonations and a fountain of silver stars spurted up, soaring into the sky. She halted and gazed up at them. A rocket burst, a gigantic golden chrysanthemum, then another and another over the city. People were running past her, talk
ing excitedly, jostling her. A nurse hurried by, swaying on high heels, then a figure lurched out of the shadows, one hand outstretched towards her. She backed away, her arms crossed over her chest. The streetlight shone down onto the vampire mask, picking out the fake blood dripping down his chin. An angel rattled a collection tin at her, smiling under the make-up. ‘For the hospital.’ She shook her head, then reached into her pocket and stuffed her change into the slot.

  The students whirled on past her: a mummy in toilet-roll bandages, a giant teddy-bear, a space-alien. She walked slowly on, watching them as the clamour faded away. She took the usual short cut down Fish Hill past the Monument to the Great Fire. She always felt sad for it, dwarfed by the city blocks round it. She quickened her pace past a development site where the streetlights had gone out, and nearly tripped over a pair of legs in a grubby sleeping bag.

  ‘Sorry,’ someone grunted and the legs swung back into the shadow. She could make out a pinched face below a dirty woollen hat, both hands tugging at the bag.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said again, hunching down. He started coughing.

  ‘No, my mistake.’ She stood there. ‘No problem.’

  He looked helpless lying there. A thought crossed his mind.

  ‘Any change?’

  She felt in her pocket. It was empty. Across the river she could see the Shard and next to it the lesser office blocks. Webster and his gang were up there, she thought, they make this mess and they never have to come near the building sites, the dirty hidden places like this. She felt the dampness of the river in the air. She reached in her jacket and touched the envelope with the tips of her fingers.

  It was a flat voice without accent. She stared down. He had brown eyes and long unkempt dark hair. His hands were still dragging the sleeping bag up to his throat.

  The man stared up at her, then coughed and looked down. He didn’t ask her again. She slipped a note out of the envelope. Why not?

  ‘There you go.’

  She placed it on the bag. He stared at it, then grabbed it.

  ‘Christ, thanks miss, missis. I don’t know, thanks,’ he blurted out.

  What should she say? “Have a nice one”; “Get yourself somewhere warm to sleep”; “Happy Christmas!”?

  He was holding the note between both hands, staring at it. She could just make out the engraving in the dim light.

  ‘Christ!’ he said again.

  She noticed movement in the shadows to her right. Someone was scrambling up out of a sleeping bag. She could hear voices in the darkness. Other figures were coming towards her. She backed away. She should go. The figure in the sleeping bag looked up at her. His eyes were soft, pleading. He started to pull himself out of the bag.

  ‘Johnno!’ said a voice, ‘what’s up?’

  ‘She’s only gone and give me a fifty!’ the man said softly.

  He’d got out of the bag now. He seemed like a giant cuddly toy in his layers of jumper and anorak, newspaper poking out of the zip. She caught the smell of stale sweat.

  He was right in front of her.

  ‘I want to say thank you, miss.’

  ‘I wanted to give it to you. Why shouldn’t you have it?’

  It seemed wrong to just walk away from him.

  Someone touched her wrist. A woman with a thin lined face stood close to her, bundled up from head to toe, it seemed, in rags. ‘Please miss. I got nothing.’

  She looked round. There was movement everywhere, dark figures rising up towards her. She slipped another note out of her pocket and held it up. The woman released her wrist and reached out for the money. Ade swung round, but someone was blocking her way. There were others behind him.

  She heard Johnno’s voice: ‘Take it easy. I can share.’

  She stepped backwards and bumped against someone else. More people were moving out of the darkness. She had no idea there were so many of them, dark shapes wrapped in old coats and blankets and anoraks against the cold, their hands reaching out, coming towards her. She shrank back.

  A slight figure slipped in front of the woman, seized Ade’s arm and shouted: ‘Come on!’

  She was pulled forward and she was running alongside him up the steps and onto London Bridge. She turned her head and saw dark eyes, an unshaven face, skin the colour of milky coffee and chaotic black hair. Then they were in darkness. He stopped, breathing hard, and she stumbled to a halt and stood there, rubbing at her arm. She hated running, she’d never been any good at it.

  ‘You’re OK here. They won’t come far.’ He spoke gently with no accent. ‘They’re not bad people, but they don’t ever see money like that.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ She felt awkward. ‘I think he just wanted to say thank you.’

  ‘That’s Johnno – a big softy.’ A smile passed across his face. ‘But don’t be sorry. Everyone always ignores you when you’re on the streets, they just stare through you. It’s something to be talked to like a human being.’

  They were nearly over the river. A late train thundered over the rail bridge ahead of them.

  ‘Maybe I could get you a meal?’ she said.

  He ate the all-night breakfast and extra bread, making little rushes at the food, then pausing, brushing the hair from his face and looking up at her with his sudden smile. So she told him about the money. For no reason at all.

  He frowned then his brow cleared and the smile was back on his face.

  ‘Robyn Hood,’ he said. ‘I like it. You’re a bit of a character.’

  ‘It’s not like that, it just sort of happened.’

  ‘That’s what I mean. You didn’t think about it, you just did it.’

  He put down his knife and reached out to touch her hand, then thought better of it and took his hand back, his eyes timid. She found she was smiling at him.

  The door of the café was flung open. Two policemen entered and stood on the threshold with the door held open, surveying the customers, cold air flowing in round them. No-one complained.

  The taller of the policemen moved forward and dropped a hand on her companion’s shoulder. He tried to swing round but the hand pushed him into the chair.

  ‘You. We’ve had complaints. You’ve been making trouble.’

  She stared at the policeman; dark eyes and fleshy cheeks, red from the night air.

  ‘Officer. He hasn’t been doing anything, he’s been here.’

  The policeman glared at her. She saw where he’d trimmed his moustache unevenly above his lips.

  ‘Not your business, miss.’ He took in her suit, her smart coat, the briefcase. ‘Best thing you can do is get home.’

  ‘But he’s my friend.’

  ‘Word of advice. Be more careful about your friends, miss.’

  The policeman pulled the black-haired man to his feet and glared down at him.

  ‘OK you, you’re coming with us.’

  ‘But he hasn’t finished his meal.’

  ‘He’s coming with us.’

  The policeman squeezed the black-haired man’s shoulder. Ade saw him wince. She looked up at him, her eyes shining.

  ‘S’all right,’ he said.

  ‘But I don’t even know your name.’

  ‘Paul, Paul Affarn.’

  He made a gentle gesture towards her with his free hand and the second policeman grabbed it. They hustled him to the door.

  ‘Ade Corey, I’m Ade Corey,’ she called out.

  The door slammed shut, hard enough to make the glass rattle.

  5

  ‘Robin Hood, Robyn Hood.’

  The rhythm of the late night train seemed to drum out the words. She gazed at the blackness outside the window, her double reflected back at her, its face staring into hers. Funny how everyone always assumed Robin Hood was a man’s name. Paul was right: you don’t have to be a m
an to take from the rich and give to the poor. She needed to think things through.

  The flat was cold when she got back. She’d always felt it was cold since Colin had left. It was for the best. He’d been considerate enough to take his photo, everything that might remind her of him, or maybe it was selfish, maybe he had someone else to give them to.

  Cup of tea, clean your teeth, bed. You need routines to get through things when you’re by yourself. No routine and you find yourself waking up on the sofa and the TV screen’s blank and the wine-bottle’s empty and you’re thinking that it’s going to be a bad day tomorrow, except it’s today and you’re already late.

  She lay there staring at the ceiling for a long time. When she slept it was to jumbled dreams: the moment when she found the envelope and all the different paths lay in front of her; Webster’s face sneering at her; the homeless people, not really people but shapes coming up at her; and Paul, the warmth in his eyes, his quick nervous gestures. She woke up with a jerk.

  ‘Next.’

  Ade glanced round the dingy waiting room at the others bundled into their coats, all of them staring straight ahead, pretending Southwark Police Station wasn’t the kind of place they ever came to normally, none of them smiling. No-one moved. She stepped up to the counter.

  ‘I’m here to enquire about someone who was brought in last night.’

  ‘Name?’

  The desk sergeant tapped at the computer. She had vivid red lipstick and fair hair cropped short.

  ‘Paul Affarn.’

  ‘No, your name.’

  ‘Oh, I’m Ade Corey.’

  The sergeant typed her name carefully, read something on the screen, glanced at her and nodded. ‘Mr Affarn. Yes, we know him. There was a bit of trouble and we had him in here last night, but there were no charges. City of London force wanted him for questioning, so they picked him up.’