First Born(74)

‘Where else?’

We’re too sore to laugh, too sad to smile much. We drink our coffees and get refills. I get a call from Mum but I don’t take it. She calls back three times, so I apologise to Violet and accept it. ‘Mum, I can’t talk. I’m with Violet.’

‘Did you hear about Katie’s friend Scott? They murdered him.’

‘I know, Mum. That’s why we’re talking right now. Violet’s really upset.’

‘You have to come home, sweetie. I mean it. Call the airline up, they’ll put you on an earlier flight, just explain all this. You need to get back to England now, where it’s safe.’

‘I’m coming home, Mum. The day after tomorrow. I need to tie up some loose ends but I’ll be really cautious, I promise.’

She starts getting flustered on the phone, talking about asking for police protection. ‘Violet’s with me,’ I say. ‘I’m safe. I’m not alone.’

We end the call. Violet pays and then we step out into the street.

Jimmy waves from his food cart and I try to ignore him.

‘That guy wants to talk to you, the guy in the smoothie cart.’

I wave at him and then start walking the other way with Violet. He shouts, ‘Molly, come over here.’

‘We should go over, no?’ says Violet.

I nod, reluctantly. ‘He’s a nice guy. I buy smoothies from him.’ We turn and walk to his cart.

‘You heard, eh? In the French hotel.’ He makes a gesture dragging his index finger from ear to ear and Violet bends over double at that image.

‘Jimmy . . .’ I say.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘Poor kid.’

‘This is someone who knew him. I mean, I knew him a little, but she knew him pretty well.’

‘I’m really sorry, lady. I apologise. I didn’t know.’

‘It’s all right,’ says Violet, straightening up. ‘Not your fault, man.’

‘I didn’t know,’ he says again. ‘It’s getting like the old days round here. Bad for business, y’know, the marathon and all, busy times, I’m sorry, none of that’s important right now, I’m sorry. Say, Molly, there’s a guy been asking after you, asking if I’d seen you around.’

‘A guy? What guy?’ Bogart DeLuca? Martinez?

‘Man around fifty, maybe fifty-five. Real fit-looking, you know, the athlete type, real lean. Wire-rim glasses. He was asking if I’d seen you go into the hostel.’

‘And what did you tell him, Jimmy?’

‘I told him I didn’t know what he was talking about. I said if he didn’t want to buy a smoothie maybe he could move aside for a real customer. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell him a thing.’





Chapter 44


I’m sitting on my bed in my junior suite reading the Ritz-Carlton Things You Must Do In New York book. I have a Ritz-Carlton pen and a hotel pad. I’m drinking Ritz-Carlton mineral water and I’m wearing a Ritz-Carlton robe.

Apparently I must see twenty different things before I leave this place to return to my normal existence. Nine of the twenty I’ve actually done. That leaves eleven.

I must visit the Met, or the Museum of Modern Arts. Next is Top of the Rock, the viewing gallery of the Rockefeller Center, or the Observatory at One World Trade Center. The views look spectacular.

Brooklyn Bridge, Staten Island Ferry, Statue of Liberty. All tourist hot spots with all the risks that entails: pickpockets, terrorists, muggers. But on the plus side they’re all free.

The Highline. Also free. Coney Island. Again, free. A Broadway show. Very much not free, but they’re close by and if it wasn’t marathon week I’d probably try to get a ticket. The concierge here could help me get great seats but I’d rather not talk to him again because I read in a book they sometimes give tip-offs to law enforcement. Ballet at the Lincoln Center. Same problem.

There are some less obvious options: a speakeasy bar in some Lower East Side basement. Performing Arts in Bushwick, Brooklyn.

The thing is: money.

Money is often, in my experience, the thing.

I have it now for the first time in my life. Even after making a few extravagant purchases there’s still over forty-seven thousand American dollars left. And if it was just me in this world, operating in a vacuum, I’d hit Bloomingdale’s and see a Broadway show and I’d maybe take a helicopter tour up and down the Hudson. No, I wouldn’t go that far. You climb in a helicopter and you may as well be riding a motorbike. Both are statistical death traps.

But Mum and Dad are as good as bankrupt. KT’s insurance policy won’t pay out quickly enough to save them, and even then it wouldn’t cover their debts. They have no business any more, and, even though they managed to pay off some of their creditors through voluntary agreements these past years, they don’t have much goodwill in the community. No outside family to speak of apart from Mum’s sister, and they haven’t had an easy relationship since Grandma died.

So it falls to me. I can’t afford to keep them in our childhood home, but I can afford to help them rent a flat above a fish and chip shop or something. I can help them buy cereal and pasta. Beans and loaves of bread. My dollars, converted through multiple innocuous currency exchange centres in the Midlands – by them, not me – will see them through. I’m all they’ve got now, and they’re all I’ve got. I don’t begrudge them a penny.