Sweet Sorrow(95)
Mr Howard
A petrol station is a forlorn place at the best of times, but on a long, dull, overcast Saturday afternoon at the end of summer, it has its own special melancholy. A deep ache had set in, an exhaustion that seemed quite overwhelming, and it would require something special to recover the mood of the previous night.
There were winning scratch cards in my wallet. Without an accomplice, the exchange was riskier but not impossible if I used sleight of hand, and as a man of means I could try to buy champagne – cava – in the offy. As I was no longer a virgin, perhaps they’d hand it over without question and perhaps I’d get something ritzy from the Golden Calf, the house special of fat pink king prawns, and three more condoms from the toilets. Cava, condoms, prawns, big bag of ice; it was the shopping list of a young lord, and contemplating these riches, I fell asleep, my head on the counter, trusting the beep of the pumps to wake me.
A large, blond, crop-haired man was standing over me, neck bulging in a shirt and tie, his knuckles rapping on the counter near my head.
‘You all right there?’
‘Sorry – dropped off. So sorry. Pump number … number …’
‘Two.’
‘Two. That’s thirty pound.’
‘Big night?’ He grinned unpleasantly.
‘Pardon?’
‘You’re asleep on your watch. Big night last night?’
It would not have been appropriate to tell him that I’d lost my virginity, and yet he seemed to want more, standing with his head cocked to one side, hands planted on the counter, meaty and pink like ham hocks.
‘Big night, yes,’ I said and handed him his receipt.
Still he didn’t move.
‘Anything else?’
‘No. I’m good. You get some shut-eye.’ And with a roll of his shoulders, the big man turned and left.
And that was my last customer. A little before eight, I turned off the forecourt lights and set the till to chatter out its shift summary, took the tray from the till and, standing in the doorframe between the counter and the office, swapped the scratch cards for one twenty-, one ten-pound note. Cava, ice, prawns, condoms. In the back office, I loaded my rucksack with all the champagne flutes that I’d have to get rid of – I’d keep two back for the wine – and returned to the shop floor to turn off the lights.
The crop-haired man was there and, behind him—
‘Mike! Hey there!’
Mike said nothing, just shook his head slowly and sorrowfully, and an awful, cold nausea rose up inside me.
‘Charlie, do you recognise this gentleman here?’
‘Yes! Hello, there! Pump two, thirty quid.’
He smiled unpleasantly, arms crossed high on his thick chest, waiting for something. ‘Your scratch card! I accidentally forgot to give it to you! Is that why you’re here? Hold on, I’ll get one for you.’ As a performance, it was not my best but what could they do about an honest accident?
‘Charlie, Mr Howard here works for a private security firm.’
‘Okay. Is this about me falling asleep?’ Perhaps it was only that.
‘I hired him, Charlie, because there have been some inconsistencies in the accounting.’
Anything else he might have said was drowned out by a great roar of panic at what lay ahead, a deranged montage of both near and distant futures as I wondered what they knew, what my alibi might be and how I could hope to sustain it in the face of what was surely video evidence. I foresaw hours spent on plastic chairs in police stations and magistrates’ courts, I imagined Mum’s rage, my father’s flailing shame and despair. I would be seventeen in three weeks’ time – did that mean borstal or prison? And Fran, what would Fran think? The something inside that she’d spoken of, the potential she’d claimed to see in me revealed as the deception of a shabby petty thief, a till-dipper, an incompetent scammer with a criminal record stapled to those terrible exam results.
‘… seems a large number of cards meant for customers have actually found their way into the pockets of staff …’
And how would she find out where I was? How long did they mean to keep me here? The light was fading now and I thought of her alone in the gatehouse, lighting candles, eating the last of the food, anticipation turning to anger, anxiety to fear, like Juliet in the Capulets’ tomb. Even before she found out, she’d hate me for abandoning her. I had to let her know and to tell her the story in my own words …
‘… so we need to talk it through.’
I forced myself to focus on Mike’s words. At least he wasn’t angry, more resigned, a sheriff who has been obliged to hire this gunslinger, now identified as a representative of a company called Croydon Investigations Agency, the CIA – how could I not have known? The big shoulders and small, sharp, judging eyes; the man was obviously a professional enforcer, and I cursed myself for succumbing to the cheap allure of Spanish sparkling wine and the house special at the Golden Calf.
‘Perhaps if we could go through into the back office?’ said Mr Howard, now stepping towards the counter. I lifted my bag, and heard the chink of twelve champagne flutes, evidence, through the nylon of my rucksack. My God, they’d got me red-handed. A night in the cells, and Fran alone in the woods, the candles burning low, waiting for me …
I raised the bag carefully, so that the glasses would not chink.