The Sister(132)

The other man was just on the periphery of his vision, slightly behind. More solidly built than his accomplice, he closed in, thinking to take Miller down.

Miller had an advantage. They thought it would be easy. He stopped.

‘What have I got for you?’ Miller said. ‘Nothing you can take.’

They exchanged looks. The taller one flicked his eyes intending to distract Miller into following his gaze.

Darkness gathered, forming shadows. He’d learned long since it signalled something was about to happen. He switched off, allowing pure instinct to take hold. Without warning, a punch slipped by Miller and crashed home. A blur of movement followed, a flurry of blows smacked home.

Miller looked with incredulity at the would-be assailants laid out on the floor. A man stood before him, grinning. Miller came back into focus.

‘I don’t believe this,’ he said.

‘Believe,’ the other man said simply.

It was Thomas Carney.





Thomas shook his hand. ‘I was only thinking about you this morning. How weird is that?’

‘I wish I had a pound for every time something like that happened to me.’

Carney stopped to think. He’d obviously had a lot of fights since Miller had last seen him. His nose was as crooked as a stovepipe, and he seemed to have inherited the same flinty-eyed look his trainer had. He sounded a little punchy.

‘You know, when you turned up at the gym that night, it worried me because I thought Mickey might decide to take you on, over me. Did you carry on as a fighter?’

‘Thomas, I never wanted to be a fighter. Back then, I didn’t know much about anything I wanted to do. How about you? For your age, you were really good.’

Thomas laughed. ‘You cheeky f*cker, you was only about a year older than me. Yeah, I won the ABA middleweight title, had a real career ahead of me, and I threw it away. I can’t believe you didn’t do anything in the fight game. I could hardly catch you with a shot.’

‘That’s because I was scared. I didn’t want to get hit.’

Carney pressed his lips tightly together and growled, ‘I’ve just remembered all that shit about you not boxing before.’

‘It wasn’t shit, I was telling the truth. I was just able to read ahead a second or two. My grandfather taught me that. You know – if you do this.’ Miller bobbed left. ‘It means that.’ Miller bobbed right. ‘Or this.’ He feigned a left hook.

Carney laughed. ‘That’s too simple. It was more than that; I couldn’t fool you with any shots.’

Without warning, Carney unleashed a punch. Miller caught Carney’s fist in his hand, two inches from his face.

Carney shook his head. ‘Explain to me exactly how you knew that was coming.’

‘Mu shin. No mind. I can’t explain it any other way.’

Thomas stared intently at him. ‘In my book that’s not an explanation at all.’

‘Anyhow, enough about me, Thomas. What was that about you throwing your chances away?’

‘I’ve only just come out of prison for what I did.’

‘Oh shit, really?’ Although curious, Miller said, ‘Listen, Thomas, I have to go see someone, have you got a number? We’ll meet and have a proper catch up.’

‘Yep, yep, here’s my number.’ He scrawled it on a piece of paper and handed it over. They shook hands again.

‘Be lucky,’ Thomas said.

Miller nodded.





At the entrance, someone held the door open for him on their way out and Miller walked in, making his way up the concrete steps to the third floor.

Although he hadn’t spoken to the man yet, he already had the strong impression he was Irish.

The south-facing walkway of the council low-rise block was three floors up, and the strength of the wind sweeping along it caught him by surprise. His eyes squinted against the wind-blown dust as he sauntered along checking the door numbers.

It’s this one. The material acting as curtains was drab and brown. A scattering of dead flies littered the sill the other side of the glass. They didn’t look as if they'd been drawn back for a long time. He looked for a bell or knocker. There was neither, so he hammered on the sun-faded blue door with the side of his fist.

The viewer in the door lit up from behind for a split second and then darkened again.

‘Who’s there?’ The voice had an unmistakable Irish accent.

‘Is this Strawberry? The name’s Miller. I’ve come to collect a guitar and a book.’

‘Wait a minute!’ Something heavy rumbled, scraping over the floor on the other side. A tassel-haired man around forty years old suddenly appeared in the open doorway. Miller was surprised at his age; he’d guessed he would be younger. Apart from his dark complexion, he actually looked like his Paddy Casey avatar.

‘Come in.’

Inside, the flat was grim, sparser than it had looked from the outside. Brown blankets secured at the top with multi-coloured map pins formed makeshift curtains. The main room resembled a jumble sale, the windows on the other side of it had no curtains and allowed light to pool over the piles of merchandise. At three floors up, privacy wasn’t a problem. No one was going to be peering through those windows without a very long ladder. A heavy timber beam leaned against the wall. Once his visitor was inside, he braced it back into position, raking it off the wall opposite to the underside of the door lock.