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‘What promise? I haven’t made any fucking promise.’
‘But you’re going to, aren’t you?’
Le
‘Where are you going?’ Banks asked her.
‘Bog,’ she said, making a squatting gesture.
Banks was a little concerned that she might reappear with a weapon. ‘Hold on a minute, love,’ he said. ‘Wait till I’m finished here.’
‘I’ll piss myself.’
‘I said hold on. You’ll live with it.’
‘These are me new jeans.’
Banks turned back to Le
‘Right, Le
‘She’s not my lass. Let her piss herself. I don’t care. Won’t be the first time.’
Banks gave a harder twist and Le
‘I remember.’
‘And if you do,’ Banks said, ‘I’ll have the local drugs squad over here before you can flush a tab of E down the toilet. Is that clear?’
‘It’s clear.’
‘Is it a promise?’
‘I-’
Banks twisted again. ‘Is it a promise?’
‘All right, all right! Jesus Christ, yes, it’s a fucking promise!’
‘And if you do anything – anything at all – to harm or intimidate them in any way, I’ll consider that promise broken. And I deal with broken promises myself. North Yorkshire’s not that far away. Got it?’
‘Got it. Let me go.’
Banks let go and Le
‘You’re a nutter, you are,’ he said. ‘You ought to be locked up.’
‘You’ve got that right.’
‘Is it over?’ the girl by the door asked. ‘Are you done? Are you? ’Cos I’m bleeding bursting here.’
‘It’s over, love,’ said Banks. ‘Off you go.’
‘About fucking time.’ She dashed upstairs. The woman on the sofa looked at Le
‘You in charge here, Le
‘I’m in fucking charge,’ he said, glaring at the woman. ‘They know that.’
She sniffed, but Banks could see fear in her eyes, the first emotion he had noticed in her. Le
He heard the toilet flush as he left.
18
Roy’s arrival at about four o’clock broke the tension for Banks. Until then he had been helping Geoff set up the bar and buffet on tables in the kitchen, keeping a tight rein on his temper for his parents’ sake, even though Geoff treated him like an employee. ‘Now, Alan, if you wouldn’t mind just moving that over there… That’s a good lad… If you could nip over to the shops and pick up…’ And so on. He had also been wanting to get Geoff alone and have another go at him in the light of Win-some’s information, but his mother was always around issuing instructions too. Wisely, his father had gone upstairs to ‘rest’.
When the doorbell rang, Ida Banks practically ran to the front door, and Banks heard her shouts of glee as she greeted Roy. After divesting himself of his raincoat, the man himself came through to the living room, clutching a bottle-shaped bag, and with a young woman in tow. She looked about twenty, Banks thought, with short, shaggy hair, black streaked with blonde, a pale, pretty face, with beautiful eyes the colour and gleam of chestnuts in September. She also had a silver stud just below her lower lip. She was wearing jeans and a short woolly jumper, exposing a couple of inches of bare, flat midriff and a navel with a ring in it.
‘This is Cori
Cori
Roy looked at Geoff, free hand stretched out, smiling like a salesman. ‘And you are-?’
‘Geoff. Geoff Salisbury.’
‘Geoff. Of course! Pleased to meet you, Geoff. I’ve heard a lot about you. Mum and Dad say they’d be lost without you.’
Geoff beamed and shifted from foot to foot. ‘Well… that’s probably a bit of an exaggeration.’
Very ’umble, Banks thought.
‘Not at all,’ said Roy. ‘Not at all.’ He gave Geoff a firm handshake and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Good to meet you at last.’
Geoff basked in the glow of Roy’s charm like a child in his mother’s embrace.
All this time, Ida Banks had stood by, smiling on. Roy turned to her again and gave her a hug. Then he handed over the package he’d been carrying. Ida Banks opened it. It was a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne. Vintage.
She turned to her husband. ‘Ooh, look at this, Arthur! Champagne.’
‘It’s the real stuff, too,’ Roy said, with a wink at Banks. ‘None of your Spanish cava or New World sparklers.’
Arthur Banks grunted. Banks happened to know that his father hated champagne, as much because it was a symbol of the upper classes as for its taste.
‘I’d better put it away for a special occasion,’ said his mother, taking it through the kitchen and placing it into the dark depths of the larder, where it would probably remain. Banks thought to mention that today was as special an occasion as they were likely to have in a while, but he knew it was best to keep quiet when Roy was in full benevolent swing. He’d bought a few cans of beer and lager, himself, and he knew that they would be emptied that very evening, without a doubt.
‘Now, then,’ said Ida Banks, rubbing her hands together and reaching out to touch Cori
‘Lager and lime?’
‘Right you are, love. And you, Roy?’
‘Just a Perrier for me, Mum,’ said Roy. ‘Driving.’
‘Of course.’ Ida Banks frowned. ‘What did you say? Perrier? I don’t think we have any of that, do we, Alan?’
Banks shook his head. ‘Only tap water.’
‘Well, that won’t do, will it?’ his mother said scornfully.
‘It’s all right, Mrs B,’ chimed in Geoff, ‘I’ll just nip over the road. Old Ali’s bound to have some. He sells everything.’ And before anyone could stop him he was off.
Ida Banks turned to Roy again. ‘You won’t be driving for ages yet, I hope, son. Won’t you have a glass of something a bit stronger first?’
‘Oh, go on, then,’ said Roy. ‘You’ve twisted my arm. I’ll have a glass of white wine.’
Banks’s mother gave him a questioning glance. ‘We’ve got that, Mum,’ he said, then looked at his brother. ‘Screw top OK, Roy?’
‘Whatever,’ said Roy, his lip curling.
Banks and his father both opted for beer.
‘Come on, then, Cori
Banks couldn’t believe it. His mother was fawning all over Roy’s twenty-something bit of fluff, the sort of girl who’d have been granted no more than a sniff of distaste if Banks had brought her home. Still, he should have expected it. Roy was Banks’s younger brother by five years. He had grown up watching Banks do everything wrong and getting caught for it – staying out too late as a teenager, listening to the radio under the bedsheets when he should have been asleep, smoking, leaving home to go to college in London, joining the police – and Roy had keenly observed his parents’ reactions. Roy had learned well from his brother’s mistakes, and he had done everything right. Now, in his mother’s eyes, Roy could do no wrong, and even Arthur Banks, not given to expressions of any kind, didn’t seem to disapprove of Roy as much as he did of Banks. Which was odd, indeed, Banks thought, as Roy was the consummate capitalist.