29
A Certain Kind of Freedom
He never thought he’d ever have to come back here again. Not to this gritty northern town where he’d spent so many of his younger years. Years he was not proud of. Foolishly he’d assumed he’d left it all behind. It was a life that belonged to a different person, these narrow streets with their dirty-brick back-to-back houses, the coal mines, the heaps of spoil that looked like hills. He guessed it was true what they said: you can’t shrug off the past like it never existed. It’s always there.
And testament to that past was the Eddleston Working Men’s Club. Martin Caldwell stood in the dark car park, staring long and unforgiving at the dilapidated old building, watching people filing in, hearing the strains of an electric guitar floating out of the open doors. As he approached the club he could smell beer in the air, strong and familiar. A flood of memories accompanied it.
In the doorway an old man was sitting at a wooden table. ‘You a member?’ he asked, his voice gravelled by years of smoking. He had a fag planted between his lips now, ash drifting down to an open book on the table.
‘I’m here to see someone,’ Caldwell said.
‘Which someone?’
‘That’s OK, Ralph,’ said a voice. ‘He’s with me. Sign him in.’
A thick-set man in his forties came up to them. He had a mess of long, black hair going grey at the temples, and sported a handlebar moustache. ‘Hello, Martin,’ he said. He nodded for Caldwell to follow him.
They went into the club, cigarette smoke hanging in a thick pall; the fuggy outlines of people huddled around small, wooden tables. There was a band up on stage doing a bad cover of a Bay City Rollers’ number and some of the crowd were giving them hell. The man paused at the bar.
‘Drink, Martin?’ he asked.
‘Later,’ he replied. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
‘Fine.’ He led them through a door into a short corridor and held open another door, ‘My office,’ he said. He shut the door after Caldwell.
‘Nice,’ he said, looking around him at the dingy wood-clad walls, the stack of cardboard boxes, the shadeless light-bulb, the photograph of a topless woman tacked to the back of the door. ‘I like what you’ve done with the place, Ray,’ he said.
Ray Steele smiled. ‘Long time no see, Martin. I never thought I’d ever see you back in Eddleston again.’
‘Never wanted to be back,’ he said. ‘You haven’t changed.’
‘Can’t say the same for you, Martin. Look at you now – regular dandy, eh? Life must be treating you good.’ He sat down on a chair behind a flimsy-looking chipboard desk, opened a drawer and pulled out a bottle. ‘Fancy a snifter?’
‘I need a favour,’ said Caldwell seriously.
Steele’s smile faded and he put a glass on the desk, poured out a good measure of Jack Daniels. ‘I’d like to help you, Martin, for old time’s sake, but things have changed. Look at me, I’m going straight now.’
‘Going straight isn’t doing you any favours,’ he observed.
‘I get by.’ He downed the alcohol in one. Smacked his lips. ‘Whatever it is you’re wanting, Martin, I ain’t got it no more.’
‘I need a job doing.’
He shrugged. ‘Like I said.’
‘Are you forgetting something, Ray? Forgetting what you did for me?’
‘That was then, Martin; this is now.’ He poured again. ‘What are you getting at? This isn’t some crude attempt at blackmail, is it?’ He bent forward. ‘I could have both your legs broken before you reached your car in the car park, you know that?’
‘Nice to see that the old Ray Steele hasn’t disappeared entirely.’ He took in a deep breath, licked his lips at the sight of the drink. ‘Ray, I need your help. I’ll make it worth your while. You look like you could do with an injection of cash anyhow.’
‘OK, let’s say I was interested, what exactly do you want? No promises, mind, but because we’re friends I’ll hear you out.’
Caldwell ran his hand through his thick hair. ‘I need someone taken care of,’ he said.
‘In what way, taken care of?’ he asked warily. ‘There are different levels, you know.’
‘Taken care of in the same way you took care of a certain someone else for me.’
‘You mean when you needed to silence a certain woman, who found you out and who threatened to spill the beans on one of your scams? That certain someone?’
‘That’s the one, Ray.’
He sucked in a breath that hissed over his teeth. ‘You know what you’re asking here?’
‘Course I f*cking know.’
Steele shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Martin. Things are different now, like I said. A man would need one hell of a financial incentive to climb back on that old warhorse.’
‘Whatever it takes. Cut beating about the bush, Ray; are you going to help me out or what?
‘I’m not saying I am, and I’m not saying I’m not. We need to talk over particulars first. Man or woman?’
‘Woman.’
He smirked. ‘You never learn.’
‘I didn’t come here to be preached at, Ray,’ he said sullenly. ‘There’s this place, some kind of Georgian folly or something. A woman lives there all alone. It should be easy for you. She’s loaded too. There’s also this room that I need you to get inside.’
‘And what’s in this room? Anything for me?’
Caldwell cocked his head, his lips tight. ‘I wish I f*cking knew. Maybe there is, maybe not. Look, I’ll go through the details if you decide to take this job on. If not I’ll go elsewhere, in which case the least you know about this the better.’
Steele tut-tutted. ‘Don’t you trust me, Martin? An old friend?’
‘Never did, Ray; and we were never friends.’
His eyes narrowed in thought. ‘So, a break-in and a woman to be topped. All in a day’s work, eh?’ He swigged at his glass, put it down hard on the table. ‘Say I decided to take this on for you – this has got to be the last time.’
‘You have my word,’ said Caldwell.
‘Which we both know is worth shit. I mean it, Martin, we never meet again, and we never speak again. You got that? You never, ever come back here.’
Caldwell nodded. ‘Deal. Got a spare glass?’
With Caldwell out of the way for a day or so Vince felt a certain kind of freedom. He’d never really been left fully in charge of the Empire, and the sudden responsibility filled him with excitement and dread in equal measure. Whenever Caldwell had taken holidays, they shipped in someone else to cover. He’d been surprised when Caldwell had called him into his office, his mood as black as the stormy weather outside, and asked him to deputise.
‘I’ll be gone all day, maybe two. You’re manager till I get back,’ he said.
‘Are you sure, Mr Caldwell?’ asked Vince.
‘Who else is there?’
‘What about head office sending someone?’
‘HQ doesn’t need to know I’m gone. Whilst we’re on that, if anyone calls make some excuse or other for me and tell them I’ll get back to them. It’s only one day, for Christ’s sake, surely you can manage that, Vince!’
He’d said yes because he didn’t have a choice, but now he was enjoying the feeling. He even sat in Caldwell’s chair, spun it round a few times, picked up the phone and made a pretend call.
‘Just do it!’ he said brusquely to static. The office door opened and Edith came in. He slammed the phone down hard.
‘It suits you,’ she said.
Embarrassed, he rose to his feet. ‘What does?’
‘Sitting there. Being manager. It’s where you should be, Vince. You should be in charge.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous. I couldn’t be manager,’ he said. ‘What do you want?’
‘Keys,’ she said, nodding at them hanging on the office wall. ‘And to clean your office.’
‘It’s not my office, Edith.’
‘It could be. One day. You’d do a far better job of it than Martin. He’s not a nice man and doesn’t know anything about cinemas, not like you. You know everything there is to know.’
It made him feel decidedly uncomfortable, but in a nice way. He wasn’t used to receiving compliments. He’d got nothing but criticism since he was a kid. ‘Thank you, Edith,’ he said genuinely.
She beamed. ‘You deserve so much more, Vince,’ she continued. ‘You’re a nice young man.’
‘I don’t think so…’ he said sheepishly.
‘Yes you do, and yes you are. I think you’re wonderful.’
Silence slammed in like someone had dropped a heavy weight onto the room. ‘Me?’ he asked tentatively.
She lowered her gaze. ‘Yes, you. I‘ve always thought you were wonderful, ever since I first met you. And I think people have been so, so unkind to you and you don’t deserve that one jot. I’m glad Laura Leach found herself another man, because that means your mind won’t be on her all the time, and perhaps now you might look at me every once in a while…’
He was stunned, his mouth hanging open. ‘Edith, I don’t understand…’
‘I love you!’ she said in a rush. ‘There, I’ve said it!’ and she dashed immediately from the room.
Vince sank back into the chair, the wind knocked completely from his sails. Then Edith came back in, sheepishly reaching up to the wall.
‘Keys,’ she said, avoiding looking at him. She ran out of the office.
* * * *