"Civvies" - читать интересную книгу автора (La Plante Lynda)

CHAPTER 5

Steam rose from Dillon's face. His hair was wringing wet. A towel around his neck and tucked into his tracksuit, black Puma trainers on his feet, he reached the third-floor landing and turned, jogging on the spot, and bellowed down at Steve: 'Come on, come on, keep your knees up! – come on! One-two, one-two, on your toes -'

Two flights down in the block of red-brick council flats that formed a square surrounding a paved central court, Steve Harris laboured up the concrete steps, a bergen containing four house bricks wrapped in newspaper strapped to his back. Ten-past-eleven in the morning and he was on his sixth climb, chest heaving, his tracksuit top practically drenched. Still, in better bloody shape than he was a week ago, Dillon thought with satisfaction. Couldn't beat the tough Para training regime to work the flab off, tauten muscle tone, get the old heart-and-lung machine functioning.

And in the process drag Steve up from being the useless fat knacker with no future he'd turned into after two years in civvies.

Susie came out of the flat, buttoning up a fawn topcoat that had seen better days, a shopping-bag in the crook of her arm. 'I'm going to the shops,' she announced to Dillon, still jogging, elbows back and forth like pistons. 'You want anything?'

'Where are the kids?' Dillon asked, but he was more interested in Steve, who'd stopped, panting for breath, on the floor below. 'Oi! Move it, Steve, don't slack off. Keep moving.'

'They're at school.' Susie's voice had a sharp, irritable edge that had nothing to do with kids and school, everything to do with the subject she'd tried to raise at breakfast.

'Are you going to sign on, Frank? You said you'd go today…'

Steve finally made the last few steps, stood with hands on hips, head thrown back, gasping for air, totally wiped out.

'Go on – down again.' When Steve didn't immediately respond, Dillon stuck his arm straight out and pointed. 'Go on!'

Off he went, staggering a little under the heavy pack. Susie tapped her foot. 'Frank? Did you hear what I said?'

'Yeah, yeah, I'll go this afternoon…' Dillon brushed past her on the stairs, jumping three steps at a time, calling out, 'Right, back up, Steve, come on, push yourself.' He skipped down and started pushing Steve up from behind. Susie had to flatten herself against the wall as they came by. 'Don't leave it too late, Frank… you should have gone yesterday.'

'I said I'd go, all right?' Dillon snapped back at her. From the landing above he called down, ' Oranges. Get some oranges for juice, not that bottled stuff!'

'Oh, right -' Susie said, marching down, heels ringing on the concrete steps. '- I'll just go and pick 'em for you! You want them, get them yourself.'

Wiping his face with the towel, Dillon silently cursed himself and hung his head over the brick parapet, but she was lost to sight. That was all he knew, rapping out orders to squaddies and Toms – Do this, soldier, do that – expecting to be obeyed on the instant, and it was hard to break the habit, even with his own wife. He'd better start learning. This was Civvy Street, where anarchy ruled. Nobody took orders from anybody.

Dillon, about to turn away and suggest to Steve a shower and a well-deserved beer, happened to notice a car parked by the estate entrance. Nothing too unusual about that – except the locals in this part of the East End who could afford to run a jalopy just scraped by with a clapped-out Skoda or a Lada with a failed MOT. Not a sleek black J-Reg Jaguar Sovereign 3.2. The Jag's push-button window slid down, a face appeared flashing a cocky grin, red hair plastered straight back, and Dillon ducked away, but a fraction too late. 'Hey, Frank!' Jimmy Hammond hailed him. 'Frank!'

'How ya doin'?' Jimmy greeted him, climbing out, all smiles, giving Dillon a bear-hug and a punch for good measure. 'You okay? Everythin' okay?'

'Yeah!' Dillon's glance slid sideways to the passenger in the back seat. 'Just been workin' out.'

Jimmy followed his look. 'You know Mr Newman, don't you?'

Dillon gave a brief nod, went over as the rear window glided down; a slender elongated hand encased in blue-black leather took his in a soft, limp handshake. 'Hello Frank, you remember me, don't you?'

Dillon remembered the voice too, flat and expressionless, nearly as soft as the handshake, so you had to listen hard. Some people had to take orders after all, Dillon reminded himself, and this was the voice that gave them. He said politely, 'How ya doing?'

'Jimmy said you were looking for work…'

Dillon cast a sidelong glance at Jimmy, cool and sharp in his tailored blue suit leaning against the Jaguar's glossy bonnet, arms nonchalantly folded, wearing his fat grin. Always the fixer, trying to run other people's lives for them. Newman uncoiled from the car, a tall emaciated figure that with his dark business suit and leather gloves put Dillon in mind of a long dry-skinned lizard. And yes, there was even something reptilian in the sunken flaking cheeks and deadpan grey stare, the tongue flicking out along the thin wide mouth.

Newman strolled a few yards, a cheroot trailing smoke in his wake, and indicated with a small incline of the head that he wanted a private word. Dillon followed, waiting as Newman sent a plume of smoke thoughtfully into the air.

'I've never forgotten the way you came round… it, well, it meant a lot to me.'

'I was just sorry it had to be him.' Dillon shuffled, staring down at the soiled black Pumas. 'He was a really good soldier…'

'My boy thought the world of you, always mentioned you in his letters home…' Newman's flat delivery skirted the edge of something near real emotion. 'We never hit it off that well, I reckoned he joined up to get away from me.' Newman's pale grey eyes sought Dillon's. 'I've sort of made it my business to give a helping hand to his pals when they get into civvies.'

'Billy was a good lad,' was all Dillon could think to say.

'Meant a lot, you coming round the way you did, to Maureen. She's dead now. I think Billy's going took the heart out of her… we only had the one, just the one son.' Newman studied the glowing tip of the cheroot. Outwardly, the neatly-parted grey hair and grey moustache gave him the distinguished yet dated look of a thirties matinee idol, but Dillon wasn't deceived. He didn't, never could, trust those cold flat eyes, a predator waiting to pounce.

Dillon shifted uneasily as Newman placed a hand on his shoulder.

'I reckon I owe you a favour. I can offer you a lot of work, and with Jimmy on my payroll, be like old times…' The sunken cheeks creased in a smile. 'He's a card, isn't he? Eh? Jimmy… I think you'd make a good team.'

'Thanks, Mr Newman, but -' Dillon shrugged, staring at the ground. 'I've got a few things in the pipeline…'

'Have you?'

'Yes.' Dillon cleared his throat. 'I want – well, eventually – to open up a security firm. Me and a few of the lads.'

'Good.' Newman seemed genuinely pleased. 'That's a good idea. Well, if I can be of any assistance, you know Jimmy can always put you in touch. I'd like to see you set up with a few readies in your hand. I know it's tough coming out, and, well, I'll be straight with you, Frank -'

Dillon stepped back, held up his hand. 'That's just it, Mr Newman. I want to go straight. Whatever Jimmy does is his business.' He turned quickly away, jogging off. 'But I appreciate your offer…'

Newman stared after him, the friendly warmth instantly extinguished by a glacial stillness, as if Dillon had struck him. With a flick of the wrist he tossed the cheroot away and made an abrupt gesture to Jimmy, who slid off the Jaguar's bonnet and went after the running figure, now leaping up the concrete stairway, two at a time.

'Frank… wait! Wait a minute!'

Dillon halted on the first-floor landing and looked down as Jimmy reached the bottom of the stairs, swept-back hair bouncing, features strained in a matey grin.

'No, Jimmy, you wait.' Legs braced apart, outstretched arms pressed against the brick walls either side, Dillon looked in no mood for the old pal's act. 'I don't want any involvement with that crook. I don't want him brought round my place, near my place. And if you'd got any sense, you'd walk -'

Jimmy broke in. 'He's trying to do you a favour!'

'Whatever I did for Billy, I'd do for any of my lads. I joined up because of men like Newman. His own son tried to get away from him. He's rotten. Billy knew it, I knew it.' Dillon's voice sank, but the intensity didn't. 'I know it, Jimmy, because his type was all I had going for me when I was a kid. Now I want more, Jimmy, and I want it legit.'

A slight flush mottled Jimmy's cheeks. He gave one last guarded look at Dillon, as if he'd been caught out in a lie, then turned sharply away, muttering tersely, 'I hope you find it, Frank!'

Dillon watched him go. Angry, bitter, but most of all sad.

Jumped-up pompous twits with their bloody bits of papers and petty rules! Newman's visit had put him in a foul temper and his trip to the DSS office later that afternoon didn't improve it one iota. Christ, he could have sat on that plastic chair staring at the muddy green wall till the cows came home for all the good it did him, till his teeth dropped out. What did they care? Three, four years ago Dillon had run across an old mate with sixteen years' service under his belt who'd recently got his discharge. This bloke, ex-sergeant, had asked the C.O. for a reference, set him up in Civvy Street, and the C.O. had written in his file: 'Suitable for petrol pump attendant.' After all the bullshit about serving Queen and Country and upholding the honour of the Regiment and drumming it into you that you were the cream of the Army's elite fighting men, that's how the system treated you. All of a sudden you were a social leper. Brain-dead. About as much use as a wet fart in a wind-tunnel. Thanks ever so much for all you've done, old chap, now kindly fuck off.

Well, the DSS could go fuck itself, in spades, as far as he was concerned, Dillon thought savagely, slamming the front door shut behind him and stopping in the nick of time from cracking his shin on the bikes in the hallway. He went through, wrenching his tie loose, feeling sweaty and ridiculous in his best suit that Susie had pressed for him that morning. She looked up, eyebrows raised, hopefully or expectantly, he was past caring.

'I been in that dump all afternoon, waiting like a prat, for my number to be called out -'

'And? Well, what did they say?'

'Number twenty-three to cubicle four…' Dillon mimicked a prissy officious voice. 'Number twenty-four to cubicle five. I was number fifty-three. Went to the friggin' job centre section, came back and I'd missed me number!' He took a pale-green ticket from his breast pocket, tore it in half and scattered the bits on the coffee table.

'So you didn't sign on, did you?'

Dillon was on his way back through the hallway, jacket half-off. 'I'll get Steve, go for a run.'

'Fine, you go and see Steve.' Susie was up quick, after him. 'And while you're up there could you tell him to throw out his empty bottles and his dirty bandages… Did you tell them about your experience in the Army? Frank?'

Leaving his jacket draped over the banister post, Dillon started up. 'Anythin' I've done was in the Army, and that don't mean nothin'. Bloody IRA think more of us!' He suddenly turned, hot angry eyes burning down into hers. 'Every Para's worth seven grand to them. Six, if you're dead.'

Steve leaned over the banister, mouth working, croaking at Dillon. 'YoU'D bE – burp -BetTEr off cOMin' OuT -burp - Of thE nlcK!'

Too right, mate.'

'What did he say?' Susie frowned.

'He said I would be better off comin' out of the nick!' Dillon threw a punch. 'Move, Steve – let's be havin' yaaaa!'

Steve gurgled something and Dillon responded with force, 'Right, mate, half-way houses, career officers, counsellors, subsistences, therapists, psychiatrists, physiotherapists…'

The phone rang on the hall table, Dillon's voice floating from above ('An' if that's Jimmy, I'm not in.') as Susie snatched it up.

'Hello?' Susie listened, eyes growing bigger, then in a rush, 'Oh, yes, yes, he is, just hang on a second…' Head craning up the stairs, yelling excitedly, 'Frank, it's that friend of Mum's – he owns a building site… quick!'

Dillon cleared the banister rail and did a free-fall drop, arms parallel with his sides, to land at Susie's feet, springing lightly up and grabbing the phone. He coughed and said, 'Frank Dillon…' listening and nodding as Susie stuck both thumbs up. '…there's two of us, yeah.' He grinned then, nodding harder as if somebody had tightened his spring. '… Fantastic!'

Beaming a great big smile, Susie punched holes in the air, fists raised high. Yippee!