Reversed Forecast / Small Holdings. Nicola Barker

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       Three

      ‘How long have you been waiting?’

      The policeman glanced at his watch. ‘Five minutes.’

      Ruby found him moderately attractive, for a policeman. He was tall but thin and had a deep dimple in either cheek and in his chin.

      ‘I’ve come about the bail,’ he said, stepping out of the doorway so she could get to her door.

      ‘Why?’ she said. ‘What did I do?’

      He smiled at this. While he smiled, it dawned on her. ‘For him? You must be joking. He expects me to pay his bail?’

      ‘He told me that you were the closest he had to a relative.’

      Ruby’s startled expression made him laugh out loud.

      ‘You’re just a sadist,’ she said, ‘in a bloody police uniform.’

      ‘In case you wondered, I got your address from your manager. He said this was a company flat.’

      Ruby felt around in the pocket of her jacket for her keys. ‘I’m not paying his bail. I don’t even know him.’

      ‘That’s up to you. He’s got no money of his own.’

      She put her key into the lock. ‘I never even met him before today.’

      ‘You must’ve made a good impression.’

      ‘How much is it, anyway?’

      ‘Two hundred.’

      She pushed the door open. ‘He can sing for it. You can tell him that.’

      ‘I will.’

      ‘Is that all?’

      He nodded.

      ‘Thanks, then.’

      She stepped inside, then turned. ‘Where is he exactly?’

      ‘The local nick.’ He began to grin. ‘You’re going to pay it, aren’t you?’

      ‘Even I,’ she said firmly, ‘am not quite that stupid,’ and closed the door behind her.

      Two hundred, she thought, climbing the stairs. He’s crazy.

      She’d almost reached the top when she heard the doorbell chime inside her flat. She swore, turned round, and walked back down again to answer it. Outside, instead of the policeman, whom she’d half-expected, was her friend Pablo. Everyone preferred to call him Toro. She didn’t know why. He was holding two bottles of cheap lemon vodka. Ruby took a bottle from him and inspected the label. ‘What’s wrong with Martini or a crate of lager?’

      Toro smiled, his cheeks bunched up and the pressure of them squeezed his eyes into almonds. ‘I saw you at Hackney,’ he said, ‘on television.’

      ‘Yeah?’ She turned and started to walk upstairs again. ‘Where? In Ladbrokes? How did I look?’

      He slammed the front door and followed her. ‘Completely beautiful.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      Once inside, Ruby took off her jacket and slung it over the back of the sofa, then flung herself into an armchair and scraped her heels across the floor to pull off her shoes. She wriggled her stockinged toes and said, ‘Maybe I should grow my toenails and paint them, then I could wear sandals and my feet wouldn’t sweat as much.’

      Toro looked slightly disgusted. ‘Why was the shop closed this morning?’

      She didn’t answer immediately, so he searched for the volume percentage of alcohol on the label of one of the bottles he was holding.

      Ruby’s flat was comfortable but shoddy. It consisted of a small sitting-room and adjoining kitchen, with an old Baby Belling, a sink and a fridge, a tiny bathroom and a small box-shaped bedroom. The walls were painted a uniform creamy yellow which gave the place a distinctly institutional feel. The furniture was old but solid. Ruby had few homely or ornamental possessions, but a lot of clothes and records. The records lined one wall of the sitting-room and items of clothing, clumps of accessories and numerous pairs of boots and shoes had been tossed about with general disregard. The room was dusty.

      Toro unscrewed the top of a vodka bottle and asked for some glasses. Ruby picked up a couple of dirty mugs and went to the sink to СКАЧАТЬ