Sleep. C.L. Taylor

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       Chapter 13

       Steve

      Steve turns up the collar of his coat, mentally cursing his lack of umbrella and phone as he passes yet another South London street that doesn’t contain a pub called the White Hart. Still, no Google Maps and no GPS is infinitely preferable to the alternative, a stretch inside for murder. So far, other than the burner phone in his desk drawer and one very short phone call, there’s no evidence linking him to Jim Thompson, and he intends to keep it that way.

      ‘Where the fuck is – ah!’ He stops at the entrance to a small, characterless back street, hurries down it and pushes at the door of the White Hart.

      He raises his eyebrows as he walks in. Yet another old boozer that’s been transformed into a gastropub with colonial-style ceiling fans, stripped floors, an oak bar and a selection of craft ales. Fucking hipsters, he thinks as he walks up to the bar and orders a pint of Heineken. They like to pretend they’re knitting their own houses, serving food on dustbin lids and turning their backs on technology but they’re capitalist bastards at heart, just like the rest of us.

      He takes a sip of his pint and casually glances around, looking for Jim. It’s been a while since he last saw him but he immediately recognises the balding bloke in the thick glasses sitting on his own in the corner, a newspaper spread on the table in front of him. They were unlikely cell mates, back in the day (a long way back in the day), Steve in for fraud and Jim in for GBH, but they shared the same scathing sense of humour, a similar background and the same moral code.

      ‘All right?’ He sets his beer down on Jim’s table and pulls out a chair.

      Jim doesn’t immediately answer. Instead he carefully folds his newspaper, tucks it into his bag, then sits back and gives Steve a long look.

      To his immense irritation Steve’s pulse quickens and his heart thuds in his chest. He’s got no reason to be scared of Jim. Well, he does, Jim’s track record more than speaks for itself, but they’re … acquaintances, if not exactly friends. And Jim did offer to help.

      ‘All right, dickhead!’ Jim says suddenly. Steve ducks, but not quickly enough to avoid Jim’s outstretched arm and his temple throbs from where Jim slaps it.

      He shakes his head and smiles convivially, his pulse slowing. ‘I think we both know who the dickhead is.’

      ‘Anyway,’ Jim reaches for his pint, ‘I would ask how you are but I don’t think we need to go there, do we?’

      Steve shakes his head.

      ‘For what it’s worth I’m sorry. Sounds like Freddy was a good kid. God knows you couldn’t shut up about him.’

      ‘Yeah.’ Steve keeps his eyes fixed on the other man’s face, his small, brown eyes like marbles behind his thick-rimmed glasses. He doesn’t want to think about being in prison and getting pictures and letters from six-year-old Freddy asking when he was coming home. Biggest regret of his life that was, missing so much of his son’s childhood.

      ‘So.’ Jim runs his thumbnail down the side of his nose and scratches it vigorously. ‘Nice as it is to see you, Steve, this can’t happen again. Us going for a beer I mean.’ His eyes flit from Steve’s to the barman, wiping down the optics.

      Calm on the outside, nervy on the inside, Steve thinks as he takes a sip of his beer. I’m not the only one who doesn’t want to go back inside again.

      He sets his beer back down, rests his elbows on the table and leans towards his ex-cell mate. ‘It’s been a while,’ he says, ‘since we spoke and I just want to check everything’s in place. That it’s actually going to happen.’

      It’s the silence he can’t stand. The trial was less than six weeks ago and, after the initial furore from the press and the calls and visits from friends and relatives, it’s as though it never happened. Like Freddy never died. Everyone’s just getting on with their lives like nothing’s amiss. But something is very much amiss, and Steve seems to be the only one who’s noticed it.

      ‘Like I told you,’ Jim says, lowering his voice, ‘I’ve got someone in place up north.’

      ‘And …’ Steve feels a knot form in his stomach. He just wants it over with, quickly, so justice is done, so he can tell his boy he did him right. So he can sleep.

      ‘They’re biding their time, building up trust. No point storming in and fucking it up. If they can make it look like an accident, or suicide, they will. Easier all round that way.’

      Steve’s chest is so tight he can barely get the words out. ‘And if they can’t?’

      Jim shrugs and sits back in his chair. ‘What do you care? You want her dead. She’ll be dead.’