Survival of Thomas Ford, The (8 page)

Jack McCallum had been on the site of Dr Radthammon’s new house since 7am. Only the Polish foreman, Lanski, had been there earlier. Jack sensed that he’d gone too far the day before, with Radthammon. Jack’s nerves felt exposed. He had wanted to be out of the house this morning before Jimmy was up. He also wanted to make a point of being sure everything was getting done perfectly here on Radthammon’s build. But, of course, with Lanski in charge, as Jack knew, there was nothing to worry about. This was going to be a fine house with a stunning view. A place to fulfil the deepest dreams of this Lebanese cardiologist. Jack understood the fear he must have put into Radthammon, threatening to leave this site like downtown 1982
Beirut
on a bad day.

“Mr McCallum,” said Lanski, “you don’t even need to be here, sir. You know this. I will take care of this build.”

Jack sniffed and nodded.

“Don’t be too keen to keep me away, Lanski. You’ll make me wonder why.”

“The why is because I always do the best work for you, and you know this.”

“You’ve checked that tilt in the far corner again?”

“It’s nothing,” said Lanski.

“But you checked it?”

Lanski laughed.

“I checked.”

“I’m sorry about my boy hurting your man, Lanski. Is he alright?”

“He will be two weeks at home watching tv and sleeping.”

“I’ll see he’s alright.”

“Yes yes, he knows this Mr McCallum.”

“Right then.”

“And your son is alright too?”

“He’s alright. He’s a lazy little turd, but he’s alright.”

Lanski shrugged, as if to imply that, were it not for lazy little turds like Jimmy, there would be less rich pickings in this country for men like himself.

Jack looked off at the horizon, the trees, the fields, the sporadic houses. He wanted to see McCallum Homes all over that horizon, with not a tree, field, or cow in sight.

“It is a beautiful part of the country, Mr McCallum,” said Lanski.

“It could be, Lanski. One day it could be.”

Robert’s mother was shouting.

“Robert! It’s the phone. It’s Jimmy McCallum.”

Robert didn’t feel like moving. He had been lying very still. He bit his lip and got up.

“Have you seen the papers?” said Jimmy. “He’s home now. Thomas Ford. They let him out of hospital yesterday. Fucking strange that, man, the day he goes out was the same day I was in.”

“Aye?”

“Fucking right aye! We need to find out where he lives. Open the phone-book. Look for Ford, T Ford.”

Robert put the phone down and fumbled through the pages of the book. Every few seconds he heard a whistling shriek from the phone. Robert picked up the phone again.

“16 Cromwell Drive,” said Robert.

“Write it down,” said Jimmy. “I’ll be at yours in an hour.”

“I was going to go…”

“I’ll be there in an hour! You better be too.”

The hour went slowly for Robert. His mother left the house to go into town. Robert ate Cornflakes to try to fight the feeling of ominous despair in his stomach. The despair remained and now his stomach gurgled. He had only been a passenger in the car. Now he was an accomplice to death by dangerous driving. No, an
accessory
. Robert opened his mouth. He was sweating. Eight hard raps at the wooden front door. Robert flinched. He walked towards the door and saw, through frosted glass, the silhouette of Jimmy’s high, parrot-like hairstyle, framed against the mid-morning sun.

As soon as Robert opened the door, Jimmy stepped past him, nudging Robert’s shoulder roughly. Robert closed the door and turned to follow Jimmy along the hall to the kitchen.

“Where’s your mum?” said Jimmy.

“She’s out shopping. I was going to…”

“We’ve got to do something about this fucker, Robert. Our freedom is at stake here.”

“Do you want tea?”

“Coffee.”

Robert turned the kettle on. He felt Jimmy’s hand on his arm.

“You’ve not said anything to your mum though eh?”

Robert shook his head. Jimmy nodded, frowned.

“What was the address?”

“16 Cromwell Drive,” said Robert.

“Where’s that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is it not out by that park with the tennis courts?”

Robert shrugged. He was looking for the sugar.

“We can get a map off the internet,” said Jimmy. “Make sure.”

Robert handed Jimmy a mug.

“Ta. Man, this is going to be some trip eh? I am the
Gandolfini
right enough eh? Most people, Robert, they’d just wait around and hope this Thomas Ford man had no memory of our faces, you know? They’d hope and pray and that. But we’re no like them. We’re going to be pro-active eh? Like the
U.S.
Marine Corps. Aggressive strategy eh? That’s how you win!”

Robert took a sip of tea.

“But there was nothing about us in the papers,” said Robert. “Nothing about the car, or us.”

Jimmy grinned.

“Aye, that’s the cops man, being sly. No, Ford must have remembered the car at least. We saw their heads so they saw our heads, even only unconsciously. And the cops will have been on at Ford, in the hospital like. Either he didn’t remember clearly enough, or else he remembered it all clear as fuck, man, and they’re looking for cunts matching our description right now. But they’re keeping it quiet.”

Jimmy gulped coffee, whistled through his teeth, blew out air. He could still feel the hospital drugs in his system, from the day before, some dark substance clotted at the base of his skull. He blinked. He remembered the curve of the breasts on that nurse Karen, under the tight uniform.

“Are you going to work today?” said Robert.

“No, man. No way. No after last time.”

“Is your stomach still sore?”

“A wee bit. Anyway, I’m going round to Lorna’s for a while. But you be ready for nine tonight, Robert, Ok? I’ll be back then. We’ve a job to do. Don’t tell your mum anything.”

Lorna heard the distinctive raps on her door and thought of not answering. But then a wave of guilt passed through her, about the outcome of her advising Jimmy to go to the hospital the day before. She should at least face him. She opened the door to a healthy, grinning Jimmy. He leaned in and kissed the side of her mouth, then her cheek. She found herself laughing.

At exactly 9.30 p.m., the red nose of the Volvo moved smoothly round the corner at the beginning of Cromwell Drive. Robert felt an itch under his skin, at the forearms and armpits, his medication working its way through his system. He yawned vigorously.

“That’s number five there,” said Jimmy. “Sixteen must be one of those big houses at the end.”

The Volvo continued its slow trawl along the road.

“This is like hunting eh?” said Jimmy. “Like that film, The Deer Hunter. One shot eh? Ha man. Right. That’s it. Nice house.”

“There’s a car there.”

“Aye. Her car maybe. They probably had a car each. His car’s at the bottom of the loch and that’s her car, Mrs Ford’s.”

“The lights are on in the house.”

“Aye, well, where did you think he’d be, out partying eh?”

Jimmy pulled the Volvo in to park against the opposite pavement from 16 Cromwell Drive. When Jimmy turned the engine off, the car was suddenly silent. Robert could hear his own breathing.

“What now?” he said.

“Just sit there a minute. Get comfy. We need to settle in and get a feel for the situation eh?”

“Ok.”

Jimmy sniffed loudly. He let his head rest on his seat. He kept his gaze steady on Thomas Ford’s living room window. There were blinds, half-closed, and the edges of purple curtains showing too.

“But what are we going to do?” said Robert.

Jimmy shook his head and sniffed again.

On the other side of the living-room window and the purple curtains, where Jimmy couldn’t see, Thomas Ford was sitting on the lonely brown chair. Alan and Jean, Lea’s parents, were sitting opposite him on the sofa. Mugs of tea sat on coasters, on the glass table between them. Thomas had often forgotten to obey Lea’s rule of using those coasters when she was there to watch. Now that she was gone he was following the rule. Thomas looked at Lea’s father, Alan. Alan was staring at the glass table. Lea’s mother, Jean, was looking straight ahead with watered eyes. Thomas had been explaining to them about Lea’s hands knocking away his own hands, as he had tried to undo her seatbelt.

“She panicked,” said Thomas. “Then the car just sunk straight down. It was all black, the windscreen gave in, the water came. I don’t remember anything after that.”

Alan was nodding. Thomas noticed that Alan’s hair was longer than he had ever seen it before. He looked at Jean’s eyes. They were wet and red, staring at him.

“I don’t remember,” Thomas repeated. “Not until waking up in the hospital, and that was six weeks later.”

Now Alan looked up.

“Mr McPherson has told us that, Thomas. You remember him, the detective who interviewed you?”

“Aye. There was a woman with him.”

“Sergeant Davies,” said Jean. “She’s been awful nice to us, Thomas.”

“Aye,” said Alan, “so they told us about the red car and the two young men you told them caused it.”

Thomas nodded.

“Aye Alan, the only thing about that though, I’m the only one who saw them. That lorry driver saw them, if he’d lived. But it’s just me, and I only remember seeing them for a second, even less, then I had to go across the lorry’s path and into the loch.”

“What kind of car was it?” said Alan.

“I don’t know. Red. All I saw was the bonnet. The driver looked strange.”

“McPherson told us you said he looked like a bird,” said Alan.

“Aye,” said Jean, “that’s what they said, Thomas. They said you said the driver looked like a bird. And that the passenger had a big, square jaw. That they were both young, dark-haired.”

“Aye Jean, that’s what I remember.”

Alan swallowed, nodded.

“Aye, McPherson told us the police have kept an eye out since, you know, for a red car and two young guys like that,” said Alan.

“Right,” said Thomas.

“Are you alright here on your own, Thomas?” said Jean.

Thomas raised his eyebrows.

“Not used to it at all yet. I keep expecting her to come home.”

Jean nodded.

“Aye,” she said.

“None of it makes any sense to me either,” said Thomas. “I’m sorry. I tried to undo her seatbelt. She knocked my hands away.”

Jimmy tensed in his seat as the front door of 16 Cromwell Drive opened. Robert felt some wave of energy pass from Jimmy’s spine to his own, like electricity had leaped the space between them. Two men and a woman were standing on the doorstep of the house. Robert recognised Thomas Ford’s head. The woman hugged Thomas Ford. The man shook Thomas Ford’s hand. The couple walked slowly to the car parked in the driveway.

“It wasn’t Mrs Ford’s car,” said Robert.

“That must be his mum and dad eh?” said Jimmy.

The car reversed down the drive and began a sweeping curve that Jimmy saw was about to bring it head on with the Volvo. Robert and himself would be caught sitting there, silhouetted by the headlight beam.

“Down,” growled Jimmy.

He reached over and grabbed Robert’s thick neck. He pulled savagely until Robert’s face was driven hard into his lap. Robert let out a yelp as the Volvo was flooded with halogen high-beam. Then there was a rumble of engine and the car had passed the Volvo.

“Stay down,” hissed Jimmy. “Ford’s at the doorstep.”

Thomas Ford was standing on the doorstep, looking down Cromwell Drive, watching Alan and Jean move off. His feeling was that so much had been left unsaid, both by himself and Lea’s parents. Not that talk would change anything. He stayed on the doorstep and looked up at the sky. This was the first time he had been outside, alone, for nearly two months. The last time had been during the day, up that abandoned track at Ardlarich, when he had stood and stared at the rusted vehicles. Lea had been there, waiting just down the track. He had seen that weird gas coming up from the earth. Then the butterfly, a white one, Thomas remembered, it had flown straight at his hand, its wings had touched his index finger. He smiled and held up the finger, staring at it.

“What’s he doing?” said Robert in the car.

“I don’t fucking know. I’m just waiting to hear that door shutting.”

“Maybe it’s a quiet door.”

Thomas clenched his hand into a fist, turned, pulled the heavy door closed behind him.

“That’s him in,” said Jimmy. “Have a look, Robert. Make sure he’s no there.”

Robert eased himself up in degrees, until he could see past Jimmy’s hooked nose, through the driver’s window.

“Aye,” said Robert. “He’s in.”

Thomas was standing in the kitchen, running water into a pint glass from the tap. He took a sip and tasted the chlorine. He ran his tongue round his mouth. It was like licking bleach. Thomas gripped the worktop surface. It was a smooth jade area that Lea had picked out. Two stabbing pains coursed through Thomas’ chest. He breathed out and let his knees bend. The glass fell and broke. Thomas felt his right leg getting wet against the spilled water. From the hard floor the kitchen looked unfamiliar, a new set of angles. Beneath the wave of pain Thomas felt the beginning of the panic that had taken over when he collapsed on the pavement. Maybe Radthammon was right. All in the mind. Thomas tried to concentrate on his breathing, instead of either the pain or the panic. Another piercing pain came, but Thomas persisted. He felt himself growing calmer in the stillness. He didn’t want to go back to the hospital.

Outside the house, Robert and Jimmy were trying to walk silently on the gravel path leading up to the front door. Stones crunched under their boots. A woman walked down Cromwell Drive, with a dog, behind them. Jimmy turned to stare at her as she passed the house, but the woman did not see them.

Four more steps and Jimmy had disappeared around the side of the house, into darkness. Robert followed, pressing his hand to the stone wall. He couldn’t see Jimmy now, except as a shape sometimes, against starlight. They entered the garden at the back of the house. Jimmy saw the brightly lit kitchen. No-one was in it. The other long room with patio doors and two big windows, that must be the living room. Jimmy stared. The living room was dimly lit, atmospheric even from out here. Jimmy couldn’t see anyone in there. He stared at Robert and waved an arm at him, meaning that he should stay still until they knew Ford’s location. At that moment, Thomas Ford stood up from the kitchen floor. Robert saw Thomas Ford’s head and back appear suddenly in the kitchen, only feet from Jimmy. Jimmy’s eyes were still on Robert’s face. He saw Robert’s face freeze as Robert looked through the kitchen window at Thomas Ford’s back. Jimmy turned to look at the kitchen.

Thomas was looking down at the broken glass on the wooden floor. He wasn’t sure if he could be bothered clearing it up, not tonight anyway. The pain was gone from his chest, but an odd sensation passed through Thomas’ neck, like an electric pulse. Thomas found himself turning round, to look into the garden. There was the rockery that Lea had spent so much money on. She had loved the mauve, pink and jade stones out there. So proud of them. In the light from the kitchen, Thomas couldn’t appreciate the colours. He would go out there and sit by them tomorrow. He walked past the broken glass and turned off the kitchen light.

Jimmy and Robert were squatting low against the kitchen’s outer wall, their necks bent. Jimmy’s mouth felt dry. He hadn’t expected the intense fear that was in him now. He looked over at Robert as though to take some comfort or steadiness from Robert’s presence. Robert’s face was screwed up, his heavy jaw clenched. Robert’s gaze was focused down at the ground. Jimmy bit his lip. At least the kitchen light was off now. The garden was still lit, but relatively dimly. Jimmy was having to face the fact that he wasn’t at all sure what to do next. It was as though he had relied on some deep predatorial instinct to kick in once they were this close to Ford. It wasn’t happening. Instead, grave doubts were surfacing. Jimmy hadn’t expected Ford’s back and neck to look that thick. Jimmy blinked and stared at the grass. There was something else wrong too. A new feeling. Jimmy hadn’t had time to process it yet and identify it as guilt, the first stirring of guilt for his part in the death of Lea Ford. Robert was staring now, at the silhouette of Jimmy’s head seen against the low wall. At this moment Jimmy resembled a cockatoo or a budgerigar. As though the new inner turmoil in Jimmy had taken secret shadowed form as a puffing of head feathers. Robert imagined his friend about to screech under the starlit sky. He felt the faltering and floundering of Jimmy’s purpose and realised this had never happened before. Jimmy’s inhuman resolve seemed to have deserted him, and if it had deserted Jimmy it had also deserted Robert, leaving them stranded in this foreign garden like broken gnomes.

Inside the house, Thomas Ford was walking up the stairs in stocking feet. He turned on the landing light and opened the bedroom door. There was the pine kingsize bed with the purple duvet cover. Thomas had no intention of going anywhere near it. Instead, he turned off the landing light and laid down on the bedroom floor. The thick carpet was enough of a pillow. The slight chill in the air was a pleasant touch of reality after the standardised hospital temperature. It was better without a pillow. The blood seemed to run down from the feet to the chest and then into the head, the brain, the eyes. Thoughts seemed cleaner, lighter, surer. There was the red bonnet of the car and that bird-faced murdering bastard at the wheel. Thomas tried to imagine a voice for him. He had the bird-face speak words to the square-jawed passenger.
What time is it?
Are we nearly there?
said the bird-face in Thomas’ skull. The voice was shrill, psychotic. No, thought Thomas, I’m stereotyping him, that’s a mistake. He let the bird-face speak in a gentler tone, its pronunciation more succinct.
What time is it? Are we nearly there?
And for the square-jawed passenger…a deep bass surely, except no, why not try a falsetto squeak…
It is 4 o clock…we’ll be there by teatime…

Thomas considered giving them names. No, that would be like admitting they would never really be found and their real names known. Their crime known. Thomas breathed deep. Jean hadn’t seemed to hate him. Thomas wasn’t sure about Alan. He had never been sure about Alan. Alan had never seemed convinced that Thomas was the right husband for his daughter. Thomas frowned and groaned. Hot tears left the edges of his eyes and ran down the side of his head. He remained still, feeling the stinging heat on his face.

In the garden, Jimmy’s internal motor kicked back into gear. He raised his head until he could see into the empty living room. The dim light was still on in there. He stared at the long sofa. Robert watched Jimmy’s head until it turned toward him and shook. Jimmy squat-walked along the wall, then stopped at the patio doors. He raised a hand and grabbed at the doors’ metal frame. He tried to tug the doors apart but they were locked. Jimmy turned and made a shoo-ing gesture at Robert with an arm. Robert started to retrace his steps along the wall. He turned the corner of the house, into the salvation of darkness again.

They reached the Volvo in silence, opened the doors stealthily. When Robert was in his seat, Jimmy slammed the driver’s door and turned the ignition, almost in one movement. He gunned the Volvo’s engine and, on the bedroom floor, Thomas Ford heard the car’s surging, powerful scream. Then, in a burst of acceleration and spinning wheels, leaving rubber on the tarmac surface of Cromwell Drive, Jimmy and Robert were gone.