‘This is an illegal search,’ I say.
No reply.
‘I assume those body-cams have been turned off.’
Again nothing.
‘You are driving an unroadworthy vehicle,’ says the second officer. ‘You will be issued with a Vehicle Defect Rectification Notice. You must rectify the defect and submit your vehicle for inspection by an approved garage. You must return to the police with a completed inspection form within fourteen days, or you will face prosecution. Do you understand?’
I don’t answer. He hands me a defect notice and I get back behind the wheel. The officers are talking to the teenager, who glances nervously at his phone. The footage will be deleted. Evidence erased.
I pull into the traffic and leave the crowd behind me. Tears are prickling in my eyes, making the road blur and shimmer. I wipe them away with my sleeve. I feel soiled and degraded. The bastards! The absolute bastards!
The Royal Brompton has no visitor parking. I circle the surrounding roads until I find a rare parking spot in a side street. As I reverse, another car does a U-turn and darts into the space.
‘Hey, that was mine,’ I yell, getting out of the Fiat and leaving it double-parked with the engine running.
‘Didn’t see you,’ replies the driver blithely. He’s in his early forties, wearing stovepipe jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt. He grabs a man-bag from the passenger seat of his gleaming new Audi.
‘Can you see me now?’ I ask.
‘Pardon?’
‘You stole my spot.’
‘I got it first.’
A red mist now blurs my vision. Almost out of body, I watch myself shoving him hard in the chest, demanding that he move his car. It’s not just the names I call him or my aggression that frightens me. I want to hurt him. I want to break his bones. I want to cause him pain.
White-faced and shaken, he gets back into his car and pulls out of the space, gunning the engine as he departs in a token attempt to restore his male pride. I take the spot and turn off the engine, resting my head against the steering wheel as the adrenaline leaks away.
38
The nurse in the recovery ward has one of those warm plump faces that makes her look like a kindergarten teacher or a librarian. She gives me a mask and gown to wear.
‘Don’t be shocked by his appearance. This is major surgery.’
‘Did it go well?’
‘Three bypass grafts. He was four hours on the table.’
‘How was his heart?’
‘There was some damage, but he should be fine.’
My father’s bed is empty. For a moment I fear something terrible has happened, but the nurse pulls back a curtain and I glimpse a pale figure with wispy hair sitting in a chair beside the bed. Both his thighs are bandaged and there are multiple tubes taped to his arms, chest and groin. He looks like a puppet held upright by strings and when he raises his right hand, I wonder if someone has operated a pulley.
‘You’re looking well,’ I say.
‘I look like shit,’ he replies. ‘I want to go home.’
‘Seven days if you’re lucky,’ says the nurse, who is checking one of the drips.
A Black male orderly arrives with a walking frame. He and the nurse help Daddy onto his feet and urge him to grip the handles of the frame that takes his weight.
‘OK, Big Mon,’ says the orderly. ‘Once around the dance floor.’
‘I don’t like this song,’ Daddy moans and I watch the pain force his eyes closed.
He slides his right foot forward a few inches, props for a moment, then his left foot. The drips come with him, wheeled on a trolley. When he reaches the end of the bed, he pauses, breathing hard. It’s like watching a stop-motion puppet being painstakingly moved between frames. Shuffle. Pause. Click.
‘That’s enough for today,’ says the orderly.
‘I can make it back.’
Daddy tries to turn, but overbalances. Hands reach out. He brushes them away. Stubborn old bastard.
When he finally reaches his chair, I feel as though I’ve walked every step with him, twenty-six miles, uphill, into a raging headwind. He is lifted back into bed. Exhausted, he mumbles something to me, which is too slurred to be coherent. I lean closer and kiss his bristled cheek, before whispering in his ear, ‘It’s official.’
One eyebrow lifts quizzically.
‘You have a heart.’
As I’m leaving the recovery ward, I bump into Daragh and Finbar, who are deep in conversation outside the lifts. They stop talking abruptly and Finbar smiles so widely it must hurt his face.
‘How’s the guvnor?’ he asks.
‘Fine. He wants to go home.’
‘Can he?’
‘No. What are you two talking about?’
‘Nuffin’，’ replies Daragh.
‘Do you often talk about “nuffin”？’
The lift opens and two suits emerge wearing nametags. Middle-aged white men, at the top of their career ladders. One is the hospital administrator and the other the head of security.
‘You had something to discuss,’ says the administrator, who introduces himself.
Daragh glances at me, clearly not expecting an audience. ‘Could we go somewhere more private?’
Finbar reads the signals.
‘Let’s get a coffee,’ he announces, hooking his arm through mine.
‘Why? What are you discussing?’
Before I can stop him, the lift door closes and we’re heading downstairs. Finbar tries to change the subject, asking me about the wedding, but I won’t be fobbed off.
‘Why does it involve the head of security?’
Finbar shrugs, playing dumb. I pinch the skin on his wrist, like I did when I was a child and demanding that he produce the tickling spider from his pocket.
‘Ow!’ He rubs the redness.
‘Tell me or I’m going straight back upstairs.’
‘We’re concerned that Eddie might be vulnerable.’
‘How?’
‘There are people – cunties all of them – who may use this time to make a move against our whatnots …’
‘Businesses?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Other property developers?’
‘Yeah. Right. Law of the whatsit, you know.’
‘Jungle?’
‘Exactly.’
‘Are you saying he’s in danger?’
‘No, no, no, yeah, maybe. Better to be safe than sorry, as our dear old dad used to say.’
‘He died in prison.’
‘That’s what I mean – you can’t trust anyone these days.’
‘Are you talking about a turf war?’
He shrugs non-committally. ‘No harm in taking precautions, eh?’
We are downstairs in the foyer. Finbar points to a café. The tables are set far enough apart for our conversation to be private, but he makes sure to sit with his back to the wall, where he can keep an eye on the main doors. Force of habit.
‘What’s the real reason?’ I ask.
He sighs and leans forward.
‘Some Grub Street hack took a swim in the Thames using bricks as floaties. They’re trying to pin it on us.’
‘Dylan Holstein?’
Finbar’s eyes are no longer hooded.
‘You know him?’
‘I was there when the police found his body.’