said.
‘Yeah, I know, it’s like the Wild West out there,’ the girl muttered, her nose already back in the book.
The Tree of Knowledge
It had been so late by the time they had unravelled the events of the day that Crystal had suggested to Jackson Brodie that he should stay the night at High Haven. Tommy’s expensive malt whisky had been a factor too, of course. Neither of them were serious drinkers and the whisky swiftly did its job of temporarily numbing the trauma of the kidnapping, and the pair of them – plus Brodie’s dog – had shuffled up the stairs afterwards like zombies to their respective beds.
Tommy had come home in the early hours. The unmistakeable sound of the Navara pulling into the driveway had woken Crystal and she had listened to the garage door opening and closing, followed by Tommy banging about downstairs, doing God knows what. All went quiet for a while and then he appeared suddenly at the side of the bed – she could tell he was making a futile effort to be quiet – and gave her a kiss on the forehead. He smelt the way he did when he’d been out in Andy Bragg’s boat – diesel oil and something brackish like seaweed. She had murmured a greeting, feigning sleepiness, and he’d whispered, ‘I’ve got a few things on today. I’ll see you later, love.’
She wondered how he would have felt if he had known there was a strange man and a dog tucked away out of sight in one of the spare bedrooms. Despite her conclusions about Jackson Brodie’s general incompetence, Crystal felt safer with his presence in the house, although she would never have admitted that to him.
Once upon a time, Tommy had been the solution for Crystal. Now he was the problem. You were before Tommy’s time with them, Fee had said. Tommy had no idea about his youthful shared history with Crystal. It would be funny, wouldn’t it – funny peculiar, not funny ha ha, as Harry would say – if for a moment in time in those bad old days their paths had crossed, slipping past each like sliding doors. One of them into that life, one of them out of it. Tommy might even have arrived in Bridlington on the same train that she had left on. Perhaps they’d walked past each other on the station platform, him all cocky with his new job with Bassani and her with her cheap Miss Selfridge handbag stuffed with Carmody’s dirty money. Crystal running away from her past with Bassani and Carmody, Tommy running towards his future with them. But then she remembered that he said he’d got his first motorbike when he was seventeen. ‘My first set of wheels.’ And just look at him now. He was all wheels. Wheels spinning everywhere.
She thought about that second phone. Fresh stock due to dock at 4.00 am … Consignment on its way to Huddersfield … Unloaded cargo in Sheffield, boss. No problems.
Haulage, Fee had said. That’s the nice word for it.
Nothing to do with the lorries at all, or the cargo they carried. Tommy was dealing in a different kind of trade.
Which was worse – Bassani and Carmody’s old regime of abuse and manipulation or the cold-blooded lies of Anderson Price Associates? Apples and oranges. Two sides of the coin. Pleasure and business. Tommy, Andy, Stephen Mellors, they had all worked for Bassani and Carmody after she got on that train that took her away from them. Tommy had been young, almost a kid himself, when he hooked up with Bassani and Carmody. Did that make him less to blame in some ways? He had been a bit of muscle for them, someone who could lean on people and keep them in line, keep things running smoothly for the big men at the top. Now he was one of the big men at the top and blamelessness didn’t come into it.
Crystal heard Tommy leave, in the S-Class this time, by the sound of it. A man getting a fresh horse to ride out on. The house settled back down into sleep, but within its walls Crystal remained wide awake. High Haven. A haven was a safe harbour. Not any more.
What a wally. Didn’t he realize that she could see him on the CCTV? Jackson Brodie was nosing around outside. He even disappeared into the old wash house for several minutes. God knows what he was doing in there, he’d better not