Double Cross (23 page)

I arrived for my job at TFTM at least fifteen minutes too
early, waiting for the opportune time to put my plan into
action. Inside the restaurant, I saw a few very late-lunch
diners with only a couple of staff visible through the tinted
windows, but they were at the back of the restaurant and
hadn't even noticed me – which was just the way I wanted
it. I stood outside, glancing at my watch, tapping it
periodically and holding it to my ear, strictly for the
benefit of the person who was watching me. 'Cause I was
now in no doubt that I was being followed. And I had a
good idea who was acting as my shadow.

I looked up and down the street, waiting for the right
moment. And I didn't have long to wait. A middle-aged
Cross woman who reminded me a bit of Callie's aunt
Minerva was walking towards me. The woman wore a
dark-grey suit and a mustard-yellow blouse and she carried
a laptop briefcase. Her braids were pulled back and styled
elegantly on top of her head.

'Excuse me,' I asked, stepping in front of her.

'Yes,' asked the woman, slight suspicion in her voice.
But at least she had stopped.

I took another small step towards her. 'I'm sorry, but
my contact lenses are playing up,' I smiled. 'Could you tell
me what address is on this letter please?'

With my back half towards the restaurant window, I
pulled the envelope for Vanessa Dowd out of my inside
jacket pocket and handed it to her. Sidestepping slowly, I
watched as the woman looked down at the envelope. I
had to make sure that she was seen with the letter first
rather than me. She looked at the front of the envelope,
then turned it over in her hand.

'There's no address on this letter.' The woman frowned.

'That explains why I can't read it then.' I grinned
apologetically. 'I'm sorry to have troubled you.'

'That's OK.' She handed back the envelope, looking at
me like my deck was short of more than a couple of
playing cards.

'Thanks anyway,' I said.

The woman hurried on without another word. I looked
down at the envelope and turned it over as the woman
had done. Painting a frown on my face, I looked up, just
as Michelle and Angelo arrived for work. The letter
charade with the suited Cross woman had been for their
benefit alone. I could only hope it'd worked.

'Oh, hi,' I said.

'You're early,' said Michelle.

'My watch is running fast.' I showed it to them so they
could see for themselves, the letter still in my hand.

'Then for goodness' sake buy yourself a new watch,'
Michelle snapped.

'What's that?' asked Angelo, nodding at the letter I was
waving about.

'Oh, this. A woman just asked me to give it to Vanessa
Dowd.' I pointed up the street in the direction of the
woman who'd just left. 'I told her she doesn't work here,
but she insisted that Mrs Dowd's son Gideon did. She
wouldn't take no for an answer.'

'What is it?' asked Michelle.

I shrugged. 'Haven't a clue. Does Gideon Dowd work
here then? Is there any way I can get this to Mr Dowd to
give to his mum?'

Angelo held out his hand. I eagerly handed over the
envelope. Fingerprints. I wanted the envelope to be
covered in a whole database full of fingerprints. That way
I could hide mine amongst many – just in case the Dowds
had the means to check them out.

'I wonder what it is,' Angelo mused aloud before
handing it back.

'So is Gideon Dowd coming here today?' I asked.

'As a matter of fact Gideon will be in later,' said
Michelle cagily. 'He sometimes comes in to do business
with Mr Thomas.'

'Oh, I see.'

'But how did that woman know?' Michelle looked
worried.

I shrugged. 'Michelle, can I give this to you to pass on
to Mr Dowd so he can give it to his mum?'

Michelle wasn't happy, but what could she say? She
reluctantly took the letter from me. From what I'd heard,
Gideon and Owen Dowd both kept small offices
somewhere upstairs in the Club where I wasn't supposed
to go without an explicit invitation or reason. I'd already
seen Owen's office and I was in no hurry to see his
brother's. Evidently Michelle wasn't happy about me
delivering the letter to Gideon in person either. Rather
her than me.

I left TFTM, shift over, in the early hours of Wednesday
morning. At least, because it was a week day, the night
buses were running so I could get fairly close to home.
The bus would drop me about a fifteen-minute walk
from my house, but that was better than having to walk
the whole way. I was grateful for small mercies. The night
was warm like a blanket around me. I looked up. The
moon was a crescent and I could make out the odd star
plus the lights of a plane flying high overhead. But
there was too much city light pollution to see much more
than that.

With a sigh, I started on my way. I'd taken five or six
steps when I heard, 'Get your filthy blanker hands off me.'

I spun round. Charles, a barman who worked up in
the Club, was the one doing the shouting. The object of
his wrath was a middle-aged Nought guy who sat
cross-legged on the ground, a cup in his hand to collect
the spare change of passers-by. On a piece of card in
front of him, were the words: HOMELESS AND
HUNGRY. PLEASE HELP. The homeless guy obviously
wasn't doing very well if he was still asking for change at
this time of night. But catching late-night revellers and
staff heading for home must've seemed like a good ploy.
The seated guy wore a woolly hat, despite the warm
weather, with a plaid shirt and jeans, all assorted shades of
grubby and dark.

'Sorry. I'm sorry.' The guy with the cup raised a
placating hand.

What was he apologizing for? What had he done?

'Don't ever touch me again.' Charles carried on
mouthing off, whilst brushing down the lower leg of his
trousers. I couldn't see anything on them. Maybe he was
trying to wipe off fingerprints. A number of TFTM
employees had gathered around by now, wondering what
all the commotion was about.

'Look at you,' Charles said scathingly. 'You're an
embarrassment. Get off your arse and get a job, you
worthless blanker.'

There were some gasps, but no one spoke.

'And what are you?' asked the homeless man, his gaze
never leaving Charles.

I'd been wondering the same thing myself. Charles was
as white as the homeless guy. As white as me.

'I'm not a blanker, I'm a Nought,' Charles announced.

Behind him, some of Charles's Cross colleagues started
to snigger, a couple of them pressing their lips together
real tight to stop themselves from laughing out loud. The
seated guy stood up slowly, his cup still in his hand. He
and Charles never took their eyes off each other. The
homeless man slowly shook his head. Charles's eyes
narrowed. He stepped forward. So did I.

'Here you are,' I said, handing the homeless guy a
couple of notes from my trouser pocket. 'Go and get
yourself a warm meal.'

The man took my money without a smile. I didn't
expect anything else. Charles couldn't get to him without
shoving me out of the way first, which he was probably
prepared to do. And he had ten years and quite a number
of kilos on me, but I wasn't going to budge – well, not
without him body-charging me first. The homeless man
ambled off like nothing was bothering him, which it most
likely wasn't. I went to follow in his direction, but Charles
grabbed my arm and spun me round to face him. He
glared at me. I said nothing.

'Takes a blanker to know a blanker,' he said softly.

He let go of my arm and marched off. All the TFTM
people who'd been watching the show faded away like a
sigh. In mere moments, I was alone.

Noughts and daggers. Crosses and blankers. Noughts
and blankers. Crosses and daggers. Circles within circles.
Divisions and yet more divisions. No black. No white.
Just myriad shades of grey, one shade for every person on
the planet. I didn't like where my thoughts were leading
me, but my mind was full of sharp things. Sharp words like
blanker, sharp sounds like the Crosses laughing at Charles,
sharp sights of Charles and the homeless guy regarding
each other, and homeless smells and textures like needle
points. Only with Callie could I be comfortable. I shook
my head. Something about the encounter between
Charles and the homeless guy had left me feeling . . .
hollow. I needed Callie to fill all the empty spaces
inside of me. But she wasn't here. At that moment, I felt
incredibly lonely. I hadn't realized until this moment how
loneliness could eat away at you so much that it actually
hurt. I needed to get home. I'd barely taken ten steps away
from the place when an unfamiliar silver sports car pulled
up beside me.

'Fancy a lift?' Rebecca's voice reached me before the
passenger window was even halfway down.

Poking my head through the open window, I grinned
at her. 'Love one. Whose car is this?'

'Mine.' Rebecca smiled. 'An eighteenth birthday
present. Check out the licence plate.'

I took a couple of steps back to do just that. The
registration read BECKS 1.

'Very nice,' I said, wryly wondering what Mum would
get me for my eighteenth birthday in a couple of weeks'
time.

'Hop in then,' said Rebecca.

I did just that, grateful for the car and the company.

Once we were on our way, I asked, 'Not that I'm not
grateful, but how come you're driving when you've only
just had your eighteenth birthday?'

The government had recently changed the law so that
you couldn't even take driving lessons until you were
eighteen minimum. Yet Rebecca had been given a car
for her eighteenth birthday and was happily driving
around.

'Private lessons on private roads for the last year,' she
said. 'I took my test on my birthday and passed. Mum said
if I passed first time I could have a car, I just didn't expect
to get one quite so quickly.'

Oh, the joys of having money. All together now.
Everybody sing!

'So were you at the Club again tonight?' I wondered.

'Nope. I just happened to be driving past . . . Well,
actually, that's a lie. I was waiting for you.'

I stared, stunned. 'Why?'

'I wanted to give you a lift home.'

'Are you thinking of starting up your own taxi service?'

Rebecca laughed. 'Not as such.'

'Why did you want to give me a lift then?'

'I wanted to talk to you again,' said Rebecca, looking
straight ahead.

'About what?'

She shrugged. 'Whatever you like. I don't mind.'

Huh?

'Oh. I see,' I said embarrassed. Slow or what?

We exchanged a brief smile before Rebecca turned her
attention back to the road. I sat back into my seat and
relaxed. Wow! She really did like me.

'It's a shame you didn't come into the restaurant this
evening,' I began. 'It must be International Have-A-Moan
day 'cause we had them all in tonight. We had one guy
who chose the woodland fruit strudel for dessert, then
complained it was too dry. It came with a jug of apple and
cognac custard and I came that close to pointing out that
if he bothered to pour the custard on his strudel, it would
be wet, so what was his problem?'

'I can imagine how that would've gone down,' said
Rebecca wryly.

'Yeah, like a lead balloon,' I agreed. 'But it was so
tempting!'

I spent the next thirty minutes telling her about some of
the other restaurant customers I'd come across so far. It
was very indiscreet, but what the hell. I was very good at
impersonations and voices, and let's face it, TFTM
provided some great material. At one point Rebecca
was laughing so hard, we started to drift across the
road. An angry beep from an oncoming car persuaded
me to tone it down a bit. Finally we pulled up outside
my house.

'Thanks for the lift, Rebecca. And the company. I
appreciate it.'

'You're welcome.' She smiled.

I got out and headed for my front door. Giving her a
wave, I went inside.

The next night, Rebecca was once again waiting for me
outside TFTM. This time I held her hand as a thank you
before I got out the car. When she dropped me home the
night after that, I thanked her by kissing her cheek. The
night after that she turned her head so that I ended up
kissing her lips. It was brief, mainly because she surprised
the hell out of me.

'What was that about?' I couldn't help asking.

'Tobey, for a bright guy you're surprisingly slow about
some things,' Rebecca said, exasperated.

'OK, what am I missing?' I frowned.

She took a deep breath. 'Are you going to ask me out
or not?'

I stared at her. 'D'you want me to?'

'Why don't you ask me and see?' Rebecca said
patiently.

'Becks, I don't suppose you'd like to see a film or something
with me some time?' I asked doubtfully.

'God! I thought you'd never ask.' She laughed. 'If the
kiss hadn't worked, I was contemplating dancing naked on
your doorstep tomorrow.'