“Good morning, my friend, how are you today?”
Imran smiled as he spoke the same eight words with which he always greeted Dan.
“Not too bad, not too bad.”
Always the same reply. And the same two packets of cigarettes waiting on the counter, forty Mayfair, the same Daily Mirror along with them. Dan handed over the twenty-pound note, waited for his change, and said his thank yous and goodbyes.
Dan McCoubry had become a man of small routines and rituals, his days shaped by a strict schedule that rarely varied. Fags and paper in the morning. An hour in the gardens of St. George’s Square if the weather was dry, back home in the kitchen with a cup of tea if it wasn’t. Cheese on toast and an apple for lunch. The William Hill bookies by the tube station at two, then over to the White Swan on Vauxhall Bridge Road for a pint at three. Maybe a second pint, but never more than that. After that, he’d head home for his tea, apart from Fridays, when he’d buy fish and chips on the way. Then an evening spent with four cans of Guinness and a few whiskeys. As often as not he’d fall asleep on the couch, the TV spewing whatever shite was on, and he’d wake in the early hours and stagger to bed.
Routines and rituals, every day much like the last. Which was why, this morning, Dan became aware of being followed along Lupus Street on the way to St. George’s Square.
He kept his head down as he walked, his paper tucked under his left arm, his right hand in his coat pocket, holding the two packets of cigarettes. Don’t run, he told himself. Then he gave a quiet laugh. Run? At his age, and in his shape? Jesus, he’d collapse before he got ten feet.
Dan paused at the top of Ranelagh Street, looked around to check for cars turning into the corner. He waited for a van to exit the junction. Checked again, saw the man slow down, trying to look casual.
Forty-ish, Dan thought. Tall and dark-haired. Casually dressed, good clothes. He wasn’t a paramilitary, he was almost certain. They would never wear good clothes unless it was a disguise. He didn’t have that look about him, whoever he was. Maybe a cop? No. Not that either.
He crossed the junction and kept walking, weaving among the other pedestrians. All suits and designer handbags. Pimlico had been a shithole when he moved here thirty years ago, given one of the council flats in Churchill Gardens. Back then it was ordinary people, decent people, who lived and bred and died there. Now it was full of rich bastards pushing out the poor bastards like him. Gentrification, they called it. There was nothing gentle about it.
Dan found himself getting angry. For a moment, he thought it was at the injustice of losing this neighbourhood to the fuckers with the money. Then he realised he was angry at being followed, at being found. Not that he lived in hiding, but he’d always kept to himself, avoided drawing attention.
His first months in London had been spent in near constant fear, so bad that he’d had to go to the doctor with his nerves. Every man on the street had a pistol hidden beneath his coat, every shadow held a watchful spy, every footstep behind was a quickening approach. But he got over that fear. He had to. There was no choice in the end. He changed in that first twelve months, was hardened by it. Neither the cops nor the MI5 people would look out for him. He had to do it for himself.
Now he reached the pedestrian crossing at the stop of Clavenden Street, the green man already flashing, no need to stop. Which was a pity, because it would have been an opportunity to look around, get another gander at the man who followed as he was forced to draw close.
No such luck. He kept going, keeping his space as steady as his age would allow. Short of breath now, but not struggling. Not yet. He felt his heart knock, breathed in deep through his nose, out through his mouth, getting all the oxygen he could.
The crowds thickened towards the crossing at the Square, the church across the way. People heading for Pimlico tube station, the fancy offices on Vauxhall Bridge Road, or across the river. They bunched beneath the lights. Dan turned his head, tried to get one more look at the follower, could only make out a vague shape at the edge of his vision. He was smart, holding back, but not too far, being polite, letting others step in front of him. The light changed, and Dan let a few people stream past him until their annoyed excuse me, pardon me, do you mind, became too much.
Dan crossed knowing that if he stopped right now, in the middle of the road, the follower would probably slam into his back. He considered it for a moment but changed his mind. Don’t show your hand too soon, he thought. Fewer people on the pavement leading down the long side of the gardens. Hardly any at all, and now the follower’s footsteps rang clear because there were no others to hide them. Dan slowed. The footsteps slowed. He sped up. So did they.
He reached the gate halfway down the gardens, the one that opened onto the path, the path that led to the fountain at the centre, surrounded by benches. That was where Dan most liked to sit, smoking a fag, reading the paper, listening to the flow and bubble of the water.
But not today.
Today was different.
Jason paused at the gate as it swung shut behind his father. Yes, it was definitely him. Long Dan McCoubry. Not so long now, slumped with age as he was. That had thrown him when he first saw the old man two days ago. All these years, his father had been fixed in his mind at young middle age, hair still black and thick with Brylcreem, always flopping over his eyes to be pushed away with hard thin fingers. Jason summoned that image. The shirtsleeves rolled up. A cigarette behind his ear. Skin red from working in the sun.
But this old man. His skin was almost as grey as his hair, his face sunken. The pallid, lined face of a smoker, his thinning white hair yellowed at the front by the nicotine.
It had been easier to find him than he’d expected. He’d had all sorts of notions about witness protection programmes, new identities, but in reality they’d just set him up in a flat here thirty years ago and let him get on with it. Jason had gone to an old school friend who was now a detective inspector in the PSNI, given him the full name, date of birth, and the knowledge that his father had gone to London. Less than twenty-four hours later, his friend had come back with two men by that name. A little checking, including a peek at the DVLA database, and the one in North London was discounted, leaving only the man Jason had followed to these gardens.
Two days he’d been watching. Just to be sure. No, that was a lie he’d been telling himself. It had nothing to do with certainty, it was beyond certainty. The truth was that he was afraid.
Of what, exactly?
That he’d got the wrong man? The worst that could happen would be a shrug, a sorry, you’ve got the wrong bloke, mate. No, that wasn’t the worst. The worst would be if he had the right man, but the right man told him to go, leave him alone. Jason didn’t know if he could take that. Didn’t know how he might react, tears or rage or both.
Open the gate, Jason told himself. Open it and walk through. Catch up with him. Tap his shoulder. Call his name. Call him Dad. Whatever, just do it.