Bad Music 5
wash your troubles away
Dominic parked the truck right up on the kerb outside the casino. Left the dog there. The casino was closed - according to the times posted on a sign in the curtained window, it didn’t open til six. He checked his watch, it was shortly before eleven. He tried the door and found it unlocked. Inside, without music and lighting and the clink of glasses, the place was drab: the one-armed bandits in the doorway were switched off, the tables in the main room were covered in dust sheets, the roped-off side doors seemed dull and uninviting.
‘Help you?’
He turned. A young woman of maybe thirty was sitting at a desk, doing something on a computer. ‘Hi. Do you know Angus Kerr?’
The woman gave the tiniest flicker of recognition. ‘Is he a customer?’
‘He works here.’
‘Does he?’
‘I’m his dad. Dominic Kerr.’
‘Oh.’ Her shield of lies evaporated. ‘You look like him. Or the other way round.’
‘So they tell me.’
‘I’m Chloe. Casino secretary. Sorry for the fib,’ she said. ‘We get all sorts of people asking for all sorts of things, so I usually deny all knowledge. Angus stopped working here in January.’
‘He did?’
She leaned forward, almost whispering, ‘Slapped a customer. The boss had to fire him.’
‘Why does that not surprise me?’
‘The bloke he slapped properly deserved it,’ she said. ‘Kept groping the waitresses.’ She must have decided something, because she closed the lid of the laptop and glanced across at the counter. ‘Would you like a coffee, Mr. Kerr? I’ll tell you what I know.’
‘That would be great but I’ve left my dog in the truck.’
‘Aww, I love dogs. What breed is he?’
‘He’s a border terrier.’
‘A border terrorist,’ she said, ‘sweet. Go and get him while I pour us both a mug. I’ve got some kibbles in the cupboard.’
‘The punters bring dogs?’
‘We’ve got a blind guy comes in every Sunday night to play poker, brings his Labrador retriever.’
Sainsbury’s was almost empty.
Dominic bought a block of mature cheese and a tray of spiced chicken from the deli counter, and from the alcohol section he picked up six bottles of cheap red wine, the bottles decorated with a kangaroo on the label. From the soft drinks shelves he added a bottle of lemonade in case the wine was bitter or the hangover needed more fluid. As he turned a corner from the alcohol section his trolley collided with another. ‘Sorry,’ he said, automatically, and the identical response came from the other trolley’s owner. Only on second glance did he recognise owner of the voice and really look at the woman he’d collided with. ‘Rawley?’
She peered up at him, and he remembered she was short-sighted.
‘Dominic?’
‘Hey,’ he said.
She gave a warm smile, ‘God, how many years?’
‘A dozen.’
‘More like fifteen. You were back home on leave?’
‘Yeah, I left soon after.’
‘You and Stevie went for a drink, he was so happy you’d come home. I remember picking you up, both of you very drunk, and driving you home.’
His eyes twinkled, he remembered they’d had a drunken snog while her brother Stevie slept on the back seat.
She blushed, remembering too.
‘What’re you doing now?’ he asked.
She did a twirl and he took in the nurse’s uniform. ‘Have a guess. Just finished my shift. Dropped the kids at school, and now I’m shopping. You?’
‘The same, minus the kids and the nursing.’
She looked at him, unafraid, weighing him up. He remembered her open gaze, had always thought it because she was so short sighted, but now he wasn’t so sure. She didn’t look like she was going anywhere in the next five or ten seconds. ‘It’s good to see you,’ he said. ‘You’re looking well.’
‘It’s lovely to see you too. You’re looking very handsome.’ She gave the trolley a rattle and said, ‘I should probably be getting on with this.’
He slowed down his breathing, quite deliberately, said, ‘Well, if you have the rest of the day free, you could always come back to mine.’
She looked at him again, that open gaze of hers, and her eyes twinkled. Then she held up her left hand. ‘Married, sadly,’ she said.
‘Well, belated congratulations,’ he said, adding, ‘I’ll just have to take the pain of rejection.’ He smiled though, like his offer had not just been turned down flat, and she smiled back. ‘It is lovely to see you,’ he said again. ‘How’s Stevie? Haven’t seen him since he moved down south.’
‘He’s well,’ she said. ‘Happily divorced with three kids.’
‘And you have children?’
‘Two,’ she said. ‘Both at school now.’
‘How did you manage to have two kids?’ he said. ‘To me you’ll always be my pal’s sweet little baby sister.’ He paused. ‘That didn’t come out right.’
She giggled, ‘Nope.’
‘I’ll stop digging,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ she said. She moved her trolley out of the way. ‘Bye, Dominic.’
‘Bye, Rawley.’
She walked past him, turned and smiled, then she went around a corner and disappeared out of sight. Dominic didn’t know whether to punch himself in the face out of sheer embarrassment, or leave it til later and give himself a proper smack; his chat-ups were getting worse. Or he was getting older. He was getting older, he decided, and his chat-ups were always shite.
Lured by the smell of baking he decided to buy some bread. Something with a bit of flavour, worth washing down with a bottle of cheap wine. He got to the till a few minutes later, glad that Rawley was nowhere in sight, paid for his stuff and carried the bag of shopping out to his truck. He opened the passenger door, threw the bags into the footwell and slammed it shut.
‘I’ve got two hours,’ a voice behind him said.
He turned.
It was Rawley, sitting on the bonnet of a car.
‘I pick the kids up at three.’
‘Ok,’ he said. ‘My place?’
She shook her head. ‘Follow my car,’ she said.
Chloe looked up, seeing a small, smartly-dressed Asian woman flanked by a tall, handsome African-Caribbean type. Cops, she thought. ‘Help you?’ she asked.
‘We’re looking for the manager.’
‘He’s just got in. Wait a minute.’ She stood and walked to a door, knocked, popped her head inside and said something. Then she walked back towards Khatter and Minto. ‘He’s in there.’
They walked to the door, and entered.
Sleaford stood as the cops entered. These weren’t local plod, he guessed. He held out his hand. ‘I’m Stephen Sleaford, the owner.’
‘DI Khatter, National Crime Squad. This is Detective Minto.’ She didn’t extend her hand.
He wondered if it was intended as an insult or maybe just a cultural thing. ‘Take a seat,’ he said. ‘Coffee?’
‘No thankyou, Khater said, sitting. ‘We’re looking for Angus Kerr.’
Straight to business, Sleaford thought. ‘Angus hasn’t worked her since the beginning of January.’
‘He left?’
‘I had to pay him off. Slapped a customer.’
Minto nodded, as though it confirmed something. Khatter said, ‘Do you have his address?’
He opened his laptop. He tapped in a password then turned his laptop so they could see. ‘Down on the Fell,’ he said.
‘That’s his dad’s address,’ Minto said. Sleaford shrugged.
‘What’s the colour-coding for?’ Khatter asked, meaning the spreadsheet, whose cells were shaded in different colours.
‘Black and white are current staff. Green highlight for those on leave. Red for those who I’ve finished or have left.’
‘Kerr left in January?’ she could see his wages entries had ended six weeks previously.
‘Yes.’
He hadn’t had time or forewarning to change the information, Khatter thought. And why would he? He was telling the truth. ‘Do you have any idea of why we might find him?’
‘No. I was sad to have to give him the push, to be honest. He was usually good with customers. But he slapped a punter, who deserved it, but still, bad for business.’
‘He’s volatile?’ Minto asked.
‘He can get emotional if he sees something he thinks is wrong.’
‘He’s a criminal. His whole life is wrong.’
Sleaford raised a hand to his chin, playing for time, slowing down the conversation. He stroked his bristled chin. Needed a shave. ‘As far as I’m concerned, he turned up on time, did his job and he got paid.’
‘And smacked a customer.’ Minto said.
‘And got sacked,’ Sleaford said. He said, ‘Look, I can’t tell you any more than this, but if I hear from him, I’ll let you know. Whatever he’s done, I want no part of it. When the time comes and I have to reapply for my gaming licence, I don’t want this, whatever it is, coming back to bite me on the arse.’
Khatter took out a card, handed it over. He nodded, gave her one in return. ‘Keep me posted, she said, rising.
‘Will do.’
He watched them leave. Watched them on the CCTV as they walked back through the casino.
‘Was it my smooth talking?’ he asked as he pulled on his boots.
‘That and the fact you have a nice arse.’
‘Ditto.’
‘Ditto? You’ll need to do better than that if you ever want this to happen again, Dominic Kerr.’
‘Rawley Stokoe, did I ever tell you that you are lovely?’
‘Better, DK, better.’
‘Can I ask…’
She rubbed her eyes, suddenly serious, ‘No. He works away. Apart from that, no.’
She was dressed for the school gates now in jeans and a sweatshirt and, looking at her, no one could guess at the lithe curves beneath. She took her phone from a pocket, ‘Give me your number.’
He took out his phone, opened it at his number and she used her own phone to take a photograph of the screen, emailed it to herself, deleted the original. ‘I’ll file you under old friends,’ she said as she pressed a couple of keys.
Then she looked up. ‘Got to go.’
He stood and walked to the door. She didn’t follow. ‘See you later.’
‘See you later, Dominic.’
He stepped outside, walked over to his truck and got in, started the engine, thinking that, now his hangover had gone, he’d quite like to start on the next one.
On the way home he felt the injury nagging again. Rawley, being a nurse, had examined it in a professional manner, firm but gentle, and asked him about it. Did it hurt? At the time, yes. Did it cause any long-term issues? No. Not physically. What was it like being dead for three minutes and twenty-seven seconds? Like, nothing. Not even nothing. Just switched off, then switched back on again with someone breaking four of my ribs while they performed CPR.
That brief moment of inspection, followed by the memory of his own death, his brief non-existence, had aroused him, had aroused her too, so that they finished later than planned, and they’d had no time for drawn-out goodbyes.
There was still no word on Angus. He checked all the social media platforms again to see if he’d replied, but his son hadn’t replied on any of them. He’d even sent him an old-fashioned email: When you need me, you know where I am. There wasn’t much else he could do. He sighed, took out an old iPod from the glove compartment, plugged it phone into the dashboard. It was an old truck but he’d rigged up a sound system. He scanned the track listings. Pressed play.
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