Chapter 162: The Occupant Has Been Before I

Pemberton looked at the receipt for a while with the water lapping at his chest.

Then he took his hand off the rail and held it out, wet, palm up.

"Help me out, Mr Flynn. I am 90 and I do not answer questions standing in a swimming pool."

Danny put the receipt in his coat and took the old man’s hand and his elbow. Pemberton came up the 4 steps at the corner one at a time, dripping, all ribs and knees in navy trunks.

He sat down on the slatted bench. Danny put the towel round his shoulders and sat at the other end, and the pool went flat behind them.

"The first time was my brother," Pemberton said. "He rang me from the office in Mare Street on a Wednesday evening, 11 years ago. A boy had come in that afternoon with 2 months’ rent in cash in an envelope and a lie about his age."

"And counted it twice in front of him, I bet."

"Twice. Robin wanted to know whether to take it." He pulled the towel tighter. "I said take it, and I would see to the ceiling, since the ceiling in the top flat was on the floor. I found Deniz off a card in a newsagent’s window. I met him on the stairs on the Thursday afternoon, and he had it finished by the Friday night."

Jodie had it right. Hollis rang Pemberton on the Wednesday night.

"Why?" Danny said. "Deniz did a ceiling in that block for you, and it was mine. Nobody else’s."

"Mm."

"That’s not an answer, Mr Pemberton."

"No. It is the answer you will get this morning." Pemberton took his goggles off his cap and folded the strap round them. "Ask me the second one."

"10 October. You rang Priya Anand in the morning, used your brother’s name, and told her I’d be in touch about a café. I’d not even thought about a café yet. And on Thursday you sat in your flat and told me you don’t ring anybody."

"I do not ring anybody to be sent things." The old man’s voice did not change at all. "I rang a solicitor. When one asks, Mr Flynn, one does not give one’s own name. I was taught that in 1958. Robin’s was the nearest name I had to hand, and he was asleep in Hornchurch and would have laughed."

"And why Priya?"

"She wrote my cleaner’s will for 90 pounds, and sent flowers when the cleaner’s husband died. I wanted you to have a solicitor who could not be bought and would not be frightened." He looked at the water. "She has been both so far."

"She nearly dropped me last night."

"Good. Then she is doing her job."

Danny leaned forward with his elbows on his knees.

"Who told you my name? On the morning of the 10th, before I’d done anything at all."

"That I will not give you."

"Is that you not wanting to, or not being let?"

"It is not mine to give." Pemberton said it carefully, as if he had weighed it for years. "I will tell you what I did, every time you ask me. I will not tell you who asked me to do it."

Asked him. Somebody asked him.

"The flat," Danny said. "It’s in 3 companies that go round in a circle. The address on all 3 is Priya’s office, and she never said yes to it. Filed on 11 October. Was that you?"

"No." For the first time Pemberton looked straight at him over the towel. "I have never owned a company in my life. Robin owned companies. I have never heard the names of the ones you are talking about."

"Do you know who has?"

"Mm."

"Priya’s writing to Companies House this morning to have her name taken off them all."

Pemberton’s hand closed on the edge of the bench.

"When?"

"She’ll have sent it by now. Then whoever runs them has to put their own hand to something."

The old man sat with water dripping off his chin onto the towel.

"Then listen to me. If anything comes to you about that flat, a letter, a telephone call, a man at your door, you sign nothing and you agree to nothing until Mrs Anand has read it. However it comes and whoever brings it."

"What’s going to come?"

"I do not know. That is why I am telling you." He stood, slowly, with one hand on Danny’s shoulder for it. "Robin is to be buried a week on Thursday, at the City of London Cemetery, at 11. He booked it himself in September. He held on to your wrist at the end, and I would like you there."

"I’ll be there, Mr Pemberton. In a suit."

"A dark one. Robin would have looked at your shoes first. He sold cars for 20 years."

He went out through the changing-room door in his towel, small and wet and very upright, and the door sighed shut on its closer.

Danny got the pad out on the bench and wrote it while it was fresh.

09:31. Pool. P: Robin rang him Wed night from Mare St. P found Deniz off a newsagent’s card, met him Thurs, done Fri. Why = Mm. 10 Oct call = P, used R’s name. "One does not give one’s own name", taught 1958. Chose Priya himself.

Somebody ASKED him. Won’t say who. Denies the 3 companies. Sign nothing about 40 without Priya. Funeral a week Thurs, 11.

He went back up the page to find where Thursday started.

06:00 Clocked on, 17.09:24 Robin Hollis died.10:00 Clocked off. ￡900k paid.

His thumb stopped on the last line.

Thursday. And Mum’s got a page in her fleece pocket in my handwriting, and it says same day.

He rang her from the lobby with his helmet still in his hand.

"I’m on at 2," his mother said. "If it’s bad, come now."

The walkway in Battersea had the same bike with no front wheel chained to the railings. Upstairs at Denise’s the pipe went knock, knock as he came along. The chain came off before he’d knocked.

She had her work trousers on and the fleece over them, and her glasses on her head. She looked at his face.

"It’s gone up," she said.

"Yesterday morning. 10 o’clock."

"And you’re stood on my step on a Friday." She stood back to let him in. "Kitchen."

He sat on the chair with the wobble. She didn’t sit. She stood at the sink with her arms folded.

"How much?"

"900. Again. It’s 3 million and 16 thousand now, and the bank’s still sat on it, and they let me have 300 of it for food."

His mother waited.

"I’m sorry," he said. "A man died holding my wrist at 24 past 9. Then a man from the insurance went through my wardrobes, then a nurse, then Pat, then Jodie, and I never rang you. I should’ve rung you from the lift at 10 past 10, and I didn’t."

His mother took her glasses off her head and put them on the Formica.

"Who died?"

He told her, in the order the pad had it: flat 17 and the half-brothers, and Robin Hollis who’d signed his tenancy at Mare Street, and the form on the side, and 9:24. Then Pemberton’s envelope with Plasterer on the front, and Deniz turning it over in his hand and saying the name, and where he’d seen it before.

When he got to the ceiling she sat down.

"At Pembury? Your ceiling?"

"Deniz did it. Pemberton paid him on the stairs, cash. And this morning Priya found her name on the companies that own my flat, and she’s writing to get it took off."

"You rang me that first Saturday night." She was looking at the window, not at him. "From a phone box on Mare Street. You’d no credit."

"It stank of piss, that box. I had 40p."

"You said Mum, the landlord’s done me a new ceiling, it’s that white it’s keeping me up. And I said no landlord does a ceiling for a lad of 17. I said it to you on the phone. Somebody’s paid for that, I said."

"I didn’t listen."

"You were 17. You’d a door of your own." She put both hands flat on the table. "Has this Pemberton asked you for anything?"

"Nothing. Not a penny."

"Then you write down every penny he’s ever given you, and the date, and what he said when he gave it. The ceiling and all, 11 years back, if your plasterer’s got a date. If he ever wants it back, you’ll have it in your own hand."

"Deniz is digging his old receipt book out of the loft."

"Good." She was thinking. He could see her doing it, the way she did a rota on the back of an envelope. "And why’s he ringing a solicitor in his dead brother’s name? I’ve rang a hundred people about you in my life and I’ve given my own name every time."

"He says when you ask, you don’t give your own name. Somebody taught him it in 1958. A man in a white house in Kensington, before I was born. He’ll not give me a name."

"Then that’s the one you want." She picked her glasses back up. "The one that taught him."

She’s had that in 5 minutes. Jodie had the Wednesday in 5 minutes.

"Now," his mother said. "Same day. You’ve broke it once."

"I know I have, and I’ll not do it twice."

"So you’ll bring her Sunday. Jodie. Here, for her dinner, at 1. I was last after her about the money and I’ll not be last after her again. And I want to see what she’s like with my own eyes."

"She’ll come, Mum."

"You’ve not asked her."

"She’ll come," Danny said. "She’s been waiting for you to ask since Monday."

His mother opened the cupboard and took down a tin of rice pudding and read the date on the bottom.

"I’ll do a chicken," she said. "Off you go, I’m on at 2."