Chapter 180: Next of Kin II

He got down off the chair and took the kettle out of the Turkish shop’s carrier bag, with the sticker still on it, and filled it at the sink, and switched it on.

Then he rang his mum while it heated. She picked up on the first ring.

"Did you find him?"

"St Thomas’. A woman took him in and left. He’s on a ward, he’s eating. They’ve put me down as his next of kin."

"You." She was quiet for a second. "Well. Somebody had to be. Is he warm?"

"They’ve got him in a gown and he hates it."

"Take him his own pyjamas," his mother said. "A man that age wants his own pyjamas. And ring me tonight. And Danny, Sunday. Don’t forget Sunday."

"I’ve not forgotten Sunday, Mum. There’s a thing I need to ask you."

"Then ask it Sunday," she said, and went to her shift.

Jodie came and stood in the kitchen end of the room in nothing but his shirt, with her hair all over the place, her legs bare and her nipples showing through the cotton in the cold from the open window. The kettle was ticking and hissing behind her.

"You promised me something last night," she said. "Before I’ve had a sip."

"I did. On that ceiling."

The kettle clicked off. I made her tea, milk and 1 sugar, and put the mug in both her hands, full to the brim and too hot to drink.

"Don’t drink it," I said. "Don’t spill it either."

She looked at me over the top of the mug.

"You’re joking."

"Turn round and hold it over the counter."

She turned round, holding the mug in front of her in both hands, and I put my palm flat between her shoulder blades and pressed her gently forward till her forearms were on the edge of the worktop, with the mug between them, steaming.

I lifted the back of the shirt up over her arse. There was nothing on under it. I ran my hand down over the curve of her and between her legs from behind, and found her slick and swollen and ready for me.

"Danny," she said. "The tea."

"Hold it still. Both hands."

I stroked her slowly, up and back, circling her clit with my middle finger and never quite staying on it, and she held the mug still and breathed through her nose. Then I got my jeans open and took my cock out and fitted it to her from behind, and pushed in slow, all the way, and she said fuck into the steam coming off the tea.

I held her by the hips and fucked her against the counter, slow and deep at first, and the mug shook in her hands and didn’t spill. The window was open behind us and the cold air was on my back and her arse was warm under my hands, and every time I went deep the worktop knocked the wall.

"I can’t," she said. "I’m going to spill it, I’m going to..."

"Then hold it tighter."

She laughed and moaned at the same time. I reached round her and slid my hand up under the shirt and took her tit and squeezed it, and pinched her nipple, and went harder, and she pushed her arse back onto me to meet every stroke.

I got my other hand round to her clit and rubbed it hard while I fucked her, and her legs started to shake.

The tea went first. Her hands opened and the whole mug went over the worktop and down the cupboard doors in a hot brown wave, and in the same second her cunt clamped down on my cock, and she cried out with her forehead on the wet counter and didn’t care about any of it. I held her hips and kept going through it, and a few strokes later I came, deep and hard, my balls pressed tight against her.

She stayed bent over the wet worktop, breathing.

"I spilled it," she said.

"You came first, though. That was the deal."

"Before a sip." She turned her head and looked at me over her shoulder with her hair in her face, and grinned. "Make me another one. I’ve earned it."

At half 9 Danny rang the funeral director off the card Pemberton had given him and told them where their client was. The woman on the phone wrote it all down and said they’d send the car for Thursday to whichever address he gave them on Wednesday.

Then he rang Priya and told her about St Thomas’ and the next of kin.

"Good," Priya said. "Write down that you agreed and the time. Next of kin is not a legal position, Mr Flynn, whatever the hospital form looks like. It does not give you his money or his flat or his decisions. It gives you a telephone call at 3 in the morning, and a chair by a bed. Those are worth having." The biro went. "And if he asks you to sign anything in that hospital, you ring me first. Anything at all, even a menu."

At 2 o’clock in the afternoon his phone went gold on the windowsill while Jodie was wiping the cupboard doors down.

[ A shift is available, host. ] [ Monday. 10:00 to 14:00. ] [ Grade 3. ]

He stood and looked at it.

Jodie came and read it over his arm, with the cloth still in her hand.

"Monday at 10," she said. "Danny, that’s the same morning the policeman’s going back to that black door."

"I know. Hale said Monday."

"So while PC Hale’s knocking in Kensington, you’re somewhere else for 4 hours where nobody can get hold of you." She put the cloth down. "Somebody’s picked that morning. I want to know who."

He typed.

Who asked for me?

[ That is not a question the Concierge is able to answer. ]

He didn’t type anything else. He didn’t confirm it either. He put the phone face down on the sill next to the blue cup.

"Are you going to go?" Jodie said.

"I’ve not said yes."

"That’s not what I asked."

"I don’t know yet. It’s a Grade 3. It pays. The bank’s sat on everything else, and I’ve got a shop opening in March and 2 people’s wages coming." He looked at the phone. "And if I say no, somebody else on their list goes instead, wherever it is. Or nobody does."

"Ask Pemberton," Jodie said. "He’s been sat in that hall on and off since 1958. He’ll know what a Monday shift at 10 means."

At 6 o’clock Victoria ward smelled of gravy and hand gel. Pemberton was in the bed by the window with the crossword folded on his knee and a biro borrowed off the nurse, and a cup of tea on the table across the bed that he hadn’t touched. The drip was gone. There was colour back in his face. Danny put a carrier bag on the end of the bed with a pair of striped pyjamas in it, still in the packet, from the market on the way.

Pemberton looked in the bag.

"My mother," Danny said. "She said a man your age wants his own pyjamas."

"Your mother is right." The old man put the bag beside him on the blanket. "The consultant tells me Monday. I have told her Sunday. We will see who is stronger."

"How are you feeling?"

"Like a man who sat in a hall for 2 days and a night without a glass of water at the age of 90. I shall not do it again." He looked at Jodie. "You have tea on your sleeve, Miss Carter."

Jodie looked at her cuff and went red to the roots of her hair.

"I spilled some," she said.

"Mm," said Pemberton.

Danny sat down on the chair by the bed. He’d made his mind up on the Vespa not to say a word about the shift.

"I rang your funeral people this morning," he said instead. "The 11 o’clock on Thursday’s still on. I tell them by Wednesday where you’ll be, here or the Sterling, and the car comes for you there at 10."

"Thank you." Pemberton picked up the crossword, and then put it down without looking at it. "And on Monday."

Danny went still in the chair.

"What about Monday? I’ve not said anything about Monday."

The old man looked at him across the hospital table with its untouched tea.

"In the night, in that hall, I heard her on the telephone," he said, very quietly. "I was on the chair with my eyes shut, and she thought I was asleep. She said 3 short things, and then she put the receiver down. I have been saying them over to myself ever since, so as not to lose them."

"Why didn’t you tell me last night? In A&E?"

"Because I was not sure, last night, that I had heard it and not dreamt it. A man of 90 who has sat in a chair for a day and a night hears a great many things." He folded his hands on the crossword. "By this afternoon I had said it to myself 200 times, and it had not changed by one word. So I knew it was real."

"What did she say?"

"Monday. 10 o’clock. The host goes to the one who asked for him."