Thicker Than Water

‘But he got there £t hd ain the end, didn’t he? Got the both of them. Anita and her fucked-up kid, too. Fantastic, eh? A real Hollywood happy ending. Except that Anita still couldn’t stand him, really. And her brat thought cutting pieces out of himself was the best game in the fucking world.’

‘Pot, meet kettle,’ I said.

Steve stared at me, half mystified and half annoyed. ‘What?’

‘Kenny was a self-harmer, too.’

The annoyance won out. ‘No, he bloody wasn’t. Kenny cut lots of people in his time, but he never cut himself.

‘I saw his body, Steve,’ I pointed out.

‘So what?’ Steve demanded, unimpressed. ‘I’m telling you, Kenny never cut himself. It used to drive him apeshit when the kid did it. He gave him a proper fucking hiding whenever he caught him at it. The last thing he’d do was . . . you’re full of shit, Castor!’

His indignation at this slur on Kenny’s memory was overriding even his sense of self-preservation. The receptionist was now talking on the phone to someone, casting urgent glances in our direction.

‘Forget it,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t matter. If Kenny found Mark so creepy, why did he let him stay on after Anita bailed?’

‘No idea,’ Steve said. ‘But I can tell you it wasn’t for love. What he had going with Anita was fucked up seven ways from Sunday, and we’ve all suffered for it. But the kid he just despised.’

That blew one theory that had been growing slowly at the back of my mind: that Mark had been Kenny’s kid, belatedly acknowledged.

I was about to ask Steve to explain the little crack about suffering, but at that moment two building security guards in ever-serviceable black uniforms lumbered into view behind him, separating to approach me from opposite directions. It seemed like I’d worn out my welcome.

"I stood, raising my hands in a shrug of acquiescence. Far be it from me to make any trouble. ‘Well, it’s been a pleasure, Steve,’ I said. ‘Using the word in the sense of “worth the bus fare into town”. Good luck with the law.’

‘You can drop dead. You and your bastard brother,’ Steve riposted. The word ‘brother’ almost stuck in his throat, it came out with such a freight of bristling hatred.

‘I’ll tell him you said hi,’ I promised.