Free Wasted Years by John Harvey

cranial cavity and damage to the ossicles of the middle ear. He was sedated, mostly sleeping, being fed by means of an IV drip. In one rare moment of apparently clear consciousness he asked a student nurse what had won the 3:30 at Southwell; in another asked why his wife, Florrie, wasn’t there to see him. When the ward social worker made inquiries, she discovered that Florence Foreman had died in 1973, having contracted pneumonia after a fall in which she had dislocated her hip.

    Rebecca Astley had been prescribed an anxiolytic by her doctor, which she had purchased in the form of Diazepam from her local Boots. Now she was lying on the settee in the living room of the flat she shared with a management trainee from Jessops, a duvet wrapped around her to keep her from getting cold as she alternately watched an old John Garfield film on Channel 4 and re-read the Barbara Taylor Bradford she’d bought for the flight to Orlando. She didn’t think anyone from head office would be round to see her so soon, but just in case they did, she had put a little makeup on her face and made sure her best dressing gown, the one with the lavender braiding, was close to hand. She only hoped that neither Marjorie nor Lorna had taken the opportunity to make her look bad; Marjorie she could trust, but Lorna … she made it a rule never to speak ill of anyone, but Lorna Solomon—it wasn’t just that she was common, that wasn’t altogether her fault, what she didn’t have to be was such a bitch.
    “Where d’you get it all?” Keith asked.
    “All what?”
    “All this money, what d’you think?”
    After spending the best part of an hour and more change than Keith could count on video games in the place above Victoria Street, they were sitting in Pizza Hut, waiting for the waitress to bring their order.
    Darren winked. “Got it from the girl, didn’t I?”
    “The one you picked up in Michael Isaacs?”
    “Which other girl is there?”
    “What’d she want to give you money for? She cut your hair, you should have paid her.”
    Darren reached under the table and cupped his crotch in his hand. “She got paid all right. Couldn’t get enough.”
    The waitress, trying not to notice the way Darren seemed to be fondling himself, put down their Meat Feast Supreme and left them to it.
    “Then you wouldn’t know a lot about that, eh, Keith?”
    Keith made a face and lifted a slice of pizza on to his plate, reached for a tomato from the help-yourself salad Darren had piled high as he could, gluing the ingredients together with blue cheese dressing.
    “Day comes, you get your cock out of your hand and up some slag’s twat she’ll think she’s been stung by a gnat and start to scratch.”
    “I’d be pleased if you’d moderate your language,” said a woman in a red hat, turning round from the booth behind. “There are young children here who don’t want to hear that kind of talk.”
    “Oh, yes,” said Darren, on his feet to get a better look at the family scene, mother and grandma and a couple of kids under ten wearing school uniform. “And where d’you think they came from, then, if it wasn’t some bloke slipping a paper bag over your head, getting you bent over the bed, and fucking you rotten?”
    The trainee manager was keen, only her second week in the job, there in a flash. “Sit down, please, sir. If there’s some kind of a problem …”
    “What it is, Delia,” Darren said, reading her name off her badge, smiling, “my friend and I, we ordered two portions of garlic bread to go with the pizza, the garlic bread with the cheese topping. Seems to be a long time coming.”

Twelve
    When Lorna saw Kevin Naylor come through the door of the building society office something inside her gave a clear and definite lurch. Mind you, something like that had been happening pretty much every time anyone came in, right from when they’d first opened. Her mum had told her last evening when they’d talked on the phone, take a few days