Free How to Be Bad by David Bowker Page B

radio was blaring out the news at a volume that a rock festival audience would have found intrusive. Gordon was surrounded by books, not in bookcases but all over the floor and the furniture.
    Whatever Caro said, Gordon didn’t look at all well. With his gray face, bloodshot eyes, white beard, and enormous paunch, he looked the way Santa Claus must look when he arrives home on Christmas morning. We stood in the doorway for a few moments without attracting his attention. Then Caro walked over to him and kissed him briefly on the face.
    â€œOh, hello, darling,” he said.
    He looked genuinely pleased to see her. She nodded over to me. “Dad, do you know who this is? He was my boyfriend at school.”
    Gordon stared at me for a few seconds, looking thoroughly bewildered. Then he started clicking his fingers. “Oh, of course. John … Jim … Jason! You owned a Chinese takeout.”
    â€œDad? Does he look Chinese? No, Dad. This is Mark. Mark Madden.”
    Gordon frowned and shook his head. “No. Doesn’t ring a bell.”
    Caro signaled for me to go away and closed the door quietly behind her. I walked up and down the corridor. The house was freezing cold, although the radiators were on full.
    I walked into a front room, where there was a framed photograph of a younger, dark-haired Gordon digging in a garden. He was smoking a pipe, and beside him, holding up a trowel for the camera, was a pudgy blonde girl-child with a familiar frown on her pale baby face. She must have been about four when the picture was taken. It looked like any happy family snapshot.
    I crossed the room to Gordon’s bookshelf to see if there was anything worth stealing. All I found were shoddy book club editions of the wrong books by the right people. The one exception, amazingly, was a UK first edition of A Clockwork Orange, without a dust jacket. I had never seen the novel in hardback and sat down on the sofa to inspect it.
    I felt someone watching me and looked up to see Eileen standing in the doorway. “Don’t walk away with that. That’s what Caroline does, you know. Every time she comes here, something goes missing.” Eileen brought in a tea tray, which she placed on a rickety table. “I’ll leave this here. Best not to disturb them.”
    â€œOh. Thanks.”
    She smiled to show she hadn’t meant the remark about book stealing, when we both knew perfectly well she had. “Drink it while it’s hot,” she said as she left the room, somehow managing to inject this homely advice with frosty disapproval.
    I poured myself some tea and was settling down to drink it when a door slammed and I heard someone running. Then Caro walked in. She was crying. I put down my cup and held her. “He’s a fucking bastard,” she said. “I hate him.”
    *   *   *
    S HE KEPT me up for most of the night, fretting about her inheritance when I just wanted to sleep. I tried to be sympathetic, but she wouldn’t shut up.
    â€œJust because he wouldn’t give you money doesn’t mean he’s cut you out of his will,” I told her.
    â€œIt does. I know it does. He’s usually given me money before. Suddenly, now that he’s marrying that awful woman, it’s ‘Sorry, dear, but we’re saving for the wedding.’ She’s got her claws into him, Mark. I won’t get a penny.”
    â€œMoney isn’t everything.”
    â€œSince when?”
    â€œIt’s unlucky, Caro. Sitting around waiting for people to die, that’s what vultures do.”
    She sat up in bed. When she spoke again, I could tell she was getting tearful. “I know that, but I’m terrified all the time, never having enough money. Just once I’d like him to be a father to me and look after me.”
    â€œOkay,” I said softly. “I can understand that.”
    â€œSo will you kill him for me? Please?”
    I was glad I was