“How long, Karla?”
“Two months, maybe a little more. The first time I met him was six months ago, but nothing happened between us for a long while.”
Tony shook his head and let out a slow breath. “You know what? I should’ve seen this coming. Looking back, all the signs were there. I just never expected this from you. You’re supposed to be one of the good ones. Fuck knows there’s so little of us left as it is.”
“I am one of the good ones. My relationship with Lee is entirely personal. It’s never had anything to do with my work.”
Tony gave me his fatherly stare, the one that made me wither in place. “So you’re telling me the time we searched his garage and came up empty, it had nothing to do with you?”
I turned to him, my expression agonised. “Okay, yes, but that was the only time, I promise. He was with me when you called and overheard the conversation. I never told him anything. It was just bad timing.”
“Can you even hear yourself right now? You’re having a relationship with a known felon. Christ, your own father is working on the case that will put him behind bars. You’re one of my closest friends, Karla, so please listen to me when I say this. You need to get out now before everything implodes around you.”
My voice was barely a whisper when I replied, “I’ve tried to get out. It’s not that easy, especially when feelings are involved.”
Now he looked concerned. “Do you love him?”
“No!” I exclaimed. “Of course not.” A pause. “I don’t know. I’ve never been in love.”
He was quiet for a long minute, and I could tell that his temper was dying down a little as he contemplated things. His voice turned softer. “Look, I get it, believe me, I do. The bloke is charismatic, and, from speaking with him in the interview room, I get the sense he’s out to set his own version of justice on the world. There’s an appeal to that, and in a certain way I can respect it. But when it comes down to brass tacks, that boy lives in a different world from us, Karla, with an entirely different set of rules.”
“I know that, but it’s not been easy for him. He practically raised his brothers all by himself. That family had nothing. If either one of us were born into that, we’d be living by a different set of rules, too.”
Tony stared at me sadly, his breath leaving in a heavy rush. “You do love him.”
I focused on my lap. “Maybe.”
He reached over and took my hand in his. “Listen, I have your best interests at heart. You’re young. I look at you like I would one of my own daughters, so when I say this, it’s with the utmost care. You need to step away and put this in the past. There’ll be other men, ones who don’t hold the ability to wreck your life, your career. You’ll just have to go through the heartache before you can come out the other side.”
I stared at the hand he was holding, completely deflated. Tony was talking sense, and I knew he’d never give me bad advice. He cared about me, and he was right. I had to be the strong woman I always claimed to be and stop seeing Lee for good.
“Are you going to report me to Jennings?” I whispered into the quiet of the car.
Tony let out a gruff breath. “If you promise to end it, then no. I’ll forget this night ever happened.”
“Thank you,” I said, looking him in the eye, and I meant it. This was my final chance, and I had no intention of screwing it up.
The following day I was off work. It was late evening and starting to get dark, and I was on my way back from the corner shop, where I’d gone to pick up a few things. I was walking alongside a row of storage compartments, where some of the locals kept their cars and household tools. There were lots of them around London, because most people lived in flats and didn’t have anywhere to keep extras like ladders and lawnmowers. I kept thinking I could hear feet pounding from above my head, but maybe I was imagining things. Why would anybody be running along the roofs?
Reaching the break between one row and the next, I looked up just in time to see Lee leap through the air, bridging the six-foot gap and making a perfect landing on the next row of compartments. For a second I stood there in awe. The sight was just so completely unexpected, and something about the way he moved niggled at my memory, like an odd sense of déjà vu.
“What are you doing up there?” I called, stopping in my tracks to peer up at him.
When he saw I’d spotted him, he stopped, shooting me a cheeky grin before backing up a few steps, then taking a run and jump to the ground. Whoa. He crouched when he landed, and I couldn’t hide that I was impressed.
“I thought it was only Trevor and Liam who did…all that stuff.” I motioned with my hands, pretending like I hadn’t known.
Lee rose to standing, the grin still on his face as he dusted himself off. “Who d’ya think taught them?”
“Oh,” I breathed, unsure what else to say. I wanted to ask him where he learned, if he ever got scared that he might fall and really hurt himself, but I didn’t. Now wasn’t the time. “What are you doing here?”
“Came to see you, like I said I would,” he replied, stepping forward and taking my hand, his fingers intertwining effortlessly with mine. He was already tugging me forward, relieving me of my shopping bag before I could try to stop him.
“Let go, Lee.”
He glanced at me over his shoulder. “Just give me half an hour, okay? Then I’ll leave.”
Knowing he wasn’t going to take no for an answer, I allowed him to lead me inside the block of flats opposite mine. We climbed almost fifteen flights of stairs before we reached an emergency exit and Lee pushed it open, leading me onto the roof of the building. I pulled my hand from his, not too thrilled to be up so high. I didn’t have a fear of heights, but there wasn’t any proper sort of railing around the edge of the roof, which would make anyone a tad nervous.
Folding my arms across my chest, I shot him a wry look. “You’re not going to try to push me to my death, are you?”
Lee smirked and came to pull me forward once more. I noticed somebody had left an old couch up here, and there were a bunch of cigarette butts on the ground alongside a few empty beer cans. Lee plopped down onto the couch, but I resisted when he tried to pull me down with him.
“I’m not sitting on that.”
Without a word he stood, unzipped his jacket and laid it down for me, leaving him in only a grey long-sleeved T-shirt. Finally, I sat, inhaling his scent on the fabric almost against my own will.
“Well, this is romantic,” I said, heavy on the sarcasm. We were both staring at the view beyond us. It was twilight, not quite day, not quite night, and there were rooftops and buildings as far as the eye could see. Smog hung thick in the sky, another day in the city drawing to a close.
“Glad you approve,” Lee replied. “So, how’d the old guy take it last night?”
“Tony’s forty. He’s not old,” I told him grumpily. Lee slid his arm around my shoulders, and I bristled at his touch.
“You took my jacket. The least you can do is let me snuggle close for warmth,” he flirted, trying to charm me.
Letting out a long sigh, I finally explained, “He didn’t take it well, but he’s not going to report me.” I paused, cocking my head and sliding my eyes to his. “On the condition that I stop seeing you.”
Lee’s expression gave nothing away. “I thought you already had.”
“So did I. But you seem to keep turning up like a bad penny,” I elbowed him in the side.
“Ouch,” said Lee, putting his hand to his chest like he’d just been wounded. A quiet passed.
“Why did you drink so much yesterday? I’ve never seen you like that before.”
His breath came out in a heavy whoosh. “A combination of reasons.”
“Such as?”
Rubbing at his jaw, he answered, “It was the anniversary of Mum’s death. It’s always been a shit day, but it was shittier than usual this year.” With his arm still around my shoulders, he picked up a strand of my hair and rubbed it between his fin
gers. “For one, I was missing you, and for two, I was dealing with the fallout from discovering who beat Liam.”
I let out a quiet gasp. “Who was it?”
Lee looked away and into the distance. “My boss.”
I gaped at him in disbelief. His boss was Tommy McGregor. Lee made a lot of money for the man, so why on earth would he do such a thing? As though he could read my thoughts, Lee continued, “He got an inkling I was fixing to get out, didn’t like that, didn’t like the money he’d lose if I left. So he decided to send a message, showed how he’d hurt my family if I ever fucked him over.”
“Lee,” I whispered, trying to absorb the fact that he was planning to go clean, wondering what his brothers thought of it all. “I know who you work for.”
He exhaled. “I thought you might.”
“So, he won’t let you out of your…arrangement?”
“He wouldn’t at first, but we spoke this morning, made a deal. He’s gonna let me and all my brothers make a clean break.”
“If?” I probed.
“If what?”
“There’s got to be a catch.”
“You don’t need to worry about the catch, Karla. Just know that in a couple weeks’ time, I’ll be a free man.”
I didn’t like the sound of that, not at all. Nobody got out of working for a gangster like McGregor without losing something. You had to pay your way, and often money wasn’t the only currency. I wanted to ask more questions, but I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of him. Instead, I asked what my heart wanted to know.
“Are you doing this for me?”
“For you, and for my family. I never wanted this life for my brothers, but it was the only option in front of me at one time.”
Allowing my body to settle into his, I asked gently, “Will you tell me about it? The life you’ve lived.” I paused before adding humorously, “How you learned to jump through the air like Batman, etcetera.”
Lee emitted a soft chuckle, his hand moving to my stomach and feeling up toward my chest. “You wearing a wire, Snap?”
“Oh, shut up, you know I’m not,” I said, laughing when he tickled me.
His hand paused, his thumb brushing softly over my belly, as his smile turned contemplative. “The first time I met him was a couple months after Mum passed.” Instinctively, I knew he was talking about McGregor. “I’d just nicked some old geezer’s wallet, was halfway down the street when he came out from around a corner. I’d never seen anyone so flash — he had all these gold rings, designer suit, the works. Anyway, I thought I’d been caught, but then he started talking me up, telling me I thieved like a pro, said he had work for me if I wanted it.”
“How old were you?”
“Fourteen. Sounds young, but I know people who started earlier. He asked me where I lived and then began coming around all the time. In the end, I didn’t have a choice but to work for him. Stu got in on it, too, and before we knew it, we were turning over four or five cars a night. London’s a big place, ripe for the picking. The money started to roll in, and it felt good. Being able to feed Liam, Trev, and Sophie, put clothes on their backs and send them to school gave me a high. I could give them something our parents never did.
“There were other perks, too. I could buy nice things, go places, have fun. In the end, supply wasn’t meeting demand, so I had to recruit others. I couldn’t hide what I did from Liam and Trev, and I told them point blank they didn’t have to do what I do. They could go to college, get normal jobs, whatever they wanted. Stubbornness runs in the family, though, and they wanted to do their bit. Before I knew it, we were all fully embroiled in the life, no inclination of ever changing.”
“And the Batman stuff?”
Lee laughed softly. “It’s called parkour, you nerd. I suppose I picked it up sort of randomly. Saw a bunch of Spanish students doing it in Hyde Park when I was about fifteen and thought it looked cool as fuck. So I approached the one who seemed like he knew what he was doing the most and asked him to teach me.”
“Clearly, he agreed.”
“Clearly. His name was Alejandro,” said Lee, camping it by putting an accent on the name. I giggled. “Good bloke. I helped him with his conversational English, and he helped me learn how to drop twenty feet without breaking a leg.”
“I’m sure that came in handy.”
Lee nodded. “My brothers loved it, especially Trev. They all wanted to learn. Believe it or not, I never really set out to use it to my advantage. I just wanted to do something fun. I suppose the whole thing sort of…evolved.”
“Is that why you pretend you can’t do it?”
“Come again?”
“You’re not like Trevor — you don’t show off. I’m guessing it’s for discretion. If you see a man hopping off a building to get away from the coppers, there are only so many people it could be.” Almost as if my own words had led me to it, I realised why I’d had déjà vu watching Lee jump. It reminded me of the video Tony had shown me of the burglar robbing the cash-for-gold scammers.
“There’s that,” said Lee, drawing me from my thoughts. “Plus, Trevor’s a flashy fucker. He can’t help it, really.” He paused to eye me curiously. “What’s wrong? You look like you saw a ghost.”
I shook my head. “It’s nothing, I just…well, no, it’s not nothing. Can I ask you something?”
“Might as well. This already feels like a This Is Your Life interview,” Lee teased.
I mock-scowled at him. “I saw this surveillance footage of a robbery once. I think it might have been you.”
Lee chuckled. “Was I wearing black and white stripes and carrying a sack with a dollar sign on?”
“No. You were wearing a balaclava, and climbed ten flights of a building before swinging down through the scaffolding.”
A tension fell as his eyes shone in the dark, but he didn’t say anything. Somehow, his silence was more confirmation than words.
“The people you stole from were scamming the elderly. You took their things back and anonymously handed them in to the police. Why?”
He didn’t look at me when he spoke, his posture stiff, almost like he was embarrassed. “You know Mrs Spencer who lives on my road?”
“The old woman you saved dinner for, yes, I remember, Lee. That was really sweet, by the way.”
He huffed awkwardly. “She’s a widow. Been living in that house all her life. When we were kids, she used to get on to Mum about how badly mistreated we all were. She’d even give us food when she could afford it. Well, Mrs Spencer told me how she sent her old wedding ring and a few expensive pieces of jewellery off to those scammers, hoping for some money to do her house up. Obviously, she never saw a penny. I found out where the racket was being run from and put an end to it.”
I stared at him, warmth suffusing my insides. “You’re such a liar.”
Lee frowned at me, confused. “Why would I lie?”
“You said you couldn’t understand why I help people with no payback, but you do it, too. You did it for Mrs Spencer.”
“I care about Mrs Spencer. She’s my neighbour, and she was kind to me when I was just a kid. I could give a fuck about your average Joe Soap walking down the street.”
I just smiled at him.
“I’m being serious, Karla. I’m no saint. Don’t go building any fanciful ideas about me. I’ve robbed from people just like those scammers. I just don’t rob from the vulnerable. I rob from the wealthy.”
“High-end motor vehicles, I know.”
“Yeah, well, not anymore.”
“You really want to get out?” I asked, ever hopeful.
Lee emitted a weary sigh. “I can’t stay on the second-last rung of the ladder forever, Karla. You either move up, or somebody else comes along and moves you out, and I don’t want to move up. Liam’s court date is a couple of weeks away, and if he gets sent down, I’ll never forgive myself. Maybe it’s too late, maybe it’ll be all for nothing, but I at least have to try.”
His words gave me confidenc
e. Perhaps I didn’t have to stop seeing him after all, not forever anyway. We could stay apart until everything settled down, and then we could see where this thing went between us.
Lee picked up my plastic bag and began rooting through it. Pulling out the milk, he asked, “You mind?”
I shook my head. “Not at all.”
He opened the carton and took a long swig before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “I’m hung over as fuck, barely got a wink of sleep last night.”
Right after he said it, I noticed the bags under his eyes. He looked tired. Reaching out, I placed a hand to his chest and rubbed. “You shouldn’t drink so much.”
Lee let his head fall back, savouring my touch. “Yeah, tell me about it.”
Sometime between us arriving on the roof and now, the sky had darkened to night. It felt peaceful and quiet up there, civilisation far below us. Streetlights glittered in the sky, cars moving along on the roads in the distance.
“Lee,” I said, my voice seeking as it broke though the silence.
“What is it, Snap?”
“What if something bad happens? What if even after you do everything he’s asked of you, he still doesn’t let you go?”
It was a while before he responded, like he was really thinking about it. “There are dishonourable thieves, and there are honourable ones. Despite everything you might have heard about my boss, he falls into the latter category. If he makes a promise, he’ll stick by it, no matter what.”
I stared at him, not sure if I believed that. If McGregor had honour, then he never would’ve had Jennings beaten, or Liam, for that matter. People like him liked to claim they had a code, but when it came down to it, it was dog eat dog. Or maybe Lee’s version of honour was just a lot different from mine.
He looked at me, his eyes fierce. He seemed very sure of what he said. I just hoped his faith wasn’t misplaced. I hoped his plan worked.
Because I wanted to believe that one day we’d look back on all this and wonder how our lives had ever been so tumultuous.