Chapter 157 - 17 II

Pettit was on the pavement outside the bronze doors at 7 exactly, in a grey suit and a navy anorak, lanyard turned round, a clipboard under his arm. He was heavy-set and grey with a moustache, and his eyes were red at the rims.

"Mr Flynn."

"Mr Pettit."

Danny held out his licence. Pettit looked at it, at him, at it again, and wrote.

"You came out of the lift."

"I’m working on the 17th floor till 10. Sitting with a resident’s brother. He’s 94, he’s in a hospital bed, and the resident swims at 9 and won’t leave him on his own."

"Are you a carer?"

"No."

"Who employs you?"

"I’ll not lie to you," Danny said. "I can’t give you a name for who pays me. I get sent where I’m needed and I’m told the address at half 5. That’s what I said on Tuesday, and it’s what I’m telling you this morning."

Pettit wrote for a while. A bus went over the bridge behind him, hissss, on the wet.

"That’s going on the file in those words."

"Good."

"How long have you lived in 40?"

"Since October. Before that, Pembury House in Hackney, 11 years." Danny took out the red book and the soft folded sheet. "My landlady’s rent book for the last 2 of them. And my first tenancy, signed by the man who owned it then. He’s upstairs. He’s who I’m sitting with."

Pettit unfolded the tenancy and read it slowly, with his pen behind his ear. Then he looked at the licence again.

"This says you were 18 when you signed it. Your licence says you were 17."

"I lied to him. He knew I was lying and he gave me it anyway."

"Why did you need a flat at 17?"

"Because I needed a door of my own," Danny said. "And that’s as far as I’m going on a pavement, Mr Pettit."

Pettit looked at him for a moment, and then he wrote that down as well.

"They’re the first things on your file dated before October," he said. "2 of them, 9 years apart, both with your name on." He gave them back. "Could I speak to the man who signed it?"

He’d have to come up, and through that door.

Is anything a dying man can tell him worth putting him on that list for?

"He’s 94 and he’s dying," Danny said. "Ask me again on Monday."

"10 o’clock, then," Pettit said. "I’ll be in the lobby. I’ve a train."

In the lift going back up, Danny texted Jodie.

7:09. He’s seen me. Licence, Adaeze’s book, and my first tenancy from when I was 17, out of an old man’s bureau on 17. The man who signed it is the one I’m sitting with. He’s dying.

It came back before the doors opened.

Same day. Good. Sit with him properly. And I’m still thinking about 10.

From 7 till 9 Robin Hollis slept, and woke, and asked the time, and slept again. Pemberton did the crossword in the front room in ink.

At half 7 he called through.

"Mr Flynn. 7 letters. Put aside for later."

Danny went to the doorway.

"Shelved."

"Mm. It fits." Pemberton wrote it in. "You did crosswords?"

"My nan did. I read her the clues."

"Then sit there and read me mine. Robin is asleep."

So he sat on the arm of the settee and read clues. Pemberton got 6 of them and Danny got 2.

"Summoned, but not by name," Danny read. "8."

"Mm. Let me think."

"While you’re thinking," Danny said. "You asked in the way you were told to ask. Who told you?"

Pemberton’s pen stopped over the grid.

"A man in a white house in Kensington," he said. "A long time before you were born."

The gas fire ticked.

"I’ve been in a white house in Kensington," Danny said. "In October. It paid me for walking in."

"I know you have." Pemberton wrote 8 letters into the grid without looking at the clue again. "Read me the next one, Mr Flynn."

"Who was he?"

"Read me the next one."

He read him the next one. At 8 Pemberton brought toast in triangles on a plate, and did not sit down with it.

"How long have you known?" Danny said, with the plate on his knee. "About this morning."

"A fortnight. The doctor came and said a fortnight, and Robin moved in here so as not to do it on his own in a flat in Hornchurch." Pemberton did not look up from the paper. "If he goes while I am in the water, Mr Flynn, do not fetch me. Let me have my lengths. He will still be gone at 25 past."

At 9 o’clock Pemberton came out of his bedroom in the navy cap and a dressing gown, with a towel over his shoulder and flip-flops in his hand.

"25 past," he said. "Water’s on the side."

The front door shut.

Hollis was awake, watching him.

"He’ll have told you I sold Pembury," he said.

"Your brother signed it. He said you weren’t well enough."

"I was well. I didn’t want to be in the room." The thin voice stayed flat. "I’d had them 4 blocks 30 year. I’d had you in ’em 9 of those. I let him do it."

"Why sell?"

"Because he told me to. I always done what he told me. He’s the clever one, our mum said so."

"And why did he tell you?"

"You’ll have to ask him, son. He never said. He said sell it, Robin, and make sure whoever has it keeps the tenants." Hollis’s breathing clicked. "Did she keep you?"

"Till October. Then I left."

"Good. That’s all he wanted." He closed his eyes. "Water."

Danny held the glass and Hollis drank 3 sips. His fingers came up and rested on Danny’s wrist while he drank, and stayed there.

At 9:18 the click in his breathing went away.

At 9:20 the breaths went further apart. Danny counted them. 6 seconds. 10. 15.

Ring the desk and get Pemberton out of the pool? He said don’t. He said let him have his lengths.

999? There’s a yellow form on the side that says no.

So what’s left? Sit here. Is that what he asked for? Somebody here when it happens?

Danny took the old man’s hand off his wrist and held it properly instead.

At 9:24 the next breath did not come.

Danny sat with him. The gas fire ticked in the other room.

At 9:26 he took his phone out with his other hand.

9:24. He’s died. I was holding his hand. His brother’s in the pool. He told me not to fetch him.

I’m so sorry. Stay with him till his brother comes. I love you.

He read that twice. She had never said it before.

Say it back now, one-handed, with your other hand in his? Or say it to her face?

He put the phone back in his pocket.

At 27 minutes past 9 the front door opened and Pemberton came in with his hair wet under his cap, smelling of chlorine.

He stopped in the bedroom doorway.

He looked at his brother, and at Danny’s hand, and at the glass. Then he took his cap off.

"What time?"

"24 minutes past. He had water at 18 past. He had hold of my wrist. He didn’t look in any pain."

Pemberton nodded. He came and stood at the foot of the bed with the cap in both hands.

"Thank you for not fetching me," he said.

"You asked me not to."

"I did." He looked at his brother. "And I swam 40 lengths knowing it might be this morning, and I would do it again. Sit with me a minute, Mr Flynn. You have until 10."

Pemberton rang the nurse’s number from the phone on the hall table. Danny could hear him from the bedroom.

"This is Mr Pemberton at the Sterling, flat 17. My brother died at 24 minutes past 9. There was somebody with him, and he was not in pain, and nobody tried to bring him back, as he wished." A pause. "Yes. 11 o’clock is soon enough. He is not going anywhere."

He came back and sat on the end of the bed.

"Do you want me to stay till she comes?" Danny said.

"You have until 10. After that you have a man with a train." Pemberton looked at his brother’s hands on the sheet. "Robin sold cars in Romford for 20 years before he bought a single brick. He could not spell tenancy. He kept a bad dog and a good wife and he outlived both of them, and he did whatever I told him for 94 years, and I never once told him why."

"Why not?"

"Because he never asked." Pemberton stood up. "You ask, Mr Flynn. You ask a great deal."

The clock in the hall went the quarter.

At 2 minutes to 10, Danny stood in the hall with his coat on.

"Mr Pemberton. He said you told him to sell Pembury, and to make sure whoever bought it kept the tenants. He said you never told him why."

"That is true."

"Will you tell me?"

Pemberton opened the door and held it with one hand on the brass.

"On another morning," he said. "This morning I have a brother to telephone people about."

Danny’s phone buzzed.

[ Clocked off. 10:00. ] [ Shift complete. 4 hours. ] [ Grade 4 wages: 900,000. Paid. ]

Paid into what? Payments in will still be received. Into an account somebody in compliance is reading line by line. Another 900, this morning, from the same nowhere.

Pemberton watched him read it, and did not ask.

"Go on," he said. "Your man is in the lobby."

Danny texted Jodie in the lift going down, because he’d said 10.

10:00. Off. Another 900 paid in on top of the rest. His brother’s back and he’s rung the nurse. Pettit now. I’m ringing you after, not texting.

The lift went down 17 floors with his first tenancy in his pocket.

Pettit stood up from the lobby sofa with his coffee and his clipboard.

"10:04," he said. "You said 10."

Danny took the soft folded sheet out and held it open, so Pettit could see the signature at the bottom.

"The man who signed this died on the 17th floor at 24 minutes past 9," he said. "I was holding his hand. Come up and look in my wardrobes."