Reversed Forecast / Small Holdings. Nicola Barker

in his chin.

      ‘I’ve come about the bail,’ he said, stepping out of the doorway so she could get to her door.

      ‘Why?’ she said. ‘What did I do?’

      He smiled at this. While he smiled, it dawned on her. ‘For him? You must be joking. He expects me to pay his bail?’

      ‘He told me that you were the closest he had to a relative.’

      Ruby’s startled expression made him laugh out loud.

      ‘You’re just a sadist,’ she said, ‘in a bloody police uniform.’

      ‘In case you wondered, I got your address from your manager. He said this was a company flat.’

      Ruby felt around in the pocket of her jacket for her keys. ‘I’m not paying his bail. I don’t even know him.’

      ‘That’s up to you. He’s got no money of his own.’

      She put her key into the lock. ‘I never even met him before today.’

      ‘You must’ve made a good impression.’

      ‘How much is it, anyway?’

      ‘Two hundred.’

      She pushed the door open. ‘He can sing for it. You can tell him that.’

      ‘I will.’

      ‘Is that all?’

      He nodded.

      ‘Thanks, then.’

      She stepped inside, then turned. ‘Where is he exactly?’

      ‘The local nick.’ He began to grin. ‘You’re going to pay it, aren’t you?’

      ‘Even I,’ she said firmly, ‘am not quite that stupid,’ and closed the door behind her.

      Two hundred, she thought, climbing the stairs. He’s crazy.

      She’d almost reached the top when she heard the doorbell chime inside her flat. She swore, turned round, and walked back down again to answer it. Outside, instead of the policeman, whom she’d half-expected, was her friend Pablo. Everyone preferred to call him Toro. She didn’t know why. He was holding two bottles of cheap lemon vodka. Ruby took a bottle from him and inspected the label. ‘What’s wrong with Martini or a crate of lager?’

      Toro smiled, his cheeks bunched up and the pressure of them squeezed his eyes into almonds. ‘I saw you at Hackney,’ he said, ‘on television.’

      ‘Yeah?’ She turned and started to walk upstairs again. ‘Where? In Ladbrokes? How did I look?’

      He slammed the front door and followed her. ‘Completely beautiful.’

      ‘Thanks.’

      Once inside, Ruby took off her jacket and slung it over the back of the sofa, then flung herself into an armchair and scraped her heels across the floor to pull off her shoes. She wriggled her stockinged toes and said, ‘Maybe I should grow my toenails and paint them, then I could wear sandals and my feet wouldn’t sweat as much.’

      Toro looked slightly disgusted. ‘Why was the shop closed this morning?’

      She didn’t answer immediately, so he searched for the volume percentage of alcohol on the label of one of the bottles he was holding.

      Ruby’s flat was comfortable but shoddy. It consisted of a small sitting-room and adjoining kitchen, with an old Baby Belling, a sink and a fridge, a tiny bathroom and a small box-shaped bedroom. The walls were painted a uniform creamy yellow which gave the place a distinctly institutional feel. The furniture was old but solid. Ruby had few homely or ornamental possessions, but a lot of clothes and records. The records lined one wall of the sitting-room and items of clothing, clumps of accessories and numerous pairs of boots and shoes had been tossed about with general disregard. The room was dusty.

      Toro unscrewed the top of a vodka bottle and asked for some glasses. Ruby picked up a couple of dirty mugs and went to the sink to give them a wash. She couldn’t find a clean tea-towel to dry them with so used a bathroom towel instead. Toro grimaced at them. ‘The mouth of these mugs is too thick.’

      ‘Not mouth, lip. You should know. You’re the wine waiter.’

      She banged the mugs on to the floor next to his feet and sat down again while he poured. He half-filled both mugs and then handed her one. She took a sip, pulled a face, but said nothing. Two hundred quid, she thought.

      Toro was over fifty and poorly though smartly dressed in a grey suit and old shirt. He was small and slightly overweight, with dark black hair, greased back, and sallow cheeks. His eyes were hooded, red, but lively. She’d never seen him clean-shaven, but often smelled aftershave on him - a whiff of cinnamon and spearmint. He worked in a restaurant, but spent most of his time gambling.

      Ruby told him about Vincent and he listened intently. She concluded, ‘I’ve never even met him before, but now he expects me to fork out two hundred in bail money.’

      ‘That Dawn’s a bitch.’

      Ruby wasn’t receptive to this. She didn’t want to feel implicated. Even so, she said, ‘I’ve still got the money I won on the National. I’ve got at least two hundred left. I wanted to use it for something sensible, to invest it … I dunno.’

      Toro bent over and screwed the top back on the bottle. ‘You were lucky for me this morning. I bet on the two dogs you were with at Hackney. Won both times.’

      He indicated the two bottles with a smile. Ruby smiled too; not at him, but to herself.

      They were Donald Sheldon’s dogs,’ she said. ‘He came over and had a chat. He said he’d offer me a job full-time if he got the chance. Took my number and everything. I told him I’d sooner be a trainer than a kennel-girl. Lots of women do it, you know.’

      Toro chuckled. He said, ‘A big dog in a place like this?’

      She scowled. He offered her the bottle again. She gulped down her vodka in one go and passed him her cup. While he poured she visualized Donald Sheldon. Top trainer at Hackney, she thought, remembering how he’d put his hand on her arm as he’d spoken to her. Creepy. Sexy. Too old for me, and too flash.

      Toro was watching her face. ‘Don’t pay that bail,’ he said, misinterpreting her thoughtful expression.

      ‘What?’

      ‘He’s taking you for a fool.’

      She stood up and went into the kitchen, took a coffee jar out of the cupboard, opened it and removed a bundle of notes.

      ‘Toro,’ she said, suddenly feeling lively and quite purposeful.

      ‘What?’

      ‘You’re full of bull.’

      In the bathroom, she applied a thick coat of bright red lipstick, licked her teeth to ensure it hadn’t smudged on them, stared into the mirror at her own simple, stupid face, and mouthed the word moron.

       Four

      Sam was peering through the kitchen window, trying to see if Steven was outside yet and what kind of car he drove. Brera was clearing the table. Sam said, ‘He drives an old Jag. I wonder what that means.’

      Brera piled a cup on to a plate, a cup on to a plate, a cup on to a plate. Spinal column, she thought, vertebra, disc, vertebra, disc. She carried them carefully over to the sink, slipped them into the soapy water and then peered out too. ‘Your problem,’ she said curtly, ‘is that everything always has to mean something. I like him.’

      ‘That’s simple enough,’ Sam said, wondering what Brera meant exactly.

      Steven was debating whether it would be