The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 10

HANDY MAN by John Harvey

IT WAS HIS hands I noticed first. Really took in. Broad, dependable hands. A ring on the wedding finger, dull gold. And the nails, surprisingly even, rounded, no snags, not bitten down; no calluses on the fingers, such as you might expect from a working man, a man who worked with his hands. Only the suggestion of hard skin around the base of the thumb, hard yet smooth.

Harry.

A simple name. Straightforward, simple.

The things I knew about him later: time he’d spent in the army, Northern Ireland, Iraq. Things he would never really talk about, just hints, nightmares, dreams. His anger. Not so simple really. Harry.

Nine years I’d been living in the house then, the first time I set eyes on him. Nine years since the divorce and then all that business with Victor, and I suppose it’s true to say for the last two or three years I’d let things go. Easy enough to do when you’re living on your own. The cupboard door that won’t open without a tug, and once the handle’s snapped off, won’t open at all; the window that’s permanently stuck; the shower that leaks; the wardrobe rail that keeps collapsing under the weight of all too few clothes.

I must have mentioned something to Marie over lunch, just as a way of making conversation, how things seemed to be falling apart. The second Tuesday of each month, that’s when we meet. Years now. The Yacht Club, where she’s a member, or the Blue Bell down by the river. Every month, save for November when she and Gerald go off to their timeshare in Florida, and, recently, June, which these days they tend to spend with their daughter and her family somewhere near Lake Garda. Otherwise, it’s a nice white wine, not too dry, chicken escalopes, pumpkin risotto or Dover sole, and then rather too much about Gerald’s progress, greasing his way up the slippery pole of investment banking. Although, to be fair, she’s been quieter on that front of late. What we’ve had are the grandchildren instead. First words, first steps, potty-training disasters that are meant to elicit laughter, photos of chubby faces, each, to me, indistinguishable from the other. Isn’t he gorgeous? Isn’t she lovely?

I do my best, I really do. Make an effort to show some interest, manifest concern. Marie is my best friend, after all. Just about the only one I still have since all the hoo-hah of the divorce, the dirt that Squeegeed out on to the front page of the local paper. What kind of a woman is it who argues for financial parity over the custody of the children? A woman who was clearly no better than she should be, that’s what. A husband’s long-term adultery with his secretary more acceptable than a wife’s dalliances with a PR client on a jolly to Cap d’Antibes. All of that before Victor had slithered on to the scene.

And so because she’s stuck with me all this time, I do try, between the crème brûlée and the coffee, to share Marie’s delight in her burgeoning family. But children, other people’s children, I’ve always found it hard to warm to, and where grandchildren are concerned, well, I’m just not ready. I mean, I am, of course. Chronologically, biologically – but mentally…

It’s one of the great advantages of marrying early, Marie says, not like so many women today: you have your grandchildren when you’re young enough to enjoy them. Maybe. But there are other things I feel young enough to enjoy and they don’t include a return to nappy changing or singing “Baa-Baa Black Sheep” for the umpteenth time.

Which led, I suppose, to Victor, a black sheep if ever there was one, though a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And then to Harry. Poor Harry.

“What you need,” Marie told me solemnly, after yet another report of some small domestic malfunction, “is a handy man.” Straight-faced, not a trace of innuendo. “Here, look…” And from her bag she took a business card, not new, turned down a little at the corners.