by Dave Lacey
“Ambrosii, you must go quickly. Now!”
“Where?” He looked lost.
“I don’t know, but you can’t stay here.” He had hold of Ryabukha’s arm with both hands. “Put him down now, my friend,” he said more gently.
“You saw he gave me no choice?” There was an edge of panic to the big man’s voice.
“I know, but you know they won’t see it that way. Scum though he was, he has friends here, and they will have their revenge, one way or another.” He gave Ambrosii a meaningful look.
Then Ambrosii had dropped the body and run, his large frame hindering him in his flight for sanctuary. His friend had told him he would meet him later. He must first go home and collect his pregnant wife, and whatever he could carry. They were not able to take much, and there was no time to explain to Marija what had happened. She had held him still, looked in his face and known they must flee. They met Aleksandr a mile from the docks, as arranged. His colleagues had agreed to help in the short term – they would not raise the alarm for the time being, but eventually it would come out.
They had covered the body, and Aleksandr had gone straight to a container ship in the dockyard. The captain was his sister’s husband, a good man. He told him part of the story and asked if he would take Ambrosii Ryabukha and his wife to their destination port. After much persuasion and reassurance, his brother in law relented. At ten o’clock that same night, Ambrosii stood at the stern railing of the container ship as she set sail for the New World. As he waved to his friend, a man he would later make very rich, it occurred to him that life was terribly precious and could be taken away from you when you least expected it. He vowed not to let anybody have such a great impact on his life ever again.
Ryabukha had set up his illicit business around his new job at the docks of New York. Over time he built up quite an empire. Of late he had made great inroads into trimming back that side of his business, and placing more emphasis on the legal side. He was trying, but hadn’t yet achieved it fully. When Zefram had made it clear that he wanted to follow his father and adoptive father into the business, Ambrosii had baulked. He had raged for days, fighting every argument Zefram threw at him with an argument of his own. It was simply not permissible. Of course, he lost in the end. The threat that the boy would just go elsewhere to break into the underworld was, ultimately, too much.
Ambrosii acceded, but in the back of his mind he had made the decision that he would make the business legitimate and one day hand over the running to his protégé. That would never happen now. He stood with his back against the door and allowed his grief to wash over him in great, racking sobs. He couldn’t remember the last time he had cried like this, and he didn’t care. Somewhere deep within him, a tiny burr formed. It spun and spun, growing all the time, until his innards writhed and a feeling of deep unease spread through him. The burr became a thought, and each time it confronted him, he pushed it further away. He knew he could not ignore it forever; he knew that eventually it would force its way to the forefront of his mind, overpowering every other thought until there was no respite.
Repress it though he did, he knew what it was. It was the uneasy feeling that he was responsible, that he could have prevented this from happening. It was not the natural reaction that most people have to the death of a loved one, the reaction that says we should have done something, said something which would have made it all okay. This was guilt, plain and simple. Ryabukha cried harder, but now he was crying for his boy and for himself. For his daughters who would no longer speak to him. For his grandchildren. There was nothing he could do now. It was already too late.
He knew they would come for him too eventually, and tried to consider who else might be drawn in. He thanked God his girls were not involved. The thought was there now, like a terrifying half-seen presence in a childhood nightmare, prowling at the edge of his vision. He knew why Zefram was dead. He hadn’t killed himself at all, and sooner or later the police would discover that too. It really was his fault. Why had he told him, why hadn’t he just kept it to himself? It was coming, and nothing he could do or say would make any difference to that, including telling Zefram about it. It was coming, and there wasn’t anything that anybody could do about it.
Chapter 7
Manchester, England.
Jack arrived at the Moondance Club at five thirty on Wednesday evening. It was one of Alphonse’s businesses, a club on Canal Street in Manchester city centre. It was not open to the public at this time, but he hoped the club manager was already on the premises. He had run a background check on Kathy Clancy after speaking to Alphonse’s friend. She had come up squeaky clean, which, considering she was an associate of a known criminal, was surprising. It was already dark, and Canal Street was largely empty. He rang the bell and waited for an answer.
“Yes?” came the impatient female voice over the intercom.
“Evening. This is Detective Jack Sumner from Manchester CID. I’d like a few words if that’s okay with you?”
“I’ve spoken to your colleagues twice already, Detective, and I’m a very busy girl.” Busy and rude it would seem.
“I appreciate that, I really do, but I need to speak to you all the same. We can do it here, or–”
“Or down at the station? Really, that old chestnut?”
“Afraid so. I really can’t think of anything more sophisticated.” Jack’s irritation was tempered with a mild amusement.
The buzzer sounded, and Jack heard the mechanical click as the catch was released remotely. He pushed the door wide and made his way to the bar area.
“Hello, Detective, how can I help?” She was all business. Katherine Clancy was a tall, slim, very attractive brunette. She had large azure blue eyes, which gave the impression she could read the very darkest recesses of your soul. At the moment she stood two steps above Jack and held her head at a canted angle while she waited for him to speak.
“Look, I’m really sorry to bother you, but I need to run a few things past you. At the moment we have very little to go on, and anything that does look like a lead turns out to be of little use.”
“Okay, what do you need?” Though trying to maintain an air of professionalism, Ms Clancy looked a little fragile. She had dark blue smudges under her eyes.
“We’ve discovered almost nothing about Alphonse’s private life. There seems to be nothing in his phone to indicate that he had one, and nobody that we’ve talked to has been able to tell us much about it either. It’s like he never had one, and I know that he must have, because he was young and liked a good time. We both know that.” Jack looked at her, arching a quizzical eyebrow.
“Do we? I’m not sure what it is you’re driving at.”
“I’m just trying to say, he was young, he had money, he had a club, for God’s sake. Yet, according to friends and his electronic footprint, he was a monk.”
“He was no monk, Detective, but he wasn’t into anything weird either.” Jack was trying to figure out the reason for Ms Clancy’s current hostility.
“I didn’t say he was. I’m just frustrated at the lack of information at hand. Can you help?”
“Yes, I think so.” She seemed to come to a decision internally. “He was very, very protective of his private life. He saw it as just that, private. It was none of anybody’s business what he did or who he saw. I think, if anything, he was still a little embarrassed about the whole being gay thing. And I think he was worried that the two worlds might overlap and cause problems further down the line.” She paused. At least it looked like she was thawing a little.
“Did he say that to you? Did you talk about this stuff?”
“We talked. I’m a good listener. I don’t know of too many other people who he shared this stuff with. I’m sure there aren’t many. He had terrible luck with relationships. He fell in love way too quick and easy, and then generally got treated like a doormat. Hard to believe, I know, but he was a real softy.”
“Did he ever get aggressive with anyone, anyone who
might have exacted revenge? Or someone whose family may have come after him?” Jack had been watching for any little tell tale signs that she was hiding something, but so far there had been nothing obvious. Clancy chuckled.
“No, Detective, you’re not listening. He was a great big cuddly toy when it came to relationships. He would never harm anyone he was seeing.” She paused. Jack thought she was deciding whether to go on. He waited. “In fact,” she continued, “there were times a few years ago when it was the other way around.”
“What about rivals? Was there anyone you can remember seeing, or who he might have talked about, that could have done something like this?”
“You know as well as I do that he was involved in some shady dealings. Is it possible that somebody wanted him dead and carried it off? Of course it is, are you kidding? But if you’re asking me if there was anything that I knew of which might have caused this, the answer’s no, I don’t think so, though I can’t be certain.”
“Okay, let’s go back to his private life. Who is he, or was he, seeing recently?”
“That’s a tricky one. I saw the guy once for about two minutes. He was standing by the internal entrance doors and I was at the end of the bar, over there.” She indicated a distance of around thirty metres. “So I never got that good a look at him.”
“You weren’t introduced then?”
“No, never. I only ever met two of his boyfriends. They weren’t my favourite people if I’m honest. Saying they were up their own arses doesn’t do them justice.” She looked liked like she had just tasted something sour.
“Names?”
“Now you’re asking. Robert was one of them, Sean the other I think. It’s really difficult to recall. I didn’t see them much, and what I did see I didn’t like. This kid was different though. He seemed shy, from a distance anyway.”
Jack had a list of names from Alphonse’s phone in his pad, and now he scanned it looking for either a Sean or a Robert. He found neither.
“What makes you say he was shy?” Jack looked up from his pad after asking the question.
“I see a lot of people in this job, so I’ve become quite a good judge of character, in a very short time. In the same way that I knew the other two weren’t off the top shelf, I knew this one was a little lamb.”
“That’s an odd way of putting it, a ‘little lamb’?”
“Sorry.” She smiled. “Alphonse used to say that I had an odd way about me sometimes. But, yes, that’s how I saw him. A gentle soul.”
Jack went on to ask how often the two had seen each other, and how much time they actually spent together. For the next ten minutes, the two of them discussed Alphonse’s private and working lives, or at least as much as Kathy knew about it all, or was prepared to tell him. It became obvious that she was a capable woman, but that she did not stray too far into the darker side of her former boss’s dealings. The club was legitimate, as far as he knew, and it was the only part of the empire that she was involved in. But, in terms of his private life, she felt that she probably knew as much as anybody did, but that really wasn’t saying much.
“I really know very little, but I’m almost certain that there won’t be anybody else who knows any more. He was incredibly guarded about that side of his life, and, as I said earlier, I think he was still a little hung up about being gay.”
“Was he hassled about it? Did he ever get into any trouble?”
She chuckled. “He was always in trouble, Detective, but very rarely out of his depth. He was a very capable boy, and he was fearless most of the time. That’s what seems so strange about him going out this way.”
“What way is that?” They hadn’t released many details about the exact circumstances surrounding Alphonse’s death, so Jack became more attentive.
“Oh come on, it was no accident, and he didn’t kill himself, so somebody did something.” Kathy was the one who arched an eyebrow this time.
“We don’t really know at the moment, so I would appreciate it if you kept your theories to yourself for now.” Jack gave her a stern look. She chuckled.
“Okay, okay, don’t fret. I didn’t get where I am by being a gossip.”
“What will you do now?”
“You mean now that my boss is no more? I don’t know. I have friends in this area and they’ve offered me work before. I suppose it depends who ends up with this place on their plate, so I may take my chances till then.”
“So in the short term I imagine if I need to speak to you again you’ll still be here?”
“Yes, that’s right, but I’ll give you my mobile just in case.” She jotted down her number in his pad, and then followed him to the front door. They bade each other goodbye at the door, then Jack stood to get his bearings on the cobbled street. He had come away with a lot less information than he had hoped. Sure, Kathy had confirmed that Alphonse was seeing somebody new, but the lack of matching names in the mobile list from those given him by Kathy was slightly dismaying. Although the possibility that he had stopped seeing them and had already deleted them from his phone was very real. As he stood there thinking, it started to rain, heavily. He took one look at the heavily laden skies above, turned up his collar and crossed the road toward the clubs and bars away from the canal, heading for his car.
Chapter 8
Jack was deeply puzzled by this whole affair, not to mention the fact that Kathy Clancy had near enough guessed at how Ngwenye had died. She was a sharp one, and he could easily see why she was working, or rather had been working, for Alphonse. He briefly entertained the notion that she may have been involved in his death, then cast it aside. She didn’t seem the type, and from first impressions it seemed her ambition was reserved for her chosen career path. Still, it wouldn’t do any harm to dig around in her past to see if she had any sort of record. It was really coming down now, and he broke into a run as the rain assailed him. He climbed into the car and took a moment to himself, trying to put his thoughts into some sort of order.
A gay, successful criminal had been murdered, or at least initial thoughts pointed that way. He owned a club, among other things, and he wasn’t into anything too nasty, but he’d had run-ins with other gangland bosses who were not risk averse either. On the surface of things, it did not seem like he had any sort of private life, which in fact was not true – he did. He was not known to have been violent with any of his partners in the past, although there was no proof either way on this. He hadn’t known, or so it seemed, that he was being lined up by the police for arrest, so it didn’t seem plausible that this had any bearing on his death. Jack put his thoughts aside, started the car and turned the heater up to full tilt in a vain attempt to clear the windows.
The two detectives had visited Alphonse’s apartment in the hope that there would be something there that would lead them to the enigma that was his private life. Along with a number of representatives from the GMP uniform division, they had gone through everything, and had found nothing they considered useful. The entire apartment was devoid of anything even remotely incriminating. Jack had a sly thought in the back of his mind about a possible reason for the lack of private life on his phone, but it also had come to nothing. He set off for the office and called Smithy en route.
“Sumner,” Smithy answered.
“Smithy. How’s it going?”
“It’s not really. This is an arduous task suited to somebody who is both tenacious and intelligent. I have yet to find that person.” His boredom came through with every word.
“I see that at least you’re maintaining a stiff upper lip.”
“Okay, smart arse, what did you find out?”
“I think we should talk about you a bit more.”
“Nothing then? I thought so.”
“Yeah, not much really. Nice woman, ambitious, and very capable it would seem.”
“Single?” His interest had been piqued.
“Climb down, boy, she’s too classy for you. She revealed a bit, but nothing tangible. No name of Alphonse’
s most recent boyfriend, but forenames of his last two, whom she didn’t care for.”
“No name for the current one? That’s mental. Somebody must have met this guy, and somebody must know his name!”
“Well, if they do, they’re playing their cards very close to their chest. And I can’t think of any good reason why they’d do that.”
“This little job I’m undertaking is a mess, a big, dirty, depraved mess. These people are scum, and I’m ashamed to have them linked to our city.” There were times when Smithy was serious, and when he was he was generally quite prudish. Smithy had been at HQ, chasing up the names that had come out of the newspaper articles incriminating the local officials and celebs, trying to tie them in with any possible criminal connections. At the moment it looked like that was the most likely avenue for investigation. All in all, it was a cesspit that reeked of corruption. Coupled with the fact that revenge is a dish best served cold, it was beginning to look like an obvious motive for murder.
“I know, but we have to go through it. We have to dig until we find out what’s going on here. I have an idea, by the way.” Jack left the statement dangling tantalisingly in the air.
“Do tell.” Smithy always bit.
“I think Alphonse had a dickhead phone,” he said.
“Do you indeed? That’s interesting.” Then only a slight pause before adding “What exactly is a dickhead phone?”
“It is a phone, my dear boy, which you only use when giving out your number to casual friends. People that you only want to be able to contact you when you feel like it. It also means they don’t know your proper mobile number, and you don’t have to change your number to evade them.”
“I see. I could use one of those,” he mused.
“No, Smithy, it’s the poor women you harass that could use one of those.”