Beggars Banquet

by Ian Rankin

  He’d been on medication. There were four little bottles of pills on the bedside cabinet. Nerves, probably. Informers often suffer from nerves. It comes of waiting for that monster to jump out of the bushes at them. OK, so after they’ve given their evidence and ‘Mr Big’ (or more usually ‘Mr Middling’) has been locked away, they’re given ‘protection’. They get new identities, some cash up front, a roof over their heads, even a job. All this comes to pass. But they’ve got to leave the only life they’ve known. No contact with friends or family. This guy downstairs, whose name was Eddie, by the way, his wife left him. A lot of the wives do. Sad, eh? And these informers, they do all this just to save themselves from a few years in the clink.

  The police are good at spotting the weak ones, the ones who might just turn. They work on them, exaggerating the sentences they’re going to get, exaggerating the prizes awaiting under the witness protection scheme. (‘The Witless Protection Scheme’, I’ve heard it called.) It’s all psychology and bullshit, but it sometimes works. Often though a jury will throw the evidence out anyway. The defence counsel’s line is always the same: can you rely on the evidence of a man who himself is so heavily implicated in these serious crimes, and who is giving evidence solely to save his own skin?

  Like I say, sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. I went downstairs and crouched over the body. It was a body now, no question of that. Well, I’d let it cool for a little while. Ten or fifteen minutes. Now that I thought of it, I’d broken open the door too soon. Someone might come along and notice. A slight error, but an error all the same. Too late for regrets though. The course was set now, so I went back to the fridge and lifted out what was left of a roast chicken. There was a leg with some meat on it, so I chewed that for a while, standing in the living-room watching through the net curtains as the sun broke from behind some cloud. Want to know what blood smells like? It smells like cold chicken grease. I stuffed the bones into the kitchen bin. I’d stripped them clean. I didn’t want to leave behind any teeth-marks, anything the forensic scientists could begin to work with. Not that anyone would be working too hard on this case. People like me, we’re seldom caught. After a hit, we just melt into the background. We’re as ordinary as you are. I don’t mean that we seem to be ordinary, that we make a show of looking ordinary, I mean we are ordinary. These hit men and assassins you read about in novels, they go around all day and all night like Arnold Schwarzenegger. But in real life that would get them noticed. The last thing you want to be if you’re like me is noticed. You want to blend into the scenery.

  I’m running on again, aren’t I? It was just about time. A final lingering inspection. Another visit to the toilet. I checked myself in the bathroom mirror. I looked fine. I took my clothes back out of the holdall and stripped off the overalls, gloves, trainers. My shoes were black brogues with new soles and heels. I checked myself again in the mirror as I knotted my tie and put on my jacket. No tell-tale flecks of blood on my cheeks or forehead. I washed my hands without using soap (the fragrance might be identifiable) and dried them on toilet paper, which I flushed away. I zipped the holdall shut, picked it up, and walked back through the living-room (‘Ciao, Eddie’), into the small hallway, and out of the house.

  Potentially, this was the most dangerous part of the whole job. As I walked down the path, I was pretty well hidden from view by the hedge, the hedge Eddie must have considered a comfort, a barrier between him and prying eyes. At the pavement, I didn’t pause. There was no one around anyway, no one at all, as I walked briskly around the corner to where I’d parked my car, locked the holdall in the boot, and started the engine.

  Later that afternoon I returned to the house. I didn’t park on a side street this time. I drew right up to the kerb in front of the hedge. Well, as close as I could get anyway. There were still no signs of activity in any of the other houses. Either the neighbours kept themselves to themselves or else they all had places to be. I gave my engine a final loud rev before turning it off, and slammed the door noisily after me. I was wearing a black leather jacket and cream chinos rather than a suit, and different shoes, plain brown rather than the black brogues. Just in case someone had seen me. Often, witnesses saw the clothes, not the face. The real professionals didn’t bother with hair dyes, false moustaches and the like. They just wore clothes they wouldn’t normally wear.I walked slowly up the path, studying the terrain either side, then stopped at the door, examining the splintered jamb. The door was closed, but suddenly swung open from inside. Two men looked at me. I stood aside to let them pass, and walked into the house. The telephone table in the hall was still lying on its side, the phone beside it (though someone had replaced the receiver).

  The body was where I’d left it. He’d been so surprised to see me at his door. Not wary, just surprised. Visiting the area, I’d explained, thought I’d look in. He’d led me into the living-room, and I’d asked to use his loo. Maybe he wondered why I took the holdall with me. Maybe he didn’t. There could have been anything in it, after all. Anything.

  There were two men crouching over the body now, and more men in the bathroom, the kitchen, walking around upstairs. Nobody was saying anything much. You can appreciate why. One of the men stood up and stared at me. I was surveying the scene. Bottles and glasses everywhere, cushions where I’d dropped them, a carpet patterned with blood.

  ‘What’s happened here?’ I asked unnecessarily.

  ‘Well, sir.’ The Detective Constable smiled a rueful smile. ‘Looks like someone got to Eddie.’

  A Deep Hole

  I used to be a road digger, which is to say I dug up roads for a living. These days I’m a Repair Effecter for the council’s Highways Department. I still dig up roads - sorry, highways - only now it sounds better, doesn’t it? They tell me there’s some guy in an office somewhere whose job is thinking up posh names for people like me, for the rubbish collectors and street sweepers and toilet attendants. (Usually they manage to stick in the word ‘environmental’ somewhere.) This way, we’re made to feel important. Must be some job that, thinking up posh names. I wonder what job title he’s given himself. Environmental Title Co-ordination Executive, eh?They call me Sam the Spade. There’s supposed to be a joke there, but I don’t get it. I got the name because after Robbie’s got to work with the pneumatic drill, I get in about things with the spade and clear out everything he’s broken up. Robbie’s called ‘The Driller Killer’. That was the name of an old horror video. I never saw it myself. I tried working with the pneumatic drill a few times. There’s more pay if you operate the drill. You become skilled rather than unskilled labour. But after fifteen seconds I could feel the fillings popping out of my teeth. Even now my spine aches in bed at night. Too much sex, the boys say. Ha ha.

  Now Daintry, his title would be something like Last Hope Cash Dispensation Executive. Or, in the old parlance, a plain money lender. Nobody remembers Daintry’s first name. He shrugged it off some time back when he was a teenager, and he hasn’t been a teenager for a few years and some. He’s the guy you go to on a Friday or Saturday for a few quid to see you through the weekend. And come the following week’s dole cheque (or, if you’re one of the fortunate few, pay packet), Daintry’ll be waiting while you cash it, his hand out for the money he loaned plus a whack of interest.

  While you’re only too happy to see Daintry before the weekend, you’re not so happy about him still being around after the weekend. You don’t want to pay him back, certainly not the interest. But you do, inevitably. You do pay him back. Because he’s a persistent sort of fellow with a good line in colourful threats and a ready abundance of Physical Persuasion Techniques.

  I think the chief reason people didn’t like Daintry was that he never made anything of himself. I mean, he still lived on the same estate as his clients, albeit in one of the two-storey houses rather than the blocks of flats. His front garden was a jungle, his window panes filthy, and the inside of his house a thing of horror. He dressed in cheap clothes, which hung off him. He woul
dn’t shave for days, his hair always needed washing . . . You’re getting the picture, eh? Me, when I’m not working I’m a neat and tidy sort of guy. My mum’s friends, the women she gossips with, they’re always shaking their heads and asking how come I never found myself a girl. They speak about me in the past tense like that, like I’m not going to find one now. On the contrary. I’m thirty-eight, and all my friends have split up with their wives by now. So there are more and more single women my age appearing around the estate. It’s only a question of time. Soon it’ll be Brenda’s turn. She’ll leave Harry, or he’ll kick her out. No kids, so that’s not a problem. I hear gossip that their arguments are getting louder and louder and more frequent. There are threats too, late at night after a good drink down at the club. I’m leaving you, no you’re not, yes I am, well get the hell out then, I’ll be back for my stuff, on you go, I wouldn’t give you the satisfaction, well stay if you like.

  Just like a ballet, eh? Well, I think so anyway. I’ve been waiting for Brenda for a long time. I can wait a little longer. I’m certainly a more attractive prospect than Daintry. Who’d move in with him? Nobody, I can tell you. He’s a loner. No friends, just people he might drink with. He’ll sometimes buy a drink for a few of the harder cases, then get them to put the frighteners on some late-payer who’s either getting cocky or else talking about going to the police. Not that the police would do anything. What? Around here? If they’re not in Daintry’s pocket, they either don’t care about the place anyway or else are scared to come near. Daintry did a guy in once inside the club. A Sunday afternoon too, stabbed him in the toilets. Police came, talked to everyone in the club - nobody’d seen anything. Daintry may be a bastard, but he’s our bastard. Besides, there’s always a reason. If you haven’t crossed him, you’re none of his business . . . and he’d better not be any of yours.

  I knew him of course. Oh yeah, we went to school together, same class all the way from five to sixteen years old. He was never quite as good as me at the subjects, but he was quiet and pretty well behaved. Until about fifteen. A switch flipped in his brain at fifteen. Actually, I’m lying: he was always better than me at arithmetic. So I suppose he was cut out for a career as a money lender. Or, as he once described himself, ‘a bank manager with menaces’.

  God knows how many people he’s murdered. Can’t be that many, or we’d all have noticed. That’s why I thought all the information I used to give him was just part of his act. He knew word would get around about what he was asking me for, and those whispers and rumours would strengthen his reputation. That’s what I always thought. I never took it seriously. As a result, I tapped him for a loan once or twice and he never charged me a penny. He also bought me a few drinks, and once provided a van when I wanted to sell the piano. See, he wasn’t all bad. He had his good side. If it hadn’t been for him, we’d never have shifted that piano, and it’d still be sitting there in the living-room reminding my mother of the tunes Dad used to play on it, tunes she’d hum late into the night and then again at the crack of dawn.

  It seemed strange at first that he’d want to see me. He would come over to me in pubs and sling his arm around my neck, asking if I was all right, patting me and ordering the same again. We’d hardly spoken more than a sentence at a time to one another since leaving school, but now he was smiles and reminiscences and all interested in my job of work.

  ‘I just dig holes.’

  He nodded. ‘And that’s important work, believe me. Without the likes of you, my car’s suspension, would be shot to hell.’

  Of course, his car’s suspension was shot to hell. It was a 1973 Ford Capri with tinted windows, an air duct and a spoiler. It was a loser’s car, with dark green nylon fur on the dashboard and the door panels. The wheel arches were history, long since eaten by rust. Yet every year without fail it passed its MOT. The coincidence was, the garage mechanic was a regular client of Daintry’s.

  ‘I could get a new car,’ Daintry said, ‘but it gets me from A back to A again, so what’s the point?’

  There was something in this. He seldom left the estate. He lived there, shopped there, he’d been born there and he’d die there. He never took a holiday, not even a weekend away, and he never ever ventured south of the river. He spent all his free time watching videos. The guy who runs the video shop reckoned Daintry had seen every film in the shop a dozen times over.

  ‘He knows their numbers off by heart.’

  He did know lots about movies: running time, director, writer, supporting actor. He was always a hot contender when the club ran its trivia quiz. He sat in that smelly house of his with the curtains shut and a blue light flickering. He was a film junkie. And somehow he managed to spend all his money on them. He must have done, or what else did he do with it? His Rolex was a fake, lighter than air when you picked it up, and probably his gold jewellery was fake too. Maybe somewhere there’s a secret bank account with thousands salted away, but I don’t think so. Don’t ask me why, I just don’t think so.

  Roadworks. That’s the information I passed on to Daintry. That’s what he wanted to talk to me about. Roadworks. Major roadworks.

  ‘You know the sort of thing,’ he’d say, ‘anywhere where you’re digging a big hole. Maybe building a flyover or improving drainage. Major roadworks.’

  Sure enough, I had access to this sort of information. I just had to listen to the various crews talking about what they were working on and where they were doing the work. Over tea and biscuits in the canteen, I could earn myself a few drinks and a pint glass of goodwill.

  ‘How deep does that need to be?’ Daintry would ask.

  ‘I don’t know, eight, maybe ten feet.’

  ‘By what?’

  ‘Maybe three long, the same wide.’

  And he’d nod. This was early in the game, and I was slow catching on. You’re probably much faster, right? So you know why he was asking. But I was puzzled the first couple of times. I mean, I thought maybe he was interested in the . . . what’s it, the infrastructure. He wanted to see improvements. Then it dawned on me: no, what he wanted to see were big holes. Holes that would be filled in with concrete and covered over with huge immovable objects, like bridge supports for example. Holes where bodies could be hidden. I didn’t say anything, but I knew that’s what we were talking about. We were talking about Human Resource Disposal.

  And Daintry knew that I knew. He’d wink from behind his cigarette smoke, using those creased stinging eyes of his. Managing to look a little like his idol Robert de Niro. In Goodfellas. That’s what Daintry would say. He’d always be making physical comparisons like that. Me, I thought he was much more of a Joe Pesci. But I didn’t tell him that. I didn’t even tell him that Pesci isn’t pronounced pesky.

  He knew I’d blab about our little dialogues, and I did, casually like. And word spread. And suddenly Daintry was a man to be feared. But he wasn’t really. He was just stupid, with a low flashpoint. And if you wanted to know what sort of mood he was going to be in, you only had to visit the video shop.

  ‘He’s taken out Goodfellas and Godfather 3’. So you knew there was trouble coming. Now you really didn’t want to cross him. But if he’d taken out soft-core or a Steve Martin or even some early Brando, everything was going to be all right. He must have been on a gangster high the night he went round to speak with Mr and Mrs McAndrew. In his time, Mr McAndrew had been a bit of a lad himself, but he was in his late seventies with a wife ten years younger. They lived in one of the estate’s nicer houses. They’d bought it from the council and had installed a fancy front door, double-glazed windows, you name it, and all the glass was that leaded criss-cross stuff. It wasn’t cheap. These days, Mr McAndrew spent all his time in the garden. At the front of the house he had some beautiful flower beds, with the back garden given over to vegetables. In the summer, you saw him playing football with his grandchildren.

  ‘Just like’, as somebody pointed out, ‘Marlon Brando in The Godfather.’ This was apt in its way since, like I say, despite th
e gardening Mr McAndrew’s hands were probably cleaner these days than they had been in the past.

  How he got to owe Daintry money I do not know. But Daintry, believe me, would have been only too happy to lend. There was McAndrew’s reputation for a start. Plus the McAndrews seemed prosperous enough, he was sure to see his money and interest returned. But not so. Whether out of sheer cussedness or because he really couldn’t pay, McAndrew had been holding out on Daintry. I saw it as a struggle between the old gangster and the new. Maybe Daintry did too. Whatever, one night he walked into the McAndrews’ house and beat up Mrs McAndrew in front of her husband. He had two heavies with him, one to hold Mr McAndrew, one to hold Mrs McAndrew, either one of them could have dropped dead of a heart attack right then and there.

  There were murmurs in the street the next day, and for days afterwards. Daintry, it was felt, had overstepped the mark. He was out of order. To him it was merely business, and he’d gotten the money from McAndrew so the case was closed. But he now found himself shorter of friends than ever before. Which is probably why he turned to me when he wanted the favour done. Simply, he couldn’t get anyone else to do it.

  ‘You want me to what?’

  He’d told me to meet him in the children’s play-park. We walked around the path. There was no one else in the park. It was a battlefield, all broken glass and rocks. Dog shit was smeared up and down the chute, the swings had been wrapped around themselves until they couldn’t be reached. The roundabout had disappeared one night, leaving only a metal stump in place. You’d be safer sending your kids to play on the North Circular.

  ‘It’s quite simple,’ Daintry said. ‘I want you to get rid of a package for me. There’s good money in it.’

  ‘How much money?’