A Private Business

by Barbara Nadel

  “That’s no fucking way to talk to me, you scabby cunt!” Roy Arnold roared at his brother.

  Lee, appalled almost beyond words to be in Roy’s presence again, flung him through the door of his office and said to an amazed Mumtaz, “My brother. Sorry. Try not to be long.”

  “It’s OK …” She hadn’t known that the man was Lee’s brother. There was obviously a problem though. But then Mumtaz, full of dread about her mother’s upcoming meal with the Choudhurys, had problems of her own.

  In Lee’s office, Roy lit up a fag. Lee joined him. To hell with legislation about smoking in the work place. “What fucking rock have you slithered out from under?” Lee said. “I told you to fuck off and I expected you to do just that.”

  “Or you’d kill me?” Roy laughed. Oddly he didn’t stink of booze and although not exactly tidy, he no longer looked like a tramp. It was weird.

  “Go back to Mum’s and I’ll break your fingers,” Lee said. He spoke more softly now, aware that Mumtaz was only in the other room.

  Roy, who could be a very perceptive man when he wanted to, picked up on it immediately. “Frightened your girlfriend’ll hear you?” He laughed. “You fancy her.”

  Lee ignored him. He was used to this sort of behavior. “What do you want, Roy?” he asked. “If it’s money you’re after, I’m skint.”

  But Roy just looked at him, smiling. Usually if Lee said he had no money, Roy flew into a rage and then had a tantrum like a two-year-old. Out in the other office, Mumtaz’s mobile rang and Lee heard her answer it. “So what is it?” he said to Roy. “What do you want with me?”

  Still smiling, Roy looked down at the fag between his fingers and said, “It ain’t what you can do for me, but what I can do for you.”

  Lee’s eyes went heavenwards. “What? What can you do for me, Roy? And how much is it going to cost?”

  “I can put you on to a scam,” Roy said. “A fucking great big one.”

  “What an illegal—”

  “Oh, it’s illegal all right.”

  “Well then go to the police. It’s what they’re there for.”

  “I don’t like police stations, I’m a bit allergic, like,” Roy said. Then he leaned forward onto Lee’s desk and he said, “And anyway, this scam I’ve come into contact with is one I know that will interest you, Lee.”

  The door to the office suddenly flew open and Mumtaz, obviously flustered and red-faced said, “Oh, Lee, Mr. Arnold, I’m so sorry, I have to go home, it’s Shazia—”

  Lee sprang out of his chair and went to her. “Is she ill?”

  Mumtaz shook her head. “I don’t know, but something’s wrong. Can I just—”

  “Go! Go!”

  “I have an appointment, a lady coming in at three. Hopefully I should be back by—”

  “Go!” Lee waved her out and then said, “Hope she’s OK. Let me know. Don’t worry about anything here.”

  He saw her pick up her handbag and then shoot out through the front door. He went back into his own office where Roy was cackling gently to himself. “Cozy.”

  “Oh, shut up, you fucking freak!” Lee said. “Now what’s this thing, this scam you think I might be interested in?”

  “Well, it concerns a church called the Chapel of the Holy Pentecostal Fire,” Roy said. “And I know that people there know you.”

  Lee felt his face turn white. “How do you know that?”

  “Because people told me. Talk of the town, this firm is down there,” Roy said. “See, I’ve become a Christian, Lee.” He laughed. “They’ve been very good to me, the Pentecostals, given me food and money and all sorts. But them at the top, they’re a little bit dodgy and I think you should know about that.”

  Lee looked at his brother and felt, for the millionth time, nothing except complete disgust. Roy always found someone or something to latch onto when he went walkabout. This time it was Maria Peters’ church. “So why you ratting on people who helped you?” he asked.

  “Because fraud ain’t Christian,” Roy said, with a definite light in his eye.

  Lee, knowing to the bottom of his soul that his brother was ligging said, “So what did you do to piss them off, Roy? Did you boil up their floor polish to make a little drink?”

  Roy’s face darkened immediately.

  “Chuck you out, did they?” Lee shook his head. The last thing he needed was Roy back in his life, and the thing he needed only a little less than that was further involvement with Maria Peters and her band of happy-clappies. The whole affair still bugged the crap out of him. He wanted none of it.

  Roy looked like he was about to spit but then he leaned in toward Lee again and said, “They’re into dodgy money, you stupid twat, and I found out. You ain’t the only fucking Sherlock in the family. But if you don’t want to know …”

  Lee looked up into Roy’s eyes in the full knowledge that he couldn’t help but be intrigued by the notion of dodgy money—especially given what he already knew about Grint and his church. He knew that Roy would know this too. He sighed. “So what do you want?” he asked.

  Roy smiled again then and said, “A place to kip.”

  XXVI

  Maria woke up with crawling flesh. Someone was in the room, but when she looked around there was no one. Briefly, she wondered what the time was, but it was irrelevant. The news was on the telly and people were shouting but Maria switched it off before she could see the time. The Clarks box was still in the corner, that was the main thing. Had an hour passed or a day? If she called Betty or Pastor Grint or someone and they came over, it might disappear. Accepting, of course, that she could even bring herself to talk about it. But then, whatever happened, it would come back again. She thought about calling Mr. Allitt and checking on the progress of the paperwork, but she knew it was too soon. He was quite aware that she wanted her business concluded with some speed, but it had to be done right too, and besides, if she had to wait she had to wait, and maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that was part of her punishment.

  Feeling herself begin to panic, Maria took some diazepam and then, when it began to take effect, she slumped back down on the sofa. She hadn’t washed for days but it didn’t really bother her. When she’d first been on the circuit, driving around between obscure pubs and clubs in the north and in the Midlands, she sometimes hadn’t washed properly for ages. A bit of perfume under the armpits, dry shampoo raked through her hair—mainly it just made her look as if she had a bad case of dandruff. She’d gigged anywhere and everywhere, the relentless traveling together with the endless writing had kept her sharp and thrilled and had forced her mind to be forever off herself. She’d played the universities and had been the first entertainer ever to use the word “cunt” on stage at a Cambridge University college May Ball. She couldn’t remember whether it was King’s or St. John’s. One of the two. But it made her smile.

  If only she could write again. But Alan had only taken her back on condition she rehash her old material—about the royal family, about Catholicism—for a new generation. “You can’t really lose, dear,” he’d told her when they’d first discussed her relaunch. “Your old fans will be delighted to see you back again and you, an old gal, can just appall the youngsters, they’ll love it!” And they had.

  Out on the road she’d heard the few old stagers that remained from her glory days say that a lot of the new, young comics didn’t write their own material. They were “products,” like the weirdly appealing plastic singers that came to prominence through awful talent shows on the telly. She’d found that depressing, although whether that had actually been the exact moment when she began to have doubts about comedy, Maria didn’t know. She’d got a spot on Radio 4 to do Woman’s Hour round about that time, to speak about her comeback. She’d talked about a lot of positive things, about her website and her use of technology that hadn’t even existed when she began on the circuit. But she’d also criticized the “product” comedians, without mentioning any names, of course. Had that exposé of what was going on in comedy
, in public, caused her to begin to fall out of love with what she did? But had she ever, really, fallen out of love with comedy at all?

  Alan, simplistically, blamed the church. And yes, the church had made her think about whether or not it was right to make fun of people because of their looks, their state of health or their religion. The swearing had begun to grate and she could no longer really get behind all the sexual stuff in the way she had before. But was all that really just to do with the church? Wasn’t that more just growing up? Finally facing up? She looked at the Clarks box through a haze of tranquilizer and wondered whether she should open it. She’d done so once before and of course it had been empty.

  Maria knew that her responses were blunted by the drugs but there was also a sudden feeling of what do I have to lose? as well. She slithered over the carpet rather than getting up and walking. She was on her own, it didn’t matter.

  The carpet near the box was filthy. She pulled herself over on her elbows and then found dust bunnies and bits of crisp and what looked like chocolate stuck to her arms. When she got close to the box, she knew she should really pray or at least say something. But she didn’t know what to say or how to formulate her own prayer and so she said nothing.

  Maria took the lid off and put her hand inside the box without looking. She didn’t feel a thing, not even a sensation of wetness, until she took her hand out again and saw the blood running in long thin streams down her fingers. Then she passed out, or something hit her, she didn’t know which.

  Shazia looked awful. She’d been crying and her eyes were red and puffy. Even as Vi was telling her about the dope, Mumtaz was trying to put her arms around her stepdaughter’s shoulders, but Shazia kept pulling away. Her shame was great and it was genuine. Mumtaz, on the other hand, was just angry, not at Shazia, but at her so-called friends and their not-so-innocent elderly neighbor.

  “The important thing here, above everything else, is to catch Martin Gold in the act,” Vi said. “He was up to all this exposing himself lark back in the seventies and I think he might well be flashing over on the Olympic site too. He’s a slippery sod.”

  Mumtaz looked at Shazia. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “Because I thought you’d go mental.”

  “About the drugs? Well, I’m not pleased, Shazia, but I would have understood.”

  “Ady was going off me,” Shazia said.

  Vi’s phone rang and she left the kitchen to go and answer it.

  “Vi’s sending policemen round to Ady’s house and Hilary’s,” Shazia said. “They’ll never speak to me again! I’ll be called a grass.”

  Mumtaz pushed a lock of hair that had come down in front of Shazia’s face back up onto her head. “Sweetheart, there really is no other way,” she said. “Vi has to do her job. As she said, if we all cooperate no one will be arrested. Well, only Mr. Gold. I’m sure Vi’s colleagues will explain everything very sympathetically to Ady and Hilary’s parents. It’ll be OK.”

  “No one will ever speak to me again!”

  Mumtaz hugged her close. “Darling, there’s no choice. I can’t second-guess what the girls will say, or anyone else at your school, for that matter. But we have to do what is right.”

  Shazia hung her head. “I’ve not been this unhappy since just before Dad died.”

  Vi, who had just come back in on the tail end of their conversation looked confused but then rationalized that she had probably misheard what Shazia had said. “DS Bracci is at Adele’s house now. Apparently Hilary is round there too, but we’ll have to catch up with her parents. We won’t be able to do anything today. Does Mr. Gold know the girls are supposed to be coming this afternoon?”

  Shazia nodded.

  “Well, if he’s watching the house, as I imagine he is, he’ll know I’m here, and your mum, and so he’ll realize he’s out of luck today. We’re going to have to plan how we do this carefully,” Vi said. “Martin Gold is no fool and so I want to make sure that there’s no way he can wriggle out of a conviction. With everyone’s cooperation, I’d like to catch him red-handed.” She looked at Mumtaz. “What are your plans today?”

  “Well, I’m supposed to be at work. I’ve an appointment at three that Lee can take, although it is a woman and so … Shazia and I are supposed to be going to visit my parents this evening.”

  Shazia pulled a face. “Oh, Amma, do we have to go?”

  “Be better if you’re home in case we need to talk again today,” Vi said. “And we are going to watch the house next door tonight. Just to see what Martin does, if anything.”

  Although what was happening was shocking and upsetting, Mumtaz couldn’t help but be a little jubilant about not having to go and have dinner with the Choudhurys. Aziz Choudhury was a pale, soft and uninteresting man who had absolutely nothing, bar money, going for him. She didn’t have any intention of marrying him. She had no intention of marrying anyone.

  “I’d better let my parents know we can’t come,” Mumtaz said. She got up to go and find a phone. “They’ll be disappointed but …” She shrugged. “I would like to keep my appointment with this lady I’m supposed to see at three, though.”

  Shazia looked suddenly frightened again.

  Vi said, “Well, in theory it’s my day off so how about you and me, Shazia, go off to Lakeside for a while and do a bit of shopping this afternoon?”

  “Oh, Vi,” Mumtaz began, “that’s very nice but we really don’t have—”

  “My treat.” Vi smiled and put a hand on Shazia’s shoulder. “I’ve only got great big lumps of sons. No fun to shop with. I could do with a trot around some proper clothes shops. How about it, kiddo?”

  According to Roy, Pastor Paul Grint was potless.

  “He don’t even have his own gaff and he don’t own that old pub he calls a church,” he said.

  “So where does the dodgy money come into it and how do you know about it?” Lee asked. He’d agreed to let Roy come and stay with him for a week provided he didn’t try to contact their mother. It was a massive sacrifice and Lee knew he was going to resent every second of it. But getting the dirty on ex-con Paul Grint had been just too tempting, for Maria Peters’ sake, if for no other reason.

  “I heard him talking to that black geezer.”

  “What black geezer?”

  “Some black pastor. I don’t know his name. Anyway, he owns the old pub and so Grint pays him money. Or rather he owes him. Like IOUs, you know.”

  “So Grint pays rent to this black pastor, but he doesn’t really.” Lee already knew this. Tony Bracci had told him that Grint put an IOU in the bank for a Pastor Iekanjika every month.

  “Every month he gives the geezer an IOU for fucking thousands,” Roy said.

  “OK. So what’s your point?”

  “What’s my point? Because he’s got a job coming along,” Roy said. “That’s the point! That’s the hooky bit. He knows he’s gonna have money and so he keeps this black bloke hanging on with IOUs.”

  “So how does he live?” Lee asked.

  Roy shrugged. “I dunno. Out the collection plate? People don’t half give generous at them services.”

  “Not you.”

  Roy shrugged again. “I’m the deserving poor. They have to try and save my soul, not empty me wallet.”

  Lee leaned back in his chair and put his feet up on his desk. “So what kind of job is Grint planning?”

  “I dunno. He was done for fraud years ago. But who knows? He told the black guy he was still up for the job and it was worth a mint. That’s what I heard.”

  “How did you come to hear them talking?” Lee asked. “What were you doing at a church?”

  Roy helped himself to another of Lee’s fags and then said, “When you beat me up and told me to fuck off I went where I usually go.”

  “The hostel down Poplar.”

  Roy smiled. “Couple of blokes there said you could get good tucker down some new church in Canning Town.”

  Lee remembered the group meals the Pentecostal Fire
s had had when they were over by the Olympic site.

  “I went down and it was true. All I had to do was wave me arms in the air and shout ‘Jesus!’ every so often and the job was a good ’un. Most of ’em seemed to be bonkers, but I knew the name Paul Grint and he weren’t backward in coming forward about his past. I figured that once a crim always a crim and so I hung about to see if I could find out what his game was.”

  “And eat his food.”

  “I had to be as near to sober as I ever want to get to do it,” Roy said with a scowl. “I’m fucking sober now. Credit where credit’s due.”

  “I still don’t know how you came to hear them talking, or how you know I’d been involved with someone at the church …”

  “People told me about your Paki lady dashing up the aisle to go and help Maria Peters,” he said. “They ain’t got no lives, none of ’em. Still banging on about it now.”

  “You never let on you were my brother?”

  “Why would I jeopardize tea, cake and the odd buffet just to drop you in the shit? Do you know what the food’s like at the Seamen’s Mission?”

  Lee looked up at the ceiling. Clearly Roy knew something. “How’d you come to find out Grint’s up to something?”

  “Like I say, he was talking to the black bloke—”

  “How come you were there?”

  “It was last week. We were all washing up after a meal. You have to do that, it’s part of their community fucking doo-dah. Anyway … Just outside the kitchen there’s what used to be the old pub bogs. I thought Grint was going outside but then I heard him talking to someone. I put me head round the door and saw this big black fella.”

  “Was anyone with you?”

  “No. Out collecting plates and cups and that in the church.”

  “So you were alone at the sink.”

  “When they began to talk, I kept quiet,” Roy said. “That black geezer looked moody and so I thought I’d see what the score was.”

  Roy was the sort of person who thought that anyone of Afro-Caribbean origin was automatically dodgy.