by Peter Cocks
We were about to leave when the forensics guy pulled out something from under my sofa. It was a hunting knife. The first three or four inches of its vicious, curved blade were covered in blood.
“Looks like he left you a present.”
***
Once they were on the motorway, Donnie sped away and relaxed a little. He hadn’t liked the smell of it. One of those jobs that felt wrong.
Deptford was always waist-deep in the filth at that time on a Friday night. The whole area from Lewisham to Peckham was crawling with them, especially when one or two “incidents” had gone off and they were looking for clues. Like eager little Boy Scouts in their bulletproof vests and Noddy cars.
What had really bothered him were the blue lights that were already on their way up Deptford Church Street as he was pulling away from the kid’s flat.
He cruised up to eighty past Gravesend. His fare was lying on the back seat wrapped in a blanket, shivering despite the gusts of hot air pumping out of the car’s climate control.
Donnie hadn’t hung around to find out where the blue lights were headed. But if it was the same address as his pick-up, then how would they have known? It niggled him. In an hour he would be able to relax. Sit out in the cool night air with a bottle of Scotch and a packet of fags and have a good old think about that…
It was getting light by the time I got into the safe house. It smelt clean and new. Fresh after the cigarette smoke and takeaway smell of my dive on Deptford High Street. I never wanted to go back there. I had a hot shower and lay down on the bed, taking deep breaths. My head was pounding. Of course, I couldn’t sleep; it was becoming a habit.
I stared at the ceiling and thought about Benjy French.
He was the only one who had bothered to be nice to me when I’d started at the college. He was a bit of an oddball, sure, but clever and funny. Probably ready to go on to university by now and live the rest of his life. I thought about the hunting knife, covered in his blood. Thought about his nice, middle-class parents up in Blackheath, being woken with the news that their son had been stabbed.
I realized that, in the drama of the night’s activities, no one had spared much thought for Benjy French.
I looked at my watch. Six-thirty. I got up again, picked up my phone, dialled 118 and asked for Lewisham Hospital, A&E.
“I’m enquiring about Benjamin French,” I said. “He came in last night after an accident?”
A voice told me to hold for a moment and then I heard others, mumbling and whispering at the other end. The hush of a hospital ward early on a Saturday morning.
“Are you family?” the first voice asked.
“I’m a friend from college.”
More whispers, then another voice came on the line.
“I’m afraid Mr French passed away at four this morning.”
My stomach lurched. Poor Benjy French had been breathing his last while I had been drinking beer with Tony Morris a few hours before.
Watching his murderer on my webcam.
“Do you need counselling?” the voice asked.
“Yes, I do,” I said, and put down the phone.
***
I left the flat and walked along the river, trying to get my head together. I felt dizzy with lack of sleep, but my brain was racing. I turned up towards the high street. I could go to one of the caffs on the market and get a tea and a bacon sandwich. Not that I felt much like it, but I needed to eat. I stopped to get a paper. Maybe I could take my mind off things by reading what was going on in the rest of the world. Famine, drought, flooding, war, global warming – cheery stuff like that. I came out of the newsagent’s and turned up towards the high street flat.
Dave Slaughter’s Beemer was outside. He opened the door and got out. I could see Johnny Reggae in the passenger seat.
“Where the—?” Dave let out a string of effs and called me a couple of C words as he interrogated me about my whereabouts. He wasn’t happy. “We’ve been looking for you for hours, you—” More effs and a C.
“Jogging,” I said, though my clothes didn’t back up my words. I looked at Johnny Reggae. My experience of him to date had all been big grins and homeboy handshakes. Now he looked about as serious as a dose of clap.
“Get in,” Dave said.
There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I got in.
SIXTY
Donnie quietly closed the door of the caravan behind him and stepped out into the mist that came up off the sea. It was a nicer day in some ways. At least the rain had stopped. In other ways it was worse. He had a thumping whisky headache for a start.
He took a sip of tea from a plastic mug and lit a fag. Jason was sleeping it off inside at last, and Donnie could allow himself a few hours’ P & Q before it all kicked off again. He could quite happily waste some time like this, he thought.
The caravan was a static job, on the edge of a holiday camp in the Isle of Thanet, down from the fashionable town of Whitstable but not as far as the chav-magnet of Margate. That hole drew all the illegals and druggies and kept the filth busy. No one ever came here, especially off-season. It had been a useful bolt-hole for the firm for some years – Donnie himself had cooled his boots here on a couple of occasions. He sat on a bench and looked out across the estuary. A couple of slow tankers and cargo ships floated up towards the oil refineries and wharves on the Isle of Grain.
He could kill Jason.
It was just an expression, but at the moment, disposing of the little shitbag didn’t seem like a bad idea. Saul would be pleased, for one. As a purely mental exercise, Donnie went through the various ways he could make it happen. Sinking him in one of the many inland canals near here would do. Otherwise, Donnie knew plenty of building contractors who were pouring tons of liquid cement into motorway supports on a regular basis. The idea of Jason’s body propping up a new motorway bridge appealed, and Donnie smiled to himself.
Then there was the other one. Jason shouldn’t have run to him. Nothing had gone right since he’d appeared. What was it with all these small boys throwing their weight about? In his day, the business had been done by hard men of few words. Men who nailed other men’s hands to tables. Men who rarely saw daylight outside private drinking clubs – unless they had stockings over their faces.
The idea of both little shits holding up a motorway bridge appealed even more. One at each end. Donnie warmed himself with the thought as he waited for the call.
The great and the not-so-good had been called to Kelly Towers.
I felt almost relieved when I saw four or five cars already parked on the gravel. Unless it was a kangaroo court for me, of course.
Cheryl was bustling about in the kitchen with the cleaner, making pots of coffee. She hugged me and gave me one of those down-in-the-mouth smiles, like I’d just turned up after the cat had been run over. That was the great thing about Cheryl: whatever was going on around her, she always acted like a prosperous builder’s wife whose old man was doing no more than fixing a few loose roof tiles. She said she was off to Bluewater to meet Sophie. Shopping. I wished I was going too.
I went through to the dining room, where they were all gathered. The room had fancy curtains tied up with silk ropes and a massive dining table covered in a white cloth; it was not often used by the family. The occasion could have been a family funeral or a golf-club AGM, except that half the men there were built like cage fighters.
I knew a few of them: Johnny Reggae, Stav and Engin Kurtoglu, the Turkish guy who ran the casino in Bromley. He introduced me to a quiet, intense Irish bloke with cropped black hair and stubble.
“Paul Dolan,” he said. The man crushed my hand, looking into my face with angry eyes. The name rang a bell, but I didn’t know why. No Donnie, though.
They stood awkwardly, sipping coffee with three sugars from dainty cups. A couple of them were smoking on the terrace outside the French windows. Every time I moved, I felt like one of them was looking at me. Tommy came through from his room and sat down at the head of th
e table. He looked freshly scrubbed and suited in pinstripes, like a captain of industry. The cigarettes were swiftly put out under size twelves and everyone sat down.
“We have a situation,” Tommy announced. Almost all of them looked down at the tablecloth in front of them. Tommy waited until a few of them raised their eyes to meet his. “As some of you will know, Jason’s been involved in an incident. We need to get him clear, otherwise there’ll be all sorts of bad press flying about.”
It sounded like one of those situations where someone in the government has been caught with his pants down and doesn’t want it all over the papers. I guessed that in those circumstances all the yes-men came up with ideas about how to bury the bad news. Here, nobody said anything. You could almost smell the lack of support for Jason Kelly.
“No one got anything to say?” Tommy looked from one to another. There were coughs and shifty glances. Some of them suddenly found the pattern on the ceiling very interesting. “Saul?” he said. “What about you?”
Saul Wynter rolled a pen between his fingers, trying to keep his hands occupied. Tommy’s stare forced him to speak.
“Jason’s … predicament is not connected,” he said finally.
“Not connected? Come again?” Tommy said.
“I mean,” Saul continued cautiously, “this business with Jason doesn’t link up with any of our work. It’s separate.”
There was a rustle of pressed suits, shifting in their chairs as if in agreement. Tommy’s fierce look silenced it.
“So what are you saying?”
Saul took a deep breath. He had unwillingly become the spokesman for everyone else.
“I mean that if Jason takes the rap, he maybe gets five for manslaughter. You know we can get around the witness statements, evidence and that, with our contacts. He does three and gets out before he’s twenty-four. Then we carry on. Business as usual.”
“So I let my son do time?”
“If we get him out of the country now, and get our collars felt in the process, then we’re accessories,” Saul said. He licked parched lips. “If Jason turns himself in, then it’s not connected with firm.”
“Not connected? How d’you work that out? This is my son we’re talking about.” Tommy slapped his hand on the table.
“If the firm becomes involved over something like this,” Saul continued, “we put the whole organization at risk.”
“Sorry, I forgot I was running a risk-free charity for old lags,” Tommy said sharply. “We’re always at risk. Now let’s talk about how we do it, not if.”
Paul Dolan spoke up. He seemed eager to please. “If we can get him down to Portsmouth, I can pick up the boat and go via the Isle of Wight or the Channel Islands, then sit it out in Ireland or northern Spain until we find a solution. I have contacts in both places.”
“Thanks, Paul,” Tommy said. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
“They’ll be watching all the ports,” Saul pointed out. “They’ve been sniffing around the boat already.” He seemed to be accepting his role as doom-monger.
“How is it you know what everyone will be doing and thinking?” Tommy looked at Saul. “And what’s this?” He took something from his pocket and rolled it on the table in front of Saul Wynter.
It was another bug. My stomach shifted through several gears before I forced it back to neutral. Saul looked at it and his eyes widened.
“A listening device. Found in my office,” Tommy said. “We’ve got them all over the shop, like woodworm. Someone put them there. Who?” He cast his eyes around the table. Saul shook his head in disbelief. No one looked at anyone else. I kept my eyes to the table. The list of who might have planted the bug was shortening fast.
And I was heading to the top.
“I suggest we take a fag break, then come back with some more positive suggestions.” He picked up the bug. Saul looked like he’d been caught out.
Tommy stood up and left the room.
SIXTY-ONE
Half the people at the table stepped outside and lit up.
Saul Wynter stayed sitting at the table, looking like he’d just been slapped. Paul Dolan stared at him. No one wanted to say anything. No one wanted to take a position for fear of getting involved.
Tommy called Dave through to his study. Dave returned five minutes later and told Paul Dolan to go through. Dolan came back soon after and said that Tommy wanted to see me. My stomach lurched, but I think I felt marginally better than Saul Wynter. He looked increasingly uncomfortable at not being summoned to the inner sanctum.
Tommy was smoking a cigar and looking at the Rothko on his wall, thinking.
“What d’you reckon, Ed?”
I didn’t know what to say. “I think they’re nervous,” I chanced.
“Of course they’re bleeding nervous,” he snapped. “They’re worried their pensions are under threat. But if they think I’m going to feed Jason to the lions, they’ve got another thing coming. They need to remember who pays their wages. Without me they’re just a bunch of barrow boys and thugs. Nothing. They do as they’re told. I’m not having a friggin’ mutiny. I won’t have it.” He puffed on his cigar, opened his mouth as if he was about to say something, then closed it again. He looked around as if the walls had ears. I wasn’t sure that they did any more.
“What do you think about Solly Wynter?” he asked quietly. “Do you reckon he’d turn me over?”
I hesitated for a moment. Remembered Saul taking me aside in Croatia. I hesitated too long. My look told him something.
“Thank you, Eddie,” he said. “Your silence speaks volumes.”
“So. Where were we?” Tommy said.
Everyone was back at the table. They had all been talking outside and there was a new mood.
A dangerous one.
As I had come out of Tommy’s study, all eyes had been turned on me. I had suddenly seen myself as they saw me. A rookie kid who had the boss’s ear. An upstart who had somehow slipped past Tommy’s guard and was shagging his lovely daughter into the bargain. And they didn’t like it.
“I have a plan,” Tommy said. “But first we need to clear up this business.” He put the bug back on the table in front of him, as if looking at it long enough would reveal its secret. He was playing it like a game of poker, hoping someone would eventually buckle and show his hand, unable to bear the tension any longer.
It was Johnny Reggae who buckled.
“What about him?” he said, pointing a big, black finger across the table at me. The fact that someone had spoken released the pressure. There were several mumbles of agreement around the table.
I felt my legs go weak and the blood drain from my face.
“You know, everything’s gone tits up since he’s been around,” said Johnny. “He’s here all the time, he comes and goes to our offices and clubs when he wants, acting like he’s the boss of us, innit. On the boat, he was creeping about, watching you, poking around.”
I glanced around the table. There wasn’t much sympathy for me.
“Eddie?” Tommy said.
I could feel mob rule gathering momentum. They needed a scapegoat and I was it. They were right, I supposed. It was me.
I felt moments away from a lynching. I had to do something radical. I had only one weapon, so I used it. Jumping up, I launched myself at Saul Wynter, dragging him from his chair by his shirt collar, holding him up so he was half strangled.
“You want a rat?” I shouted, shaking. “Here’s your rat.”
Tommy continued to study me calmly as I spat out the words. I felt like I was acting out a big scene, carried along by first-night nerves. Saul struggled against my grip, gasping, his face reddening. He wasn’t a big man: I was too strong and he couldn’t speak. I felt like a bully.
“If I was snooping about on the boat, it was because I was finding out what he was up to. Then he approached me with money for information.” I turned to Tommy. “Stuff about Jason, things he didn’t want you to find out about.”
&nbs
p; Tommy shrugged and nodded. I dropped Saul back into his chair. It had been a long shot, but it was all I had.
“I was trying…” Saul began. He tried to loosen his collar but couldn’t speak.
Paul Dolan saved him the trouble. He had been silent until now, but for some reason he backed me up.
“I didn’t want to mention this,” he said. He pulled a sheaf of papers from his jacket. “But Saul’s offered my guys in Belfast money as well. To feed information straight to him, bypassing you, Tommy.”
“Think I’ve lost my touch, Saul?” Tommy said sadly.
“I’m trying to stop Jason from wrecking the firm,” Saul croaked. “It’s taken fifteen years to make this outfit watertight. I’ve made us rich and I don’t want to see Jason piss it up the wall. He’s a loose cannon. There, I’ve said it.” He held his hands up in surrender.
I knew there were others around the table who agreed with him. But if they did, they weren’t going to say so.
“OK, Saul,” Tommy said quietly. “Fair enough. I hear you. I think you and I need to discuss that in private. See if we can work something out.”
Tommy got up and brushed cigar ash from his suit. He looked miserable.
“Thank you, gentlemen,” he said. “You’ll receive instructions later today. We’ll be on the move tomorrow. Saul?”
Saul stood up, rubbing his neck, and followed Tommy through to the study without looking at me. Dave followed.
The others shuffled away from the table in silence. They started to leave, back to their cars. Johnny Reggae planted a huge hand heavily on my back.
“Sorry, man,” he said. He bumped fists with my trembling hand and left the room. Paul Dolan came across to me.
“I didn’t want to do that,” he said. “Saul’s got a point.”
He left and I found myself alone in the room. I felt like a small, frightened child. My legs were trembling and I needed air.
I pushed out through the French windows into the garden, where everyone had been smoking. I breathed in deeply and watched as Tommy, Saul and Dave walked across the garden, down towards the duck pond. They were clearly still talking business. I felt guilty. I hadn’t wanted to land Saul in it. He was actually quite a nice bloke – he’d done me no harm and hated Jason as much as the rest of us. I’d used him to save my bacon; to deflect attention and buy myself a bit of time.