A Numbers Game (Mal & Jackie Book 1)

by RJ Dark

Everything swimming in brightness, eyes out of focus. Then I found myself looking at one of the twins.

  ‘She said you’d gone,’ said Kray One. Behind him, the other twin took a step closer to Miss Feeney. ‘But she looked at the cupboard when she was scared.’

  ‘You lied to us, bitch,’ said Kray Two.

  They reminded me of wild dogs I’d seen on a TV nature programme, stalking something weaker and excited by the weakness. Baying and yapping.

  ‘I know your father,’ said Miss Feeney.

  ‘We’re his favourites,’ said Kray One. He whispered it into her face, and I could see the muscles of his neck sticking out, tight with tension. ‘He gives us a lot of leeway. And he doesn’t like liars. They’re not conducive to business.’

  ‘She didn’t know I was in there,’ I said.

  Kray Two studied me.

  ‘Then why did she look at the cupboard?’

  ‘Maybe she thought she could hide from you in there,’ I said. And Kray Two continued to study me.

  ‘Our da doesn’t like liars,’ said Kray One to Miss Feeney again. Any other human would have taken a step back, but she didn’t. She just glared at him.‘People do like to hide though, when they think we’re going to hurt them.’

  ‘I suppose,’ said Kray Two. He took a step back from me. ‘Why didn’t she want you in the cupboard?’

  ‘I wanted to look at her records – she said they were confidential.’

  ‘Con-fi-den-tial,’ said Kray One, and he reached into his back pocket for his small dictionary.

  ‘It means “secret”,’ said Miss Feeney.

  ‘We’ve got a book,’ said Kray Two.

  ‘She’s an English teacher – you don’t need to look in your dictionary.’

  ‘No, Malachite,’ said Miss Feeney, ‘you should never try to dissuade someone from reading.’

  ‘We’re bettering ourselves,’ said Kray One.

  ‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Miss Feeney. ‘Your dad likes clever boys.’

  ‘Con-fi-den-tial,’ said Kray Two. ‘”Adjective. Information to be kept secret or private.”‘ He put the dictionary back. ‘You have to come with us.’ Then he glanced over my shoulder at the cupboard. ‘Is the Asian gentleman in there?’

  ‘No,’ I said.

  He took me by the elbow and steered me toward the door, his brother followed. When we reached the door, he turned round and pointed at Miss Feeney.

  ‘You never saw us. You never saw him,’ said Kray One.

  I had a sudden image of a ruined body strapped to a chair, but it wasn’t Benny Callaghan’s face on the body. It was mine.

  24

  It was dark outside. The school corridors were mostly window above hip height and, outside, the school grounds had been well landscaped. Lots of bushes and small trees grew around the playing fields and the grey squares of the playgrounds. There was a slight hill at the edge of the playground where a huge thorn bush used to grow when I came here. Jackie used to throw me in that thorn bush at least once a week and, at the time, I thought it was the most terrible, frightening, painful thing in the world. I lived in fear of the moment each week when he grabbed me and dragged me toward it.

  I really hoped the Stanbeck twins weren’t going to take me somewhere and torture me to death. The thought of the thorn bush seemed quite welcoming in contrast.

  ‘Why did you come here for me?’

  ‘You know,’ said Kray One.

  ‘I really don’t.’

  ‘Us Da wants you,’ said Kray Two, as if that settled it.

  We walked on through the school. All the main lighting had been turned off and only the emergency lights were on. It was pretty dismal.

  ‘Why does Mick want me?’

  The twins shrugged, in unison. Then, using that odd telepathy some twins have, both realised that I had been noticeably slowing my walk and they tightened their grips on my elbows and hurried me on.

  ‘Da wants you,’ said Kray One. ‘He didn’t say why. But you’re coming with us, and if you try anything, then we will hurt you.’

  I still tried to walk more slowly. The twins stopped walking.

  ‘If you slow us down,’ said Kray Two, ‘we’ll go back and hurt the teacher, you understand?’

  I nodded and figured I didn’t really have a choice in the matter. I let the twins lead me through the poorly lit school at their own speed. It felt like being in a horror movie. When we approached security I saw the door was open, and the office was unmanned. I remembered that Miss Feeney had referred to the security guard as a prick when it was clear he’d let the twins in. I couldn’t help but agree, because there was only one way they could have known I was here and the security guard was it.

  Outside, it was warm and the stars were bright; a scattering of white dots strong enough to show despite the brightness of the sodium lights that ringed the road at the bottom of the school drive. The hiss of cars passing the school was incessant, and I hoped to see Jackie waiting for me, underneath the sodium light that lit the lay-by at the bottom of the school drive, leaning against whatever he was driving now my little maroon Ka had no tyres. But the only car there was a big Range Rover with tinted windows. It must have been the twins’ car because Jackie wouldn’t be seen dead in one; he said they were vulgar and ugly. He preferred just straight-up vulgar.

  The walk down the school drive existed in the same time zone as a dentist’s waiting room when you’re waiting for an unpleasant procedure – it took forever and was also over far too quickly. We were buzzed through the gate, because now the security guard was conveniently back at his desk, and we headed toward the Range Rover.

  ‘You don’t need to do this,’ I said.

  ‘Do what?’ said Kray One.

  And I didn’t have an answer, I didn’t really know how to answer. I couldn’t actually bring myself to say: ‘Take me somewhere private and torture me to death,’ because that made it too real.

  But then I didn’t have to.

  I heard the sound of a highly tuned engine coming round the ring road, and then something low and bright green swerved out of the speeding traffic and into the lay-by, slamming on its brakes so that it skidded to a stop just past the twins’ Range Rover. Then the reverse lights glowed, and the car sped backward, stopping a hair’s breadth from the front of the Range Rover before switching its engine off. A gap in the traffic gave us a moment of quiet; I could hear the engine of the sportscar ticking as it cooled. The door opened and Jackie got out.

  ‘Nice of you to make sure Mal got down here safely,’ said Jackie, walking toward us, ‘but I’ll make sure he gets back home.’

  ‘No,’ said Kray One. ‘Da said we bring Jones to him. We got to do what Da says.’

  ‘He’s us Da,’ said Kray two.

  Jackie stared at him, then glanced at his brother. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll bring him then. You drive your ugly car, I’ll follow.’

  ‘We came in a Range Rover,’ said Kray Two. He sounded puzzled.

  Jackie rolled his eyes.

  ‘And Da didn’t say anything about bringing you, he doesn’t like …’ Kray Two paused while he thought about his words. ‘Da doesn’t like Asian gentlemen.’

  Jackie grinned.

  ‘You really wanted to say “Paki”, didn’t you?’

  ‘The teacher told us not to say that word,’ said Kray One.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Kray Two, ‘you should say “Asian gentleman”.’

  Jackie decided to ignore that.

  ‘Are we going or not?’

  Kray Two looked to Kray One and shrugged.

  ‘Suppose so – we know where he lives though,’ said Kray One, pointing at me, ‘so don’t run off.’

  But Jackie was already walking away and the other twin shouted after him. ‘We know where he lives.’

  I joined Jackie in his car. It was a Lamborghini; difficult to get into, noisy, uncomfortable and overly flashy. Exactly the sort of thing he loved. He watched as the twins’ Range Rover pulled ahead of us
and then drew out behind it to follow. Jackie’s car felt like it was angry at having to go as slow as the other cars, and he changed up and down the gears needlessly, flicking the paddles behind the steering wheel with the ends of his fingers in an annoyed fashion.

  ‘Are we going to run, Jackie?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Mick might kill us though.’

  He shook his head again. ‘He won’t,’ he said quietly. His eyes flashed in the darkness with reflected light from passing streetlamps.

  ‘How do you know?’

  Jackie sighed.

  ‘He sent both twins for you. If he was planning something illegal, he’d have sent one while the other was off being seen.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said, annoyed with myself for not realising that. I knew that. I’d let fear take control of me and I had stopped thinking, and Jackie didn’t approve of that sort thing, at all. ‘What do you think he wants then?’

  ‘Well we’re going to find out,’ said Jackie, but he didn’t look at me, just kept his eyes on the road. I suspect he was thinking about Benny Callaghan, just like I had been, but for very different reasons. Jackie – adult Jackie – had a pretty definite sense of justice that he was lacking as a youth. I hoped he wasn’t going to act on it when we were in the middle of Mick’s territory.

  In front of us, the Range Rover turned onto the estate and Jackie swore as he followed and we hit a speed bump, making us both bang our heads on the low roof.

  ‘This is a bad car for driving round the Edge,’ he said.

  He was right; it wasn’t a car built for potholes and speed bumps, things the roads of Blades Edge were full of, and the twins seemed to take us on a winding journey that hit every pothole and speed bump it had to offer. It wasn’t a trip that put Jackie in a good mood. Eventually, they stopped outside a house on a street that was entirely lined with cars. Quite a few of them were occupied. I saw shapes in the darkness, saw the occasional glowing coal of a cigarette or joint, saw clouds of smoke being blown out of wound-down windows. The Range Rover sounded its horn and one of the twins opened the door. He leaned out and pointed at the car parked in front of them. Obligingly, it moved so Jackie could park there. We got out the car. My back ached. Security lights on the front of the nearest house came on and I saw there were men everywhere: not just in the cars: leaning on them, in the garden of Mick’s house sat around a table, standing staring in a threatening fashion. Everyone smoked, and the air was summer hot. Faces were serious. It felt like being at a funeral in a foreign country.

  As we walked toward Mick’s house, the twins double-parked their Range Rover alongside Jackie’s Lamborghini, blocking it in.

  ‘Rude,’ said Jackie.

  Mick lived in a council house the same as all the others on the Edge, but he had bought the ones next door on either side and knocked it all through into a mansion. I’d never been in his house, but I’d heard talk about it, and when we entered, I found out first-hand that I hadn’t been lied to. The inside of Mick’s house felt like a very expensive, and tasteful, hotel; there was marble everywhere, wooden floors. Lots of antiques. I saw a couple of grandfather clocks, which I was pretty sure were Fromanteels. Clocks like that started at about a quarter of a million pounds.

  Jackie always said the idea that crime doesn’t pay is wrong; if you were clever about it, crime always paid. Mick Stanbeck was living proof.

  ‘What you looking at?’ said Kray One.

  ‘The clocks.’

  ‘They’re just clocks,’ said Kray Two. But they weren’t. Nothing there was ‘just’ what it looked like. It was all exquisitely chosen: the paintings on the walls, the furniture, everything. It gave the lie to Mick’s image as a smelly old invalid.

  The twins led us through the hall and off to the left into a library. It was hard to imagine the scrubby, potholed streets and tatty gardens of the Edge were just outside the walls of this house. Mick Stanbeck sat in a huge, antique leather wing chair in front of a living flame fire. He had a blanket over his legs and an unlit cigar in his mouth. Opposite him was another chair. He looked up, saw Jackie and pointed at the chair in front of him.

  ‘Better bring another, boysm,’ he said. Kray One brought over another chair, and Jackie and I sat down opposite Mick. The twins shut the door; it was a thick, wooden door, dark with old varnish, Victorian from the look of it. They stood either side of the door, only looking ahead, like carved bookends.

  ‘Malachite Jones,’ said Mick. He spoke softly, gently. He looked calm, but older than I was used to. Somehow, out of his mobility scooter, he seemed more infirm. ‘I asked you a simple thing. I let you know how seriously I felt about it.’ He took the cigar from his mouth and looked at the wet end. ‘You didn’t listen, and now this situation has got a lot more complicated than it ever needed to be.’ He studied the cigar a little longer before his eyes flicked up to me. He sounded tired. ‘I don’t like complicated – it gets in the way of my business.’

  ‘I don’t—’

  Mick raised his hand to stop me talking. By my side, Jackie lounged in his chair, as if he didn’t really care that he was surrounded by huge wealth and violent men. If I’d asked, he’d probably have said he was used to it.

  ‘I am going to ask you,’ said Mick slowly, not looking at Jackie at all, ‘some simple questions.’ He blinked and put the cigar back in the corner of his mouth. ‘And you will give me simple, and direct, answers. Do you understand?’ He stared at me, little eyes in a round face, wisps of greasy hair falling over his forehead. His eyebrows met in the middle and the skin beneath was red and raw-looking. Little white flecks of dry skin clinging to the hairs.

  ‘I understand,’ I said.

  He nodded. Took the cigar out of his mouth.

  ‘I don’t allow smoking inside,’ he said. ‘It’s bad for the antiques.’ He put the cigar down on a small round butler’s table by his chair. I was pretty sure the table was a few hundred years old and winced, because juice from where he’d chewed the end of the cigar would stain the wood. Maybe Mick thought that it only added to the patina.

  ‘Have you found the ticket?’ His eyes locked on to me.

  ‘No.’

  He continued staring at me. Leaned forward in his chair. ‘Have you given the ticket, to Russian Frank?’

  ‘I just said—’

  ‘Yes or no answers, please.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did you give the ticket to Benny?’

  I wanted to scream at him for mentioning Benny, the way Benny must have screamed when …

  ‘No,’ I said, very quietly.

  ‘What about Janine?’

  ‘No.’

  Mick sat back in his chair and let out a long sigh. He picked up the cigar and put it back in his mouth. Then he sat there, moving the cigar about and staring at the ceiling. It was like he sank further into his chair, became smaller. I felt like I had disappeared from the room. When he spoke again, he didn’t look at me.

  ‘I want you to go to Russian Frank for me,’ he said quietly. ‘Tell him, if we find the ticket, we’ll split it with him. He has my word on that if he gives his word to do the same. And if he agrees, everything stops.’

  ‘What is “everything”?’

  His head came slowly down so he was looking at me. ‘I didn’t bring you here to ask questions.’

  ‘Why don’t you go to Frank?’ I said.

  He opened his mouth. I thought he was going to shout, but he didn’t. It seemed wrong to have raised voices in this overly warm little library. Maybe he felt the same way.

  ‘He can’t go,’ said Jackie, ‘cos he thinks it will make him look weak.’

  ‘I’m letting your Paki friend in here out of courtesy, Malachite, cos I may have been a little rough with you in the past.’ He motioned toward Jackie with his unlit cigar. ‘But I’ve not given the Paki permission to speak.’

  ‘You are sailing very close to the wind, Mick,’ said Jackie. He didn’t sit forward, or even move from where he lounged in the c
hair, utterly relaxed. He looked almost as if there were no bones in his body.

  ‘It’s my ocean – I’ll sail where the fuck I like,’ he said. Then he paused, glanced at his boys waiting by the door and back at Jackie, who now stared intently back at him. ‘But I suppose I am trying to teach my boys how to get on the world, and it’s worth them learning that a little politeness costs nothing.’ He tried to smile at Jackie. ‘And because I want something from your friend,’ now he motioned at me with the damp cigar, ‘I’ll try and be a little bit polite, how’s that for you? Eh?’

  ‘Asian Gentleman,’ said Kray One.

  ‘What?’ said Mick.

  ‘It’s what the teacher told us we should call Pakis,’ said Kray Two.

  ‘I’m actually A Sikh,’ said Jackie.

  ‘And what the fuck is the difference?’ said Mick.

  ‘Well,’ said Jackie, and he leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees and resting his head on his hands. ‘You see, it’s to do with religion, culture and the partition of India …’

  ‘Part-ish-on,’ said Kray One.

  ‘Shut up!’ roared Mick, ‘all of you!’

  The twins froze, one of them halfway through getting his dictionary out of his back pocket.

  Mick took a deep breath and sat back. I discarded fanciful notions of this being a place only for quiet and Mick turned to me. ‘Will you go and see Frank or not?’

  ‘It’s not really a choice, is it?’ I said.

  ‘Not really,’ said Mick, ‘but I am trying to be polite.’

  ‘We’ll go,’ I said. He nodded. He looked miserable, and for a moment I didn’t see a gangster, I saw a sad old man.

  ‘When you see Frank,’ he said quietly, ‘ask him why.’

  ‘Why what?’ I said.

  ‘He’ll know,’ said Mick. He turned away, as if ashamed that I’d seen a moment of weakness, and when he turned back the gangster was firmly back in place. ‘You might be better going alone too – I doubt Frank wants to see your Asian-gentleman friend.’

  ‘Frank doesn’t get to choose where I go,’ said Jackie.

  Mick shrugged. ‘As long as he gets my message’ – he stared at Jackie – ‘I don’t really care what happens to you. You’ve always been trouble.’ He chewed on his cigar and turned back to me, breath wheezing in and out. ‘You can go now.’