A Numbers Game (Mal & Jackie Book 1)

by RJ Dark

  ‘The police …’

  ‘You. Have. Nothing,’ she said. She pushed the knife against my neck. I felt the cold pain of the blade opening my skin. ‘And will the police really care if another small-time scam artist vanishes from the streets?’

  ‘Jackie knows I’m here,’ I said, lifting my head as if it could get me further away from her knife. ‘He’s expecting me at the office at six. He’ll come looking.’

  ‘That fucking Paki.’ She hissed each word. My answer came automatically.

  ‘He’s a Sikh.’

  ‘Shut the fuck up.’ She screamed it into my face.

  I did. Then I was staring into her eyes as she decided what she was going to do. And even though I thought I was good at reading people, I had no idea. But I suppose that shouldn’t really have surprised me, because I’d had no idea all along.

  She let the knife drop. Took a step back. Smiled.

  ‘You have nothing,’ she said. ‘Nothing at all. Now fuck off, I’m going for a drink with some friends.’

  I did as she said.

  33

  I drove back, annoyed with myself. What had I expected to happen? Had I seriously thought I could confront Janine Stanbeck and she would, would what? Hand herself in to the police in tears because she’d been caught out?

  Of course not.

  I hadn’t quite expected what I had found, and it had thrown me, so I took the long way round on my way back to the shop, only to find my usual parking place filled by a rusty, old green Ford van. Which irritated me. I parked as closely as I could to its back bumper to make getting out of the space difficult for the driver, which was petty, but that was the way I was feeling.

  Nothing I had done had brought me any nearer to finding the lottery ticket.

  I locked the car and wandered over to the shop. The door was open, which was a relief. I needed to talk to Jackie. Maybe he would see a way of using what I had found out to stop Frank sending Donald to murder us; or a way to stop both of us ending up in prison because Jackie had killed Donald to stop him murdering us.

  ‘Jackie?’ I had to squint. He’d not put the lights on, but I could just make out his figure at my desk. Sat in my chair, which I knew he did to infuriate me.

  ‘No,’ said a voice, and I stumbled, trying to stop myself mid-step. No?

  ‘Jackie?’ I said again, though it was stupid thing to say, because it wasn’t Jackie.

  ‘Sit down, Mal.’

  I did, sliding into the client’s chair, more confused than anything because Callum Callaghan was sitting in my seat.

  ‘Callum,’ I said, ‘how did you get in?’

  ‘With a key.’

  ‘I didn’t give you a key.’

  ‘No, I stole it last time I was here. You left them on the desk.’

  ‘I wondered where they had gone,’ I said. ‘Why would you need my keys, Callum?’

  ‘To get in, of course.’

  ‘Why would you need to get in?’

  I was being very slow.

  ‘You’re the detective, Mal.’

  ‘I’m not a detective.’

  ‘Well, you seem to have been acting like one.’

  My mind wasn’t working.

  ‘But I’d always let you in, Callum. You know that.’

  He let out a laugh. ‘Yeah, you really would. You’re such an idiot, how did you figure any of it out?’

  ‘Any of what?’

  So very, very slow.

  Callum flicked on the desk lamp. On my desk was the bottle of whisky I kept hidden away, next to that was the syringe kept in the same cupboard and the empty pill bottle. He picked up the pill bottle.

  ‘Ris-pe-ri-done.’ He sounded out every syllable. ‘I had to google these. Everyone always said you were a nutter, a clever nutter. But still a nutter. I didn’t think they meant it properly.’

  ‘Callum …’

  ‘You really think we can risk you telling Mick about what happened to Larry?’

  Oh.

  What a fool I had been.

  ‘You work for Janine,’ I said.

  ‘Not for!’ he shouted, and he slammed the pill bottle down on the table. ‘Not for,’ he said again, more quietly. ‘With. I work with her. We work together.’ He sat back. ‘You’re not even meant to be here. You were meant to go down for what happened to my dad.’

  Ice in my stomach.

  Benny Callaghan’s voice.

  Look out for my son.

  Not a request. A warning.

  ‘You killed him? You tortured your own father to death?’

  ‘He deserved it,’ said Callum. No doubt there. No emotion. ‘He hated that I wanted to come and work with him. Wanted me to go to some stupid farming college.’ A crack in his voice. ‘He made out like I wasn’t good enough to work with him. Like I was too stupid.’ His eyes met mine, and I saw the anger flare. ‘He let my fucking mum die!’ Then his voice became quiet again. ‘But he was scared at the end.’

  ‘Scared?’

  ‘He knew I had more backbone than him. He was always, “Don’t do that, Callum, don’t do this, Callum.” Cos he was scared of being a real gangster.’

  ‘And you killed him for that?’

  He looked confused. ‘No, I killed him because he was going to betray me.’ He stood and raised his voice. ‘His own fucking son!’ He was going to tell Mick about me and Janine! Tell Mick we were going to run away once we got the money.’

  ‘That was why he wanted the ticket,’ I said. ‘To stop you and Janine getting it.’

  Callum sat back down and leaned toward me, something desperate on his face.

  ‘I had to know if he had it, you see? That’s why I had to hurt him. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. I didn’t. But I don’t think Callum wanted to hear that.

  ‘But now we have the money from her parents’ estate, see?’ He smiled. ‘We can get away. She’ll be the brains. I’ll be her muscle. We don’t even need the ticket.’

  Another piece, clicked into place.

  ‘That’s what you meant, isn’t it, when you said “mechanic”? Not for cars, you meant a hitman, a killer.’

  He nodded. ‘Talking of which,’ he said quietly, ‘I have a gift for you. I think you’ll like it.’ He dug in his pocket, took out a spoon and a small clingfilm pellet full of a brown substance that made me swallow and want to reach out, to hold it, touch it, own it. Heroin. He put the spoon and drugs down and pushed them forward with the syringe.

  ‘I don’t do that anymore.’

  ‘You could do though, one last time.’

  ‘I don’t want to.’ I did. In the dim light of the Anglepoise, I only had eyes for the pellet of drugs. I wasn’t kidding myself; I knew what he intended. What he was offering me wasn’t a gateway into addiction, it was a way to end my life.

  ‘You saw what I did to my da.’ Broken hands. ‘You saw.’ Broken teeth. ‘He always said I’d never be anything, wasn’t strong, wasn’t clever. He said Mick’s gang ate up people like me. He wanted me to work on that fucking farm, with fucking cows. Knee-deep in shit cos that’s what he thought I was.’

  ‘He was proud of you for it.’ I said. ‘For getting out.’

  ‘No!’ shouted Callum, and he stood, leaning over the desk. In his right hand was a gun. He pushed it against my forehead. ‘You shut up! Fucking shut up!’

  Now I couldn’t look at anything but the gun. My mouth went dry. The gun filled my world. I didn’t know its make. That was my first thought, because you never know how you’ll react to a gun until you see one. It was something dark and ugly and blocky. Jackie would know what it was, know its name, know how many bullets were in it, know its effective range. He would be able to reel all those things off.

  I didn’t need to know those things because I knew something more important. It was more than a gun. It was Callum Callaghan’s self-worth.

  ‘I am giving you an opportunity to go easily, Mal,’ he said. ‘Cos I like you, Mal.’ He was looking straight at me. ‘I did
n’t like my da, but I didn’t enjoy what I did to him.’ Was there something there, some note of desperation? ‘Janine said I had to make sure he didn’t know where the ticket was, cos he was close to Larry.’

  ‘Did Janine give you the gun?’ I sounded far calmer than I felt.

  He nodded. ‘She loves me. It was a gift.’

  I looked at Callum, sad, downtrodden Callum. And I knew, for sure, he was as much a tool as the gun he held in his hand. It didn’t make me feel any safer.

  ‘If you kill me, Callum, you’ll never get the ticket.’ How much did he know?

  ‘We don’t need the ticket,’ he said and pushed the gun harder against my forehead, forcing my head back. ‘Why aren’t you listening?’ His voice full of frustration. ‘Her parents are dead – she’ll get all the money they had, and the house. We can run away with that.’

  ‘Did you do that too, Callum, her parents?’

  A little smile on his face. The pressure of the gun on my forehead lessened a little.

  ‘You learn a lot on a farm, Mal.’ He took a step back, dropping the gun to his side. ‘It’s heavy,’ he said, lifting it again to show me. ‘I loosened the break cables a bit on her dad’s car. He shrugged, ‘Little hole in this, little hole in that. Suddenly a car is out of control.’

  ‘And she knows you did it?’

  ‘She asked me to do it.’

  Of course she did.

  ‘She’s using you, Callum.’

  ‘She loves me.’ He seemed so very sure.

  ‘She has no intention of running away, Callum. She’s Mick’s numbers girl. All the stuff that everyone thought Larry did for Mick, that was her. She’s not going to run away – she has a place in Mick’s organisation.’

  He stared at me, shook his head. ‘That is not true,’ he said.

  ‘It is. She told me.’

  ‘No!’ A sudden flash of temper and he raised the gun, pointed it at me again. I turned my head away. ‘If it’s true, Mal, why has she got me keeping that gang war going then, eh? Making Mick weak, eh? Why would she even do that, eh, clever lad?’

  I didn’t know. Not straight away. Callum was right – it made no sense. Why put the machine that provided for her in jeopardy? But, like drops of water falling from a tap to form a pool, it started to come together. Larry, Mick’s son, gone. Benny, Mick’s right hand, gone. The organisation crippled and in desperate need of money.

  ‘Oh Callum,’ I said. ‘I am so sorry.’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘You’re a dead man.’

  ‘Don’t you fucking threaten me,’ he said. ‘I’ve got a gun.’

  ‘I’m not threatening you.’

  ‘And don’t think I’m frightened of your Paki friend – I have plans for him.’ The gun in his hand was wavering.

  ‘I’m not talking about Jackie.’

  ‘What then?’ He looked so confused.

  ‘Janine’s used you to clear a path, make Mick weak so he needs cash. She’s going to use her money to buy in, make herself Mick’s new second in command. She’ll probably take over at some point. How long do you think you’ll last, knowing the things you know? Because me and you, in this room, we’re the only people that know the truth. That she had Mick’s son killed. And she is careful, and she is clever.’

  He stared at me over the barrel of the gun, and I thought he saw it. Thought he saw the truth, and that the only way this could ever end for him was in an unmarked grave somewhere on the moors.

  The gun started to come down.

  Then he shook his head.

  The gun came back up, pointed at my forehead, his hand no longer shaking.

  ‘She said you were full of weasel words, said you’d come up with something to try and save yourself. Well, I’m not stupid, Mal. You can’t fool me.’ He lowered the gun and tapped the syringe with the barrel. ‘I’m going to give you one more chance. Okay? You can go easy’ – he pushed the syringe forward with the gun barrel – ‘or you can go hard’ – he pointed the gun at me. ‘Your choice.’

  I waited a moment, hoping Jackie would come running through the door to save me.

  He didn’t.

  I felt terribly cold. Knowing you are about to die is not a pleasant sensation. But the heroin, I knew that would warm me up. I would slip away in a warm infinity and I wouldn’t care about Callum Callaghan or Janine Stanbeck or Cristophe or Trolley Mick or Russian Frank.

  ‘What’ll it be then, Mal?’

  ‘Easy,’ I said. Defeated.

  Callum nodded, lowering the gun.

  ‘I knew you’d go for that,’ he said. ‘Da always said, “Once a junkie, always a junkie.”‘

  I stared at him, wondering if he realised he had quoted his father, but he seemed completely unaware.

  ‘Do it then,’ he said.

  I remembered Jackie, sat in the corner of an empty room.

  It’s your choice.

  I heard the voice of Callum’s dad.

  He never thinks ahead.

  Time. I needed time. Jackie might turn up.

  Something might turn up.

  ‘I can’t just do it, Callum.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s the last time I’ll ever get to do this.’ I picked up the syringe and stood up. Took my coat off and hung it on the back of the chair. ‘It has to be right, Callum. There are rituals I need to do, stuff to make it right.’

  ‘You mean, like witchcraft,’ he said. He was very calm now, sure of himself, conversational even. In his mind, he’d won.

  ‘No, just things I need to do to make it right.’

  He scratched his head with the gun barrel, ruffling up his thatch of brown hair.

  ‘Like the whisky,’ I said. ‘It’s there cos before I fix my shot, I need a drink.’

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘bottle’s right in front of you.’

  ‘No, not swigging it out a bottle. I need it from a glass, a tumbler. Lead crystal is the best …’

  ‘Well, get one then.’

  ‘I haven’t got any. But there’s a mug in the bottom drawer of the desk.’ He stared at me, then reached down. I heard the drawer open, and he took out the mug – white with a black pair of antlers on it. He pushed it across the desk with his gun.

  ‘There you go.’

  ‘Thanks. I’m going to have plenty,’ I said, and I filled the mug two thirds of the way up. ‘Now I need a candle.’

  ‘A candle?’

  ‘Yeah, I like the light. And I need it to melt the heroin on the spoon with. There’s one on the desk, by you. Just light it – matches are in the top drawer.’ He stared at me. ‘Please, Callum. A shot of whisky, candlelight.’ Callum had gone back to staring at me. ‘Come on, mate. This is the last thing I’ll ever do.’ He shrugged and lit the candle. ‘Could you hold the candle, Callum? I’ll need you to pass it to me in a bit, so I can heat the spoon. Make my fix.’

  He nodded and picked up the candle, holding it in front of his chest.

  ‘This is very good whisky,’ I stared into the mug. ‘High alcohol content.’ I lifted the mug up. ‘Cheers, Callum,’ I said.

  ‘Cheers’ he said.

  He looked a little puzzled.

  ‘Your dad once said something to me, Callum.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said you never think ahead,’ I grinned, ‘and he was right.’

  I threw the whisky in Callum’s face. The liquid hit him. The candle ignited it, coating him in flaming alcohol. He screamed, dropped the gun and started batting at himself. I threw the syringe in the corner of the room and ran.

  First, I ran to my car. But someone had parked right up against the back of it and because I’d parked so near the van it was blocked in. I swore, kicked the car behind mine and headed down the road as fast as I could. I heard the door open behind me.

  ‘Bastard!’ shouted Callum, and he must have been shooting at me. It didn’t sound like gunshots in a film. It was quieter than I expected. Quieter than balloons popping. Then it felt like someone punched me
in the arm and I was swung around, fighting to keep my balance as I ran around the edge of the kebab shop. I thought of running in, but it was Monday and all the lights were out.

  I headed for the woods. Running for the trees, not thinking about the growing ache in my arm or the pain in my lungs from running. Hearing Callum behind me but not near enough to catch me. Then I was among the trees, in the gloom. I headed in as far in as I could. Careening off the path. Crashing through waist-high bracken, hiding behind a tree. Willing my breathing to slow.

  Phone.

  I needed my phone. Got it. Dial. Answer it, Jackie. Answer it.

  Jackie: Speak.

  Me: Jackie I need you here.’

  Words coming out in a rush.

  Jackie: Chill out, I’m about five minutes away.

  Me: Callum Callaghan did it.

  Jackie: What?

  Me: He killed Benny, and he’s got a gun and I’m hiding in the woods behind the shop.

  Jackie: Fuck! What type of gun?

  Me: A black one.

  Jackie: Listen to me. Turn up your phone and chuck it as far away as you can. Then hide. And Mal …

  Me: What?

  Jackie: Don’t die.

  He rang off. I stared at the phone, wondering what he was planning.

  ‘Mal! Come out, Mal! This can still go easy, Mal!’

  I dialled the volume up to full and threw the phone as far as I could from me, peered around the edge of the tree. I could see Callum; he was silhouetted at the treeline, and it looked like he was reloading his weapon. I got down low. The bracken was coming up thick. I had to force my way through sharp stalks, and I couldn’t put any weight on my left arm. Blood running down my arm from my bicep. I was shot. He shot me. It hurt. I didn’t want to die. I crawled on. Found another tree. Sat with my back against it.

  I was shot.

  Callum was loud coming through the wood. From where I sat, I could see the road on the other side of the wood as he strode through the bracken, gun in one hand.

  ‘Come out, Mal. There’s not much wood to hide in.’ He was right. ‘I’ll find you eventually.’ Also right. ‘I’ll make it fucking hurt! It can still be quick.’ I peered round the tree, through a screen of gently shivering bracken. No sign of him to my left. I leaned around to the right. No sign of—