by Robert Young
He hurriedly scribbled his home and mobile phone numbers on the piece of paper that was handed to him and was already at the door before the suited man could stand up and show him out.
4
Sunday. 10am.
The usual Sunday quiet of the East London street was punctuated by the occasional sounds of passing cars and barking dogs. A radio played through the open windows of a parked Mercedes as a teenage boy worked a large sponge over the bonnet. The paintwork gleamed proudly in the morning sun and streams of soaped water ran against the edge of the pavement down into the drain.
Close by, a car pulled up to the curb across the street and Julius Warren, a slim muscular black man, climbed out, locked it and crossed the road. Walking around the front of the sparkling vehicle he walked through the gate of the nearest house, up the short path which he covered in three strides, and pressed his finger to the bell.
The door opened and the man was invited in and pointed along the hallway.
In the kitchen, disturbed by the doorbell, George Gresham stood at the counter with a large knife in his hand and was staring at the doorway as Warren walked in.
'Mr Warren. Always a pleasure old son. Lovely day,' Gresham greeted him brightly.
'George,' he replied with a curt nod.
'Rabbit stew,' Gresham jabbed the knife toward the chopping board where a pair of long, limp dead rabbits lay. He began slicing through their beige fur, working his thumbs underneath as he deftly skinned the animals. Warren noted both the fact the knife seemed far too large and cumbersome for the seemingly delicate job that Gresham was using it but equally how adept the man was at handling the blade. Gresham, without looking up, picked up on Warren's train of thought.
'I love this big bastard,' he said holding it up for a better look. 'You could skin a Rhino with this Jools. Beautiful isn't it?' he said and went back to the rabbits. 'Not that you'd want to I s'pose. Even so, lovely piece of work. Keep this sharp and this sharp,' he said as he tapped his temple with the tip of the blade and then thrust it into the air in front of his face.
Warren raised his eyebrows and nodded again, attempting to convey his affirmation. Gresham's attention was back on the rabbits.
'Lovely meat, rabbit. You cook Jools?' Warren opened his mouth to answer but Gresham was still going. 'I love cooking. Very stress relieving, you know, chopping things up. Taking out your frustrations after a hard day in the office on a pound of carrots and a chicken. But there's art in it too, you know? Craft. Getting the perfect balance, getting everything just right. There's a lot of technique and skill. Timing. You know what I mean son? You cook?' Gresham's voice was thick and deep and always sounded to Warren as if the big man had just woken up, or been denied access to water for some time. Rough and dry.
'I've got a few little specialities in my repertoire George, yeah. Soon as I realised that I couldn't live with me Mum forever I quickly realised that I couldn't live without her rice and peas and jerk chicken either. Used to hang around the kitchen when I was 18 and watch her work. Still can't get close to the old girl but I do alright.'
'I'll bet you do son. Now,' Gresham said as he went back to work on the meat, 'are you going to tell me why you are standing in my kitchen on a Sunday morning, watching me skin a brace of rabbits and talking to me about your Mum?'
Warren drew in a breath and the rehearsed words that he had run through several times in the car deserted him entirely. 'Last night boss... Tony,' he said and stood silently searching for the next sentence to form.
Gresham put down the knife, which Warren found strangely more threatening than had he still been holding it. 'Jools, I am going to assume that since you were not alone last night when we spoke and you are now that you've been sent as the messenger because you drew the short straw. Am I right, Jools? Are you here alone because you have bad news for me?'
Warren, to his credit, looked his boss in the eye when he answered. It was one of the reasons the older man liked him. He had balls. He had balls enough to own up when he fucked up. Gresham could only respect that quality in a man.
'Think he walked on us,' he said flatly.
'Come off Jools,' he spat. 'He did or he didn't. Stop messing about.'
'OK, he did. But? well he can't have got far. He was not a well boy.'
'If you believed that, you wouldn't be here ruining the rest of my mostly ruined weekend.'
'OK. We followed him round most of the day, but he was really edgy so we couldn't get near him for ages. Anyway, when we finally got hold of him, well, it wasn't much fun. He was a mate too y'know.'
'Jools-'
Warren stopped him. 'I know George, I know. But it doesn't make it easier.'
'Just makes him more dangerous.'
Jools shrugged a reluctant acknowledgement. 'Anyway, I did him.' Gresham's eyebrows arched but Warren pressed on. 'Slater still looked furious and I was worried he might get... carried away. So I found somewhere quiet and he left me to it.'
'I get the feeling you're about to tell me that you should have let Slater do it?'
'I sort of forgot myself gov. What with everything.'
Gresham's head was down, his eyes on the floor. When they closed, Warren kept talking.
'I came back over and Slater says to me; 'Have you done it right?' - I don't think Slater really wanted to leave me to do it alone but Cooper knew Slater's game all the way. Maybe he fancied his chances better with me.'
'Not wrong it seems. Keith's the only one with any intelligence half the time,' observed Gresham. 'So what went wrong?'
Warren then began to explain to his boss what had happened the previous afternoon. They had taken the other man, Tony Cooper, an old friend and associate, into a pub, feigning innocence, playing friendly, although he was clearly not convinced by their false sincerity and forced conversation as he nervously swigged back a number of drinks. Drinks they had been careful to spike.
Before long the man was slurring his words and had begun to plead with them as he dropped the pretence but his words were met with denials as they insisted not to know what he meant.
Soon they left the pub, Warren with an arm around Cooper's shoulder as he staggered through the door. They assured him they were going for a curry and he had reluctantly stumbled along with them, eyes slightly glazed but still darting between them with suspicion.
Warren had helped Cooper into a dark, quiet passageway - 'Come on Tone, you must need a slash. I'm dying for one,' - and emerged alone not two minutes later.
'Have you done it right?' asked Keith Slater. Slater was to all intents and purposes, Gresham's number two, his hatchet man. Intelligent and soft-spoken he was as hard as he was cruel. But his ruthlessness made him a very efficient professional and his loyalty to Gresham was clear from the number of scars he had gained in his service and the two brief stints in prison he had done in place of his boss.
'Piss off Keith,' replied Warren irritably and dropped the zip on his jacket six inches to show the dark bloodstain smudged across his sweater beneath.
'Alright. What you going to do with his stuff?' Slater asked.
Warren frowned.
Slater looked about ready to swing at him.
'His stuff, Jools. His wallet, his watch. It won't look like much of a robbery if nothing's been taken, will it you prick?'
A look of panic and rage passed over Warren's face and he span and stalked back round the corner.
Slater was still staring at the space he'd vacated when he came back around the corner. Warren's expression told him that all was not well.
'He's... Jesus! What the hell...?' muttered Warren as he shook his head.
'Christ Jools, what now?' barked Slater.
*
'He's gone.'
George Gresham had quietly closed the kitchen door and showed him politely to a seat. Breezily he asked if Warren wanted a drink of something. For all the courtesy he was being shown Warren felt a palpable sense of menace. Suddenly he was acutely aware of the knife rack, the heav
y looking pots that hung suspended in the corner, the gas burners on the hob. He accepted an offer of tea.
Gresham filled the kettle and Warren began to question the wisdom of having the man boil water but the last thing he was going to do was speak out of turn. His only job now was to sit and wait until the boss said something.
Thankfully he wasn't kept waiting too long.
'So where did this little circus take place? I mean, is Cooper running around somewhere looking for a copper? Is he going to come knocking on my door with a gun and a grudge? You said you think he walked. Tell me it wasn't far Jools.'
Warren shook his head slowly and tried to think of how best to finish the story. 'I stuck him in the neck George - properly - I can't imagine he got too far. I mean I dropped him. He was on the ground when I left him.
'Anyway, we figured that the booze and stuff had put him half to sleep and the knife would finish the job. I guess it woke him up. We checked a few streets round there, 'cos he must have jumped a wall or something - lots of houses round there, lots of gardens. But we didn't find him. My guess is he started crawling off somewhere but he didn't crawl far. Can't have done. My guess is we check the Standard for the next few days and read about where they find him in there.
'This was down Fulham by the way. He ended up going to the Chelsea, West Ham game see - goes to loads of Hammers games right? - so we kind of pretended it was all spontaneous, that we'd figured on heading down to meet him and picked up a few tickets off a tout. Handy that it was miles away from here too.'
Gresham handed Warren a mug and offered him milk from a jug. Again Warren felt the incongruity of such niceties against the topic of their conversation. He prepared himself for an onslaught from his boss. Instead he got a biscuit.
'Julius. We appear to have a situation don't we? Yes we do George,' he answered for him. 'Now, you boys have screwed up and you've left us even deeper in it than we were this time yesterday. Not only is he still out there somewhere, where he can be spotted, identified and pulled in and take the whole lot of us down - and if you don't know otherwise Jools then we are sure as hell going to have assume that he is out there and looking for the nearest Old Bill to help him - but he's walking round with a hole in his neck. And that doesn't make us look like a nice bunch of men does it Jools? No, George, it surely does not. Not to mention the fact that it was one of his best mates that shoved a blade into him - well, I think I'd fancy my chances with the Bill personally given the choice. I would think that our position and his position were pretty bloody crystal now, don't you? Cooper's going to find himself a copper as soon as he can and he's going to give them all sorts of juicy stories to make them keep vicious bastards like you and Slater away from him.'
Warren nodded his head. Cooper, as an associate for many years, could give enough information to the police to bury the lot of them if he wanted to try to buy his own safety.
'Which means you and Slater should be in Fulham, or wherever he's got to, tidying this lot up.'
'Course boss. I'll call Slater,' he replied trying to sound upbeat, on the ball.
'Where is Slater?'
Warren didn't move. Gresham stayed silent which was enough to scare the other man into responding.
'We didn't really know where else to look. We couldn't exactly start knocking on doors, so Keith's gone up Cooper's neck of the woods.'
'Knocking on doors,' hissed Gresham through tightly clenched teeth, 'is exactly what you could do. Pretend you're the Bill, pretend you're the Gas man! Get yourself back to Fulham and start from where you left him. I don't want to see any of you back here until you've made absolutely certain that that bastard isn't going to put the whole lot of us on the front page of the fucking papers!' Gresham finished with his voice a coarse roar.
Warren stood and walked sheepishly to the front door, his shoulders low and sagging.
'Jools,' growled Gresham.
Warren turned.
'They win? The Hammers?'
He shook his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets.
'No boss. They took a spanking.'
5
Sunday. 12pm.
It felt like he was paralysed. When his eyes flicked open he immediately squeezed them closed again.
Campbell's head thumped like something was trying to pound its way out through his temples. Slowly he drew his arm up and wrapped it over his eyes, burying the bridge of his nose in the crook of his elbow. After a moment he became aware of his tongue which felt like it was slightly too large for his mouth and as if it had been stuck in place with something foul tasting.
He rolled to the side of the bed, opened his eyes a crack and felt around for the glass of water that he knew was on the floor. The glass was empty before his thirst was satisfied. He slumped onto his back again and rolled his tongue around his mouth.
He lay there for long minutes stretching his limbs slowly, trying to work out whether he was going to throw up or not, that maybe getting up and moving around might hasten it but also that if he didn't get another drink of water soon it was probably going to happen anyway. At least if he was up, he could get to the bathroom. Keep it tidy.
The flat was dark as he moved through it, the curtains drawn in the living room, blinds lowered in the kitchen and bathroom. This, he knew, masked the reality of what he faced. He had staggered through the mess the night before on his way to bed and in the subdued daylight it looked worse still and the smell of stale air and alcohol was thick in the air. Campbell avoided the kitchen entirely and headed with his empty glass to the bathroom instead. Nothing had happened in there.
He ran the tap until the water ran cold and sipped from the glass before taking larger swallows. Seconds after finishing the glass his mouth felt dry again and his stomach was turning. The thirst was worse than the nausea though and he drank another glass down in three big gulps.
Stepping into the hall he looked one way toward the kitchen at one end and then looked the other way toward his gloomy bedroom and the lounge on the opposite side.
Even from here he could see mess everywhere and the smell of it once again assailed his sensitive nostrils. Campbell closed his eyes and turned back to the bathroom and shower.
After showering he felt as if a stiff layer of filth had been rinsed away and his clean clothes smelt fresh and felt like it. As prepared as he could be Campbell now set about trying to rid his flat of all the evidence of the night before, throwing open windows to chase out the stale stink and fresh memories. Half-full cans and glasses were scattered across almost every surface, dumped there as people had made hastily for the exit.
As he worked, flashes of the evening replayed in his mind but bigger chunks were missing now than last night and he found himself every so often pausing from one chore or another and staring blankly at the wall trying to summon up memories.
The blonde girl. She'd been good looking, he thought. Or at least had seemed so at the time. Maybe that was the drink though, impairing his judgement. Certainly it had impaired it enough for him to empty so many glasses down his throat. To mix his drinks. Wine, beer, Tequila. He could still taste Sambuca somehow, though could only barely recall sinking one shot of that. Had there been anything else?
Dropping empty beer cans and wine bottles into black refuse sacks he wondered how much of these he had been responsible for. There were so many. Then his stomach lurched again and he tried not to think about how much he'd drunk at all.
Having woken late he noted that the time was now getting on for three in the afternoon. The kitchen would wait no longer and he moved gingerly to the door, pausing there with his hands on the doorframe, that same invisible barrier holding him back as it had the previous night. The scene before him was a stark and vivid reminder of what had taken place.
An hour later, the kitchen as clean as he had ever seen it, he was back in bed again. The headache, the nausea and the black mood that refused to lift could all be avoided in sleep, he reasoned, so he crawled back under the duvet and slowly d
rifted off.
For two hours he slept as the daylight crept out of the room, as a jumble of images, real and created, tumbled through his mind, as the phone rang unanswered in the other room and an officious male voice droned out a message for Daniel Campbell.
When he awoke he felt no better. The pounding in his temples had grown more insistent and his tongue felt as thick and dry as before. His dreams had been confused and disturbing and though the images faded quickly when he opened his eyes, they had already set his mood low and morose.
Pulling on his dressing gown, not bothering even to dress properly now, he wandered back into the kitchen to fill another glass of water to rinse the persistent thirst. He left the light off though, as if afraid that he might see something he didn't want to, as if something might have come back. Campbell shuffled through to the living room, hand on his somersaulting stomach, frown on his face. As if this wasn't bad enough already, Monday was looming now and with it the grind of work. His spirits sank further with this thought.
His employer was a respected research company operating in the retail investment industry. Offering independent assessment and analysis of the many different investment funds available to the public the company had large numbers of staff whose job it was to constantly research and monitor different funds and fund managers in the industry. Campbell was one of those people.
Sometimes he enjoyed it, digging around for information on investment houses or individual fund managers and their teams of analysts or occasionally the companies in which they invested, the stocks they bought, the different sectors. Dissecting the numbers, the patterns they formed. Sometimes it was something to get his teeth into, cutting through all the spiel and the salesmanship and gloss to the facts and figures and trends beneath.
Often though, Campbell found himself bored. He read through pages of dull figures and financial reports, fund portfolios, profits and loss and pages and pages of charts and graphs. The columns of figures and the bars and lines often became meaningless shapes and colours and patterns. The meetings with people trying to convince him and his colleagues that everything in their company or their fund was positive and wonderful and up, up, up often became an exercise in chewing back his yawns.