Marwick's Reckoning - Gareth Spark

by Near To The Knuckle

  Marwick sipped from the beer before he spoke. 'There was a boat, in Sant Carles.'

  'The Verge del Cami,' Salvador Rus said, lifting the brandy glass again, but not drinking.

  'Then you know something about it.'

  'Something.'

  'They were bringing stuff in for Sean Mallon.'

  'I know what was on board,' Salvador said. He placed the glass back onto the table. 'I am not happy, Sean knows I bring that shit into this town. I should put you through that damn window.'

  'You could try,' Marwick said.

  Al was sweating. His pale blue eyes flicked from one of the men to the other and he tapped his fingers nervously on the wet top of the table. 'Let's not get carried away.'

  The music seemed to become louder, there were handclaps and stamping feet beneath the playing guitar now.

  'Somebody stole what was on that boat,' Marwick asked his eyes cold and steady, 'and we need it back. A friend of mine died there, a good friend. I am going to find who did it.'

  'So,' Salvador Rus said, 'you have this man's ghost around you and you need to send it back to hell with a passport stamped in blood?'

  'You put it very well, amigo mio.'

  'I am a poet.'

  'I have no doubt.' Marwick said. The pistol was heavy and rough against his sore skin. He finished his beer.

  'Who do you think has done this?' Salvador asked.

  'Don't know,' Al said, 'Russians?'

  'You always think it is the Russians; everyone is a Russian. You watch too many movies. Forget about the Russians.'

  'Then who?'

  'Perhaps there is a snake in your own nest.'

  The door to the bar opened with a slam and two men entered, shouting to the barman. Marwick watched them and then said, 'I like your ink, Señor.'

  Salvador lifted his arm and flexed the muscle. 'She dances well.'

  'You know something about tattoos?' Marwick asked. His eyes drifted down to the table, which was soaked with spilled drink, probably from the fight before. The hot lights of the bar glowed in it like the jewels of a broken crown, bent and warped.

  'I know I regret them,' Salvador said, addressing Al, 'when the Guards pick you up and they know the man they want has such and such a picture on his arm or breast, it is much more difficult to pretend to be somebody new.' He laughed and for the first time Marwick noticed he was missing a front tooth.

  'How about spiders on the back of hands?'

  Salvador stopped laughing. 'I know nothing about it.'

  'You know a man with ink like that?'

  'I think it's time for you to leave, hombre. I did not steal from you, which is all you need to know. I saw the Romanian yesterday with one of your friends so ask them.'

  'There's nothing you can tell me about Sean's business, gitano, that's not why I'm here,' Marwick said.

  'I know everything.'

  'How?'

  Salvador leaned forward. 'You want to know the truth behind all these lies? Yes, I know who stole from you as well as I know who killed your friend and I know the truth of Sean Mallon as well as I know the truth of Cezar Stelescu and his Mary of a brother, but I am not going to sit here and tell you for nothing. I am the way,' he said, half remembering the bits of scripture he had learned, 'and there is no way to the truth but through me.'

  'I could make you tell me,' Marwick said.

  'As you put it yourself a moment ago,' Salvador said quietly, 'you could try.'

  'How much?'

  'I'm not greedy.'

  'Five hundred?' Al asked.

  'Five thousand.'

  Now Marwick laughed. 'You're crazy'

  'It's worth it,' Salvador said, leaning forward and waving to the barman for another drink. 'You will save yourself many troubles; you could get that money simply and it would be enough for me to get away from this disgusting coast.' He looked around and thanked the barman who placed the drink on the table in front of him. 'I need to get away,' he looked up at Al, staring hard.

  'Don't we all,' Marwick said. His headache had returned and sweat trickled down between his shoulder blades, collecting in the small of his back where his belt was tight against his sore skin.

  'This is all I want,' he was almost begging. 'To get away and carry on living. That is all. I got in too deep, thought I was on top of things, but it turns out they are on top of me.'

  Marwick turned to Al. His dark blue eyes were weary and rimmed with red. 'What do you reckon?'

  'It's your call, Marwick.'

  Marwick leaned on the table with his elbows and breathed out slowly.

  The clatter of pans came from the kitchen behind him and somebody yelled from the table in the corner beside the grease–stained window.

  'Give me something,' Marwick said, 'so I can see what this is all worth.'

  Rus moved around to face Marwick, his leather vest creaking. Beads of perspiration caught in the dark hairs on his forearms and glittered like amber. 'Such as what?'

  'A name, something I can take.'

  'A name, I can give you a name. Christie, there's a name. You want more, you pay.'

  Marwick stood. 'We'll see.'

  He walked hard across the bar and kicked the door open.

  Al, remaining at the table, winked at Salvador Rus and said, 'We'll be in touch.'

  Rus shrugged and lit a cigarette. 'This time next week, I'll be gone.' He said again, 'I didn't know what I was getting into.'

  'None of us did,' Al said, standing.

  Marwick leaned against the car outside and looked up at the moon hanging low at the end of Rambla Jaume I. Somebody was singing in the night and there were distant bangs, as of fireworks. He nodded to Al, as the latter crossed, his expensive shoes trailing in the water as it ran down the bank. 'Where the bloody 'ell did you find him.'

  'It's his way,' Al said. 'He was a musician once and he has this sort of dramatic way of doing business, but don't let it put you off. He's the real thing.'

  'If he's going to tell us, for five grand that Roy was talking to whoever robbed us, we already know that, for free.'

  'You think Roy's in with the Stelescus, they're setting this up, and who's this Christie?'

  Marwick raised his eyebrows and looked down at his feet. 'Christie, I don't know anyone by that name.'

  'Me neither. I don't know about you Marwick, but I'm all for the easy route through life. Let's have this business wrapped up and get back to working on our tans.'

  Chapter Eleven

  Marwick woke, coughing. The room smelled of sweat and spilled drink and oil from the pistol hanging from the wooden headboard. He yawned and squinted at the chair in the corner of the room and saw her. 'You could get where a rat couldn't, do you know that?' His voice was thick with sleep and there were flames of excitement crackling at the bottom of his stomach.

  Louise, her long face creased with a smile, sat in the soft chair. She'd broken into the apartment half an hour ago and had, for reasons she couldn't fully fathom, done nothing but watch him sleep. 'You still snore.'

  Marwick lifted himself up onto his elbows. 'You should have called,' he said, 'I would have made some coffee the way you like it; we could have sent out for breakfast.'

  'I didn't mean for you to see me. I let myself in, was going to have a look around.'

  'What for?'

  'My Dad's not in the south, is he?'

  He looked at her for a long time before he said, 'No.'

  'I went to see Ben's wife,' she said quickly, 'after I found her address, the same way I found yours. She told me about this boat or whatever.'

  'She's a nice old girl,' he said, his voice nothing but a dried out whisper.

  'So what happened?'

  'Nothing was supposed to go wrong.'

  She sat back in the chair and stared at him, her electric blue eyes almost flickering through the gloom. 'I want you to tell me,' she said, 'everything.'

  'Sean has got himself involved with a bunch of hard hitters down here,' Marwick said, 'Romanian
brothers; they're into everything: prostitution, drugs, extortion, credit card fraud, house breaking, porn, everything. You know Sean; he was never going to sit on his hands. He had this idea and paid off a few people so he could build this new place; then he had to pay off some more people. It spiralled until he'd gone through more money than he could spare. Trouble was it was Jack's money.'

  'Dad said something.'

  'To get the money back, he was going to go halves with these brothers on a load of shit coming into Andalusia. They take out little boats and meet the ships at sea, bring it in that way; all the hustle and bustle of restaurants and hotels down there, tourists and that, nobody notices. Charlie knew this bloke who could sail a boat loaded with the shit up here, and it all went like clockwork until the last night; somebody ratted us out, we don't know who, or why, and the boat was hit and the stuff gone.' He sniffed and looked over at her. 'Sean, who took half a million of the Romanian's money to buy half this coke, now owes them for the loss, as well as another half a mil to Jack on top of what he had spent in the first place. First things first he has to give the keys to his new place to the Romanians, the Stelescu brothers, or they're going to kill him. They bring a load of women in and turn it into a brothel, a real shithole.'

  'Sean's an idiot,' she said. Her stomach was frozen.

  'We're tearing round all points trying to get the coke back so he can get the money to Jack; we've only got a handful of days left.'

  'So did you get a name?' she asked, 'from the wife?'

  'Roy Quinn, a bouncer working for Sean. Trouble is he's disappeared, which sets off all kinds of alarm bells with me.'

  'I knew something like this was happening.'

  Marwick lay back on the bed. 'It took my breath away, seeing you, after all this time.'

  'You said you never wanted to see me again, remember?'

  Silence. He heard her rise from the chair and then she was beside him, perched at the edge of the bed, looking down at him; her pale gaze was lost in the darkness. 'Marwick,' she said, 'My Dad's dead, isn't he?'

  He held her gaze. 'Yes.'

  She moved like a striking snake and he didn't see the hand coming for his face, nor did he feel the slap, only the sting of it a moment later. Her teeth showed as she spoke, a canine snarl. 'You should have told me,' she said, her voice breaking, 'I thought you had more about you, Marwick, I always did; I thought you were different to all the scum working for the Firm; I thought you had a soul, a fucking heart.'

  'I'm sorry.'

  'How did it happen?'

  He lay there and felt the burning prickle behind his eyes and it was strange, finally, to confess, and to her, the only one he had ever loved.

  'What did you do with him?' She asked, after he'd finished.

  'Buried him in the mountains.'

  'It makes sense.'

  'Charlie was a good man, the best; I let him down; I was stupid, and it cost him everything.'

  'So it's time to do something right,' she said. 'You're going to help me put this right. We're going to..'

  'We?'

  'You and I will find these people.' Her voice was low, but there was music to it. 'It's what you're good at.'

  'More killing won't make it right.'

  'Don't patronise me.' She looked at him for a long time before she continued. 'Together we can make a reckoning.'

  'You don't want blood on your hands, darling, believe me; it never comes off.'

  'They killed themselves the moment they touched my father.'

  'What about Sean?'

  'Leave him out of it,' she said, smoothing her hair where it lay above her ears, tied back. 'I take it he knows I'm here?'

  'He does.'

  'Ah,' she said, 'that's you, Marwick, faithful little dog, to the last.'

  'You know it's not like that, I owe him. He took care of me when I had nothing, gave me work, money, a home. He and Charlie took me off the streets. I'd be nothing if it weren't for them.'

  'You owe me if anyone. You broke my heart,' her face was very close to his now and he could feel her breath and it seemed cold, even though he knew that could not be, it seemed cold like mist from a northern sea, 'I gave you everything and you threw it away.'

  He said, 'Who threw it away?'

  'You never gave me a chance and when I looked, you'd gone.'

  'I've been gone a long time.'

  She kissed him, hard, and he pulled her down onto the bed and they kissed for a long time until she said. 'You are mine again, now, aren't you?'

  'I was always yours.'

  'Then let's clean up this whole thing and get away and live as we were always supposed to live. You remember that night we went up to Edinburgh? Getting away from it all for a weekend?'

  'I remember it cost a fortune to get into the castle.'

  'And we stood together looking down at the city? Then we went to the restaurant at the end of that yard and got so drunk you tipped the waiter a ten pound note and drank whisky at the tables outside? And they were playing Italian music and the stars were out over the courtyard and there was only us two in the whole world?' She smiled. 'That was the happiest night of my life; I want them all to be like that.'

  'They can be,' he said, 'after.'

  'After.'

  He pulled her close to his body and she felt the contours of his bones beneath his side as she slid a hand across him. There was a scent of oranges to her hair and he smiled.

  'I miss him,' she said, so softly he thought he'd imagined it.

  He kissed the top of her head. 'Me too.'

  Chapter Twelve

  Sean stood in the kitchen of his house, square body enveloped in a late afternoon glow seeping through the window. He held a dart and aimed it with great care at a dartboard suspended on the back of the door, from which two darts, neither placed particularly well, already drooped.

  He wore a gown and his thin hair, usually carefully combed and slicked back was messed, as though he had woken from a night of uneasy dreams. His face was blotchy, and there were deep lines beneath his eyes. When he threw the dart, finally, it missed and clattered to the ground and he swore under his breath.

  He walked outside where he stood at the top of steps leading down to the pool and breathed in the perfume of the lemon tree. He could see across the plain down to Pineda. The skyline was thick with construction cranes and dust coming from the building sites. He found it hard to believe people could work on sites in such heat. He'd worked in construction for a while, back home, in the Sixties. A site down in Bethnal Green and the foreman, a grunting, flat–nosed former soldier, slapped Sean's arm each time he wanted his attention and called him an “'orrible cunt”. Sean took it, but the next week, when the insults really began to flow, Sean turned to one of the Irish lads on site and said, 'Give us 'old of that hammer, will yer?' as the foreman was in full flood. He got six months, and it was inside that time he met Charlie Lynch.

  The thought of Charlie turned a little in Sean's stomach and he decided to have something a little stronger than tea. He filled a large tumbler with whisky.

  He must have fallen asleep because when the buzzer for the gate went it sounded very large in a dream. He was dancing in an old–fashioned dance hall, and it was almost as though the noise of it had reached back to the days when his hair was thick and blond and there was only cunning in his eyes to betray his true nature.

  The sun was very low now, almost behind the pines. Cicadas twittered somewhere in the wasteland between his house and the road. 'Marwick?' He said into a machine on the wall.

  'No,' replied a man's voice, 'are you going to let me in or am I waiting out here all the night?'

  Cezar Stelescu; even through a tinny intercom, he sounded like a murderer. There was a completely dead, careless emptiness to his voice, like the wind blowing through the burned–out wreck of a car.

  Sean pressed the buzzer and walked through the house to the front door, which he opened as he fastened his robe. He swallowed as a dark car pulled up
onto white gravel and the two brothers climbed out. There would be four of them in London, Sean thought, a couple of heavies to watch the head blokes; but the Stelescus did not feel the need for minders and it was this confidence, running through them like lead through a rubber cosh, that got to him.

  Sean, his mind working, turned on his professional smile and rushed outside. His carpet slippers slapped on the dirty ground. 'Cezar, my friend, how nice to see you; come in lads and have a drink; business good?'

  'The same as always,' Cezar said. He was sixty years old, with a long, sallow face and serious peasant eyes that always seemed at the edge of tears. He wore a long moustache and his lips barely moved when he spoke. 'The farm is ideal.'

  Radu stood behind his brother, smoking a cigarette. He wore a flashy tracksuit and trainers and played with a gold ring in his ear as he listened, as he had his entire life, to his brother's voice.

  'You're welcome to it,' Sean said, leading the way through the house and out to the pool, 'only hopes it makes up for the loss of that gear.'

  'Come now,' Cezar said, 'you have a share of the profits.'

  'But not yet, do I?'

  'Soon,' Cezar said. He walked over to the bar and poured himself a glass of vodka. 'I have to account for this loss to some very dangerous men. I'm only glad we have worked it out. You have ice?'

  'Underneath,' Sean said. His throat had gone dry. 'Which men are these?'

  'The men who gave me the money I had to pay back.' He pointed at Sean. 'Which you have to pay back, as one of your men “sold us out”.' He smiled. 'You saved your life, Mr. Mallon, making this deal with us. Not from me, you understand I wish you no harm, but the people who gave me the money; they do not take mistakes lightly.' He drank and looked around the garden with a singularly bored expression. 'This is good vodka; where was I?'

  'Saving lives, Cezar.'

  'This is right,' he said, glancing across at Radu, who was touching the lemons on the tree and smelling them. 'But you cannot save a traitor.'