‘Come on Dan, don’t be a hero,’ he said, ‘I don’t want to do this.’
‘Is this what you did to Rich?’ I spluttered. He sighed and walked behind me. He grabbed my hand, I tried to struggle but it was futile. I felt the saw go round my little finger, like he was taking the foil off of a wine bottle. Despite my grief I howled. Denzel pushed a rag into my mouth.
‘The beauty of these,’ said Barney, his maniacal head appearing over my shoulder, ‘is that the multiple attachments make severing fingers quite simple.’ He used the pliers to crush the bones and pull off my finger. I screamed.
The pain was incredible. I jerked in my seat making the chair fall over, banging my head. The pain from the fall was a pin-prink compared to my hand. I snorted, like a stuck pig, and it seemed to help, to focus me like a woman having a birthing contraction.
Barney kneeled down in front of me, he dangled my finger. ‘Nine more to go,’ he said, ‘painful, isn’t it?’
I must have greyed out for a minute because I came to sitting in the chair again. Barney looked at me evenly, ‘where were we?’ he said. He sauntered over, holding the tool, ‘ah, that’s it, you are going to give me some help with a banking problem I have.’ I steadied myself for the horror of what was going to happen next. My hand was already throbbing with the most pain I had ever experienced. I don’t know why I was even holding out any more. I looked down at my little finger, looking forlorn and broken.
‘Stop it,’ I looked up to see Sam holding his gun and pointing it at Barney. Barney frowned at him, ‘Sorry Dan, I couldn’t do anything about Rich –‘ he was about to say something more when the report of Denzel’s pistol reverberated off the walls. Sam spun and hit the ground, his gun clattering. I could hear his breath wheezing and bubbling. Denzel walked over to him and checked him, kicking him a couple of times. He turned back as if nothing had happened. Barney looked down at Sam for a moment and turned back to me.
‘You got to Sam…’ he considered this, ‘funny, I normally always see the weak links…’ He sighed. ‘Just tell me what I want to know and you might play the piano again.’
I considered my options and they were pretty bleak. If I told him, he’d kill me. If I didn’t he’ll kill me slowly, but he’d still kill me but I would have the satisfaction of knowing that he’d get nothing from me. I am going to hold out or at least try.
From my left I heard a quiet phut-phut and Denzel staggered back, putting his hands to his chest. He staggered back, hitting the table and falling over. He looked at me, his expression confused and afraid. Another couple of phuts sounded and Denzel’s head snapped back and he slumped sideways, not moving.
The door behind me creaked open and Henry paced in, his eye to the sight of an MP5. He walked steadily up to us. ‘Is he armed, Dan?’
‘No. I don’t think so.’ Barney stood where his was. He face flickered with this new development. He took a step back.
‘You move one inch, I’ll pop a bullet in your chest. Give me the pliers. Throw them down here.’ Henry crouched down and picked up the pliers. Keeping the gun trained on Barney he unclipped my hands. I held my hand up to survey the damage. My little finger was a bloody gash, congealing and clotting. It burned with pain, a constant ember on my hand.
I got up walked to where my rucksack had been pushed. I picked out the Sig, and walked towards Barney and smashed him in the face with it, he went down on one knee with an oomph and I hit him as hard as I could once, twice and again. He was propped on an elbow on the floor. ‘Where’s Rich?’ His face was a bloody mess, broken, misshaped. He reached to his mouth and extracted a shard of tooth and – bizarrely – pocketed it.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he panted. I cocked the Sig, placed it against his knee and pulled the trigger. Blowback of blood and bone splattered my clothes and face. He screeched with pain, yelping into his arm.
‘Tell me you piece of shit, or I’ll blow every fucking joint off,’ he was hyperventilating with the pain, ‘look into my eyes and see if I am fucking serious.’
‘The…’ he panted, and half blubbed the words, ‘the van…the back…’ He wined, clawing his clothes with the pain. I turned away and walked to the van taking deep breaths. Grasping the handle I could hear myself moaning audibly and shut my eyes and pulled open the door.
Rich was curled up in a plastic sheet, blood smeared on the inside. His face pressed against it looking out, waiting. His eyes were glassy. He was dead.
I dropped my head and my eyes welled with tears. I climbed into the back of the van, unwrapping the sheet. The pain from my hand a distant memory, remote. I pulled the sheet free and stroked Rich’s cheek. I was expecting it to be cold, but it was warm, as if he had just come back from a long winter’s walk. I hunkered down next to him, lifting the deadweight of his body, cradling his head on my lap.
‘Oh Rich…’ moaning, wiping away tears, ‘this is all my fault…oh Rich, what have they done to you?’ I pictured in my head visions of us as children, running wild through the streets on London. Sharing our first cigarette in a tree house that our Dad built. Going on a double date with two local girls and ditching them so we could see Star Wars together.
I saw the photo albums, pictures like tarot cards, showing us growing up. A birthday party. A wedding. A funeral. I remembered the tragedy of our parents – a car accident – and how Rich and I had fused together, promising to be all the family we would ever need. Wearing black suits and chain smoking, apart from the other mourners, hugging and making promises we couldn’t keep.
I held Rich tight, hoping some of my life would seep into him. That somehow this was a terrible mistake, that paramedics would rush in and electro-shock him back to life, he’d bound up and announce our next plan.
I wept.
I don’t know how long I stayed there, but I looked up feeling a gentle touch to my leg. It was Henry.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said. He looked worn out and every year his age. He looked down at Rich. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Looked down at Rich’s face, going waxy with death.
‘I need to take him home, to bury him.’ I said. Henry looked at me, his face concerned.
‘You can’t, you know you can’t.’ He said.
‘I can…I will. You go, you can have the money,’ I said. I shook my head. ‘you’ve done enough, I’ll go down for this, I don’t care anymore.’ Henry considered this. He sighed.
‘No, Dan, Rich wouldn’t want that to happen,’ he said quietly, ‘he won’t want you spending your life in prison.’ I didn’t care. I sat there wondering what I should do, the depression of grief over me like a shroud.
Barney.
Gently, I laid Rich down and covered him with the sheet. I knew what the plastic sheet was for now. I picked up the Sig and walked over to where Barney was. He was cable tied, his eyes closed. I kicked him in the knee I’d shot. He rolled, his mouth opened but no sound came out, the pain too great to even voice except with a whistle of agony. I pushed the muzzle hard against his temple. I wanted to push it harder, to push it through his skull.
‘Why? Why did you have to kill him? Why?’
‘I didn’t…’ he panted. ‘Denzel…Denzel shot him…it was a mistake.’
‘Bullshit,’ I pinched some of the sheeting below him, ‘what’s this then? What’s this?’ I was practically screaming.
‘No loose ends,’ he grimaced a smile, ‘you know me…’ I pushed the gun harder, my finger squeezing the trigger. ‘It changes you…when you kill someone. It changes you.’
Henry touched my shoulder, breaking the tension a bit. ‘He’s right, Dan.’ I didn’t care, I needed the retribution. I had to satisfy the need in me or I’d explode. I put my hand to my head, I had started crying again.
I looked into Barney’s eyes, he looked back with real fear.
I pulled the trigger.
Blood, Barney’s blood, dripped off the end of my nose. I stood up, dropping the gun and laid my hands flat on the trestle table. I felt empty inside
. Henry touched my arm.
‘We should go.’ He waited, ‘I can clear up here, make it look like a gangland shoot out.’ He waited some more. ‘We should go.’
Barney’s mobile vibrated with a message alert. It was one of those big screen mobiles that showed the start of the message as well as the sender. The message said: are we done?
The sender was Pat Sullivan.
CHAPTER 16
Leaning back against the door, shutting the world out, I breathed a sigh of relief. I had two and a half hours until the wake, more than enough time. I went into the kitchen and poured myself a whiskey, nearly put the cap on and decided to drain it. I dropped the bottle into the recycling where it clinked against other empty whiskey bottles. I was recycling a lot nowadays.
Slipping my jacket off, I drained half the whiskey and lit a cigarette. The house was a wreck, I told Mick and the lads to hold off on the work until I was ready. They offered to do it for free, but I found that it didn’t bother me much.
I had been waiting for a knock on the door from the police.
Already I had two visits, the first when they told me in solemn tones that my brother had been found dead in a warehouse in West London. I had wept in the arms of an uncomfortable WPC. I needed the comfort. She told me his death was being treated as murder and he may have been involved in some criminal activities. Really? I said Rich? The investigation was ongoing.
Henry had tidied up the scene. He’d torched the warehouse, it took nearly three hours for the Fire Brigade to get it under control, another two to put it out. He’d done this kind of thing before, he’d said, you had to be careful but fire leaves nothing. He even collected my missing pinkie - it couldn’t be saved, but a private doctor had tidied up what was left.
I didn’t really give too much of a toss if I was caught or not. I had acted so bizarrely on the second visit – but they never seemed to suspect my involvement. I’m not sure why not.
On reflection I think that they see a respectable middle class man, with his own home in Fulham breaking apart because of the loss of his brother and it just didn’t fit. They’d sympathised with my loss, promised to keep me updated but they hadn’t returned. I had to wait a further two weeks for his body – what was left of it – to be released. The autopsy report was conclusive as to cause of death (shot to the head) but they thought there may have been prior injuries. They couldn’t give me the names of the other bodies in the warehouse as it was an ongoing investigation.
Once the news had gone public, I’d had numerous visits and calls from distant family. Steve had called, utterly distraught, wanting to know everything but I’d told him that the less he knew the better. He backed off, but I think I might tell him everything in the future. Whatever that turns out to be.
Carrie had phoned, but I wasn’t ready. She wasn’t stupid, she knew that Barney had everything to do with Rich’s death but she kept her distance. She ran the club. Rich would have wanted her to. She’s doing a great job by all accounts. I saw her at the funeral, she looked a little thinner, a little weathered – didn’t we all? – and she squeezed my hand tightly and held me when I cried. Cried when his coffin slid through the curtains to be cremated – the irony – and stayed with me in the car on the way home. I didn’t say much, and I don’t know why I chose her to be my life belt, but she feels the closest I have to someone important in my life right now.
Andy Gibbons rang me, threatening to go to the police: you killed my uncle, you bastard. I told him: do it, he’d killed my brother and a bit of jail time didn’t bother me. Andy didn’t phone back. He’d inherited an empire but I don’t think that Barney was uncle of the year somehow.
Raymond and Henry were at the funeral – separately – stood at the back. Raymond had given me an open invitation to Switzerland, get away from it all. I liked Raymond, he was honest and had integrity, and I may well take him up on that. Have a break from all this, once I have some money. The irony is that my account is empty, I’m living on an overdraft and three nearly maxed credit cards. Rich left an estate but I suspect there’s not much in it.
Henry shook my hand and gave me a hug. He had been right, it does change a man to kill someone else. I felt different, removed. I didn’t feel part of everyone else’s lives, maybe that would pass. All Henry had said, hugging me, was: it’s part of you, don’t let it be all of you.
Pat was at the funeral. He looked awful. His shoulders had slumped, he looked withered, from a guilty conscience I suppose. He looked beaten, and I felt glad.
I’d spent many sleepless nights thinking about it, smoking cigarettes and trying to piece it together. I couldn’t get the connection between Pat and Barney, I couldn’t fit them together. Part of me wanted to rush around to his house and beat him to death with a cricket bat, get some answers, get some closure. But I felt spent of violence, I had run out of revenge and when looked at his life, his kids and his wife, I felt that I couldn’t destroy their lives by taking a husband and father.
So I waited, and I thought about what I should do. Pat mumbled sorry at the funeral, he didn’t look at me. No one knew that I saw the text. I wondered why the police hadn’t arrested Pat – they must have traced Barney’s phone records. But nothing had happened, maybe it was a pay-as-you-go or under a different name. I don’t know, I suppose Barney was clever about these things.
Pat had phoned me after the funeral, he wanted to come over and have a chat. I think that he has a guilty conscience and he needs to purge or he’ll have a nervous breakdown or kill himself. I’d agreed, not because I wanted to forgive him, but because I wanted to know how he was involved. I lit a cigarette off of the smoldering butt of the last and waited for the doorbell to ring.
Since the events at the warehouse I’d felt a strange blank clarity. An ability to sit still, without entertainment, and do nothing unless I had some issue to focus on. I did that now and sat and stared at the swirling tendrils of smoke drifting through the kitchen. The doorbell rang. I let Pat in without a word and walked back into the kitchen.
Pat followed me and stood awkwardly in the doorway. He sighed heavily, his normal thrusting confidence missing, and pulled a chair from the kitchen table and sat down. I watched him and he seemed to sense it and looked at me.
‘Dan…’ he looked down at his hands, ‘I’m so sorry about Rich, so, so sorry.’ He clenched his fists and continued. ‘Ahh, God…this is so hard. I…I have to tell you something, something about Rich’s death.’
‘I know,’ I said. He looked at me, blinking, confusion flitted across his features.
‘What?’
‘Just tell me,’ I said. He looked at me for a what seemed like minutes, obviously trying to figure out what was happening. ‘How’d you meet Barney?’ He frowned and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
‘At Rich’s birthday, at his club, remember?’ I did. I got very drunk on shots with…I can’t remember who. I don’t remember Barney being there. ‘Barney was there, I was sat next to him…’ Now that I thought back to it I do vaguely remember someone being there who was much older than everyone else.
‘He asked us to do a consult with him – all above board – and we did a few little projects with him from then on. He wasn’t a big client and at first I never knew he was, you know, a criminal.’ He looked at me, ‘how did you know about us?’
‘We’ll get to that,’ I said. I got up and cracked open another bottle of whiskey. I grabbed another glass and poured Pat a healthy amount. He took the glass but didn’t drink it.
‘I got to like Barney, I mean, he was so…’ Pat looked off, ‘he was so genuine, a proper character, a real hard nut…I can’t really express it.’
‘He was dangerous?’
‘I suppose,’ he said, ‘I found him charismatic, he lived such a different life to mine and I wanted to be part of that, on the fringes, but part of it I suppose.’ He looked at the whiskey glass, swilled it around and drank it, grimacing. ‘Sounds lame now…’
I shrugged, ‘yo
u became friends?’
‘Maybe, I don’t know,’ he said, ‘I could never tell with him. But we played golf – with Rich once as well - but that was a while ago…’ He glanced at me quickly, sensing that I might have been upset by the mention of Rich. ‘We talked a lot of business at the Golf club and he introduced me to a lot of the members there. That’s how I got the Leberman job, through an indirect introduction from Barney. That changed everything for me, it’s the biggest contract my company has had – before or since.
‘But up until then,’ Pat ran his hands through his hair,’ we struggled, we really did and Erica…we had both kids in prep schools, two cars, a townhouse in Chelsea…It’s quite a life to finance. I think Erica thought that I was earning a fortune – I wasn’t. The company was in debt…a lot of debt.
‘Then we got Leberman’s and – well, that changed everything. Charles Leberman was a friend of Barney, a golfing partner – I think they had the same handicap – and Barney swung the job. I still had to pitch for it, but Barney tipped the balance,’ Pat looked at me, ‘but it came at a price, that introduction, a price that I decided at the time was worth it.’
‘Tell me,’ I said.
‘Barney wanted information on the bank, anything I could get – I had access to everything. I decided that he’d scratched my back and I should scratch his, simple as that. But then he kept reminding me that Leberman’s was because of him and one phone call – and poof! – it all disappears; the maintenance contract, yearly upgrades and our reputation in the banking sector. He said that if the information was not good, then he’d leak that I stole information.
‘It was like a cloud hanging over me, every week I’d send him information, more and more files and it never seemed enough…’ His eyes were red rimmed, ‘I never knew that he got Rich involved. Honestly. The first I heard was when I got a call from Leberman’s to try sort out what he’d done - they knew some money went missing - but Rich had left the system clean; I’ll say this for Rich, he was thorough, it took me nearly five days to find where he’d taken the money from, let alone where it’d gone…’
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