Dispossession

by Chaz Brenchley

  Making vague gestures towards tidying up, I stacked folders on every available flat surface; and doing that, I found a box of computer disks. Flicking through them for curiosity’s sake, I discovered master-disks for all the software I’d had installed on the computer. All the software...

  I stood there with those disks in my hand, wondering how easily I could get hold of another machine, whether I had any friends left who’d give me access to theirs.

  Another discovery, though, gave me another option. Next to the box of disks, a box of keys, usefully labelled: Q’s, it said, written in thick felt pen on the lid. I took the keys and the disks, checked that I still had the SUSI disk in my pocket, and went downstairs to the club. If I left the doors open, I’d be able to see anyone coming, and I might not be there long. It just depended.

  Lee had left all the lights on, I found, as I unlocked the doors and went inside. And of course he’d left the computer on also; the screen glowed quietly behind the bar, showing that none of the tables was in use. If it was a dedicated machine, wired up only to calculate table-use and charges, then I was sunk. But if I could make it exit that program and run another, maybe I’d be in business.

  I slipped behind the bar, resisted the temptation of a quick slug of whisky to concentrate my mind, and examined the machine. A floppy disk drive it had, and the manufacturer’s name was familiar; I could be in luck here.

  And was. A tentative touch on a couple of likely keys produced a menu, including instructions on how to exit the program. I followed that, and found myself happily at a DOS prompt. I fed in the first Windows disk, typed a: setup and punched the air in triumph as the disk whirred and the machine got down to work.

  And poured myself that whisky after all, due reward for a smart idea...

  o0o

  Twenty minutes later, I had Word up and running. I asked it to load the SUSI file from my floppy; it asked me for the password in exchange.

  Not by nature a praying man, I offered up a quick prayer anyway, and typed in the full, the proper baptismal name of my old schoolmate. Not Jack at all. If I was right, I’d buried this pun one stage deeper yet. Musing on Suzie’s brother’s name had given me the key to this one. I thought, I hoped.

  John Hughes, I typed, and pressed ‘Enter’; and never mind how confident I was feeling, I still gasped aloud with relief or surprise or wonder, I still had half a mind to applaud myself for genius unsung as the screen filled with words.

  Twelve: J’accuse

  I stood because there was no seat behind the bar, stood and read my own words—no doubt of that, I recognised the style—and was amazed.

  And frightened, and appalled, and full of doubt and puzzlement.

  o0o

  Item: the screen said, because I always did like to itemise, to make lists, to have things neat and orderly and arranged and without Lexis I would have been thrown back on my own resources, Marlon Thomas is alive.

  I wanted to argue with it, with me; with the world, even, to say that this was bullshit. But, I saw him with his mother, getting on a country bus, the screen said, and how could I disbelieve myself? I’d known Marlon well, and his mother also; and in an unreliable world, twenty-twenty vision was a blessing. My eyes I never questioned.

  But—alive? Marlon Thomas was dead and cremated. I knew, I’d been there. Seen the coffin go...

  Seen the coffin, but not seen the corpse. And looking back now at that scene, that day, it did seem that Marlon’s family perhaps hadn’t been so heartbroken as they’d wanted the rest of us to believe. His mother’s constant access to her handkerchief, his sister’s sidelong glances at the policemen present which at the time I’d thought just teenage bravado... Yes, sure, you could read that scene another way. You could call it all fake, all bad acting that no one thought to see through because it was a funeral, for God’s sake, we were burying a seventeen-year-old boy and you didn’t question, no one was going to stand there and weigh this against that to find them wanting in credible grief.

  After the funeral, I remembered, the family had dropped from sight. I’d gone round a couple of weeks later, ostensibly to return some papers we’d been holding but truthfully just to see how they were coping; and I’d found their council house boarded up and awaiting its next tenant, none of the neighbours knowing where they’d gone.

  Fair enough, I’d thought at the time. A son dies in custody, perhaps a total change of environment is the best solution. They’d turn up sometime, I’d thought, somewhere; people usually did.

  Living people, at least. Dead people, not usually; but this one had.

  I followed the bus, I’d written, to Carlisle, but I lost them there. I didn’t want to get too close, because they’d know the car and they must have been watching for a tail. Even the other side of the country they can’t have felt safe, though it was pure fluke that I saw them. I’d been shopping for herbs for Carol, and I just happened to drive through Middleton.

  Item: Marlon’s grandmother lives in a home in Middleton. A sentimental journey, perhaps? “It’s risky but you’ll want to see your gran, she’ll want to see you, just to be sure. Worth the chance, once. No one’s going to see you anyway, you’re dead.”

  Only he wasn’t dead enough, apparently. I had seen him, what, three months after the funeral, and that was too soon to persuade myself that he was just a look-alike. Seemed like I’d had no doubts at all. If I had, they’d never made it onto the file. Only the certain sighting was there, and the obvious conclusions.

  Item: When they buried Marlon, there must have been a body in the box. A body in the right condition at post-mortem, with a likely cause of death.

  If I remembered rightly—which I did, absolutely—cause of death had been suffocation, following aspiration of his own vomit when unconscious through drink.

  o0o

  Scimitar had taken a lot of bad press, but they’d kept their contract, ferrying prisoners to and fro. That had surprised no one, I thought, despite the shock-horror stories and the ranting editorials; the policy was too new to be reversed, and whatever the official enquiry concluded the government wasn’t likely to revoke a contract on the basis of one mistake.

  Which presumably had been a significant factor in Scimitar’s calculations, what made the job worth while. ‘We’ll take some stick, but we’ll get off with it in the end,’ they must have said to each other before they said yes to Mrs Thomas, or whoever it was who’d approached them with a proposition.

  Even so, it was hard for me to see why they’d accepted. Money, of course—Marlon had raided a string of building societies, he’d got away with over a hundred grand and almost none of it had been recovered—but Scimitar’s major contracts would be worth millions, and any security firm trades largely on image. Taking a serious dent in that image, even for a pay-off in the high fives, didn’t seem such a good move to me.

  Still, they’d done it. They must have done, this scam wouldn’t work else. With them on the team, it was almost easy. Leave the court building with Marlon aboard; then at some remote spot en route pull up next to another vehicle, and do a quick swap. Boy out, body in. Marlon goes off free and clear; the van doesn’t even finish its journey to the nick. The guards drive straight to the nearest hospital, say they heard noises, checked, found him apparently unconscious and this bottle with him, doctor...

  They identify him, and so of course does the grieving mother. If they need fingerprints for official confirmation, it’s in their hands to collect them, so that’s easy done; they do it once there in the morgue, under the doctors’ eyes for witness, then they tear that set up later and get another from Marlon.

  The difficulty, of course, would be the body. Not a look-alike, necessarily, but they’d need a kid of the right age and like enough, so that no one at the hospital would question it when the papers printed photos of the dead boy. And he’d need to be freshly dead and convincingly so, vomit-choked throat and his blood full of alcohol, no significant signs of other damage.

  Not impossi
ble, but this at least was not easy. I wondered if Mrs Thomas knew anyone who could supply it, who could pick a kid off the street and kill him reliably and to specification; or if Scimitar had perhaps taken that also upon themselves. They’d have the organisation, after all. They’d named, traced and collected one protestor out of a colony, they could certainly find a shaven-headed muscular lad for body-double duties. There were enough around.

  And from what I knew, had heard and had guessed already about them, Scimitar had the ruthlessness also. Weak on motive, maybe, but the rest was there.

  Things were falling into place a little, questions were starting to be answered. I’d uncovered a scam that must have included a murder; not enough evidence to go to the police with it, but no real wonder if I’d wanted to investigate a little on my own account.

  It still didn’t tie in with Nolan, though, or my mother. Nor with Luke and his trees, nor Suzie and her brother’s terrible death.

  I turned back to the computer, and paged up to read the next screenful of my notes.

  o0o

  Item: Vernon Deverill’s work-crews don’t speak English. They live in camps like navvies, don’t mix with the locals, don’t visit the pubs. There are Scimitar guards on the camp gates, to keep the men inside and visitors out.

  That seemed odd, but I didn’t immediately understand the implications. And of course I hadn’t spelled them out, when I’d written these notes. Why would I need to? I knew why facts were relevant, and I wasn’t the world’s fastest typist; I wasn’t going to explain things to myself. Alas...

  There was a sudden burst of conversation on the stairs, voices and laughter. I glanced around, and saw a bunch of lads in the doorway. Cues in hand.

  “I’m sorry,” I said quickly, “the club’s closed tonight.”

  “Oh? Why’s that, then?”

  “Lee’s sick.”

  “Where’s Suzie?”

  They weren’t aggressive, exactly, just disappointed at having their evening spoiled. I gave them a smile, and, “Suzie’s busy. I’m her husband,” added before they could ask.

  “Yeah, we know that. Seen you here with her. Lucky man,” from one of them. “Can’t you turn a table on for us?”

  “Sorry. I’ll be locking up in a minute.”

  Grunts and mutters, but they went away like good lads. I thought maybe I should put a notice on the door and lock myself in; but I didn’t think I’d be here long. And it was better for business, probably, to apologise and explain in person if anyone else did come along. Last thing I wanted was to see Suzie’s business hurt.

  o0o

  If Deverill was using foreign workers, and keeping them penned in, chances were their papers weren’t in order. Illegal immigrants, most likely. Cheap labour, no union troubles, no insurance payments and he could skimp on Health and Safety except when the inspectors came around. Though inspectors, of course, could be bribed, as could their bosses. That was Deverill’s real area of expertise in any case, knowing who was vulnerable and who could be made amenable, where a little money could exert a lot of influence.

  If anyone did get hurt, they could be whisked away from the site as quietly as they’d been whisked in; and what better way to whisk them in and out, than in a security van? No windows, to say who or how many it carried. Invisible transport that was, for any number of men.

  That would be how they came into the country, too. The ‘I’ in SUSI stood for International; doubtless their vans ferried to and fro across the Channel every day. So long as the paperwork stood up, no customs officer would expect to search such a vehicle.

  The only real surprise was that my mind hadn’t tracked this way before. I hadn’t had the details, okay; but the opportunities were so obvious suddenly, with hindsight. A bent security firm must be a priceless asset, to its owners and to any bent company that employed it.

  Though it would need to be bent all the way, right up to the very top...

  Item: Vernon Deverill set up Scimitar Securities in the mid-eighties, shortly after he married Dorothy Tuck. It may have been her idea; she was on the board from its inception, and took an active role in running the company. And when they divorced in ’91, she took SS as settlement in full, though she could have screwed him for a lot more.

  Since it passed into her sole ownership, SS became SUS became SUSI in quick succession. It’s raised its profile enormously, landed several juicy contracts—govt and private sector both—and made a small fortune for Dorothy. No question, it’s her baby.

  o0o

  Oh, fuck.

  o0o

  Item: Lindsey Nolan is a computer buff. He’s not just Deverill’s chief accountant, he’s the tech adviser also; he set up all the systems that launder Deverill’s dirty money. He also approves and supplies finance for everything. Which means he knows all Deverill’s most dangerous secrets, which is why Deverill is so keen to get him out of jail.

  And also to find out who put him there; because Deverill is right, Nolan is far too good at hiding things to get caught in so obvious a scam. If he was ripping off a charity—which he might, he might well, he presumably has no conscience or he couldn’t do the job that he does—he’d at least do it clever, not stupid. He’s a clever man.

  o0o

  Item: My mother is a stupid, stupid woman. She was tumbling Nolan before he did a runner, but only because she’s writing up Deverill for the Journal. She never asked him about SUSI.

  o0o

  Well, no. Why should she have?

  I was trying to figure that out, trying to second-guess myself, when I heard someone else on the stairs. No voices this time, just one person in a hurry.

  I looked round, ready to turn them away with a smile and another apology; but it was Suzie who appeared at a run, already turning for the last flight up to the flat before she registered the open door and the lights. Suzie who checked abruptly, who stared in and saw me.

  I went around the bar to meet her halfway, and for a moment I thought she was going to hit me again.

  “Jonty...” No violence this time after all, but she gripped my shirt in both fists and there was a break in her voice, almost tears in her eyes as she said, “What are you doing here? I’ve been ringing and ringing and you didn’t answer, I was scared, I thought they’d come back...”

  So I found myself apologising after all, though I’d done nothing to apologise for. I hugged her close, because she so obviously needed that, and said, “I’m sorry, love, I didn’t think. I found the keys, and I wanted the computer. How’s Lee?”

  “He’s going to be okay,” she muttered. “I wouldn’t have left him, only I phoned my mum when I couldn’t get you and she came, she’s with him now. She’ll take him home when they let her, feed him chicken soup and fuss him to death, he’ll be fine.”

  She pushed me onto a bar-stool and climbed into my lap, no weight at all; and yes, her cheek was definitely wet where she was rubbing it against my shoulder, and I had the taste of her spiky hair in my mouth as I said, “I thought chicken soup was just a Jewish thing.”

  “Nah, chicken soup’s universal. What are you doing down here?”

  “Learning things,” I said. “I cracked that password.”

  “Oh. Good. What things?”

  Too much to explain, it felt like, but I’d never get away with that. “Deverill’s ex-wife,” I said. “She owns Scimitar.” It was too confusing, to say SUSI.

  “Christ. Where did you get that from?”

  I couldn’t tell her, the file didn’t say. But, “Public records, probably. It wouldn’t be a secret.”

  She just grunted, then slipped off my knee and went to look at the computer screen. Me, I stayed where I was, thinking how ironic it was. There was Vernon Deverill, hiring me to find out what had happened to Lindsey Nolan but having no secrets from his ex; and there was me playing private investigator, having apparently already uncovered or deduced some connection between Nolan and SUSI that I must have thought significant, and I couldn’t tell him because I’d k
nown it would get straight back to her. The pawn pinned, the spy ultimately compromised...

  “Hey,” Suzie said softly.

  “What?”

  “This. Item:” she read aloud. “Jack Chu was buying a property that overlooked SUSI’s compound. SUSI wanted it, but the property was a church and the Church Commissioners preferred to sell to a project that would use the building rather than demolish it. So Jack Chu won; and Jack Chu is dead. What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” I said quickly, though I was suddenly afraid that I did. “I guess I was just putting in everything I could find out about Scimitar. Just making lists, that’s all. It might only be a coincidence.”

  Nothing but silence to that; she didn’t think so, any more than I had. Any more than I did now.

  Then, “There’s something else,” she said slowly. “The evening paper today, I was reading it in the hospital while they did their tests on Lee,” and she had it with her, pulled it out of her jacket pocket now, rolled into a tight cylinder.

  “What?”

  “You’d better look.”

  She laid it out on the bar between us, turned it round so that I could read it, held the edges flat for me.

  Not the headline story, but the second lead: GIRL DIES IN FALL, it read.

  The body of a young woman was discovered this morning, in woods near the Leavenhall Bypass development. First indications are that she died of massive internal injuries, after apparently falling from a tree. The police have not yet named the woman, and they said they couldn’t be sure yet that her death was an accident; her body shows other injuries inflicted before the fall. They are appealing for witnesses.

  Leavenhall has been the focus of continued protest against the road-building programme. An unconfirmed report says that the dead woman had been an active member of the protest group.