by Tony Parsons
‘My dad died a long time ago,’ I said. ‘How long did your father try to make you box?’
Barry Warboys thought about it.
‘It felt like a lifetime,’ he said.
18
The old gangster moved slowly now.
But a lifetime on from when Paul Warboys and his brother Danny were as notorious as the Krays and the Richardsons, the old man did not look diminished. In his late seventies now, he was conserving his energy for whatever he might have to fight in what remained of his days.
‘So what’s this then, Max? A spot of TIE, is it?’
Trace, Interview and Eliminate. He knew all of our acronyms.
‘Just a chat, Paul,’ I said.
‘This is the bit where you say, “We can do it here or down at the station.”’
We had a history. Our bond – such as it was – was based on the love of dogs, and the suspicion that we preferred them, on balance, to people.
When an old face called Mad Vic Masters had been found dead in a ditch on Hampstead Heath, I had looked after Bullseye, his English Bull Terrier, until Paul Warboys – Vic’s former employer – could claim it.
I followed him into his new riverside apartment. It was a ground-floor flat next to London Bridge, one of the big apartment blocks that were sprouting all along the banks of the Thames, block after block of glass towers in what had been a rough neighbourhood thirty minutes ago. In the soft light of the early afternoon the view from the ceiling-to-floor living room window looked like a postcard of London, back in the days when people still sent postcards to each other.
Tower Bridge. The Shard. All the gleaming spires of the City. The last time I had seen Paul Warboys, the night his wife took her own life, he had been living in a house out in rural Essex that was the size of a small Balkan country.
‘Downsizing, Paul?’
He gave a cursory look around his apartment.
‘The old place was too big for me after Doll died.’ He nodded, his eyes flooding with sudden tears. ‘I was rattling around in that Essex gaff. And Doll dealt with all – you know – the staff.’
He grinned at the irony of a celebrity gangster having to deal with the gardener and the pool guy. Then his face clouded.
‘And now, Steve,’ he said, his voice hoarse with grief.
I nodded and waited, in respect to all his loss – his wife, his grandson, a world that was slipping away. Bullseye padded into the room and I held out my hand to his gloriously sloping head. He checked out my scent and then curled up at the feet of his master.
‘They allow dogs in these flats?’ I said.
Pau Warboys shrugged. ‘I never asked,’ he said.
‘Of course not.’
‘I like it here,’ he said, brightening. ‘I like the history. I like being close to what was the docks. I like the thought of all those ships coming here from all over the world.’
‘Your father was a docker, wasn’t he?’
He nodded. ‘Hardest bastard I ever knew. You didn’t want to get on his wrong side when he’d had a few. You didn’t even want to get on his wrong side when he was stone-cold sober. I can still feel his belt across the back of my legs.’
‘I saw Barry,’ I said. ‘I saw your son.’
He nodded bitterly. ‘Give him my best.’
‘You don’t talk.’
‘The longer you live, the less people you have in your life. Some of them die. And some of them just wander away.’
‘And why did Barry wander away?’
He thought about it.
‘He was ashamed of me. Which is not nice. And ashamed of his son. Which is unforgivable.’ I watched the rage flare up in him. He had the ability that I had seen in many professionally violent men, the facility to turn their anger on and off like a tap. ‘But all that father-and-son stuff is not easy,’ he said. ‘Every generation is softer than the one that came before.’
This surprised me.
‘You really think Steve was softer than his father?’
‘Steve wasn’t as hard as he would have liked to have been. And he wasn’t as hard as I would have liked him to be. If he had been, nobody would have torched his place.’
‘But Barry’s a legitimate businessman. These care homes he runs – Golden Years – are a big success.’
He shrugged, indifferent and unimpressed.
I smiled at him. ‘You don’t fancy ending your days in one of them, Paul?’
He didn’t smile back. ‘I hate all institutions,’ he said. ‘A life sentence does that to you.’
‘I thought you might admire him.’
‘Accountants. Lawyers. Legitimate businessmen. All pay their tax, do they? All keep it clean when their lovely PA is bending over to pick up her stapler? Everybody’s bent, Max. We’re all just bent in our different ways. Admire my son? What for? Because he made a couple of bob out of cheap care homes?’
‘They’re retirement communities, Paul. Tell me about the Champagne Room. It was in Doll’s name, under some shell company – so it turns out you’re the owner of a bar that just burned down.’
Now he laughed.
‘You like me for the fire that killed my grandson, Max? An insurance scam that went wrong – is that the theory in West End Central? Do me a favour!’
‘We don’t have a theory, Paul. It’s not our investigation. Essex Police are running that one. But my mob is looking for whoever put those twelve dead women in a lorry we found in Chinatown. And we know all sorts have been dropped off in that car park behind the Champagne Room.’
‘You know my theory? Someone in Savile Row wants a big scalp on their CV before I fall off my perch.’
I just stared at him. He knew me better than that.
‘Maybe your SIO. What’s her name? The four-eyed little bird. DCI Whitestone.’
‘Come on, Paul. Enough of the hurt feelings. Steve had form and we both know it. I’m sorry for what happened to him, but he was hardly some innocent civilian.’
‘He was a good boy. Trying to stand on his own two feet. Trying to show his dad he could make his mark in the world. That’s why I set him up in his own little business.’
‘Any idea who might have wanted to torch the place?’
‘I’m making my own enquiries,’ Paul Warboys said darkly. ‘If anything comes up, I’ll give you a shout.’
I almost told him not to take the law into his own hands, but I kept quiet. It would have been like asking Ronnie Kray to take a deep breath and count to ten before doing anything impulsive.
‘This is a good flat, Paul.’
‘I’ve got a lovely Polish lady that comes in twice a week. And it’s handy for seeing some of my mates. Of course, most of the old faces are long gone now.’
‘And how’s your pension?’
A wolfish grin.
‘You think I’m struggling for money? I invested my money wisely, Max. I didn’t put it in stocks and shares. I didn’t put it under the bed or in a bank. I put it in bricks and mortar. I didn’t put it with any financial experts who would have pissed it all up the wall. I put it into London property. It’s the reserve currency of the world, Max.’
‘I’m happy for you. But you see my problem, Paul. I’ve got twelve young women who froze to death. And I’ve got a lorry driver with a bunch of Afghans in the back who is meant to be dropping them off in the car park of the Champagne Room.’
He folded his heavy arms, the gold chains rattling like new money, and his eyes got a faraway look. If there was one thing he knew how to do, it was wait.
Here was a man who had sat through countless police interviews, who had spent years of his life incarcerated. It was the stoic, Zen-like patience of a man who had served a life sentence – which is never the length of a lifetime but which is always long enough for your children to grow into total strangers – for sanctioning the removal of a former employee’s tongue with the aid of a pair of bolt cutters.
Paul Warboys had the old con’s genius for letting time pass by.
‘So that lorry in Chinatown had nothing to do with you then?’ I prompted. ‘And nothing to do with your grandson – as far as you know?’
I think if it had been anyone else he would have just let the silence grow. But I kid myself that he actually liked me. He roughly scratched his old Bull Terrier on its head until it sighed in its sleep. And in the end he spoke.
‘Why?’ Paul Warboys said. ‘Why would I have anything to do with these scumbag people smugglers?’
‘For the same reason the world gets up every morning.’
‘For money? You think I would do it for money? I made my money, Max. And I told you but you don’t seem to believe me – I put it where it just keeps on growing. I don’t need money.’
‘You know what I’ve noticed about old faces and their money, Paul?’
‘What’s that, son?’
Whenever he called me son, I knew he was resisting the impulse to break my nose.
‘The money runs out,’ I said.
‘You think I need one last score?’
‘I think it’s a possibility,’ I said. ‘You and your brother Danny made your money a long time ago, Paul. You’re a dial-up gangster in a digital world. No offence meant.’
‘None taken, son.’
‘But you and your brother were not Bill Gates. You made a nice pile and even got to keep some of it after you’d done your time. But it was all a long time ago. And – while I don’t doubt you made some sound investments in London property – I don’t think all those Sixties strip joints and knocking shops earned quite enough to keep you for a lifetime. If you were rolling in it, you wouldn’t be in a one-bedroom flat on the wrong side of the river.’
He leaned forward and placed his huge right hand on my arm. White scarring covered the knuckles of that suntanned paw, the souvenir of flesh that had been torn open time and time again.
He patted my arm with what felt almost like sympathy.
‘If I wanted one last score, I wouldn’t put a dozen tarts in the back of a lorry,’ he said.
He looked at my face and laughed.
Because he knew I believed him.
‘It’s Chinatown,’ he said, his tone almost paternal. ‘You should be looking at the Chinks.’
19
In the freezing winter sunlight of Sunday afternoon, we gathered in Pat Whitestone’s small back garden.
There were around a dozen of us in the garden, a mixed crowd of Whitestone’s work colleagues, who spent all hours together but rarely socialised, and a scattering of her friends from the neighbourhood.
I had half-expected Edie Wren to turn up with Mr Big, but it wasn’t her married man who walked into the little garden holding Edie’s hand. It was Lil, Edie’s grandmother, a woman who had exactly the same taste in hats and handbags as the Queen.
Lil was one of those tiny old Londoners who had survived economic depression, the Blitz and years of austerity. What you noticed first about her was the unforced affection she seemed to feel for the entire world.
‘Hello, darling,’ Lil said to me, although she had never met me in her life. ‘Hello, sweetheart,’ she said to Scout. ‘Who’s this handsome lad then?’ she said, peering down at Stan as she rummaged in her handbag. She removed a pack of Werther’s Originals and offered them around, urging them on the assembled guests, as though they were capable of healing all wounds.
Edie grinned at me. ‘My nan,’ she said.
Billy Greene had brought his fiancée, Siobhan, a dark-eyed beauty who was one of the civilian staff at West End Central, and they hung back a little from the rest of us, sharing smiles and whispers and a sausage roll the way young lovers do.
But we were all a little uncertain of the mood, and despite the snacks and small talk, there was an air of anxiety for reasons I could not identify.
We were waiting for a dog. And not just any dog.
‘Dasher,’ Scout said, her voice hushed with wonder. ‘A two-year-old Labrador-Retriever mix.’ She threw a tennis ball studded with teeth marks towards the end of the garden and Stan flew after it. ‘It’s the best breed for a guide dog,’ she told Edie’s grandmother.
Lil lightly touched Scout’s solemn face.
‘Such a clever little girl,’ the old lady said. ‘How do you know all this, darling?’
‘It’s all online,’ Scout said, slightly bewildered. ‘Dasher loves his toys and treats. I can show you.’ Scout held out her hand to me. ‘Give me your phone, Daddy.’
I handed her my iPhone and her tiny fingers flew across it like a concert pianist banging out some Beethoven. She stared intently at the screen as she absent-mindedly snuggled into Lil’s arms and I saw the old lady melt, shyly holding Scout as she scrolled through the images of Dasher’s life.
‘Look here,’ Scout said. ‘Dasher going down the slide … Dasher playing in the garden … Dasher with his puppy walker … Dasher and his trainer … Dasher training in harness … Dasher smiling.’
‘Good old Dasher,’ said Lil, hugging Scout.
‘There’s a film I could show you later,’ Scout said ‘It’s called, Dasher is off to a flying start. It’s very informative.’
‘That would be lovely,’ Lil confirmed.
Stan returned with the ball, reluctant to relinquish it, growling when Scout pulled it from his teeth.
She tossed it to the end of the garden and this time the pair of them raced after it, looking like a warm-up act for the man and the dog we were all waiting for.
Pat Whitestone appeared in the open doorway to the kitchen with her son, Justin’s face immobile behind dark glasses yet at the same time conveying the message that he would prefer to be anywhere else on the planet.
I understood why Whitestone wanted this day to be a time of celebration and hope, and why she wanted to mark it with this modest party. But I was far from sure that it was what her son wanted.
Edie sat in an old garden chair, a blanket wrapped around her legs and a mug of hot chocolate in her hand. I wondered where Mr Big was today, and assumed he was home with his family. All the regular excuses – a meeting, stuck in the office, darling, working late – must be harder to pull off on a Sunday.
I felt a visceral loathing for this man I did not know rising in my blood.
‘What?’ Edie said.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘You need anything from the kitchen?’
A small buffet of sandwiches and cakes was set up in the kitchen, most of it hardly touched.
‘Stop fussing,’ Edie said, the words softened by her laughter, and I turned away with my face burning just in time to see Scout suddenly stop dead in her tracks.
Whitestone’s house was at the end of a terrace and you could see the street from the back garden. A car with a large yellow dog in the passenger seat was slowly coming down the quiet road.
The dog glanced our way, as if he was checking the house numbers. The car stopped and a middle-aged man emerged with the dog. It looked glad to be alive.
‘Dasher!’ Scout cried. ‘They’re here!’
Whitestone said something to her son and she went off to answer the doorbell. Justin stood there for a moment and then disappeared into the house. When Whitestone returned with Dasher and his walker – to cries of delight from our little party – her son was not with her. I looked up at the first floor and heard music drifting from one of the bedrooms.
‘Oh, Dasher,’ said Scout, weak with love at first sight, and when she scratched his ears you saw the good nature and intelligence of the dog, and his endless hours of training, and his total readiness to perform his new role. We gave the walker a paper plate of sausage rolls and a cup of tea and we all watched Dasher and Stan shyly performing their tail-sniffing introductions.
But although we waited and waited, Justin Whitestone did not emerge from the house. And when his mother went in to get him, we were not surprised that she returned alone, shaking her head, and holding back the tears.
‘That poor kid,’ Edie said to herself.
But Da
sher brought real joy to the little garden.
Even after Dasher’s walker had said goodbye, the man choking back an unmistakable sense of loss, the mood was buoyant. Dasher seemed delighted to meet everyone, and he capered with Scout in his good-natured wake, with Stan trailing behind the pair of them, until they were all panting for breath and exhausted by the undiluted joy of it all.
It was only when darkness began to creep in that the truth hit us.
Dasher was a guide dog with nobody to guide.
The friends from the neighbourhood began to drift away. In the end, there was only our mob from West End Central, plus Edie’s grandmother and Scout.
‘Just is still getting used to the idea,’ Whitestone said, casting an anxious look at her son’s bedroom window. ‘I’m sure that after a bit …’
Her voice trailed off. She stared at Dasher.
‘My son doesn’t want him,’ Whitestone said eventually, something hard and fragile in her voice.
We all looked at Dasher and he grinned back at us, his mouth open and a glint in his eyes.
‘He can come home with me,’ Edie said.
Edie Wren lived in a one-bedroom apartment above a shop on the wrong side of Highbury Corner. It looked like a single woman’s flat – her clothes, her records, her books, all without the imprint of another life. But she wasn’t living alone because there was a camp bed taking up most of the tiny living room.
Edie’s grandmother shuffled off to the bedroom, followed uninvited by Dasher and Stan. Knitting and an emergency pack of Werther’s Originals sat on the bedside table.
‘Lil’s staying with me for a while,’ Edie said, lowering her voice. ‘She hasn’t been doing great since my granddad died. She’s a hearty old thing, but sometimes she has these gaps in her memory. So I’m on the camp bed. Don’t look like that, Max. It’s more comfortable than it looks.’
Scout came out of the bedroom, frowning at the flat.
‘What’s wrong?’ Edie said.
Scout looked at me.