Charisma

by Jo Bannister

  ‘I broke her neck,’ Davey said by way of a greeting. ‘She tried to stab me and I broke her neck.’ His voice was hollow.

  But even allowing for the shock there was an absence of feeling, of any real awareness of what had happened, that made Liz wince. For five years he’d used a woman who loved him as a tool, a gadget he’d acquired to make his life easier, like his chair and his adapted car. It was perhaps inevitable that when she finally came to threaten him he’d put her down with no more regret than he’d destroy a dog that turned vicious.

  Shapiro recovered his composure first. He shone his torch on the woman’s face and put his fingers to the artery behind her jaw. There was no doubt in his mind that she was dead, but he waited for the absence of a pulse to confirm it. Then he looked at Davey. ‘Where’s the knife?’

  The big man waved an unsteady hand back at the alley. ‘In there somewhere. I didn’t touch it. I didn’t want to confuse the fingerprint man.’

  Liz stared in disbelief. A woman who’d loved him madly had come at him with a knife; to save himself he’d used those great hands powered by the kind of muscles only men in wheelchairs develop. He’d broken her neck while her mad face panted in his: they were close enough to kiss when he killed her instead. And with her body warm and heavy on his knees he had enough command of himself, enough awareness of his own interests, to know better than to put his fingerprints on the weapon.

  Liz cleared her throat. So softly that only Davey and Shapiro could hear she said, ‘Because we wouldn’t want people thinking any of this was your fault, would we?’

  9

  By the time Brady reached Cornmarket the darkness was complete. But he hardly slowed, and as he neared the shunting yard he was rewarded by a glint of moonlight on metal: a car tucked behind the last wagon. That removed any doubts he’d had. Scoutari had got to Donovan. What he’d got out of him would become apparent soon enough.

  Sooner than he expected, in fact: they’d left the wagon and moved down to the canal. Scoutari must have needed elbow-room. But he’d yet to get the answers he wanted because he was still asking the questions. His was the voice, low and with the characteristic rasp, that was doing most of the talking. Soon Brady could make out the words.

  ‘Do you think I’m bluffing? Trying to scare you? Do you suppose that if you keep your nerve and don’t say anything, pretty soon I’m going to throw my hands in the air and give up with a good grace? Be your age, Sergeant. There are things I need to know. Who you were watching: me or the mission. What’s going down and how it affects me. Once I know that I can protect myself; what happens to you then is of no more interest to me. But if you don’t tell me I swear to God, Donovan, I’ll kill you an inch at a time.’

  The huddle of figures resolved as Brady drew near into the shapes of men posed rather theatrically on the tow-path: one standing, one bending, one kneeling in the dirt. He assumed the man on his knees was Donovan: Scoutari was the man bent over him, talking into his face in that oddly flat, insistent tone. The third man was the minder but he was too interested in what was happening to do his job. Brady came among them out of the dark as if he’d been there all along. ‘How’s about ye?’

  Scoutari straightened like the crack coming out of a whip. ‘Jesus! Who—?’ Then he recognized the voice. ‘You? You’re too soon. I told the big man—’

  ‘I know. And he believed you.’

  Grudging respect put a degree of warmth into Scoutari’s tone. ‘But you didn’t?’

  Brady shrugged. ‘You did what I’d have done in your place. Did it get you anywhere? Was it you or us he was watching, has he said?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  At the Glencurran accent Donovan’s heart gave a cautious lift. Brady coming back had to be good news: how good depended on things he had no way of knowing. Whether he was armed. Whether he had back-up. How long he could keep Scoutari thinking they were on the same side.

  ‘I keep telling you,’ he growled, ‘I wasn’t watching anyone. I live on the canal. I saw people heading this way and wondered what was going on. For all I knew it could have been a card school, a dog fight or the annual outing of Castlemere Morris Men.’

  Brady tried not to sound relieved. ‘That’s what he told me too.’

  Scoutari grunted. ‘Perhaps he didn’t understand how much you wanted the truth.’

  They’d hauled Donovan out of the wagon still tied as Brady had left him, his hands behind his back, his ankles lashed with the same short rope. He was on his knees because he could neither sit nor stand.

  Brady sighed. ‘Well, see if you can do any better.’ Donovan’s startled glance vanished as Scoutari moved between them.

  Jimmy Scoutari had made his name as muscle to a previous generation of gangsters. Violence was his speciality and he’d chosen not to delegate it as he moved up the ranks. It helped keep him in shape. So he could have continued much longer, except that after a minute or two Brady interrupted again. ‘I don’t know, maybe it’s the truth.’

  Scoutari stopped, staring as if the possibility hadn’t occurred to him. ‘What?’

  ‘That he wasn’t watching us officially, just being nosy. He does live on the dock – one of those houseboats, I’ve seen it. Seems to me, if this was official someone would have come looking – for him or for us – before now.’

  ‘Kelso said you called in sick for him.’

  ‘So I did. But they’d hardly shelve an operation because one of their sergeants wasn’t feeling well. Don’t let me put you off,’ he added generously, ‘thump him a bit more by all means, but I think maybe the reason he keeps saying that is that, pathetic as it sounds, it’s true.’

  Momentarily Scoutari was nonplussed. He straightened up, letting Donovan fall, and stood scowling at him. ‘So what now?’

  Brady shrugged again. ‘Do what we came here for. Kelso’s got the stuff. If you’ve got the money, let’s deal and get the hell out of here.’

  ‘What about him?’ He poked Donovan with his foot. Then he did it again, harder, in case he hadn’t noticed.

  ‘I said I’d deal with him and I will. There’ll be nothing to trace to you.’

  Scoutari considered, then shook his head. ‘I don’t want to leave here with him still alive.’

  Brady nodded understanding. ‘And I don’t want to kill him in front of witnesses. No offence, Mr Scoutari, just being practical. If the worst comes to the worst one day and you’ve got your back against the wall, saying you think I killed him is one thing. Saying you saw me do it is another.’

  They were both valid arguments, neither man was being unreasonable. But one of them would have to give way. Finally Scoutari sighed. ‘It’s too important. He knows me, where I live. You can hit the road and disappear but if he leaves here I’m going down. I want him dead, now. If you won’t do it with me watching, I’ll do it with you watching. The law won’t make much distinction between us if we’re caught so you won’t go round blabbing about it.’

  Brady thought about that, then put out his hand. ‘If you feel that strongly about it I’ll do it now. But I’m not carrying. Do you have a piece?’

  ‘I thought you were going to drown him.’

  Brady eyed him askance. ‘That was before you beat the crap out of him. I think we might have trouble persuading an inquest that he slipped crossing the dock when there’s footprints all over him.’

  Scoutari nodded and the third man reached inside his coat.

  Brady knew about guns and he didn’t think much of this one: it was made more for ease of concealment than either accuracy or stopping power. But it represented at worst half, at best all the fire-power in the immediate area and he was glad to have it.

  Donovan lifted his head, dirt caking the blood on his face, and watched him take it, and still didn’t know if it meant he was going to live or die. He thought Brady was on the side of the angels but he had no proof, only Brady’s word. In one way it hardly mattered: he couldn’t resist even if he needed to. All he could do if Brady pointed the gun
at him was roll into the canal, in which case he’d die just as surely but slower. He didn’t know the depth of water here but it had to be enough to drown a man who couldn’t sit up.

  When he had the gun Brady looked round but there was no one in sight. Kelso must have decided against joining them. So far as he knew there was no one closer than Broad Wharf almost a mile away. The time of reckoning was come. ‘I haven’t been entirely frank with you, Jimmy. There was a police surveillance – a proper one, Drugs Squad. But Donovan didn’t know about it. It was luck and guesswork put him on to us, nothing more.’

  Scoutari frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘A police operation to track illegal substances from their sources in Europe to point-of-sale in England, netting those involved at every stage. He wasn’t part of it. I was.’

  For ten or fifteen seconds, which is a long time when anything could happen and still, second after second, nothing does, the silence stretched out thin and vibrant.

  Scoutari was an unpleasant man, vicious and unprincipled, but he wasn’t stupid. He knew the truth when he finally heard it. He knew where it left him: in over his head. There was no longer any question of salvaging the situation. Mere survival, evading arrest long enough to disappear, was the best he could hope for now. If he hadn’t parted with the only gun he’d have shot his way out. But he didn’t mean to wait meekly until the net closed and people turned up with handcuffs. He was thinking too intently to talk.

  Brady also had too much on his mind for conversation. This thing had worked out less well than he’d hoped, perhaps better than he’d the right to expect. He had Scoutari and his people, and Kelso and his. He’d hauled Donovan’s butt out of the fire. On the debit side, the thing ended here. Brady had hoped to finish the season, rounding up Kelso’s contacts in all the towns they visited. He’d envisaged a kind of grand finale on the way back to Dover, looked forward to seeing in Kelso’s face the realization that he wasn’t going to get there. He could still have that pleasure but he couldn’t put it off long enough to pull in the dealers all round the circuit. Still, there was more to celebrate than to mourn. Brady made no move because he was counting his blessings.

  Scoutari’s driver was a large young man who took a pride in his work. He spent time in the gymnasium and on the shooting range of an otherwise respectable club that turned a deaf ear to the rumours, partly because he won trophies for them and partly because if the rumours were true they didn’t want to antagonize him. While he was good at his job he had no desire for upward mobility. He didn’t move because Scoutari hadn’t told him to, and he was busy wondering if any of this could be blamed on him. He was more afraid of Scoutari than of going to jail.

  Donovan didn’t move because he was trussed up like a turkey and he didn’t say anything because he hadn’t breathed for a while. For the first time he was aware of the blood cooling on his face, the sweat on his body. A cautious elation began bubbling in his veins. He thought his troubles were over.

  But Scoutari hadn’t got where he was today – well, where he was yesterday – without knowing a chance when he saw one. In a flash of inspiration he saw a way out. Not a complete solution, it wasn’t going to get his business back for him, but it would leave him free to start again somewhere else. He wasted no time. As soon as the idea came into his head he acted on it.

  Donovan was still lying at his feet. Scoutari planted a boot against his hip and pushed hard, and with a yell of alarm the policeman rolled over the edge into the canal. He hit the water with enough of a splash to suggest real depth.

  ‘Now you have three choices.’ Scoutari’s voice was fast and harsh. ‘You can shoot me in the back, unarmed, as I walk to my car, in which case you’ll be able to get in there and get his head above water before he drowns. You can try and hold me by force, but that’ll take more time than he’s got and since you’re outnumbered you probably won’t even succeed. Or you can forget about me and save him. You can look for me later. There’s nothing you can do for him later if you don’t get in there now.’

  Scoutari wasn’t stupid and he wasn’t a coward either. He had to walk past the gun levelled at his chest in order to reach his car. He did it without hesitation, without a backward glance, without breaking into a run. After a moment his minder found the courage to jog after him.

  ‘Hold it right there,’ shouted Liam Brady. ‘I’ll shoot you if I have to.’

  ‘Then do it,’ said Jimmy Scoutari, opening the door of his car. ‘But you’d better do it quickly.’

  10

  Waiting for an ambulance to take away the body of Jennifer Mills and a suitable vehicle to transport a man in a wheelchair Liz was swept by a sudden fierce nausea. The blood drained from her face and behind her knees; for a moment she thought she was going to faint. She put out a hand to steady herself.

  Shapiro appeared at her elbow. ‘Are you all right?’

  Embarrassed, she shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I suddenly felt – shaky.’ She couldn’t remember anything like this before. She supposed it was the personal nature of the thing: she’d been directly involved with these people. ‘Can you spare me for a couple of minutes? I’ll take a walk up the canal, clear my head. I won’t be long.’

  Shapiro understood, perhaps better than she did. ‘Been a busy old day, hasn’t it? Look, there’s nothing to hurry back to. Mr Davey isn’t going to give me any problems. Why don’t you call it a night, go home? Brian’ll want to know what’s been going on.’

  Liz gave a shiver that was only partly the night turning cool. ‘I feel I owe Brian an explanation. But I’m not sure what the explanation is, or even what it is I have to explain.’

  Shapiro chuckled, not unkindly. ‘I think your first idea was the best. Have a walk, clear your head. Then go home. Tell Brian everything you can think of and work it out together. You’ve nothing to be ashamed of, Liz. None of what’s happened is your fault.’

  Grateful for that, she touched his arm. ‘Thanks.’

  The vehicles stopped in Brick Lane. The ambulance men removed the body on a stretcher, Shapiro helped manoeuvre the wheelchair between the bollards. No one gave Liz a backward glance as she turned away.

  Walking alone, the canal free now of the terror that had infected Castlemere’s dark places for a week, she felt the nausea pass, then the tiredness, then by degrees the confusion that had prevented her judging fairly her own role in these events. The plain truth was both simpler and more palatable than she had feared. Shapiro was right: she had done nothing improper. She had acted in a friendly but professional way towards a man who, whatever his shortcomings, was no criminal. She had not compromised herself either professionally or personally: that Davey had thought otherwise was his mistake, not hers. Nothing she had said or done, or omitted to say or do, had threatened the investigation: if Donovan thought differently that was his problem.

  Or was she being a little too smug – complacent to the point of naive? Nothing had happened between her and Michael Davey. Nothing had nearly happened. But she had been attracted to him. If it had gone on longer, if he’d had the wit not to confront her with it, could she be sure that attraction would not have turned to temptation and temptation in its turn to betrayal? She couldn’t.

  Of course she couldn’t. If circumstances had been other than they were she would have behaved differently: if Davey had been a better man, or Brian a worse one, or she a different woman. It didn’t matter. There was no need for her to cover every conceivable eventuality. Leading one life free of major disasters was enough of a challenge for most people. There had been a potential problem; it never turned into an actual problem; there was nothing she would have difficulty telling Brian. It sufficed. Her heart lightened as she walked by the canal.

  Because it was too soon for the town to know there would be no more killings she expected to have the tow-path to herself. So she was surprised to hear hurried footsteps and see a burly man with a knapsack come at her out of the dark. His shape was distinctive; the accent
when he returned, somewhat distractedly, her cordial ‘Good evening’ was conclusive.

  ‘Mr Kelso? I’d never have taken you for a backpacker.’

  If he’d made some similar pleasantry in reply she’d have thought no more of it. But he peered at her, jolted in recognition, then thrust her away in one direction and the knapsack in another. It was clearly meant to reach the canal but he misjudged the distance and it came to rest with a soft, solid thump on the edge.

  He’d misjudged Liz as well. His reaction startled her but she rolled with it and when he was at full stretch grabbed his arm, tugging him off balance. He lurched across the path and into the wall; by the time he turned back Liz was blocking his escape. She was no match for him physically but she was as tall as he, she was trained and she was angry. She shoved her face at his and snarled, ‘I don’t know what you’re up to but whatever it is I’m nicking you for it.’

  Kelso could have pushed past her and run. But he must have known he couldn’t outstrip a police officer both younger and fitter than he. He could have turned his strength on her, gone for her with his fists; but it was too late to take her by surprise so probably she would evade any attack he made. Even if he disabled her he won only a brief respite. He wasn’t going to walk away from this.

  For a time he’d thought he might. After the man he knew as Bailie left him standing unhappily on the tow-path, with enough proscribed substances slung over his shoulder to ensure that if caught he’d come out of prison to a pension, he’d thought again about what they were doing and whether the risk had come to outweigh the gain. The risks had grown hugely when they found themselves in possession of a police officer. Whether they freed him, or killed him, or left it to a man they hardly knew to kill him, the stakes were suddenly a lot higher than he’d bargained for.

  Like the proverbial donkey starving between two bales of hay, Kelso hovered undecided on the tow-path for some minutes. Then he made up his mind to put what distance he could, actual and metaphorical, between himself and activities at the shunting yard. He was on his way back to the trucks, to return the contents of his kitbag to their place of concealment, when like the angel Nemesis the woman detective materialized out of the gloom as if there were no more natural time or place to take a stroll and bid him good-evening.