Skewered

by Jones, Benedict J

  The bus terminated at North Greenwich tube station and I thought about how close Jaz’s flat was – of course she wasn’t there so it didn’t really matter. I got the tube to Westminster and walked over the bridge to St. Thomas’ hospital.

  A&E was busy with crying kids, shaking junkies and bloodied young men. I told the nurse I had gone through my hand with a saw doing DIY. She gave me a look that asked me not to think she was so thick as to believe that, but she passed me a clip board with a cheap pen attached to it by string.

  “You alright to fill that in?”

  She nodded at my hand.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. I’m right handed. Sorry to bleed all over the floor.”

  She shrugged.

  “Cleaners’ll get to it.”

  The NHS at work.

  They put a dozen stitches into my hand and gave me a script for some pain killers that I reckoned were about as much good to me as Nurofen. The doctor made me wiggle my fingers and then umm’ed and ah’ed about possible nerve damage. The nurse made me an appointment to come back to the hospital and have it checked out by a specialist. I waited for the coppers and their questions and when they didn’t come I slipped out quietly and headed back to Blackheath. Funds were low and I had to wait for the night bus. The Nokia in my pocket told me it was coming up on three in the morning. I thought about Dev Singh. How were the kidnappers going to take this? I couldn’t help think the worst and images of him being found with his throat cut in some backstreet filled my mind. From that my mind jumped to Jaz and I had to push the thoughts away. I just knew that I had to speak to Mazza. I needed answers and he was the man to provide them.

  By the time I made it to Blackheath it was getting on for five in the morning. I stopped at the foot of the gravel drive and took a breath. There were going to be a lot of questions thrown in my direction and I had plenty of my own to hurl back. What was I meant to tell them? I needed to speak with Mazza alone and that wasn’t going to happen. Mazza’s car wasn’t parked in front of the house.

  I knocked and waited. Jaz’s step mother answered the door. She looked at my hand and brought her hand up to her mouth. She stepped back and waved me in. There was no sound in the house, no blare of a television or chatter from the radio. Silence. I was barely through the living room door before something hard slammed into the side of my head. I stumbled against the door frame, the floor spun like a croupier’s wheel. Jimmy Khan stood over me and the handcuffs he held in his fist looked horribly solid in the moment before he cracked them against my head again. When I hit the ground I was glad of the rest and in the moments before I faded to black my hand didn’t hurt.

  Eighteen

  A key turned in the lock and Elissa knew that Stanton was back. She leapt off the sofa and made her way into the hallway. She felt like a flock of pigeons were fluttering their way around her gut. All that money, maybe it would make Stanton happy, maybe it would make him like she knew he could be. When the door creaked open and she saw Stanton it was obvious that something was wrong; his features were twisted and his golden skin looked pale and grey.

  “Mook!”

  She cried and she heard the creak of a chair in the front room. Mook moved past her to the door against which Stanton held himself up.

  “Hold on, bro.”

  Mook took Stanton’s weight and half carried him into the front room.

  “Shut the door, girl.” he said as he passed Elissa.

  She shut the door, put on the chain and drew the bolts.

  Elissa stared at the machete that Stanton tossed onto the floor. She saw the dark stains on it.

  “Where’s Eamon?” she asked.

  “Pussy went home. Let me borrow his car. Why, you miss him?”

  Elissa looked away quickly.

  “What happened to your leg?”

  Mook watched as Stanton tried to stretch out his leg, the movement caused his face to contort into a Halloween mask.

  “Man hit me with something.”

  Mook stood up to his full height.

  “I guessed that Stan’. It hurt bad?”

  Stanton nodded.

  “I need some frozen peas to put on it, it’s coming up like a cock in a peepshow.” Mook looked to Elissa.

  “What am I Delia Smith or something? There ain’t nothing in the fridge but drink.”

  “Girl, you better watch your mouth.”

  Stanton threw a handful of change onto the floor.

  “Babes, please... go down the shops and get me something. I can hardly walk.”

  He leant forward and wrapped his arm around Elissa’s waist.

  “Where’s the money?” asked Mook and Stanton looked at him.

  “It was a double cross, there weren’t any money. Bag was filled with newspaper and the guy tried to jump me in the car park.”

  Mook nodded slowly.

  “What you gonna do with him?”

  He gestured with his head towards the bedroom where Dev Singh lay.

  “What you think I’m gonna do? What needs to be done to get my money.”

  Mook nodded again and looked at Elissa who was still picking the coins up from the floor.

  “I tell you what, man, I’ll go and get them frozen peas. You need some pain killers?”

  Stanton nodded.

  “Alright, gimme the keys to Eamon’s ride and I’ll pick up off my boy.”

  Stanton passed the keys up to Mook but held them tight as the big man went to take them, their eyes locked for a moment and then Stanton released the keys. The night and days before seemed to rush up Stanton like a roller skater on a greased street. He closed his eyes and pushed his head back into the soft chair. Mook moved off and left. Elissa looked at Stanton, now snoring softly, then took off his shoes and propped his leg up on another chair. She went and got a duvet from the bedroom and covered him up. She looked at his face as he snored softly, he almost seemed at peace. She watched a tic start to jump in his face below his left eye and it looked as though a cockroach was crawling across the bone beneath the skin. No noise came from Dev Singh in the other room so she sat at Stanton’s feet and laid her head in his lap while he slept.

  Nineteen

  I was lying in my bed at my mum’s, first day of the summer holidays and a world of possibilities lying ahead. The summer sun played on my skin. My eyes opened to the harsh reality that lay beyond their lids; I’m sitting in a chair in the Singh’s kitchen, hands cuffed behind me with Jimmy Khan standing over me. I stared at him for a moment and then vomited bile down myself.

  Jimmy Khan wiped my mouth with a towel and then stepped back.

  “Are you alright now?”

  I managed to nod.

  “What’re you doing, Jimmy?”

  “Getting some answers.”

  “Ask me some questions then?”

  I tested the cuffs around my wrists – locked tight, cutting against the bone.

  “Where’s the money?”

  I shrugged and he raised his fist.

  “I don’t know.”

  Jimmy lowered his fist and sighed.

  “Then tell me where Toshak is?”

  I looked him straight in the eye.

  “I’d like to have a word with him as well.”

  Jimmy pulled up a stool.

  “Charlie, please, give me something? You’re an ex-con, Charlie, a man who’s done some more than questionable things. I want some fucking answers.”

  The copper looked close to tears as he spoke.

  “What do you want me to tell you? I went to the drop. I thought I had a bag with a hundred grand in and when I get there it’s filled with newspaper. You seen my hand?”

  Jimmy looked past me at my bandaged hand.

  “What happened?”

  “Guy didn’t like the fact that someone tried to knock him. He had a machete, I had some batteries in a sock.”

  “Let him up, Jimmy.”

  Nisha Singh stood in the kitchen doorway. Jimmy looked at her for a moment and then went behind me
and undid the cuffs. I rubbed my wrists, Jimmy Khan knelt next to me.

  “Charlie, do you know where Jaz is?”

  I looked at him for a moment and then drove my head into his eye with as much force as I could put into it. He sat back hard on the kitchen floor. I got up.

  “That’s for clocking me with the handcuffs.”

  I stared down at him and he stared back, his left eye swelling, before he nodded. “And no I don’t know where Jaz is. When did they leave?”

  “Just after midnight. They must’ve gone out through the garden.”

  Shit. I shook my head and sat back down.

  “They took the money?”

  I had to ask. I had to know.

  “Looks that way,” replied Jimmy.

  Nisha sat down next to us and took my right hand.

  “Did the man who cut you say anything about Dev?”

  I looked away.

  “I’ve been a grown woman for many years, Mr Constantinou.”

  I looked back and took a breath.

  “He said, and this is just what he says – doesn’t mean he’s gonna do it, that he’ll ‘send us a piece’. He’ll call again.”

  “We can’t get that kind of money together again. Not without attention.”

  Tears were welling up in her eyes.

  “I’m going to have call in the Met boys.”

  I turn to Jimmy.

  “You think that’ll get him back?”

  “Why are you here, Charlie?”

  “You think I can just walk on this? Some sicko has got a man and it looks like I helped to fuck up getting him back. Like you said Jimmy some of the things I’ve done… I’m not exactly proud. But if you think I’d leave someone with the guy I met last night then you’re wrong.”

  “It isn’t your fault.”

  “With respect Mrs. Singh I should’ve seen this coming.”

  I stood up.

  “You do what you need to do, Jimmy. I’m gonna go and find Mazza and try and find Dev.”

  I should’ve told Jimmy about the number plate but I didn’t. My mind was still trying to find a way out of the tangled web I had been caught up in, a way that helped me as much as Dev Singh and his family.

  Twenty

  When I left the house at Blackheath I knew I had to get home. I needed money and I had to put some food inside myself, my head felt as light as a kid’s balloon. As I walked down to the bus stop in Greenwich the time weighed on me like the world on the shoulders of Atlas, a man’s life hung in the balance. Would it be my fault if he turned up dead?

  I got in and threw my clothes in a heap by the bathroom and grabbed up my house phone, I’d have to get myself another mobile. I knew I’d have to make a call, a call I didn’t want to make. That job I’d done when I got out of prison was for a man named Carlton MacGregor. After I’d done that job I never wanted to even hear his name again but it looked like he was going to be the only option. I called the number he had given me. After three rings the call was answered by a woman with a voice that sounded like it came from a decade of smoking Woodbines.

  “Yes?”

  “My name’s Charlie Bars. I need to pass a message to Mr MacGregor.”

  “What’s your message, please?”

  “I need a favour, an address for Mario Toshak.”

  “What number can you be contacted on?”

  I left my number and hung up. As I moved around the flat I caught the hint of Jaz’s scent on the air. I’m not proud of it but I walked over to my bed and sniffed the pillows. I sat for a moment and stared at the pencil drawing I had done of her. If she’d have called then I wouldn’t have turned her in, I’d have done anything she asked. I ran a steaming bath, threw a frozen pizza in the oven and climbed into the hot water. The ‘phone rang fifteen minutes later.

  “Charlie Bars?”

  That voice again. I couldn’t tell whether she was twenty-five or sixty-five but her voice gave me a little hope.

  “Speaking.”

  She rattled off an address in Camberwell.

  “Thank you.”

  “Don’t. Mr MacGregor says you owe him one and you know that he always collects what’s owed to him.”

  The line went dead in my hand.

  I wolfed the pizza down too quickly and took a layer of skin off the roof of my mouth. I was back on the street ten minutes later with the last of the money Toshak had given me in the pocket of a fresh pair of jeans, the remnants of the wrap of cocaine Jaz had left on the side and the plumbers hammer from under the sink wrapped in a carrier bag and pushed into the inner pocket of my bomber jacket.

  I cabbed it down to Camberwell and stood in front of the address I had been given; it was a newish block, all chrome and glass. I had a peek through the glass of the main doors and saw that there wasn’t a concierge like some of these new blocks have. I rang the buzzer of flat number 15, a name tag had been inserted next to the number and read ‘REDMOND’.

  “Hello?”

  A female voice.

  “Hello. DHL, I’ve got a delivery that needs to be signed for.”

  “Oh, I’m not expecting anything.”

  “This is flat 15? Ms. Redmond?”

  “Yes. Sorry, do you need me to come down?”

  “I can bring it up if you like?”

  “Thanks. I’m on the first floor, to the right when you come out the lift.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you in a sec.”

  The door buzzed and I pushed through it. I took the stairs instead of the lift and headed up to the third floor. The address in my hand said 34. My heart was beating like a fly weight on a speed ball. The woman in flat 15 might call the cops. That was a chance I’d have to take. I walked through a corridor that was carpeted like a hotel and knocked on the door of flat 34. No answer, not that I’d expected Toshak to answer with a smile on his fat face. I looked up and down the hallway. No one about. The door looked strong, a fire door. Still, I had to try so I backed up across the hall and flattened myself against the wall. I launched myself off the wall and slammed the sole of my foot against the lock. The door jumped in its frame and the frame seemed to bend. The bigger locks and bolts mustn’t be on. I took another look around and then repeated the same kick against the lock, the wood of the frame splintered and the door burst in. The door looked undamaged but the frame was made of cheaper wood. I smiled and thanked god for shoddy builders.

  The flat was a lot more modern than I would have expected for Toshak. Two wine glasses, one with dark lipstick on the rim, and a half-drunk bottle of Merlot sat on the black worktop. I took a quick look around the kitchen. Not much paper. I walked through the flat looking for a home office or something similar. I pushed the bedroom door open with my hammer and saw Mazza laid out on the bed. He was naked - in all his pale, fat glory. He was tied to the bed with purple silk scarves, another gagged him and one was tied over his eyes. For a second I thought he was dead till his body jerked at the sound of the door creaking shut.

  “Mario, you fat prick!”

  I yanked the blindfold off his eyes and let him see the hammer as I pulled the gag out of his mouth.

  “How you been?”

  “Charlie...”

  He couldn’t finish whatever lie he was concocting and so he tried to look away. I dropped the hammer and grabbed his chin between my thumb and index finger.

  “Where’s the money you fat fuck?”

  He tried to look away again so I laid a slap across his pale belly. The skin turned blotchy and red where my palm had struck.

  “With Jaz.”

  I sat down on the bed and fingered the shaft of the hammer.

  “And where’s Jaz?”

  He shook his head.

  “Charlie, please. You know what she was like, you know better than anyone.”

  Yeah, I did and that took the air out of me. Have you ever been ill and not known it? Just wondered why you feel a bit tired till you keel over and someone tells you you’ve got a fever? Jaz was like that.

 
“Yeah, Maz, I guess I do. I’m gonna untie you now but if you try anything I swear down I’ll lay you out.”

  He nodded.

  “I’m not going to try anything, Charlie, I haven’t got the heart.”

  I untied the silk scarves and let him up, whatever he said I still kept the hammer close.

  “You’re going to do two things for me and I’ll try and sort this shit.”

  “What?”

  The look of hope in his eyes was pathetic. I found a notebook on the bedside table and wrote down the number plate from the car.

  “You still got friends on the force?”

  He nodded.

  “Get that number checked. I need the address, okay?”

  More nodding.

  “Is your car downstairs or did she take it?”

  He came to the window and looked out.

  “It’s still there.”

  “Well get some pants on and let’s go.”

  As he struggled with his clothes I stayed sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “Why did she do it, Maz? He’s her dad after all.”

  “Revenge. He...did things to her, Charlie. At least that’s how she told it. Till she got too old for him and then he packed her off to boarding school. She only came back a couple of years ago. They hadn’t spoken for nearly eight years. There was some kind of reconciliation and he was trying to get her involved in his business.”

  “You sure that wasn’t just another line she fed you?”

  He shrugged.

  “She took me for a prize dick, mate, so how the hell would I know.”

  “Where were you two planning to go?”