‘I’m sorry. He won’t do that again, I promise.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘Well…’ she says, ‘it all goes back to five or six years ago, when Gillian’s drink problem started and she and Terry began fighting a lot. Simon and I would try to keep out of the way but I felt really sorry for her because she had a lot to put up with. She didn’t fit into the circles Terry mixed with, and I think she would have preferred to have stayed in Gibraltar. She hated the weather here. And as we later found out, it wasn’t just the sunshine she was missing. She’s back there living with a Spanish guy she knew before.
‘Happy families,’ I say.
‘Yeah, right,’ she says with an ironic laugh. ‘Before that, when her drinking got really bad, Terry made her go into rehab. And it was while she was away on one of her special holidays, as he used to call them, this guy turned up at the house.’
She proceeds to tell me about the night in July, 2004 when a stranger knocked at the door…
Hard Case
Terry had invited him in and they were chatting away in the lounge. Simon was out and Grace was upstairs. After trying to listen to the muffled voices through the floor and being unable to hear what they were saying, she got fed up and went downstairs for a drink. Terry heard her and came out of the room, closing the door behind him. He was acting strangely and asked her why she wasn’t going out. It was even more out of character when he produced a £20 note from his wallet and told her to go and have some fun.
Grace went to a friend’s house for an hour or so and returned home, thinking the man would have gone. But he was still there. No one heard her come in and she listened at the door for a while. The two men had been drinking heavily and were talking loudly.
‘… deserved it.’ The visitor’s voice reverberated like a double bass. ‘He’s better off out of it.’
‘Maybe so,’ Terry said. ‘But how is any of this my problem?’
‘Because, Terry, my old son,’ the guy bellowed, ‘I’m making it your fucking problem!’
‘Keep it down, will you. This is my home don’t forget. My boy’s upstairs asleep.’
‘All I’m saying is we go back a long way.’ His voice had dropped to barely audible, allowing Grace to hear something being unclipped. ‘I pay you to make problems like these go away. Just like you have before.’
‘I don’t know if I can this time.’
‘Of course you can, Tel. And the reason why is sitting right here. And there’s plenty more where that came from.’ There was a long silence.
‘This is the last time, Ray.’ It was Terry who finally spoke, and while Grace only just made out what he’d said, it made her skin crawl.
‘He’s a good lad, that Simon,’ the man called Ray said. ‘You wouldn’t want anything to happen to him.’
‘Okay, okay. Leave my son out of it, alright.’
‘And then there’s the girl, yeah…’
When her hand came up to cover her open mouth, she accidentally brushed against the door handle and it clicked. She stood there rigid, trying to decide whether to walk in and pretend she’d just got in, or to scurry up to her room. The man seemed to keep talking and she thought he said: ‘Could all be very different for her, you know.’
She stayed long enough to hear one of them walk across the room and as she shot upstairs, she barely recognised Terry’s voice.
‘Alright, I get the message,’ he said, defeated. ‘Let me see the fucking money, then.’
She went to bed and couldn’t sleep until she heard the visitor leave and Terry go to his room. After a fitful night, she woke up early with a headache and went downstairs to take a painkiller. The door to the lounge was open and she could see a briefcase on the floor. She went in and tried to open it but it was locked.
Back in her room she lay awake staring at the ceiling until she heard Simon getting ready for school. The front door slammed behind him just after eight o’clock. Normally, Terry would have been up and out first and she would have been the last to leave the house. That day she had showered and dressed for work before he even surfaced. When she saw the state of him coming down the stairs, she no longer felt quite so awful, but her stomach still wasn’t up to having breakfast and she settled for a peppermint tea.
‘That was a heavy night,’ she said. ‘Do you want a coffee?’
‘Thanks, you’re an angel.’ He lurched into the lounge rubbing his temples.
‘That man last night,’ she said as she brought the drinks in and put them on the table. Terry had been slumped in an armchair with his head back against the cushion. He sat forward and looked at her through heavy eyelids.
‘What about him?’
‘Is he a colleague, like Jim Melville?’ She was used to Jim coming round before Gillian’s problems got too bad.
‘No, he’s just a contact.’
‘What’s in there?’ she said, nodding across the room.
‘Huh?’ His features tightened into a grimace as his head jerked around to follow her gaze. ‘Oh, God! That… It’s only paperwork. Police stuff. You know, files and statements. Nothing to worry your pretty little head about.’ He was suddenly animated and jumped out of the chair, picked up the case in one hand, grabbed his coffee in the other and went upstairs and didn’t reappear before she left for work.
A couple of days went by and he seemed to be avoiding her. He was out late into the evening and had left the house before she got up the following morning. The visitor’s threatening words kept repeating in her head and there were lots of questions she wanted to ask. The next night, after she’d gone to bed, she heard him come in and put the TV on, she went back downstairs.
‘Thought you’d gone up,’ he said as she came in and sat down.
‘I couldn’t sleep. What’s this?’
‘Spaghetti Western,’ he said, and she watched for a while as Clint Eastwood stood opposite four men, poised to draw his gun.
‘Why are they called that?’
‘They were made by Italians.’
‘Nothing to do with the tomato sauce everywhere?’
‘Hilarious,’ he said without looking up from the screen and a thunderous blaze of gunfire rattled the speaker. He twitched in his chair with each blast and she found herself wondering if his inner gunslinger was pulling the trigger or taking the bullets. Then there was silence and The Man With No Name was the only one standing.
‘Are they all dead?’ she asked.
‘Just keep watching.’ On the screen Clint Eastwood walked past an old man with a beard and said, My mistake; four coffins. ‘There you go. All dead.’
‘Talking of dead men,’ she said. ‘Who was the one you were talking about the other night?’ That’s when Terry went ballistic.
‘I won’t tell you again… keep your fucking nose out of my official business!’ he yelled, throwing the remote control across the room. She was stunned; he’d never sworn at her before. She ran upstairs and locked herself in her room.
Later that week, she sneaked into his bedroom when he was at work, and managed to unlock his wardrobe with a paper clip. The briefcase was on the top shelf and she carefully lifted it down. Both sides were locked with their numbers each set at 999. She thought that was corny until she realised that when she rotated the barrels one way the three individual rollers kept turning but when she flicked them the other way, they all stopped at 9. He’d just spun them all as far as they’d go. She gave up and put it back.
A couple of weeks went by and she noticed how he was using more cash, even for big things that he’d usually have put on a card. He never used to have any cash on him. Gillian would call him The Queen whenever they were out and she’d end up paying for things. All of a sudden he was throwing it around like it was going out of fashion. One morning, he had to leave in a hurry to go to a crime scene and as she walked past his room she saw the briefcase lying on the bed. She noticed that the right-hand combination had changed. It now showed 490 and when she pulled the slider with her
thumb, the catch sprang open on its hinge. The other number was still 999. She smiled to herself, lifted the case onto its back feet and changed the three nines to 010. April Fool, she thought as the second catch flipped open. It was Simon’s date of birth.
She opened the case while it was still upright and the contents started to fall out. She tried to shut the lid quickly but it was too late. One had already escaped onto the bed and several others had shifted, preventing the case from closing. She lifted the lid again, this time more carefully, and her eyes opened wider. Apart from the bundle on the bed and the ones that had moved, neatly bound blocks of £50 notes filled three-quarters of the case. She had no idea how much and didn’t get a chance to count them when she heard the front door open. She only just managed to rearrange the contents, lock the case and get out of the room before Terry came back upstairs cursing. He brushed past her, went into his room and she heard the wardrobe door being locked.
She was sure she’d left the case exactly as she’d found it, but it seemed too much of a coincidence when he surprised her that evening. He asked her to come with him and wouldn’t say why. She was nervous and kept asking where he was taking her. He just rambled away as he drove.
‘You need to understand things aren’t always perfect,’ he said. ‘You have to take your opportunities when they come along. And when things fall in your lap, who’s to say you don’t deserve them?’
‘Are you talking about bribes?’ she asked.
‘What harm’s the odd back-hander if it takes money out of the pockets of criminals?’ She didn’t answer and he added, ‘If I don’t take what comes my way there are plenty more out there who will.’
Then he pulled in at a filling station. She thought he just wanted to get some petrol for wherever they were going, but when he parked up and told her to follow him, she started to get concerned. Her anxiety was short-lived when she saw on one side of the forecourt a second hand car lot with a row of little sporty two-seaters, all shiny and nearly-new. He told her to take her pick.
Dirty Cash
‘Bloody hell!’ I say. ‘What did you do?’
‘I said, “I like the red one!”’
I suspect my face has taken on the appearance of a dead guppy, yet she continues unabashed.
‘He took me back a week later to collect it and paid in cash,’ she says, picking idly at the long grass growing under the bench. ‘He told me not to mention it to Gillian when she came home. And the briefcase disappeared.’
‘Aren’t there a load of formalities,’ I say, ‘for large cash transactions like that? You know, to stop money laundering? We were always having it drummed into us at work.’
‘Of course…’ she says with a cheeky grin, ‘the girl from Compliance.’ I shake my head and blush. ‘But no,’ she continues, ‘I think the salesman knew him. At least he didn’t seem to ask any awkward questions.’
‘And what about you? Did you ask any more awkward questions?’
‘Well I suppose I should have.’ She inhales deeply through clenched teeth. ‘But a few days later, I found £1,000 in my current account. It definitely wasn’t mine. I was only earning trainee money while I was still going to college. I thought the bank had messed up so I kept my mouth shut.’
‘Like you do,’ I say.
‘Well, the following month there was another thousand. That time I did check with the bank and they said it was a new standing order from the account of T Pinner. When I asked him about it, he said he’d decided a young woman like me should have an allowance. He said he wanted to make sure I always looked nice and he knew good taste didn’t come cheap. It’s gone up every year since. It’s now over £3,000 a month.’ She stands up and looks across the lake towards the distant tower blocks, before adding: ‘Last year he gave me an advance so I could buy the salon.’
‘You own the…?’
She starts walking back towards the woods.
‘Simon only told Terry you’d taken lewd photographs of me as a kid,’ she says changing the subject as I catch up with her. ‘He told him you were probably some creep from my past coming back to blackmail me.’
‘I don’t suppose it looked good from his perspective,’ I say, giving him the benefit of the doubt.
‘I suppose not,’ she says, before changing her mind. ‘No, he’s just a trouble-maker. He’s always trying to get one over on me with his old man. And I’m pretty sure Terry’s motives for coming to see you were more to do with self-preservation than defending me. Now you know why.’
‘And is Simon aware of your arrangement with his… Sugar Daddy?’
‘I’m not sure,’ she says, her brow knitted in a brief show of indignation. ‘I’ve suspected for a while he’s been brought into the family business. That’s why I took him for a drink in The King’s Head last week; to try and find out what he’s up to.’
‘And you seriously thought a free pint would buy his confession?’
‘I don’t know, sometimes it feels like the only way to get his attention for more than ten seconds,’ she says. ‘But no, as you probably saw, it didn’t work. He got defensive and stormed off.’
‘And I thought you sent him away so you could spend the evening with me,’ I quip.
‘I told you, that wasn’t planned.’
‘I believe you. Even you couldn’t get a student to leave a free drink on the table against his will.’
‘He was a bit shocked at how much I knew about his father,’ she says. ‘He’ll probably be buying me the drinks in future.’
‘That explains how easy it was for you to get him to develop the film so quickly.’
‘I suppose. He certainly seems keen to stay on my good side.’
‘And to defend your honour,’ I add. ‘Did you speak to Pinner as well?’
‘No, but you don’t have to worry about Terry. I told Simon to sort it out. You won’t be getting any more off-duty visits.’
‘Strange that his henchman hasn’t been in touch on more official business,’ I say.
‘Yeah, hopefully that’s good news,’ she says.
‘So,’ I say. ‘This is a really bad habit of yours; breaking into people’s houses.’
‘And you can talk!’ She gives me a playful push and I trip on a branch and exaggerate my fall into the bracken. She starts laughing and I’m about to grab her when my phone rings. This time there’s no doubt it’s Herb because I’ve added the number he gave me to my contacts.
‘It’s him!’ I say as I take the call and the laughter drops from her face.
‘Mickey, I’m glad I’ve caught you, lad. Do you know where the girl is?’ He comes straight to the point leaving me no time to think.
‘Her name is Grace,’ I say holding a finger to my lips. ‘And yes… I’m sure I can track her down,’
‘Here’s what I want you to do,’ he continues. ‘Tonight at nine o’clock, I’d like you to bring her to me.’
‘Your place in the sticks?’ I say. ‘Only, I’d need directions.’
‘No Mickey not here; somewhere you’re more familiar with than here. One of my less ostentatious properties that you’ve visited more than once. You know the one.’
‘Herb, why do you need her to go there?’ I say. ‘It’s not the nicest place to meet.’
‘I have my reasons,’ he says and a shiver runs up my spine.
‘What do you want with her exactly?’
‘Mickey! Just complete your part of the arrangement. Bring the girl at nine, and we’ll be even.’
13.
Point Blank
It’s eight-fifty and we’re parked under a large tree a hundred yards from Bleak House. We’ve been sitting here for ten minutes, after first driving past and seeing no sign of life. Once more, the place is dark and forbidding and I’m finding it very strange to be here for the first time at the invitation of the owner, not needing to snoop around in the shadows or worry about getting caught, yet I feel more anxious than ever.
Grace is the first to see the car pull up outs
ide and we both watch as Herb gets out of the passenger seat and walks towards the house. The large figure of another man expands like foam from the driver’s door and I recognise him from the other day. Big Mac. He’s about six-four and wears a dark suit, no tie. He looks like a rugby player and it strikes me he’s probably not just Mac the Chauffeur. He scans up and down the street and seems to look straight at us. I’m no longer sure we’re so well-concealed, parked tightly in the shadows between two other cars. Regardless, he turns away and follows Herb into the house.
We’ve spent the early evening establishing some ground rules. Given that Herb’s intentions towards Grace are not paternal, we’ve agreed to stick together no matter what; we’ll let Herb do all the talking and under no circumstances will either of us go into the torture chamber. The other thing we decided was that I would go in alone first and try to assume some level of control.
The front door opens before I have a chance to knock and Mac the Butler leads me into the front room. With the heavy curtains drawn and the lamp on, the place seems unexpectedly cosy. Herb sits in the armchair and two bars of an old electric fire are starting to take the chill out of the musty air. He doesn’t get up as I enter the room, but a frown creases his forehead. Before he has a chance to speak, I seize the initiative.
‘Very homely, Herb,’ I say, looking around the room, trying to remain cool.
‘It has its uses.’
‘Not your usual style though.’
‘It tidies up nicely, don’t you think?’ He looks across at Mac, whose expressionless stare remains fixed on me. ‘We’re used to... tidying up mess.’ He unsettles me without even trying and already I’m on the back foot.
‘Let’s get to the point, shall we?’ I say.
‘Well that all depends, lad. I take it you didn’t come alone?’
‘Look, I just want to know what’s going to happen first.’ I try to keep my voice strong and even. ‘What do you want with her?’
Mickey Take: When a debt goes bad... Page 20