She pulled four twenty pound notes from the roll. It didn't look like it would ever grow thin like some magical replenishing cash flow from a fantasy film. She was tempted to take more, what the fuck would they do if she did? But a circle of respect was just that, and she didn't want to be the one to break it, even if they would be too scared to do anything against her.
Jean chose her clothes, PVC trousers, and a loose 1980's style t-shirt that was only an Italians-do-it-better slogan away from being Madonna. Jean walked into the street and within seconds hailed a black cab. She got in.
"Where to?" The taxi driver asked.
"Where would be best for me?" Jean said.
The taxi driver looked around, he stared at her for a five seconds, giving thought.
"I know the place," he said. "Ten minutes with good traffic. That OK?"
"Let's go."
***************************************************************
The taxi driver knew his job. The place was isolated within an industrial estate. By day a collective of geeks with computers trying to formulate the new, repair the old or crack codes for cash. One old-timer's garage of quick fix and dodgy parts remained from when the city was portrayed as being entirely made up of wide-boys, crooks in suits and salt-of-the-earth scumbags. It would sell up to be a vegan luncherie soon enough. There was no real queue; movement in and out of the large steel double door was constant. A makeshift car park full with middle-class cars, and the line near the door required the owner to have spent a minimum of 50 grand on their daily drive. There were people who rented these vulgar massive beasts for the night to pretend at having a life worthy of a Florida-based coke dealer.
No one is fooled but the person themself.
Jean walked up, the bouncer, classically shaven head and a neck ripping through a pressed white shirt barely registered Jean's presence. She walked on through and he gave the smallest of nods to say it was OK. The corridor was dark, and the throb of a DJ who loved industrial sounds reverberated. An old lady, who could have been a looker in her day, smoked a cigarette in a cubicle where people left coats for the night, while the lady rifled pockets to find a bonus to her wage. The corridor led into the one large room. Neon lights, a bass-line that made your diaphragm vibrate and ears shut down. And people moving everywhere. The mirrors on the wall dripped condensation and people moved and smiled and laughed and joked while coming up on the pill of choice for the night. Jean thought it had been such a long time.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO
The Turk hated walking. He hated stairs. They knew this and had arranged their meeting in the Victorian club to which the Turk would never be a member. A punishment, revenge before it was needed. They could go fuck themselves. The Turk knew the mere mention of his name would bring on a hailstorm of blackballs. This place was for a different kind of crook, those that can only be brought down by those within their circle. Turk hated them all.
Turk thought back to when he was young, when he and Jim were in their late teens in a London that had long since vanished inside a cloud of financial institutions. They were whippet thin, asking the butcher for a bone for a dog everyone knew they didn’t have. They hoped enough meat would be on there to boil it up into a soup that would keep them from starving.
But now look at me, he thought, grown obese on great food and expensive alcohol. When he made the step up to the bigger time, he had promised he would never go hungry, never miss out on anything he had grown up without. He’d do everything to stay away from being without again. He had overdone it, but he hadn’t needed to be out on the streets, physically able to defend himself since his late twenties, thirty five years ago. He had other people for that, people he paid well. But they had insisted on him coming alone, and he had. It was too early in the game to be coming over untrusting. But he wasn’t dumb enough not to have seen what was coming. Insurance had kept him from pain, and it would today, but not forever.
Parker met him at the top of the worn but well polished wooden staircase. Parker had smiled on seeing the beads of sweat breaking on the Turks forehead, and the large patches of sweat breaking through the fine material of the Turk’s grey suit. The Turk knew there was a lift to the first floor, and he knew they had no intention of letting him use it. Parker thrust out his hand and the Turk shook. Parker slid his hand out of the embrace and wiped his palm free of the Turk’s sweat with a crisp white handkerchief he pulled from his breast pocket.
Parker knocked on the mahogany door that had been fitted by a man who, had he lived until a ripe old age, would still be long since dead.
The strong voice said, “Enter.”
The room was a study of the old type. There were still brass fitting in the wall when night-time illumination had come from a constant burning gas flame. A glass chandelier hung down from the three meter high ceiling, far enough to touch the head of a man the short side of average height. It blazed bright and illuminated the four walls of books, floor to ceiling of burgundy covered reference books. None of them opened in decades. But the man sat behind his desk with the arrogance of one who believed those books contained the answer to any question ever asked and he had memorized them all.
"Sir Alex," The Turk said.
“Good evening. Sit down.”
The Turk did so. Sir Alex gave a brief small nod to Parker, and Parker left the room.
Turk tried to find comfort in his seat. Sir Alex looked young for his age, but more or less seventy is still an old man.
He turned his head to face the Turk.
“Do we have a problem?” Chamberlain asked.
Turk waited, thinking.
“Not that I am aware of,” he said.
“Are other people aware of a problem?”
“None”
Chamberlain picked up an onyx fountain pen. He held the ends between his forefinger and thumb, twisting it back and forth. He looked up.
“But our mutual friend has contacted me personally," he said. "Has he you?”
“Rollin called you? Not yet, no. I imagine he was relying on you to do that."
"I imagine he was."
"Do I have a problem?" Turk asked.
Sir Alex looked up, his expression, though he tried to remain the same, added an edge. A hint of anger. The Turk smiled, gambling on his insurance.
“We’re linked," Turk said. "We have been for many years. I helped you arrive and stay where you are in your world and I facilitated certain discrete actions for you.”
Sir Alex moved forward
“There is no need to attempt educated conversation,” he said. “I understand basic words too. And I do hope you have not just threatened me."
Turk acted innocent, wide-eyed and hurt.
“I threaten nobody," he said. "But I do keep records. A safety net against life-altering accidents. Of which I hear too many.”
"I do not need any accidents now. The press and public are hounding people we know, and maybe do not like. But they are connected to us in a way that is now causing great concern. It is not the old days when certain tastes and certain behaviors were allowed to pass if you held enough sway."
"I read the papers," The Turk said. "I know what is happening. But you haven't stopped nor slowed down. The place hasn't changed. The occasions stay the same. The risk is higher. But I am still involved, still helping. I haven't run, and I haven't spoken."
Sir Alex listened and nodded. He calmed. Turk relaxed.
“As ineloquently as you have put that,” Chamberlain said. “It seems we are working together. I do not like your insinuations of evidence and influence, however.”
Sir Alex looked to the door then to the Turk.
Sir Alex reached under the table and the Turk caught his breath, he moved back in his chair and Sir Alex smiled. The click of a button and Parker walked into the room. Parker’s right hand was under the left breast of his jacket. The Turk stared at the bulge. Sir Alex shook his head and Parker removed his hand. .
“I’ll call you when I need y
ou,” Sir Alex said. Turk did not move. Sir Alex stared at him hard. “Off you go.”
The Turk stood. He pulled at the lapels of his damp jacket. He nodded his goodbye to them both. We walked confidently to the door and left.
When the Turk had closed the door behind him, and they had listened to his footsteps recede down the stairs. Sir Alex spoke. “When we are safe, you are going to kill him.”
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
Jean felt the high, she soaked it in. She had missed out on this too long. Tonight needed to be fun. She had ideas, desires. Here she could be herself.
Faces turned, people paused, a double-take or a head-shake to confirm or deny.
Jean walked to the bar as people's mouths moved but noise was splashing together and clinging to the edges of a fast drill-like bass.
The barman watched Jean lean forward on her forearms on the bar. Jean lifted her right index finger and nodded toward a wood's navy rum bottle. The barman was young, cool and desperately convinced of his irresistible charm. He had cultivated stubble and had lightly used hair wax, to go with his long-lashed eyes of clear blue and a knowing smile. He touched the rum bottle and Jean nodded. The barman mouthed, "Coke?" Jean nodded. "Ice?" Jean shook her head.
The drink arrived, the barman didn't use bottle-spinning showboating, he placed the glass down on the Perspex bar, Jean noticed his forearm design of ever-decreasing black outlines of geometric stars.
Jean lifted her head to enquire about the price. The barman held up his palms and looked down to his feet. He walked off to flirt with two blonde female teenage drunks at the end of the bar.
The first drink was free.
Jean turned and lent back against the bar. She watched the room, flashes illuminating, and darkness falling at supersonic interchanges. People, it seemed, moved with jerking rhythm. Some people's eyes were gone, big and wide, the pill-popping people whose night will be long and the same as they have always been. There were drunks too, heading toward the slower side of the high, downing more and more in the hope of feeling the exciting high of the previous hour, but not realizing, after all these years, they were simply heading for oblivion.
One woman, plastic, botoxed, but holding onto beauty by conforming to air-brushed images of untalented women ready to post photos of their flesh in exchange for notorious fame. She was a lad-mag's idea of the ideal woman, a mask of make-up on a paralysed face, which sat above plastic enhanced breasts and a body trained thin through home gyms and not eating.
The woman stared at Jean, turned away and tiptoed up to speak into the ear of the big man next to her. He nodded at her words, turned to Jean and grinned and saluted.
Jean squinted but was sure. The man who drove Jim away.
The woman moved through the crowd to the bar. She had applied make-up expertly, there were no cracks. But most muscles in her face would not contract due to the high percentage of poison injected at high cost. She retained expression in her eyes. Green circles that told every emotion.
She walked across and slid up to Jean. She was expert and knew what to do. Her loose top fell in different directions revealing the violet lace bra underneath.
"Remember me?" She asked.
Standing up she was one meter sixty at most. She tiptoed to speak into Jean's ear.
Jean shook her head. She would never remember. Trying was a wasted effort.
"Do you want to drink, get high or come with me?" The woman asked.
Jean scanned the room again. Nobody was watching except the big guy.
"Do you know him?" Jean asked.
"We grew up together," she said.
"And who are you?"
"You really can't remember? I'm Sophie, and the big guy is Raucous. That mean nothing?"
Jean shook her head.
"Not a thing. And if I leave with you, the big guy there will be straight out after me for one of those fights organized to impress his lady."
"I'm not his lady, and if he wanted to hurt you, he would do it inside and right now. You don't know him?"
"We have an old friend in common. Saw them both for the first time a few days ago."
Sophie looked confused. "You won't find better than me," Sophie said.
Jean stared at Raucous but spoke to Sophie, "Not this easily, no."
Sophie took Jean's left hand in her right and squeezed. She pulled and started to move Jean toward the exit.
"Where are you taking me?" Jean asked.
"Mine."
******************************************************************
Sophie rented a small two-roomed apartment. A living room, bedroom and bathroom. The kitchen a corner in the main room. It was a 1970s council build. Five floors in the complex and no lift. The walls were thin, the floor creaked and there was a smell of age. Sophie's apartment was on the fifth floor, an attic space. The walls sloping into a ceiling. The usable space was limited by the low angle where the ceiling met the walls. The sofa, table and bookcase came with the apartment. The four pictures on the walls, each a print of a Constable, hadn't been moved in a decade. The place was worn but clean, humid but not hot.
As soon as Jean stepped in, Sophie pushed her up against the wall and slammed the door shut. Sophie removed Jean's clothes quickly, and removed her own. She was fast, kissing, ripping and pulling. Naked they moved to the Sofa. Sophie was the aggressor with Jean riding along. But Sophie bit hard into Jean's stomach and Jean woke up, snapped from her passive trance. She matched Sophie's aggression and they fought a battle of wills and tested strength and desires until they lay silent and still.
After thirty minutes, Sophie stood. "You can stay here," she said. "Sofa or bed. Depends on the day."
"The big guy?" Jean asked.
"Raucous?” Sophie giggled like an innocent girl she had never been. “He never stays here. There is a spare key in the kitchen drawer. Sure be more comfortable here than in your cheap hotel. But you decide."
Jean smiled, stood and found the key. She found her clothes and dressed.
Sophie watched, "What are you doing?"
Jean walked to the door.
"I'm going now,” Jean said. “Pick up my stuff and come back tonight.
“There’s no rush,” Sophie said.
“I have a tendency to wake up and think differently. I think I'll take up your kind offer while I'm still feeling like me."
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
He had an inquisitive mind. He knew this fault got people killed. A trip down memory lane, but he had to make peace with it.
Raucous drove in circles for two hours before he recognized the place. He passed young women on horseback, three cars driving slow and sounding their horns on blind turns. The hedge row arced over, not quite a tunnel, but one hell of a maze for the uninitiated. Drizzle hit his windscreen making it harder for him to associate places with his memory bank. It had been a lifetime since he had been here, and then only once. He passed the dirt track, regarding it as just another entrance to a field. He drove on for five minutes but something, he couldn’t explain what, a tree, the gate, he didn’t know, but he turned back and pulled up into the small space off the road.
The rain was coming down harder, puddles were forming and the earth was quickly developing into a soft sludge. He hadn’t brought boots, he was wearing Addidas trainers that had been fashionable when he was a kid and seemed to have retained some type of retro cool. Gazelles that would be ruined by the walk he was about to take.
He climbed over the gate before he realized the chain was loose. The gate swayed open with his weight on top and Raucous smiled. Always check, he told himself.
Maybe he was wrong, he thought. Maybe the place would be gone. But he wasn’t coming for what lay within, that would have been stripped of anything worthwhile and the junk they stole left to corrode. He followed the path, looking down seeing neither tyre tracks nor footprints. Maybe the abandoned farm has stayed abandoned. But the fields looked kept, long green grass, or some type of crop was growing in unifor
m height with strips of turned earth visible between the rows. The seeds had been laid by machine. He followed the edge of the field on a path that was wide enough for a small tractor. Brown earth shaded from the rain by a long line of trees. He walked on up the shallow incline, heading toward the small wood he could see at the far corner of the next field.
The rain let up slightly, but Raucous was already wet through. His hooded sweatshirt was warm but not impermeable. He saw the small building when he was fifty meters from the wood. The old brick building and roof still standing. He walked twenty more and stopped short. He stood staring and thinking about when he had come here with Christian. Two of them alone, Raucous not supposed to be there. Raucous wondered what would have happened if he had just said no. What life would that have been? A shit one, he knew. He was going nowhere fast back then. He wasn’t going anywhere quickly now. But at least now he had a reason. Someone had told him living without hope would kill you, but he learnt living without reason was worse. A lot of days when, what is the point, was a constant thought. Now he could answer, he knew where he was trying to go. And the barn held nothing. An idea, a dream, and the reason many died.
Raucous squinted. He could make out the large steel lock on the red door. He remembered Christian locking it up. He remembered them getting in the van that waited outside and heading back.
Raucous had his instructions. He wanted to know now if they had been true, or if they had played him then like he believed they had.
He counted the trees back from the barn. He was stood under the seventh. The seventh tree. Make your excuses and take a piss. The seventh tree. By the roots.
Raucous stepped toward the trunk, looking down. The earth was uniform, no divots or troughs. You really believe it’s there? He thought. Raucous sank to his knees, and sank his fingers into the mud. He clawed at the earth, which was soft and easily moved. He scooped and dragged, shaking his head, asking himself why he was doing this. This was bullshit, it had all been bullshit. Whatever plan they had, went wrong from the start. The whole thing failed. No one got rich, everyone died, and Raucous stayed alive because he killed and kept his mouth shut.
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