“The new boss is me. You work for me. I don’t like being smiled at, particularly by two pathetic men like you. Now, I told you what is not going to happen to those boys. They also are under my protection now. Are we clear on that?”
The beard in pain, nodded. Raucous let go and the beard sagged to his knees. The second stopped smiling. Raucous looked at him.
“I need at least a nod,” Raucous said.
The second beard nodded.
“Then off you go.”
******************************************************************
Raucous stepped into the transporter once the two beards had gone inside. A delay to the simple detective work he had planned out. He switched on the cabin light. He picked up Jobs’ two cellular phones. One business, one pleasure. He chose the white one and placed the black back on the passenger seat. He tilted the white cellular to the small cabin light and saw the small greasy prints of fingers corresponding to numbers that would appear on the screen. He also saw the L smear on the left side of the screen. Raucous pressed a button, the screen lit up, a swipe password necessary. He swiped along the grease stain and the phone was open.
Raucous checked the messages. The white was the pleasure phone. Stupid messages to three different women. A few naked photographs exchanged. Jobs was in no great shape, but then neither were his women.
Raucous picked up the black. He checked for the swipe in the same way, although he knew the L would be the same. It was. Raucous opened the phone.
There were two contacts saved under the names A and B. He read the messages. It was a one-way conversation. Jobs had updated A and B on average every thirteen minutes about movements and actions in the Villa. Raucous was mentioned regularly. He had not added conjuncture, only fact.
Raucous saved the numbers to his own phone. He saved them under the names to whom they belonged.
******************************************************************
Raucous thought as he drove, anger making his decisions wrong.
Raucous unlocked the back door to the Villa. He looked along the corridor and saw Jobs sitting in the chair at the base of the stairs.
“Where are my phones?” Jobs asked.
“In the van.”
Raucous walked along the corridor looking around, trying to see or hear anything he could call unusual. He glanced up at the bookshelf and saw that the books had been searched. The top row were several centimetres further forward than when he had left. Jobs knew. He had seen the equipment.
“Who are A and B?” Raucous asked.
“None of your business.”
“Police?”
“Do I look like a snitch?”
“No, but you act like one.”
“So do you.”
Jobs stood and straightened his tie.
“I’ll go get my phones and take the transport back to the depot. See you next time, Raucous.”
“What is your name?”
“What’s it to you?”
“Well, I always like to keep a good record.”
“Call me whatever you like.”
Jobs took two steps toward the back door.
“vous aimez la littérature française?” Raucous asked.
“What?” Jobs said as he turned.
“Sorry, I figured you to be a Francophile, what with you having thumbed through those Proust books there,”
Jobs smiled. “I was looking for something I might find interesting.”
“Doesn’t look like a bookcase that would welcome last year’s annual of the Beano.”
“I’m a dandy man.”
Raucous stepped forward and kicked the back of Jobs' right knee. Jobs dropped down onto his side, and slid slightly on the polished wood floor. He scrambled to get up but stopped when he saw the gun Raucous was pointing at his head.
“I don’t think so, do you?” Jobs said.
“I think so.”
Raucous pulled the trigger.
CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR
“You never call them by name,” Charlotte said.
Charlotte and Roach were sitting around the desk in their office in the hospital. Papers were strewn over the surface. Legal documents, financial statements, records on Rollin going back over a decade. Roach had called in a favour and the files the police were keeping on Rollin copied and handed over. The documents were basic, legal troubles, financial accumulation, taxes paid and legal obligations met.
Rollin was clean.
They had slowed down, drunk coffee, tried to find inspiration and energy but failed. They ordered pizza, they ate in silence hoping for fuel but gaining only tiredness. Roach’s eyes were closing and his head falling forward. He caught himself before he fell completely asleep. Charlotte understood, she was dead of thought too.
“They don’t deserve it,” Roach replied.
Roach stretched and yawned, arched his back, pursed his lips and looked away. He looked at the tiled wall for a few seconds, rubbing the back of his head. His hair was ruffled and unkempt. He turned to Charlotte, she saw the rings under his eyes, the crumbs clinging to his stubble. He looked older.
“You remember that fat politician?” Roach asked.
“Don’t want to give him a name?” Charlotte said.
“Doesn’t need to be said. I had him.”
Charlotte smiled, Roach was becoming like an old grandfather telling the same story, the one that defined his life, to increasingly bored children. Charlotte knew the story, Roach had told her in steps over the weeks.
“I know.”
Roach smiled, scrunching up his lips so he looked like a happy kiss.
“No, I really had him,” he said. “The operation had been going for a while. Elm house, near Westminster. Like student houses but for politicians. Mistresses set up all over the place, politician next to politician and they didn’t know who was where or when. A pretty private place. But we knew about that fat bastard, he’s left a trail all over his constituency. He was a weak link. He’d been pulled in a few times for questioning and always walked away. Every time he grew in confidence. No one was going to touch him.”
“They got him, Roach. They got him.”
Charlotte was tired. She didn’t want to hear the story again. She knew it was important to Roach, something that defined his life, so she told herself to be quiet and listen.
“They waited till he was dead. They knighted the guy. A Knight of the realm, services rendered to the nation. A joke.”
Roach leaned forward and rubbed his face with both hands. He slapped each cheek simultaneously but lightly.
“We set up surveillance," he said. “We had three cameras operational in the apartment. We filmed and saw everything. I held the tapes. I watched them. I saw what his fat hulking naked frame was doing to bombed out pre-teen boys. I watched it, and I had him. And then the Official secrets act. The top of the police force sending indicators down, telling us to give it up.”
“And you did,” Charlotte said.
She regretted her words as soon as she said them. She was tired and she didn’t need to hear this again. It got them nowhere. It probably put them in reverse. But she knew how it worked, it was not because Roach quit.
“Not at first,” Roach said, looking up, hurt at Charlotte’s words.
Charlotte wanted her anger to pass, but she couldn’t, she had bitten and she needed to speak, express her thoughts.
“They sent in a higher force,” she said. “The official secrets act. You got raided, in your own station. A flood of thirteen suits with guns. They came in and took everything. The tapes, the transcripts the recorded interviews. Not your fault, Roach. Let it go,”
“I don’t think I can,” Roach said. “I need to get Sir Alex Chamberlain.”
“Alex was among them?”
“Never. Not that way. Belfour is almost certainly right. He’s asexual, never heard of anything male or female with him.”
“So why go after him?”
Roach opened his
eyes wide, a sadness showed and his mouth opened but relaxed. A fan who had seen a player do the impossible, and knew he could never come close. He couldn’t understand how she could ask.
“He was the facilitator,” Roach said. “The organizer, using those parties to further his own path. Facilitator, an organizer, a blackmailer too. He has his own collection of evidence I am sure. And he uses it. He has Parker too. A muscle man, a minder, whatever you want to call him.”
Charlotte sat up, Roach was tired, but he was speaking. This was the first time Parker had been mentioned. She wanted to know, but she didn’t want to push and have Roach shut down.
“You used to work with Parker, Was he always a . . . “
Charlotte had no word to describe the man. She waved her right hand like the queen giving a greeting in high speed.
“A Mercenary?” Roach asked. “As a man and as an officer he was old school. He decided who was guilty and then went out to prove he was right by any means. Luckily he was good. Really good. Intuitive. He can read people. One hell of a poker player. He was right 98% of the time. Sure, most crimes are pretty damn obvious to solve. A young female murdered or disappeared? Look to immediate family, first the father and then work your way out in waves. People are obvious and they crack easily. You have no idea how obvious guilty people are.”
Roach looked at the table, he saw a small bottle of beer he had finished with his pizza. He picked it up, swirled it and held it to the light. There were dregs so he put his lips to the glass and tipped the bottle up to vertical and drank a dribble of warm flat lager. He placed the bottle down and stared at the red label.
“Only problem is,” Roach said. "Sometimes people start to believe they are guilty, they show the same signs as someone who genuinely is, and they get hooked. They give you all the right signs, you get convinced, and Parker pulled this once too many and used old-school physical tactics to get his required confession."
Roach drifted away for a second, remembering a scene, or trying to understand an action from a long time in the past. He shook his head slightly as if he disagreed with his own conclusions. He looked at Charlotte.
“Some people will always say, you can’t make someone confess to something they didn’t do,” he said. "But you can. It’s easy on the right type. Threats, beatings, days without sleep, the mental exhaustion creeps up until they’ll say anything just for it to stop. Parker could get anyone to confess, only he got a few innocents to do it, and he should have been punished, and he was, eventually, no hiding corruption forever, he was forced to resign. And on the way down the steps at the station, without his badge, job and pension, Chamberlain employed him. It made sense for both of them. Parker had contacts, he had muscle, and he only cares about what he’s been told to do. Give him an order and he’ll do anything he can to achieve it. Need to find him guilty? No problem. He’ll find out. Back in his day, if they put Parker on you, the organization you were with gave you up or killed you themselves.”
Charlotte listened, and she heard the conflict and jealousy. Parker was a man who had got results, got money, and never lost. Roach saw himself very differently. A failure, a man who worked but achieved nothing of note because of others.
“He felt betrayed,” Roach said. “He went with the money, went with the protection."
Roach paused and shook his head again.
“No, that’s a guess,” he said. “I don’t know. But he’s been doing it long enough now to know that is what he wants. He is a very dangerous man.”
“Was he crooked back then?” Charlotte asked.
“Every single one of us back then was to some degree. Some just lazed around on overtime, doing nothing, taking the money, others took bribes, others just didn’t care and let dangerous men go on. And if you weren’t, watching or hearing the evidence we compiled made you crack and transfer out or cloud up midnight thoughts in booze. I quit getting drunk when I left the force. Parker still needs his clouds, only he needs them all the way through the day. Not just at the end of a difficult shift. He had principles. He did. He drinks to forget.”
Charlotte was listening, Parker fascinated her. She had no way in to the type of man he had been and was. Roach looked to be waning in enthusiasm.
“Did you get on?” She asked.
Roach looked across the table straight into Charlotte’s eyes and raised an eyebrow. He knew what she was doing.
“I hated working with him,” he said. “He was ten years older but he never listened to me. He jumped on everyone. He was the perfect crime cop for the time because he was worse than most of the crooks. A lot of heavy men back then, street fighters, utterly crazy violent men, and they all backed down from Parker. The knife-man they called him. I don’t know why. Stories and myths, but some point to him carving up three men in turn, letting the worst of the bunch watch the first two and then dying in a worse way. Silly story, but it tells you how much he was feared.”
“Men grow old, they change.”
“Yeah, now he’s old, slow and drunk. But he’s smart and experienced. I’m old slow and sober, and he’d take me apart quickly.”
“It sounds like you are scared of him.”
Roach didn’t answer; he shuffled in his chair and rested his head back. He shut his eyes.
Charlotte leaned back too and looked at the fan that rotated during the summer months. It sat there now, useless and gathering dust. She stared for a long time, long enough for her to fall asleep. She woke with a start, panicking at where she was. She looked around the room and remembered. She saw Roach in his chair; his head tilted back, mouth open and snoring softly. She stood and picked up a blanket from a clean folded pile on a counter in the corner of the room. She laid the blanket over Roach and watched his old face twitch. Roach woke, but stayed half in the dream world.
“You should be scared of him,” he said.
CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE
Raucous knew he had to do this fast, speed was key to convincing.
Raucous pulled up at the apartment complex. He looked up and saw the light bright in only one window. He stepped out of his car and rang the bell. He waited five seconds and rang again.
“Who is it?” A voice shot through the intercom.
“As if you can’t see me on the camera you have hidden behind the plate here.”
Raucous pressed his finger against the small spy hole and left a smudge that would annoy the hell out of anyone with OCD.
“What do you want?”
“A chat.”
“About what.”
“Business.”
The door popped open and Raucous took the elevator to the fifth floor.
Parker greeted him as he stepped out of the lift. A gun trained on Raucous’ head.
“My gun is in the car,” Raucous said.
Raucous stepped out of the elevator and lifted his arms up and out as he spread his feet.
“I’m clean, but check. I’d like this to be short,” he said.
Parker patted Raucous down with his left hand. The right hand holding the gun at all times.
“Come on in,” Parker said.
******************************************************************
Raucous sat at the mahogany desk. Sir Alex in front of him on the opposite side, with Parker standing to the right of Raucous and a step behind.
“We have a snitch, or you don’t trust me. Which one is it?” Raucous asked.
Sir Alex looked puzzled.
“Great little bit of acting. But the question wasn’t answered.”
“What are you getting at?” Parker asked.
“The phone you patted down, can i get it out?” Raucous asked.
Alex looked to Parker. Parker, Raucous thought, must have given the nod.
“OK,” Alex said and lent back in his chair.
Raucous swiped his phone open. He dialled the number Jobs had saved as A. His phone started to ring, but no other in the room followed. He waited seven seconds and then the mobile on Sir Alex’s ta
ble sounded. The ring-tone a famous classical piece that Raucous knew by ear but not by name. Raucous ended the call.
Raucous then phoned B. He waited the same seven seconds and then heard the vibrating coming from Parker’s pocket. Raucous ended the call.
“I hope you turn them off at the cinema,” he said.
“We’re associates,” Alex said. “We need to know we can trust each other.”
Raucous grimaced.
“The trust should have extended a little further," he said. "So I can take it the guy is not a snitch, at least not to the police.”
“Yes, you can," Sir Alex said. "I’m sure you can understand our caution. Once we understand our relationship, only then can we start to help each other.”
Raucous stood, Parker backed off and raised his gun.
“Then let’s start with the mutual help," Raucous said. "You are going to have to help me.”
“And how are we going to do that?” Sir Alex asked.
“There’s a van parked in the safe zone out back of the Villa. The van needs to vanish.”
“It is untraceable,” Parker said.
“Maybe so, but as comatose as the boys are that get shifted around in it, they aren’t far enough gone to not realize there is a decomposing body in there that's six-feet-six long.”
“He’s dead?” Parker asked.
“He was acting like a snitch. So I killed him. We have another gathering organized for next weekend. I imagine I am no longer required as I am led to believe you two will be paying a visit. Or I imagine after tonight it will be cancelled. But if you trust me for a next time, wherever that may be, don’t send an alcoholic idiot to watch my work.”
Raucous turned and pointed at Sir Alex.
"I gave up whatever was in the package," he said. "And you sure wanted it, so I’m guessing it was pretty important to you. Now I’m giving you a body that has my prints all over it, in a van with an equal number of my prints all over it. There is also the gun. Again covered in my prints. You have that on me."
Parker snorted.
"And if we were to call that in," he said, "I’m sure you would be forthcoming with certain information about us."
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