Happy Days

by Hurley, Graham

  ‘There is no more.’

  ‘Of course there’s more. Just tell me.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means no, son. It means we’re changing the subject. It means I lost it for a moment there. I apologise.’

  ‘I don’t want an apology.’

  ‘I bet you fucking don’t.’

  ‘Just tell me what happened.’

  ‘No.’ Winter tried the coffee and pulled a face. ‘This stuff’s cold.’

  There was a long silence. Winter heard a lorry rumble past on the main road.

  ‘It happened abroad, didn’t it?’ Suttle wouldn’t let go.

  ‘I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.’

  ‘France? Spain?’

  ‘Pass.’

  ‘Recently? The last couple of years?’

  ‘This is a waste of breath, son. Let’s talk about Mr Beginski.’

  ‘Sure.’ Suttle extracted a sheet of paper from his file and gave it to Winter. ‘Why not?’

  Winter found himself looking at a sheet of timings. There was a BMI flight from Heathrow to Warsaw tomorrow morning at half past six.

  ‘You want me to go to Poland?’

  ‘We do.’ Suttle nodded. ‘There are twelve trains a day from Warsaw to Lublin. The journey takes about two and a half hours. You could be with our friend by mid-afternoon.’

  ‘Fine. Then what?’

  ‘You get what you need for Skelley.’

  ‘The statement, you mean?’

  ‘Yeah. You’ll have to find a lawyer to witness it. Shouldn’t be a problem.’

  ‘And the photos? The video? All that bollocks?’

  ‘Here …’ Suttle bent to his briefcase and gave Winter a smallish box with the cellophane wrapping still intact. ‘Canon Ixus. State of the art. Does both stills and video. Gives you everything you need. The instruction manual will be inside.’ He looked in the briefcase again and produced a tiny slip of paper. ‘Have a practice tonight, eh? This is the receipt.’

  ‘Receipt?’

  ‘Yeah. I assume Mackenzie’s paying.’

  ‘And you want the money back?’

  ‘Of course we do. No rush.’ Suttle nodded at the airline timings. ‘Listen. If we’re right about Beginski, then you’ve got Skelley up against the wall.’

  ‘Yeah, son. And so have you.’

  Suttle said nothing, just smiled. Then he went through the sequence of events they wanted Beginski to attest. Major Crime believed that Johnny Holman’s body had left the Isle of Wight on 9 February aboard a Freezee van driven by Beginski. The next day, according to worksheets seized from Freezee, Beginski had made a run north. The destination was logged as Carlisle, but Suttle suspected he’d driven deep into the Lake District and offloaded Holman’s body at Martin Skelley’s house on Derwent Water. What happened after that was anyone’s guess, but it was a matter of record that Pavel Beginski, after returning to London, had binned the job and left the country.

  ‘With a whack of money? Like I told Bazza?’

  ‘That’s the rumour.’

  ‘You’ve talked to Beginski’s mates?’

  ‘Of course we have.’

  ‘And they stand it up?’

  ‘Yeah. It turns out Pavel was a bit of a drinker. Threw a party before he left. Lots of vodka. Lots of sausage. That’s something he might regret.’

  ‘So why haven’t you scooped him up?’

  ‘He’s disappeared. Or that’s what the Polacks tell us.’

  ‘You issued a European Arrest Warrant?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Nothing?’

  ‘Zilch.’

  ‘Lucky then.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Finding that sister of his.’

  ‘Too right.’

  Suttle, unblinking, held Winter’s gaze. Then he asked whether Winter was prepared to make the journey to Warsaw.

  ‘Of course I am. Does that surprise you?’

  ‘Yeah, it does.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because you told me you were bricking it over your own Euro-warrant. You said you expected a knock on the door from our lot. Van to Heathrow. Extradition without a court hearing. The rest of your life in some foreign jail.’

  ‘Never.’ Winter shook his head. ‘You’ve got that wrong, son.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Then I must have been pissed. If I was that worried about a Euro-warrant –’ he reached for the BMI timings ‘– there’s no way I’d risk leaving the fucking country.’

  Bazza Mackenzie did his best to make sure that the bank faxed his house deeds to Dobroslaw’s solicitor by noon. His appearance at the Queen Alexandra Hospital attracted a modest media posse. He was photographed in one of the paediatric wards, perched on the bed of a convalescing six-year-old, and another snapper caught the moment he presented an Aruna Dindane Pompey shirt to the sister in charge of the Renal Unit. According to Kinder, she was a regular at Fratton Park and would be thrilled by the gesture. As it turned out there’d been a shift change, and the shirt ended up with another sister, who couldn’t stand football. This logistical glitch didn’t affect Mackenzie in the slightest. He gave the woman a kiss and told her he’d bung her a couple of comp tickets for the Fratton End so she’d know what she’d been missing.

  Later, on the pavement outside the hospital’s main entrance, Mackenzie held an impromptu press conference and told the assembled reporters that the National Health Service would be safe in his hands. In the background, thanks to Kinder, eight students dressed as nurses were jumping up and down with Pompey First placards.

  Back at the hotel, preparing for an afternoon descent on a senior citizen bingo session in North End, Bazza took a phone call from Conrad Whittiker, his account controller at the bank. Whittiker was apologetic. There seemed to have been a hiccough with the dispatch of the house deeds to Mr Dobroslaw’s solicitor.

  ‘How come?’ Mackenzie was checking his watch.

  ‘We had to get in touch with your wife, Mr Mackenzie, and confirm her approval. She’s co-owner of the property of course.’

  ‘So what did she say?’

  ‘I gather she’s not happy. Maybe you ought to have a word.’

  Mackenzie phoned her at once. She was, as Whittiker had suspected, extremely disturbed.

  ‘This is crazy, Baz,’ she said. ‘Please tell me what’s going on.’

  Late that afternoon Andy Makins ducked out of the Royal Trafalgar and walked the quarter-mile to the Sunlight Café, a squalid Southsea backstreet eatery he favoured when he needed time to think. Gill Reynolds had phoned him earlier, insisting they were due a conversation, and she was already tucked into a corner when he arrived. Texting on her phone, she was doing her best to avoid the lowlife around her.

  Makins made his way through the litter of greasy unwiped tables. The regulars knew his face by now, and he sensed a kind of tacit approval of the way he dressed and the fact that he kept himself to himself. His favourite was a hollow-faced junkie with nose piercings and a dragon tatt down the side of her scrawny neck. She lived in a bedsit round the corner and called in for soup and toast between the men she shagged to fund her habit.

  Gill was under-impressed.

  ‘This place is horrible.’

  ‘Real, Gill. It’s real.’

  ‘Is that right?’ She offered her face for a kiss but Makins wasn’t interested. Gill, uncomfortably aware that they hadn’t had sex for more than a month, wanted to know how the campaign had kicked off. By now she knew that this was the surest way to talk him into bed. Andy’s conversation had always been limited, but just now his entire life seemed to have shrunk to a single subject. Nothing mattered except Pompey First.

  ‘It’s going OK,’ he told her. ‘You want another coffee?’

  ‘No, thank you. Tell me more.’

  Makins explained about the websites. These were his children. He’d dreamed them up, nurtured them and then set them free at an early age to
wander the streets of the Internet. Some had prospered, others were back home within days, friendless, ignored, the Billy No-Mates of the blogosphere.

  The phrase made Gill laugh. She loved Makins in a mood like this.

  ‘Actually it’s Leo’s phrase, not mine.’

  ‘But you’re out there, my love. You’re doing the heavy lifting.’ Her hand closed over his. ‘You’re the daddy in all this, am I right?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘So which one’s your favourite?’

  ‘You mean site?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Makins frowned. The question called for a little thought. He never took himself less than seriously.

  ‘Frontline Pompey,’ he said at last. ‘It’s a bid for the far right. BNP. Hard-core Pompey fans. All those nutters in the English Defence League. You pitch your tent and see who turns up. It’s been amazing these last few days. I never understood how many punters have got a bit of squaddie in them.’

  ‘And they’ll vote for Pompey First?’

  ‘They’ll vote for whoever gives them their country back.’

  ‘We’re talking immigration?’

  ‘Too right. It’s huge. None of the mainstream lot’ll touch it, but Bazza just gets stuck in.’

  ‘He contributes to these sites?’

  ‘No. He hasn’t got the time, so I do it for him. I’m fluent in Bazza-speak, believe it or not.’

  ‘But he checks this stuff?’

  ‘Rarely. To tell you the truth he’s shit on the small print. I think it bores him.’

  ‘But he trusts you?’

  ‘He must do. And that’s nice.’

  ‘So what do you say? On the immigration thing? When you’re pretending to be Bazza?’

  ‘I say some of my best friends are Pakis. I say I love ’em all to bits. I say they’ve got the best food in the world. And I say they’re great when it comes to the family thing.’

  ‘And how many squaddie votes does that win you?’

  ‘I also say I love my country the way it used to be. Just like the Pakis must love theirs. Everyone deserves a little bit of their own England. In case you’re wondering, that’s code for fuck off home.’

  ‘Clever.’

  ‘Obvious. And bloody effective. People love this stuff. The Internet’s like a pub. You can say what you like, spout any kind of nonsense, but it’s being there that matters. Bazza’s right. We’re all pack animals. We move in herds. We like company. We like mixing it. We like a bit of a ruck.’

  ‘Is this you speaking?’

  ‘Bazza. He might be crap on detail but he’s very sharp, he learns very quickly. People would be nuts to write this thing off as some kind of stunt. It’s not a stunt. Believe it or not, he means it.’

  ‘So how is he?’

  ‘Stressed out of his head. Up one minute, down the next. I like him, don’t get me wrong. Leo Kinder says he’s authentic, and that seems to matter. It’s a brand thing, apparently. It’s what they teach in business school. Whatever you’re selling, it has to be real.’

  ‘Like this place?’

  ‘Yeah. It might not be your taste but –’ he shrugged ‘– who gives a shit?’

  ‘Maybe I do.’ She gave his hand a squeeze.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah … but hey, what’s not to like?’ She was looking at an elderly dosser by the window. A heavy cold had coated the sleeve of his jacket with drying mucus, and he badly needed a shave.

  Makins was oblivious. He was also on a tight schedule. His video crew at the uni were prepping for a night shoot with a bunch of feral kids in Portsea and they needed a proper brief.

  ‘Can’t tempt you to the gym then? It’s half-price on Wednesdays.’

  Makins ignored the invitation. Exercise was a planet he’d yet to explore. He wanted to know why Gill had phoned him. What was so pressing it couldn’t wait?

  ‘I’ve got a proposition.’

  ‘I’m stuffed, Gill. Really busy.’

  ‘It’s not that. Mark’s asked me to have a word.’

  Mark Boulton was editor of the News. Gill had at last caught Makins’ attention.

  ‘What does he want?’

  ‘He’s looking down the road, post-election. He hasn’t got a clue how your lot are going to perform on the night because no one has, but he likes what he’s seen so far.’

  ‘He does?’

  ‘Big time.’ She nodded. ‘He thinks you’ve put Pompey on the map and that’s no bad thing.’

  ‘Already he thinks that?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Makins shook the hair out of his eyes. ‘Because there’s lots more to come.’

  ‘I bet. And that’s the point really. He wonders whether you’re keeping any kind of diary.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he’d like to publish a special supplement after the election – the inside story, what made your lot tick. He’s serious, believe me. We’re talking a 25K print run. He’d even pay you for it.’

  Makins laughed. One of the many reasons he’d left the News was their obsession with cutting costs.

  ‘The answer’s no,’ he said.

  ‘Really?’ She didn’t hide her disappointment. ‘Am I allowed to ask why?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because it’s none of your business. Or Mark’s.’

  She nodded, then reached for her phone and slipped it into her bag. There were moments when he couldn’t hide the truth from her, and this was one of them

  ‘You’ve had a better offer, haven’t you?’ She kissed him and then stood up to leave. ‘Good luck, my love. Don’t forget me, eh?’

  The message from Marie was waiting for Mackenzie when he got back to the hotel. His wife needed to talk to him urgently. Please ring.

  Bazza sank behind his desk and briefly reviewed the pile of other stuff that had come in. He made a couple of calls on issues that couldn’t wait, checked in with Leo Kinder and then turned his attention once again to Marie.

  She’d been trying to contact him all afternoon. His phone had been on divert throughout the bingo session but she’d sent two texts, both of them terse. The second one left little room for negotiation. Just pick up the phone 4 Gd’s sake.

  Bazza kept a photo of Marie on his desk. In her late forties she was still a handsome woman, blonde, leggy, gym-fit, and when friends and business associates told him he was the luckiest guy in the world he knew they were right. Not because Marie had kept her looks but because she was the real strength in the marriage, the family’s centre of gravity around whom everyone else revolved. Bazza’s orbit had been the giddiest, wild excursions into deepest space, but he’d always come back to her. Not just because she was sexy and popular and all the other stuff, but because she made him feel good. She was class. She cared about him. Without Marie there was nothing.

  With some reluctance, he lifted the phone. He knew she wouldn’t rant at him. That wasn’t her style. But he braced himself for a bollocking all the more effective for being so reasonable and low-key.

  ‘Ma? It’s me.’

  He made his excuses, said he was sorry for not getting back, explained how busy he was. He was about to tell her about this evening’s campaigning schedule when she cut in.

  ‘We need to talk,’ she said. ‘All of us.’

  ‘Have you signed the bank thing?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I’ve just told you. We need to talk. Stu’s coming over this evening with Ezzie. We have to straighten things out, Baz. We can’t go on like this.’

  ‘Tonight’s impossible. I’m up at Mountbatten for a meeting at seven. Then there’s—’

  ‘Cancel it. The kids are coming over at half seven. OK?’

  She put the phone down.

  The Mountbatten Centre, in Kinder’s phrase, was the key to Pompey’s heart. The complex of sports facilities lay on the city’s western shore beside Tipner Lake. The recent addition of a multi-million
-pound Olympic-size swimming pool offered a world-class launch pad for young local swimmers, and in a city as sports mad as this one, Mackenzie knew it deserved lots of electoral attention.

  He and Leo Kinder drove up together. The Secretary of the Boxing Club was waiting in reception. Upstairs, in the café, he introduced Bazza to a couple of star prospects who were keen to shake his hand, and the candidate happily posed for a couple of phone shots to squirt off to their mates. Afterwards, with the Secretary, they got down to business. The Boxing Club was planning a big tournament for the autumn. Mackenzie confirmed that he’d be happy to chuck in a bit of sponsorship, though he wasn’t yet able to go firm on a definite figure. When the Secretary enquired whether he’d be prepared to present the trophies on the night, Mackenzie beamed. My pleasure, he said.

  A glance at Kinder prompted an idea for a poster. Kinder had roughed it out earlier in the War Room. He wanted to come with a photographer to the club’s Friday night training session. They’d choose one of the younger lads and take some action shots to feature on a poster for the closing week of the campaign. Kinder showed the Secretary the strapline: Pompey First … striking a blow for city pride. The Secretary was impressed. Like Mackenzie, he was Copnor born and bred.

  ‘On the fucking nose,’ he said. ‘Brilliant.’

  With Kinder en route back to the hotel, Mackenzie hijacked a girl from the Mountbatten management team and did an impromptu walkabout, visiting the cycle track, the squash courts and the weights room, dispensing cheerful waves and Pompey wisecracks. In the sports hall his entrance brought a netball game to a halt. This was a face from the local TV news. When the ball came Mackenzie’s way he made four attempts on the basket and missed every time. Being a short-arse, he said, was sometimes a pain in the bum. The women loved him, and even his escort – an ultra-cool nineteen-year-old from Baffins Pond – was impressed.

  ‘You’re like that Prince Charles,’ she said, ‘but tastier.’

  Mackenzie’s last call was the fitness suite. At this time in the evening, once the after-work crowd had left, it was nearly deserted. A couple of guys in the corner were going head to head on the rowing machines, and an older woman in a scarlet leotard was on the running machine, her eyes closed, her lips moving to whatever was playing on her MP3. Mackenzie spared her no more than a glance, then took a second look. Gill Reynolds.