The Night the Rich Men Burned

by Malcolm Mackay

  Time might come, Patterson’s thinking, when he’ll need to interfere. Get involved in his friend’s private affairs. If this girl is worth the effort, he might just have a word with the driver. After all, couldn’t be hard to chase a driver away. Nah, works for Jamieson. Fine, set Bavidge up with someone else. Someone that can settle him down, make him happy. Not sure that’s possible.

  ‘Can you let her down gently?’

  Bavidge is shrugging. ‘I can let her down. I think she’s getting used to it. I’ll get this done tonight, before he has a chance to get out. I’ll make sure it’s very clear. He still at the same address?’

  ‘He is.’

  ‘Okay. Anything else?’

  ‘No, that’s it.’

  A brief shake of the hand, and Patterson’s watching Bavidge leave. He will do something about him. Has to. Wouldn’t be much of a friend if he didn’t. He needs to get away from his work. Patterson won’t sack him. Too good to be sacked. Force him to take a holiday. That might be a start. Probably wouldn’t work. A holiday wouldn’t be enough to make him happy-go-lucky. Often thought about having a conversation about him, but how weird would that be? You don’t sit down with a guy like Alan Bavidge and talk about feelings. Talk about the fact that he seems to be a bit depressed. If he doesn’t laugh in your face, he’d punch you in it. He’d be right to, as well. If someone started that conversation with Patterson, it would be a short conversation.

  5

  Treading carefully, because he doesn’t know this guy. Heard about him, never met him. Glass found out where his little office was, dropped by. Seems like a decent enough guy. They all do though, don’t they. They want you to borrow money from them. They’re selling, not you. There are plenty of people you can borrow money from, so they all have to be nice until they have their claws into you. That’s when the reassuring smile fades.

  Jefferson’s looking across the desk at him. Another man trying to feel big behind his desk. Or trying to make the other person feel small. That might be it. Trying to make Glass feel that he’s dealing with someone so much bigger than himself. Impress him. Make him more agreeable to the terms he’s about to be offered.

  But it’s not the office that makes people feel small. The office isn’t capable. Basic, would be the word. Small room, small desk. Everything a little scuffed and worn. Stacks of paper, an old computer monitor on the side of the desk. Gloomy, too. There’s a window, but the dirty glass seems to be more than the sunlight can cope with.

  Jefferson isn’t intimidating either. But then, we’ve already established that he’s not trying to be. A man in his early forties, casually dressed. Smiling at Glass and treating him with exaggerated respect. He’s not intimidating, but he knows what is. He knows that there’s nothing so terrifying as money. Being without it is scary. Trying to find ways of acquiring it is demoralizing. And Jefferson has it. Sitting there behind his cheap desk, in his unimpressive office. He has what they want, and that intimidates them all.

  ‘I really don’t need much,’ Glass is saying. He’s been trying for nonchalant since he got here. Like this whole thing is all rather beneath him. Just because you haven’t done it before, doesn’t make it beneath you. ‘Don’t need it for long either. A few days.’

  ‘You sound like the perfect customer,’ Jefferson’s smiling. Jocular, false. Doesn’t mean it. The perfect customer is one who can’t pay back in the short term. Then you get them long term. Build up the debt. But you say the right thing. Let them think this is only going to last days. ‘How much are you looking for, Alex?’ First names. Always first names. Try and make it sound like you’re already their mate.

  ‘Five hundred,’ Glass is saying with a shrug. Still going for nonchalant. It comes across as a little bit dumb this time. You should know with certainty how much you need to borrow. If you’ve arrived at a point in your life where you need to use someone like Jefferson then you should know exactly.

  ‘Five hundred then,’ Jefferson’s nodding. ‘How long will you need to pay it back?’

  This time the shrug is genuinely uncertain. Glass is trying to work out how long he can ask for. How long it would take him to come up with that kind of money. How long would it normally take to put together five hundred quid? Not long if you’re Peterkinney. Much longer if you’re Glass.

  ‘A month. Maybe two.’ Did he make five hundred quid in the last month? Just about. Five hundred with the interest rate he’ll pay here? Nope, not quite.

  Jefferson’s looking at him with raised eyebrows. ‘Shall we split it and call it six weeks?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, six weeks.’

  ‘Do you have a job? A source of income, so that I can be sure you’ll be able to repay?’

  ‘Oh yeah, I have a job,’ Glass is saying. Confident this time. He does have a job. A sort of job. He’s thinking about his work for Marty. Occasional, and becoming more occasional as time passes. The more he thinks about it, the less of a job it feels. ‘It’s not always reliable, you know. Sometimes loads of work, sometimes hardly any. That’s why I’ve been caught short.’

  Jefferson’s nodding. ‘Sure. Not a problem. Cash flow, I understand. Just reassuring to know you have a source of income. I’m not prying.’ Always so reasonable. ‘Now the interest rate may seem rather high,’ he’s saying. Try to work out how smart the person borrowing is. If they’re sharp, they know your rates are a fucking disgrace to decency. They will hate you for charging such an amount and they will become difficult. They’ll justify their failure to repay because of it. If they’re not too bright, you can convince them it’s the best deal they’ll ever get. They’ll take it, be thankful and make every effort to repay. This boy’s been around. Might not be too clever, but knows enough about the business to know he’s not getting a great deal. ‘It’s about as good as you’ll get from someone like me. And you have to remember, the 6,000 per cent is annual. You don’t need to worry about annual. You’re only borrowing for six weeks.’

  Glass is nodding. He knows he’ll get screwed on the deal. He knows he’ll end up paying back more than he should. Or working it off somehow. But that’s six weeks away. This is now, and now is Ella. Now is a night out at her favourite club. Now is proving to her that he can give her what she wants.

  She’ll be out of the flat by now. Off with some guy, probably. Getting her own money. She always manages to get some. She’s always very careful to make sure that she doesn’t mention clients. That she doesn’t let him hear anything that would upset him. But she goes to these parties and he knows what happens there. And some afternoons she goes out. Doesn’t say where she’s going. Comes back with money. He knows.

  Jefferson’s unlocking a drawer in his desk. Taking out a small wad of cash. Counting off fifties. As he peels them from the wad, Glass is thinking about Ella. Thinking about that first morning. The first morning, when Peterkinney was there. Never saw his girl again. The silent one. Ella knows her, but Peterkinney had no interest in seeing her again. He called Ella a prostitute. Glass argued. Said she was just a girl who went to parties. Worked them. No big deal. Not the same as being a hooker. He still tries to believe that.

  Jefferson’s sliding the cash across the desk. ‘I want you to sign this contract,’ Jefferson’s saying. Contract means almost nothing. A piece of paper with no legal weight whatsoever. But it gets Glass’s signature in Jefferson’s office. Makes it feel official, which adds to the intimidation factor. Means Glass can’t deny that he borrowed money from Jefferson. But that amounts to very little as well. If this comes to an argument, it’s unlikely it’ll be settled by the presence of that signature. They both know what happens if you refuse to pay. It’s not the sort of thing a contract has any role in.

  Glass is signing. Not reading it, just signing. The money’s on the desk in front of him. He wants it in his pocket. He wants to get out of this office. Phone Ella. Tell her he has plenty of money for the both of them. Maybe she hasn’t left the flat yet.

  Jefferson’s taking the piece of paper ba
ck, slipping it into the drawer. ‘It’s been good doing business with you, Alex. I hope the money serves you well. I’ll put you down in the book. Let’s say six weeks from today as the deadline. If you have the money for me before then, obviously, drop in. Sooner the better,’ he’s saying with a smile, and reaching out a hand. Sooner the better is bullshit. Alex knows that. They both know that. Sooner is the worst option. Keep the money, build up the debt. The longer it builds, the more the lender benefits. He can’t lose.

  They’re both thinking the same thing as they shake hands. If this debt isn’t repaid inside a week or two, it’s going to become a millstone. Jefferson knows it and he likes it. He’s not like a bookie. If a bookie lets you run a tab you can’t pay back, the bookie loses that value. They need that value back, every penny. That’s their legit profit. With a moneylender it’s different. Your final debt is guaranteed to be a lot higher than your initial borrow. The lender can sell the debt to a collector, and as long as he gets more than his original outlay back, he’s up on the deal. A five-hundred-pound lend becomes a three-grand debt. He sells the debt to a collector for a grand and a half. Triples his money without doing a damn thing. And he’ll usually sell for more than 50 per cent.

  Glass is thinking about that as he walks out of the little office. He needs this money for tonight. Try and spend as little of it as possible. If he can keep a hold of some of it, get a few jobs from Marty in quick succession. It could happen. He could have enough to pay it off inside three or four weeks. He’ll have to pay three or four times what he borrowed. When was the last time he made two grand in a month? Never has.

  Getting his phone out of his pocket. Scrolling to Ella’s name and tapping to dial. One hand holding the phone, the other holding the notes in his pocket. Come on, where are you? Pick up. Through to voicemail. Shit. Hide your disappointment.

  ‘Ella, it’s Alex. Listen, I just came into a bit of money. Got enough for a good night out. Couple of good nights out, you know. So, yeah, I thought I’d let you know. Give me a call, whatever. See you later.’

  Hanging up, dialling again. Through to voicemail again. Hanging up. Phone’s back in his pocket. Walking along the street, instinctively heading home. Ella will be gone. Peterkinney. He might be around. Phone out of his pocket. Trying Peterkinney’s number. This person’s phone is switched off. Shit. Might be a good idea to spend some time with Peterkinney in the next few weeks. Money seems to be gravitating towards him.

  6

  Getting dark. Good. That’s what Peterkinney’s been waiting for. Marty had a job for him. Go find Gordon Aird. He owes eight hundred quid. Tell him he owes a grand and knock him around a bit until he pays. Aird borrowed a couple of hundred, and has zero chance of even paying that back. Aird is a user. He borrows money, injects it, borrows from another lender to pay off the first debt. Always going round in one big depressing circle. Not even trying to solve his problem.

  Marty doesn’t expect any money to come back to him. He didn’t say that to Peterkinney; you always cross your fingers and hope. But a couple of months is enough time for Peterkinney to know how this works. Marty likes to use people like Aird. If they can pay up then that’s great. But people like Aird rarely can. And a guy like Marty knows that when he takes the debt. Aird is such a mess; he’ll do whatever’s asked of him to get through another day. All about survival. Marty likes that. He can use that. But first you have to soften them up. Make sure they know you’re serious. That’s where Peterkinney comes in.

  Marty hasn’t told Peterkinney that he’s his best muscle these days. Peterkinney worked that out for himself. Being given increasingly awkward jobs. Getting more frequent work than most other muscle. It all adds up to Peterkinney being the best. Fine, whatever. He doesn’t much care. This is short term for him. Make some money then walk away, best or not.

  Working for Roy Bowles might be more long term, but it’s not frequent enough. If Bowles came up with the work often enough, Peterkinney would settle for it. Ditch Marty and his shitty, scum-of-the-earth work. But that’s not an option. Need the regular income. Bowles is so careful, keeps his workload down. The work is carefully plotted, reassuring. But there’s so little of it. Peterkinney has to earn more than Bowles provides. He wants to get a place of his own. Needs to. Starting to climb the walls in that damp little flat of his grandfather’s. The flat’s no worse than it ever was, nor is his grandfather. But the more money he saves, the more he wants. The closer he comes to escaping the flat, the more desperate he gets.

  Anyway, he’s been waiting for the darkness to come. Shouldn’t need to. Aird isn’t going to make an issue of this. You get to his point in life and you don’t make an issue of anything. Aird’s living on the edge. He won’t fight back. He won’t argue. He’ll take whatever’s dished out to him. He’ll be grateful for anything that stops short of pushing him over the edge. The challenge for Peterkinney is to make sure he doesn’t go too far.

  A guy like Aird is easy to misjudge. You knock him around, maybe he panics. Maybe he turns up at Marty’s office with the money. Marty doesn’t want that. Can’t use a man who pays his debts. Can’t misuse him. Intimidate him, but don’t send him running to another lender. Intimidate him enough to put him under pressure. Then, when a favour is requested, he’ll be only too happy to oblige.

  Peterkinney doesn’t ask about the favours. Marty needs something done, he sends someone round to Aird to request a favour. Tells a man who owes a grand that he can have three hundred dropped if he does something useful. What constitutes useful in Marty’s world is Marty’s business. Peterkinney doesn’t care. He can guess. Go rob a house owned by a rival. This car will be parked in this location. Go trash it. Use expendable, desperate losers to annoy and intimidate your rivals. That sort of thing. He’s hardly going to give them important work, is he? Just risky, trashy, low-grade stuff that he couldn’t persuade anyone else to do. If it’s a woman who owes the money? That’s different.

  Aird lives in a shitty little flat in a rough part of town. According to Marty there might be a couple of other people living there with him. Might be. Marty doesn’t know. Rumour has it that Aird doesn’t live alone. Needs other people to help him pay the rent. But Marty can’t be sure, because Marty can’t ever seem to be fucking sure. It’s always vague information and a demand for the job to be done as soon as possible. Not that Marty couldn’t find out. He could, if he could be bothered. He just doesn’t care about the risks his staff take.

  Peterkinney’s learned how sloppy Marty is at what he does by working with Bowles. Bowles is good. He knows how to handle these things. He understands the value of information. Understands the need for preparation. It’s not just because Bowles has more experience. And it’s not because what he does carries more risk. He does have more experience and gunrunning does carry more risk. But that’s not it. Bowles cares about people working for him getting into trouble. Entirely selfish. He doesn’t want them arrested, hospitalized or killed. That would raise awkward questions. But he also wants to make sure that good employees stick around. Marty doesn’t care. Everyone’s expendable to Marty. If Marty cared to make an effort, he could match Bowles for detail. Even exceed him. Marty has connections Bowles can’t get. But Marty’s only thinking about Marty. Not even taking the collection business all that seriously, it seems to Peterkinney. Too lazy, too distracted by the other strings to his bow.

  That’s why Peterkinney’s already looking for a way out. Not desperately. He’ll keep working for Marty until an opportunity comes along. But he won’t settle for this. This won’t be the rest of his life. No way working for someone like Marty can last. Too unpleasant. Sitting in his car, outside this block of flats. A street of four-storey blocks. Watching lights come on as daylight runs away. He has the address for the flat. Might as well get this out of the way.

  He’s not wearing a balaclava, although he has purchased one. One of the first things he did when he knew he was going to be working for Marty. Bought a balaclava and a pair of gloves. Di
tched the gloves. They were a stupid idea. As seen on TV. Wearing a pair of actual gloves makes every part of the job harder. Some thug working for Marty tipped him off to thin surgical gloves. Sort of thing cleaners wear. You can buy them by the boxful in the supermarket. But he’s not going to wear them either. Not tonight.

  Tonight isn’t a job that needs any sort of protection. Tonight is a job where faces can be seen and fingerprints left. There’s nothing that Peterkinney could do to Aird that would make Aird go to the police. Not a thing in the world. Could torture the boy, he still wouldn’t go to the cops. See, a boy like Aird lives in greater fear of the cops than Peterkinney does. Aird has a habit that will get him into trouble. He has probably resorted to paying for that habit by doing things he shouldn’t. He won’t want the police getting his fingerprints on file, comparing them to those found at the scenes of robberies and muggings. No, the police have no role to play in tonight’s criminality.

  Through the door of the building and along to the front door of the flat. Ground floor, which helps. Something else Peterkinney has learned. You don’t know how fast you’ll have to get away. Look, Aird should be soft. People like him almost always are. But there could be other people there, Marty said. One of them might decide that the best way out of debt is to kill the collector. Attack him at least. People react stupidly, violently. You have to know the way out. Need to have a clean run to the exit. That’s easier if you don’t have a dark stairwell to negotiate.

  Knocking on the door. No need to kick your way in. That was a mistake Peterkinney only made once. Made it when him and Glass went after that Jim Holmes character. That was a fuck-up. A lucky fuck-up, but that doesn’t make it any less of a fuck-up. Kicking down the door? Behaving like the bloody A-Team. You don’t kick down doors. You knock on them. Even people who know they’re in trouble answer the door. Even people in trouble know other people who might come visit. As long as you’re not too late in the night, there’s nothing suspicious about a knock on the door. You just have to know how to make the work easy.