The Turning Tide

by Brooke Magnanti

  ‘You keep backing up now,’ she growled. She realised she had no idea whether the gun was loaded or not. Erykah’s heart was pounding.

  ‘Fuck’s sake, woman, what has gotten into you?’ Billy squinted up at her, clutching his middle.

  ‘Shut up. Just shut up. I know what you came here to do. Get your hands up where I can see them.’ Slowly, Billy raised his hands.

  Buster jogged back towards them with a canvas bag rolled up in his hand. When he saw Erykah and Billy he started sprinting. ‘Call him off!’ Erykah shouted. Her voice bounced off the grimy brick sides of the canal and echoed back at her.

  ‘Call what off?’

  Erykah closed the gap between them to a few metres, aiming now at Seminole Billy’s temple. ‘I know Buster has a gun and you don’t,’ she said. ‘Call him the fuck off.’

  Billy raised his hand. ‘Buster,’ he said. ‘Do what she says.’

  ‘The fuck is this shit?’ Buster said, but he did stop, hand still poised over his side. He looked from Billy to Erykah to the open car door and back again.

  ‘I know you’re here to kill me and dump me, like you did with Schofield,’ Erykah said, ‘And just so you know, that is not what I had planned for today.’

  ‘Woman, listen—’

  ‘Shut up! I know what you did. I read Schofield’s notes. I know about Livia.’

  ‘The hell are you talking about?’ Billy said. He straightened up, keeping his eyes on the gun.

  She dropped one hand from the gun and pulled out her mobile. She tapped at it with her thumb.

  ‘Bitch, you better not be calling no police,’ Buster said, but stayed planted where he stood. ‘We don’t know any Livia.’

  Erykah dropped her phone on the ground and kicked it towards Billy. ‘Go on, pick it up,’ she said. He crouched down, hands raised until the phone was within reach, and plucked it off the ground. ‘Now look at the screen. Tell me what that is.’

  Billy shook his head slowly. ‘It’s a photo of a whiteboard,’ he said. ‘Meeting with LL?’ He looked at Erykah. ‘Sorry, but I got no idea who that is.’

  ‘Liar,’ Erykah said. ‘Lady Livia. Knows the Major. Schofield’s co-worker said she was a journalist working for LCC. Only I called the station and they’ve never heard of her. So who is she? I reckon she hired you to off him,’ she said. ‘Like you were going to do with me.’

  ‘This is bullshit,’ he said. ‘Never met any Livia.’

  ‘Bullshit yourself. I saw the bags in the boot. Exactly like the one he was dumped in.’

  Billy nodded slowly. ‘OK. OK.’ He sighed. ‘You’re right, sort of. It’s complicated. I can explain.’ His voice was reedy. She could hear his age in his voice, the years he had spent inside. ‘Buster gets those bags from his cousin. Used to run a market stall. Now he’s got a shop in Clapham selling ironic junk at insane mark-ups to jerkoffs.’ Buster murmured agreement. ‘Come on,’ Billy said. ‘Put the gun down. You, me, Buster here, the Major – we’re all on the same side.’

  ‘Right,’ Erykah said and licked her lips. ‘Guess I should mention the Major’s dead.’

  Buster’s eyes looked like they might pop out of his head. ‘You killed him?’ he said.

  ‘I wish. He drank a bottle of water, poisoned. The water came from Schofield’s office.’ She shrugged. ‘That was Plan A, right? You were going to poison him, and when it didn’t work out, you cut him up and shoved him in a bag and threw it in the ocean.’

  Billy offered his hands towards her. She snatched back her phone. ‘You’re not listening. It’s not what you think,’ he said.

  Erykah took a step back so he couldn’t grab the gun. ‘I said keep those hands up,’ she said. ‘If it’s not what I think then what is it?’

  Billy frowned. ‘It was back sometime after New Year, I guess,’ he said. ‘We got a call from the Major to get out to a house. The guy was in a bad way. Cut to the neck. Not quite dead, but not exactly alive either. This woman had made a hash job of it, she called the Major, Major called us. All we did was put him out of his misery and clean things up. No more, no less.’

  ‘Jesus,’ said Erykah. ‘You said he was not quite dead – how close to not quite?’

  ‘He was mostly still,’ Billy said. ‘And you would have thought he was dead, but as soon as we put the light on in the bathroom, he starts thrashing around on the floor.’ Billy looked at the ground, as if seeing the scene right there in front of him. ‘Like he was having a seizure. Blood everywhere. Fucking mess. Buster had to get on him and we tied him up. The woman who did it left a knife on the floor, and—’

  Erykah gulped. ‘OK, I think I get the picture,’ she said. ‘What about the Major? Why didn’t he finish the job?’

  ‘Cold feet, who knows,’ Billy said. ‘He looked in shock. PTSD maybe.’

  ‘But if Schofield wasn’t dead yet, why do it? Why not walk out of there and call the police?’

  Billy pursed his lips. ‘Is that what you would do?’ he asked. ‘As soon as we took the call we were involved whether we liked it or not. Might as well see it done right.’

  ‘I guess,’ she said. The sickening lump in her throat would not go away. She had known he was a killer, had even seen him inflict damage on her own husband, but the way he talked about it stunned her. Like a hunter talking about putting a stag out of its misery. ‘What house was it? Whose?’

  ‘I got no idea,’ he said. ‘We weren’t introduced. The place was dark, and the woman didn’t say nothing to us. I didn’t get a photo ID, you know? Had other things to deal with.’

  ‘Was it Livia?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Billy said. ‘I never met any Livia before.’

  ‘Where was the house?’

  ‘Over in South Ken.’

  ‘What was the woman like? Old, young? Did you get a look at her?’

  He shook his head. ‘Nope.’

  ‘That seems uncharacteristically unobservant of you.’

  ‘Half of my job is to notice things,’ he said. ‘The other half is to make sure I don’t see nothing.’ He looked up at her. ‘Listen, woman, just so you know, this is between us. I got no interest in making you disappear.’

  She wanted to trust him, or at least, trust that he was telling her the truth. ‘No?’

  She lowered the gun, but her finger was still on the trigger. ‘Buster, you put yours on the ground,’ he said. Buster unclipped his holster and threw it in the dirt. Billy turned back to her. ‘I got no loyalty to that man that he ain’t paying me for. If the Major’s really dead then that’s my work with him done.’

  Erykah considered this. He had no reason to lie. Seminole Billy might have been a criminal, but as far as she had seen he was also a man of his word.

  There was something else as well. She couldn’t put her finger on it. The way he looked at her. No, not lust . . . something else. Like he – she didn’t even want to think the word – cared about her. She shook the thought out of her head. But in her heart she knew he wasn’t going to do anything to bring her to harm. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really. Now come on, drop that gun.’

  Erykah threw the pistol into the dirt at his feet. Billy picked it up and examined the small grey handgun. He ran his fingers down the slide, stroking it like he might have been stroking skin.

  ‘Is that thing real?’ Buster said.

  ‘Real? Sure,’ Erykah said. ‘It came from the Major’s office. I guess it was his father’s.’

  ‘It’s an old school Haenel Schmeisser. Point-two-five ACP,’ Billy whistled. ‘This brings back memories. Seen a few at gun shows back in Florida. Not for a long while.’

  ‘In Florida? Really?’

  Billy nodded. ‘Not as many of these around as Brownings, so some guys’ll try to pass it off to skinheads and rednecks as a Third Reich make. They’ll get an eagle stamp, hammer it in the body there, rub some sh
oe polish in so it looks like a ’40s mark. Worth a few hundred on its own, but scam the right Nazi fanboy and you might walk away with a cool two grand.’

  ‘Sorry – I’m not following,’ Erykah said.

  ‘It’s a pocket sidearm, not a service pistol,’ he said. ‘His dad would have been issued with an Enfield or a Webley, not one of these. This thing might even be older than Abbott Senior himself.’ Billy moved the slide back. ‘Fucking hell. Nothing in the chamber. Should have known.’ He pulled the trigger to hear it snap and wagged the gun at Erykah. ‘I oughta kill you for that, you know?’ But he was smiling.

  ‘Yeah, well,’ she shrugged. ‘Why was Schofield a target?’

  ‘Beats me,’ Billy said. ‘Like I said, the shady lady didn’t exactly welcome us with open arms. Whoever it is, once she hears about the Major though, we had all better start running.’ Erykah nodded. ‘Gimme your phone,’ he said. ‘Trade ya for the gun.’

  ‘Are you sure? About the gun I mean.’

  ‘Sure I’m sure,’ he shrugged. ‘What are you gonna do with an empty gun, pistol whip me? Nah, you probably got lipsticks in that bag of yours bigger’n this.’

  She handed over her mobile, and he gave her the pistol. The Major’s phone was still in her handbag. Probably best to keep that information to herself for now.

  Billy looked back through her sent and received messages. ‘This is the one I texted you on?’ She nodded. He scrolled through the menu until he found the option to reset to the factory settings, erasing any stored data. ‘Pay as you go or contract?’

  ‘Pay as you go,’ she said. ‘I have a contract phone for talking to Rob, but I never use it. This is for things I don’t need my husband to know about.’ Like Nicole. Like the Major.

  ‘Good girl,’ he said, and slid the back of the phone off. He popped the SIM card into his pocket, dropped the handset onto the ground and crushed it under the heel of his snakeskin boot. Erykah gasped. Before she could object he kicked the bashed mobile into the canal. It sank fast into the murky water.

  He took one look at her open mouth and winked. ‘Cheer up, sunshine, we’ll drop in somewhere and pick up a new burner on your way home.’ Billy dusted his hands on the thighs of his black jeans. ‘I’ll even spring for an upgrade,’ he said.

  ‘That’s coming out of my share of the money, isn’t it?’

  ‘If there even is any money,’ he said. ‘More like it’s coming out of your pocket cash.’

  Erykah hadn’t thought of that. ‘Shit. You two are not going to get paid, are you?’ Billy shook his head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Billy shrugged. ‘It ain’t my first time at the rodeo,’ he said. ‘Sometimes the jobs work out, sometimes they don’t. Besides, we got bigger things to think about. Once the news about the Major hits the airwaves, we’re both in for a world of hurt.’

  ‘But who from?’ Erykah asked.

  ‘You guess is as good as mine,’ he said. ‘All I know is, it’s someone who’s got a good eye for distracting attention.’ He chewed over the possibilities. ‘Someone who knows how to keep the press looking at the piece of totty, not what’s behind it.’

  ‘You think I’m just a – a piece of distracting totty?’ Erykah said.

  ‘Could be worse,’ Billy said. ‘Imagine if you had to go through life looking like me.’

  ‘Are you two done flirting yet?’ Buster grumbled. ‘I got somewhere to be, man.’

  Billy flushed slightly. ‘Gimme the stuff. Get outta here.’ Buster threw the rolled canvas bag at Billy, scooped up his own gun and jogged away. ‘You got the money we gave you?’ he said to Erykah.

  ‘Most of it,’ she said.

  ‘Enough to make things look normal for a while? Keep up your bills, so no one asks questions?’

  She frowned, totting up the sums in her head. ‘Yes. And I had a few grand in cash before that. I’m not sure how far it will go.’

  ‘Have to do for now,’ Billy said. He walked back to the Merc and stood with exaggerated formality at the passenger side door, still hanging wide open. ‘Your chariot awaits.’

  Billy turned the key and the car coughed and shuddered itself into life. The radio came on, loud. It was tuned to LCC, where the mid-morning call-in was well underway. ‘Keep your ears glued to the news, OK?’ he said. ‘Odds are they’ll break it as soon as someone finds the body.’

  He drove out of the estate at the same slow speed he had driven in. She looked back at the canvas bag on the back seat, the one Buster had thrown at him. ‘What’s in there?’ Erykah asked.

  ‘What we came for in the first place,’ he said. ‘Have a look.’

  She unrolled the bag. It was a thick waterproofed fabric with a seal and lock along the top edge. ‘Key’s in the magnetic box under your seat,’ Billy said.

  Inside the bag were wads of cash, three of them, thick bundles of fifty pound notes, Bank of Scotland. Much like the ones they had given her to look for Media Mouse. Sixty, maybe seventy-five grand in total. The money wasn’t all. An Italian passport and national ID, a US Permanent Resident card and a driving license for the State of Florida. All of them with the Major’s moustachioed face staring back at her. But an array different names: Jack Arsenal, Stephen Chelsea, Robert Fulham. ‘Fake IDs?’

  ‘In case he needed to disappear,’ Billy said. He dug out the last cigarette from the pack and jammed it in his mouth. ‘He called me yesterday. Said to be ready for when he got back to London.’

  ‘But all the dates on these are old,’ she said. ‘If he only rang you yesterday, why is that?’

  ‘Easier to fake,’ Billy said. ‘Before chips became standard. Most of the old style documents will be phased out or expire in the next few years, but for right now, and if you’re only going one way? You got a window.’

  ‘He must have thought time was up for him, too,’ Erykah said. No wonder the Major hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened in Cameron Bridge. She turned the pages of the Italian passport. The cover was the same colour and much the same as her own British one, apart from the lettering. The paper was thick and it felt legitimate. She would have been fooled. ‘Did you do these?’

  ‘Buster knows a guy who knows a guy,’ he said. ‘You meet all the best kinds in lockup.’ He glanced at Erykah. ‘It’s not good enough to get into the States, but it’d do for Latin America,’ he said. ‘Panama, Belize, places like that. Maybe Bahamas.’

  ‘Could you get one of these for me?’

  ‘It’s not cheap and it’s not fast.’ Seminole Billy shook his head. ‘Not today. I’m taking you home.’

  Home was the last place she wanted to go right now. ‘Is it safe there?’

  Billy shrugged. ‘Is anywhere safe? Woman, if the police are headed your way, home is exactly where you want to be right now. I’ll sweep the neighbourhood first if it makes you feel better. Tell that husband to cover your ass, and sit tight for a few days.’

  ‘Fine,’ Erykah said. The Merc cruised west in the light mid-morning traffic. Sitting tight was one option. But she had no intention of doing anything of the sort.

  : 26 :

  ‘Good God.’ Arjun wrinkled his nose at the LCC green room with its sagging sofa and broken coffee machine. ‘This is, like, where interns’ dreams come to die.’

  ‘The glamour of politics,’ Morag said. ‘This sofa? No fewer than a thousand Cabinet ministers’ farts are trapped in there at any given time.’

  ‘Look at that carpet. I’m getting emphysema just looking at it.’

  ‘If you think it’s bad now, you should have seen green rooms before the indoor smoking ban,’ Morag said. ‘Vile. Even smokers couldn’t hack it. I once walked in on an anti-smoking campaigner – Royal College of Surgeons no less – sucking down Silk Cuts like a condemned man headed for the gallows.’

  ‘No!’ Arjun’s eyes opened wide. ‘Who?’

  ‘Before your time,’ Mo
rag waved her hand. ‘Turned out he was taking money from the industry to make the stop smoking campaign as unappealing to kids as possible. Surprise, surprise.’

  A runner came in with two cappuccinos from a café around the corner. Morag noticed the girl’s hands were shaking. She had the feeling she had seen the girl before, probably another studio somewhere. Morag’s memory was good but she had long since given up trying to remember the names of runners, cameramen, and make-up ladies.

  ‘I never hear any of the good gossip,’ Arjun said. He patted his pocket. ‘Hold on – I’ll take this while you go over the briefing.’ He thrust a folder in her direction.

  Morag flipped through the notes Arjun had prepared. English regional devolution high on the list as ever. Immigration, as always. A ten-minute rule bill on sex education coming up later in the week that had about as much chance of going forward as the M25 at rush hour. Strict instructions to deflect any questioning about a challenge to the leadership, as per.

  Arjun hovered in the far corner of the room. He kept the mobile on speaker, holding it horizontally a couple of inches from his mouth. ‘No, no, yes, no . . . I’m not certain that’s relevant . . . Is it breaking right now? Is this going to bounce us from the show?’ He jabbed at the phone screen and marched over to the sofa. ‘Morag, are you listening to this?’ he said.

  ‘Arjun, I have you on staff precisely so I don’t have to listen to whatever this is,’ she said. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘That old Marine, Major Abbott, has only gone and died on a train.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘They found him locked in a toilet on the Caledonian Sleeper at Euston.’

  ‘Well, that’s terrible,’ Morag mumbled, turning back to her notes.

  ‘The news channels are going nuts. Apparently he was picked up by the police for inciting a riot in Cameron Bridge yesterday, and they have all kinds of phone footage,’ he said. ‘BBC 24 is rolling the black bar under the headlines. GONE BEFORE HIS TIME, all caps, apparently.’