by David Thorne
‘I guess not.’ I look Jamie over but I cannot discern in any part of him the steel he must possess to consistently win at high-stakes games.
‘So, anyway, tonight I am having it,’ he says. ‘You coming to the party?’
‘Party?’
‘Oh, do one, Danny, what, you come all this way and you ain’t even heard about it? You know Bernard Leavy?’
I know Bernard Leavy. He’s been living in Spain since the robbery of a post office depot in Dagenham over a decade ago, a post office depot where his brother-in-law worked for a year and left shortly before it got knocked over. As far as I know, there’s no warrant out for his arrest but, if you wanted to find somebody steeped in criminality, Bernard would be your man. He is such an accomplished thief, if you cut him open I would not be surprised to see that he had helped himself to somebody else’s blood. ‘How do you know Bernard?’ I ask Jamie. ‘Bit before your time, isn’t he?’
‘Loves poker,’ says Jamie. ‘Treats me like I’m fucking Bono or something. Here, why don’t you come with me? Might want to change first, but it’ll be a good craic.’
Although my notion of a perfect evening doesn’t involve hanging around with Essex faces, I can think of worse companions than Jamie. If you want to forget, for a time, that life is a shabby, cruel and dangerous place, Jamie could have been designed specifically to help make it happen. His disposition is sunnier than the weather outside. And besides, if anybody might have heard about Terry Campion, might know where he is, chances are it’ll be Bernard Leavy. From what I have heard about him, he’s connected to anybody worth knowing and many, many people you would never want to know.
‘Yeah, go on then.’ I tell him where I’m staying and he tells me he’ll be round in a couple of hours, meet me out the front, pick me up. We finish our drinks and talk about people we know back home and I walk back to my hotel as the sun goes down and the streets empty out, the city resting before the evening’s onslaught of binge-drinking and pointless sex and violence.
24
JAMIE PICKS ME up in a purple Ferrari that he has hired for the week. It is convertible and the roof is down and it has white leather seats. I get in next to him and he turns and smiles behind mirrored Ray-Bans.
‘Fucking sweet or what?’
‘Yeah, it’s nice, Jamie. Didn’t have one in gold?’
‘Cheeky cunt. Here, check it out.’ He floors the accelerator and the Ferrari feels as if it is a toy being tugged on a string by a godlike child. I am pressed back into my seat and Jamie screams into the night sky with a primeval abandon that is infectious. I smile and find that I am looking forward to hanging out with Jamie at Bernard Leavy’s villa. We turn away from the seafront and head through town, past neon signs and shrieking women in tiny skirts and gangs of young men striding around as if looking for revenge. We hit a neighbourhood full of bigger mansions and the street heads up into the hills, zigzagging behind haciendas hidden behind gates and tall walls. We turn a corner and see a pair of gates wide open, the street jammed with cars. Jamie sounds his horn and shouts to people he knows then drives further up the hill to park.
Bernard Leavy lives in a white villa that sits behind a wall that is half again as tall as I am, topped with terra-cotta tiles. I wonder what he has stolen recently to pay for such opulence. The house is set back from the road and there is a lush lawn both sides of the drive leading to it, spotlights showing the way. Yellow light spills out of the open front door of the house and I can hear music, Spandau Ballet’s ‘Gold’, which I have not heard for years. We walk through the door and into an open-plan living room, which has a square sunken area in the middle of it, big enough to hold two large leather sofas and a rug. Throughout the room, men in linen shirts and high-heeled women in tiny dresses, mostly metallic, gold and silver, are talking and drinking.
‘Jamie! Over here, son.’
I look over and see Bernard Leavy walking towards us. It has been at least a decade since I last saw him and he seems to have done well in that time; he has thick white hair brushed straight back in waves from his brown face, and his gut pushes out his silk shirt. He is a short man but solid and is wearing black-framed glasses; I don’t know why but he makes me think of an aging film director with a Napoleon complex. He holds out his hand and takes Jamie’s, puts his other hand on top. ‘Still winning?’
‘Yeah, so far,’ says Jamie. ‘Ask me tomorrow night.’
Bernard laughs and shakes Jamie’s hand, two downward jerks like he’s pumping water. He lets go, turns to me, holds out his hand. ‘Bernard Leavy.’
I take his hand. ‘Hi, Bernard. I’m Daniel, Frankie Connell’s boy.’
‘Frankie’s boy? Fuck me.’ He steps back theatrically and looks at me, up and down as if I am so big that it is straining his neck to take me all in. His eyes are warm and crinkled and he has a natural way of making me feel at my ease. ‘What happened? You fucking eat him?’
‘I said it’d be okay, him coming,’ says Jamie.
‘’Course it is, fuck me, ’course it is. Here –’ he looks at me seriously. ‘I heard your old man weren’t well.’
The Essex grapevine clearly has a long reach. ‘He’s out of danger,’ I say. ‘His heart.’
‘You send him my best,’ says Bernard. ‘Tell him to come out here. Convalesce.’
A woman with thick black hair that is clearly dyed and too much make-up walks up and takes Bernard’s arm. On her hand is an enormous diamond ring and her nails are bright pink, like her lipstick. ‘Bernard? Out of Champagne. Again.’
Bernard pats her hand and gives us a smile. ‘Grab yourselves a drink, boys,’ he says. ‘Steal the silver. Do what the fuck you like.’
I had not realised but amongst this crowd Jamie is nearly a celebrity, both men and women in thrall to the glamour of his gambling lifestyle. I soon lose him to a group who hang off his every word and walk out on to the patio. Bernard has one of those swimming pools that looks like it is spilling off the edge of a cliff, no back wall to it. It is lit from within and is a beautiful cool limpid blue. I am on my own but I am quite content, drinking a vodka and tonic and looking out over the lights of downtown Marbella, glistening through the heat below me like ten thousand flickering candles. I do not recognise anybody at the party and have not drunk enough to be garrulous; I will have a couple more drinks then walk back to the hotel. I turn to refill my glass and meet Bernard at the patio doors, where he is talking to two men. I move to walk around them but Bernard calls to me.
‘Danny! Danny, come here, over here.’ He beckons exaggeratedly with his arm and I stop and turn back. The other men he was talking to turn away to talk amongst themselves, and Bernard reaches up an arm and tries to hang it over my shoulders. ‘Here, son, it must be, what? Last time I saw you…’ He stops, thinks. He is quite drunk. He snaps his fingers. ‘That’s it, you was a lawyer. You still…?’
‘Still. I’ve got a practice.’
‘Amazing. Brilliant, really brilliant. See much of your old man?’
‘Now and then. Keep in touch.’
‘Good, that’s good. Family. That’s good.’
Bernard comes from an enormous family of Irish Catholics who are still well represented in my neighbourhood; he probably couldn’t avoid them if he tried.
‘You’re doing all right,’ I say.
He smiles knowingly. ‘Not bad, not too bad.’
‘Beautiful place.’
‘Paradise, I call it. I’ll die here. And happy.’
He really is drunk. I think about strategies for leaving, but he keeps talking, swaying slightly. ‘Marbella,’ he says without the slightest trace of irony, ‘is the most beautiful place on earth.’
‘Seems nice,’ I say, at a loss for how to respond to such a proclamation. A young woman walks by us and pinches Bernard on the cheek; he tries to respond by slapping her on the bottom but misses. She laughs at him over her shoulder and sticks out her tongue. He watches her go wistfully, then turns back to me.
‘’C
ourse it’s full of Spaniards. They’re arseholes, but what’re you going to do? Their country I suppose.’
He admits this grudgingly, as if he’s doing them a favour, allowing them their sovereignty on sufferance. ‘And the blacks don’t cause no trouble, too shit scared of getting deported. Where we went wrong back in England, giving that lot passports.’
I do not answer. I am willing to bet that, out of any of the recently arrived ethnic groups on Spanish soil, it is the British who create the most headaches for the Spanish authorities. Bernard finishes drinking in his Mediterranean paradise and turns to me.
‘I had a lot of time for your old man,’ he says. ‘He keeping busy?’
‘Semi-retired, I’d say. Working on his drinking.’
Bernard laughs, head back. ‘In’t we all, son? He was a good man in his day, handy man to have around. You can tell him that, tell him I remember him. Frankie Connell. Fuck me.’ He sighs and looks out over Marbella, shakes his head as if overwhelmed by the sight. ‘So what you doing here? Over on holiday?’
‘Yeah… No. Actually I’m looking for someone.’
‘Anyone I know?’
‘Heard of a guy called Terry Campion?’
‘Can’t say I have.’
‘Son of TJ, had a car dealership?’
Suddenly the lights go out in Bernard’s eyes and he loses interest, starts looking around the room, our conversation over. The problem with company like this is you never know when you’re starting to stray on to unsafe territory, turn over stones that should be left as they are. What involvement Bernard had in Terry’s father’s life I don’t know, and do not want to know. But it is clear that it’s not something Bernard is keen to revisit. Still, I have started so I might as well finish. I didn’t fly a thousand miles to worry about treading on anybody’s toes.
‘He’s a policeman. Terry. Last thing I heard he was over here.’
‘Like I said, can’t say I’ve heard of him. Him or his old man.’
‘If you do hear anything…’
‘Oh yeah, ’cos I’ve got a lot of time for coppers,’ says Bernard. He looks at me and he does not seem friendly any more. ‘Listen, be lucky, Danny son, yeah? Say hello to the old man.’ He looks me up and down carefully, shakes his head, turns and walks back into the house, weaving slightly. I get the feeling I should be thinking about leaving. I look for somewhere to put my glass down and as I turn a man approaches me, another man just behind him. They are the two men Bernard was talking to before I spoke to him. They are both perhaps forty-five, trim, in good shape. The first one has dark hair, the other fair, look like they play a lot of golf, work out in the gym. Watch what they eat. The way they are standing, tense, as if expecting trouble, puts me on guard.
‘Nice evening,’ I say coolly.
‘Don’t live here?’ says the dark-haired man.
‘Visiting. Holiday.’
‘Yeah? How’re you finding it?’
‘Heard you asking about Terry Campion,’ the fair-haired man cuts in. He speaks fast, aggressively. He’s still standing behind his friend, which makes me suspect he isn’t as brave as his tone suggests.
‘That’s right,’ I say. ‘I’m looking for him.’
‘Why?’ the dark-haired man asks me. He has an easier tone, but there is still an edge to his question.
‘I need to tell him something. Warn him.’
‘You a policeman?’ the dark-haired man asks.
‘Me? No. I’m a lawyer. I’m Terry’s lawyer.’
This is clearly not what they were expecting. They look at each other. ‘His lawyer?’
‘And I need to tell him something. It’s important.’
This time they look at each other then turn their backs to me, discuss something between themselves. I do not know who these men are and am beginning to lose patience. Terry is still notionally my client and it is me who should be asking the questions.
‘You know where he is?’ I ask. ‘Because if so––’
‘Got any ID?’ the dark-haired man interrupts.
‘What?’ I frown at them. ‘Why would you want that?’
‘Terry is…’ The dark-haired man pauses. ‘Might be in a bit of bother.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m here.’
‘But are you here to help him? That’s the question, isn’t it?’ The dark-haired man raises his eyebrows, inviting me to explain myself. But I have had enough of being interrogated by men I do not know. I take out a business card, hand it to the dark-haired man who reads it, hands it to his companion.
‘And you two,’ I say. ‘Who might you be?’
‘Friends of his,’ says the dark-haired man. ‘Looking out for him.’
‘You know what kind of bother he’s in?’
‘Yes.’
‘No you don’t,’ I say. ‘You haven’t got a clue.’
‘Listen,’ says the fair-haired man, taking a step towards me. It’s a bad idea and the dark-haired man knows it; he holds out his arm, blocking the fair-haired man off.
‘Okay,’ he says. ‘How about we have a sit down and talk about this?’
Andy, with the dark hair, actually knows a bar that has a Spanish name and serves Spanish beer. Not only that but he orders a selection of tapas in what sounds to me like fluent Spanish, which for some irrational reason makes me like him. We sit down at a booth, Andy and his friend, who I have heard Andy call Rob, on one side, me facing them. A pretty waitress places a bowl of whitebait, another of chorizo, on our table.
‘Gracias,’ says Andy. She smiles at him.
‘So,’ says Rob. ‘What don’t we know?’
‘That’s between Terry and me,’ I say. ‘But he’s in danger.’
‘We know that,’ says Andy. ‘From Baldwin.’
‘He could be one of Baldwin’s,’ says Rob, looking at me. ‘How’d we know?’
I hold up my finger. ‘He did that to me. Last week.’
‘Looks painful,’ says Andy. ‘You must have got on his bad side.’
‘You know him?’
‘We know him,’ says Rob. ‘We used to be coppers. Reason we know Terry, too.’
‘I thought Bernard didn’t like coppers,’ I say. ‘How come you were at his party?’
‘Ex-coppers,’ says Andy. ‘Over here we do a bit of security work, investigations for people who don’t want to use the locals. Bernard puts a bit our way.’
I suspect that Marbella has its own peculiar morality, like other regions have their own micro-climates. Ex-coppers working for active criminals; I do not even try to understand, simply take the information at face value. This is not my town. ‘Listen, if Terry thinks he’s in danger now, he has no idea. Things have got more… serious. I need to talk to him.’
‘No can do,’ says Rob. I like Rob a great deal less than I like Andy. ‘Incommunicado.’
‘He’s not in Marbella,’ says Andy. ‘Hasn’t been for a week. He’s… He got paranoid. Thought someone was going to get him. You know.’
‘Do him,’ says Rob. I almost expect him to mime racking the slide on a gun.
‘He might be right,’ I say. ‘Why I need to speak to him.’
‘That won’t be easy,’ says Andy. He looks at Rob. Rob shrugs at him. Andy turns back to me. ‘But we might be able to help you.’
25
WHERE I AM sitting, the sun is as bright as if not brighter than in Marbella, but it is windy and the wind is coming straight off the Atlantic, fresh and salty. I am sitting on a low stone wall overlooking the beach and particles of sand are blowing into my hair, sticking to my skin, insinuating their way through the seams in my shirt. Seagulls are circling in the sky, diving down to meet the fishing boats that are coming into the small harbour with their loads of sardines. It is now late in the afternoon and the sea, which had been a bright turquoise, is now a dark indigo except at the horizon where it is starting to redden. There are very few people on the beach; a couple of kids are flying a kite and their shadows are long and dark on the white sand. O
n the sea is a small boat and in the boat are two figures; they are pulling line in hand-over-hand. They have been out there for two hours at least now; when I got to the beach they were already at sea. But I have been happy to wait until they come back to shore. There is no hurry.
Now they are rowing back and I get up from the wall and take my shoes off and walk down the sand towards them. The sand is still warm from the sun and it feels glorious, my feet sinking into its cool heat with every step. The men get out of the boat into the water and pull it awkwardly on to the beach. As I get closer, I can see that one of the men is perhaps sixty years old; he has black hair and dark skin and his face is deeply lined. The other man is pulling the boat with his head down, putting his back into it. When he reaches the shore, he looks up and he can’t make out my face and his eyes open wide in panic.
‘Terry,’ I call. ‘It’s okay, it’s Danny.’
I had taken a bus from Marbella to a port town called Algeciras and bought a ticket for the ferry that crosses the Strait of Gibraltar to Tangier; I had found myself in Africa before I had time to prepare for the different sights and sounds, the unnerving absence of anything familiar, the din and the pace. The local Hertz didn’t have anything left to rent, but a local had pointed me down an unpaved side street of peeling plaster two-storey buildings where I had handed over fifty Euros to hire a battered white Fiat Panda for a week. It had bald tyres and lacked a wing mirror on the passenger’s side, and I hadn’t liked the sound of the exhaust, but I figured if it broke down I could simply walk away from it; the man doing the hiring out had not asked for any identification when he asked for my name and address. He was a skinny young man wearing a Metallica T-shirt and he had only one eye; I suspected that the car was stolen and that he did not want it back. I didn’t care either way.
Andy had told me that the last they had heard from him, four days ago, Terry had been in Oualidia, a small town in Morocco on the Atlantic coast. They hadn’t heard from him since, didn’t expect to; recently Terry had become convinced that Baldwin would come to Spain to find him, and just wanted to disappear. I could not blame him. I recognised the feeling.