Broken Faith

by James Green

  ‘You know about George?’

  ‘I was stupid. I didn’t for a long time, but I do now.’

  Harry was silent for a moment.

  ‘What brought you into this? You’re not still a copper. Where do you fit in?’

  ‘How come it’s you asking the questions, Harry? You’re the one being held for questioning, I’m just a visitor. Why should I tell you anything?’

  It was a fair question.

  ‘You were always a fucking bastard, but mostly you were a straight fucking bastard, for a copper. You took your money but as I remember, you delivered what you got paid for.’

  ‘Thank you, Harry, I shall treasure that thought. Now stop pissing me about and tell me why I’ve been dragged out of bed to come and talk to a villain who’s too stupid to find a chair when everyone else knows the music stopped a long time ago.’

  ‘Am I stitched up?’

  ‘Tight as an auntie’s constipated arsehole.’

  ‘And that’s straight up?’

  ‘Rosa’s told them everything she knows and Henderson is giving them the Hallelujah chorus with you as the featured soloist. I gave them Jarvis and Leicester, Tate and Wiston –’

  ‘Who are the fuck are Tate and Wiston?’

  ‘Only your publishers, Harry. For Christ’s sake, didn’t you even read the books you were supposed to have written?’

  ‘I was never a big reader.’

  ‘Anyway I found you weren’t making smoking money out of your books so there had to be something else and I came up with the property scam.’

  ‘It wasn’t a proper scam. George said it made quite a bit of money even without what we put through it from this end.’

  ‘Oh, I am pleased. So glad it was a good investment. Now I don’t have to worry what George will do when he retires. He’s provided for.’ But Harry didn’t do satire. ‘Look, you’re going down and you’re going down hard. Rosa has given you to them, Henderson is giving you to them, I’ve given you to them, all you’ve got left to deal with is George.’

  And that was it. Jimmy could see that was what Harry wanted to talk about.

  ‘I was never a fucking grass.’

  ‘No, you weren’t. But you wouldn’t be grassing him, he’s well in the frame already and he’s all you’ve got. Co-operate, give them the whole porn thing, the production end and the distribution, all of it. Henderson will give them the money side. Tell them George ordered the Suarez killing, he actually did, but they can’t prove it unless you give it to them. George is closing down fast, make it easy for them and they can get him before he disappears up his own backside and they lose him. That’ll be worth something, not much maybe, but like I say it’s all you’ve got.’ Harry looked round. ‘Yes, they’re listening, they’re getting it all, but none of it can count in a court.’

  ‘You sure?’

  ‘I was a copper, of course I’m sure.’

  Jimmy took out a small notebook and wrote something then passed it across the table. Harry read it. Make it worth my while and when I testify my memory will go funny. Harry pushed it back and Jimmy put it in his pocket. Jimmy started again.

  ‘It was a good thing while it lasted, Harry. You must have been raking in a packet.’

  ‘It was. We made a lot.’

  Harry seemed pleased with the compliment. Jimmy gave him a big smile.

  ‘Of course you did. But how can you spend it in a Spanish prison?’

  Harry didn’t like the smile.

  ‘You don’t change do you?’

  ‘I change. I change my underwear every month, even if I don’t need to. Well, are you ready to give me what I want?’ Then very slowly and deliberately, ‘Are you ready to co-operate?’

  Things were moving in Harry’s head, but slowly.

  ‘How do I know you’re on the level about George?’

  ‘Because who do you think fucking sent me here to give you to the coppers while he gets it away on his toes with the money, that’s how you know.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘George sent me, you stupid bastard. As soon as you told him I was here he started working out how to pull the plug on the whole thing and get out with the money. And me, Hawkshaw the great detective, goes to London, calmly walks into his boozer and asks for his help. I gave myself to him on a fucking plate. I bet he couldn’t believe his luck when I walked into the Hind. He’d put the word out there was money for anyone who ever spotted me if I came back to London but I came in free of charge. It was like winning the lottery. After that he used me. He put the Rosa woman alongside me and just watched how quickly the whole thing surfaced. It was always a house of cards, once one card fell the whole thing had to come down. I did the leg work for him and he sat there and worked out how to do a runner leaving you and Henderson hanging out to dry.’

  Harry’s brain finally got the message.

  ‘So when Jarvis got done it was really all over.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So who the fucking hell did Jarvis?’

  Jimmy threw his hands up.

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Harry, forget fucking Jarvis. Why does everyone go on about Jarvis? George is still in London sorting things out and my advice to you, my very strong advice, is to give everyone what they want and see that George gets nailed.’ Jimmy’s voice changed. ‘But it only works if everyone gets what they want. You don’t want to spend the whole of the rest of your life banged up in some Spanish gaol living on rice do you? And that’s what you’ll get, life. You’ll fucking croak in some shit-hole of a Spanish prison cell. Give yourself a break, Harry, do the smart thing for once in your life, co-operate.’

  Harry was weighing up his options. Correction, Harry was weighing up his one option. It didn’t take him long. He made a sign and Jimmy got out the notebook and pencil and passed them across. Harry wrote something and pushed it back. Jimmy read it, put it in his pocket and nodded.

  ‘OK, Jimmy, tell them I’ll co-operate.’

  ‘I think you’ve made a good choice. You won’t come to trial for a while yet so maybe I’ll come back and visit you. But I don’t know what I’ll be doing. I’ll only come back it I find we’ve got more to talk about. If our business is done this should be good-bye.’

  ‘Then you won’t be back will you?’

  Jimmy smiled and stood up

  ‘That’s all right then isn’t it?’

  Harry looked up at him, a big stupid man who understood violence and not much else.

  ‘He turned out to be a devious bastard, that George. A right fucker.’

  ‘He’s clever, Harry, that’s what George is and he always was. I should have remembered that. You were just muscle, a hard man, but violence doesn’t last like brains. It gets old and it gets arthritis. But arthritis isn’t something that affects the brain. George out-thought us both. In your case it wasn’t difficult. As for me, I’m getting too old for this and George just pointed it out, that’s all. See you, Harry.’

  Jimmy left the interview room and the uniformed police officer who had been standing outside went in. Jimmy walked down the corridor. Bloody crime writer! He’d had to print the note he’d written. But then, George hadn’t chosen Harry for his handwriting. Or maybe it was the arthritis when he held a pencil. Jimmy knew he should have seen it earlier, George and Harry had always run with the same outfit.

  Santos was waiting. Jimmy stopped and looked at him

  ‘You heard?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Santos stood there.

  ‘Well what are you waiting for? Go and get him.’

  ‘What else went on. There were a couple of silences I didn’t like.’

  ‘I wrote a note to him,’ Jimmy pulled out the notebook and handed over his and Harry’s notes. Santos read them. ‘Harry needed to know I was still bent, still on the take. It was the only way I could get him to trust me. If I’d stayed on the level he’d never have believed me enough to grass up George.’

  Santos read the notebook. Jimmy held his hand out.

&n
bsp; ‘Am I supposed to give you these back? It looks to me like you asked for money to lie at the trial and he’s handing you twenty thousand to fix your testimony.’

  ‘That’s right, he is, and if you think I’m leaving evidence like that in some foreign copper’s hands, one I hardly know from Adam, you’re stupider than Harry, and Harry’s very stupid. Hand it over or my memory will go very funny indeed, just like it says.’

  Santos hesitated but the notebook came back and Jimmy pocketed it.

  ‘What do you want it for?’

  ‘What do you think? Harry won’t need the money, not where he’s going. It doesn’t belong to anyone else and it’s sitting there doing nothing.’

  ‘But you’ll need the key to the deposit box and that will be in his villa.’

  ‘I know. But you can get me that.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Get me that key and I’ll give you Jarvis’s murderer.’

  Santos stood silent for a moment.

  ‘You know who it is?’

  ‘I do, and if you get me the key I’ll not only give you the killer but I think I can throw in the motive as well.’

  Santos didn’t like it but if he could get Jarvis’s killer with sufficient motive to get a conviction everything would be neatly tied up.

  ‘Will it get me a conviction?’

  Jimmy had to think about it.

  ‘Let me put it this way, if I’m right the sentence should be about as bad as it gets.’

  ‘I don’t need games. Do I get a conviction?’

  ‘Do I get the key?’

  Santos decided.

  ‘OK, if it’s there.’

  ‘It’ll be there and there’ll be a guilty verdict as sure as God made little apples.’

  ‘All right, but I want you gone. Until the trial I don’t want you round here or even near until you’re needed. But then I want you back with your memory working or –’

  ‘That’s OK, I don’t want to hang about, I’ve had enough of this place, it’s too bloody hot and too much happens. I’ll give you a bell from the airport as soon as I know when I’m flying out. Now clear off into that interview room and listen to Harry sing. And get the fucking Met. to lift George before he disappears up his own –’

  ‘Don’t try and tell me how to do my job. Mr Costello.’

  Jimmy watched Santos as he walked away to interview Harry. Then he left the police station and walked out into the mid-morning heat. He stopped and said to nobody in particular.

  ‘Why not? Somebody fucking needs to.’

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Jimmy and Santos were sitting in one of the bars at Santander airport. Both had beers. Santos hadn’t wanted to sit and have a drink but Jimmy insisted so he agreed, but he was still impatient.

  ‘You’ve got your safe deposit key, now give me the killer.’

  ‘I don’t need to; you’ve got her already, or at least you’ve got her body. You got it yesterday after she blew her brains out.’

  ‘Mrs Henderson?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  Santos was surprised and it showed.

  ‘Why would she kill Jarvis? If this is just some wild theory you made up to get that key, because if it is –’

  ‘Right, I’ll tell you what I think happened and how I think you can prove it. If you don’t like it you can have the key back’

  If you can break all my fingers to get it out of my hand, thought Jimmy.

  Santos sat back in his chair.

  ‘I’m listening, but it better be good.’

  ‘It goes back to something Harry’s publisher said. He said the first book was rubbish but they’d got better and the last one had something about it. Jarvis had no employment, nor any hobbies that we know of. What does a man like that do with his time?’ Santos shrugged, it was Jimmy’s story. ‘He wrote the books Harry needed but I think he didn’t just write Harry’s books. I think he wanted to be a proper writer, that’s how he filled his time, writing. I think Jarvis had been working on something of his own and I think it turned out to be worth publishing. If I’m right there’ll probably be a copy of it on his computer and if you look through his papers there might even be a letter from a publisher in the UK, a proper publisher, maybe making him an offer or saying they’re interested. If Jarvis suddenly saw the chance to be a real writer he’d want to be out of the porn game. As I once said to someone, you can be a hard-porn wholesaler or a successful writer, but not both, not at the same time. Jarvis was frightened of Harry and knew he wouldn’t let him leave, not alive anyway. So if he wanted to negotiate his way out he wouldn’t have gone to him, which leaves Henderson. He must have decided to try and get out through Henderson, told him that he would keep quiet about everything if they left him alone. He probably wanted Henderson to deliver that message to Harry and he’d arranged to be on his way before Harry could do anything about it. Suarez told me his passport and some money were by his bed and an airline ticket to Paris. He was about to run out on them.’

  Santos was interested now.

  ‘But if you’re right that would give Henderson the motive, he wouldn’t want Jarvis running out on them any more than Mercer and Henderson’s no killer.’

  ‘No he’s not.’

  ‘So what you’re saying is that Henderson went to Mercer and –’

  ‘No. I think when Jarvis went to Henderson and told him what he was going to do they argued. You’ve seen Henderson, he doesn’t take pressure well. Being the one to have to tell Harry that Jarvis had skipped wouldn’t appeal. It’s easy to see how they’d argue. One way or another Henderson’s wife must have found out. Maybe she heard them arguing or maybe Henderson spilled the whole thing to her after Jarvis had gone, either way she decided Jarvis had to be stopped. You’ve seen her, she liked her lifestyle and wasn’t about to have it threatened. She knew if Jarvis skipped anything could happen. She couldn’t sit still and risk her comfortable little life falling apart. She took the gun and paid a call on Jarvis. Jarvis wouldn’t be afraid of her so when she asked for a cup of coffee or something he walked into the kitchen and she followed, probably talking. When they were in the kitchen she took the gun out of her handbag, put it to the back of his head, pulled the trigger and blew the top of his head off. She had a strong stomach, I’ll give her that. Then she went home, put the gun back in the drawer, and waited to see what would happen.’

  They sat in silence while Santos went over it.

  ‘No. She wouldn’t have risked it.’

  ‘You saw her. You don’t think she’d have risked killing Jarvis to save the life she had here? Look what happened when we asked about the gun and she knew it was over. She didn’t think twice about topping herself.’

  ‘No, she didn’t.’

  ‘Once she knew Jarvis was trying to walk away, why not kill him? He could be replaced. A new writer could be found and her comfortable, respectable life could all gone on. And there was no time to think of anything else.’

  Santos thought about Dorothy Henderson. He hadn’t seen much of her but what he had bore out Jimmy’s description. She was not an ordinary sort of woman. But he still didn’t buy into Jimmy’s story.

  ‘No, you’re wrong. She shot herself because she would lose everything when Henderson went inside.’

  ‘The cow shot herself because I told her I knew she’d done it.’

  That really got in among Santos.

  ‘How? How did you tell her that? I was there, I heard everything, you never said anything …’ Then the penny dropped. ‘It was when you asked to see the gun.’

  ‘That’s right. There was no reason to see the gun, it didn’t fit into any of the crimes you were hanging on Henderson. If I asked to see it then it could only be about Jarvis.’

  Now Santos bought it.

  ‘God, why didn’t she throw it away?’

  ‘Because, unlike Harry, she wasn’t a professional. The gun Harry used on Suarez was in the ocean in short order after he’d used it, but she was neat and orderly and
probably as mean as sin. She wouldn’t throw away a pricey item like that. Anyway, if anyone had heard the shot or seen her and the police came asking questions she had already decided what she would do, and it certainly wasn’t going to prison.’

  Santos looked a bit shocked.

  ‘You mean you knew she would blow her brains out but you still asked to see the gun?’

  ‘I didn’t know for sure, but it was a pretty safe bet.’

  ‘For God’s sake, why not wait and tell me and we could have got her and the gun?’

  ‘Because she was an arrogant bitch. When we got there I wasn’t going to say anything, I didn’t care who shot Jarvis or why. I was only there because you made me go. I was satisfied to let her watch her husband get banged up and her lovely lifestyle melt away round her. But when she looked at me, when she told us to leave, I knew she’d planned something. Somehow, I don’t know how, she would have seen to it that Henderson never got to court. She wasn’t about to give it all up, she’d already killed to keep it, she’d find a way. So I asked my question and when I did she knew the game was up. Check the gun, ballistics will confirm it.’

  ‘But how did you know, how did you work it out?’

  ‘I used to be a detective, remember.’

  ‘But there was no evidence, no forensics. You couldn’t have known Jarvis had an offer from any publisher, you never went near his house. How could you be so sure it was her?’

  Now it was Jimmy’s turn to shrug.

  ‘Who else was there? There was no theft so it wasn’t a break-in. The bullet went in low and came out high so whoever was behind him was shorter than him. She is.’

  ‘And that’s it? On that you let Dorothy Henderson blow her brains out?’

  Jimmy felt a small knot of anger form against Santos in his guts, but he had the key and was almost on his way so he fought it down. Let Santos play the sanctimonious prick. It didn’t matter. He took a drink.