There’s a moment. A heartbeat. Murphy’s face has turned to stone. ‘Don’t fucking call me Tony, you little prick.’
‘I apologise. No offence meant, Mr Murphy.’
‘Listen, you dainty little poof, you come in here, interrupt my meal, make outrageous allegations and then piss on my offer to help like I’m some up-his-own-arse charity worker.’
‘No, sir.’
‘You consider what I have to say, son. And don’t leave it too long.’
Somehow Sami finds his feet, makes it through the restaurant, down the stairs, outside. He walks along the river past a group of Japanese tourists who are following a yellow umbrella like it’s a religious artefact.
10
Tony Murphy belches quietly, getting a second taste of his rabbit poached in red wine with mashed potato and truffle oil. His gout is acting up - his right toe swollen - but the pain is preferable to the controlled diet his doctor recommended. No pâté. No port. Fuck that!
Murphy sighs and lets out a stream of urine into the porcelain. Sami Macbeth is exercising his mind. The kid didn’t come round.
That’s the problem with the new breed, Murphy thinks. Most of them are soft pricks and idiots, who grow up thinking they’re entitled. Gimme a freebie; gimme a discount; gimme a spot of unsecured credit - they’re a gimme fucking army who don’t know the meaning of good honest criminal graft.
Life would be a lot simpler without families. Sami Macbeth wouldn’t have to worry about his sister and Ray Garza wouldn’t have to worry about his idiot offspring.
Ray Jnr started all this. The kid took liberties. Took something that didn’t belong to him.
Murphy should have known better than to help the boy out but he thought it might be useful having the Chairman’s son in his debt. Big mistake. Huge fucking mistake. Next thing the kid is riding round town like some outlaw baddie, dealing cocaine and drag-racing rozzers.
He was always a fuck-up. That’s why Ray Snr packed him off to boarding school at twelve. Thought it might improve his prospects mixing with a lot of chinless trout in straw boaters and blazers.
Education is never wasted on the young they say and Ray Jnr didn’t waste his. By his second year he was running an SP operation out of the junior common room and selling contraband - cigarettes, dope, girlie magazines, you name it. In the tenth grade he smuggled two hookers into the senior dorm as part of a ‘use it or lose it’ weekend for spotty virgins.
The Eton version of a court martial followed. It wasn’t the last time. Ray Jnr went to three more posh schools in the next two years and was asked to leave each of them. His old man paid the damages, apologised to the parents and made donations to the building funds.
At one point he employed a brace of security specialists, ex-Paras, to keep an eye on Ray Jnr and make sure he didn’t dig a tunnel under the fence. Made no difference. The kid was a chip off the old block, an entrepreneur, a mover and a shaker without the brains or the guile of his father.
Eventually, Garza’s missus suggested he let Ray Jnr leave school and bring him into the business where Daddy could keep an eye on him. They gave him a junior management position. Put him on a salary. Began showing him the ropes.
Unfortunately, the only ropes Ray Jnr was interested in were wrapped around a young lovely’s wrist and knotted to the bedpost while he snorted cocaine off her gym-sculptured stomach.
Ray Jnr didn’t have an A-level to his name but he wasn’t a complete moron. He knew Daddy was worth millions and the trust fund kicked in when he turned twenty-five. All he had to do was wait.
Consequently, he stopped showing up for work and hung out with his hooray buddies, partying hard. He liked the ladies. He liked the clothes. He liked the flash sports car Daddy bought him for his eighteenth.
The Chairman must have been tearing his hair out, so he tried something different. Tough love. He cut the kid’s allowance. Figured he’d bring Ray Jnr to heel. It didn’t quite work out that way.
Ray Jnr went into business for himself, dealing coke and Gary Abblets to his trust fund buddies and posh mates. He had all the right connections and enough chutzpah to think he was a class act, when in reality he had about as much sophistication as a coat-hanger abortion.
Ray Jnr was dealing to the top end of the market, the quality street gang, the crème de la crème and didn’t notice he was treading on some big hairy fucking toes. The Albanians and the Turks didn’t give a shit if he was Ray Garza’s boy. To them he was simply a young punk muscling in on their primo uno turf.
That’s when Ray Jnr came to Murphy. Couldn’t go to his old man. There was too much yuppie Mafioso shit going down and he wanted protection. Security.
Murphy offered him advice. Said he’d make some calls.
Ray Jnr was scared. He wanted a piece for his personal protection. Murphy promised to sort him out in a few days, but the kid took something from him. Something he shouldn’t have. Something nobody could know about.
Maybe things would have worked out if Ray Jnr had kept his head down and let things cool off with the Albanians and the Turks. Instead he got clocked doing over a ton on the M40. The rozzers gave chase. Ray Jnr burned them off. An hour later they found his Porsche parked up outside a pub in Hammersmith. They wanted to search inside. Ray Jnr told them to fuck off. Rozzers just love it when you talk dirty to them. Their eyes must have lit up when they found eight kilos of cocaine under the spare wheel.
Ray Jnr went off his head. Pulled the semi-automatic out of his belt. According to Ray the shooter went off accidentally. According to the charge sheet it was attempted murder.
The rest is history, as they say, except Ray Garza wants to rewrite the whole episode and get his boy off. Only this is a rap he can’t bribe or beg or blag his way out of. And history is going to get rewritten a dozen different ways when the boffins in the ballistics lab test the gun Ray Jnr was waving around. It’s all about scratch markings on the chamber of the gun. Telltale signs. Damning evidence.
The kid got bail yesterday. Daddy forked out two mill and Ray Jnr was probably straight down to his clubster mates, bragging about how he toughed out his first night in the Scrubs. How he ran the joint like King Rat.
The cack-handed moron has no idea of the chain of events he’s set in motion or how much shit is gathering on the fan. It’s a mess and Murphy has to clean it up before someone hits the switch.
He shakes. Shakes again. Zips his fly. Washes his hands.
Dessie is waiting outside the door, standing guard like a loyal Labrador with less intelligence.
Murphy has a plan, but he needs Macbeth.
‘What do you want me to do?’ asks Dessie.
‘Persuade him.’
‘And if he does the job?’
‘Get rid of him.’
Murphy goes back to the table and orders a crème caramel for dessert, which isn’t on the menu, but the chef will do it by special request. So he should, thinks Murphy. ‘I own the poncy arsehole.’
11
Sami has an appointment. It’s part of the deal with his early release - a once-a-month pow wow with a probation service supervisor.
He’s late. Missed his turn. He sits on a plastic chair in the waiting room, staring at a potted plant that seems to be surviving without light or leaves.
‘Hello, Mr Macbeth,’ she says. ‘Can I call you Sami?’ It’s a woman, Miranda Wallace. Well-preserved. Mid-forties. Dressed in a grey suit with a pink ribbon pinned to her lapel. She calls herself Ms, which makes Sami think she could be gay but she’s too hot for that.
They sit in her office with the door open. Paperwork comes first. Twenty questions. Notes. Finally, she leans back and pushes her fringe from over her left eye.
‘How do you feel about being out?’
‘Good.’
‘Have you had any trouble adjusting?’
‘No.’
‘What plans do you have?’
‘I want to be a rock god.’
‘That’s an ambition rathe
r than a plan. Perhaps you should find a more realistic goal.’
‘I play guitar.’
‘That’s a good life skill.’
She makes it sound like needlework.
Sami starts telling her how he used to be in a band, playing gigs and occasionally supporting indie bands from the States who have one hit song and think they’re going to fill Wembley Arena.
‘What sort of music?’ she asks.
‘Rock infused with blues,’ says Sami. ‘Solid wall of sound stuff full of attitude.’
‘Live fast, die young.’
‘Leave a pretty corpse.’
‘Sounds great,’ she says.
Sami’s surprised. Maybe she’s an old rock chick. ‘When was the last time you went to see a band?’ he asks.
‘I saw REM at Wembley Stadium in the summer.’
He’s impressed.
They talk music a bit more and then she steers him on to his future plans. She wants to know about his accommodation arrangements and his employment prospects.
One of the conditions of Sami’s probation is that he looks for work.
‘That’s what I’m going to do,’ he explains. ‘Once I find Nadia, I’ll get my Fender, call up the old band, rustle up a gig or two and get some money in the jam jar.’
‘It’s not exactly steady work,’ says Ms Wallace. ‘Who’s Nadia?’
‘My sister.’
Sami starts telling her about going to Nadia’s gaff and finding someone else living there. She hasn’t been to work. Isn’t answering her mobile. He doesn’t know how much he should tell her about what happened last night with Toby Streak or about his meeting with Tony Murphy. He could be back inside before his feet touch the ground.
Ms Wallace asks the questions. She wants to know if Nadia is the sort to go missing or take off without leaving a note.
‘Never,’ says Sami. ‘We’re tight, you know. We look after each other.’
Next thing Sami is telling her about their mother dying and how he won custody of Nadia. One thing leads to another and soon he’s recounting the whole sorry saga of Andy Palmer becoming a speed bump and Sami pleading guilty to possession.
She doesn’t say much. Sits. Listens. Maybe she hears stories like this all the time, thinks Sami, but it doesn’t stop him spilling his guts. His whole life story comes tumbling out - how his father was a Scottish merchant seaman and his mother a French Algerian refugee when they met in Montpellier and eloped.
She was a Moslem but didn’t wear the veil. She never mentioned her family. Didn’t call them. Didn’t write. It was as though when she married she ceased to have a history or a bloodline.
Sami’s father quit the boats and worked in an abattoir in Glasgow, while running an SP operation on the side. He did everything at a hundred miles an hour, full bore - drinking, singing, fighting and fucking. Women loved him.
Sami’s mother could tolerate his drinking and turn a blind eye to the bookmaking, but she hated the ‘whores’, as she called them.
‘What happened to your father?’ asks Ms Wallace.
‘He drowned.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘He was drunk.’
The parole officer is watching him intently, but whatever she’s really thinking is hovering around the edges of her sentences.
‘I’m not going back inside,’ Sami tells her, his voice shaking. ‘I just want to find Nadia. Make sure she’s OK. I’ll get a job, I promise. I’ll pay the rent. It’s not the whole future but it’s a plan.’
‘Who was the last person to see Nadia?’ she asks.
‘A tossbag called Toby Streak.’
‘You’ve talked to him?’
Sami grimaces slightly. ‘Yeah.’
‘Did he know anything?’
‘He mentioned an arrangement with Tony Murphy.’
‘Do you know this Murphy?’
‘I never met him until today.’
‘What does he do?’
‘He owns a restaurant, clubs … stuff like that.’
‘Nightclubs.’
‘Strip clubs.’
‘Under the terms of your parole I’m sure you are aware that you’re not supposed to be mixing with criminals or their associates.’
‘I know, I know, but it’s about Nadia.’
‘If you have concerns for her safety you should take them to the police.’
‘I’ve been to the police. They don’t care.’
Ms Wallace seems conflicted. She’s caught between her professional duty and her innate sense of concern.
‘What did this Mr Murphy have to say?’ she asks.
‘He said he didn’t know where Nadia was.’
‘But you don’t believe him.’
Sami shrugs. He’s not going to tell her about Murphy’s offer. He’s said too much already.
Ms Wallace lets her gaze shift over Sami and her fingertips drum on the blotter. Sami can see in her eyes that she’s already made assumptions about him. He’s just another low-life fuck-up, who’ll be back inside within a year.
Sami stands to leave. ‘Will that be all?’
‘Do you have somewhere else to be?’ she asks.
‘I have to find my sister.’
‘Do you have a photograph of her?’
‘Why?’
‘I might know someone who could help you.’
Sami reaches into his pocket and pulls out a weathered Polaroid taken at Nadia’s sixteenth birthday party. She’s wearing a party hat and draping streamers over Sami’s head.
Ms Wallace studies the image and then writes a phone number on a piece of paper.
‘If you don’t hear from your sister you should give this man a call. His name is Vincent Ruiz and he owes me a big favour.’
‘Why?’
‘I was married to him for three years.’
12
Friday afternoon. Quarter to six. Ruiz presses the doorbell. Watches Miranda appear behind the frosted glass.
The door opens. She smiles. Kisses both his cheeks.
‘I brought flowers,’ he says.
‘So I can see. Are the neighbours missing any?’
‘That’s cruel.’
Miranda leads him down the hall to the kitchen. Ruiz walks four paces behind. She looks great. She always does. Not just for a woman of her age but for any woman. Any age.
She fills a vase and arranges the flowers. Her cargo pants hang loose on her hips and her blouse is cut just low enough to show him what he used to have access to and is now off-limits. Another downside of divorce.
Miranda is a probation officer. That’s how they met. Ruiz was working a case involving a boatload of stolen Levi’s back in the late-eighties when 901s were the hottest ticket on the high street. Ruiz was married. Happily so, except for the cancer that was eating away at Laura from the inside.
He flirted a little with Miranda, became friends and then lost touch with her for a decade. By then Laura was dead and Jessie, his second wife, a suppressed memory.
He and Miranda were married for three years. They’ve been divorced for two. She’s the sort of ex-wife blokes dream about. Low maintenance. Friendly. She’s even tried to set him up on dates. Unmitigated disasters.
When they were married, Ruiz could never fully reconcile himself to the fact that Miranda worked as a parole officer. He didn’t like the idea that low-life scrotes and toerags were sitting in her office wondering what underwear she was wearing. He half suspected - but never told Miranda - that half the reason she had such a good retention rate was because her parolees lusted after her.
Miranda was always careful. She dressed down. Minimal make-up. Nothing provocative.
‘You want tea or coffee?’ she asks.
‘Got anything stronger?’
‘Nope.’
‘Is it proper tea?’
‘Camomile.’
‘Tastes of nothing, smells like potpourri.’
‘It’s very good for you.’
Ruiz produces a bottle of red
wine from behind his back. ‘So is this. It’s full of antioxidants. Good for the heart. Ask the French. Sarkozy lives on this stuff and bags himself a pop star and a supermodel. What do we get? Gordon Brown. I rest my case.’
Ruiz finds a corkscrew and Miranda gets two glasses. The garden flat is nice. Homely. Ruiz likes the way it smells. He also likes the fact it’s full of reminders and souvenirs of their marriage. The rug in front of the fireplace is from a holiday they took in Cornwall and the painting above the dining table was bought from a sidewalk artist in Florence.
Miranda sets out two balloon glasses and fills a bowl with roasted cashews. She’s self-sufficient. Classy. Never asked him for a thing when they divorced except for the souvenirs. And all she asks of him now is that he returns her phone calls and lets her stay involved with Michael and Claire - the twins. Laura’s kids, not hers. They still need a mother, she says, and she’s happy to fill the role.
She sits down on the far end of the sofa. Curls her legs. Ruiz stares at her earlobes. He could nuzzle them for a few hundred years and never get bored.
‘You called,’ he says, trying to change the subject.
‘What did the doctor say?’ she asks.
‘Is that why you asked me round?’
‘Not entirely.’ She sips her wine. ‘But since you’re here.’
‘He said nothing.’
‘What did you say?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It must have been very quiet.’ Her eyes are dancing. ‘Did he tell you to exercise?’
‘I told him I was going to exercise by being a pallbearer for all my friends who exercise.’
‘What about your weight?’
‘What about it?’
‘You’ve put on a few pounds.’
‘No I haven’t.’
‘Stop trying to hold your stomach in.’
Ruiz relaxes. ‘It looks good on me. You’re too skinny.’
‘I’m the same size as when you married me.’
‘That’s why I divorced you.’
Miranda gives him a hurt look. Ruiz wants to take the comment back. She has this way of acting that makes him believe that several women are living inside her and only one of them divorced him. The rest are still undecided.
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