The Good Liar

by Nicholas Searle

  table.

  ‘Fucking prostate,’ he said. ‘Bleeding murder.’

  ‘You been a long time.’

  ‘I know. Wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.’

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  ‘Funny,’ said Bryn in his insinuating lilt. ‘I just been to the khazi for a slash and didn’t see you there.’

  ‘Check all the cubicles, did you?’

  ‘I thought you was just having a piss.’

  ‘I was. Fucking try it, Bryn, standing there forever waiting for it to come. You get some funny looks. Besides, might as well take the

  weight off your feet if you’re waiting that long. Feel the benefit.’

  Dave was pushing a button on his mobile phone. ‘Just had a call

  from Vinny,’ he said. ‘He’s finished down in Sevenoaks. All

  tickety- boo and he says have a chaser for him.’

  Seat of the pants. Marvellous.

  2

  It had taken a number of months to bring the project to this point.

  It was on that pleasurable thought that he luxuriated silently, his smile verging on complacent, in the pub. If asked by one of the

  others why he seemed so satisfied, he would have answered truth-

  fully, within reason. A job well done, he would have said.

  But he was not asked and at length rose to take his leave. The

  usual male ritual of clamorous bawdy voices proposing one more

  for the ditch followed, but he refused all blandishments with a modest grin. ‘He’s a dark horse, our Roy,’ Bernie would say once he had left. ‘Top man, though,’ Dave would add thoughtfully, ‘top man.’

  Martin would drink to that. Bryn would look.

  Each had played his role in the drama. Martin had smoothed the

  way with his mellifluous, effortless interposings, the yin to the yang of Bernie’s booming bruiser ready at any moment for an argument.

  The absent Vincent had been the bespectacled, blinking, i- dotting finance man. Dave and Bryn had, not out of character, been security for the deal. Roy, naturally, had been top dog, content in meetings to smile benignly and twinkle his eyes while Bernie and Martin did

  the talking; though Roy had given them their scripts at each nightly wash- up so that the transaction could be appropriately nuanced and nudged the following day.

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  At the same wash- ups Vincent had proffered advice on the legal-

  ity of the property deal that approached so slowly but had suddenly been upon them. For those aspects where strict adherence to the

  law was not feasible if this coup were to be pulled off, he had advised on likely detection, severity of penalties and sensible precautions.

  He had repeatedly emphasized that their stake money gave at least

  the hope of a defence of acting in good faith. The money in the

  company account was therefore a kind of insurance policy. In truth

  most dimensions of the transaction were unlawful in some respect,

  though repeatedly Roy had reminded his companions that their

  interlocutors were hardly likely to approach the authorities. Bryn

  and Dave, meanwhile, observers of the proceedings mostly, had

  been able to comment on the other side’s posture and demeanour,

  trying to see below the surface of the amicable machismo to any

  reservations or suspicions. Only Vincent and Roy himself, of course, had known that this was nugatory, if necessary for them to complete their own private supplementary sleight of hand. Would Roy

  in reality have been so stupid as to tangle with a bunch of Russian oligarchs and ex- KGB hoods? Good God, no; and nor had he been.

  The ‘Russians’ were a group of well- paid Eastern European mis-

  fits whom Roy had known when he lived for a time in the Balkans,

  and whom he’d engaged to take four rooms at the Savoy for two

  weeks and spend a bit of pocket money supplied by him. They had

  only to take a few hours out each day to read their lines, carefully scripted by Roy. It was of course rather more complex and demand-ing than that, but those were the bones of it. These were nimble

  and wily men too, never entirely to be trusted, who recognized a

  common interest with Roy and, importantly, knew that he was at

  least as canny as they were. They did not cross Roy and there was

  no need for them to. He knew, literally, where the skeletons were

  buried. Roy was thankful that no one on the home team had any

  Russian, or certainly not sufficient to recognize that these individuals when they muttered occasionally to one another did not speak

  the language. He was grateful to good old British ignorant hostility towards foreigners. Innate antagonism neatly obscured the areas in

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  which genuine suspicion should have been vested. I can handle

  these people, he had told the others; I have the experience.

  And for insurance against the event that Bryn might have dis-

  charged his responsibilities for security a tad too assiduously, Roy had told him in hushed tones on a strictly bilateral basis that the Russians were ‘known’ in their true identities and had acquired

  dodgy passports with sundry Balkan citizenships for their sojourn

  in London.

  Of course he had also had to ensure that the ‘Russians’ could

  get nowhere near the real money, the stakes finally delivered to

  the enterprise by Bryn, Martin and Bernie, which amounted

  to over £2 million, to match Vincent’s and Roy’s rather more

  notional contributions to the enterprise. It was these deposited

  funds that Roy and Vincent had conveniently transferred elsewhere

  this afternoon.

  So far, so routine. The trickiest aspect had been the process of

  getting Vincent on board with the more private project. He had

  known from the outset that the accountant would be required, but

  a careful management of Vincent’s transition to full awareness had

  been necessary.

  Roy had, in a series of drip- fed sidebars, eased Vincent into a position of almost full disclosure. He had confided his suspicions of the Russians and his unease that their aim might be to fleece the syndicate; that his discreet inquiries had shown his disquiet to be well founded; that this might now be turned to their advantage; but that only Roy and Vincent had the deftness of touch and lightness on

  their feet to bring this home; that it was unfortunate for the boys, but when it came down to it all was fair in love and war.

  And, finally, Vincent had said, ‘You’ve planned it this way all

  along, haven’t you?’

  Silence. Pained expression.

  ‘Those guys are your people, aren’t they?’

  Silence. Doleful look.

  ‘It’s no skin off my nose. So long as I come out ahead. Substan-

  tially ahead.’

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  This was precisely the conversation that Roy had wanted. He had

  painstakingly led Vincent to this point, let him be the clever one, let him deduce. He engaged enthusiastically, telling Vincent he had

  always intended to involve him but that for obvious reasons it

  was . . . delicate.

  Yes. Vincent could appreciate that. And that, more or less, had

  been that. Allocations of proceeds might have been an issue, but

  Roy, aware that Vincent alone of the others knew the precise detail, had decided to be generous. Vincent’s 50 per ce
nt was, to Roy’s

  mind, an investment.

  Now Roy stepped outside to the river path, took stock moment-

  arily of the hubbub and began his walk along the Embankment.

  The somewhat vacant smile remained on his face and there was a

  spring in his step, though a spring, he acknowledged inwardly, that might have a little less pert bounce than not so long previously. He was getting older. By most measures he would have been described

  as an old man, but Roy did not gauge himself by normal standards.

  He still had more vigour than most thirty- year- olds and much more fire in his belly.

  But now was a good moment to finish it and enter a new phase.

  This would necessitate ridding himself of his Beckenham pad and

  moving to the genteel Surrey mansion apartment he had pru-

  dently secured for himself, abandoning his little flat like the Mary Celeste with rent unpaid. Roy Mannion would once again be laid to rest and he would revert to being Roy Courtnay. This was all just

  housekeeping and, with a little attention to detail, easily accom-

  plished. There was just one last flourish in the final act of this

  theatrical performance, so to speak, to dispose of himself for

  once and for all, but that would be elementary. He checked his

  stride, barely discernibly, and glanced behind him before he reached the steps up to the bridge.

  He ambled across Westminster Bridge and paused in the middle,

  leaning on the balustrade and looking down the Thames towards

  Docklands, the present- day barometer of London’s confidence.

  Mr Blair will do us all right, he thought. Not like the old days, when his lot spelled disaster. He saw Canary Wharf, that crisp, clean

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  phallic symbol of City bullishness, its tip blinking red in the summer sunlight, and inhaled the rotting green salt stench of the river before continuing his journey, crossing the road carefully and walking down the steps to the water again.

  He entered St Thomas’ Hospital from the riverside path and

  accelerated through its corridors, left and right, right again, through doors, up and down stairs, according to a route that he had designed and learned assiduously. Were Bryn – for it was Bryn he believed

  most likely of this – to have decided that Roy might not be suffi-

  ciently trustworthy and have had the temerity to follow him, or

  have him followed, this should be an adequate countermeasure. An

  unlikely eventuality, but as Roy knew only too well, you couldn’t be too careful these days. And it fitted in very neatly with the legend for the little denouement he and Vincent had devised.

  3

  A quick dash to a cab, and he was conveyed swiftly to one of the

  grand hotels along Park Lane where he had a room. Into the room,

  and he suddenly felt weary, felt his age. He would have dearly loved to collapse into the plumped opulence of the bed and doze. But

  there was no rest for the wicked and he was on the move once more,

  to the hotel next door, where he had booked a business room in the

  name of a company that would soon be discarded.

  He waited patiently for Vincent, reliable as ever. Solid as a rock, just what Roy required. He poured three fingers of Scotch into a

  tumbler – he deserved this – and added ice. The fatigue was extreme but it was a good fatigue. He sighed, and observed his feet for a

  moment before pulling himself together, standing and stretching

  his arms and shoulders.

  Nearly there. The first day of the rest of his life. How many times had he uttered those words privately? But this time it was for real.

  He appreciated, if not openly, that his energies were waning: in

  the very real physical sense that he was perceptibly less capable of accomplishing what no more than five years before had been

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  simple, and in the less direct but equally obvious to him way that

  mental concentration was difficult to sustain over extended periods.

  No one else had yet noticed, or at least this was what he believed.

  Now was the time to depart, at the top of his game, without ran-

  cour. He was in his mid- seventies, for heaven’s sake. A good innings, more than good. He could now subside in relative comfort and let

  his body and mind wind down and tick over to that inevitable day. It was only life, after all, and must be regarded dispassionately. He had always been impatient of those who railed indulgently against inevitabilities rather than examining their own shortcomings, and would not do so himself. When faced with his own mortality he did not

  intend to become histrionic.

  At least now, with this coup, he would be able to manage his

  decline in some comfort. He would be able to rattle around in his

  apartment. He would be able to embark on Caribbean cruises in

  first class and dine with the captain. He would be taxied here and

  ferried there, enjoy lavish medical care to offset the effects of ageing so far and long as this could be achieved. He could afford the services of visiting top- class, discreet young courtesans – that word had the right tone – at his home and they would be paid well enough to conceal their distaste for his crumbling being as they harvested his remaining virility. Eventually he would be able to lie back while the hired help wiped his arse, fed his quivering face and dabbed the dribble away. Bleak thoughts indeed.

  He was interrupted by the arrival of Vincent, with his recogniz-

  able hesitant knock on the door. He could remember him as a young

  man. That shyness, that diffidence, had not changed. But there had

  been something else, a spark visible seemingly to Roy alone beneath the faltering exterior of the accountant. Roy unlocked the door and let him in.

  ‘You’ve been careful?’ he asked.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Drink?’

  ‘Uh, no. I won’t, thanks. I’m driving.’

  Vincent did not look pleased, either with himself or with the suc-

  cess of their caper. He looked mildly frayed, as if in a state of

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  confused agitation. Roy was not concerned, for this seemed to be

  Vincent’s stock expression. It was, in part, what made him success-

  ful in this game. Few would credit that this cautious, conventional bean counter was capable of the necessary deceptions. Vincent

  brought monochrome stability to the Technicolor of Roy’s grand

  vistas.

  ‘Oh well,’ said Vincent. ‘It’s all done.’

  Oh well indeed, thought Roy.

  ‘No problems?’

  ‘None that I know of. Barry rang me to say he’d finished up in

  Sevenoaks and was on the train back.’

  ‘Nice touch that, you phoning Dave in the pub.’

  ‘Thought it might just add something to the mix,’ said Vincent

  without smiling. ‘Been learning from you. Maybe some of the star-

  dust is rubbing off on to me.’

  Roy laughed. ‘All the finances sorted out?’

  ‘The transfer’s gone through,’ replied Vincent. ‘The money’s in

  the account. I checked last thing this afternoon. Just need to wait until the dust has settled before moving it on.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘And then?’

  ‘Plan A, I reckon. Unless there’s any reason to change.’

  ‘Not that I can see. We wrap it all up as soon as possible.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  �
�And then?’

  ‘And then it seems I hang up my boots and ride off into the sun-

  set, if that’s not mixing metaphors. You get on with a glittering

  career.’

  ‘Can’t see it happening. Surely you’re not really jacking it in?’

  ‘Oh, I am. Believe me. I plan to enjoy life while I still can.’ Roy smiled.

  ‘Well,’ said Vincent, ‘I’ll believe that when I see it. But then again I won’t, will I? Maybe you just want to branch out on your own

  again.’

  ‘No,’ said Roy with feeling. ‘If I did anything in the future it

  would be with you. I’d need your help. No. I’m retiring. Really.’

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  There was a finality in his voice that deterred Vincent from

  continuing.

  ‘Well then,’ he said. ‘Until next time.’

  They had a little more business to conduct, but each was aware

  that the next times would be few.

  Vincent left and Roy tidied up to fill in time before his own departure. Habit and prudence, a word coming into fashion, saw him take

  the precaution of wiping surfaces of fingerprints. He handed the

  key in at reception and quickly made his way back to his own hotel

  room.

  4

  Plan A had been invoked. Vincent rang each of the other members

  of the syndicate, indicating evenly that they needed to meet as

  something had come up. Each in turn had reacted with alarm.

  ‘No, no need to worry,’ he said. ‘It’s not that. But I’d prefer not to use the phone.’

  They had standing provisions for an emergency meeting. The

  arrangement was that they would meet at a certain golf club, a neu-

  tral, not to say anonymous venue just outside the M25, over a

  morning coffee. Bernie and Martin had brought golf clubs and just

  completed a rather dank round on a cool, misty September morn-

  ing by the time the others arrived. Bryn had taken the precaution of hiring a car rather than using his own. Dave had booked the private meeting room that doubled as the club’s committee chamber.

  Vincent was the last to arrive, entering the room in his account-

  ant’s grey suit and black tie with a solemn expression that presaged bad news and evoked foreboding in the others. The bustle around

  the coffee pot ceased. Teaspoons were held mid- air.