Death Message

by Mark Billingham

  ‘A business must expand.’ To anyone sitting on an adjacent table, it would have looked as if the older man were enjoying the company and the conversation. ‘There is no point otherwise.’

  ‘The Black Dogs were a perfect opportunity.’

  ‘Dogs? Now, I am lost.’

  ‘Relatively new to the drugs game… medium-sized. Easy pickings for a firm like yours.’

  Zarif said nothing, but Thorne wasn’t expecting him to.

  Not just yet.

  ‘Even better if you can keep your hands clean,’ Thorne said. ‘Farm out the dirty work.’

  ‘What exactly do you think I’m going to say?’

  Once Zarif’s name had been mentioned, the picture had quickly become clearer; and more horrific. In other circumstances, Thorne might have doubted the conclusion he had come to, but he knew better than most what Arkan Zarif was capable of.

  Fully fledged gang wars, such as the one Zarif had been engaged in when he and Thorne had first met, were risky enterprises. Any financial advantage gained was often outweighed by unwanted attention from the authorities; by blood feuds that could linger for years afterwards.

  So much better if someone else could wage them for you.

  Marcus Brooks had been set up six years before by ‘Jennings’ and ‘Squire’, and now he was being used again. All Zarif had had to do was give him a motive. A nice, simple one. Once he had arranged to have Angela Georgiou and her son killed, it had been straightforward to get word into Long Lartin, hinting at who had been responsible. Then he had been able to sit back and watch while Brooks sorted out the Black Dogs for him. Created the space for Zarif and his family to step into.

  He had wound up Brooks and let him go.

  ‘How did you find Brooks?’ Thorne asked.

  Even as Zarif was staring blankly back at him, Thorne figured out that it had probably been through an associate in prison; perhaps the same one Zarif had later used to make sure Brooks knew, or thought he knew, who had killed his girlfriend and son. Another possibility was that Zarif had someone working within the Black Dogs themselves. This was less likely, but the thought prompted another.

  ‘Christ, you must have been delighted when Brooks started knocking off the coppers for you as well. Getting rid of any “friends” the bikers might have had in the police. A real bonus that, I would have thought.’

  Zarif poured himself another drink, three or four fingers. ‘Forgive me if I have trouble following all this. Perhaps you should tell me what it is you think I have done.’

  ‘I know what you’ve done.’

  ‘Good for you.’ Zarif gently patted his fingers on the tabletop in mock applause. ‘The fact remains that you have come here alone and you have shown me no identification. So, whatever you know, or you think you know, I doubt that I am going to be arrested any time soon.’

  It was the second time that day that someone had said as much to Thorne. These fuckers seemed to know instinctively when they were really in trouble and when they weren’t. Thorne felt a certain grim satisfaction at the thought that the police officer who had told him to ‘bring it on’ a few hours before was now a lot less cocky than he had been.

  He thought that Zarif, too, despite the confident tone, was looking just a little more strained. Or maybe he was just getting drunker. Jumpier.

  ‘I wanted to give you the chance to tell me.’

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘Your last chance…’

  ‘Tell you that you’re dreaming? Tell you to fuck off?’

  ‘About Brooks. About his wife and child,’ Thorne said. ‘A car that didn’t stop.’ A bottle. A glass. One of Zarif’s own knives. ‘Anything else you think I might like to know…’

  The woman’s voice from the speakers above the bar was becoming cheerier, the music a touch more upbeat. ‘Now, it’s time for you to go,’ Zarif said.

  Thorne slid along the seat, said, ‘I need a piss.’

  He took his time walking to the stairs, and when he looked back, Zarif was staring the other way, towards the window. Beneath the table, his foot was tapping in time to the tablas.

  Thorne went quickly down the stairs, took a few seconds to get his bearings and pushed open the warped, unvarnished door to the tiny toilet cubicle. He smelled damp and disinfectant; something rank, too, and rising, that was coming from himself.

  He leaned back against the door and breathed in the stink.

  No, it isn’t. It isn’t finished.

  He reached forward and flushed the toilet. Then, while the cistern was still noisily refilling, he stepped out into the narrow corridor. There were boxes stacked against the breeze-block walls and, through a semi-open doorway, he could see the huge gas burners in the kitchen and an L-shape of well-scrubbed steel surfaces.

  He took half a dozen steps down to the far end; to a grey, metal door. Gently drew back the bolts, top and bottom.

  Tested the handle.

  Then Thorne turned and walked back towards the stairs, stopping just for a few seconds on the way to run his hands under the cold tap.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Though Zarif was still sitting in the booth, still looking in the same direction he had been, Thorne couldn’t help wondering if he’d moved. Had he had time to get up while Thorne was downstairs? Maybe use the phone to let someone know Thorne was there?

  ‘When was the last time Health and Safety had a look at your toilets?’ Thorne said, stepping back up.

  Zarif turned, nodding his appreciation at what they both knew to be a joke. With the family’s money and connections, H &S inspections were hardly anything to worry about. Thorne wondered if ‘Baba’ Arkan Zarif worried about much at all.

  Baba, which simply meant ‘father’ in Turkish. In an organised-crime context, though, it had an altogether more sinister meaning.

  Zarif watched as Thorne walked back to the table, then past it, on his way to the door. He pushed himself out of the booth to follow; to show Thorne out and lock the door behind him. ‘I’m sorry I could not be more hospitable,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll live.’

  ‘I hope you think your visit was worth it.’

  Thorne stopped at the door, locked it himself, and turned back into the restaurant. ‘Remains to be seen… ’

  Zarif froze, then turned quickly at the noise of footsteps on the stairs. His gut wobbled as he was pulled in two directions at once. As he saw the man appear above the white balustrade, and performed a near-perfect double take; a low noise in his throat.

  ‘Someone else wanted a chat,’ Thorne said.

  ‘This is not… right,’ Zarif said. ‘You are very fucking crazy.’ He was genuinely searching for the words this time; speaking slowly, trying to order his thoughts.

  Talking to Thorne, but staring at Marcus Brooks.

  It struck Thorne that, like himself, Zarif would never have seen Brooks in the flesh; may not even have had any idea what the man whose life he had turned upside down looked like. But it was clear from the old man’s face that he knew exactly who his visitor was.

  Brooks’ dark hair was longer than it had been in the most recent E-fit, and he had the makings of a decent beard. But his face was even thinner. He had a large spot, or a sore of some kind, on the edge of his top lip, and above dark semicircles the eyes seemed filmed over and far away.

  He wore jeans and a faded sweatshirt under a brown puffa jacket. His training shoes were muddy, and he swung a plastic bag from one hand.

  Nothing had been planned – not past this point at any rate – and it may just have been that Brooks was following Thorne’s lead, but they began to move towards Zarif at much the same moment. Zarif backed towards the booth at which he’d been sitting; stopped at the edge of the table.

  He looked at Thorne. ‘You know I have friends close by. My sons…’

  ‘I know,’ Thorne said. ‘Don’t you have some sort of panic button? You never struck me as the type to scream for help, but you could give it a go.’

  Thorne thought
that Zarif looked scared; unnerved, certainly. But there was no mistaking the anger. The olive skin of the old man’s face darkened further with blood. He pushed back his shoulders.

  ‘You are trespassing.’

  ‘You invited me in,’ Thorne said. ‘I seem to remember being offered a drink.’

  Zarif turned to look at the man he had most certainly not invited.

  ‘The door was open,’ Brooks said.

  ‘Seriously fucking crazy.’ Zarif shook his head, swallowed hard. ‘Maybe I just go to the phone and call the police.’ He pointed at Thorne. ‘Talk to someone who will deal with you.’

  Brooks took another step forward. ‘Tell me about Angie,’ he said.

  Zarif said nothing. His eyes on the bag; on the weight of it. Thorne knew that even if Zarif did not know what Brooks looked like, he must have known exactly what he’d been doing, and how. Up until this moment, Zarif had probably relished every detail.

  ‘He just wants to know,’ Thorne said.

  ‘I want the names of the men you sent,’ Brooks said. ‘Whoever was driving the car.’

  ‘It’s a peace-of-mind thing,’ Thorne said.

  ‘Did you know Angie would have my son with her?’

  ‘Or was that another bonus?’

  ‘Was it planned?’

  Zarif was stock-still, but his eyes flicked rapidly between the two of them.

  ‘I should imagine so,’ Thorne said. ‘Families have never really been off-limits with you, have they, Baba?’

  ‘Did you plan to kill them both?’

  Zarif shook his head.

  Thorne leaned back against the bar. ‘No, “don’t know”? Or no, “won’t tell”?’

  ‘Fuck you,’ Zarif said, equally casual.

  Brooks hefted the bag into his hand. ‘Doesn’t matter either way.’

  ‘And fuck you, too…’

  Thorne pushed himself away from the bar and walked behind it. ‘If that’s as much as you’ve got to say for yourself, there’s no point hanging around, is there?’ He looked across at Brooks. The exhaustion was scored in lines across his face; but now Thorne could see hunger there, too. ‘I’ll leave you to it, then…’

  ‘Sounds good,’ Brooks said.

  Thorne scanned the shelves above him, searching for the CD player. Once he’d found it, he turned up the volume. The woman was laying it on thick; the drummer working overtime.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Zarif asked.

  Thorne didn’t answer, enjoying the fear he’d heard in the question. He nodded his head in time to the music as he walked back around the bar, and away past Zarif, towards the stairs.

  ‘You have to stop now, and think how foolish you are being.’

  Trying to look unconcerned, while his heart smashed against his chest…

  ‘You are too smart to do this.’

  Ignoring the noise as he stepped down: the shouting and the swearing; the sounds of a man losing control. Focusing instead on the voice of the woman; the notes of her song rising to a perfectly pitched scream of joy, or agony, as he walked quickly down the stairs, and out through the grey, metal door.

  He took his time walking along the alleyway to the street; then back on to the main drag. It wasn’t far short of one in the morning, but there was still plenty of traffic on Green Lanes. Drivers heading north towards Turnpike Lane and beyond, or south towards the City.

  Thorne watched the cars, cabs and lorries go past, and wondered how many of their occupants felt part of anything; were really connected to others around them. There were communities in London, tightly knit and isolated pockets, where it was possible to feel as though the people next door gave a shit. But it was also a city in which a copy of the Evening Standard could shield you from almost anything.

  Where death – violent death, certainly – had become part of the city’s fabric, like the extortionate house prices and the impossibility of parking.

  Where life expectancy in boroughs like Islington, Camden and Haringey could be as much as ten years less in some parts than it was in others.

  Where people like Arkan Zarif could make plans and grow fat.

  Thorne walked slowly past the front of the estate agent’s and stopped for a second time outside the window of the restaurant. He could see the bottle and the glass on the table, hear the music from inside. The place looked empty now. He presumed that Brooks had either moved Zarif into the room at the back or taken him downstairs. He wondered if he had been thinking about the noise.

  ‘Sounds good,’ he’d said before Thorne had walked out. He’d looked as though he’d meant it.

  Thorne turned from the window, feeling empty, and OK about it. He had decided the first time round that where Zarif and others like him were concerned, his moral compass would have to be… adjusted. He had a line, of course, same as everyone else, and there were people who had forced him into stepping over it more than once.

  Psychopaths, sadists, users of children.

  But Arkan Zarif had fucked with Thorne’s view of the world; with his grasp of what was just and decent. Had redefined it…

  A squad car raced past on blues-and-twos. Thorne blinked and saw Louise’s face; flushed as it might be after love-making, or in temper.

  He heard her voice, and his own.

  And how bent does what you’ve been doing make you? Or what I did last night make me?

  We haven’t murdered anyone.

  The image dissolved, drifted, and he walked on, happy enough. When it came to Arkan Zarif, getting the right result was the only thing that mattered.

  Waiting, Thorne looked at his watch many times. It was seventeen minutes from when he’d left the restaurant, to the moment when his phone rang.

  His old mobile phone.

  He took it from his pocket but didn’t answer. Let it go to voicemail.

  Marcus Brooks, calling the number he’d been given. Saying what Thorne had told him to say.

  Thorne listened to the message, knowing that he was not the only one that would be doing so, then walked back behind the parade of shops and down towards the service entrance.

  He met Brooks at the end of the alleyway.

  ‘What did he say?’ Thorne asked.

  The light from the streetlamp made Brooks look even more jaundiced. ‘He said “please”. Not for too long, though.’ He carefully handed Thorne his prepay mobile. The one Thorne had left behind on the counter when he had turned up the volume on the CD player. The one which Brooks had then picked up.

  Thorne looked at the screen. The phone’s voice recorder function was still running, as it had been for the last twenty-odd minutes.

  ‘The names of the men who ran Angela and Robbie over are on there,’ Brooks said. He looked down at his training shoes for a second. ‘And the men who set fire to your father’s house.’

  A lurch in the stomach like a spasm of indigestion. Rage and relief cancelling each other out. Nothing more, for now.

  ‘I made sure he knows we’ve got it,’ Brooks said. ‘He’s not going to be telling anyone we were there.’

  Thorne nodded. ‘We should get going.’

  Brooks swung the plastic bag as they walked back on to Green Lanes and across to where Thorne had left the BMW. Brooks climbed into the back. Thorne pressed a hand into the small of his back to help him inside, then stood, leaning against the car. Stared at the phone for a few seconds before he slipped it into his pocket.

  ‘Thank you’ seemed inappropriate. The stuff about being under arrest would come later.

  He took the car across the main road and pulled it round; drove at walking pace past the window of the restaurant. Arkan Zarif was shuffling slowly, painfully, towards the glass on his backside. It looked as though something had been stuffed into his mouth. Napkins, Thorne guessed.

  ‘You don’t know how much I wanted to kill him,’ Brooks said.

  Thorne flicked his eyes to the rear-view, then back to the figure that was beginning to howl and bang on the restaurant’s window.
/>   He knew very well.

  It had not been easy to convince Brooks, or himself, but eventually it had been agreed that they should do whatever it took to get the necessary information, but no more. That Zarif would suffer far more behind bars. That they were being anything but merciful.

  ‘You’ve no… fucking idea,’ Brooks mumbled.

  Thorne eased the car from the kerb and pointed it north, letting the thoughts settle in his mind as he picked up speed. Most of the story was already straight, and would be simple enough to tell. He would put the rest of it together on the way back to Colindale.

  Marcus Brooks was asleep on the back seat by the time the car reached the first set of lights.

  PART FOUR. ‘DELETE’

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  The Kard Kop checked, then raised over the top of the last player left in the hand. The thirty seconds ticked away, but at the death the other player folded what were almost certainly the winning cards, and, with nothing better than a pair of nines, The Kard Kop took down the pot.

  ‘I won,’ Louise shouted. ‘Forty dollars.’

  Thorne walked across, looked at the screen as the next hand was dealt. Louise got a jack and a four, unsuited. She quickly folded and sat out of the game.

  ‘How much are you up tonight?’ Thorne asked.

  ‘A hundred and eighty-two dollars,’ Louise said.

  ‘Fuck…’

  Not only had Louise picked up the game ridiculously quickly, she was already a better player than Thorne. Her game was aggressive without being reckless. And she was better at sussing out the real characters of the players around the table, able to see past their cartoon images.

  She read them quicker than Thorne had read Marcus Brooks.

  Better than he had read the police officer who had once called himself Squire.

  Most importantly of all, win or lose, Louise knew when to walk away from the table.

  ‘You going to play for a bit?’

  Thorne shook his head, so Louise logged off; wandered through to the kitchen to get the food started. Hendricks was bringing a new man for dinner, and Louise was cooking pasta.