by Jay Stringer
“What—”
“I was experimenting. I think it went rather well.” He filled his mouth with a forkful of the scrambled mess and made a face to suggest it was the best food he’d ever eaten.
“You cooking drunk again?”
He shook his head and lifted the bottle of wine Gaines had left behind. It was corked and at the same level as last night.
“I’m on the wagon.”
“How long?”
“Six months.”
“So you really are trying to change this time. Does Dai know about it?”
“Yeah.” He beamed, and for a moment, I could see past the hard lines around his eyes and envision him as a child, grinning at whatever trouble he’d most recently gotten into. “We’ve got a bet running about how long I last. He keeps giving me books to read, especially stage plays by Sean O’Casey. He says it’ll help.”
“Does it?”
“No. I have no idea why he has me reading these things, but I’m sticking at it. And you? Mum told us you were dry, too?”
I nodded. “I am, yeah. Not for the same reason, though. Mine’s health.”
“Oh, mine too.” His smile stayed in place.
“Yeah, different kind of health. My doctor ordered me,” I said, lifting my T-shirt to let him see my scar again, “after taking out a piece of my gut.”
He winced and waved for me to cover it up. Then he finished his plate of food and started on mine.
Salma called as I sat in the car outside my flat, the keys hanging from the ignition. She sounded surprised when I picked up, as though she was expecting me to live up to my shadowy reputation and be impossible to reach through normal channels. I asked her to set up a meeting with the girls who’d been victimized; she told me she’d arrange it and call back. The conversation gave me a shot of purpose, and I put the car in gear, feeling as buzzed as if I’d just downed three espressos. I slipped a CD into the player and got a blast of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin as I drove. I headed into the city. I wanted to know more about David Kyng.
I got a round of applause when I walked into Posada.
The same old regulars were sitting in all the same old places. The students working the bar were different, but you get used to that in a city. Each season brought a different indie kid to Posada: each one seemed skinnier and to wear more hair gel than the last. The bar itself had been repainted, I noticed, and the old nicotine-faded walls were now glossed over with bright cream. It took me a minute to adapt.
I asked for a Coke and then did my rounds. Everyone asking after:
My health.
My scar.
My football job.
In Posada I was still treated as though my brush with fame had never happened. They never referenced the fact I’d been splashed all over the front pages of the local papers, and even appeared on the inside pages of a few nationals. They certainly never mentioned the stories that made me out to be a hero, or the ones that played up my gangland links. The only reference they’d ever made to the event was a card and CD they sent me while I was in hospital. And now, they talked to me the same as they had before it all happened.
Which was to say, they still took the piss out of me.
I settled in next to Big John. He’d been a fixture at the same table for as long as I could remember. Always with the horse racing papers and a betting slip ready to fill in. Always with half a pint of Adnams. I’d never seen him place a bet or take a sip.
“How bin ya?” he said.
“Not bad. Yourself?”
“Can’t complain. Because the wife would kill me if I did.” If I hadn’t known him well enough to notice, I might have missed his little wink. “You aye been round for a while. Where you been hiding?”
“Wednesbury.”
“Did you lose a bet?”
“Something like that, yes.”
“You still working for Channy Mann?”
Everyone in town had known that I worked for the Mann brothers.
“No, Channy and me don’t get on.”
“That’s good.”
He stayed quiet after that. He returned his attention to the racing post.
“John, do you know anything about David Kyng? Works down the road?”
He shook his head. I patted him on the shoulder and stood up. My old regular spot, a small alcove in a wall with a table big enough for two people, was full. Two students were in there, sipping at bottled beer and reading textbooks. I asked the other regulars, but none of them had heard of David Kyng. I was getting set to leave, the sugar buzz from the Coke working its magic, when one of the students behind the bar called me over.
“I know the guy,” he said. “He’s a right bastard.”
I leaned on the bar to get closer, but he waved toward the back passage. It was behind the bar area and was once the serviceman’s entrance. Now it was just a cramped corridor where the regulars could have discreet cigarettes.
“So you know Kyng?”
“Well, the student union knows all about him. There’s been meetings, like. Legal advice and that.”
“Why?”
“He’s a landlord. A lot of the students in town rent from him. He don’t seem too bad as a landlord, no worse than most. But he loans money out when we get desperate, and he’s a right bastard about repayments.”
“Loans to students?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought the university did that.”
“Well, it does. But the money they give runs out, you know? And it’s real difficult to get more. I could tell you stories, man. The guys who want the money to cheat? No problem. The honest ones get screwed.”
“How?”
“Well, one guy in my film class? He got an emergency loan from the uni. Gave them a sob story, like, and got his doctor to sign something. He used the money to take his girlfriend to Paris. But I’ve got loads of mates who actually desperately need the money, but they can’t get it. System’s fucked.”
“So they go to Kyng?”
“Not just him. There are a lot of others in town these days. But yeah. They basically have to either game the system or go to Kyng. He’ll give cash out to anyone because he knows he’ll get it back.”
“And if he doesn’t? Shit kicking, right?”
“The union hasn’t been able to prove anything, like. But yeah.”
“Why no proof? There’s a direct link, surely?”
“It’s never done by Kyng, or by anyone who’s known to work for him. It’s always an ‘accident’ that happens when a student has had too much to drink on a Friday night and ends up in a fight, or whatever. The cops don’t even care because it’s just a scummy student, and it’s bound to be his own fault, right?”
Well, the police had a point; the students in this town had always been well capable of messing themselves up. They didn’t need any help.
“Have there been a lot of these accidents?”
“Ten, fifteen.”
He sounded like a nice guy, this David Kyng.
The letter my mother had received from Kyng & Bootle had an address on Broad Street. The Gaines family owned that street. It was lined with sex shops, takeaways, tattoo parlors, and snooker clubs—and all of them tied into the family in one way or another. Did they own Kyng & Bootle?
I found the address easily enough. The entrance was to the right of a storefront loan company, the kind of place that gave poor people cash advances on their paychecks—and only asked they throw in their front teeth and firstborn as payback. The places seemed to be everywhere these days; they were this decade’s version of beauty salons. The glass door for Kyng & Bootle had the company’s name and hours printed on it in cursive letters.
As I pushed through I heard a soft beep, the type that rings to alert whoever is inside that company is on the way. The staircase was narrow and covered with the old-fashioned carpet tiles that could have doubled as scouring pads for washing dishes. The walls were unpainted.
At the top of the stairs was a reception are
a that reminded me of a dentist’s waiting room. If the dentist was really low-budget, of course. The same rough carpet tile that had appeared in the stairwell covered the floor. In a bad attempt to camouflage the dirty plaster walls, there were loads of posters tacked up that offered motivational messages about climbing mountains and reaching the moon. The exact situations you need to prepare for in Wolverhampton.
There were two desks, but only one of them was in use. The man who rose from behind the desk to greet me looked to be in his late thirties and was flushed with sweat; he looked like an over-the-hill game show host. More important, he looked familiar. I’d seen him before. He was the fat man who’d shaken Marshall’s hand at the Community rally.
“Hi there,” he said as he reached his hand toward me. I stared at him for a moment. I hate shaking hands with a sweaty man. It’s the kind of thing that gets into you and doesn’t let go. You feel it all day. I reached out my hand knowing that I’d be imagining his sweaty paw touching mine the next time I ate a sandwich.
“Hi.”
“I’m Davie Kyng. What can I do for you?”
He pointed to the empty chair on my side of the desk. I followed his cue and sat down. He really didn’t look at all threatening. When he spoke, it was with something like a Scouse accent, but mixed up like he’d moved around a lot. His jowls seemed to move independently of his head. “I’ve seen you before, haven’t I? Where—hang on a minute, you were at the rally last night, yeah?”
“That’s right.” I gestured to the empty desk. “Where’s Mr. Bootle?”
He smiled.
“Doesn’t exist. Bootle is where I’m from, my hometown. I just added it to the name to sound better.”
“So this is a one-man operation?”
“There are a couple of people who work for me, but there’s nothing like being your own boss. Nobody to answer to but yourself.”
“I can imagine.”
“I didn’t catch your name, Mr.—?”
My mother and I have the same surname. I thought it over.
Fuck it.
“Miller. Eoin Miller.”
Something flashed in his eyes. That flicker usually showed up when a person had heard my name before.
“You’re the gypsy works for Miss Gaines.”
I didn’t know which annoyed me more, the weight he put into the word gypsy or the leer he put into Miss. I just nodded again. Let him worry about why I was there for a moment and see what conclusions he would jump to.
“I’m paid up to date,” he said. “So this isn’t a business call, I take it?”
I thought I’d start subtle. “My mother’s in the hospital.” He blinked. Then he blinked again. “She owes you money.” Fuck subtlety. “She’s missed a couple of payments, and now she’s in the hospital.”
There was something in the way he seemed to be searching for a response that troubled me.
“Nothing serious, I hope?” He leaned forward and put on his best concerned face. He’d have made a good politician if he wasn’t a greasy repugnant toad.
“She was attacked. In her own home.” I leaned back and pulled out the letter I’d been carrying around, turning it so that he could see it was one of his. “And this little note says you were sending someone to visit her.”
His mouth opened and closed a couple of times. He was clearly used to this sort of act because he started right in with the denials and the fake sincerity. “Visit, yes. If your mother’s in debt with me, she’ll get a few of those. I have a lawyer who sends out legal demands and some guys who follow up to discuss repayment if we don’t hear back.”
“And if she can’t repay?”
“What are you implying, Mr. Miller?”
“I’m not implying anything. I want to know why you had someone attack my mother.”
He sat and stared at me wide-eyed for a moment before breaking into a nervous smile, as if wondering whether I was joking. I looked at him so coldly that his expression collapsed into a tactful frown.
“Mr. Miller, I promise you that’s not what I do.”
I climbed to my feet, and he followed suit. He stuck out a hand for me to shake, which was just about the most ridiculous thing I could think of at that point. I ignored his gesture and gave him my best Clint Eastwood stare.
“When I find the proof—” I stopped myself short of making a threat. I didn’t want to give him anything to use against me. Besides, it was time for me to get the hell out of there. I needed proof that Kyng had been involved in the attack on my mother. Also, there was the link between Kyng & Marshall. What did it mean? What was the connection?
This was getting interesting.
THIRTEEN
Salma pulled up outside my flat in her shiny black BMW, which didn’t look like her sort of car. She got out and dismissed my admiring look with a wave of her hand.
“It’s my brother’s.”
She wore tight jeans and a Sonic Youth T-shirt underneath a short red leather jacket. Her lips were very shiny, but the rest of her face was hidden by the biggest sunglasses I’d ever seen. I said that she had good taste in music, and she frowned before laughing it off.
“What? Oh, no. I liked the look of it. There was a Ramones one in the shop, but everyone has one of those, innit?”
“Can I, uh, get you a coffee or anything before we go?” I gestured behind me toward my flat. “I mean, we’ve got a little time to kill.”
She smiled politely and shrugged a yes. I led her up the stairs and opened the front door, stepping aside for her to walk in ahead. The flat looked as tidy as I’d ever seen it, with no sign of Noah.
“Make yourself at home. I’ll put the kettle on. How do you take it?”
“Black, please.”
“Nice and easy, I like that.”
Jesus, how bad did that sound? I ducked into the kitchen to shout at myself. Stop behaving like an idiot schoolboy. I made two black coffees and carried them into the living room.
“You working today?”
She took the coffee and set it down on the table. “Yes. I was recording an interview this morning for the local news. Now that it’s done, I’ve got to go prep for my radio show.”
“Oh, you’re on tonight?”
She gave me a look that for a second almost resembled a snarl—it irritated her that I didn’t know her show schedule. For some reason I was acting as if there weren’t enough women in my life who hated me, but I cautioned myself to be nicer: I didn’t really need another. A moment later, her polite smile was back in place. “It’s an evening thing. It usually gets disrupted by football, but tonight is all clear.”
“What will you be talking about?”
“Well, that’ll be set out when I meet with the producer later. But I’ve got a few pretaped things to put in—you know, interviews I’ve already done and that. I’m trying to get someone from the police to come on and talk about dogfighting, but they’re avoiding me.”
Aha. This was a problem I could solve.
“My wife’s on the force. I can give her a call for you.”
“I didn’t realize that you’re married.”
Shit.
Shit.
Shit.
“We’re separated, really. You know how it is. Or you don’t, you know…I didn’t mean to imply—”
She laughed and gave me a gentle look, humoring me.
“It’s okay. I do know how that goes. That BMW? I said it was my brother’s, but it was my ex-husband’s. One of the many things I got in the divorce.”
“Divorce? Wow, that’s pretty—” I realized too late what I was about to say, and I knew she’d realized it too.
“Enlightened?”
“I guess I should just stop talking, eh?”
Had I really just been clumsy enough to act surprised that a Muslim woman had acted in her own best interest? I looked down at my coffee and contemplated its steaming depth in silence. Salma almost managed to hide her smirk behind her cup. After she felt I’d had long enough, she put me o
ut of my misery. “Eoin, no matter what happens, I’m not going to be sleeping with you.”
I figured there was no point following up with an invite to the Ned’s gig. When she told me where the first victim lived, I suggested we go in my car. We were going to a neighborhood where shiny black BMWs were not a common sight. Buried away on the Friar Park housing estate, Bassett Road had a reputation that preceded it. Council houses and anger. Front yards strewn with car parts and caravans. There were CCTV cameras mounted on the streetlights overlooking the entrance to the estate. It was a shining example of modern Britain.
I parked a few houses down from where we were going. Our arrival immediately attracted attention. School had finished for the day, and all the children walking home stopped to stare at us. Some of them moved on after a moment, but a small group leaned against the wall next to the car and cracked jokes as they waited.
Salma put a hand out to stop me as I pulled the keys out of the ignition.
“I’ll start us off, okay?”
“Sure. Don’t want to scare her off.” I pointed to the clock on the dashboard. “Her parents around?”
“They’re at work. Ruth will have only just gotten back from school. It’ll be just the three of us.”
As I locked the car, one of the kids on the wall offered to watch over it for me. I told him it didn’t need watching; I hoped he was old enough to read between the lines.
Ruth met us at the front door with a shy smile. She was thin, too thin; I imagined that she’d inherited her thick, dark hair and sallow complexion from her parents. Her coloring was nearly identical to mine, and for a second, her eyes looked me up and down as she tried to gauge whether or not I was Polish. Her features were still too young to have character or definition, with cheeks that hadn’t yet lost their roundness. Her eyes, though, were dark and attractive and showed real intelligence. She had a fresh quality to her, something I hadn’t seen for a while mixing with criminals, strippers, and liars.