Mystery Man 04 - The Prisoner of Brenda

by Bateman

  ‘No,’ I said.

  ‘No?’

  My head was buzzing too much for me to keep up the pretence. I said, ‘I’m sorry, things have become a little confused. Jackie, who is lovely by the way, and a credit to your business, and it’s a shame that you’re losing her – she thought I was here for a guided tour of the facilities with a view to membership, but actually I’m here to ask a lot of questions about Fat Sam Mahood and what happened to him.’

  Gary’s mouth dropped open slightly. He started to say, ‘I’m afraid—’

  But I cut him off with: ‘I represent the man who has been accused of Fat Sam Mahood’s murder. He’s going to be put on trial for his very life. You have to help him. All I need is some background information. It won’t take long.’

  He said, ‘Really you’d need to speak to—’

  ‘You were manager here when he was murdered?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘Then it’s you I want to talk to.’

  ‘Do you have some form of identification?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. But I did not proffer any.

  ‘Can I see it?’

  ‘Do you really want to go down that road?’ I asked.

  ‘What road?’

  ‘Being awkward,’ I said. ‘Gary, you’ve cooperated with the police, I know that. They speak highly of you. Detective Inspector Robinson in particular. He is very keen that you extend that cooperation to me. The alternative? Well, for a start, we would have to take your computers, and your paper records . . .’

  ‘What possible relevance . . .?’

  ‘That’s not for you to ask, Gary,’ I said. ‘We’re talking about a murder – everything may be considered relevant. Background checks on all the staff, your financial records would be forensically analysed, and anything from minor CV inflation to major fraud might be uncovered. You sell a lot of supplements.’

  ‘Vitamins, yes.’

  I nodded. And said nothing.

  ‘What exactly do you want to know?’ Gary asked.

  ‘What do you want to tell me?’

  His brow furrowed. I nodded some more. He swallowed. I looked around the room. ‘These certificates and trophies, they’re all yours?’

  ‘Yes. Jiu-Jitsu. I’ve competed all over the world.’

  ‘You’ve done well.’

  He said, ‘Would this be off the record?’

  ‘Yes, it can be. It’s really just background information.’

  He got up from his desk and moved behind me and closed the door. He then stepped back to his chair and sat down; putting a finger to his lips, he chewed briefly at a nail.

  I smiled and pointed at the lowest shelf. It was bare apart from a small, flat square of what looked like lead sitting on top of a pile of magazines. ‘Is that a trophy as well?’

  ‘No, that’s a paperweight.’

  I said, ‘Relax.’

  He said, ‘This is a good club, everything’s above board, but it’s in a dodgy area and sometimes you have to accept what goes with that. I told the police everything. Fat Sam hung out here more than I liked, but there was nothing I could do about it. He was like the Kray Twins, but there was only one of him.’

  ‘Protection money, blackmail, extortion . . .’

  ‘Yes, all that.’

  ‘And he practised it here?’

  ‘Sort of. He walked around like he owned the place. We stayed open late to facilitate him, he never had to put his hand in his pocket for anything and he certainly didn’t figure in our membership data. I was told, by the owners, that anything Mr Mahood wants, Mr Mahood gets. The staff knew that as well. He was no trouble, exactly, just unpleasant, but you get that, Mr . . .’

  ‘Thompson, Jim Thompson.’ It was not my real name, for I had a business and its reputation to protect. ‘As in the crime writer,’ I added.

  He gave a slight shrug. He wasn’t a reader. He was a fighter. He might be able to beat me up, but I would slaughter him in a literary quiz.

  ‘Mr Thompson, these are challenging times to be running a business, especially a leisure business, and particularly in an area like this. East Belfast.’ He waved his hand around him. ‘There are a lot of hard men with time on their hands. The owners felt that paying a relatively small amount for protection was preferable to constant harassment and vandalism. So we paid, and we didn’t have any trouble.’

  ‘Until Fat Sam was stabbed to death.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘And now where does the money go?’

  ‘It doesn’t. Nobody has asked for it.’

  ‘And the harassment?’

  ‘Has not recurred. Maybe they haven’t realised he’s . . .’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘I think you’ll find that Fat Sam was probably responsible for the intimidation in the first place. That he was the problem and the solution. That’s how protection usually works.’ Gary blew air out of his cheeks. ‘Ironic though, that Fat Sam spends his life threatening the well-being of others, yet he ends up dead in a health club.’

  ‘Is that what irony is? I’ve never really understood what it meant.’

  I said, ‘In the seventies the US Product Safety Commission had to recall 80,000 of its own lapel badges promoting toy safety, because they had sharp edges, used lead paint, and had small clips that could be broken off and swallowed. That’s another example.’

  He cleared his throat. ‘Well, that’s good to know.’

  ‘Were you working here the night it happened?’

  ‘What? No, I don’t usually hang around that late.’

  ‘So who was?’

  ‘A couple of cleaners, and two staff to lock up. There was some confusion: they thought Sam was finished and had already changed and gone home – that was his way, he didn’t linger. Anyway, somehow they missed him and switched off and locked up and went home, only he was still here and . . .’

  ‘Here with the killer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So how did the killer get in?’

  ‘I don’t know. No locks were damaged. He may have hidden out until he had the opportunity to . . . do it.’

  ‘Then how did he get out, if it was all locked up?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Because if he was leaving, he would have set off an alarm. Or if he was breaking in, he would have set off an alarm. Surely.’

  ‘You would think that.’ He nodded.

  ‘There’s no footage?’

  ‘Of the reception desk, yes. You can’t be having cameras in the changing rooms. There are some in the gym, but none covering the pool. Whatever there is, the police took away.’

  ‘You’ve seen what there is?’

  ‘I had a quick trawl through. I didn’t see anything that showed anything.’

  ‘Was there much money on the premises? Maybe he interrupted someone . . .?’

  ‘No, very little. A float for the café, that was about it. We’re not really a money business. It’s mostly direct debits.’

  ‘Who discovered the body?’

  ‘Two different members of our gym team, and one from the café, found the body in the morning when they opened up. The police have their full statements.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘They can tell me as well. You know about the man they’ve arrested for this?’

  ‘I’m aware they arrested someone. I saw his photo in the paper.’

  ‘And you didn’t recognise him? He wasn’t known to any of the staff?’

  ‘Nope, no one had ever seen him before. I hear he’s in the nut house.’

  ‘That’s my client you’re talking about.’

  Gary cleared his throat and looked away. ‘Sorry,’ he said. ‘But that’s what people said at the time. I don’t know. I just want it forgotten about, you know? Times are hard enough without this still scaring people away.’

  He was right. Times were hard everywhere. Yet, from my observations, he already had more customers in one day than I had in a calendar month, and he probably didn’t even enjoy the benefits of a C
hristmas Club.

  ‘What sort of a discount are you offering if I join?’ I asked.

  ‘If you . . .? Well, it’s normally thirty quid a month. I can offer twenty.’

  ‘Would you do ten?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Fifteen.’

  ‘If you sign up for twenty-four months.’

  ‘Would it not be easier to say two years?’

  ‘Sorry. It’s the way we’re trained.’

  ‘Can I cancel at any time?’

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Ah,’ I said, ‘that’s the deal breaker.’

  He did not look too disappointed. I told him that what I needed now were contact details for his staff who were not currently on the premises and also for his former staff and he said yes, that wouldn’t be a problem, and he got up to get them from his secretary. I sat there for a couple of minutes, but with my head and heart pounding to the ProPlus beat I got up and began to pace the floor, counting, counting, counting, and then when I got bored with that after twenty seconds I began to study Gary’s numerous certificates and awards, and found that he had travelled widely and enjoyed many victories in far-flung places, and I wondered if he was the greatest success to come out of East Belfast since Van or the Titanic.

  My eyes wandered to the paperweight, which I tried lifting but barely could, given the state of my wasting muscles. I set it back where it was but not before I turned it in my hands and found that there was an inscription on the reverse side, in Latin, and it puzzled me, not because I couldn’t read the Latin, because I could, but because of what it said. In fact, I took out my phone, and took a photo of it. I heard Gary come back into the office. Without turning I said, ‘Where exactly did you get this from?’

  When he didn’t respond, I glanced around and saw that he was standing inside the doorway, but not alone. Two of the muscle squad from the weights corner were with him. They did not look friendly.

  ‘I called Detective Inspector Robinson,’ said Gary. ‘He’s never heard of a solicitor by the name of Jim Thompson. He asked me to describe you, so I did. He knew exactly who you were. He says you’re a useless retard who has nothing to do with the investigation into Fat Sam’s murder. You’re a time-waster and a refugee from a mental hospital. He says I should throw you the fuck out.’

  I said, ‘I don’t suppose that discount is still available.’

  He snorted, and sent the muscle boys forward.

  ‘Don’t hurt me,’ I said, ‘I have Brittle Bone Disease.’

  They ignored me.

  It wasn’t exactly Goodfellas. I had grazed knees. There was a hole in my trousers. The palms of my hands were also scratched. Falling on gravel will do that. They didn’t even throw me down, they just gave me a bit of a shove and my dodgy ankles gave way. One of them helped me up. I thanked him.

  I limped into McDonald’s. I hate McDonald’s but I went nevertheless, so that they wouldn’t see me get into the Mystery Machine, which would have given my identity completely away. DI Robinson, as far as I could tell, had not actually told them who I was. He had merely described me as a retard and a refugee from a mental institution.

  I ordered a strawberry milkshake and took a window seat and watched the All Star until the muscle boys disappeared back inside. I opened my wallet and took out an antiseptic wipe and rolled up my trousers and carefully began to clean the grazes on my knees, extracting as much gravel as I could, and grimacing, and wiping the tears from my eyes with the back of my hand. I knew I could never get all of it, and that some was already in my system and that it would make its way to my kidneys or liver or spleen or stomach or brain and kill me. Also, with my haemophilia, I was undoubtedly already bleeding internally. It would go undetected for hours, or possibly days, but it would get me in the end. I was a ticking time bomb. My only hope was that I would survive for long enough to exploit the potentially vital piece of evidence my visit to the health club had uncovered, evidence that would undoubtedly put me on track to solve The Case of the Man in the White Suit.

  11

  Jeff was huffing because I’d left him behind. I told him to grow up. He told me to grow up. I told him to grow up and not be so childish. He told me to grow up and not be so childish. I told him to grow up and not be so childish. It went on for about half an hour. He was refusing to empty boxes, stack shelves, order books or deal with the customer.

  The customer was after ‘anything Scandinavian’ in complete defiance of my current promotion of Irish crime fiction. I rolled off the names of the current best-selling Scandos, including Mankell, Larsson, Nesbo, Hellstrom, Läckberg and Fossum, just to show her my expertise, but then steered her towards the best-kept secret of Nordic crime fiction – Astrid Lindgren and her savage, visceral debut, Pippi Longstocking. I explained that it was like The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time, written from the point of view of a child, but was actually aimed at adults and was really ‘fucked up’. I said it was exceedingly rare and this was the only copy of it I had, and possibly the only one in the UK. And she fell for it all. She was just handing over the money when I cracked and said I was only joking, that it really was a children’s novel I had acquired as an investment for my son, but she didn’t believe me, wrested it from my damaged hands and paid over the odds for it and was away out of the shop clutching it to her flat chest before I could tell her it was in the original Swedish.

  Jeff said, ‘Well done, another customer lost for ever. You are a despicable human being.’

  ‘I never claimed to be human,’ I said.

  Jeff shook his head. ‘If I had another job to go to, I would go.’

  ‘If you had another job to go to, I would be very surprised.’

  He thought about that for a moment. ‘I suppose,’ he said.

  He really was a half-wit. To ease him back into being my willing slave labourer I told him about my visit to the All Star, and what I had learned from Gary, the manager. Then I indicated the screen of my PC and said, ‘Why don’t you come over here and see what I found at the health club? Give me the benefit of your wisdom.’

  He fell for that one too. He moved beside me.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked. I was displaying the photo I had taken in Gary’s office.

  ‘That, my young friend, is a defixio.’

  ‘A . . .?’

  ‘Defixio. It’s Latin. For curse tablet. In Roman times, if you wanted revenge on someone, you made one of these, and you put an inscription on it asking the gods to do harm to your enemy either in this life or the next. Then you would bury it next to where he lived or worked.’

  ‘And the relevance of this is?’

  ‘It was sitting on a shelf in the manager’s office. The inscription, for verily I do know Latin, reads: In the name of Hermes, curse for all eternity the murderer Samuel Mahood.’ I nodded at the screen.

  Jeff said, ‘You’re serious?’

  ‘Always,’ I said.

  ‘That’s what it really says? It’s like something out of a movie. Or Roald Dahl. Tales of the . . .’

  ‘. . . Unexpected – yes.’

  Jeff reached forward and traced the outline of the defixio. ‘And it was just sitting on his shelf?’

  ‘Sitting there minding its own business.’

  ‘And he didn’t know?’

  ‘He knew it was there, obviously. But unless he was being remarkably blasé, he didn’t have a clue what it was or what it said.’

  ‘The number of people who speak Latin in East Belfast must be pretty small.’

  ‘You don’t speak Latin, Jeff. It’s not a conversational language.’

  ‘What do they do in Latin America?’

  ‘Are you making a joke, Jeff?’

  His face remained blank. ‘Obviously,’ he said finally.

  I pointed at the screen. ‘Tell me what you think this does for our case.’

  Jeff raised his hand to his mouth and nibbled on his thumbnail. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘are we presuming it’s not someone just messing arou
nd?’

  ‘We’re presuming nothing.’

  ‘Okay. If it is a joke, it would seem like a lot of trouble to go to, making something like this, having it inscribed in Latin and then putting it on display, and nobody spotting it until you came along.’

  ‘People have been reading Patterson for years and still haven’t gotten the joke. It happens.’

  ‘It’s made of . . .?’

  ‘Lead.’

  ‘Lead, okay. And we don’t know how it came to be in the office?’

  ‘No, but . . .’ I ran my finger around the edges of the image. ‘Here, in the grooves where the lead has been folded, there’s soil, which suggests it was in the ground, which fits with the traditional methodology for laying the curse. The All Star is in the middle of a retail park. There’s no open ground, but there are a number of concrete flower boxes immediately outside the club. I sneezed on the way past them – you know what my allergies are like. The flowers were in bloom, but had not been picked or otherwise vandalised, and the soil wasn’t peppered with cigarette butts – which suggests that it was either turned over fairly recently or replaced. The soil on the edge of the defixio is dark, suggesting recent contact with water and that it hadn’t had time to dry out since it was washed, which could mean that it was only discovered in the past few days.’

  ‘Uhuh,’ said Jeff.

  ‘You’re probably wondering how long it had been there?’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Jeff.

  I clicked on the screen and brought up an article from the Belfast Telegraph about the murder which was accompanied by single column photograph of Fat Sam, and a larger one of the All Star itself.

  ‘Notice anything?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s no oil painting.’ I raised an eyebrow. ‘Uhm, right . . . no.’

  ‘Flower boxes,’ I said. Jeff nodded. I then clicked onto the next article I had saved. It was a copy of an advertising feature from the same newspaper, but dated a month before the murder. ‘Look – more or less the same photo, but see?’

  ‘No flower boxes,’ said Jeff.

  ‘Exactly. They were only put in place in the few weeks between the advertising feature appearing and Fat Sam being murdered, so we at least know that the defixio could have been buried there.’