Perfect Match

by D. B. Thorne

  Solomon had left Kay at his apartment and was now, once again, waiting for a meeting with Inspector Helen Fox, head of an organized-crime task force and utterly indifferent to the matter at hand. But he had a plan for this too, and it was a good one. Or at least he thought it was, though a lot depended on the outcome, especially as one of the outcomes could very well be the injury or even violent death of one Solomon Mullan.

  ‘Would you like to follow me?’

  It was a different uniformed officer this time, but the same route behind the front desk of the police station and down a corridor, up a flight of stairs to Fox’s frosted-glass door. She hadn’t even answered Solomon’s call, Solomon being put through to her voicemail. But what he’d got to offer her was juicy enough that she’d called back within five minutes and made time the next morning, no problem, yes, certainly she could fit him in. What time was he thinking?

  The uniformed officer knocked and Fox called, ‘Come in,’ and there they were, once again, Fox and Solomon, sitting across a desk from one another. Fox smiled, both a rare and not very attractive sight, Solomon couldn’t help but think.

  ‘So,’ she said. ‘You said you could tell me where your brother was.’

  ‘That’s not what I said,’ Solomon replied. ‘No.’

  Fox stopped smiling. ‘You told me you could bring him to me.’

  ‘I said I could give you something you want.’

  ‘And I want your brother.’

  Solomon nodded. He was wearing his eye patch and make-up, and he met Fox’s gaze with no problem, his head erect, assertive. ‘Well, I’m afraid that’s never going to happen.’

  Fox narrowed her eyes. ‘Are you wasting my time again?’

  Solomon ignored the question, said instead, ‘I’m here to do a deal. That’s what I said. Specifically, I told you that I could give you what you wanted.’

  Fox sat back in her chair and eyed him doubtfully. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Have you ever heard the name Thomas Arnold?’

  Fox gave away the smallest tic, a slight twitch at the corner of her mouth, nothing more. Not a bad poker face, Solomon thought. But I saw it.

  ‘Possibly,’ she said.

  ‘He traffics women, amongst other things, and launders a lot of money. Of course, my brother is entirely innocent of anything you might believe he has done, or is involved in. But I’m willing to bet that the illegitimate earnings you have erroneously ascribed to him are significantly less than those of Thomas Arnold.’

  Fox frowned briefly. ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning,’ said Solomon, ‘that Thomas Arnold is a far bigger fish than you believe my brother to be.’

  Fox rubbed an eye with her forefinger. ‘I’m still listening.’

  ‘I can lead you to Arnold with half a million sterling of dirty money in his hands,’ said Solomon.

  Fox stood up and turned to the window, looking out over the car park outside. ‘Really?’ she said, her voice an attempt at disbelief mixed with sarcasm, but excitement a clear undertone.

  ‘Really,’ said Solomon.

  ‘And how will you manage that?’ she said.

  ‘That isn’t a concern of yours.’

  ‘What time frame are we talking?’

  ‘Two days. Three tops.’

  ‘That’s too soon,’ she said, her back still to Solomon.

  He smiled. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘Then we’re done here.’

  ‘Wait.’ Fox turned and tried out another smile, this one more ghastly than the one she’d worn to greet him. ‘Let’s say the timing works. Let’s go with that, see where it takes us.’

  ‘Let’s do that.’

  ‘So the next obvious question is, what do you want? In return for this … what did you say his name was?’

  ‘Please,’ said Solomon. ‘You know who he is.’

  Fox’s smile flickered, rallied, then gave up the ghost. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘I want you and two officers of your choosing to be present when I bring you the man responsible for my sister’s near-drowning, the murder of Rebecca Harrington and several other violent attacks on women.’

  Fox closed her eyes as if Solomon had just delivered bad news she wasn’t willing or able to process. Eventually she said, ‘This again.’

  ‘This again.’

  She sat down, closed her eyes briefly, then opened them and said, ‘You don’t know any Thomas Arnold. You read his name in the press and made this money story up to get me to cooperate with your insane investigation. You are a fantasist, and you need to leave my office, now.’

  Solomon took out his phone and placed it carefully on the desk in front of him. ‘Would you like me to call him?’ he said.

  ‘Thomas Arnold? Yes. Yes, I would love you to,’ Fox said.

  Solomon picked his phone back up and found Arnold’s number. He called it and put it over the phone’s loudspeaker. The two of them listened to the ringing tone, then a man’s voice as he picked up.

  ‘Arnold.’

  Solomon put a warning finger to his mouth, then said, ‘Mr Arnold? It’s Solomon Mullan.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Just a courtesy call to tell you that everything is in place.’

  ‘Better be,’ said Arnold. There was noise his end, the sound of machinery and cars. ‘Listen, not a good time. You’ve only got till tomorrow, remember?’

  ‘I remember.’

  ‘Got to go. I’ll be seeing you.’

  ‘Oh, and Thomas?’

  ‘What you call me?’

  ‘Sorry, Mr Arnold. Same place?’

  ‘Make it the afternoon. Got to go.’

  Arnold hung up and Solomon looked over at Fox. ‘Recognize that voice?’

  Fox nodded, distracted. She thought for some time, then said, ‘And what do you want me to do? When you … How did you put it? Bring me this person.’

  ‘Question him.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘The women.’

  ‘But Mr Mullan,’ Fox said, leaning forward across the desk towards Solomon, ‘I don’t buy your theory. Remember?’

  ‘Just ask him for his name. Ask him for his name, and then ask my companion what name he gave her. They won’t match.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So watch him. Watch his reaction. You’re a police officer. I was under the impression you had some kind of second sense for when things aren’t right.’

  ‘So all you want me to do is question him.’

  ‘Well,’ said Solomon, ‘it would constitute a start, wouldn’t it?’

  Fox narrowed her eyes at this, then sat back and watched Solomon, thinking. Eventually she said, ‘Arnold first. Then I help you.’

  ‘Hold on,’ said Solomon. He dialled his own number, waited for the call to go through to voicemail, then said, ‘I’ll need you to guarantee your help.’

  Fox took a breath, then said, clearly, ‘I promise that I will supply myself and two officers.’

  ‘At a place and time of my choosing,’ said Solomon.

  ‘At a place and time of your choosing.’

  ‘In return for my help apprehending Thomas Arnold.’

  ‘Really?’ said Fox, then sighed. ‘In return for your help getting hold of Thomas Arnold. Good enough?’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Solomon, ending the call. ‘That’s good enough.’ He stood up and put his phone away in his pocket. ‘I’ll be in touch. You’ll need to be ready to move.’

  ‘I’ll be ready.’ Solomon turned to leave, but Fox said, ‘Mr Mullan?’

  Be careful, he thought. This is where she gets an attack of guilt and conscience and tells me to be careful because I am going after a violent criminal on her behalf.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Don’t balls this up. Understand?’

  He left Fox’s office and took the stairs to the ground floor with a smile on his face. Clever he might be, but he’d seriously overestimated her on that one.

  Kay was gone when Solomon got back to his apartment, a note on his coffee tabl
e thanking him for the Scotch and the use of his bed, and signed off with Solomon & Kay, Private Investigators. Solomon sat in his living room and read it over and over, stopping each time at the sign-off. Private investigators, yes, but with no experience and a plan that had so many unknowns in it that it barely counted as a plan at all, more an optimistic series of desirable-though-unlikely outcomes. And he was putting Kay right in the centre of it.

  But then, he had Fox signed up and ready. The risk was minimal, or at least it was contained. Kay would never be alone. The real risk, he couldn’t help but think, was with Arnold.

  Solomon got up and walked to his bathroom and removed the panel along the bath. Inside was a plastic bag. He pulled it out and counted out £35,000. He’d need that. That was part of the plan. No criminal, he figured, was likely to turn down the offer of extra money. Free, easy, clean-as-a-whistle money, and one hell of a lot of it, too. He went back to the living room and lay back and closed his eyes. He hadn’t got a lot of sleep the night before, with Kay in his bed, her presence in his apartment like a tantalizing promise that could never be realized. He should sleep. He needed to be on his game tomorrow, even though he still wasn’t precisely sure what the game was, what the rules were, or how it should be played.

  thirty-two

  ‘I MEAN, SERIOUSLY. OKAY, SO IT’S NOT ACTUALLY ME, IT’S somebody called Julia who we made up, I get that, but still. Pizza Hut? I said I like cultural stuff, not … not stuffed crusts, for God’s sake.’

  ‘No,’ said Solomon, his webcam on so that Kay could see his face, read his expression.

  ‘Stop smiling,’ she said.

  ‘Sorry. Any more?’

  ‘Any more? Well done, Solomon I’m-a-genius Mullan, for hacking the API so well that I’m being courted by, currently, seven hundred and sixty-three not particularly eligible bachelors.’

  ‘It worked, then.’

  ‘It did. Yes, it certainly worked. I started off actually answering them, you know, getting into a conversation with them, to see if they were our nutter rather than just, you know, A. N. Other nutter. But there’s no way, I can’t reply to them all.’

  This was a problem. Kay was inundated with date offers from men and couldn’t keep up with the demand. And if she wasn’t replying to them all, drawing them out in conversation, there was a chance they’d miss their target. They would discover him in a turn of phrase, wording that seemed off, clumsy, anachronistic.

  ‘Here’s another. I’ll buy you dinner if you buy us breakfast. This is the world we live in. It’s actually not funny.’

  ‘I’m out of the loop on all this,’ said Solomon. ‘I’ve not been dating.’

  ‘I was kind of aware of that. Sorry, too blunt. Meant to be funny. Hey, here’s another one. Do you look as good in real life as your profile picture, or is it one of those over-flattering ones?’

  ‘Wow,’ said Solomon. ‘That is pretty precise. And direct.’

  ‘Direct it is.’

  ‘Did you reply?’

  ‘Yep. I said yes, it was taken before the head-on collision.’ Kay stopped and put her hand over her mouth and closed her eyes. ‘Oh God, Solomon.’

  Solomon laughed. ‘At least you didn’t say acid attack.’

  ‘I’m such an idiot. Oh God. Idiot.’

  ‘It’s okay. Got any more?’

  ‘Hmmm? Only about seven hundred. Someone told me that they love me. Just that. I love you. On the basis of what? This world.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Solomon. ‘Listen, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you later.’

  ‘Yeah, later. If I’m still here. I might have run off with any one of countless available men.’

  ‘Good luck with that,’ said Solomon.

  ‘Bye.’

  He disconnected and sat smiling for some moments, before remembering what it was he needed to be doing. He found a backpack and stuffed the £35,000 into it, then put on his Ray-Bans and pulled his hood up. Time to go and swindle Thomas Arnold.

  *

  On the way, he stopped off at the hospital, where Tiffany lay asleep, peaceful, a half-smile on her lips. Solomon watched the fragile rise and fall of her chest underneath the thin hospital blanket, examined the delicate bones and veins of her face. He sat there for a long time, enjoying a calm that he did not want to leave. But he had to, and eventually he stood up and kissed his sister softly on the forehead and walked slowly and reluctantly away.

  Outside the arch of Thomas Arnold’s car wash a man was parked, half on the kerb, half on the road. The car was a white Mercedes and the driver got out as Solomon approached. He was dark-skinned and wearing Ray-Bans like Solomon’s but also a tight black T-shirt that showed off large biceps. One of the workers at the car wash came out, a short man in his fifties in overalls and rubber boots. He said something to the man that Solomon couldn’t make out, and gestured with his arms.

  ‘I ain’t going anywhere,’ the man said. He seemed angry.

  ‘But you can’t park here,’ the worker said.

  ‘You seen this?’ the man said. ‘Fucking scratched my paintwork when you washed it.’

  The worker looked at the man’s car. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That isn’t a new scratch.’

  ‘Calling me a liar?’

  ‘No, but—’

  The Mercedes driver cuffed the car-wash worker with an open hand to the side of the head. ‘So what are you gonna do about it?’

  ‘I’m telling you,’ the worker said. ‘We did not make that scratch. How could we? We don’t use sharp items to wash the cars.’

  The Mercedes driver raised his hand again and the other man cowered away into the railway arch. As he backed into it, Thomas Arnold came out and hit the Mercedes driver on the head with a long piece of metal, it might have been a wheel-nut wrench. The driver staggered briefly and Arnold dropped the metal bar and hit him with his fist, knocking him to the pavement, then kicked him repeatedly. Passers-by stopped and watched, a woman putting her hands over her young child’s eyes.

  ‘Fucking get into your car and fucking fuck off,’ said Arnold, his words synchronized to his kicks. He stopped and looked down at the still form of the man, then spat on him, before turning and walking back into the arch.

  The onlookers stood in shocked stillness, the Mercedes driver lifting himself up onto all fours, shaking his head like a stunned slaughterhouse beast. Solomon watched the scene with dismay. This was the man he was about to deal with, a man who used violence in a way that seemed casual, trivial. He could feel his resolve ebbing, dwindling like sand through a cupped hand. He had his plan, or what passed for one. But did he have the courage to see it through?

  Arnold didn’t seem to be perturbed by what had just happened, didn’t even seem to be breathing heavily, which, given his bulk, was remarkable. He was wearing a purple tracksuit and standing behind his desk, and he looked at Solomon waiting in his doorway and said, ‘Huh.’

  Solomon didn’t know if that was an invitation to come in or not, but he walked in anyway, given confidence by what he was holding in his bag.

  ‘Unbelievable,’ Arnold said. ‘These people, they try and get away with anything, I’m telling you.’

  Solomon half expected him to add, ‘It’s criminal,’ but Arnold didn’t; instead he sat down and said, ‘You going to keep those sunglasses on?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Solomon, taking the chair across the desk from him.

  ‘Huh,’ Arnold said again, an inexpressive sound that might have conveyed surprise or, equally, indifference. ‘So. You got my money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Okay, so.’ He pointed a hand at his desk and smiled, the skin crinkling around his empty eye socket. ‘Put it there.’

  Solomon lifted his bag and unzipped it and pulled out the money, piled it on the desk. Arnold watched him without speaking and when he’d finished said, ‘That’s not twenty thousand.’

  ‘It’s thirty-five.’

  Arnold nodded as if he understood, which he didn’t. ‘So I’ve got thirty-fiv
e grand,’ he said. ‘Okay, where did it come from?’

  ‘You invested it wisely,’ said Solomon. ‘I can forward you the paperwork.’

  Arnold nodded again, this time Solomon was sure in complete bafflement. ‘You what?’

  ‘It’s how it works,’ said Solomon. ‘I take the money, send it overseas, it comes back into the system and I invest it.’ He paused, wondering how much detail to give, how much nonsense he could get away with. ‘It’s called structuring,’ he said. ‘It’s what I do.’

  ‘So, what, in seven days I make fifteen grand?’

  ‘You did this time,’ said Solomon. ‘Your investments can go up or down, depending on the market.’

  ‘How often do your investments go down?’

  ‘Never,’ said Solomon. ‘Not yet, anyway. But like I say—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I get it,’ said Arnold. He nodded to himself and leant back in his chair, watching the pile of money as if it was a dead animal that might suddenly come back to life and scuttle away. He closed his good eye and remained still for a long time, so long that Solomon wondered whether he’d gone to sleep. Then he abruptly sat forward and said, ‘How much can you take?’

  ‘Sorry?’ said Solomon.

  ‘Can you deal with? Money? How much can you deal with?’

  ‘Mr Arnold, I’ve returned your money. As far as I’m concerned, our business is concluded.’

  ‘Concluded? You mean finished, innit?’

  ‘That’s what I mean, yes.’ Play hard to get, Solomon thought, wishing he felt more in control than he did.

  ‘See, the thing is, I didn’t say it was fucking concluded, did I? So it isn’t. Understand?’ Arnold licked his lips, his tongue fat and wet.

  Solomon didn’t reply, just watched him through his Ray-Bans and tried to hold his nerve. This was one of those unfathomable human-interaction-type variable situations he found it impossible to predict.