Four British Mysteries

by Thomas Brown

  “With her phone.” Paddy patted his coat’s inner pocket. The unflattering sun on him once again. “She’d deleted everything on it, damn her. By the way, your threat to her like that wasn’t very helpful.”

  “Mr Markham’ll decide what’s helpful and what isn’t,” said Llyr.

  “He can get stuffed.”

  Llyr grinned. This was going well. Time therefore for more straight talking.

  “Wait till he finds out what you and The Ginger did. You got a death wish?”

  “If you’d not messed up on the M4 on Saturday night, I wouldn’t have had to babysit for the rest of the bloody weekend. And bloody it’s been, too.”

  Llyr looked at him. “What d’you mean?”

  “Wimmin’s problems. Fibroids, whatever. Damn nuisance. Slowed us down good and proper. She’d never mentioned it before. So no good blaming me.”

  “I never said a thing.”

  “Anyway, not everyone’s fussy in the servicing department. Look at Margiad. Didn’t stop her. That’s what I’ll say in my defence when the grilling starts,” said Flynn.

  That Welsh name took Llyr by surprise. Well, almost.

  “Who’s she?”

  “Damn.”

  Llyr studied that pock-marked face. Holmwood had been full of fuck ups like him. He should know.

  “A local pro with the same medical issues, but who knew the ropes. Knew when to open her legs and the rest. Get my meaning? A hard act to follow, but I seriously thought Miss Ginger could be licked into shape. That’s all,” said Flynn.

  Licked into shape.

  Llyr himself had done enough of that in his time for no purpose. Paddy was rabbiting on again. Digging his own grave. Every word a shovelful of earth.

  “Whenever the camera showed her undressing or in the shower, I’d thought, yes. You’ll do very nicely. Trouble is, I never bargained for that Robbins twat answering my advert. Fancying her. Protecting her.”

  “You should’ve got rid of her straight off. Mr Markham and Geoffrey Powell wanted me to choose the new talent. Not you. The Swansea Club’s was a much better idea than The Lady, for God’s sake. Cardiff and Newport as well. I’d even have gone sniffing round the Rhondda if I’d had to.”

  Margiad’s name had just uncoiled like a dark spring in the back of Llyr’s mind.

  “And talking of mistakes, remember Abergwesyn?” The Irishman gloated before suddenly stopping at traffic lights. “Let’s see what happens there, eh?”

  “Below the belt, that.”

  “Just up your street, then,” said Flynn.

  Llyr noticed a fly struggling inside the heating vent, pulled it free and let it go. Time was when he’d have watched it suffer. Picked off its wings. And here he was, like a kid again, metal-detecting for approval. Even from someone he despised.

  “When you referred to me as ‘a leech. A sly leech’ at Charlie’s flat, did you mean it?” Llyr asked.

  Paddy lost concentration. Swerved into the kerb and out again. He’d not known about the bugs placed in each room. Nevertheless, in his usual cunning way, played along. “Course. Honesty’s my middle name.”

  Llyr restrained himself from rearranging those unusual teeth, waiting for the big question. Up it came. Paddy coughed. No phlegm. Another tease, like the rest of him. “So what are your plans should Heron House fall into your lap?”

  Talk the talk, boyo. I can lie too, you know…

  “Going with the flow, of course. Once our boss has sorted any planning permissions and the refurbishments are done, we could be up and running by the summer. You’ll see. Long live The Order!” He patted Flynn’s nearest bony knee. Nothing too familiar, mind. He’d had enough of that. Getting the old queen in Sandhurst Mansion to play ball in the hope he’d leave everything to him in his will.

  “Wednesday’s post-mortem had better find you squeaky clean, then,” Flynn said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? You been squealing that I strung him up?”

  “Never. You know me.”

  ***

  As the Volvo turned into familiar territory, Llyr felt his stomach drop as it always did when remembering being alone in Heron House’s cellar with the one he’d thought was his da. Why afterwards, he’d gone out and shot the herons one by one, so the pervert would get the blame. But did anyone listen to this cry for help? He was the invisible kid. Kept in the dark in more ways than one, wondering why he looked so different from his molester. The man with the besom. The bully’s hands and the rest.

  He pulled out his cheap Nokia – his tenth so far – and found Michael Markham’s number.

  Langland Road was exactly as Llyr’d remembered from his first recruitment visit two years ago, except now, unlike those chestnut trees he’d poisoned in Rhandirmwyn, the ones lining the road were beginning to bud. The boss would be ready and waiting. Best to warn him they were close. Ease in gradually.

  “Just need reminding of the last leg, sir,” said Llyr. “We’re almost there.”

  “Count six white art deco houses with dark green railings to your left,” said the posh voice after a sly chuckle. “Continue past the Trattoria and park well down St. Mary’s Road. And I mean, well down.”

  Llyr lowered his voice. “Sir, I got the company you asked for.”

  “I’ve heard him. Whose car?”

  “His. He’s driving.”

  “Avoiding cameras I hope or the plate’ll end up on the Met’s recognition database. What we don’t need. And remember, back door, if you don’t mind. You cleaned up?”

  “Yes, sir,” Llyr lied. Markham would have to take him as he found him. Last night in Boyd’s B&B had done him no favours. Camp beds for a start. One basin, one towel and stained bog between the three of them.

  “And I’m sorry about your dad, sir,” he added at the end.

  An unappreciative silence.

  Call ended.

  Llyr checked his phone’s inbox and with one click, dead lover boy’s sweet, useless nothings were deleted for good.

  ***

  Llyr, with the calculator bug safe in his duffle coat pocket, set off round the corner rehearsing his spiel, keeping an eye out for every kind of camera and other prying eyes. Although the blood on his cuts had dried, he’d botched washing his jeans and each leg still weighed a wet ton. Michael Markham wouldn’t be best pleased. But all wasn’t lost. Not yet.

  “I’ll do the talking,” said the keen Irishman, catching up. “After all, I was first to get news of the will.”

  But he’d not had the call about Charlie.

  ***

  Kitted out in a beige Pringle sweater and brown corduroy slacks, the tall, middle-aged paymaster, complete with a black armband and matching tie, bearing The Order’s symbol of a discreet black cross, was already by his back door. Straightaway his eyes alighted on Paddy’s index finger and its fresh plaster, then Llyr. All his efforts in that choking boudoir, the Bentley’s back seat, his own sofa bed and wherever else, had been in vain. The Order had invested in Llyr big time. His room in Beulah, the Euston studio, the van, not to mention travelling expenses… Would he now have to pay it all back?

  You twat, Charlie. Flynn, too.

  “All I can say,” began Markham in a fake reasonable voice that made Llyr’s gut go walkabout, “it’s a good job Miss Griffiths has no kin lurking amongst the sheep droppings, and that Geoffrey Powell helped acquire your original birth certificate from the old queen’s solicitor. Could have well and truly scuppered our future plans otherwise.” He gestured to Llyr to come nearer. “You obviously didn’t pleasure your half-brother hard enough or enterprisingly enough. How else can this unexpected result be explained? Three out of ten for that. Nil for your appearance, except,” his cool hand followed Llyr’s shaved jaw line, “you’re much better smooth.”

  The words half-brother had made Llyr’s throat fill up. He gripped the door frame to steady himself.

  “Mind you,” his boss went on, “if he’d realised your true identity, he’d never have let yo
u through the door and into his bed.”

  “I never was a bummer, OK?” Llyr protested, “I’m straight.”

  He recalled their first clinch after a meal at a French restaurant. Then the rest… “And you try taking the size of him. A wonder I didn’t need stitches and new tonsils. Sir, you really should’ve picked someone else to do your dirty work.”

  Paddy was clearly still enjoying himself.

  “Ah, but who else possessed such a beautiful body?” Markham’s new acrylic teeth were too big for his mouth. “Such skill?” He bent closer to the jeans, sniffed then straightened up. “But you still stink to high Heaven. Who cut you?”

  Llyr also noticed how stray grains of muesli had lodged in the man’s trimmed beard.

  “Anyone we should deal with?”

  “Some ape after his crack,” Paddy said, trying to sound cool. “Llyr’s done well to get here. Fair play, as they say in Wales.”

  “I wasn’t expecting a fan club, and I’m not taking your coats. Get in.” Their host indicated a gloomy passageway lined with a range of expensive outdoor gear, leading into the less showy end of the house. “Even wisteria can’t be trusted.”

  Just as in January for the New Year’s planning meeting, an impressive array of golf bags and gleaming golf clubs stood at the ready. Llyr had never been tempted to pick one up. Shaved grass, like shaved balls, wasn’t his scene. As for where Markham played, he thought it was somewhere near South Norwood. An overcrowded cesspit like the rest of London.

  They were ushered into the oppressively beamed lounge whose subdued lighting reminded Llyr of the Pullman Club. Through the open door to the adjoining study, he spotted not only the man’s Black Knights Templar gauntlets and triangular apron hanging up, but also his pc’s screen’s tracking map. A shivering blur. Rhandirmwyn was rubbish in that department with too many trees and everything. Not his fault. He’d done his best. So go easy, he told himself. He was a Pitt-Rose now and, with a decent lawyer and that original birth certificate safe in his, not Markham’s, hands, he wouldn’t ever have to come here again. Nor endure any more of Geoffrey Powell’s unwelcome attentions.

  For the first time, Llyr felt a shred of gratitude to his sexed-up old mother.

  His boss meanwhile, had switched on a gigantic flat screen TV where news of more bombings in Iraq came rolling in on the dust. Where the silent, treacherous Paddy was suddenly too close behind him. “How about a picture show?” Flynn suggested, way too confidently. “See if our Mr Robbins is behaving himself at last?”

  “Take a pew both,” said their host, ignoring Flynn, opening out the Financial Times and laying it down in a very obvious way on one of the black leather settees. Their seats dimpled by frequent use. “For you, Taffy,” he said to Llyr. “Expensive leather needs protecting while we discuss your recent cock-ups – excuse the pun. I mean disastrous errors.”

  “Him and all, remember?” Llyr pointed to Paddy who cast him a Method School stare of pure hate.

  “Yes. Him and all.”

  Paddy sat clicking his finger bones one by one, like he’d done at the B&B. Lank, uncombed hair all over the place. Markham stayed standing too close; those corduroy legs like two brown pillars ending in a scowl. No offer of a coffee or beer, mind. Not even a glass of frigging tap water. “Mistake number one,” he focussed on Llyr. “Instead of contacting us for help, you abandoned our van on the M4. What a gift for the filth that was. We’ll be pushed to keep them off your tail now. You realise that? Especially as you were foolishly uninsured, untaxed.”

  Paddy nodded.

  “We agreed you keep Miss Ginger with you at all costs and bring her here first thing yesterday.”

  “Why did Paddy choose skirt with such a gob on her in the first place?” Llyr retaliated while Markham made for his study. “I wouldn’t have.”

  The Irishman flicked up a finger. An indecent gesture.

  “Where’s she now?” the golfer addressed him on his way back into the lounge. “You never said, and my tracker’s just lost her signal.”

  Paddy’s eyebrows shifted upwards as he turned on Llyr. “Is that what you did while she was asleep? Why wasn’t I told? Just like I had to discover by accident that the queer was dead…”

  Markham cut him out.

  “What exactly happened at Boyd’s B&B?”

  “He let her go, didn’t he, sir?” Llyr said, seeing Paddy wince. “First thing this morning. Taking a leak he was, while I was still out of it. Couldn’t keep up with her, could he? Too much whisky in his veins.”

  Markham came closer to the Irishman. His flecked eyes like an owl’s before the strike. “Not only that, you’ve been taking her to all the wrong places, too. Tut, tut, Paddy. So what’s to be done with you?”

  Flynn was turning a promising shade of green.

  “We don’t do business unilaterally. What did you feed Jobiah?”

  “Nothing.”

  “You were a traitor to even step through Tolpuddle Street’s portals.”

  The Irishman shook his head as if in disbelief. “You used a tracker on me? That’s a pretty cheap stunt.”

  “And an audio recorder. You can’t blame us.” Markham had had enough of him. Clear as day. “Were your prints taken? Your DNA? We can soon find out.”

  “As if. Anyway, it was her fault. She dragged me in to report about him over there for picking her up Saturday night. Was I supposed to chuck her in the Thames? You wanted her here. I had to keep her on board.”

  Nul points.

  “And the chicken-choker’s flat? Anything useful for us?”

  “Her idea again, not mine.”

  “Very risky. Her phone please.” Markham held out his hand. “And your memory sticks.”

  Paddy faltered, which wasn’t like him.

  “Forgot, didn’t I? Too much on.”

  Markham laughed. The suddenness of it made Llyr blink. “Move. I’ve a tournament to get to, plus funeral arrangements to finalise. At least my pa didn’t want any fuss. Cleaned up after himself too, if you get my meaning. Thoroughly I might add, unlike some not so very far away.” Again, he glowered down at Paddy. “I hope you deleted his rash and ridiculous final email?”

  “Course I did.”

  “When?”

  Paddy was squirming. Llyr remembered flies and butterflies in their death throes at the sharp end of his mam’s dressmaking pins.

  “Soon as I got it.”

  “I said, when?”

  “I’m thinking.”

  The lounge’s stale air seemed to suddenly cool. This wasn’t going well.

  “While you’re thinking, we’d also like the keys Mrs Pachela so kindly sold you.”

  Paddy quickly emptied his coat pocket and when the Pullman Club card accidentally fell out onto the leather, the golfer was on it. Trouble was, the man couldn’t stop yapping. “Dee Salomon thought Charles was frightened,” he continued ploughing his own dangerous furrow. “And should his post-mortem suggest suicide, she’d elaborate.”

  Markham pocketed the card.

  “Also that any secret Inquest would be deeply worrying.”

  Llyr saw the look on the golfer’s face. Knew he’d wanted to be Charles Pitt-Rose’s killer all along, hoisting the major obstacle to its death from the Bentley’s newly-valeted bonnet. It was only while turned towards Paddy to hint at him to belt up, that he noticed a certain picture hanging on the less well-lit wall behind him. Had it come all the way from Heron House or was it another reproduction? Whatever. Seeing that weird upside-down crucifixion had always scared him shitless. It still did, because this wasn’t only a biblical scene, but also an instructional manual.

  ***

  Markham, meanwhile, was still dealing with Paddy. “For someone entrusted to set up new operations for us, you’ve caused too many problems. I won’t waste time spelling them out except the word ‘treason’ – and I don’t use that lightly – again comes to mind.”

  The Irishman’s green complexion had turned to white. “Jesus and Mary h
elp me.”

  “They won’t.”

  He tried to stand, but Markham pinned him down. Llyr wondered who’d have to sort it if Paddy dropped his gut.

  “I’ve done my best,” Flynn whined.

  “With freckles? White eyelashes and gynae problems?”

  Llyr let out a nervous laugh. He couldn’t help it.

  “And your other success story?” The golfer settled himself in the adjoining seat. Thighs touching. “Did you check with us first before littering the place with also-rans? Nosy also-rans at that?”

  His target was now the colour of herons’ blood. Pinkly pale especially around the gills, while the grandfather clock in the darkest, furthest corner suddenly chimed eight-thirty, making Llyr jump out of his skin.

  “What was I supposed to do while that pair of crusts were trying to kill me? Remember you had to get the old Doc up there and pay him to keep quiet after the Warfarin incident? I should have gone straight to A&E, but that was the last thing you lot wanted,” Flynn sniffed. “I’ve not been right since. Still get the nosebleeds. See what I mean?”

  “I most certainly do. But that’s because you’d poked the old bird too often.”

  Llyr pressed a hand over his own mouth. Knowing was one thing. Hearing about it like this, another. From his trouser pocket Michael Markham whipped out an immaculate white handkerchief bordered by small, black crosses, and passed it over. He then picked up the remote that worked the smaller screen below the TV. The grainy snowstorm effect faded to reveal instead a scene that made Llyr’s eyes pop, and Paddy to gasp...

  “What we’ve been waiting for,” smiled the golfer, sharpening the focus to where a veiny old hand was working someone’s cock into life against the backdrop of a double bed’s padded headboard. The riding crop’s tapered end was busy too. “You and Gwenno no less, Mr Flynn. Only last week. Clearly having too much fun. Just like Mr Robbins in the kitchen while you were away. But not for long. Only a few seconds unfortunately, till the film ran out.”

  Mr Flynn, now. Definitely not good news…

  “It’s against the law to have CCTV without everyone’s permission,” said Paddy.