by Joe McNally
86
At ten minutes to seven I closed my eyes and tried to still the nervous anticipation by listening to each tick of the clock and counting down the final six hundred seconds.
Our visitors were three minutes’ late. The door opened. My hearing seemed ultra acute. Mave got up, ‘Hello, Prim. Bruno. What a nice surprise!’
The ‘mwah’ of cheek kisses.
‘No change?’ Prim said.
‘None. But we’re trying to stay optimistic. Let me get you a chair.’
Bruno: ‘I will get them.’
Prim: ‘Bruno was saying that Monty sends his best regards. He has a nasty infection at the moment and thought it best to stay away until it clears.’
Mave: ‘That’s considerate of him. Please give him our love, Bruno.’
Chair legs scraping into position. I sense Bruno close by…smell his deodorant.
Mave: ‘Will Dil and Vita be coming this evening?’
Prim: ‘I’m afraid not. We’ll be the only visitors.’
Mave laughed: ‘Well, you never know that for sure! You don’t know who’ll drop by.’
Prim: ‘I wish Eddie could hear me, Mave. I’d want him so much to know that this is nothing personal. I want you to know that, too.’
Mave: ‘What? What’s not personal?’
Prim: ‘Bruno has brought something with him.’
A sharp intake of breath from Mave, then she said, ‘Valentino.’
Bruno: ‘What?’
Mave: ‘There’s a police officer standing right behind you with a gun aimed at your head. There are two more armed officers outside the door and two on either side of the outside wall by the window.’
MacCready: ‘Mister Guta, stay seated. Raise your left hand, then bend forward very slowly holding the gun in front of you, and place it on the floor.’
I opened my eyes and looked at Bruno, ‘Best do it, Bruno. Ember’s finished. He’s already in custody. You can have a few years in jail, or the sergeant can shoot you in the head. Second one is an awful price to pay for someone else’s crimes.’
At noon next day, we settled in what felt like a TV studio at Merseyside Police HQ. Mave, Prim, Mac, Vita and Dil sat with me at a table. We watched a fifty-inch TV screen which showed the interview room, in which another large TV screen was fixed to the wall. At the centre of the room was a modern table with six chairs on either side. At the rear edge of the table, was a PC screen, keyboard and mouse.
We waited in silence. A technician came and went a couple of times. He said, ‘It shouldn’t be long. The chief constable has arranged lunch upstairs afterwards.’
At seven minutes past noon, we watched the screen as Bradley entered, followed by two men wearing suits: one dark haired, one almost bald. Two women came in and closed the door behind them. One of the women wore a grey skirt and jacket and a white blouse. The other wore a black trouser-suit and white blouse. Bradley gestured toward the table, ‘Please sit down.’
The audio coming through to our room was as crisp and luxuriant as that in a cinema.
Mac said, ‘Ember is the one with the dark hair.’
Vita said, ‘Piggy-eyed, isn’t he?’
Nobody responded. We watched them settle and adjust chairs. Bradley stood by the wall, behind the women and facing the two men. The woman in the skirt said, ‘Ready?’
The bald man: ‘When you are.’
She picked up the keyboard, typed something then clicked the mouse. The PC screen lit up. The woman set aside the mouse and said: ‘Commencement of interview with Sydney Aloysius Ember. Also present: Detective Sergeants Collinson and Peters, Drummond Davis, solicitor for Mister Ember, and Chief Constable Eric Bradley. This interview is being simultaneously recorded on video.’ She turned to the other woman, ‘Detective Sergeant Collinson?’
Collinson edged her chair forward and put her elbows on the table, ‘Mister Ember, yesterday you were arrested and charged with the attempted murder of Mister Edward Malloy and Miss Maven Judge, also known as Jolene Byrne.’
Everyone in our room turned to look at Mave. She smiled and kept watching the screen.
Collinson said, ‘Mister Ember, where were you yesterday between eleven a.m. and one p.m.?’
Ember: ‘I was at home.’
Collinson: ‘Alone?’
Ember: ‘Sir Monty Bearak and his assistant, Mister Guta called on me to discuss a project.’
Collinson: ‘What kind of project?’
Ember: ‘Sir Monty has a business which lends money to professionals. We know each other from occasional meetings on the racecourse. Sir Monty knows that my income as a professional gambler is such that I am cash rich. Sir Monty proposed that I might want to invest some of that cash in his business.’
Collinson: ‘Sir Monty’s account of your meeting differs substantially from your account.’
Ember: ‘In what way?’
Collinson: ‘Sir Monty says that he visited to discuss how best to deal with the problem that arose when Mister Malloy and Miss Judge discovered that for the past thirty-one years you have coerced and threatened Sir Monty into helping disguise the criminal source of your income.’
Ember smiled and turned to his solicitor. He smiled too. Ember looked at Collinson, then at Bradley and pointed to him, ‘Chief Constable Bradley has been harassing me for what seems the major part of his so-called professional career about my income. The fact that he has plotted with Bearak to concoct such a preposterous lie, such an utterly ridiculous scenario, should be enough to see him relieved of his position. I intend to pursue that end through the courts. I’ve suffered many years under suspicion, which, by the way, is probably driven by jealousy at my success as a professional gambler.’
Collinson: ‘Why would Sir Monty Bearak concoct such a “scenario”, as you put it?‘
Ember: ‘I think my words were “ridiculous scenario”.’
Collinson: ‘At nineteen-oh-seven yesterday, Mister Bruno Guta was in room six of the high dependency unit at the Regina Hospital in Carlisle, when he produced a firearm which he intended to use in the murder of Edward Malloy and Maven Judge. Bruno Guta is an associate of yours, and you ordered him to carry out those murders.’
Ember laughed, then he turned to his solicitor and said, ‘I’m laughing, but this is getting beyond laughable.’
The solicitor turned to Bradley, ‘Other than these reported false allegations outlined by your colleague, why are we here Chief Constable Bradley? We both know you have no evidence whatsoever to support this outrageous charge.’
Bradley stood, hands behind his back, feet apart. His right hand came into view and he raised it. He was holding something black and seemed to be pointing it at Ember, who ducked and raised an arm as though to protect his face. Bradley said, ‘What’s wrong, Mister Ember?’
Ember slowly straightened and lowered his arm, ‘What’s that?’ he asked.
‘A remote control for the television, Mister Ember. The big one, up there, on the wall.’ He clicked the remote and nodded toward us, toward the camera. Everyone in the interview room turned to the TV. There was an edit countdown in large numbers, 4, 3, 2, 1…
Ember’s face took up the whole screen, scowling, looking straight at the camera, ‘What the fuck is going on?’
Monty’s voice: ‘Trouble. Big trouble.’
Ember, backing off a couple of steps and gesturing, ‘Sit down.’ Ember turned to his right, ‘You too.’
The camera swings, showing Bruno Guta dressed in an oversized judo outfit. Camera turns again to Ember as he walks toward a high-backed chair, and turns, sits, then crosses his legs and his arms. He wears dark green chinos and a pale blue shirt, open-necked. His shoes are brown loafers.
The camera goes down and close, showing white judo pants as Monty crosses his legs. We see the slipper on his right foot. Camera comes up again and fixes on Ember. He says, ‘Okay. From the start. Every detail.’
Monty’s voice: ‘It would have been so much easier if you had allowed Bruno to bring t
he laptop and play the recordings.’
Ember: ‘Just tell me what she said.’
For the next ten minutes, Monty talks, occasionally confirming or checking facts with Bruno. It’s a condensed version of Prim’s proposal and the recordings made by me and Mave. Monty finishes by saying, ‘What do we do?’
Camera shows Ember getting up, putting his hands in his pockets . . .
Then Ember stood up in the interview room and shouted at Bradley, ‘Turn it off!’
Bradley said, ‘Sit down.’
Ember’s lawyer was pale faced, looking up at his client. Bradley said, ‘Mister Davis requested evidence. Sit down. Watch the evidence.’
Slowly, Ember sat down, but he did not look at the screen. He stared at the table.
Back to the TV screen. Ember is in full shot, head to toe. He speaks: ‘Well, it’s all happening, eh? I thought we were doing the smart thing staying away from what Boffo was involved in. Maybe we should have taken a bit more of an interest…Frustrating when these amateurs become persistent. You understand now what I was talking about with Searcey? When these types start blundering around, it needs nipping in the bud. Properly, because they very seldom learn from warnings. They have a romantic view of life. Especially journalists. That’s why they get into the trade. Woodward and Bernstein have a lot to answer for. They’ve probably caused more collective misery to generations of silly boys than they ever did to Richard fucking Nixon, whose middle name was Milhous, but I’m sure he will posthumously forgive me and understand my frustration with the press.’
He turns to look at Bruno: ‘I owe you an apology. I should have left Searcey to you instead of indulging Monty in his movie script fantasy.’
Monty: ‘It wasn’t a fantasy. It was a decision to try and salvage some degree of humanity and decency from the disaster.’
Ember: ‘What disaster?’
Monty: ‘My life. My unfortunate association with you.’
Ember’s head goes back. We see his dark nostrils as he looks to the ceiling. His face tilts toward us, looking straight to camera: ‘Oh, here we go, another swim in the swamp of self pity. If anyone’s entitled to feel sorry for himself here, it’s me, don’t you think? I indulged you. With Searcey five years’ ago. Again this year. Then with his crazy daughter, who thought she was the queen of Deadwood when she would not have lasted two minutes without me agreeing to your increasingly bizarre requests.’
Monty: ‘She’s a child.’
Ember: ‘She’s deluded to the point of madness and everything I’ve let her off with has fed that delusion. And the least you can do now, Monty, the very least, is a simple acknowledgement that I was right and you were wrong.’
Monty: ‘Things just didn’t work out the way I’d hoped.’
Ember: ‘As exclusively forecast by me, though even I didn’t think the upshot would be the mother and father of a mess you’ve just told me about.’ He turns to Bruno, ‘Any word on Malloy?’
Bruno: ‘Nothing new.’
Ember: ‘His girlfriend still with him?’
Bruno: ‘Hasn’t left the building since she went in.’
Ember: ‘Visitors?’
Bruno: ‘Grant, McCarthy, Miss Brodie and Miss Romanic.’
Ember: ‘None of his jockey mates?’
Bruno: ‘A couple have called the switchboard and left goodwill messages.’
Ember: ‘Not the most popular guy in the sport, then?’
Monty: ‘Eddie’s well liked. His friends from the weighing room wouldn’t sit with a man in a coma. He’ll get visitors when he wakes.’
Ember turned to him: ‘The visitors he gets when he wakes will be cops unless we do a deal with this gypsy woman.’
Monty: ‘If Eddie was bringing the police in, he’d have done it by now.’
Ember: ‘It won’t be Eddie who calls them, it’ll be the Romanic woman.’
Monty: ‘If you’d seen just how desperate she is to keep the cops out of it, I think-‘
Ember: ‘Bruno told me how desperate she is. That’s why if we don’t do what she wants, she’ll go to the cops and try and trade it off the other way. No jail for daddyo, and she gives them the recordings.’
Monty: ‘She says that’s the only copy.’
Ember: ‘And you believe her? She’s the most sensible one among the lot. You included.’
Monty: ‘So why didn’t she take the recordings to the police first and try that deal?’
Ember: ‘Probably because her old man would have had to give back the two million quid he took off the mugs on the exchanges.’
Monty: ‘Not much of a price to pay given the alternative of trying to have two people she knows murdered.’
Ember, leaning forward: ‘Monty, her marker’s already down on what she thinks of Malloy. She nearly got him killed at Bangor. And it didn’t stop her trying again. Or putting the other jocks at risk. She’s fucking desperate!’
Camera looks to the floor then to Monty’s clasped hands in his lap. Monty: ‘Listen, I can do a deal with Eddie.’
Ember walks toward Monty, repeating the same word each time his heel hits the floor: ‘No. No. No. No. No. No!’ He stops in front of Monty, his face in full close up. He licks his lips: Ember: ‘Do you understand?’
Monty: ‘I want no part of it. I’m done. I’m gone. I’ll go to Argentina, as Miss Romanic suggested.’
Ember: ‘And take her with you as your Spanish teacher? You’ll be staying here, Monty, doing what you’ve always done.’
Monty: ‘I’m finished this time, Sydney. I’m taking no part in any killings, never mind those of my friends.’
Ember: ‘Who’s asking you to “take part”? Bruno will look after it. All you have to do is not bend my fucking ear about Malloy and just get back to the business.’
Monty: ‘I’m out. Sell it to Vita Brodie.’
Ember: ‘Not mine to sell, Monty. I’m sure Miss Brodie’s legal team would find that something of a drawback come due diligence time.’
Monty: ‘Then I’ll sell it.’
Ember: ’And you think she’ll accommodate me the way you have for the past thirty years?’
Monty: ‘Con her, like you did me.’
Ember: ‘Nobody conned you, except your ex-partner. Due diligence is what you were short of back then.’
Monty: ‘Not heeding my instinct was what I was short of.’
Ember’s face moves closer to the camera until his mouth is out of shot. His bloodshot eyes are large, out of scale. Ember: ‘But what you had plenty of was greed…’ His face pulls back and we see his mouth move, ‘…plenty of greed and a bleeding heart. Bad combination, Monty. Look where it’s got you now. And your bleeding fucking heart means that I’m the one that needs to do the dirty work. Again!’
Monty: ‘Hardly dirty for you. You’ve always enjoyed it. Well, you’ve always enjoyed getting other people to do it. Like me, and Bruno, and God knows who else.’
Ember laughs and turns briefly to Bruno: ‘Hear that? He compares himself to you.’ Ember turns back: ‘Monty, you are an empty shell, my friend. No, not a shell. Shells are hard. You’re soft, all the way through.’ Ember keeps staring at the camera but points to Bruno: ‘There’s a hard man! You talk about doing dirty work? Don’t make me laugh!’
Monty: ‘So how many has he killed for you? How many more before he gets caught? And when he gets caught, what do you do, then?’
Ember: ‘He won’t get caught, because he’s a professional. Professionals don’t do bleeding hearts!’
Monty: ‘No, they just murder people! For you! And they torture people with acid. For you! And they leave a man half blind. For you!’
Ember, shouts and points: ‘Yes, for me! So people like you can leech off the back of people like us! Professionals! So you can go and sit in your fucking big box at the racecourse everyday, and give millions to charity and be Mister Nice Guy! Oh, sorry, Sir Nice Guy! So the murders brought you a fucking knighthood and the best that can be said for that is that you’re probably no
t the only one.’
Ember turns slowly to Bruno: ‘Get organized in the next twenty-four hours. I want Malloy and his clever little woman dead by midnight tomorrow. Use the gypsy woman. Visiting time will probably be easiest, but I’ll leave it to you. Just get it done tomorrow.’
Bruno nods.
Ember: ‘And make sure the gypsy doesn’t make it home. She sounds like the biggest liability of the lot. Just make certain before you kill her she gives up all the copies of that memory stick. If you’ve got any doubts, get on the next plane to Spain and kill her father, too.’ He turns back to the camera: ‘You, go back to your bolt hole and our business. Don’t call me. Don’t come here with your special pleading for Malloy and his girlfriend. If you even think about doing that, just remember what they were about to do to you.’
The screen faded to black. Bradley was staring at Ember who had his head in his hands, elbows on the table. The TV screen flashed. Monty’s voice came through: ‘Sydney…’
Slowly, Ember looked up. The screen flickered, then cleared to show Monty looking at himself in an elaborately framed mirror: ‘Sydney, such a clever man. So smart that once everyone had been processed through your incredible Airlock, your ego took over. Nobody in a bloody judo suit could record you, could they? And so it would have remained, had you not chosen to do this to my face…remember how funny you thought it was when I lost half my sight? Remember your puerile joke? “Keep an eye out for me, Monty!” Well, I did.’
Monty raised his right hand to his face until the screen showed the lines on his palm, until we saw from above his cheek and his bottom lip, then the camera lurched in a deep swing and rose and steadied showing a close-up of Monty’s face…no mirror. Monty smiled and it made that empty flaccid eye socket more grotesque. He said, ‘Well, strictly speaking, Sydney, I kept an eye in for you.’ The camera swung in a slow sideways arc, until we saw again the mirror, and the eye between Monty’s finger and thumb, filming everything. Monty said, ‘Goodbye, Sydney. I don’t suppose we will meet again, though I would give a lot to see you on day one in prison. I understand their Airlock is not nearly as civilized as yours.’