by Nick Laird
‘That’s right. Still does as far as I know.’
‘Small world.’ Danny was smiling now despite himself. Northern Ireland. Forget about six degrees of separation. Everyone in Ulster was just a person away, sitting on their other side, waiting to lean forward and say hello.
‘It is that.’ Shannon looked happier anyway. He pointed at his own face with one hooked finger. ‘You get thumped on the plane or something?’ Danny forced a short laugh.
‘No, no, I caught my head on a cupboard.’ He had spoken too quickly for it to sound truthful. Caught my head? What a ludicrous phrase. He tried to salvage it. The four men were staring at him, looking more interested about this than they had about anything else.
‘I was bending down to get something, and I stood up. Caught my head.’ Stop saying ‘caught my head’.
‘I snagged my face,’ Snagged my face? ‘on the door of the cupboard. Pretty painful.’ Danny reached up and touched his eye. It felt puffy.
‘Looks like you were thumped.’ Shannon said defiantly. The footballer nodded in considered agreement.
‘Well, anyway, shall we get started? Have you a room put aside that we can use?’ Danny brought his hands together as if to pray, but quickly, with the result that they made an unexpectedly loud clap. Ellen flinched and the MD looked at him with open bemusement.
On Kilburn High Road, where things get arranged and sold in pubs, there is a café on a corner that has started to rival the taverns as a place to do business. It has established itself as a favoured haunt of the East Europeans who’ve pitched up to replace the influx of Irish. It may be that the café’s synthetic cream reminds them of the kind used in the monstrous confections sold in Warsaw and Prague. It also may be that the large glass façade, which comprises both the front and one whole side of Pastry Nice, allows nervous men a safe and open meeting place.
Ian had chosen a table for four in the glass corner of the café. An empty coffee cup sat in front of him. Although he was trying very hard to keep still, his leg was jiggling. The coffee, which he normally rejected as a domestic drug, had made him jumpy, but the café had no orange juice and he refused to pay for mineral water. The queue that had formed behind him by the time he reached the cash desk looked like an ID parade for a crime that had been committed by Lech Walesa. Is there a collective noun for moustaches? There was a gaggle of moustaches behind him in the queue. Ian paused to consider whether he could ask for just a glass of tap water but then quickly ordered a coffee, and so his leg was now jumping and the Poles would think he was nervous. He was waiting for two brothers, Bartosz and Tomek. Or Bartek and Tomasz. He couldn’t remember, although he had written it down in the exercise book he’d left, stupidly, at the hotel. When he’d returned from seeing Geordie he’d rang Budgie, exercised in his room, showered, slept for ninety minutes, and then dressed. Ian emphasized function and serviceability in his wardrobe choices. Today he was wearing straight cut stonewashed jeans (too narrow and tight to be fashionable), a tucked-in white shirt (with button-down collars), a black leather belt, and brown leather shoes. He had a denim jacket, which almost matched, and which he’d placed on the seat beside him.
About four years ago he had done business with an antiques dealer in Yorkshire, a bald, bespectacled man, pious and stealthy as a verger. The Selby man’s indulgences appeared to be bow ties and sherry but he had also a less obvious interest in weapons. He was a quartermaster to the underworld. He had sold Ian twelve deactivated handguns, fifteen deactivated rifles and a deactivated submachine gun, plus the tools and manuals to re-convert them back to weapons. Ian had found him through a small classified ad in an issue of Guns & Ammo. The advert detailed a weapons list and stressed the simplicity of the conversion kits. Ian didn’t know if it was legal or not but it was an improbably easy way to buy guns. He had assumed bringing them back would cause him more trouble, at least until Cleaver the Yorkshireman had offered to arrange their delivery for ten per cent of the weapons’ cost. It had all been remarkably smooth. Cleaver, when contacted last year about further objects of desire, had promised to supply Ian with a phone number, but he would have to call for it at the house. Ian had obediently done so on Thursday, taking a cup of tea with Cleaver’s senile wife who had started to cry as he left. That evening, parked at a Welcome Break motorway service station near Watford, he had phoned the number and made the arrangements. This was the result. Pastry Nice at 1 p.m.
Budgie had been pathetic on the phone. He couldn’t focus on the events in hand. An amateur mind, Ian thought, and when he had asked him who Janice was, his reaction was completely unprofessional. He’d got really wound up.
‘My wee sister. The one who took the money.’
‘Ach of course, I should have realized that.’
‘Why? What’d he say about her?’
‘I think she’s coming over to meet him.’
‘She fucking isn’t.’
‘I’m just saying what he said.’
‘The fucking bitch.’
‘We’ll talk when I get back.’
‘Fucking bitch.’
‘Budgie, we’ll talk when I get back.’
Geordie hadn’t wanted to call him. He hated being made to look stupid. He was always the fall guy and the whipping boy and the scapegoat. And this had turned out no differently. He had to tell Danny that the money had gone back to them, to Budgie and Ian, and he had to ring Janice and tell her to get ready to leave, but he couldn’t find his mobile. Surely someone hadn’t nicked it? They’d all dressed nice and had that healthy shine that money gives. Geordie rang his own number with Danny’s terrestrial phone. One of Danny’s shoes in the boxroom started vibrating. It must have fallen off the shelf and landed in it.
Across the Irish Sea Danny was cheerful. It turned out Scott, the Australian, had been both methodical and industrious, and there were only eight boxes of contracts for them to index and review. They should easily be finished by five. Danny was sitting in a large meeting room at the back of the building. From it you could see the Lisamore River, a few hundred metres away in open countryside. When his phone rang he’d excused himself from the two Ulster Water admin staff that were searching for missing documents, and moved across to the window. The river looked solid and grey in the afternoon light, like a road winding through the fields. He didn’t recognize the number displayed on his phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Dan, it’s Geordie.’
‘All right mate.’
‘You know Ian?’
‘The bloke from last night?’
‘Yeah. It turns out he knows Budgie.’
‘You’re joking.’
‘No joke, and he’s just been round here and tore me to ribbons. Smacked me in the face with the front door…’ Geordie sniffed, reminded.
‘Fuck. Did he get the money?’ Danny was suddenly aware of the other occupants of the room. Ellen was next door but the two administrators, both fifty-something women, were looking at him horrified. One of them was clutching the cross that hung around her neck. Danny nodded at them, smiled reassuringly, and stepped into the corridor. He hadn’t heard Geordie’s reply.
‘Well? Did he get the money?’
‘I said yeah. I tried to bluff him, tell him I didn’t have it but he’s a fucking animal. My chest…I think he might have broke one of my ribs.’
‘You’ll be all right. Is my door okay?’
‘Fuck off. Your door’s fine.’
‘What about the rest of the flat, did he break anything?’
Geordie grimaced.
Danny edged back solemnly into the meeting room.
‘Sorry about that.’ Danny waved the mobile phone at them.
‘Everything all right love?’ one of the admin assistants asked.
‘Yeah…It was my brother…He just got mugged.’ Danny figured, on the hop, that this would both explain his question and excuse his swearing.
‘Margaret! Did you hear that?’
‘Mugged! Dear god. Is he all right
?’ Margaret had heard and was clutching her cross again.
‘Oh no he’s fine, just a bit shaken up.’
Sometimes a lie echoes until it becomes deafening.
‘Where did it happen? Has he reported it?’ Margaret had now set her file down on the table and was just looking straight at Danny.
‘I think he’s sorting it out now.’
‘Where was he dear?’ the other one spoke again. Stouter, and perhaps slightly older, she had the centred, confident air of a matriarch.
‘Um…in Belfast. He was in Belfast, in the centre.’
‘In the city centre. On a Saturday afternoon. I suppose it’s the twelfth weekend. Lots of rowdies,’ Margaret said and nodded to her friend, who was already nodding sympathetically at Danny. Just to complete the round, Danny nodded at Margaret. She looked distraught and went on, ‘Would you believe it?’
No, not sure I would, Danny thought, and felt the prickly heat of guilt.
‘Whereabouts in the centre was he, love?’ The matriarch, picking up the baton.
‘Just…in the very centre…by the shops.’ Danny was trying to think of the name of the big glass-roofed shopping mall, but he couldn’t remember it.
‘Near Castlecourt, was it love?’
‘Yes, just by there. I don’t know too much about it in fact. Only a short phone call. He’s very upset.’
‘I’m sure he is.’ Margaret again.
This was like talking to two of his aunts. There was a pause and Danny thought it was over. He tried to think of a way to draw them back to their work but…
‘Does he live in Belfast dear, your brother?’ The matriarch spoke. Her dyed-brown hair was thinning, Danny noticed. He looked down at the top of his pad where he’d written the names. Margaret and Lillian.
‘Yes, Lillian, he does.’ In fact he used to have a great-aunt called Lillian. She’d smelt of soap and hadn’t looked unlike this one.
‘Is he working there?’
‘Studying. He’s at Queens.’
After glancing at Margaret, Lillian said, ‘My Stephen’s at Queens. What does he study?’
Just then Ellen opened the door of the meeting room, a large box of documents balanced on her hip.
‘Here, I’ll take that.’ Danny walked over and lifted the box from her.
‘Thanks. There seems to be a whole set of Intellectual Property contracts missing. I can’t find any which are post-1990.’ Danny looked at the index she’d set on the table. Margaret stood stiffly up and adjusted her cardigan over her redoubtable chest, then marched over to Danny and put a hefty arm around his shoulders. Looking at Ellen with something like pity she said:
‘His brother’s just been mugged dear, don’t worry him too much.’
‘I didn’t realize. Is he all right?’ Ellen looked at him quizzically.
‘Yeah, he’ll be fine…maybe you and I should look at this stuff next door?’ Danny hoisted the box and walked towards the doorway while Margaret sighed and looked pleadingly at Ellen.
‘I thought you said you had two sisters.’
‘I do. It was Geordie on the phone. He was telling me something weird and then I said fuck and they looked as if they were about to jump me, so I made something up. Sorry.’
‘Don’t apologize to me. If you want to lie to those two nice ladies you just go right ahead.’
‘It’s not that I want to lie…’
Ellen was grinning at him. She was finding him amusing. Amusing was good. He could handle amusing.
It was 1.15 p.m. and the Poles hadn’t showed yet. Ian was watching two men loitering across the High Road. They were leaning against the metal railings that lined the street. Their backs were rigid, their faces sharp and hard. They’d walked past earlier–muscular gaits, as if their limbs were painfully welded together–and had then disappeared. Now they were back, standing opposite Pastry Nice, glancing over, and one was on his mobile, gesticulating energetically. They were both short, even shorter than Ian, but broad and dangerous looking. They had high cheekbones but wide flat faces, one of which had been flattened even further by a broken nose. Their heads were cropped and their clothes cheap and nondescript: jeans, dark anoraks, white trainers.
They crossed the road and entered the café. Ian watched them nod towards the girl and make their way over to an old man in a long heavy coat sitting at a table at the back. He stood up when he saw them, lifted a blue plastic bag off the seat beside him, rolled up his paper and pointed at Ian with it. He then walked out of the café, pausing at the door to pull a large and ursine hat out of the bag and onto his head. It seemed a bit excessive in the summer heat.
They sat down heavily at his table without looking at him or speaking. Ian moved his right hand from the tabletop down onto his leg to stop it from jiggling but saw that his action immediately affected the one with the broken nose. He had gripped the sides of the table, as if ready to overturn it, and was watching his brother for direction. Ian swept his hand back up and placed it on the glass surface, awkwardly, with the palm upwards so they’d see it was empty. It resembled a dead man’s hand. Ian turned it over and gave a tiny rap with his knuckles on the table. As if he had called the meeting to order, the one with the unbroken nose looked at him, and spoke.
‘You are Ian, yes?’
‘Yes.’ Ian nodded at both of them in turn.
‘I am Bartosz and this my brother, Tomek.’ The broken nose nodded.
‘Great. Ian.’
‘Yes, I know.’
‘You got the stuff we discussed on the phone?’ Ian was nervous.
‘We have everything which you requested. But first and more important, are you with money? You made us to understand half now and half Monday.’
‘I am. I am with the money,’ Ian replied. ‘But not on me.’ They looked at him emptily.
‘I mean I don’t have the money with me now.’
‘So you are not with money.’ Bartosz said, as if he’d tricked him into confessing. Tomek, the one with the divot where his nose should be, spoke for the first time. His voice was deeper and his accent even thicker than his brother’s. He leant forward.
‘You get money now and come to the barber’s.’ He jerked his head towards the street. ‘Ask Jerzy to show you the yard. Tell him Bartosz sends you. And you will need a car yes?’
Ian looked across at the barber’s over the road. A huge man, a little flabby but enormously strong-looking, wearing tight black leather trousers and a white T-shirt, was leaning in the doorway. As he turned to go back into the barber shop a stringy ponytail flicked out behind him.
‘No, I’m all right. I’ve a van with me. Can I park it outside the barber’s?’
‘I think rather not. You should put it down there.’ Tomek pointed to the next street off the High Road. ‘Then, on Monday you can drive in under the bridge. We must show you.’ He meant the railway arches, Ian realized. The yard behind the barber’s must be in one of the railway arches.
‘Okay. I’ll be twenty minutes or so.’
‘Good. Remember to ask Jerzy. He is very big and has hair tied like a woman’s, yes?’
Bartosz smiled weakly at his brother’s comment. Ian nodded and stood up. The two Poles rose simultaneously. Their eyes were the same shade of gunmetal grey. For a second it seemed as if something was about to happen, as if they were all going to lift the table or shake hands, but then Ian turned, picked up his jacket and left.
On the side street Ian parked the van outside a derelict house. He hated seeing something left to rot. It made him feel helpless. The door had been boarded up and was badged with yellow council notices. It must have had squatters. Three empty beer bottles sat in a row on the wall outside it as though set up for target practice. There were little tufts of weeds around the front, and the upstairs windows were broken. Shards of glass rose and hung from the frames making the windows look like animal mouths, fanged and dark. Ian locked the van and set off to the barber’s. He carried a white plastic bag with twenty-five grand wrapped in
several other bags inside it–the other half was back in his room in the hotel, sealed in an envelope in the base of his holdall. He wasn’t nervous now. Carrying the money actually lent him more confidence. He didn’t have to think what to do with his hands. The barber’s was opposite Pastry Nice and, as if in reply to that syntactical oddness, it displayed in large letters above its own glass front, a hand-painted sign plainly stating BARBERS. There were several posters in the lower half of its window and the dates for the events (a Polski Hip Hop Night, an African Spiritual Revival, a Young Ireland boxing match) had all passed, suggesting that the posters were there for concealment rather than advertising. Someone on the street could see and be seen by the standing barbers but couldn’t tell who was inside on one of the four chairs, or seated on the long wooden bench waiting. Ian entered and clocked a twenty-something bloke: skinny, a little goatee, reading Autotrader and sitting on the bench. One of the barber’s chairs was occupied. An almost perfectly bald head sat at the peak of a cone formed by a brown cape. The seat was pumped up so high the occupant’s brown brogues were dangling in mid-air, and, bending almost tenderly over him, waving a pair of scissors, was the enormous Jerzy. Although losing his hair, Jerzy had kept his ponytail, a lank affair tied with a brown elastic band. After nodding at Ian as he entered, he had gone back to the shiny bonce in front of him, click-clicking the scissors around it but not making contact with the customer’s few surviving hairs, which were mostly clumped above, and coming out of, his ears. Ian nodded back and walked straight up to this giant in leather trousers.
‘Jersey?’
The man swivelled his shoulders round, slow as a building crane. He raised his eyebrows the tiniest fraction but kept his face vacant.
‘Bartosh sent me. He said to ask you to show me the yard?’ The big man nodded, said something in Polish to his customer, and jerked his head towards the rear of the shop. Ian followed him, watching the sail of his T-shirted back ripple as he moved. For his enormous size, he walked very lightly.