“I don’t believe this,” he said, staggering up. “Haven’t you got someone else to screw over tonight?”
He expected her reply to be in a West Indian accent, or maybe African. She was a big black woman, after all. So it took him a while to get it when she said, in a voice that could have come from some Oxford college, or from one of those newscasters off the telly, “No indeed, sir. Tonight you are my sole concern.”
Then someone else spoke, from behind him. Another woman, not as posh. “Good evening, Mr Phipps,” she said, and he turned to her. Knew he knew her though it took him a moment to place her.
She was the woman from the pub earlier that night, the one he’d fancied, the one who he’d thought was on Tinder. Beside her stood the beggar who’d been outside the shop.
He might have done something if he hadn’t been grabbed then, by the beggar and some other people he didn’t see coming. They pulled his arms back and the agony of that nearly made him black out. He might have said something, if a hessian sack hadn’t been put over his head. He didn’t know what though. He had to admit, he wasn’t at his best.
20
Lottie was shaking so much, she had to use two hands to bring the water glass to her lips. She was also numb, couldn’t get out much more than, ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. Sonya recognized shock, had seen it often enough before. Even though it was a hot night,she fetched a wrap from the bedroom, a thick patterned wool one, and draped it over Lottie’s shoulders. She squeezed one, and Lottie bent her cheek to the touch.
Sonya picked up the remote, placed it in Lottie’s hands. It was important to give her a task, some focus. The station was still tuned to the news, and who needed that? “Find some music, Lottie. Or something funny,” she said.
She saw the gun. She had kicked it nearly all the way through under the sofa. She grabbed the protective shroud from the sofa’s corner, picked the Glock up using that, went and laid them side by side on the dining table. She turned back, spotted the man’s bag next to hers on the floor, went to it, knelt and looked inside. There was a horrible, cheap stuffed toy, an alien. Behind its head she noticed something else and she reached in and pulled out an unmarked envelope that bulged. Slipping her fingernail into the join, she opened it.
“Holy Maria,” she murmured.
She didn’t count it. In a riffle she saw that they were all one hundred pound notes, and that there had to be around fifty. She was holding about five thousand pounds.
A knock at the door. She dropped the envelope into her own bag, then went to the door. “Who is it? Tadeusz?” she called.
“Yes, it’s me.”
She unchained, opened, let him in. He walked into the room, took it all in – the gun, the broken table, the shaking girl with the clicker in her hand, watching the news with no sound on. “What happened?” he said.
“A guy. He attacked, he - ”
“The client? I fucked him up, downstairs. For you, Tsarina. Pow!” He swung a punch. “He don’t hurt anyone for a while, I think.” He looked around again, whistled. “What we do?”
“We go, fast. A minute.” She came around the sofa, sat. “Listen, Lottie,” she said, “I have to go. I can’t be here when - ” There was no reaction. Lottie just stared at the screen. She hadn’t changed channels. “I need to call someone for you. Who can I call? Maybe Patrick back? Your mother? Is her number on this?” She picked up the phone. Ella Fitzgerald’s face was locked on it when she lifted it up. “Lottie? Do you understand me?”
She heard her voice, Sonya’s voice. But it was as if it was coming from a distance away, through static, like a poorly tuned radio. She tried to bring it into focus, but it was hard; the images on the screen were more interesting.
And then she managed to tear herself away from them, to look up into the face, that beautiful, bruised face. What had she just been asked? She swallowed, and her throat hurt. That horrible man had hurt it.
She looked down at the table. It was cracked, a fissure running its width, like the fault line on some seismic map. She supposed the landlord would take it from her damage deposit. Then she remembered she hadn’t paid one because Mr Severin had wanted her to live there. That made her remember what the terrible man had asked her. Perhaps it was what the beautiful woman had asked her too.
“I’ll get them,” she said, rising and moving quite fast, on wobbly legs, to the bedroom. They were on the top shelf – the books, an envelope. On tip toes she brought them down, and back to the main room, placing them over the crack on the table. “Here’s what you wanted,” she said.
“Lottie, I do not know this. I must go and I must find you someone to take care of you. I think the police will come soon. Listen, do not let in anyone but them, yes?”
“Uh huh.” Lottie turned back to the TV – and let out a yelp of delight. “Look! Look, it’s Joe.”
She lifted the remote, put on the sound. The newscaster’s voice filled the room.
“… recap of our main story. In Finchley, North London, this morning Joseph Severin, a well respected businessman was brutally murdered at his home in what police are calling a targeted hit. There is speculation that Mr Severin was the latest victim of the assassin known as ‘the Doorstep Killer’.”
Lottie clicked off the sound. Up to that moment, she had been numb. But seeing Joe’s face on the screen, hearing of his death, instead of plunging her deeper, it roused her. She felt a surge of energy – sadness, of course, but also… the need to do something. To not just… stand by.
She turned back to Sonya, the concern on her face. “I know. You have to go. Don’t worry, I’ll call my mother. Then the police. I’ll be careful.” She bent to the table and snatched up the envelope. “But listen, you need to be paid.”
“No, Lottie, it does not - ”
“No, listen. I was… I was going to pay you anyway, from Joe’s money.” She nodded at the screen where Joe’s face still was, though it was replaced even as she looked at it. “His money.”
“What? Lottie, you are still in sho…”
“I’m not. I mean, I probably am but it doesn’t matter.” She held out the envelope. “Take this. It’s fifteen hundred pounds.”
“What? No, no. Much to much. Besides I didn’t… work. I - ”
“But it’s not for you,” Lottie said, reaching and thrusting the envelope into Sonya’s open hand. “It’s for your daughter.”
There was a moment, when they were joined by paper, both holding, neither taking. Then Sonya grasped it, took it, and dropped the envelope into her purse on the floor, next to the other one. “Thank you,” she said.
“ ‘s’ok.” Lottie’s legs suddenly felt very tired so she sat again, turning away. “Now you should go.”
Her half finished roll up was in the ashtray, next to Mr Severin’s books. She picked it up, and her Zippo, struck, inhaled. As she did, she felt Sonya’s hand once again on her shoulder. She reached up, laid her own hand on top. A squeeze, both ways, and then the Russian, and the man who’d come, were gone.
She’d rolled another and was halfway down it, when the buzzer went, loud, long, insistent. She took a last, deep drag, before stubbed the end out, standing and walking.
21
Three days later – August 2nd 2018
Mr Phipps was sitting in the chair. Again.
It wasn’t a comfortable chair. Wouldn’t have been, even if he could have adjusted a little, almost impossible with his wrists chained to the table before him. Besides, even if he wasn’t hurting all over still, there wasn’t an angle that eased him. Which he knew was the point.
He’d waited for about two hours, he thought, on this the third day of interrogation – though he couldn’t be sure of that since he hadn’t seen daylight since they’d brought him in. They’d also kept the light on in his cell all night, if night it was and, of course, they’d taken his watch; the rotating bunch of interrogators never wore theirs.
He’d been tortured before. It was part of the training in the Paras for Belfast, l
earning what a man could take, the varying levels of physical and mental. There had not been much of the former so far beyond denying him pain killers for his dislocated shoulder which, at least they had finally and painfully put back in. Nothing for his ear either which had cauliflowered and still rang like a mofo. He’d definitely been more forthcoming on that first day, or session; the pain and also the realization that they probably knew almost everything anyway. Besides, it was those twats in the Shadows who had dumped him in this shit. He had no loyalty to them and they were toast anyway. He could cooperate without being servile. It was a balance to be struck – and he hadn’t really, that first time. He’d been better the second. Today… well, he’d have to handle whatever came, whoever came. He knew he didn’t have any more to offer really, they had it all. Now it was only a question of what they intended for him. He was pretty certain that the next person through the door would be a police officer, with a charge sheet. It would be a long one, with most of his gigs listed. Well, his father had ended up in the Scrubs, and had died there. Like father like son, he thought, as the key turned in the lock, and the door opened.
The first person who came through the door was the muscle, a vast and silent man with a face like a cliff. Phipps had dubbed him ‘Lurch’ and he said nothing, ever. Just stared at him – rather glumly, Phipps thought. The second, was her, the same black woman who’d nicked him, who he’d briefly admired in that pub however many days ago that was. ‘Ellerby’ she called herself, just once, no title with it; could be her first name, her last, or more likely an alias.
This time, she was followed by someone new. Older man, thick, long grey hair swept back. Nice suit. Lurch stepped behind the table, Ellerby sat in the chair in front of it, the new bloke went and leaned into a corner, half in, half out, of the lightspill of the single bulb over the table.
Ellerby placed a folder in front of her. “Mr Phipps,” she said briskly, opening it. “Do you know how deep in the shit you are?”
It didn’t seem like the sort of question that needed a reply so he didn’t make one. She looked at him for a long moment then down to the top page before her. “This is a list of all the hits we believe you made for the rogue department who employed you over the last three years.”
“Contracted,” he said.
“What?”
“I was contracted. Freelance. Never employed.”
She frowned at him, then reversed the list and shoved it across. “Can you confirm these are all down to you? And that none are missing?”
He looked down. It shocked him, actually, the amount. Nearly filled the page. Double spaced, of course. Still. He read and saw that two were missing which was nothing he need talk about. One on the list wasn’t down to him, but again, it wasn’t worth mentioning. What was he going to get, a lighter sentence because he’d killed only nineteen and not twenty? The names swam up. About a third of them were collateral. He couldn’t put faces to many. Except the last: Joseph Severin.
“Looks about right.”
“About?”
“It’s right.”
“Well, haven’t you been the busy little worker bee? Sorry, freelance bee.” Her voice rang with contempt, then switched to cold anger. “All these lives destroyed. Not only the dead. Their families too. Parents, children, sisters, brothers. Do you feel any guilt at all? Any remorse?”
He considered. Spoke. “Would it get me a few years reduced if I am…” he looked to the ceiling for the word, a good crossword puzzle word, “… penitent?”
She didn’t reply. Just pulled the sheet back, replaced it in the folder, lifted another. “But this last one. You call them ‘gigs’ yes? Perhaps you can explain why you so grievously cocked it up.” She went on without giving him the chance. “According to other testimony you were sent to retrieve some ledgers. The ones that this Joseph Severin was keeping for the rogue operation. Fetch them from a young woman who, I presume, you were going to kill afterwards, yes?”
Again there was no point in replying. He didn’t even shrug.
She continued, “I repeat: why such a cock up from a man who has carried out as many operations as you? Who we found on the street, all fucked up. Beaten, smelling of whisky and,” she glanced down, “butternut squash?” She leaned forward. “What went wrong this time, Mr Phipps?”
He hadn’t mentioned the beauty. They hadn’t really asked about that night yet, being more concerned with the Shadows. He’d have told them, when he was feeling weaker. Now though, he didn’t want to. Pride, he supposed. And a certain respect. That fucking ninja had done him, good and proper. “Bad luck. An accident as I walked in. I tripped over the carpet and she was on me, that girl, like a banshee.”
She stared at him, then her mouth curled. “You expect me to believe that ridiculous story?”
He leaned, as far as the handcuffs would let him. “Believe what you want, love. It’s the only one your getting.” He looked for the first time to the man standing half in the light at the back of the cell. “Now, I assume he’s Old Bill. So how’s about him reading me the Miranda and let’s just get on.”
She looked as if she was going to say something more. But that man spoke first, softly. “It’s alright, Ellerby. I’ll take it from here.”
She sat back, picked up her folder, stood. Lurch came from behind Phipps to stand with her. She said, “Sir, I would caution - ”
“I said, I’d handle it.”
The voice was still soft, but now it had steel in it. Ellerby flinched, nodded, and left. Lurch made to follow, but the older man delayed him. “Leave the keys,” he said.
Lurch obeyed, handing over a set, then left the cell, closing the door behind him.
The man sat. He looked at Phipps for a long while. Phipps looked back. Finally, the man spoke. “She was right, of course. You really cocked it up.”
It wasn’t said with any venom, and just as softly as he’d spoken before. There was even a touch of a smile in his eyes, and Phipps thought, hello, hello, what’s happening here? “I did… sir,” he replied, adding the title as an afterthought, sensing something.
The man nodded. “Second Para, weren’t you?”
“Sir.”
“I was First. Before I went to the SAS. And then came… here.” He waved a hand and Phipps knew he wasn’t referring to the cell but to MI5. “They thought my skills might be useful. Though its mostly admin now, of course. Don’t get out in the field, much.” The emphasis was clear. He sat back, scratched his nose. “I’m torn about you, Phipps. You were good, and then you suddenly and spectacularly weren’t. Which would you be, say, tomorrow?”
Phipps tried to keep the hope down, and out of his voice. “Good again, sir.”
“Would you? Hmm.” He raised the keys, jangled them, stared at them while he spoke. “As I say, torn. You’ve created a fuss. You’ve left a mess. Neither good. The sensible thing might be to throw you to the wolves.” He looked straight at Phipps. “But something I’ve never understood is how so-called society expects to be protected when it trains its protectors to kill - and then is surprised when they do. It seems…” He stared up at the ceiling for a moment, then down again. “And of course you were working for – freelancing for – a shower. A complete shower. Though they are proving hard to get a straight answer from, I’ll give them that. There’s rumours they might even get away with it.” He looked at Phipps again. “If you came to work for me, there’d be no freelancing. You’d be employed. You’d have a NI number, bi-monthly cheques, sort of thing.” He grinned. “And we’d want our money back, Phipps. It wasn’t the Shadows and it’s not yours. It’s all in those books of course, every last penny they paid you. Think you could live with that?”
Ten minutes before, he’d been contemplating the rest of his life in prison. Now… “Yes, sir. I think I could live with that quite well.”
“Alright.”
The man rose. For a moment he was closer to the light bulb – and Phipps noticed dandruff on his collar. “May I ask, sir? The department I
’ll be working for? Does it have a name?”
“Certainly not. What do you think we are, a bunch of tossers? We have a number.”
He reached into his pocket, drew out a brown envelope. Placed it on the table, just out of Mr Phipps’s cuffed reach. “First assignment. And, uh, nothing that Ellerby need know about, hmm?”
He went to the door, turned. “Name’s Wolfden,” he said, and then he threw the keys back onto the table. They slid all the way up to where Phipps hands rested. Then, without another word, he left the cell.
Phipps snagged the keys with a little finger and pulled them into a grip. It took a while, what with his bad shoulder and arm. When he was free he rubbed his wrists, then reached for the envelope. Opened it. Looked at the photograph. Smiled.
22
Same day…
It was very hot, the day they buried Joe Severin.
Lottie stood quite far back in the Jewish cemetery in Golders Green, part hidden by a tomb. If one of the funeral party, who hadn’t noticed her before in the chapel, happened to glance her way, they might dismiss her as one of ‘those’ people – she’d heard of them – who liked to attend other people’s funerals. But no one paid her no nevermind. They were, understandably, focused on what was before them – the hole in the earth, the coffin beside it, the rabbi intoning. She’d gotten a few odd looks when she’d slipped into the back of the chapel – she wasn’t dressed like them, in uniform black and grey, she didn’t think Joe would have liked that – but wore a knee length, sleeveless blue skirt, and pumps. She had covered up with her red shawl, too hot for the day, but she’d guessed that bare shoulders might draw too much attention. She did share one item with them all – a kindly older gentleman, an usher, had pinned a small back ribbon to her shawl, the ribbon torn halfway down its length. He’d accepted her brief explanation: a happy tenant come to pay her respects. It was, of course, partly true.
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