by D. B. Martin
My attention wasn’t on them though. It was on the man leaning casually against the central snooker table, smiling sardonically at me as I approached. The same crawling terror from childhood almost overwhelmed me. I struggled to control it – and the inclination to turn on my heel and run. I gritted my teeth, reminding myself I’d risen above it – and him – once. I could do it again. More so now. I was a man. My neck crawled, anticipating the tightening twist of polythene round it, and my chest went into spasm, lungs clamouring for air. I breathed in deeply, subconsciously measuring the millilitres of oxygen filling them like I had as a child. One long deep breath was better than short staccato ones. I continued walking towards him, every pace tightening my chest muscles to screaming pitch, until I was within a few paces of him. He didn’t move, just studied me laconically with a half-smile.
‘Long time, no see,’ he greeted me when I was within an arm’s length of him. There was no resemblance between him and Margaret up close. I’d assumed the disparity between their ages in the photo, and its bad quality had masked it.
‘How I would have preferred it to stay,’ I replied, consciously steadying my voice. Don’t let him see. You did it once. Do it now. As ice-cool as ever – his elegance was discordant against the backdrop of sleaze and the underbelly of society. He was dressed informally but with a style I knew would run into thousands if I cared to tot up the cost. Savile Row at least. And perfectly relaxed. We were roughly the same age but he easily looked ten years younger – but then the excesses of brandy and insomnia hadn’t been doing me any favours lately. I could see a different family resemblance though. His eyes clearly had that similarity to the old judge that I’d missed before. The anger inside was like a cold hard rod of steel, piercing me from head to gut.
‘Sorry to hear that. We do good business when we do it – you and I.’
‘Hardly what I would describe it as.’ I hoped the rattle in my throat sounded like sarcasm, not fear.
‘Well, we always did view things a little differently, didn’t we?’ He laughed dismissively. ‘Do you play?’ He indicated the snooker table, and without waiting for me to reply, continued. ‘I do. Let’s have a game.’
‘It’s not really my forte.’
‘Oh my dear chap, don’t worry about that. You won’t win – no-one wins against me. It’s why I usually play against myself. No-one else is sufficient of a challenge, but let’s give you a sporting chance, shall we?’ He threw a cue at me and I caught it awkwardly, twisting my thumb backwards doing so. ‘You can go first. White to red and split the pack. Then you can have first pot – if you can make it.’
‘I told you I’m not a player.’
He stared at me before laughing harshly. ‘Oh forgive me, but you are – you’re very much a player, but never mind. I’ll get us under way.’ He lunged into position and sent the triangular cluster of red balls spinning across the table. They collided with each other in a volley of clicks, and three dropped snugly into pockets before the rest settled, splayed across the green baize like splotches of Margaret’s blood. He potted the black as swiftly and waited for the hovering attendant to white glove it back into position. ‘Shall I continue?’ He asked.
‘Shall we talk?’ I countered.
‘We can talk and play. What’s your move?’
‘Molly.’
‘Yes?’
‘Your sister Molly.’
‘Yes, the lovely Molly – oh wait, that’s Margaret to you, isn’t it?’ He threw a glance my way before potting the next red. ‘Of course I know you’ve worked that one out. So what? What else have you to tell me?’
‘Win and Kimberley.’
‘Dear Win. Yes. Such a faithful henchman. And Kimmy, his delightful sister.’ His mouth twisted in derision. ‘Your delightful sister too? Have you divested yourself of the paternity claim yet?’
‘Is that relevant?’
‘No; but it’s fun, isn’t it? Really got you applying the grey matter. Maybe it will prove to be true – or maybe not. What do you think? Are you a betting man? Oh no, you don’t play, do you? Molly thought she could get you involved by appealing to your fear of the past. I knew it was your potential future that would worry you more. Romantic soul, isn’t she?’ I thought of Margaret and her manipulation. Under no circumstances would I have called her business-like use of me romantic. He smiled lop-sidedly. ‘However, we managed it pretty well between us, wouldn’t you say? All the little twists and turns.’
‘So what is it exactly that you wanted to manage?’
‘Well, it generally all boils down to cold hard cash, doesn’t it my dear chap? Sadly it’s no different here – as you’ve no doubt also surmised.’
‘The money from the will.’
He turned his back on me and potted a red, the black, another red and the pink in succession. He surveyed the table, and re-chalked his cue. The tiger’s head ring on his little finger winked its tawny eyes at me. He nodded, smiling. ‘Yes, the money from the will. That has become somewhat important over the years.’
‘Over ten years?’
He laughed appreciatively. ‘You do catch on well after a bit of help, don’t you?’ He sighed and put the cue down on the side of the table. ‘Your go. I’ve hogged the limelight long enough. Let’s look at your star turn, shall we?’
‘You employed us on the Wilhelm Johns case.’
‘Yes,’
‘You primed all the evidence to point to him and buried anything that didn’t. That’s why our brief stipulated we carried out no independent research to verify evidence.’
‘Did I?’
‘How did you get the police to go along with it?’
His expression was surprised. ‘The police go along with it? Who said they did? But if they did, it would be very simple, my dear chap; everyone has a price. You merely have to know what it is. Take you, for instance. Your price then wasn’t in pound signs, it was in recognition – success. As long as you won and won big, your future was made. The case paid for your future, like my uncle did in his will. He arranged it as a form of a loan, didn’t he? Now I simply require the loan back – nothing underhand, just good business.’
‘Why wait for so long?’
He paused melodramatically, as if considering my question. ‘I’m a patient soul.’ He laughed, watching me. ‘No? The truth is that to begin with I didn’t need it. It was a nice little investment for the future I didn’t need to realise immediately. My dear devious uncle left sufficient of his fortune to my father to keep us going quite comfortably, but my father became financially decrepit in his decline – for all his bluster and bravado.’
‘He looked sharp enough in the portrait.’
‘The one in his office? Yes, I heard you paid a visit.’ He laughed. ‘Skilful artist. Didn’t include the alcohol-shakes or the failing memory. A figurehead. We agreed that was what he’d paint. A figurehead with no substance. It took years for him to become that bad though, and my own ventures were going tolerably well in the meantime. It all changed in the early eighties unfortunately. I had a number of US interests. The depression and the banking crisis there made rather an impact on how I did business. I had to tap Daddy and found he’d been leaking cash for years. There was hardly any left in the reservoir by then. Something had to be done, and a swift review determined it should be you.’
‘You’ve been planning this for over ten years?’
‘Oh, only mildly. I wouldn’t even have put it as strongly as planning to begin with – more like taking out an insurance policy. The case locked you in, and Molly kept a hold on the key. I must admit it made me feel very lazy – letting you work whilst I played, but you were such a workhorse, weren’t you, Kenny.’ I flinched involuntarily at the name. He smiled cruelly. ‘Oh my apologies – its Lawrence these days, isn’t it? Success bloated you like a leech sucking blood; blood money.’ He laughed again. ‘Ah, money – the root of all evil.’
‘The love of it,’ I corrected sarcastically.
‘Indeed. Ever
correct, Lawrence – and so self-righteous. It becomes you.’ The urge to tell him to fuck off was almost uncontrollable but personal satisfaction was something I would have to shelve under the circumstances. It was plain that as his insurance policy I was strung higher than a hangman’s noose.
‘Thanks for the compliment,’ I countered nastily. The shackles of childhood receded with anger.
He grinned good-humouredly. ‘I suppose you want the rest? They always do – the little pawns in the game. There was really no need to do anything for a long time. Molly siphoned off what we needed, through your lovely expensive house renovation project once you handed over management of the bank account. All those bill payments we had to divert before you gave in – really, you can be tedious at times. And so it would have continued, no doubt, if Molly hadn’t become a little too ambitious. Those charities – so expensive to run, even if they did do a perfectly splendid clean-up job with the dirty money. We needed an investor, a big one. One who would invest everything, and everything you had seemed sufficient – since you did originally acquire it with my help.’
‘The money from the will was only to be repayable if the terms were breached.’
‘And surely they are just about to be? Very publically – in court, no less.’
‘There’s no reason to say anything about it – or him.’
‘Oh, but there will be when there is a claim that you are only defending the boy because he is your son; your incestuously begotten son – and you’ve done it before, ten years ago, on behalf of your brother.’
‘You bastard! You know you set up the Johns case, and you’d have to be able to prove that – incest.’
‘True, but to defend the accusation your very private past will have to become very public. You’d have to prove who the father is as counter-claim, and therefore also lay claim to the rest of your family whilst doing it together with your rather less than honest past. And then we get to your mentor – shall we call him that for nicety’s sake? And that brings us full circle, back to your investment in Wemmick enterprises. The papers will have a field day! What did that appointment say? Something about hold office during good behaviour?’ He shook his head and tutted. ‘Dear me, Lawrence; dear, dear me.’
‘And what about FFF and Molly?’
‘What about them?’
‘Well if all of my past has to come out, then so will Molly’s – and her connection to you and FFF, and what FFF actually does.’
‘I think, old bean, you’re forgetting something. FFF is a wonderful charity that makes a great deal of unhappy people deliriously happy by uniting a hitherto disadvantaged child with advantaged prospective parents. Seems like you and Margaret would have been two of the beneficiaries in due course, wouldn’t you? Fulfilling your long-desired dream of fatherhood, at a price.’ He threw his head back and roared uncontrollably as I battled the inclination to thrust my fist into his open mouth and rip out his tongue. Only the muscle-bound bully-boy in the corner of the room and his twin by the bar stopped me. My chances would be nil.
‘I could prove otherwise.’ His laughter stopped as suddenly as it had started.
‘No you couldn’t. I would say that you married Margaret knowing full well who she is and joyfully availed yourself of FFF’s services. Perjury is merely a matter of perception, and you have no proof otherwise.’ He was right. There wasn’t really anywhere else to go but to perdition. Nevertheless, I wanted to make a stand somehow. He’d got me. He’d got everything on me but I had one last thing to throw at him. I played out my hand, not anticipating much success. It was a very long shot, but it no longer really mattered by then. It was the only one I had.
‘So before I get nailed to the floor, who really killed the girl if it wasn’t Willy Johns – Jonno? And was it the same person who helped Margaret – Molly – along the path to eternity?’
He was cool, but he was also rattled. ‘It’s irrelevant.’ Personally I was shit at character assessment, but professionally I was shit hot. I knew when I’d unexpectedly hit jackpot with my long shot. I staked everything else on it.
‘Not if I dispute that too – in court. The Johns case would have to be re-opened, then, wouldn’t it? Examined in detail – all those little oddities in it we passed over last time, especially if I admitted we wilfully ignored evidence to the contrary.’
He regarded me coldly for a moment and then snorted deprecatingly. ‘But you won’t,’ he replied smoothly. ‘Otherwise an innocent child and a woman you’re rather attached to will suffer too because that other miscarriage of justice would have to be looked into as well, wouldn’t it? I’ve already raised the issue with one of your partners. I couldn’t be the great judge’s nephew and let such inequality rule over law. Alfie Roumelia – the cat with nine lives. Oh no – wait. That’s the sister’s name, isn’t it?’ He paused and studied my expression. I blanked him. Do better than that, you bastard. I can fight in court – it’s what I’m trained to do. ‘And even if you stomach that, there’s always the unexpected to consider. Crime is so prevalent these days – and so uncontrollable – rape, beatings, muggings that end in stabbings. Such terrible things we live with daily nowadays ... I’m sure you wouldn’t want anyone else on your conscience even if you had cleared Willy Johns from it.’
I stared at him open-mouthed. He mimicked my expression back at me. ‘Oh yes, dear Lawrence, I would – but who would believe you? By the time I’m finished with you, you’ll have a credibility rating like your credit score if you don’t let this go down the way I want. Do good business with me and I’ll let you carry on where you left off – apart from the bank balance, and maybe a bit of bonus goodwill with the odd client or two I’ll send your way.’
I’d lost. There were no options left. I couldn’t throw Kat or Danny to the wolves. I couldn’t have done it even if I’d not been attached to them, and I had to finally acknowledge that my feelings for both were rather more than attachment.
The deal: all that I had in stocks, securities, property and overseas investments – courtesy of success assisted by old Justice Wemmick’s will and Jaggers’ manipulations – was to be liquidated and deposited in FFF’s account as a ‘donation’. No tax on donations, you see. What I then did, career-wise was up to me, but it would be bloody difficult to keep up appearances sufficiently to maintain acceptance if I was a pauper. For a start, my investment in the business would also be gone – or handed over to Jaggers. No stake, no partnership.
Kat and Danny? He had no interest in either other than to use Danny as a scapegoat for the mugging, but with character witnesses, he should only get a minimum sentence and good behaviour would shorten that further. Aggravating factors were the woman’s age and vulnerability. Mitigating factors were lack of intent to kill, the age of the offender and the boys’ parentage which could be used to imply diminished responsibility even if it wasn’t proven. It could muddy the waters sufficiently to cause dissent between the jurors and maybe get a split vote, occasioning public focus on the boy’s sad background, and thus drumming up public support. Jaggers outlined the possibilities neatly for me even though I could figure them all out for myself and the sour taste in my mouth made me want to vomit. He should end up with twelve years mitigated down to perhaps five or six. He’d be out by the time he was about sixteen.
‘No worse than us,’ he concluded.
‘We weren’t wrongly convicted of manslaughter,’ I replied angrily, but it was immaterial. He chalked his cue and lined up another shot.
‘So what?’
‘But why do you have to use the boy at all.’
He swung round, pointing the cue at me like a spear, face dark and threatening. ‘I don’t like being played for a fool, Lawrence – do you? Have you enjoyed realising how your Margaret pulled your tail? No, I can see not. Well, neither have I. She tried something like that on me once. She got away with it then, but I’m not having it thrown at me again now – by her, or your family. This is a little reminder of what happens if you pull a tiger by
his tail and pull too hard. The tiger gobbles you, or yours, up. You can tell them that when you next see them.’
‘Kimmy and I aren’t exactly close. Anyway – this is about the boy, not us.’ He stared at me, and then started to laugh softly.
‘Really? Poor Lawrence; poor, poor Lawrence. Still so much to learn. I’m not talking about your sister, but I should keep it that way – for your good health’s sake.’ He paused, ‘or for your other little tigress; miaow ...’
I had no choice but to walk away. The alternative was far, far worse. I thought of Margaret and despite her cynical manipulation of me, regretted a life cut short because of deceit.
‘Who was responsible for Margaret’s death?’ I asked before I left. He eyed me warily.
‘Unimportant.’
‘Don’t you even want to find out?’
He shrugged. ‘I already know, my dear chap.’
‘So who was it?’
He smiled sadly. ‘My other bit of advice. We all have our uses – until we don’t.’
I knew then it had been him. I felt sick inside – sick to my soul.
I drove home slowly, barely noticing how I got there. The grimy streets of London that I usually found so pulsing with life and possibility seemed now only grey and depressing. The sun still shone, the birds still sang, the underground still rumbled far beneath me and the taxi drivers still ignored you unless you looked like you could pay, but it was all completely, inexorably and permanently different for me. I wanted to bury myself in my trappings of security whilst I still could but even that was denied me. The phone was ringing off the hook in my study as I put the key on the door. I ignored it but after the fifth assault, I gave up and answered. It was Louise from reception. The persistent purring sound in the background caused me to stop her mid-flow.
‘Is there something wrong with the phone?’ In my highly-strung state I imagined bugging devices as well as look-outs and stalkers at every corner.
‘Oh, sorry. That’s Mr Tibbs.’