by Matthew Ross
‘Maybe it’s just as well I didn’t finish the course,’ said Graham ‘Otherwise I’d have to make the last payment, and pay the cost of the certificate. So, I suppose it’s a blessing in a way, isn’t it?’ Bern and Harpo both agreed that it probably was.
‘Bern, look at this.’ I offered up the small screen, ‘Is there any way of zooming in?’ Graham showed me how to enlarge the image, and I showed it to Bern, a photo taken several days ago. I was crossing the road towards Sally’s house, the van behind me, but what I was more interested in now was the man in the grey hoodie on the opposite side of the van that I wouldn’t have seen. We zoomed in on his face, it was thinner, six years older, but it was definitely him.
‘That’s okay son, I did believe you, you know,’ said Bern, ‘Hello Adam, where’ve you been hiding all this time?’
I think Bern and I were both relieved at the thought he was still alive, even if we didn’t know anything else, and we were grateful to Graham for giving us proof. We thanked Graham, and then left him to start the rest of his life, wishing him the very best of luck. Something told me he’d need it.
44
‘You’ve still got the keys to Sally’s flat? Call me when you’re there,’ commanded Hamlet and I duly obliged. Twenty minutes later I was standing outside, he answered his phone on the third ring.
‘You there yet?’ No pleasantries, quite rude, but I wasn’t going to be the one to mention it, instead I confirmed I was. ‘Had a call from the girl upstairs, says it sounded like someone was smashing up the place. What’s it look like?’
‘I’m outside on the pavement looking at the front. Looks fine, can’t see in though, the curtains are drawn,’ and as I said it, I tried to recall whether I pulled them closed last time I was here.
‘Well don’t just stand there like one o’clock half struck, get inside and have a look.’
I slipped the key in the door, but then the coward inside me took over and I went back to the van to find something lumpy, just in case. Clutching an off-cut of armoured cable I pushed open the front door, noticing it was in fine working order, no damage. The internal door leading into Sally’s flat was also undamaged, and both the latch and deadlock held it tight. I pushed it open and jumped back, scared there might be someone behind it waiting for me, the door swung freely, opening to its full extent.
‘What can you see? Anything?’
‘The place has been trashed.’
I began describing everything as I found it: sofa cushions ripped open; shelves cleared, the contents swept across the floor; pictures pulled off the wall; drawers tipped out. The destruction flowed from room to room, even Sophia’s bedroom had been turned over, her Princess toys scattered across the floor. On the other end of the phone, Hamlet didn’t speak a word, but I could hear his fury. Moving to the kitchen, I tiptoed carefully over a carpet of broken crockery, I don’t know why, was I trying not to tread awkwardly to avoid spraining an ankle, or was it out of respect for the family who used to call this home?
‘Whoever it was, they’ve gone. Looks like they came in through the back,’ I told Hamlet, staring down at a muddy paving slab lying in a circle of glass splinters, ‘They put through the French window, came in that way.’
‘What’s it look like? Junkies? Thieves?’
As I surveyed the wreckage I could see the television, a nice small hi-fi that looked new, a digital camera on the kitchen worktop – all portable, sellable stuff a thief would take.
‘No, I don’t think so.’ I paused, wondering whether I should continue my train of thought. I did. ‘I think they were one of your hunters, looking for information.’
‘What?’ Hamlet sounded like he was about to explode. I was grateful I was on the other side of town as I really wouldn’t want to be around him now. ‘If I find out who’s done that, I will fucking murder them.’
I promised I’d make good the window and tidy the place up, he ranted a little longer then cut the call. I walked around taking photos to send to him, maybe tomorrow when he’s calmed down a little. Then I called Uncle Bern, told him to pick up Disco, and to get themselves down here double pronto.
‘Fuck me, looks like a bomb site,’ said Disco, rasping a hand over his scratchy, greying muzzle. ‘Where do we even start with this?’
I allocated jobs between us, and we got started. I separated what was to be kept against what was to be junked, and began carrying the detritus out to a neat pile that I’d formed by the front door.
‘Is it bad?’ said a voice behind me. I turned to be met by a woman in the doorway, late twenties I’d guess, jeans and T-shirt, long blonde hair tied back. I admitted it was.
‘I didn’t see anything, just heard almighty smashing and banging coming from downstairs,’ she said.
‘Did you call the police?’
‘No, what’s the point in that? They wouldn’t have done anything. Anyway, you know who owns this place?’ she jerked her thumb back at the property, I nodded that I knew. ‘I called Mr Hamlet, he said he’d sort it out, and here you are.’
‘Here I am indeed. And you didn’t see anyone at all?’ I asked, she shook her head, crossed her arms, looked defensive, but I could understand her not wanting to get involved. ‘Did you know Sally?’
‘Yeah, kind of, I knew her to say hello to, it was civil, you know what I mean?’
‘I do. Do you know if she was being hassled by anyone, a boyfriend maybe?’ The woman tightened her arms around herself and shook her head again. ‘What about a big bloke, muscles, ginger hair, drives a Merc?’
Her eyes darted up past me towards the chimney pots on the houses opposite and she gnawed her lip, before giving a slight nod. Brazil. Steve. So, he had been here as well as phoning her.
‘Know anything about him?’ But again, the arms crossed as tightly as a straitjacket then she turned to leave. ‘Look I know you’ve seen him. You told the police you’d seen his black Mercedes outside late at night.’
She’d had enough and this time she did start leaving, but as she left, she said over her shoulder, ‘It wasn’t black, I never said that,’ and backheeled the door shut behind her.
It had gone seven by the time we’d got the place looking reasonable again. We loaded up all the broken and destroyed stuff. Bern offered to get rid of it all tomorrow, to which I made him promise me he wouldn’t fly-tip it all down some country lane, that’d be all I need – my van with my name all over it spotted defiling some beauty spot. I could see Senia wetting his pants over that. Uncle Bern eventually agreed, and then offering Disco a pint at the nearby Palm Cottage they both disappeared for the night.
I drove to Hamlet. The club was putting its face on, ready to throw its doors open later that night: the same cleaning crew I’d seen last time were polishing and vacuuming. Brazil and Dunlop would be out minding the door later, but I passed them sat at a table eating something smelly from a polystyrene box.
‘Evening gents,’ I said in their direction. ‘What’s for tea?’
‘Go fuck yourself, Poynter!’
‘Nice. Enjoy.’
I knocked once before going through to the back office to find Hamlet within. I handed back the keys to Sally’s flat then took out my phone and flipped through the photographs I’d taken, showing the mess it had been in. There were also a few ‘after’ shots too, showing it how I’d left it, tidied up and secure.
‘Cheers, cheers,’ he muttered, somewhat distracted. He pulled a huge bundle from his pocket, ‘What do I owe you? Here,’ he began throwing down notes before I’d even said a word. I hadn’t expected to be paid and hadn’t intended even raising it, but he’d offered and I needed the money more than him. I scooped it up without counting but I could see it was more than I would have asked for.
‘Thanks.’
‘You got a name for me yet. What have you found so far?’ His tone was level and composed, but I had a sense that the fury wasn’t far beneath. He picked up my phone again and began flicking the photos of Sally’s flat back and forth a
gain.
‘Bastards. If I get my hands on them.’ he came to the one of Sophia’s bedroom and winced at the sight of her pretty little clothes ripped from drawers by hands unknown. ‘She’s just a little girl, some things are supposed to be out of bounds.’
He swiped back and forth through the pictures several times, I think just to pass the time whilst inside he plotted what he would do to the perpetrators should he ever find them, then suddenly he let fly a short sharp laugh.
‘What’s this?’ He held up the photo of me as a kitten. Something chimed in the back of my head.
‘Sally took that, she had an app for silly selfies, turns you into daft animals,’ I said.
‘Yeah, she’d done that to me too,’ said Hamlet with a small chuckle in his voice, ‘Turned me into a lion.’ That figures, I thought. ‘Bloody silly thing.’
‘Great, okay, so you will remember it too then.’ I noticed the excitement in my voice and tried to draw it back a bit. ‘What did she use? Describe it.’
‘Her phone,’ he said, pausing, then: ‘A new one. A red one.’
‘Yes, exactly, that’s right, but… gah, I need the police report to be sure.’
Hamlet opened a desk drawer and seconds later a copy of it landed in front of me, I flicked through the pages, yes, I was right, I turned the document around to him.
‘Look at this. This is an inventory of Sally’s belongings, and look at the photo and description, Samsung phone with cracked screen.’
Hamlet picked up the document and nodded sagely. ‘And?’
‘Where’s the red phone?’ I said, and his eyes lit up, now he understood, ‘Senia can’t have it or else it’d be mentioned. In fact, I’d be willing to bet, seeing as they’ve found this phone on her already, they don’t even know about the new one.’
Hamlet threw open the desk drawers and began rummaging through them before slamming them closed with force, ‘No, they searched here already.’
‘Listen, this is what I’m thinking, they’ve had full access to her flat and car, so have we, and no-one’s found it. But I heard they were very restricted here. Where did they actually search?’
‘Just in here, the office, nowhere else.’ Hamlet laughed, no doubt pleased with his lawyer’s successful blocking of Senia’s search.
‘In that case, I think it might be somewhere in this building.’
Hamlet picked up his own phone and jabbed at the screen, listened and then a few seconds later cut the call, ‘Straight to voicemail, the battery must be dead, follow me,’ he said and we left the office.
In the main club area Hamlet clapped his hands together to attract attention, the three cleaners looked up.
‘Speak English?’
One lady nodded her head looking very self-conscious as she did so.
‘I am looking for a red phone. It is very important. Please stop everything and look for it. I will give you one hundred pounds if you find it and bring it to me.’
The lady spoke quickly and quietly to her colleagues, all three of them looked at Hamlet nodding. They put down their cleaning equipment, went into a huddle whispering in their own tongue then scattered in different directions.
Ten minutes later the English-speaking cleaner knocked on the office door brandishing Sally’s smartphone in its red sparkly case. Her English wasn’t strong enough to tell us where she’d found it so we followed her to the cloakroom just inside the entrance lobby and she pointed under the counter to an unplugged charging lead. I gathered it up, Hamlet thanked her and handed over the reward as promised.
‘I like her,’ he said. ‘She was an accountant back home, now she scrubs toilets, but she’s a bloody hard worker. I was thinking about maybe training her up to do the books here, only problem is she’s still learning the language. I’ll have to have a think about it. Anyway, here you go, you wanted it, what are you going to do with it now?’
It took about fifiteen minutes before the smallest sliver of charge appeared in the empty battery logo. The phone rebooted itself, I snatched it off the charging lead and waved it in front of Hamlet.
‘Righty ho,’ I said. ‘What’s her passcode?’
Hamlet looked at me blankly.
‘Don’t ask me, I haven’t got a clue, how should I know?’
We tried a dozen or so different combinations picked at random, then the security measures locked us out, the tiny squirt of power ran out and the phone died again.
‘Well,’ said Hamlet returning to his seat behind the desk, his patience clearly as flat as the battery, ‘You’re Mr Electrics, you sort it out, I’ve got a club to run,’ which I took as my signal that I was dismissed.
The club was waking up, the mood set by the low-level lighting, and chill-out dance music played. The cleaning crew had gone, replaced by the bar staff who were making preparations behind the jump for a busy night ahead. Brazil and Dunlop were ready too, earpieces plugged in and big padded black jackets to keep out the chill. They were loitering in the lobby, no point going outside until opening time, might as well stay in the warm for as long as possible.
I stood waiting for them to hold the door open for me, eventually, begrudgingly, they took the hint.
‘Ta ta.’
I stood outside, the evening had moved into night and a chill descended. I waited a moment or two, then thumped on the doors, it swung open.
‘One of you drives a black Merc don’t you?’ I said, ‘I’ve just seen some skanky bloke pulling on the door handles, setting the alarm off, you may want to check it out.’
Brazil didn’t need any encouragement; he was out of there like Usain Bolt’s ginger twin. At last, I’d separated them. I followed him to his car, he was looking at it from all angles, seeking out the slightest imperfection.
‘I’d like a word with you… Steve,’ I said.
He looked up at me, then decided I wasn’t worth it and began going back to the club.
‘Don’t walk out on me Steve. Either you hear what I have to say, or Hamlet will.’
That got his attention, he stopped and looked straight at me.
‘What do you want Poynter?’
‘I know, Steve. I know you had a thing for Sally.’
He shrugged and tried muttering something about how everyone did, she was a good-looking girl.
‘No, Steve, it wasn’t a nice thing was it, you took it further than that. I know about the photo you carry of her. I know you’d been turning up at her flat uninvited.’
‘So what? You can’t prove any of that, and she’s not going to say anything is she?’ That, I thought, was a particularly low blow, even for him.
‘I’ve heard the answerphone messages,’ I said, his face flickered, ‘I’ve copied them over,’ I lied, but he wouldn’t know that. ‘You know who she was to Hamlet don’t you?’ Brazil nodded. ‘So what do I tell him?’
Brazil’s expression looked blank, he raised his palms as if in query.
‘He’s piling the pressure on me, he keeps pushing me for information and updates, and by the look of things there’s only me and the police so far that have heard the messages, and they don’t know who you are. So, do I tell Hamlet, or do we keep this between ourselves?’
‘Between ourselves,’ he softly muttered.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Give me your number, I might need you one day.’
45
Sally’s phone had been put on to charge all night, and while I waited for my toast I tried as many random combinations to open it as I could before the security measures locked it. It was only four digits, that meant there could only be ten thousand possibilities, so if it disables itself for five minutes after seven failed attempts, then it should only take … ten thousand divided by … I gave up on the maths, but I knew how long it would take – too bloody long.
The burning smell reminded me why I shouldn’t do long division in my head, and swearing profusely, I jabbed a fork into the toaster to remove my breakfast; it looked like a charcoal briquette, and tasted the same too. I threw it
in the sink and began to sulk. A few minutes later a bleary-eyed Perry opened her front door complaining she’d been on nights and only just got to bed. She didn’t seem too impressed by my emergency. ‘I’ve run out of bread and milk and not had any breakfast.’
‘Go on, help yourself. I’m going back to bed. Let yourself out when you’re done,’ she said, stopping halfway up the stairs to add, ‘Don’t make a mess.’
Perry only seemed to have healthy bread with seeds and bits in, but ‘Any port…’ thought I. I began looking for marmalade but, like my toast, the search proved fruitless. In the end it was a rather disappointing breakfast of healthy bread toast with a scraping of yellow stuff that had half the fat and none of the taste of butter and a cup of tea with red milk. I could see a trip to the cafe happening later in the morning.
Perry seemed to have gone straight back to sleep, so I washed up as quietly as I could and was ready to go. Then a thought occurred to me. I opened the understairs cupboard, my spare toolbox was still there containing Brennan’s folder and the Peppa Pig bag of cash. I thought about adding Sally’s phone to my secret stash, but at the last second changed my mind. I stuffed in it my pocket, and replaced the toolbox in its hiding place. I let myself out, and headed off to face another day.
A quick trip to the cafe later, and I was now properly fuelled for a day’s labour. My phone rang, and I grabbed at my clothes, in my panic and surprise it felt like so many pockets and so many phones. I managed to find the right pocket and right phone just in time, a second more and it’d have cut to voicemail, ‘Hello Jen, how are you?’
‘Mark is that you?’ she sounded scared.
‘Jen. It’s me, yes. What’s the matter darling, is everything okay?’
No response, just a faint sniff.
‘Jen? Are you okay?’