Dangerous Games

by Gillian Godden

Tony was thinking about what the waitress had said, and so he caught the train and went straight to Elle’s seaside bungalow. That way, he could definitely keep a low profile; even if someone checked his flat, he wouldn’t be there.

  Elle knew something was wrong. Since when did Tony offer to help her tidy up and finish the rest of the unpacking? Well, she thought to herself, he’ll work out whatever he has on his mind, he always does.

  ***

  At lunchtime the next day, Tony decided it was time to go home. It had been nice spending time with Elle again, having dinner and sharing small talk.

  No sooner had he turned up at his apartment than the police were at his door. Tony’s heart sank. It was two uniformed officers, and they asked if they could come in. That was strange, he had expected them to put the handcuffs on and take him away.

  ‘We’d like to ask you some questions about Eddie Rawlings,’ they said. They both sat down and one took out his notepad.

  ‘What about him?’ asked Tony. He was putting on a brave face, keeping his nerve, but inside he was shaking like a leaf.

  ‘He’s been shot dead. He was found yesterday, in his office – or, rather, in Charlie Jenkins’ office.’

  ‘Charlie Jenkins? Who is he?’ asked Tony. ‘And what’s all this about Eddie?’

  He hoped he looked genuine enough; possibly the fact that he didn’t know who Charlie Jenkins was would make it look more believable.

  ‘Charlie Jenkins,’ said the officer, ‘is the real name of the so called “bossman”; didn’t you know that?’

  Tony shook his head. He had never thought to ask the bossman his name, and no one he knew had used it when talking to him.

  ‘Look,’ said Tony, deciding that now was the time to say his piece, ‘if you think I’ve hurt Eddie in any way, you’re definitely wrong. It was only the other night we went out for a meal together, him, me and Jake. You can check, if you like.’ Tony felt the best form of defence was attack.

  ‘No one is accusing you, Mr Lambrianu, we know exactly where you were, and we know you went out for a meal with Eddie. What we want to know is, can you shed any light on any enemies he may have had?’

  What did they mean, they knew where he was? He had covered his tracks well by going to Elle’s, he hadn’t set foot outside of her house all day. What did they mean?

  ‘Eddie Rawlings was killed between eight in the morning and twelve, noon. We know that because he spoke to his regular gambling bookies and backed some horses around eight and he was found around noon; what happened in between, we don’t know.’

  They were being genuine. They weren’t there to arrest him, they just wanted to know if Eddie had mentioned anything to him and Jake about being threatened, or if he was scared of anyone. He knew the police would already know how he had met Eddie and how long they had been friends, maybe it was time to play on their heartstrings.

  Tony put on a sad face and acted distressed on hearing the news about Eddie. ‘God, that’s awful,’ he said. ‘Eddie was one of my oldest friends.’ He was wringing his hands and showing concern, and reminiscing to the police about how he and Eddie had been in a children’s home together.

  ‘What do you mean, by the way, you know where I was?’ he asked. That part confused him. Had they been watching him at Elle’s?

  ‘Fortunately for you, Mr Lambrianu, the manager of the prestigious store you were drunk and disorderly in doesn’t want to take things any further, considering you paid the bill for all of the breakages you caused. The manager, customers, and of course, the security camera footage, can all confirm where you were. It must have been quite a night.’

  The police stood up to leave and thanked him for his time. They said if he could think of anything, or anyone, that Eddie had mentioned, to let them know.

  Tony shut the door behind them and breathed a sigh of relief. He thought he should warn Jake, because they were bound to go and see him, as well. He picked up the phone.

  ‘Jake, something really weird is going on,’ he said, when Jake answered. He went on to tell him what the police had said and then put the telephone down.

  Tony needed to go to the shop the police had mentioned. He was drunk and disorderly? What the hell did they mean?

  ***

  Tony walked through the door and was instantly met by security guards. They asked him to leave.

  ‘I’ve come to apologise to the manager,’ said Tony. He didn’t know what he was talking about, but he was prepared to try and bluff his way in.

  The security guards nodded to each other, and told him to follow them. They took him to the manager’s office. When the manager saw Tony he was all ready to ask him to leave, he didn’t look very happy to see him at all.

  Thinking about what the police had said about being drunk, Tony thought he would appeal to the manager’s better nature. ‘I was very drunk, sir,’ he said, showing the man full respect and humility. ‘I can’t remember very much, but I apologise sincerely, and if I owe you anything, obviously I’ll pay for any disruption.’ Tony smiled his most charming smile. Dear God, Tony thought to himself, this is like standing in front of the head teacher at school.

  ‘As you seem to be at a loss for your behaviour, Mr Lambrianu, then I will show you. I respect that you have come here today to apologise, but you must realize, however much money you intend to spend here, we cannot accept that kind of behaviour. I have my other customers to think about.’ The manager looked very stern and unforgiving.

  He held out his hand towards a chair, then telephoned security to bring him the recording of Tony in his store.

  Tony was intrigued; the manager even knew his name. What the hell was he supposed to have done?

  Tony sat, stunned, as he watched the recording. He knew it wasn’t him on the screen, but even he was beginning to doubt it.

  The recording showed a blonde man, Tony’s height, wearing sunglasses. He was bumping into everyone in the store, drunkenly apologizing. He had leaned on the glass-topped perfume counter and knocked over their expensive display. Then, he had wandered off to the area where the wines were and had helped himself.

  People were disgusted as they watched this drunken man making a fool of himself in the shop. When he had been challenged by security, he had shouted at them that the wine was his, because his name was on the label. He was Tony Lambrianu.

  That had been when security telephoned up to the manager and asked him to come down.

  The manager had asked him discreetly to leave the store, and Tony had thrown an American Express card at him, and told him to help himself. Then he had been escorted out.

  The manager switched off the television monitor showing the recording, then opened a small drawer in his desk. ‘I believe this is yours, Mr Lambrianu, and here is your receipt for the damages.’ The manager passed the American Express card to Tony, and with it, the receipt.

  Tony stood up; again, he apologized to the manager profusely, and hung his head in embarrassment.

  The manager seemed to accept his apology and thanked him for coming in personally to apologise. He even shook his hand to show there were no hard feelings.

  Tony walked out of the shop. He was elated, there was no doubt the man looked very much like him and, as a bonus, he had a credit card with his name on it.

  Thankfully, the recording was in black and white. Tony nodded his head and smiled to himself. Don Carlos had done him proud. He had said he would sort out the alibi and he had. It was cast iron!

  No wonder he had been told to stay indoors all day; after all, he couldn’t be in two places at once, could he?

  Tony couldn’t wait to get home to tell Jake all about it, although he was glad he had gone alone to kill Eddie. Jake had his own alibi, he’d been at work. He had been seen by everyone there, so he, too, was in the clear.

  While he was at Jake’s house telling him the news, the police came. Two of them were the detectives in charge of the case and one was a uniformed officer. They introduced themselves and showed their warrant
cards. They didn’t seem too surprised that Tony was there, but this time they wanted to talk to Jake.

  ‘We need to know your whereabouts, Mr Sinclair. I’m sure Mr Lambrianu has told you all about the murder we’re investigating,’ one of the detectives said.

  ‘There’s no need to point the finger at me, officer. Tony tells me that Eddie was killed in the morning. I was at work all day, you can check. You can also check the cash register receipts, they all have the date and time on.’

  Jake knew that whenever he put a receipt through the accounting machine, his name came up as the authorizer and the date and time was stamped on it. They showed he had been there all day. The rest of the staff of the shop he was working for, especially the one who had brought him coffee, could also vouch for him, as could the manager, who had sat chatting to him. Jake’s alibi was rock solid, too.

  ‘We know where you were, Mr Sinclair, we checked all of this before we came here. We just want you to confirm everything, as a matter of procedure.’

  Jake went step-by-step through what he had done that day and they seemed satisfied.

  There was no forensic evidence, and for the moment the police were thinking that maybe Eddie had maybe got a little bit greedy with one of the drug dealers that hung around the place.

  They wanted to know if Jake and Tony knew any of their names, or where they could find them, as it seemed they had all disappeared.

  ‘Nobody uses their own names,’ said Tony, ’everyone seems to have some kind of nickname or something. After all these years, I didn’t know the bossman was called Charlie Jenkins, so why would we know a drug dealer’s real name?’

  The police knew this made sense, none of them had real names, but they were grasping at straws. There was nothing to go on to lead them to Eddie’s murderer.

  The police told Tony and Jake that the bossman was Eddie’s biological father, and Eddie had found him after all those years in care. Tony and Jake were astounded. Eddie had never mentioned that.

  The police could see their surprise was genuine by the way they looked at each other and stared at them. Even though he had just heard what they said, Tony was finding it hard to comprehend.

  ‘Are you telling us that the bossman was Eddie’s father, really?’ Tony asked, amazed.

  The uniformed police officer nodded. ‘Eddie was illegitimate, of course. His mother couldn’t keep him, as he was born out of wedlock and her family disapproved.’ He closed his notebook. ‘Will you want to know about the funeral?’

  ‘Well, yes, of course, he was our good friend. We’d like to pay our respects.’ Like hell, we would, thought Tony, but he knew he had to see this through to the end.

  ‘Who’ll organise it?’ said Jake.

  The policeman said that possibly, the bossman would pay for the funeral, and if not, when Eddie’s body was released, he would get a pauper’s funeral.

  ‘Oh, by the way,’ said the policeman, ‘Eddie left a letter in the safe. We’d like to call it a will, but it’s not official. It seems Eddie stated in writing that you, Mr Lambrianu, were to take over the running of the club, if anything should ever happen to him.’ They waited for Tony’s reaction. They had thought that if he knew this, then that would have been a reason to kill him, they were fishing.

  Tony burst out laughing. ‘I didn’t even know Eddie could write, when did he say this?’ Again, Tony’s surprise proved his innocence to them. It was obvious to them that he didn’t know anything about it, because of his reaction and his body language.

  ‘Well, he could, and it was written on the same night that you both went for a meal with him. That is why the detectives working on the case think that maybe he may have told you that night if something was bothering him.’ Again, the police waited, but they could see they were wasting their time. They stood up to leave and said they would inform them both of any funeral arrangements.

  Tony put his fingers to his lips to indicate to Jake to say nothing until they had gone.

  Jake and Tony both looked out of the window and watched the police drive away. Jake was the first to speak.

  ‘Who put that letter in the safe, Tony? Because you can bet your life on it that Eddie didn’t put it there.’

  Tony shook his head, he was standing up and his arms were folded, then he swept his hands through his hair. ‘Whoever did it, Jake, did it when we were at the restaurant and they knew for sure that Eddie wasn’t there. Hell, this is better than a military operation, scary when you think about it.’

  They both sat down and stayed silent, just staring at the walls for a moment, both at a loss for words.

  ‘Well, at least that’s solved one problem. With everyone thinking the bossman was Eddie’s father and that he owned the club, that now makes you the official manager of that rathole, as bequeathed by Eddie,’ said Jake.

  OUT WITH THE OLD

  Tony had been getting bored. Following the murder of Eddie Rawlings, he and Jake had kept their heads down and carried on with life as normal, so as not to bring any attention to themselves. If they were being watched by the police, there was absolutely nothing for them to see.

  ‘So,’ said Jake, ‘how long do we wait before taking over the club? How long is it going to be before the police have finished with it?’

  ‘As long as it takes. Who cares? In the meantime, you and I have business to attend to.’

  By the smug grin on Tony’s face, Jake knew he had a plan, and what was more, it was going to be dangerous. Jake sighed. He reckoned it must be bad, as only two things got Tony excited: money and women.

  ‘Okay, fill me in. I know you’ve been thinking about something, so let’s hear it.’ He sat back in the armchair, crossed his legs and waited for Tony to speak.

  ‘Don’t you see, Jake? All those people the bossman and Eddie collected protection money from aren’t paying a penny to anyone.’

  Jake had never even considered that. He reckoned those days were behind them and he had presumed Tony just wanted to take over the club. He realised he’d also been wrong about the things that got Tony excited – there were actually three things. Fighting; that appealed to Tony’s nature, too.

  ‘Someone will have already stepped in and taken it over,’ Jake said.

  ‘Well, if they have already been visited by some mob, it’s up to us to make them change their mind. It’s a free-for-all, we have to claim our turf.’

  ‘What can we do, just you and me? The others will have gangs, with knives and guns. What the hell are we supposed to do?’

  Tony was smiling and rubbing his hands together. He looked like a kid on Christmas Eve. ‘Well, I, for one, don’t intend paying anyone to protect our club. We’re going to need every penny if we’re going to put that place in order, so we’ll get some knives and guns as well.’ He laughed; he couldn’t wait to get started.

  Jake watched as Tony got a pen and some paper and started writing down the names of all the pubs, clubs and snooker halls they had visited on the bossman’s behalf.

  ‘Look here,’ he said to Jake, ‘is there anywhere I’ve missed?’

  ‘Tony, you’re crazy, mate, we can’t do this on our own. We’ll get ourselves killed.’

  ‘Watch me.’ He looked up at Jake and held his gaze. ‘Are we brothers, or what? We can do this, Jake, and then the world really will be our oyster.’

  ***

  Jake went home. He knew he had to discuss this with Sharon, after all, she was his wife, and she put up with a lot, from both himself and Tony. She deserved to know Tony’s plans.

  When Sharon arrived home, her suspicions were already alerted by the fact that Jake had laid the table for two and her favourite Indian takeaway was keeping warm in the oven.

  ‘What’s all this, then? It’s not my birthday and I know you haven’t been with another woman, so it has to have something to do with Tony. Am I right?’

  She leaned over to kiss Jake; she could read him like a book. She loved him and that was all that mattered.

  Jake started
putting the food on the table. ‘Am I so like a pane of glass to you, Shaz? You’ve seen straight through me. Here, have a glass of wine. We need to talk.’

  Jake felt guilty. They hadn’t spent a lot of time together recently, and he made a silent promise to himself that he would make more of an effort in the future.

  While they ate, he told Sharon all about the club and how Tony was to take it over and clean it up. He looked at her smiling, trusting face over the candle he had placed in the middle of the table. The candlelight seemed to make her face glow, and her eyes shone brightly.

  ‘Tony thinks we could take over the protection racket that the bossman and Eddie used to have in the East End. I know it sounds crazy, but I see his point, and Tony doesn’t intend paying protection for the club to anyone.’

  ‘Well, I knew you were both cooking up something. I presume, by all of this, Tony has walked clear of the police again?’

  Sharon didn’t know all of the details of what had happened. She knew something was going on, and eventually Jake would tell her, but this sounded dangerous. The kind of men that wanted protection money weren’t easily going to hand everything over to Tony and Jake. There would be a fight, and not just involving fists.

  She also knew Jake wouldn’t want her to worry, so for now, at least, it was time to put on a brave face.

  ‘You have to stand with Tony, he’s expecting it. He must have some plan cooked up in that brain of his. We both know he likes taking risks, but he wouldn’t let you take the brunt of his foolishness.’

  ‘Have I told you, Sharon, just how much I love you,’ whispered Jake. He felt a lump in his throat. In her own way she was giving him her blessing, for whatever the future held.

  ‘Not nearly as often as you should, Jake, my love, but don’t apologise for standing by Tony. Love means never having to say you’re sorry, or so they say. Come on.’

  Sharon blew the candle out, then held out her hand to Jake. No words were spoken. This was their moment.

  They went upstairs together, and Sharon made love to Jake as though it was the very last time; after all, it might be, she thought to herself.