Ten Grand

by Seamus Heffernan

  Still, though, Ayesha had been right. I was intrigued. If nothing else, it would beat insurance scam tail jobs and following underage drinking teenagers for a while.

  Those were the options. Even as I opened my mouth, I was unsure what I would say.

  “All right,” I said, maybe surprising myself a little. “You have a deal.”

  “Excellent,” she said. She stepped towards me and extended her hand. “We can have the papers drawn up immediately.”

  I looked at the hand, awaiting mine.

  “No offense, but how are we going to write this as a legally binding contract?” I asked.

  She laughed.

  “My husband manipulated, cajoled and ultimately stole millions and no one knew anything about it,” she said. “I can promise there will be a way to make sure you get your money.”

  “Promises are something kids make to each other on playgrounds,” I said.

  “Would you prefer to pinky swear, then?”

  She smiled a bit then, a real one. There was apparently a little velvet swathing Mrs. Duclos’ steel.

  “Nah,” I said. “What the hell. Without trust, what else is there?”

  She held that smile.

  I shook her hand.

  5

  Detective Inspector Ian Calloway emerged, all smiles, from the side entrance of St. James and St. John Church in Ealing. It was late—shortly after 9 p.m.—but he showed little sign of tiredness or any Sunday-before-Monday grumpiness. Calloway’s mood had improved immensely in his last year of work with Professional Standards. I can only assume that ferreting out crooked coppers and alienating most of the rest of the force helped maintain his sunny disposition.

  “Evening,” he greeted me, as we fell into step.

  “Hey,” I said. “How was the meeting?”

  “Pretty good, yeah,” he said. “I make it pretty much every week. There’s actually one a bit closer to mine but I like these church basements.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I don’t know,” he shrugged. “Better coffee? The usual self-reproach that comes with passing by religious iconography? Keeps one honest, you have to admit.”

  “I was raised Catholic. I’ve had enough self-loathing, thanks.”

  “You lot do make a fuss about that,” he said. “Much ado about nothing, I’d wager.”

  “I come by it honestly enough. More than a few crucifixes in my house growing up. And my mom used to keep a card of St. Jude as a bookmark. Patron saint of lost causes.”

  “Among other things, yes.”

  “You never struck me as a theologian, DI.”

  “I’m not. More just intrigued by the history and rituals. Besides, your Catholicism and my Anglicanism are pretty much first cousins on the Christianity family tree.”

  “My grandmother would have called you out on that,” I said. “Imagine, me talking to a common Protestant. Scandalous.”

  “Probably for the best she doesn’t know how you pay your bills as an alleged grown-up, then. On that topic: Do you have it?”

  I made a bit of a show of sighing before reaching into my coat and producing his fee: A copy of the opera Die Tote Stadt by Erich Wolfgang Korngold.

  His eyes narrowed before accepting the prize.

  “What year is the recording?”

  “1975,” I said. “Live in Munich.”

  Satisfied, he accepted the case and turned it over in his hands, his smile widening.

  “You could always just get this stuff yourself,” I said.

  “What’s the fun in that?” he said, and I could actually see his point. For Calloway, this was probably the same as eating someone else’s French fry or someone else making you a sandwich: It was just better, somehow.

  “You know Korngold was actually two people?” I said.

  He rolled his eyes. “Look who learned to use a bit of Google.”

  “Hey man, I’m trying to have something for us to make small talk about. An interest in others’ passions is a good start.”

  “Different time and different place, maybe. But I have five minutes here. So: What do you need?”

  “The Duclos thing, missing rich dude I told ya about,” I said. “Who’s leading the investigation on your guys’ side?”

  Calloway was still smiling, but it now had a bit of curiosity to it.

  “The wife bringing you in? For real?”

  “Like she said: to supplement the investigation,” I said. “I just spent the last day going through his very sparse address book and non-existent social media.”

  “Boring people make for boring cases.”

  “No kidding,” I said. “So, who’s running the case on your end?”

  “Detective Inspector Felicity Dunsmore,” he said. “Bit of an up-and-comer in the Missing Persons Unit.”

  “What’s she like?”

  “What I’ve heard is same as what I’ve seen when dealing with her. She’s good police. Sharp, and she follows through. She knows MP is not the best place, ambition-wise. I reckon she’s gunning for a big case or two to get a chance to move on.”

  “Anything else?”

  “What is this, speed date by proxy?”

  “C’mon.”

  “By reputation, she’s a stickler for detail,” he said. “So she’s not going to be thrilled you’re involved.”

  “I honestly don’t know if you’re complimenting me or not.”

  “I’m sure you do.”

  “Oh, stop. I hate it when we fight.”

  We were at Calloway’s car, a non-descript but still quite decent Volvo.

  “New wheels?”

  “Gotta treat yourself every now and then,” he said. He punched a text into his phone, and my inner jacket trembled.

  “That’s her number,” he said. “Call her, as a courtesy. Introduce yourself. Tell her everything she already knows.”

  “Like what?”

  “You know. I’m just here to help, I’ll stay out of your way, let’s share info, we’re all on the same side. Blah blah blah, as you Yanks might say, right? But make sure she feels like she’s the one definitely in charge.”

  “So sensitive,” I said. “Why would I do that?”

  “Because she is, you idiot.” He opened the car door and slid in, but left it open.

  “How’s everything else?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “Not bad. Keeping busy.”

  He held my gaze for a moment.

  “I’m good,” I said. “Sober, mate. Scout’s honour.”

  “Keep it that way,” he said. “The wife, Mrs. Duclos. She’s broke, right, her and the kids? How are you getting paid?”

  “I don’t until the end of the job,” I said, skipping over the possible illegality of the arrangement.

  He shook his head. “That’s risky. Bordering on stupid. You know as well as I do most missing persons who are found, it’s within 24 hours. Something like this, where the guy obviously has time, resources and no known enemies? He wants to be gone.”

  “Maybe,” I said. “Or maybe he’s just buying himself time.”

  “For what?”

  “Jesus, Calloway,” I said. “I don’t know yet. That’s why guys like us have a job.”

  He bristled at that a bit.

  “I have a job because I wanted to serve the people of London and the United Kingdom and do so by being part of one of the most storied law enforcement agencies in history,” he said. “You have a job because, I don’t know, you read too many trashy novels as a kid. Watched a few episodes of Cracker and thought, oh that looks like fun, but I’ll skip all the boring parts of becoming a cop and pretend taking photos of cheating husbands is the same thing.”

  “We haven’t caught up in a while,” I said. “I don’t do that stuff anymore.”

  “Cheating husbands, missing husbands—whatever. You still answer to a client.”

  “We all answer to someone.”

  “Not really,” he said. He slid the CD into the car’s player. “Like you said,
we haven’t caught up in a while. I police other police. They answer to me, for the most part.”

  I rolled my eyes. He turned up the volume.

  “Night,” he said. “Thanks for the disc. Try not to spend that retainer in one place, yeah?”

  Calloway could, I was learning, always be counted on to put me in what he thought was my place. Still, he was a decent enough guy. And my only friend at Scotland Yard. He extended his hand, and I took it.

  “The TV show was Crime Story, actually,” I said. “My mom let me stay up late Fridays to watch it. You were close, though.”

  “You didn’t need a TV show,” he said as he started to pull away from the curb. “Yours is a vivid enough imagination, Grayle. Take care.”

  6

  I arrived at St. Ann’s Academy the next morning, bright and early, amazed as always at both the chipper energy and quiet air of entitlement uniformed kids could exude. I already felt tired facing it as I took the entrance steps two at a time, hoping the head had coffee in his office.

  Headmaster Benedict Montrose was younger than I had imagined, with blonde hair carefully slicked back and parted neatly to the side. Instead of a sweater vest or tweed jacket, he paired a crisp white Oxford shirt and repp tie. His sleeves were even rolled up. I felt self-conscious of my navy suit as he guided me to a soft chair in front of his desk—it’s not often you get to the principal’s office and feel overdressed.

  “Tea?” he asked. Damn it. I shook my head and he settled in, leaning forward, his pink skin looking clean and relatively line-free as the morning sun split the venetians.

  “So,” he said. “I understand you’d like to talk about the Duclos boy?”

  “Yes,” I said, pulling my notebook loose and fiddling with my visitor lanyard. It had caught on the inside of my suit jacket. “I’m sure the mother has contacted you, or otherwise I wouldn’t have even gotten through the door.”

  He nodded, but waited for me to start.

  “Aiden Duclos,” I said. “How has he been coping?”

  Montrose considered before answering.

  “As well as could be expected. Obviously, there has been some unfortunate teasing from other boys.”

  “What are his friends like?”

  “He struggles in that area.”

  “Clubs, sports, activities…?”

  Montrose shook his head.

  “Aiden is gifted academically, and a quiet and polite enough child to avoid making any waves or drawing undue attention, either from staff or his peers. He is making his way through here, but we would like to see him do a bit more than, well…”

  “Glide?” I asked. Montrose shrugged.

  “This is a school, of course, and our focus is on education. But part of that education is preparing these boys to be well-rounded young men when they face the world.”

  “Looks to me a lot of these boys won’t be facing the world when they get out of here, so much as running it,” I said.

  “You’d be surprised,” Montrose countered. “Wealth and privilege are real things, to be sure, but many of these boys have struggles and demons just as well as anyone else.”

  “Let me guess: you also have a scholarship for a deserving underprivileged kid from, say, Hackney, preferably from a visible minority family.”

  Montrose didn’t respond right away, waiting just long enough for the silence to become briefly awkward.

  “You’re cynical enough to be a detective, I’ll give you that,” Montrose finally said.

  I looked down at my notes, and cleared my throat.

  “Sorry. Occupational strain, I suppose. You see a lot.”

  Montrose shooed my apology away.

  “Not a second thought, please, Mr. Grayle. I want to help as best as I can. Ask away.”

  “Well, you’ve said he’s not Captain Popularity,” I said. “But what’s he like, you know, as a kid? What are his interests?”

  Montrose pulled a yellow folder from a pile of them and dropped it in the centre. He opened it.

  “Moody, struggles to participate in class, shies away from direct questions even though he clearly knows the answers. Excels in group work, likely because he takes on all the work rather than suffer at the hands of other students’ limitations or laziness. Outstanding grades across the board, with a special affinity for English Lit. Which bring me to this…”

  He slid a small stack of stapled papers across to me, a short story written by Aiden. I flipped through it. It featured a boy, an invisible monster that sets up shop at the kitchen table for meal-time, and that monster’s gruesome end via the boy’s wits, cunning and a very large knife.

  “Not bad,” I said. “Pretty solid start, and it has a clear beginning, middle and end.”

  Montrose allowed himself a small smile.

  “That aside,” he said, “The imagery was deemed a bit strong by his teacher. We asked Aiden to speak to the school counselor.”

  “What, for a bit of gore? He’s a kid. They love this stuff.”

  “Normally, I’d agree with you. But here we wanted to make sure there was nothing else going on with the boy. As I said, he is a moody child.”

  “What’d the counselor say?”

  “Without too many specifics, he was satisfied Aiden was not a killer, of monsters or otherwise.”

  “That’s good to know,” I said, flipping the notebook closed. “Can I speak to him?”

  “Mrs. Duclos said you would want to, and we have arranged for you to have some time at recess,” Montrose said, glancing at the clock. “Which will be in a few minutes. We’ve asked him to come here. You may use this office.”

  “Is it all right if I talk to him alone?”

  “Of course,” Montrose said, standing. He pulled a windbreaker, branded with the school’s crest, off a hook. “You can use my office, if you’d like. I like to do a quick walk through the school grounds at the breaks, make sure everything is well within normal levels of anarchy and degradation.”

  “There’s a theory about that in criminology,” I said. “That visual deterrence of law enforcement is most effective when it’s carried out by police on the ground, interacting with civilians, cracking down on minor offenses.”

  “Really? Interesting,” Montrose said, zipping up. I wasn’t sure if he was just being polite, but for some reason I wanted him to know I was at least a little bit smart.

  “Yeah, it argues that problems start when we let the little stuff slide,” I continued. “It allows escalation to bigger crimes.”

  “I can see that working at a school level,” Montrose said, nodding. “Not sure about in major urban areas, though. Tell me, were you a police officer before this?”

  I laughed. “No. Um, I was a teacher, actually. Just for a little while, though.”

  Montrose’s turn to laugh a bit. “Well, then I’m sure you’ll be great with Aiden. One more thing, if I may, Mr. Grayle. I’m curious.”

  “Shoot.”

  “In your example: Why does the crime necessarily escalate?”

  “In theory? It’s the same as life,” I said. “When you don’t take care of the small stuff, the big stuff comes back to bite you in the ass.”

  7

  Montrose left me to my own devices as he took to patrolling what passed for the rough and tumble outside, telling me Aiden would be along shortly. I took the opportunity to check out his bookcase and return a missed call from Ayesha.

  “So, thinking about going back to your old job?” she asked.

  “Not a chance,” I replied. “Not here at least. These kids don’t need somebody like me.”

  “Is that your self-congratulatory way of saying you don’t need them?”

  “Six of one, half dozen of another,” I replied. Montrose had, of course, a few classics of literature lining his wall, including some James Joyce and Dickens, but also some heavy history texts—ranging from Howard Zinn to Simon Montefiore. A lot of his books, though, were on child psychology, covering issues like conflict resolution and the eff
ects of trauma. I was beginning to think that the headmaster might be that rarest of breeds in elite education—a genuine humanitarian. “What’s up?”

  “I need some work, was thinking you might have a few leads.”

  “You usually bring me work,” I said.

  “I’m diversifying. You working on anything cool?”

  “I might be,” I said. “So far, so good. I’ll keep you posted, though.”

  “Do that. I’m getting stir crazy.”

  “Didn’t that other bodyguard gig just wrap up, like, a week ago?”

  “I don’t deal well with dead time,” she said. “I’ve got to keep moving. Like a shark.”

  “That shark thing’s a myth.”

  “Fine. A woman’s gotta eat, then. Sharks still eat, right?”

  There was a knock at the door, two meek taps.

  “That’s the rumour, but you’re not going hungry yet,” I said, wrapping the call. “Like I said, I’ll get back to ya when I need ya.”

  I opened the door. Aiden Duclos, all five feet and maybe 90 pounds of him, looked up from under the flop of blonde hair shrouding his eyes.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m Thad.”

  “Hey.” He made to step inside, but I held up my hand.

  “Nah, not here. Let’s go for a walk.”

  He shrugged and fell into step beside me as I took my time walking down the hall. Students milled at lockers, swapping snacks and homework. Music played from too-loud earbuds that were passed around. I could hear shouts and the occasional shriek outside. I stopped at a water fountain.

  “Mom says you’re helping to find my dad,” Aiden said.

  “I am, yes,” I said, wiping my chin. “But I want to ask you a few questions, if that’s all right.”

  “Sure, but I already talked to the cops.”

  “Do you watch TV?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “Well, this is the part of the programme where a guy like me says, ‘I’m not the cops.’”