by Katsura
Hugo glanced at the row of stainless steel knives that hung on a rack on the wall.
What if Mikhail simply never woke up?
No. That would be too transparent. If he murdered Mikhail in his bed, Fergus would obviously see Hugo as the number one suspect.
What about drugging him?
Hugo had prescriptions for everything, from depression to insomnia. There were certainly enough sedatives about the place. Perhaps not enough to kill a man, but maybe to buy him a little time? That was not a bad idea. Keep Mikhail drugged and then figure out what to do with him.
Fergus walked into the room. He opened the fridge and took out the milk. Without saying a word, he proceeded to drink some straight from the carton. This was such a disgusting habit and despite the situation, Hugo still frowned. Now was not the time to scold him. Fergus would be likely to just hurl the stuff at him.
“What happened to him?” Hugo tried to keep his voice interested but calm, a light twitch at his eye betraying his annoyance over Fergus’s domestic lapse.
“I’m not sure.” Fergus wiped his hand across his mouth as he put the milk back into the fridge.
“Did he turn up at your father’s?” Hugo pressed on. It was a good sign, obviously, that Fergus hadn’t launched a violent attack on him, as that is exactly what he would have done if he knew that Hugo was involved in anything that had happened to Mikhail.
“He was at the lock-up.” Fergus sat at the table. “Judas MacGregor was there.”
Hugo sat opposite him. He made his eyes look wide with shock. “I would never have believed that Judas would do such a thing!” Good. A convenient patsy to take the blame. Poor Judas. Poor, unreliable, but sexy, Judas.
“Do what sort of thing?” Fergus stared at Hugo’s face.
“Well…whatever it was happened to Mikhail, of course, silly.” Hugo laughed then quickly stopped himself. He shouldn’t feel that the situation was amusing at all. It wasn’t anyway. The man Hugo had kept a prisoner and intended to murder, was alive and upstairs in Fergus’s bed. The only milk in the house was now unfit for human consumption. It would be a struggle to see how the situation could be any worse right now.
Fergus tapped his fingers against the wood of the table. His eyes strayed to them and stayed there. “Mikhail said that he was abducted by some Polish men. They tied him up and left him at the lock-up.” Fergus’s voice was very quiet and quite unlike himself.
Hugo wanted to cheer with relief. Mikhail was such a pussy. What did you have to do to the man to make him stand up for himself? He took a deep breath. “Well. That must have been pretty scary for him. The poor chap. Is there any way of finding out who the men were? Mikhail is practically one of us. Something should be done about it.”
“He wants Cain to deal with it.” Fergus lifted his gaze to Hugo’s face. “He doesn’t want me involved.”
Hugo nodded. “Maybe that’s wise, Fergus. Your father wouldn’t want you to start some war with the Polish mafia over this.”
Fergus stood up. He took his phone out of his pocket and pressed a few buttons.
“Rasputin. I need to come over to my place. Now.”
He finished his call and Hugo went to his side. Hugo stroked his hand gently down Fergus’s arm. “That’s a good idea, darling.” Hugo nodded. “Rasputin is one of that lot.
He might know some of their names.”
“Rasputin is from Lithuania. Don’t be such an idiot, Hugo.” Fergus seemed odd. He walked to the kitchen window and waited there for the arrival of his man. He didn’t have to wait long as Rasputin pulled into the driveway in his rusty old Lada. Hugo followed close behind Fergus as they both went outside to meet him.
“Rasputin.” Fergus still spoke in a calm voice. “I need you to stay here. Mikhail Majewski is up in my room. Guard the door.”
He took Rasputin’s car keys off him as Rasputin gave a curt nod of understanding.
“Yes you must protect us.” Hugo stood by Rasputin’s side. “Don’t worry, Fergus.
We will be safe with Rasputin here! Where are you going?”
Fergus didn’t answer. He just got into the heap of a car and drove off without so much as a look back.
First stop was Judas MacGregor’s place. The last time Fergus was here he hadn’t bothered to ring the doorbell. He’d just picked the lock instead. This time he did however and he waited impatiently for Judas to answer the door.
Under Judas’s name plate, the words Fuck you had been gouged deep into the wood. Fergus remembered noticing this on his last visit. Now there were some new additions. A long list of insults that ran down the door like comments on a Facebook status.
Bastard. Cunt. Dildo. Scumbag.
People were so uncreative. If Fergus hadn’t been so hell bent on determining what had actually happened to Mikhail, he would have taken the time to carve a makeshift
“Like” button.
Eventually Judas opened the door, and he didn’t look very pleased at his nocturnal visitor. “What the fuck do you want?” His eyes were bleary and his hair was in disarray. There was a strong smell of alcohol coming from him. Judas limped back on into his flat, dressed only in one of the sheets from his bed that he had draped around himself. He sat on the sofa and lit a cigarette.
“I won’t keep you.” Fergus kept standing rather than sit next to Judas or take one of the chairs. He had no plans to waste much time here. “Just tell me what you know about what happened at the lock-up.”
Judas looked up at Fergus’s face with a weary expression. “I had fuck all to do with it, if that’s what you think. I like Mikhail. Whatever happened to him had fuck all to do with me.” Judas took a deep draw on his cigarette.
“I believe you.” Fergus nodded. “What were you doing at the lock-up?”
“Oh, fuck you!” Judas flopped back against the sofa. He looked even more fed up than he had done before. “I have every fucking right to be there whenever I want. I found it in the first place, remember? It’s more mine than it is yours.”
Fergus took a deep breath. “Fair enough.” He nodded. “Just tell me what happened when you got there.”
Judas closed his eyes in annoyance. “I opened the fucking door to the cellar.
Mikhail slashed me with a razor. I fell back on my ass.” He opened his eyes and stared at Fergus. “I saw he was in trouble and I got him outside. Then you arrived like the fucking twat that you always are and you know the rest. Now can I please get back to my fucking bed?”
Fergus pursed his lips. It didn’t make sense for Judas to have had anything to with the whole business. Not after the way that Mikhail had tried to protect him. Judas was telling the truth, or at least part of the truth.
“Okay.” Fergus walked towards the door.
Judas, clearly too tired to even make it back to his bed again, lay on the sofa and pulled the sheet further around himself. “And close the fucking door after you.” He mumbled into a cushion. Fergus was about to comply, then he glanced back at Judas’s prone form.
“You said before, when you called me. You said you were going to take something from me.” Fergus waited for Judas to respond to this. The sheets remained still for a moment and then Judas sat up, clearly still hankering after his shut eye.
“Yeah.” He nodded. “And?”
Fergus shrugged. “Well what were you referring to?”
Judas’s brows lowered and a sinister smile slipped across his wide lips. “Your peace of mind.” He gave a little laugh.
Fergus pursed his lips and angled his head. “Well, Jude, you can’t take what I never really had in the first place.” He left, and closed the graffito covered door behind him.
*
He didn’t want to, but Fergus felt that he had no choice but to return once more to the lock-up. The drive there seemed quicker than it had done before and maybe it was because he was so much more sober this time. He parked outside and raked about in Rasputin’s glove compartment until he found what he had been looking for.
/> A person was taking their life into their hands going down those cellar steps at the best of times, but in the dark was ten times worse. Fergus switched the torch on and walked to the cellar door. The keys that Judas had used were still in the lock. A pool of blood, that looked black until he shone the light directly on it, was right at the entrance, along with a cut throat razor. Fergus traced the bloody drips with the light and they showed an obvious path to the outside. If he needed any further confirmation over the validity of Judas’s story, that was it. Cleary what Judas said had happened, had actually happened.
Fergus made his cautious way down the steps. This place needed to be condemned and the thought that Mikhail had been locked up here made his blood boil. He shone the torch beam around the expanse of the room, his aim to highlight every corner.
There was a rope tied to a pipe that ran down the length of the wall. At the base of the pipe was an old fruit crate and a broken pocket mirror. A plastic carrier bag sat a little way off and Fergus approached it. He gave it a light kick with his shoe. There was nothing inside it, but a few items sat close by. An empty bottle of mineral water, a few unopened cereal bars and a container of some sort of moisturiser. Fergus crouched to examine the items more closely and he reached out his hand and lifted the container.
Some of the product had been used and Fergus could feel the oily substance from the lid coat his fingers.
He lifted his hand to his face and inhaled the scent.
It was aromatic and woody.
*
It was not so much a painful scar that Judas had on his shin. It just seemed to sting in a very irritating way so as he sat with his trouser leg rolled up and watching TV, there was a warm flannel placed over the wound. This helped, but only a little, and Judas sipped from the glass of whisky at his side to try to aid his relaxation further.
Only the weather was on. Nothing that would inspire him with any of the lust that he so craved, but as Judith Ralston sashayed across to the map, he smirked and raised an interested brow.
The door opened and Judas looked up as he saw that Vinny had entered the room, a look of concern flitting over his young features.
“What happened to you?” Vinny asked as he approached Judas’s chair. He reached out his hand and lifted up the flannel, then stared down at the cut on Judas’s leg.
“Nothing.” Judas shook his head and put the TV off. Mrs Ralston would warm him up later no doubt, unless he could find some actual company. “Where have you been? I haven’t seen you since…well—“
“Since you called me a junkie?” Vinny covered the cut again. “Yeah well if I told you where I was you would just likely see that as confirmation.”
“Try me.” Judas smiled as Vinny took the seat opposite him.
“Well I hardly know myself really. One minute I’m coming back from the pub after having a skin full, next minute I wake up in the woods with a blinding fucking headache, my back covered in scratches.” Vinny looked wide eyed and confused.
Judas laughed. “Fuck. Sounds like a good night you had there.”
Vinny shook his head. “Seriously, Jude.” He said in disbelief. “I’ve no fucking clue what happened to me!”
“Did someone slip you a roofie? You know, what do you call them? Rohip…the date rape thing?” Judas leaned forward and shifted the cloth on his leg a fraction to ease the niggling ache again.
“Rohypnol?” Vinny shook his head. “Naw. Well, not that I know of. I was with Cain. There would be no reason for him to do that to me. Not considering that we’d fucked before we went out.”
Judas sat up straighter. The wet flannel slipped from his shin and hit the floor with a plop. “You what, now?”
“We fucked? You know?” Vinny made a circle with his thumb and forefinger, then ran his index finger from his other hand back and forth through the makeshift hole.
“How can I put this? When two people get a special feeling for each other, the man gets an erection. In me and Cain’s case, being both men, we each did. Then Cain shoved his up my arse and…”
“Ha, bloody, ha.” Judas slapped the side of Vinny’s head playfully. “So that is why you were seeing Cain? Not for drugs but because…you and him…”
“Wow, you are good, Jude. And you guessed that just from what I said there? Fuck that is spooky!” Vinny grinned.
Judas stared at him for a moment.
He’d never known Vinny to have a relationship before. Of course the young man had random partners here and there but no-one special. Judas knew that personally, he was not the brightest button in the box, but he had sometimes got the impression that Vinny was somehow carrying a torch for him.
“So,” He tried not to sound disappointed, “you…and Cain. You are like…an item?”
“Well I don’t know if you’d call us that.” Vinny grinned. “Don’t go pressing your good suit yet. But, well I like him, and I reckon he likes me.”
It wasn’t fair to feel let down at the news that Vinny had found someone and Judas tried not to let his less than enthusiastic response to this revelation show. “Well…good then. Maybe you can rope him in to helping find out about the missing bag.”
Rather surprisingly, Vinny rolled his eyes. “God, Jude you have to shut up about that fucking bag! Okay, I took it. You happy now? It was me.” He raised his chin.
“Yeah, yeah.” Judas cuffed Vinny’s chin gently. “And I’m a virgin.”
“Jude, I mean it. Can we just forget about it?” Vinny stared into Judas’s eyes.
Judas laughed but it wasn’t a subject that he found amusing at all. “Don’t even joke about it, baby. You never want anyone to think you are the kind of guy that would do that. It isn’t a joking matter. Some fuck might actually believe you.”
Vinny shrugged. “But it’s true.”
Was Vinny being serious? Judas was aware that his mouth was hanging open, struck by the notion that Vinny seemed not be having a laugh with him, but actually making a confession. “Hold the fuck on. You took it? You are honestly telling me that you took it?”
“Yes!” Vinny looked at him as though he was stupid. “How do you think I could afford to get you that fucking big chain? The aftershave? All the money I lost to you at cards?”
He was clearly waiting for the penny to drop as he made a winding motion with his hand.
Judas stared back at him numbly. “So…the chain…it wasn’t fake then? All that stuff was real?” Judas couldn’t believe his ears. Of all the people Judas had ever known, he would never have believed that Vinny would stoop to stealing from his own.
“Yeah.” Vinny nodded. “All real, Jude. And when we played cards, I let you win.
You really think I could spend so long in the nick and not learn a few tricks at poker?
Come on now. You are a great guy, Jude, but you are lousy at cards.”
Judas stood up. His trouser leg slipped back down over the cut on his leg but he had ceased to feel that any more. He stood with his back to Vinny and stared out of the window.
“I’m so disappointed in you,” he said quietly and lowered his chin a fraction. Vinny had been his protégé, his own little success story and he had turned out to be a failure just like the man who had trained him.
“I know you are.” Vinny sounded hurt. “I knew you would be. It’s why I couldn’t tell you it was me. I knew you would react like this. You would assume I was a crook and turn your back on me.”
Judas turned around to face him again. “But, Vinny. You are a crook.”
Vinny stared back at him. His eyes looked moist and reddened. “You know, out of everything, the thought that I had let you down was the worst of my fears.” Vinny swallowed hard. “I knew I shouldn’t have done it. It was a spur of the moment thing and then…I tried to make it right by giving you things but…it could never be made right.”
“Did you learn nothing from me?” Judas stared at him, feeling a cold weight in his chest. “We don’t take from our own.”
“You take from the
Campbells.” Vinny raised his chin again.
“I don’t belong to them. When you took that money, you took from me, Ewan and Rasputin. I can’t even look at you right now.” Judas lowered his head more and a knot of sorrow tightened in his stomach.
“Can I try to explain?” Vinny took a step toward him. “I know it doesn’t make what I did right but…when you got caught…I thought that was it for you. I thought you were going down for sure. Fergie sent me with the van. The money was still in the back.”
He reached out his hand and Judas felt the softness of Vinny’s touch through the fabric of his shirt.
“I just took your share for you. I was so scared Fergie would divide yours amongst the rest of us. I took it for you but then…when it all kicked off, I knew no one would believe me. Who would ever trust me? I’m nothing. Just a junkie waiting to fall back on his old ways. You thought that yourself. Not even you believed in me.”
His hand fell limply to his side and Judas looked up to see the single tear that slipped down Vinny’s cheek.
When Vinny went to talk to a guy he had the hots for, what had Judas assumed?
That he went to him for drugs. Vinny was still dressed in the same shit that he always wore, not because, like Judas assumed, he was spending his money on smack. No.
Vinny was spending his money on him. Vinny was trying to right the wrong that he thought Fergus would pull.
Judas stared ahead and hated every fibre of his own being.
If there was such a thing as loyalty he was looking right at it. It had long braided hair, a few piercings and a face filled with unwarranted shame. Judas had always thought of Vinny as a comic. The one who’d be guaranteed to make everyone laugh and brighten any room that he walked into. Whilst congratulating himself over saving Vinny, Judas had failed to notice the fact that the boy had grown up and turned into a man. An attractive man with eyes you could lose yourself in. If only you weren’t such a great wanking dickhead.
