Blackwater

by Conn Iggulden

  I couldn’t send the first letter I wrote. It was one of those you do to get everything clear in your head. It was angry and I swore a lot. If I’d sent that, my brother might have had me committed to the mental wing back at Brighton General. There is a real difference between committing yourself and having someone else do it for you. Apart from the way you are treated, the main thing is that you can walk out when you see the nurses violently restraining someone as they scream and spit blood. If you are sectioned and sent there, even for something as harmless as depression and a suicide watch, you can’t get out – you’re in the system and they lose all interest in how you feel or what you need.

  I tore the letter into tiny shreds in case someone had the time to glue it back together in between emptying the bins of a hospital. Even though I knew it was stupid, I still made sure the pieces ended up in two separate bins.

  I kept the second try short. It said I was having trouble with Carol and I didn’t know what to do. If you’d asked me then what I was hoping for, I probably couldn’t have told you. I couldn’t handle Denis Tanter and I couldn’t see a way out. That’s when you ask for help. You don’t know what the help is going to be. If you did, you could probably do it on your own. I put it in the hospital postbox and walked stiffly away from it without looking back. It was done. He would either come or he wouldn’t.

  Two days later he left a message on the answering machine to say he was on the way. Nothing more, just ten seconds of his voice while I sat and watched the machine. Hearing him brought back a lot of unpleasant memories. I took my half-empty bottle of Laphroaig to keep me warm, put on my best black suit and wrote a letter to Carol. I left it on the kitchen table where she would see it if she came back. After that I walked down to the beach, and when it was dark I stood on the edge of the black sea, looking out. I finished the whisky and scooped up a little salt water to cut the taste of it. It was as bitter as I was, and it was around then that I stopped feeling the cold and walked into the water.

  I don’t know how long I stood there before he found me. He’d read the letter on the table. I knew he would.

  I told him all of it as we walked back along the dark streets of Brighton. The wind had picked up and I was shivering so he gave me his coat. It smelled of cigars and his aftershave, which wasn’t one I knew. It was a better coat than I have ever owned and I could feel its weight and softness like the first touches of guilt.

  He hardly commented as we walked together, asking just an occasional question about Denis or Michael, my impressions of them. I had to tell him more than I wanted to about Carol or it would have seemed nonsense. It came out in pieces, and once he looked at me and shook his head in slow amazement.

  ‘And you want her back?’ he said. I hated him then.

  I told him everything I could remember, anything that might help him to understand the two men who had come into my life and pushed me to desperation. I tried not to think that I was considering murder or, at the least, allowing murder in my name. I wanted them out of my life, and somewhere during the second beating in my kitchen I had stopped caring how it happened. Perhaps it was when my first finger was bent far enough to snap. Shame leads to rage in men, did you know that? If you want to see a white-hot tantrum, try humiliating a man, especially in public. Try making one afraid and then laughing about it.

  I was too cold to take pleasure in the conversation with my brother, but I could see that he did. Even without his coat he seemed too full of interest to feel the wind off the sea. He moved his hands in sharp cutting gestures when he talked, and he laughed at my description of Michael, making me repeat details so that he would know either of them on sight.

  I hadn’t realized how much planning would go into removing two men from the world. My brother was my single extra card, my one advantage that no one else knew about. He’d parked a mile from the house and walked. No one had a clue where he was and no one would ever be able to connect him to anything that happened. For a few days at least, he was going to enjoy himself. No guilt, no conscience.

  We sat at the kitchen table and he swore when I told him there wasn’t anything left to drink in the house. I’d thrown the empty bottle of Laphroaig into the sea before he came, a better splash in imagination than it actually was.

  ‘You’ve seen Michael alone, so they’re not joined at the hip,’ he said, thinking aloud. ‘It would be easier for me if I can catch each one by himself.’

  ‘But if you make a mistake and get caught, the other one will kill me.’

  ‘Or you’d kill him, little brother. Don’t think I don’t know you,’ he said, with a strange glint in his eye. I remembered him kicking the limp head of the man outside the club in Camden and I shuddered.

  ‘I’d try,’ I promised him. He nodded.

  ‘You’d do it to save Carol, I know you would.’

  I didn’t like him mentioning her. I wanted to think about the problem, not what would happen afterwards. I didn’t want her to know anything about it. Denis would just be found somewhere and his death put down to one of his unpleasant business partners. No one would suspect me and no one would know my brother had even been in Brighton. I wanted it clean.

  ‘Mind you, the only way to get him somewhere we can prepare is to tell him Carol wants to see him. A pub car park at night, say. When he gets fed up waiting, he comes out in the dark and I do something very violent for ten or fifteen seconds.’ He seemed to be enjoying the prospect and I had to swallow hard to clear the burning trail that surged up under my tongue.

  ‘It’s too risky. You can’t predict when he comes out so there could be a family standing by his car, or a group of drunks peeing in the gutter – witnesses. Even if you managed to… stop one of them, the other one would shout, or run. We’d never get away with it. It’s madness to think you could –’

  ‘All right, Davey, don’t get in a froth,’ he said curtly, cutting me off. ‘You might run down to the off-licence before it closes and buy me something stronger than orange squash. I might get the ideas flowing then.’ He smiled then, so cold and self-assured that I wanted to throw up. ‘Best to do it here, anyway, in this house,’ he said, looking around the kitchen. ‘We’ll get them where we can control things. He’s a man who employs a thug and breaks fingers. You’ll get away with a self-defence plea and they’ll never even know you had help.’

  ‘Are you wearing gloves?’ I asked him, suddenly. He was.

  ‘That’s more like it, Davey boy. Now you’re thinking.’

  The front door clicked open and I jumped to my feet in fear. My brother didn’t move and when he saw who was standing there he just smiled, his eyes half hooded with interest.

  ‘Hello, Carol love,’ he said. ‘Did you bring anything to drink?’

  I saw her flicker a gaze to me and then back to him, wondering what we had been discussing. She looked rested and she’d had her hair cut. There was a new bag on her shoulder and she looked as beautiful as always. New shoes too, I noticed, when my eyes dropped at last.

  ‘It’s always nice to see one of Davey’s family,’ she said coolly, her eyes making a complete lie of it. I could feel the dislike between them and I wondered if they’d fight if I left to get whisky. I realized there would be at least one witness to the fact that my brother was in Brighton, and my stomach churned. Why couldn’t she have spent a few more days discovering her inner child or whatever the hell it was she got up to on these trips?

  ‘I’d better get to bed,’ she said, staging a yawn. ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ My brother didn’t look up, and when she’d gone I realized she hadn’t even asked about my splinted hand. She hadn’t seen it, I was half certain. She’d expected a welcome and instead there we were, looking… well, looking like a couple of conspirators planning a murder.

  My brother leaned forward and spoke in what was barely a murmur. ‘Having her here is going to be a problem,’ he said. Then he grinned. ‘However, this isn’t a bank robbery and I don’t need to spend ages planning it. Just make sure she�
��s well clear when we get your two friends into this kitchen one more time.’

  ‘She’ll tell the police you were here,’ I said, just as quietly. I couldn’t meet his eyes, but it had to be considered. The police wouldn’t be looking at a lone man defending himself against two vicious career thugs. They would be looking for a lone man’s brother, mysteriously vanished from Brighton the very day after a double murder. When I did look up, he was frowning, turning it over and over in his mind.

  After a while of me watching him, he said, ‘Why don’t you go and get that bloody whisky while I’m thinking?’

  I went.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I CAME SHARPLY OUT of sleep, jerked from a dream by some noise she made as she dressed. My first view was of her standing in bra and knickers, pulling on her skirt. She’d been asleep by the time I had come up the night before, or at least pretending to be. She saw me move in the dressing-table mirror, and we looked at each other for a long moment. I saw her eyes drift down to my splinted hand, large and white on the duvet. A T-shirt covered the other bruises.

  ‘I tore two fingernails off, changing a tyre,’ I said, watching her wince. ‘You should see what it looks like.’

  ‘No thanks, Davey. I have to get going.’

  It was half an hour earlier than she usually left and I couldn’t help my glance at the alarm clock. She had the grace to look away as I did, straightening the collar of her blouse in the mirror. I guessed she wanted to be out of the house before my brother was up. Sometimes I can read her too easily.

  ‘He’s only visiting for a day or two,’ I said.

  She nodded, her mouth a tight line and pale without her lipstick. With a few more brisk movements she finished her routine and left the room, leaving just a faint touch of perfume on the air. I liked to watch the change, from sleepy tangles to smart estate agent, all polished and shining.

  My brother had come up with the lie for the broken fingers. If I’d told her about Denis coming back she might have gone to the police, or worse, called the man himself from her office. She still might call him, of course, but I believed Denis when he told me she had ended it, or at least I believed his anger and hurt. Funny that. I wouldn’t have believed her.

  It was a small risk, though, and we knew we would have to act quickly. Even as she closed the front door behind her, I heard my brother turn the shower on. It was going to be today. By the time she came home from work, our little problem would be handled.

  I pulled on a dressing gown when I heard the shower squeak to a stop. It was an odd moment to come out onto the landing and see him there. I think the last time I’d seen him with a towel around his waist was when we were kids. He looked a lot stronger, I noticed. He wasn’t carrying any fat and he looked as if he kept himself very fit. It is easier for men with high levels of testosterone, you know. They enjoy exercise more than other men, right up to the heart attack that kills them. I folded my arms across the front of my dressing gown and nodded to him. We had planned everything, but I could feel my heart pounding at an insane speed.

  ‘Are you ready, little brother? No second thoughts?’ he asked me, amusement in his voice. He didn’t seem nervous at all.

  ‘No second thoughts,’ I said.

  We moved fast after that. It was just possible that Denis might hear Carol had come back to work. For all we knew, he walked by the office every morning, or paid the secretary to pass on any news of her. It was probably just nerves, but it didn’t hurt to move things along as quickly as possible. The way my brother worked things out, we had one chance to get this right. Even with Carol knowing he was in Brighton, it would still work, he assured me. He’d been to court over Bobby Penrith and got away with it. He would again.

  I sat in the kitchen with the phone on the table in front of me, just looking at it and going over what we’d planned in my head. It was all very well to work out the details in my imagination, but when I picked up that phone and dialled, it would really begin. After that it would be like stepping off a cliff – it just doesn’t matter if you change your mind halfway through.

  ‘Try it on me first,’ my brother demanded. It was the first sign of nervousness I’d seen from him. I shook my head, going over what we’d planned to say. It would bring Denis running, I knew it would.

  I saw him pour a glass of the whisky I’d bought the night before. I jerked back as his hand moved, but most of it still caught me in the face. I cried out in anger, remembering Michael doing just the same.

  ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I said, holding one eye closed against the sting.

  ‘Now you’re ready to make the call,’ he said, laughing at my expression. ‘You were just a little too relaxed before. Go on. Do it.’

  I glanced at the scrap of paper beside the phone with the number of Denis Tanter on it. One call to directory enquiries had given me the last thing I needed.

  I punched in the numbers and took a deep breath.

  ‘WT Limited,’ it was a woman’s voice, not one I knew. A secretary, maybe. I kept calm. This was the number I’d been given.

  ‘Get Denis Tanter on the line,’ I said, slurring slightly. The whisky fumes helped a little, strangely enough.

  ‘Who is this?’ she asked. I felt acid flood into my mouth and I grimaced at the taste of it.

  ‘Just you go and get him. Tell him to come and clear up his messes, all right? Tell him…’

  I heard the change-over going on and I was ready for it when the new voice came.

  ‘Who is this?’ Michael. That was all I’d wanted.

  ‘You bastard,’ I sneered at him. ‘She’s dead and it’s because of Denis bloody Tanter, isn’t it? You go to hell, you…’ I trailed off, snuffling drunkenly as if I were weeping, or pressing a hand against my face. Give the man a chance to respond.

  ‘Davey? Who’s dead? Not Carol? Davey, is that you?’ Perfect. I could hear the fear in his voice. It was just the beginning of what he had coming.

  ‘Pills!’ I spat the word at the phone, leaving a trail of whisky and spittle on it. ‘You pushed and you pushed, didn’t you, Michael? You and Denis. You pushed us, and now Carol’s dead. I swear, I’m –’

  My brother took the phone from me and pressed the button that ended the call. His face was a study in quiet awe.

  ‘That was just right, Davey boy. That should bring them running,’ he said. I nodded at him, wiping roughly at my mouth.

  ‘We’d better get ready,’ he muttered, dropping the phone back into its cradle with a clatter. He’d brought a bag in from the car and I watched as he removed an eighteen-inch length of iron bar that I couldn’t help but pick up. It fitted the hand very well indeed. I took a swing with it and imagined it cracking into a skull.

  To my surprise, the bag went on to reveal a number of other pieces of pipe and various other tools.

  ‘For afterwards,’ he said. ‘It explains why you had a weapon to hand in a kitchen, doesn’t it?’ With a grim smile, he opened the cupboard under the sink and showed me how he’d unscrewed the plastic tubing. ‘They’ll probably never ask, but I thought, what the hell. If they do, all they’ll find is a little plumbing job. I was in the middle of it when I had to go out and look for a place that sells another piece the same as the one I cracked so artfully. While I’m away, you have a visit from two men who have threatened you before.’

  I looked at him and I swear he was calmer than I was. In just a few minutes Denis Tanter was going to come charging into my house for the third time. I pulled a carton of milk out of the fridge and drank from it to quiet my stomach.

  My brother reached into his jacket and showed me a vicious-looking knife.

  ‘They come armed with this. It’s sold in any hardware shop in the country. Not surprisingly, you panic and swing at them with a bit of pipe. You call the police, and before they arrive I come back. We handle their questions together.’

  ‘You think it will work?’ I asked him.

  He shrugged. ‘I don’t think it will even go to cour
t. Two against one? Self-defence will see you clear of it, Davey. No problem at all. You just trust me and we’ll see it through, all right?’

  I looked him in the eyes, and for a moment I could feel tears come. I nodded, turning away, knowing he had seen.

  ‘Now concentrate, Davey. They should be here any minute. You have the easy bit. You just sit down in the kitchen like we planned it. Have a drink, if you have to, just look miserable.’

  As I sat down, my brother went to the front door and left it on the latch.

  ‘Remind me to break the lock in afterwards,’ he said as he came back to the kitchen and stood behind the door. He hefted the metal bar in his hand and I couldn’t look at him.

  Outside, we heard a car engine roaring closer, being driven too fast. It screeched to a halt. I took a deep breath.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  DENIS TANTER CAME INTO my home at 9.28 in the morning. I looked up at the wall clock, so I know. He hit the front door so hard that I think he would have smashed the lock right off if we’d locked it. It hammered back against the wall and then bounced off his shoulder as he bulled his way in. I’d read him right, I was pleased to see. I’d told my brother he wasn’t the type to send Michael in first, not if his blood was up. It didn’t seem to worry my brother, but I wanted Denis in first. He was the dangerous one, not his man. I’d known that from the beginning.

  He hadn’t the faintest idea what was going on. I could see that from the moment he caught sight of me in the kitchen. I was looking pathetic, with tear trails down my face and an expression of stunned fear. It wasn’t hard to fake when you know someone is going to die in the next few minutes and it could very well be you.

  ‘Where is she?’ he roared at me. He was flushed with high emotion, and for an awful moment I thought he was going to go charging upstairs to search the bedrooms for her. I shook my head and gestured vaguely across the kitchen. He scowled at me and I saw his fists rise as he stepped inside the door. Michael was a shadow in the hall behind him, but I could only watch Denis as my brother struck. God, he was fast. You’ve never seen anything like it.