by Peter Boland
Savage gasped melodramatically. “Oh no,” he said, laying on the sarcasm thick. “I hate to think where those needles have been.”
“I’ve probably got hepatitis now.”
“Better get yourself tested. See if you’ve collected the full set, hepatitis A, B and C.”
Truck swore again, almost crying. “You bastard.”
“Well considering you’re a multiple rapist, probable paedophile and exploiter of vulnerable people, I think getting stabbed in the face with dirty needles is pretty fair. You’ve only got yourself to blame. I did warn you. Gave you the chance to walk away.”
At that moment, Vlad came spilling out of the front door, clutching his nose with both hands, his little fingers hanging limp like a couple of soggy French fries. Blood covered the front of his sweatshirt. The tenants of Tivoli Gardens cautiously followed him out, keeping a safe distance.
“Okay,” said Savage. “New house rules. You two pricks aren’t welcome here. If we see you here again, you’ll think what’s just happened is like a trip to Build-A-Bear. Now get lost and leave us alone.”
Everyone stood on the dusty bowl of a front garden while the sorry sights of Vlad and Truck dawdled off the property.
“You can go a bit faster than that,” someone shouted.
“Yeah, get lost, assholes.” Someone threw an empty lager can at them. Suddenly they all joined in, pelting Vlad and Truck with litter.
Savage turned away, walked back towards the house. He caught sight of Archie silently staring at him with a blank, unreadable expression. He couldn’t tell whether Archie admired him for what he’d just done or thought it was reckless, putting them all in danger.
Savage ignored him, went back inside and up to his room, pulled out his phone to make a call.
“Tannaz,” he said. “I think I’ve just mucked everything up.”
Chapter 35
Savage downed his third cup of tea while he waited for Tannaz to join him in the retro tearoom. Noel Coward’s plummy vocals crooned ‘There Are Bad Times Just Around The Corner’, reflecting exactly how Savage felt. To add insult to injury, Jeff Perkins wouldn’t shut up.
“Well, you’ve really gone and done it now, Savage,” he said, clearly enjoying Savage’s current discomfort. “You saved a woman you hardly know, at the expense of finding out who killed your friend and his son.”
Savage scanned the tearoom. Jeff’s voice was loud and clear in his head, and he was always paranoid that others could hear him. People sitting at the tables nearby carried on chatting and blissfully dunking biscuits in tea.
Rosie’s a single mum who was about to be thrown out onto the street, getting raped on a regular basis, and they were lining her daughter up next. Sorry, I wasn’t going to let that happen.
“Well, it’s all over now. Cat’s out of the bag. So much for playing the grey man. Not getting noticed. More like the bright-pink man, waving a flag—hey, you’re not the grey man, you’re the gay man. That’s you, the gay man.” Jeff cackled with childish laughter.
So I’m gay now am I?
“You macho types hate being called gay. Think it’s a slur on your manliness.”
Jeff, I’ve fought alongside gay soldiers and transgender soldiers, and I’d trust them with my life, actually, I did trust them with my life on more than one occasion. So that line of abuse isn’t going to get you anywhere. And my best friend Tannaz is gay, or bisexual sometimes—oh, who the hell cares?
“It’s unnatural.”
Unnatural? Oh, shut up, Jeff. Sixty years ago, writing with your left hand was unnatural. Teachers used to hit you with a ruler. You know what, you’re a homophobic, transphobic racist.
“How dare you? I am not a racist.”
Oh, so ethnic people are fine as long as they’re straight.
“Correct.”
Is that why you’re scared of Tannaz?
“I’m not.”
Yes, you are. You disappear whenever she’s around. Ah, here she comes now.
Out on the pavement in front of the bay window of the tearoom, Tannaz bundled along, computer bag over her shoulder, leather biker jacket zipped up tight against the cold and a Doctor Who length scarf coiled round her neck. Savage really wanted to tell her to invest in a more sensible coat, but knew it would be met with a broadside of expletives.
Jeff? Jeff?
The berating voice in his head had fled now that his kryptonite was here. Savage felt mildly better.
A cold blast from outside filled the tearoom as Tannaz entered, she ordered coffee, then came and sat at Savage’s table, hooking her computer bag over the chair. She fired a sympathetic look at Savage.
“Don’t you dare feel guilty,” she said. “You gave those raping bastards what they deserved.”
“I feel like I’ve let Dave and Luke down,” Savage replied. “I’m supposed to be playing the grey man, staying under the radar, finding out what happened to them. Now I’ve just sent a big rocket up into the sky.”
“Have you?” asked Tannaz. “You got into a fight. I’m sure it’s not the first fight that’s happened in Tivoli Gardens.”
“True, but I’ll get evicted, sure as eggs are eggs. And there goes our inside advantage.”
“Okay, fine. So you get evicted. We’ll just carry on investigating from the outside. And we’ve already made a massive breakthrough with Wellington and his weird betting games.”
“How’s that going by the way?”
“Haven’t found anything yet. Searching the dark web takes a lot longer than the regular one.”
Savage’s thoughts returned to the fight he’d just had. He slumped down in his chair. “I feel like I’ve blown it.”
“Oh, come on, Savage, you’re sounding like me. What was it you said about every SAS mission you’ve been on? No matter how well planned, it all goes out the window once you’re on the ground and the bullets start flying. You adapt. Improvise. When things go wrong you told me to remember a technique. Breathe. Recalibrate. Deliver. So take a breath, let’s regroup our thoughts and deliver what we set out to do. Nothing’s changed. We might need to modify how we achieve it. That’s all.”
Savage studied the crumbs on the tablecloth. “I’m not sure how we do that.”
“Just carry on,” said Tannaz. “Go back to Tivoli Gardens, play it out. No one knows you’re ex-SAS, or a friend of Dave Mosely or his son. You just had a fight is all. If you get thrown out, you get thrown out.”
“Okay,” said Savage. “You’re right. I’m being a wuss.”
“I’d hardly call you a wuss. You kicked the asses of two of Wellington’s men who were asking for it. Who raped, bullied and extorted their way around Tivoli Gardens. And I’m sure that’s not the only property they do that in.” Tannaz paused, then said, “How did it feel?”
“What?”
“Beating the crap out of them both.”
Savage smiled. “Pretty good, actually. Although, technically, I didn’t beat up Truck. I stabbed him with some dirty needles.”
“Even better. Prick deserved it.” She shot him a warm, reassuring smile. A rare treat for Savage, as Tannaz never smiled that much. “Okay, let’s stay positive. Catch Simon Wellington.”
Tannaz drove Savage back and dropped him off just before the Itchen Bridge where he walked the rest of the way home. She was right. He had to just carry on. Okay, he wasn’t the grey man anymore. Although, thinking about it, he hadn’t done that particularly well. Being the grey man meant being featureless and bland, fading into the background. Fixing doors and the window and teaching Dink how to make soup and taking him to support groups for his food addiction and self-harming wasn’t what you’d call keeping a low profile. He’d made a mark on Tivoli Gardens. It was only a matter of time before he got a knock on the door and got a section twenty-one, although Wellington Properties only used that when they
didn’t have a reason to throw you out. They had a pretty big reason to throw Savage out.
He was climbing the stairs back to his room, when Rosie appeared at her door. “Excuse me,” she said. “I didn’t get a chance to thank you. That was extremely brave what you did.”
“Or stupid,” he said.
“Well, I’m very grateful.”
“My pleasure,” he replied. “How’s Grace?”
“A little shaken up. You know kids, they bounce back quickly.”
“They certainly do. You take care now, Rosie.”
Savage continued up to his room. Inside he sat on the bed and examined the sheet of numbers he’d found in Dave’s jacket, hoping something might leap out at him. It didn’t.
Outside on the landing, Savage heard the heavy footsteps of men coming up the stairs. Lots of them. Savage sprang off the bed and onto his feet. This is it, he thought. My time at Tivoli Gardens is about to come to an end. He put the sheet of numbers down on the bed and got ready to face whatever was coming through his door.
They didn’t bother knocking. The door was unlocked and in trooped four big guys, dressed in black jeans and boots and various types of black bomber jacket. One of them had a completely bald head and a Bluetooth headset plugged in his ear. This must be the guy Tannaz had tracked down, Kieran Preston or ‘Bluetooth’. The one who had given Sylvia Sanchez the burner phone, and possibly killed her and Jenny Hopkins.
Bluetooth had a cold, impassive face like a stone deity from Easter Island, hard and unrelenting. Savage could imagine him slitting someone’s throat, then popping into M&S on his way home to pick up some bits for dinner, as if nothing had happened.
Both Bluetooth and the rest of the men radiated professionalism. Something about the way they held themselves broadcast that. Confident, calm and in control. Unlike Truck and Vlad, who were unskilled thugs, these guys definitely had brains and brawn, and that made them dangerous.
Once they’d all assembled in Savage’s room, staring down at him, someone he recognised followed them in. He’d never met the man in the suit that entered his room. It was unmistakably Simon Wellington’s son, Ben. He was a younger version of his old man, same wavy hair, except his was brown, not white. Same facial features, apart from the eyes. Ben’s were turned down at the corners, giving them a slightly sleepy, melancholic look. Savage noticed a flicker of recognition as Ben Wellington glanced down at the list of numbers on the bed. He was definitely making a mental note of them, then he blinked and looked back at Savage.
“Please excuse us barging in like this, Mr Savage, I’m Ben Wellington.” He spoke in a privately educated voice.
“I know this sounds like a cliché,” said Savage. “I’ve been expecting you.”
Ben Wellington managed a half-hearted smile. “It’s okay, Mr Savage, we’re not here to throw you out.”
“Really? Are those guys here to do the cleaning? Make sure they wipe the sills down properly, they got missed last time.”
“They’re just a little security,” Ben said. “You’re a dangerous man by the sounds of it.”
“Yes, how is Truck?”
“Oh, nothing that a few antibiotics can’t cure.”
“Send him my regards, everyone really misses him round here. So if you’re not here to throw me out, how can I help you?”
“I’ve come to offer you a job.”
Chapter 36
“What sort of job?” asked Savage.
Ben cleared his throat, looked at the men behind him. Bluetooth nodded at him, as if giving him approval to continue. “Have you ever heard of bare-knuckle boxing?” he asked, the phrase not sitting well on his soft, private-school tongue.
“Of course,” Savage replied.
“Well it’s a bit like that. You fight an opponent. People bet on you. You get paid two thousand pounds.”
“What if I lose?”
“Oh, don’t worry, you still get paid.”
Two thousand pounds wasn’t very much for stepping into a ring without any gloves, facing an opponent he didn’t know. Bare-knuckle boxers were usually paid a lot more for the risks they took.
“Make it five thousand,” said Savage.
Bluetooth stepped forward, with an altogether harsher tone. “You’re in no position to bargain. You’re unknown so that’s all you’re worth. Next fight we’ll think about upping the fee.”
Savage thought for a moment. “And what if I don’t want to fight?”
“Section twenty-one,” Bluetooth replied. “You’re out on your ass.”
“So I really have no choice, then. I have to fight or I’m homeless.”
Ben Wellington didn’t say anything. His hands twitched nervously.
“It’s that simple,” said Bluetooth.
“Okay,” said Savage. “Could I just say one thing?”
“Go ahead,” said Ben.
“I’ll do the fight on one condition. Rosie and her daughter Grace don’t get thrown out on the street.”
“Mr Savage,” said Ben. “That was never our intention. Please apologise to her.”
“Apologise yourself.”
Ben Wellington smiled diplomatically. “From time to time, some of our employees get a little over zealous with their authority.”
“Over zealous?” asked Savage. “They were going to rape her teenage daughter.”
Ben Wellington winced. Looked ashamed. He seemed genuinely appalled, like bile had just crept up his throat and was burning the back of it. “Again, I’m very sorry. You have my word, Rosie and her daughter will be safe here.”
“And what about Truck and Vlad the Inhaler?” Savage hadn’t meant his little nickname for the rapey Romanian to slip out. A few of the henchmen chuckled quietly. Ben Wellington did not.
“They’ve left the organisation,” he said. “They’ve been warned by my men not to come near Rosie and Grace or Tivoli Gardens. Like I said, you have my word.”
“How good is your word?” asked Savage.
“Okay, shut up now,” said Bluetooth. “You fight tonight, be ready at seven p.m.”
“Tonight?”
“Yeah,” said Bluetooth. “What’s the matter, you got other plans?”
“Well, I had planned to take you to the vet’s to get you neutered.”
Unlike Truck or Vlad, the guy didn’t react. After a beat he coolly said, “Just be ready at seven. Oh, one other thing. You do not talk about this to anyone. You hear? Otherwise, it’s section twenty-one.”
“I get it,” said Savage. “First rule of Fight Club, you do not talk about Fight Club…”
“Okay, you’re not taking this seriously. You’re out on the street.” Bluetooth and the thugs moved in on Savage, ready to take him down. Ben Wellington held up his hands, placatory.
“Gentlemen, please. Let’s give Mr Savage the benefit of the doubt, shall we. He’s new to this.” Ben turned to face Savage, hands clasped together. “Mr Savage, you must not utter a word of this to anyone, inside or outside Tivoli Gardens, that’s most important, otherwise I cannot guarantee you will have a room here, or in any Simon Wellington property.”
“We can’t guarantee your safety either,” Bluetooth said menacingly. “I doubt anyone would miss you.”
“I think threatening Mr Savage with homelessness will suffice for now,” said Ben.
Savage took a deep breath. Did his best to look vulnerable and intimidated, not something that came easy to him. “I won’t say a word,” he said in a small defeated voice. “I don’t want to go back on the street again.”
“That usually does it,” said Bluetooth. “Stay tight-lipped and you’ll have a roof over your head and some cash in your pocket.”
“Good,” said Ben Wellington. “See you tonight at seven p.m.”
The four big guys left the room, followed by Ben who flashed him a sympat
hetic smile. Savage watched from his window as they emerged outside and got into Wellington’s Bentley Continental.
He called Tannaz.
“We’ve caught a break,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“Ben Wellington’s been to see me with four of his goons. They want me to fight in a bare-knuckle boxing match. It has to be part of his father’s underground betting ring. Has to be.”
“Savage, are you going to be okay with that? I’ve heard bare-knuckle boxing is pretty harsh.”
“I’ll be fine. I’ll just fight dirty, like I always do. It’s the opportunity we’ve been waiting for. Get on the inside. Gather tons of intel.”
“Just be careful.”
“Always am. I need you to hack into the navigation system of Ben Wellington’s car, the Bentley Continental. Find out where it goes this evening and see if you can detect any video uploads. We might be able find them on the dark web.”
“Already on it.”
“Good.”
Savage hung up. Paced the room. Now they were getting somewhere. Quite by accident. Ironic to think he was convinced he’d blown it by sticking up for Rosie when in fact it had led him deeper into the belly of the beast.
Savage needed to rest but he was too wired. He hadn’t had any sleep after their night-time manoeuvres and he needed to be fresh for this fight. It’d be his second one of the day. At least this would be one on one, not two against one. Still, he needed to get a bit of shut eye and stop circling his room like a caged rat. He knew just the thing.
He knocked on Archie’s door. A couple of fingers of whisky would do the trick, relax him just enough to rest without affecting his ability to fight.
No answer. He knocked again. No answer. Maybe he was asleep; probably recovering after his run through the forest.
Just then, Dink came up the stairs. “Hey, John,” he said, looking like Hagrid from Harry Potter, his huge bulk swaying with every step.
“Hi, Dink,” said Savage. “Have you seen Archie?”
“Yeah, he went out, just after you had that fight.”
