by RJ Dark
‘Mal Jones?’ The voice, heavy with an Irish accent. I ignored it. ‘Mal, Mal Jones, is it not?’
It didn’t sound unfriendly but in my experience it was often the way things started. The people I’d known on the Edge, when I lived here in another life, were the dealers and the lifters and the small-time crooks and the drunks and the ex-cons; people whose tempers turned on a penny, who had triggers that would make no sense to most people. I once saw a man hospitalised because he’d eaten the last packet of cheese-and-onion crisps. I saw a fight start because a girl was reading a book. I hated that I had been one of them. I hated this place because I blamed it for that.
‘Come on, Mal, don’t be a snob, eh?’
I turned, little choice, really. If someone was really insistent, then ignoring them was as likely to end badly as engaging them.
Driving the van, an old Ford of some sort that had been hand painted a lurid purple in what looked like emulsion, was Benny Callaghan, ostensibly a scrap dealer but in reality he headed up the traveller community on the Edge and was Trolley Mick’s right hand. He wasn’t a physically big man, generally wore a filthy woollen beanie hat to cover up the fact he was entirely bald. His face was tan and red, weathered by sun and drink.
I knew Benny in passing, but I’d known his wife, Sheila, better. I suppose you could even say we’d been friends. She had been a barmaid at The Highlander, the biggest pub on Blades Edge before they demolished it. I’d been pretty regular there, as it was where you went if you wanted to score drugs. During the day, it was full of Blades Edge’s regular drinkers, hard men and women who were smashed out of their faces by lunchtime. In the early evening, younger people went there to pick up deals from the steady stream of shoplifters and burglars coming in and out – one of them usually being me. Later, the DJ would set up and it would fill up with a mixture of the Edge’s youth, eager to drink as much cider as they could, and people from outside the Edge, noticeably more affluent, dropping in to score drugs for the night’s clubbing.
There were a lot of fights but it was mostly ignored by the police, until a Yardie gang tried to muscle in on Mick’s territory, and there were a couple of shootings that made the papers. Then the police had to act, and The Highlander was closed down. It was derelict for a long time, slowly accruing graffiti and buddleia plants. The drug dealing still happened there, in the shadows of the mouldering building, while the council and the brewery that owned it fought over the pub’s fate. While the building slowly died, so did Benny’s wife, eaten away by lung cancer from the sixty cigarettes a day she put away.
They had a boy too, Callum. He’d got himself in trouble though, and his dad had seen fit to get him off the estate somehow. It must have been pretty lonely being Benny now.
‘You’ll be going to Janine’s then?’ said Benny.
‘My car broke down.’
Stay non-committal.
‘Odd to see you on the Edge now, Mal. You’re a proper businessman now, eh? Got a shop and all.’
‘Yes, Benny.’
Keep walking, keep walking.
‘Only I know what you’re about, Mal, the money and all.’
I stopped walking.
‘Money?’
Benny brought the van to a halt, pulling on the handbrake to keep the van still on the slight incline.
‘Aye, Lawrence’s winnings, right? Mick told me, so don’t worry yourself. I’m not like him.’ He grinned.
It was true, he wasn’t. I’d known Benny a long time and as long he was sober and you didn’t owe him anything, he was a generally reasonable human being.
‘Now listen, Mal,’ Benny continued. ‘I know how Mick can put people on edge, and he’ll want that money, you know that. And I know you, from your wilder days, eh?’ A big smile. ‘We had a great time, then, didn’t we?’
We really didn’t. He once broke my little finger when I owed him money. Laugh a minute living on the Edge.
‘We definitely had a time, Benny.’
‘I just thought you should know that you can give the ticket to me, see, if you don’t want to deal with Mick or the twins, and who can blame you for that, eh? But if you give it to me, I’ll take it to him. I’ll make sure everything is smoothed out with no trouble for anyone, eh, Mal?’
‘If I find it, I’ll remember that.’
He looked at me then, and it was, for a second, like all the world’s sorrows rested on his face.
‘Well, you do what you think is right, eh?’ he said. ‘It’ll probably be easier for everyone if you go through me, you know what Mick’s like.’
‘I do.’
‘Well, alright then,’ he said. It took him four goes to start the van, and every time he tried it coughed out black smoke from the exhaust and he gave me an apologetic smile. Eventually, he got it going and drove off. All my life I’d been aware of Mick Stanbeck and Benny Callaghan. Best friends as kids, grew up together. Ran Mick’s gang together. The thought Benny might betray his boss had never occurred to me. I mean, maybe he really did mean it, that he would act as go-between, but why would he do that? And eight million pounds – that was a lot of temptation.
Thankfully, judging the loyalty of Mick’s gang members was only my problem if I could find the lottery ticket. And let’s be honest, I probably wasn’t going to be able to.
That was my problem.
Houses on the Edge tended to go one of two ways: they were either semi-derelict places for people with nowhere else, where you wondered how people coped, or pristine temples to the art of cleaning. I reckoned Janine Stanbeck’s house would be the second; a house was a status symbol, and the Stanbecks loves their status symbols: flash cars, stone cladding, seventy five-inch TVs and booming sound systems. Jackie told me I was an idiot for acting like there was no in-between, said there were plenty of normal houses and people on the Edge, but I rarely saw them, and the fact was that the housing on the Edge was so badly built you needed money to make it liveable. The council barely kept up to them. Maybe damp had been part of the architect’s design aesthetic.
Janine’s house had gateposts with stone lions on top of them, which was definitely a statement. The front garden had been block paved to make room for cars, and two sat there: a four-by-four and a small convertible. It didn’t look like she needed to wear hand-me-downs, so I wondered just how controlling her husband must have been that she still did; force of habit can be a powerful thing. I knocked on the door – white plastic, double glazed with an inlaid stained-glass lionesses. A burst of static made me jump.
‘Who is it?’ Janine’s voice, distorted by the small speaker on the intercom by the door.
‘It’s me, Janine, Mal Jones.’
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Sometimes it helps to make a connection if I can look around the deceased’s house. I can come back if it’s inconvenient?’
Please don’t make me come back.
‘Give me five minutes. I was in the shower.’
‘Okay.’ I waited five minutes. Then five minutes more. Some very young-looking girls wandered by with babies in pushchairs. I wondered if any of them were named on the walls of the Hensley Centre. While I wondered, they called me a pervert, and one flashed her breasts at me. It wasn’t unlikely that they would come back, maybe with friends who were more given over to violence, so I was pleased when Janine finally opened the door. She wore the same clothes as she had in my office, and her hair was damp from the shower.
‘Come in,’ she said. She didn’t sound overly enthusiastic about it.
The entire floor of the house – not big, not really – had been knocked into an ultra-modern kitchen-diner-living room. It was immaculate, and the air was full of the aroma of expensive scented candles. A massive television almost obscured the front window and the long back wall was papered in dark patterned wallpaper. The other walls painted in a light blue to pick up on the wallpaper’s highlights. No doubt it was very à la mode, but my interest in interior décor ended in about 1890. The kitchen w
as all sleek lines, gleaming white.
I hated it.
A little boy was playing on the couch, his face filthy like he’d been eating chocolate ice cream. His hair was shaved almost to the scalp.
‘Hello,’ I said to him. He stared at me, sizing me up, and then decided the little plastic dragons he was playing with were far more interesting.
‘That’s Cristophe,’ she said. ‘He misses his father.’ At mention of his father the boy paused, then he tapped the side of his head.
‘My daddy knows where it’s at,’ he said, then he stuck his thumb in his mouth.
‘Sometimes it’s like Lawrence is still here – he parrots his phrases.’ She watched the boy. ‘It’s him you’re working for, Mr Jones. It’s his life you can change.’
‘Did Lawrence have an office?’
‘Upstairs.’
‘What, exactly, did he do? Worked for his dad?’
‘Lawrence was an interior designer – he worked for Maylin and Sparrow in town.’ She glanced upstairs. ‘First door on the left,’ she said, ‘and don’t go nosying about in the other rooms.’
‘I won’t.’ I wanted to though. I hoped she’d put the TV on for Cristophe so the noise would cover me sneaking about, but she only stood there, staring at me. And the boy stared at me too, so I turned away. Before I could go up the stairs, she stopped me, calling my name.
‘Mr Jones.’
‘Yes?’
‘We take our shoes off in this house. It’s polite.’ I looked down; both of them were in bare feet.
‘I can keep my socks on though?’
She nodded.
I slipped off my boots and placed them by the door before going upstairs.
‘And if you find any notebooks, Mr Jones,’ she shouted as I went up the stairs, ‘give them to me – his work will want them back.’
Larry Stanbeck’s office wasn’t much more than a cupboard. A desk with a computer on it – with a very old-fashioned CRT monitor – and a load of paper files. I switched the computer on and perused the files while it booted up. They were sets of tax records. I presumed Janine had been through them but there was no harm in going through them again. Mostly they were dull receipts. I noticed receipts from Mr Patel’s shop coming up a lot – someone had bought cigarettes and printer paper from him. I knew Mr Patel had a Lotto machine, so I’d ask him if he knew Lawrence Stanbeck. Going through the boxes of papers I found a notebook full of what looked like architectural drawings and notes. I balanced it precariously on top of the old-fashioned computer monitor so I wouldn’t forget to give it to Janine. As I was leafing through another file, a movement caught my eye; Cristophe was standing in the doorway staring at me.
‘My daddy knows where it’s at,’ he said again and rubbed the side of his head. ‘Do you know where my daddy is?’
I span round in the chair, catching the table with the arm of it and only just catching a thick tax file as it slid off the desk.
‘I … no. Sorry.’
‘I love my daddy,’ he said. Then I heard Janine coming up the stairs, and Cristophe turned and ran into, what I presumed was, his bedroom.
‘Don’t bother Mr Jones while he’s working,’ Janine shouted into the room.
‘I want my daddy!’ shouted the boy, and his voice broke into sobs. ‘I want my daddy.’
She stared into the child’s bedroom, shut the door and turned to me.
I felt like I was intruding in a place I should not be.
‘Look what you’ve done.’ So did Janine.
There was no coming back from upsetting a widow’s child, so I changed the subject.
‘I’d like to look at the computer – there might be something on there that gives me a feel for him. Do you know the password?’ I said.
‘Can’t Lawrence tell you?’
‘It doesn’t …’
‘Jan1382,’ she said, with a snort. ‘My name and my birthday. I’ll shut the door.’ She tapped it closed with her foot.
I spent the entire afternoon going through Larry Stanbeck’s files and his computer, and found nothing. The only thing of interest was two regular payments to the local council. One was rent for the lock-up Janine had mentioned, but I couldn’t find any reference to the other one. It wasn’t in his accounts as a business expense – it wasn’t down as an expense at all – and I wondered if he was paying for a lock-up somewhere else.
I bobbed into the toilet and noticed that there was still three toothbrushes by the sink; little details like that bring home the fact someone is never coming home. I picked up the toothbrush in a very masculine blue and put it in the medicine cupboard, among a small pharmacy’s worth of drugs.
When I finished in the office, I made sure everything was put away neatly, then looked at the room. I couldn’t shake the feeling I’d forgotten something but couldn’t see what, so I went back downstairs.
‘Janine,’ I said, sliding my boots back on, ‘there’s a payment of thirty pounds a month to the council …’
‘Oh, I need to cancel that.’
‘What was it for?’
‘Lawrence hasn’t told you?’
‘I’m asking you.’
‘The fucking Scouts – he was saving to pay for a camping trip.’
‘Scouts?’
‘He was a Scout leader. He wanted to do some good – pillar of the community and all that.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Have you still got the key to his lock-up?’
‘I told you it’s empty.’ She glared at me.
‘Physically empty, maybe. But not spiritually.’
The look she was giving me was not a friendly look. She turned and picked up an expensive-looking bag from the leather couch, rooted about in it until she found her keys and peeled one off.
‘It’s off the estate, on Carston’s Mount, near the grammar school. Garage number five.’ She gave me the key.
‘If he was a Scout leader, there must be a Scout hut?’
‘I never got involved in that,’ she said, putting her bag back down. ‘I know he wasn’t allowed to leave anything there.’
‘Where was it?’ She shrugged. ‘Well, I’d also like a picture of Lawrence, if possible, and, this is a little delicate …’
‘I’m a big girl.’
‘Have the police given you anything about his death? Any details, reports, anything?’
‘Are you kidding? To them I’m a Stanbeck – the enemy. They can only just bring themselves not to gloat over Lawrence’s death.’ She walked over to a chest of drawers by the fireplace and opened a drawer. She took out a picture frame and removed the back, taking the picture from it. ‘Here.’
‘You don’t have to give me your …’
‘I don’t really want to think about it. You should go now – I have to give Cristophe his dinner and I’m meant to keep his life as normal as possible.’ She pushed the picture at me. ‘You don’t help with normal.’
I took the picture and left.
6
It’s difficult to get a taxi from Blades Edge – not many of the companies will come into the estate – but I have the number of a firm that owe Jackie a favour. Even then, I had to walk to the Hensley Centre to get picked up. While I did, I stared at the picture of Larry ‘Lawrence’ Stanbeck. It was much better than the wedding picture. He didn’t look like a thug, didn’t look at all like I expected. He was a round, comfortable and jolly-looking man. Younger than me, he would have been at St Jude’s just as I was leaving, but he looked older than me in the picture because his hair was thinning. He wore a blue shirt open at the collar. The picture was posed for, with a background sheet of some sort. He had a tanned face, lines around the corner of his eyes and his smile revealed good teeth, but the smile didn’t quite reach his eyes. I’d known people like that all my life; people on the edge of society, haunted people. I stared at the headshot. He didn’t look like a Stanbeck, which was odd.
‘Where would you hide a lottery ticket, eh?’ I said. Larry didn’t answer. Of course he did
n’t – he was dead.
I rang Beryl.
Beryl: What?
Me: Beryl, you’re meant to say, “Mal Jones, Psychic Medium”.
Beryl: Have you forgotten who you are?
Me: No … that … It doesn’t matter.
Beryl: What do you want?
Me: Larry Stanbeck was involved in the Scouts, can you find out where his Scout hut was?
Beryl: Can’t you?
Me: Research is why I have you, Beryl.
Beryl: I’ve got things to do.
Me: Could you do this first, please?
A long sigh, and the phone went dead just as the cab turned up. I got in and he took the quickest way out of the estate. While he drove, I gave him the address of Larry Stanbeck’s lock-up, and he nodded. The suburbs of the city are full of odd, hidden little alleys and backroads and the lock-up was on one of those, at the end of a street of tall houses with pointy gables covered in fancy woodwork. I could see the grammar school where Cat Maudy’s children had gone from here, more like a castle than a school. It struck me, as we turned into a weed-ridden alley between two big houses, that if you wanted to deal drugs to school kids with too much money, this would be a good place to set yourself up.
Larry Stanbeck might not look like a Stanbeck, but he was still a Stanbeck.
The taxi driver stopped at the end of the alley and I asked him how much.
‘No charge, mate, on Jackie’s account, innit?’
I told him to leave the meter running and wait for me. Then I strolled down the alley toward the lock-up.
There were ten garages in a little yard behind the big houses. It was exactly the sort of place that probably attracted letters of complaint to the council from the residents of the houses around it; rubbish had gathered between the concrete garages, one of which had a smashed metal door, painted blue and dotted with rust, stuck open at an angle across the doorway. I crouched down to look inside. More because I am nosy than anything else. It was empty apart from some damp-looking old bedding and a few empty bottles. Someone homeless had set up there, but it looked like they had moved on. I glanced over my shoulder and saw a stern-looking grey-haired woman watching me from the back window of the house on my right. I bet the homeless person didn’t get to stay here long. I waved at the woman, and she closed the curtains. Not very friendly.
