A Numbers Game (Mal & Jackie Book 1)

by RJ Dark

  ‘A million.’

  I let out a whistle.

  ‘Who was the beneficiary?’

  She sighed again, gave me a look that I could have cut my hair to the scalp with and went back into her room. She was back more quickly this time. ‘Cristophe Stanbeck – goes into a trust fund with a monthly payout toward his keep. He only gets the full sum if he leaves the Edge and either goes to university and gets a degree, or works in a full-time job for longer than five years.’

  I tapped my pen on the desk. ‘Curiouser and curiouser.’

  ‘I’m going out,’ said Beryl, and she ambled past me with her plastic bags.

  ‘You don’t fancy sharing your source, do you, Beryl?’

  She stared at me for what seemed like a long time and then turned away and headed to the door.

  ‘No then.’

  Sometimes I found myself jealous of Beryl’s connections. I had no idea what she had done with her life before I met her, but I suspect it was highly illegal and specialised. There were hundreds of insurance companies that Larry Stanbeck could have been insured with and as Beryl hadn’t had time to ring them all, she either struck lucky first time or had a source somewhere important. I’d tried going through the drawers in the back room to see if she kept any records of her sources; she didn’t. She knew I had searched the drawers too, even though I was really careful, and she refused to speak to me for a month. Which sounds like it should be a gift but Beryl’s silence is of a particularly oppressive and unpleasant kind. I never did anything like that again.

  Still, at least I knew something. I didn’t really like Janine Stanbeck, and the fact her husband was mired in debt made me wonder if she’d helped him on his way to get hold of his money. She plainly didn’t like him much more than I liked her, but killing him without having the lottery ticket left her in a worse position; all his debts would default to her as his wife, and she didn’t even have the insurance money to pay them off. If she was a murderer, she was a stupid one not to have checked out if it was worthwhile beforehand – and Janine Stanbeck didn’t strike me as stupid.

  But if she had knowledge of those debts, that at least showed me why she was so desperate to find that lottery ticket; she was drowning.

  The debt itself made no sense though. He was a Stanbeck; he had no need to borrow money from legitimate sources because his dad always had plenty of money which was partly why the family were so loyal. Trolley Mick might be a borderline sociopath, but if you toed the line, he was a generous borderline sociopath.

  If you toed the line.

  But what if you didn’t? He wouldn’t be so generous then, would he? And you’d have trouble finding real work as a Stanbeck, unless you moved right out of the area and to a place where that name meant nothing.

  Why hadn’t Larry moved out of the area? He had a job, I was sure, was that why?

  I went back to my un-cut up notes. Worked as an interior designer at Maylin and Sparrow in the city, a big firm and interior designer was a well-paid job. So where was all his money going? There’d been no sign of it in his accounts. Drugs? No, he was a Stanbeck; he could get all the drugs he wanted. Same for girls – or boys, if that was his thing. Mick Stanbeck had his hand in every pie and there was nothing, within reason, one of his close family couldn’t get hold of.

  Gambling?

  I searched back through my papers and the notes I’d been keeping on my way. Nothing there, no mention of Larry Stanbeck seeming out of sorts or worried, but addicts were adept at hiding what they were doing – though that didn’t mean there wouldn’t be signs. Would his wife know? Probably, but she didn’t like me much. Though, if this was information I could produce ‘from the spirits’, it might make dealing with her a bit easier. But I had to be right.

  So, I’d check with his work, then I’d track down some of the parents of the boys in his Scout troop.

  10

  Maylin and Sparrow had offices halfway up the sort of big, glass-fronted not-quite-skyscraper-because-this-is-the-North-and-that’s-a-bit-much-thank-you building that was impressive from the outside and soulless from the inside. A Victorian church was on one side and on the other was a large warehouse that used to be a brilliant music venue but was now a chain pub that sold cheap food and bad beer to career drinkers. Both the church and warehouse had been built when the city was in its woollen manufacturing heyday. Money had once streamed through here as fast as the wool filled the warehouses and mills, whose chimneys had stained the sandstone of the church and warehouse black. Underneath the sign for the chain pub, The Millers Arms was the washed-out sign from the original venue that no amount of sandblasting could get off. I’d spent a lot of time here when it was a venue, and in the bar when it first became a pub.

  I had no wish to go in now.

  I’ll kick the fuck out of you if you do. Beryl’s voice in the back of my mind. She really was a gift that kept on giving, and she could punch harder than Jackie when she put her mind to it.

  The glass building was called The Loom; someone’s idea of harking back to the city’s heritage, though what weaving looms had to do with a thirty-floor glass edifice, I had no idea. It had shop fronts along the bottom, a card shop, a chain sandwich shop, a classy Indian restaurant that promised ‘modern British Indian cuisine’. I glanced at the menu: rabbit tikka masala was the speciality of the house. Very modern.

  I’d have to bring Jackie here. He would hate it.

  Next to the restaurant was a shop that cashed cheques and offered loans on cars.

  The first ten floors of The Loom were offices. Above that were fancy apartments; the ones on the sides had balconies, but on the front, nothing had been allowed to spoil the sheer glass facade.

  A year after The Loom was completed, the building developer had thrown himself out of the penthouse. I presume because his dream of people flocking to a down-at-heel Northern city hadn’t come true, and the building had left him deep in debt. Now the apartments were mostly empty, and the council were engaged in a fight with the new owners to turn over the promised two floors of social housing. I didn’t really understand why the owners were fighting it. Maybe they thought there were hordes of people that wanted to come and live here as soon as they made sure no one earning below a living wage was going to dirty up the building. Personally, I doubted anyone wanted to come and live here. This was the sort of city you got stuck in, not one you chose as a new home. Especially not if you could afford the prices they wanted for The Loom apartments.

  You entered from the side; the lobby was painted white and rose for three storeys. The Indian restaurant was built inside a glass cube and, had it been open, I would have been able to watch the chefs and the diners, but it wasn’t. The kitchen looked clean though. The other shops clearly weren’t as interesting and they had normal walls that stopped us seeing the less theatrical jobs of making sandwiches, selling cards and fleecing people in financial trouble. A long, smooth white desk ran along a central wall that had a spray of metal birds flying across it, and above them the words The Loom picked out in neon. It was ugly beyond belief. Behind the desk sat a security guard in a thin-looking uniform, and I wondered if he had a heater below the desk. It was warm outside but the lobby was freezing; it must be like the Arctic in winter. He stood as I approached the desk and eyed me suspiciously. I probably didn’t look like I worked here. I read off the list of businesses that were on a tall plinth at the end of the desk. Maylin and Sparrow had the entire tenth floor – not a small outfit then. As I read the list, the security guard lifted a flat panel in the desk and walked out to meet me. Behind him, I saw a small fan heater.

  ‘Can I help you, sir?’ He didn’t sound like he meant it when he said ‘sir’.

  ‘Yes. I’m thinking of doing some building work, and a friend of mine said I should look in on Maylin and Sparrow.’

  ‘Do you have an appointment, sir?’ he said.

  ‘No, but I can come back if they can’t fit me in. My name is Mal Jones.’ He stared at me, as if he coul
d make me go away with the power of his eyes, and when that failed, he went back to his desk and picked up the phone. He didn’t do anything, only kept an eye on me. Maybe he thought I wanted to leave dirty fingerprints on the paintwork. When I still didn’t leave, and he decided my bluff had been called, he made a phone call. Then he finally he told me to go up and to take the ‘Yellowvater’. I wondered if that was a slip of the tongue but didn’t ask. I didn’t think he would welcome the invitation for conversation.

  He also hadn’t made a slip of the tongue.

  Behind the desk, there were two lifts embedded in the white column that rose up three storeys until it hit the ceiling. One was a normal lift, and it had a sign in front of it that said Residents only. The other was the Yellowvater. A line of yellow was painted up the column to the ceiling directly above the lift and the words, Take the Yellowvator to work! were painted on the doors next to a smiley face. In case the subtle message of ‘going to work should make you happy’ was missed, smiley faces were also picked out all the way up the yellow column. I got in the Yellowvator and hit the button for the tenth floor. Someone had scratched, Abandon hope all ye who enter here, and then a smiley face next to it in the black plastic trim. I imagined there was a whole HR department working on finding this disgruntled employee.

  A young woman met me at the doors to the Yellowvator; she didn’t look like work filled her with joy, but she didn’t look entirely worn down either. More harried and could have done without meeting me.

  ‘I understand you are intending to do some building work, Mr Jones? We have a form for you to fill in and …’

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, ‘I used false pretences to get in here.’ Sometimes, I find it is best to be honest rather than force her to do her job, which would probably annoy her when it turned out I had no house, never mind any building work to do on it. She became utterly still, like a woodland animal that had sensed danger. Then I saw the hint of a smile on her face and wondered just how bored she was.

  ‘Oh really, Mr Jones?’

  ‘Yes, I didn’t think your security guard was likely to let me in if I told the truth.’

  ‘Alans a grumpy bastard, but I would be too if I was stuck down there in the cold.’ She glanced over her shoulder and whispered. ‘So why are you here, Mr Jones?’

  ‘I’m a life-insurance investigator,’ I said and showed her the false ID. A shared smile, a gleam in her eye; she was interested.

  ‘You here about Larry?’

  I nodded.

  ‘I don’t know what we can tell you that we haven’t told the police.’

  ‘Sadly, the police don’t give us access to their records, or I wouldn’t have to bother you.’

  She frowned, a thought crossing her face. ‘Are you trying not to pay out?’

  ‘No,’ I said. The frown vanished. ‘Strictly routine in the case of a suspicious death. Questions have to be asked, boxes ticked, that’s all.’

  ‘I know all about ticking boxes.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said. We exchanged a look of frank – if false in my case – understanding. ‘Did you know Mr Stanbeck, Lawrence, well?’

  ‘Not really. I met him a few times on nights out and saw him in passing – everyone liked him. We always called him Larry. He brought his kid in a couple of times – he was nice. Quick little kid, funny. Sad he lost his father.’ Her voice drifted away, then she pulled herself back to the now. ‘Go to the end of the room – last bank of desk is the interiors team: Pauline, Ed, and it was Larry. They knew him best.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and she walked away to get on with whatever bit of box ticking was next on her list.

  Only Ed was at the interiors desk. He was a large man in his early sixties, jolly-looking with a head of thick silver hair and the brightest blue eyes I had ever seen. I introduced myself, we made small talk, and I brought the conversation round to reasons why Larry Stanbeck might have died.

  ‘Troubled?’ he said. He rubbed his face with the palm of his hand, and I heard stubble rasp against skin. ‘You mean like suicide troubled?’ I was about to say no, but Ed carried on. ‘No, not Larry. He was happy soul, I mean he had troubles but I wouldn’t say he was troubled.’

  ‘Troubles? Like what?’

  ‘Well, his wife mostly – she was, well, high maintenance, I suppose you would call it. He was always ready to do the overtime, if it didn’t interfere with his Scouting and that, but yeah, I reckon he had to work the hours to keep her happy.’

  ‘He said that?’

  ‘Well, not so much, but it was the feeling I got. She came out with us once and she didn’t like it – felt like she thought we were beneath her, you know?’ He scratched his head. ‘I’d never have put her and Larry together,’ he said. ‘They were a funny couple, but we can’t choose those we love, right?’

  ‘I suppose not.’

  ‘Kid was a good ‘un though,’ said Ed. ‘He used to bring him in when he was working late, and we’d make a bed out of our coats when the lad got tired.’

  ‘Did he have any other hobbies, apart from the Scouts?’

  ‘Not that I knew of. Tell the truth, he wasn’t in that much, so I didn’t really know him well. Worked from home a lot.’

  ‘Any bad habits?’

  ‘Just the wife. We went to the dogs once – he got a bit drunk and started telling us how hard it was being him, dreamed of living in the country one day. That’s the only thing I can think of.’

  ‘The dogs, did he organise that?’

  Ed stared into the distance. Then nodded.

  ‘Yeah, I think he did. The first time anyway, but he made such a hash of the orders and the numbers I took over. Then it just became a habit, go for a bet on the dogs as a company every six months – team building, they call it.’

  ‘They do.’

  Ed tapped his finger on the desk. ‘Do they really think it might be suicide?’

  ‘It’s an avenue we have to investigate.’

  Ed chewed on his lip.

  ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Only that, in the last few weeks, he was in work more often. Spent a lot of time in the big office too.’

  ‘You think he was under a lot of pressure?’ Ed shook his head.

  ‘No, well, maybe,’ he smiled, ‘but if he was, he enjoyed it. He’d seemed happier than he had for a long time the last few times I saw him. I wondered if he was going to be promoted.’

  I thanked Ed and walked away. The dogs every six months, and that was a thing that Larry started. It was slim, but if he was addicted to betting, it would have to show somewhere. And a work outing was an acceptable place to bet; the sort of thing you could get away with, were obliged to do, even. I should have asked Ed how much Larry was betting but I was being careful; you push too much and people ask questions. And he clearly doted on Larry’s kid, so I doubt he’d have said anything to incriminate Larry anyway.

  ‘Malachite Jones.’

  I stopped dead at hearing my name. Stopped deader on seeing who said it.

  In front of me was Frank, the Russian who had visited me in my office. The first thing I did on was look for Harry, but thankfully there was no sign of him. He must have been at his stationer’s shop, fondling erasers or whatever it was stationers do. It didn’t make me feel any more comfortable though.

  ‘What do you do here, Malachite Jones?’ said Frank.

  ‘Oh, you know, just doing follow up on Larry Stanbeck.’

  ‘Good,’ he walked over and slapped me on the back, then started walking me toward the Yellowvater. ‘If I had known you wished to come here, I would have made your appointment myself.’

  ‘You work here?’

  ‘I own here, Mr Jones,’ he grinned. ‘I am Mr Sparrow.’

  ‘Not very Russian sounding.’

  ‘Oh, I find the English have problems saying my real name. So I use a pretend name for business – it is much easier.’ He leaned in close and whispered – without the accent. ‘Mention my other business interests and I
will have Harry come and see you. You and he can discuss his interest in stationery, you understand?’

  ‘I do,’ I said. The hand on my back seemed to radiate ice through my body. ‘You never said Larry Stanbeck worked for you.’

  ‘My legitimate concerns are not your concerns.’

  ‘Did Mick Stanbeck know that his son …?’

  ‘As I said, Mr Jones, my legitimate concerns are not your concerns.’

  ‘I have questions about him.’

  He stepped up to the Yellowvater with me. ‘That I cannot answer,’ he said and gently pushed me inside. ‘He was simply an employee – I had a little to do with him. Good afternoon, Mr Jones,’ he said, and as the doors began to shut, he added, ‘You will not need to come back here.’

  But I knew Larry had spent a lot of time in his office recently.

  I wondered what it was he was hiding.

  11

  Coincidences do happen. There’s no denying that. But it’s also foolish to overlook something that seems unlikely. I mean, how likely is it that one of Mick Stanbeck’s children should end up working for a company owned by the Russian mob? It’s the sort of thing that both parties would definitely be less than enthralled about.

  I wondered if Larry was running some sort of long game with his father, or maybe with the Russian mob. There was no mistaking that Frank was less than pleased to find me at Larry’s place of work. I couldn’t see how these things tied together, or how they would help me find the missing lottery ticket, but I’ve found, when in this sort of position, the best thing to do is to stumble on blindly and see what happens. If nothing happens, then you’re probably stumbling the wrong way, and if something does happen, then you’re probably stumbling the right way. Or at least toward something. Though there’s no guarantee it will be something useful.

  Though I’m generally stumbling toward something a little less likely to maim me.

  I passed a public telephone box, a rare thing now but there were still a few in the town centre. I dropped into the box, rang the police non-emergency number and told the lady who answered the phone that if the police were interested in the van that knocked Larry Stanbeck off his bike, they should have a look around Benny Callaghan’s yard. When they started asking for details, I put the phone down and got out of the area as quickly as possible. Lunchtime was just starting, and I lost myself in among the commuters looking for a decent sandwich – harder to find than you’d think in this town.