by RJ Dark
It was not the best joke ever, but it was my turn to nod. I began to turn away, as if I was finished, and then hit him with the final question. Always best to catch someone off balance if you want them to betray something. Columbo taught me that.
Jackie hadn’t moved; he was watching Frank like a hawk, waiting for the moment.
‘One other thing, Frank. Mick wanted to know why,’ I said.
‘Why?’ said Frank. I could see his mind working behind his eyes.
‘Yeah, why. You know. Benny.’
Frank nodded once but kept his head down so I couldn’t see his face.
‘Benny,’ he said. ‘Benny Callaghan.’ He looked up. ‘Well, you know, lessons must be taught to some people, eh?’
I don’t know what I expected to happen. Maybe I expected Jackie to make a leap for Donald, for Frank to go for a gun under the table and for the room to erupt in gunfire.
Nothing happened.
‘Well, we better go then,’ I said, and took a breath. Frank nodded.
‘Mr Jones,’ he said, ‘tell my mother I miss her.’
‘She knows,’ I replied, because it’s always the best answer.
He nodded again and sat back in his chair, our audience definitely over.
We left, making our way back out through the smoky club where music was playing now, and past the racist bouncers into the uncomfortable but expensive, and as yet unticketed, car. Jackie put it into gear and made the wheels screech as he pulled away.
‘Bastard,’ he said. He sounded furious.
‘He didn’t do it, Jackie.’ Jackie glanced at me, chewed on the inside of his lip and looked away.
‘He said he did it.’
‘Only when I gave him Benny’s name, he put it together then. Thought he would take credit for it. It won’t harm his reputation any if people think he tortured Benny Callaghan to death. But when I asked why, I was looking into his face – he had no idea what I was talking about.’
Jackie thought about that for a bit. Then he said, ‘Fuck.’ It was hard to disagree.
I sent a text to Mick, telling him what deal Frank had offered, adding that he had said Benny was just business. A reply came back.
I’ll deal with Frank. You find ticket.
I read it out to Jackie, and he nodded to himself.
‘I’ll drop you at yours,’ said Jackie, his voice dull, his mind somewhere else.
‘I thought you were staying?’
‘You’re safe now. They both want you to find the ticket, war is over, so they’ll back off.’
‘Until they realise I can’t find it.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘That will probably annoy them. We’ll deal with that when we come to it.’ He was driving sedately, always a sign something was on his mind.
‘What about the other player, Jackie?’
‘Other?’ said Jackie, though he knew exactly what I was talking about.
‘If Mick or Frank didn’t kill Benny. Someone else must have.’
‘Yeah,’ said Jackie. ‘You know, the more I think about it, the less Mick and Frank make sense for it. Maybe someone in one of their organisations got big ideas, thought Benny had the money.’ He shifted his grip on the steering wheel. ‘A pro would never have left the body there, not alive anyway.’
‘If I get kidnapped and tortured to death, is it better it’s done by a professional or an enthusiastic amateur?’
‘Either way, I’d avenge you.’
‘That’s what friends are for,’ I said.
‘I’d do it for anyone,’ said Jackie. ‘No one deserves to die like that.’
That put a dampener on the conversation, and we drove on in silence for a while. But there was something nagging at me, and I needed to ask it.
‘Was Donald really good, or just a man who knew a flashy trick with a gun?’
‘Donald, if I had to guess, is ex-FSB, they are the guys who took over from the KGB.’
‘I knew that.’
I didn’t know that.
‘That gun he had, the SPS?’ He glanced at me, I nodded even though it wasn’t really the sort of information I retained. ‘Well, that particular model of gun was only ever handed out to Vladimir Putin’s bodyguards or other ‘specialists’ of a similar calibre. So the answer to your question, “Is Donald good?” is yes. Donald is good, probably very good.’
‘Better than you?’
Jackie stared ahead. Then glanced at me, a twinkle in his eye.
‘No.’ I felt something in me relax. ‘But,’ and it tensed up again, ‘I’m an all-rounder. Donald is probably a shooter, and he specialises in that. I don’t get to practise as much as I’d like with a gun. So, if it was guns? Well, who knows?’
‘That’s comforting.’
‘Well, if Donald was coming for you, it would at least be quick, there’s that.’
‘Thanks.’
He didn’t reply, just brought the car to a stop outside my shop.
‘Mal,’ said Jackie as I struggled to get out.
‘Yeah?’
‘The film thing, with Frank, I get that. But how did you know about his mother?’
‘I didn’t. I just knew that the Russians are a sentimental people.’
Jackie stared at me, deep-set brown eyes beneath furrowed black eyebrows. He laughed.
‘You know he’s not Russian, right?’
‘What?’
‘Yeah, I think he’s Ukrainian.’ He revved the engine. ‘Anyway, see you. Places to be.’
It had been a long night and I’d had no sleep. As I stumbled up to my door I heard someone inside. I glanced behind me, Jackie’s car was already heading down the road and the dry heat of the night was being replaced by the dryer heat of the day.
‘At least it will be quick,’ I said to myself and pushed the door open.
26
SATURDAY
Jackie used to put me in a chokehold.
‘I’m going to put you in a rear chokehold.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘I’m going to put you in a rear chokehold, and I want you to try and stop me.’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘I’ll show you.’
And he did. He taught me to find purchase and push back, to try and smash my attacker into something hard to loosen their grip. Showed me how to use my height to my advantage. He told me to push my chin down as soon as I realised what was going on, to try and stop them locking their arms around my throat. He told me to go for the fingers or stamp hard on the instep of my attacker’s foot; enough pain and someone will nearly always let go. Then he taught me how to throw my opponent, by ducking and pushing my hips back, which turned out to be much easier than I expected. Unless Jackie decided to make it hard, which he tended to.
We went to the hospital four times: three times because Jackie choked me into unconsciousness and once because I broke his little finger. That was also the day he said I had learned as much as I could about escaping from a chokehold.
The noise I heard was the kettle. Beryl stuck her head around the door of the back office and grunted something at me as I entered. She had a sixth sense for when Jackie wasn’t here. I don’t know what he had done to her, but she avoided him like the plague.
‘Mrs Carling is due in at ten,’ she said.
‘Oh God.’
‘If you’ve found religion she’ll like that.’
Mrs Carling came once a month and paid fifty pounds to sit and share gossip with me about people I didn’t know and try to get me to come to her church. The good thing was I didn’t have to do much research, and I’d broached the subject a couple of times that maybe she was wasting her money, but she didn’t seem to care. She wanted to come, and it was her money.
Some people come to me because they’re lonely, but from the amount of gossip Mrs Carling had, I couldn’t believe that was her case. She was very religious too; maybe she thought she was saving me and if it cost her fifty quid a month well, I knew people who had paid far higher price
s for far worse vices.
‘Is it Saturday already, Beryl?’
‘Some of us don’t lose track of time cos we do real work,’ she said from the kitchen. ‘Do you want some tea?’
‘Coffee, Beryl, strong please.’ I just wanted my bed, really.
‘I’ll make you some tea,’ she said.
I went into the back and while Beryl was fussing over the kettle and got out the packet of ‘Soulja Pep!’. I threw it away.
I’m going to get some proper coffee from Mr Patel,’ I said.
‘Ponce,’ she said. Beryl didn’t like coffee, or people who drank coffee.
‘I need to stay awake, Beryl. Who else is due in today?’
‘No one – you’re not that popular.’
I tried to ignore Beryl, but she continued clattering about and was still clattering about when I returned with a bag of ground coffee and set my cafetiere to brewing.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘Mrs Carling’s dog died last week. It was a cockapoo called Napoleon.’
‘Was it a nice dog?’
‘She loved it.’
‘That’s not an answer. Did it bite anyone?’
‘No one who didn’t deserve it.’ Beryl thought everyone deserved it though, so that wasn’t helpful either.
‘Was it an awful dog, Beryl?’
‘I don’t like to speak ill of the dead.’ Again, not an exact truth. ‘Mrs Carling loved it, and that’s what matters.’
‘Okay.’ I said. ‘I’m going to lie down for a bit.’
‘What about your poncy drink?’ I gave her my version of a hard stare; it had no effect. Then I poured out a cup of coffee.
‘Did you know Larry Stanbeck, Beryl?’ I can’t believe I hadn’t asked her this.
‘You already asked me that. I told you he was a shit.’
‘Yes, but you say that about all men though. Apart from me.’
‘You don’t count as a man.’
‘Thanks, Beryl.’
‘It’s alright luv.’ She slurped her tea. ‘He did stuff round the Edge, you know? Helped out. I suppose he was better than the rest of ‘em. He were still a Stanbeck though – you don’t walk away from that.’
‘I heard he fell out with his dad.’
‘True. I’d like to fall Trolley Mick off of a cliff, meself. Most people would – even his own family hate him. But he knows where all the bodies are, don’t he? Knows how everything works, who owes who, all that stuff. That family fall out as a matter of course’ – another slurp of tea – ‘but they always come back, Mal. That’s why no one ever crosses ‘em, see. Even if a Stanbeck has fallen out with everyone, they’ll go back one day and they’ll remember what you did. And Mick loves his family – I’ll say that about him – almost as much as he hates people who let him down.’
‘Thanks, Beryl, that was cheery to hear.’
The doorbell rang.
‘That’ll be Mrs Carling,’ she said. ‘You should brush your hair – you look like shit.’
Mrs Carling was more emotional than I had ever seen her be before. She clearly cared a lot more about Napoleon the cockapoo than she had ever done about Mr Carling, who I gather had been a little too quiet for Mrs Carling. I often complain about the people I see as part of my work but the truth is I like most of them, even Mrs Carling. She was in her early sixties, brassy, still dyed her hair blonde out of a bottle, liked a drink, didn’t care if suntan beds would give you cancer because she had paid for her suntan bed and she was damn well going to get her money’s worth out of it. Skin like old leather, obviously. I’d like to add ‘heart of gold’ to her descriptors, but I don’t think it was really true. She didn’t like shirkers, or left-wingers, and I was very careful never to ask what she thought about brown people because I didn’t think I’d like the answer. She wasn’t an arduous fifty pounds to earn, but I wouldn’t choose to go out for a drink with her.
Not that I went out for a drink with anyone now.
I’d reached the point with Mrs Carling where I could switch off. I’d been a bit worried I might get caught in the ‘Do dogs go to heaven?’ trap which I’d fallen foul of before with religious clients, but Mrs Carling was sure dogs did go to heaven and if the Bible said different, it was wrong, so we were fine there. Napoleon was happy. He missed her. I’d thought of saying he was with Mr Carling, but I didn’t mention it. Pretty sure I’d dodged a bullet there.
Bullets made me think of Donald, and thoughts of Donald led me back to Benny Callaghan, and I didn’t want to think about Benny Callaghan: broken hands, bruised face, missing teeth. I zoned back in to what Mrs Carling was saying.
‘ … and anyway, every Christmas and birthday she was sending her nephew tokens for the garden centre because she’d heard he liked that sort of thing, and he was selling them to his grandparents!’ She sat back and slapped the desk. ‘Can you imagine?’ She clearly couldn’t. ‘And at only seventy-five per cent of the what they were worth! I don’t know what’s worse, Mr Jones, that he was selling his presents off or that his own grandparents wouldn’t even give him the ticket price. And him only being fourteen too.’ She stared at me, I stared back at her. What she had said about her nephew had set off a train of thought and now I needed to get her out of my office so I could see if I as right. ‘Mr Jones, are you alright? You’ve gone pale, well, paler, love.’ She cocked her head to one side. ‘You know, if you ever wanted to come round and use my sunbed, you could. You could meet my vicar at the same time, Canon Armitage.’
‘I know Canon Armitage,’ I said, standing. ‘Mrs Carling, you are a genius.’ I glanced at my watch: five minutes left. ‘I don’t want to appear rude, but do you mind if we finish now? I know we’re five minutes early, but I’ll add ten minutes on to next month’s session for free.’
‘Well,’ she said, standing. ‘Usually I wouldn’t, but I do like a bargain and you do look a little peaky.’ She started to gather her bags from round the chair, then paused. ‘I haven’t upset you, have I, Mr Jones?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘quite the opposite, in fact. I’ve had a problem I’ve been trying to solve for quite a while, and I think something you said has just let me see what was staring me in the face.’
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I’m glad to be of service.’
‘Thank you, Mrs Carling,’ I grabbed her coat from the stand by the door and helped her into it.
When she was gone, I shouted into the back. ‘Beryl, I’m going to ring Jackie – I think he’ll be coming round.’
‘I’ll take the afternoon off then,’ she said. Then ambled out from her little office-cum-kitchen with her collection of plastic bags. ‘I still want paying though.’
I didn’t answer. She didn’t care.
Then I ran upstairs. I couldn’t find my printouts of the picture I had taken in Russian Frank’s office at Maylin and Sparrow, so I had to find the picture on my phone, send it to my computer and print it out again. Then I dug out Larry Stanbeck’s notebook.
When Jackie arrived, he found me at my desk with the notebook open, printout in front of me, paper strewn everywhere and a calculator in my hand.
‘What was so important?’ he said. He was wearing a tweed suit.
‘I worked it out.’
‘Who killed Benny?’
I looked up. ‘No,’ I said. He seemed to shrink a little. ‘But I know why the lottery ticket is so important.’
‘Because they want eight million pounds,’ said Jackie. ‘It’s not rocket science, Mal.’
‘No, it’s not about the money.’ I stopped. Smoothed my hair back. ‘Well, it is about the money, it’s just not about their money.’
Now he looked interested.
‘What do you mean, “not about their money”?’
I told him what Mrs Carling had said about her nephew, and he looked at me as if I was speaking another language.
‘Look, this is the picture of the house on Russian Frank’s wall, right?’ I pointed at the printout. He nodded. ‘This is the picture, the same picture, in La
rry Stanbeck’s notebook.’ I showed him the picture in the notebook. He nodded again. ‘These numbers’ – I pointed at what looked like measurements in the notebook – ‘are not the same as the numbers on the big drawing.’
‘Well, that’s a sketch, maybe it just didn’t work out?’
‘No, that’s not it. Right, see here, it says TM?’ Jackie nodded. ‘I thought it meant “trademark”. But it doesn’t. I think it means “Trolley Mick”. And if you follow the “TM” line, it pretty much cuts out a third of the drawing. Now, add together all the numbers of the measurements attached to initials in the book on Mick’s side of the line and it comes to about the same as the length of Trolley Mick’s line. Add together everything on the other side and it comes to the same length as this green line, marked FK. I thought that was something to do with radios at first.’ Jackie was still looking at me like I was an idiot. ‘TM, Trolley Mick. FK, Frank Khlopenko. Add them together, what do you get?’
‘Eight thousand, so?’ He looked quite puzzled. He didn’t enjoy being puzzled, so I hurried on.
‘If you do the same sums but using the values from the big drawing – and you can – you get six thousand four hundred.’
‘I really don’t know what you are getting at here, Mal.’
‘And you, a respected businessman and everything.’ He frowned. I got to the point. ‘It’s their cut, Jackie – it’s twenty per cent. One drawing shows all the money invested and by whom. The other shows how much Mick and Frank have to pay back. Those thousands are standing in for millions. The difference is the cut for laundering the money for all these other people who the initials on the diagrams must stand for. They match up. Micks line is thirty five percent of eight thousand. Frank even said it, “Mick gets his thirty five percent.” It’s how much he invested in the scheme.’ Jackie was staring, mentally totting up numbers. Then he shook his head.
‘No,’ he said. ‘That can’t work. First off, twenty per cent is not enough of a cut for money laundering.’
