Marwick's Reckoning - Gareth Spark

by Near To The Knuckle

  'There's an old saying,' Marwick remarked. 'If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.'

  Radu laughed a short bark that showed all his teeth. 'This is true,' he said, 'and can you do the time?'

  'Already have and I don't want to do any more, so can we hurry it up?'

  'Don't you want to know what is in the back?' Radu asked, gesturing with his thumb towards the box on the vehicle. There was some noise coming from it, but Marwick could not make it out above the rattle of the idling engine.

  'No.'

  'You aren't curious?'

  'No.'

  'I like you, Marwick, we know we can rely on you, you understand to get things done and I can't blame you for what happened before. You are like one of those little cars you have as a kid; you wind up the key, give it a push and it goes and you know it is going to arrive where you want it to go.'

  'I do my best.'

  Radu studied the other man for what seemed an age. The breeze lifted dust in spirals from the road and it fell rattling against the side of the van. 'Good,' he said finally, 'you understand then that I cannot take this delivery to the Casa d'Esclaus myself and you know the cops stop us because of who we are and, well, it would all fuck up.' He flicked his cigarette out into the dust and said something in Romanian to the other men who, wordlessly, turned and began to walk back to the farm. 'Overkill,' Radu continued, 'but I need these men when I collect this van in Marseilles and especially when we come over the hills; that son of a bitch Petru Comarnescu, you know him?'

  'No,' Marwick said.

  He sold this tomberon to us and I have never trusted him. He's not straight like Sean and there always the chance I have to kill this man,' he said. 'Not this time maybe.'

  'What does that word mean?'

  'Word?'

  'He sold us this what?'

  'Oh!' Radu laughed and stepped down from the van. 'It is a little joke word of mine, it means for throwing your garbage into.'

  'A bin?'

  'This is the word.' He stepped out and handed Marwick a key on a yellow plastic fob. 'This opens the lock on the shutter in the back,' he said. 'My advice, for what it's worth, is driving steady, take the quiet roads. We go there now to meet you.'

  'What if they stop me?'

  'You're English, why would they stop you?'

  Marwick smiled. 'Whatever you say.'

  Radu looked up at the sky and began to walk back to the farm. 'It is a beautiful night,' he said, 'just as you say, and this is a fine place.' He turned and smiled. 'Nobody knows what happened to the man who owned this house, do you know that?' He walked away, the heels of his boots stabbing into the ground.

  Marwick puzzled over this statement before he decided it was some kind of threat; he'd be surprised if it wasn't. He climbed into the van and adjusted the seat to accommodate his longer legs. Bollocks, Marwick thought, they don't trust me if they trust anyone, not after what happened with Charlie; it cost them, and it'll take more than me driving this van for them to trust us.

  The van was old and moved sluggishly out of the hills of Piera towards the main roads. The country was spectral in the light; he looked at his watch, it was half past twelve. The Romanians had wanted to meet, perhaps for some theatrical reason, at the stroke of midnight. There was a thud from the back of the van as something fell over in there and Marwick hoped it was nothing fragile.

  He drove for the next few hours, down through the high country towards the coastal plain; the mountains were tall and dark blue against the stars and the roads were quiet. He passed through several towns, each larger than the last, and stopped for gas once before reaching Peratallada, which was the last town before the plain. The farm Sean had inherited, through his marriage to Carmen, stood twelve miles to the west.

  Marwick lit a cigarette and waved the smoke away from his face. He turned the van down a straight road lined by broken walls; thorny trees seemed to grow in an arch across it and there were olive groves to one side; the moon had sunk. Marwick rubbed his eyes trying to see ahead through his fatigue. He pulled over to look at a map, and did not see the car driving towards him until it was a few yards away. Cops. He swore lightly as the young driver got out. The uniform was tight on him and he held the pistol at his hip as he walked, very slowly, to Marwick's window. Marwick leaned forward, pulled the ashtray from the dashboard and stubbed out the cigarette. He closed his eyes, opened them, prepared a smile and turned to the window. The police officer looked in, standing away from the window. The peak of his cap concealed his face and he spoke in quick Spanish.

  Marwick asked, 'Speak English?' The young man spoke haltingly. 'What is wrong?' His accent was heavy and Marwick had the sense that he only knew the words as sounds. There was something familiar about him.

  A breeze came through the window and cooled Marwick's forehead and he knew then how nervous he was as the sweat cooled. His arms tingled and thick blood pumped in his ears. 'I'm lost,' he said, 'trying to get to the' –he pretended to think– 'N–340; I want to get to the coast, got some things to deliver to a hotel I work for; there's a note somewhere.' He was careful to speak fast, hoping the young Spaniard would decide he had neither time nor energy for a long and difficult conversation.

  The police officer leaned back and looked along the side of the van. 'What are you carrying?' He spoke with a more assured fluency this time and Marwick sensed something in the voice. The man stepped forward and stroked his fingers along the side of the truck and Marwick saw the tattoo of a spider on the back of his hand. He turned and stared at the car ahead. It was a plain white 4x4 of some kind: no lights, no paint job, no Guardia Civil or Policia. 'Fruit machines,' he said. 'Your English is pretty good.'

  'One must.'

  'So what are we doing?'

  'Would you mind stepping out of the cab, sir?'

  The wind crept through the branches of the twisted trees and Marwick looked up as he asked, 'Is something wrong?'

  'If you could just step out.'

  The man smiled, but Marwick had noticed now that he wore no name badge and that his hand had not left the grip of his Star service pistol. He was calm suddenly and returned the smile. 'All right then.' He pushed the door and stepped out, planning, feeling the dread cold all the way through him now. He looked up and down: there were no hints of traffic; no sign of further vehicles parked up. The only illumination came from the van's headlamps. He grinned and said, 'What's the problem?'

  'Would you mind opening the back?'

  'I really don't see the necessity.'

  'Just open it,' the man said, voice trembling with subtle menace, 'if you don't mind.' His eyes were shadowed in the gloom.

  'I need the key.' Marwick turned and reached back into the cluttered cab. The key was on the dash and, as he lifted it, he placed it between the first and second fingers of his right hand, which he squeezed into a fist so the key protruded solidly between them. He could sense the other man close behind him now, too close; stupidly close as he backed out of the cab.

  Marwick span from the waist and hit the man too high on the side of his face rather than square on the jaw. The key buried itself in his cheek and the man grunted as he fell sideways from the sheer force of the blow, hitting the ground with a meaty crunch. Marwick kicked the man's chin quickly and with as much swing as was possible, stood so close to the idling vehicle, then stepped back and settled into a sideways stance, fists raised, gazing down.

  The cop lay still; blood ran from his face and soaked into the powdery earth as if a drink spilled onto the beach. Marwick panted, nauseated suddenly. He reached down and pressed a hand to the man's throat. 'Thought I wouldn't remember?'

  He took hold of the cop's wrists and turned him on the scratchy earth. He was heavy and Marwick's hand hurt where the key had pushed against it. He dragged the barely conscious man to the far side and left him leaning against one of the walls, looking at the ink, just to make sure.

  Marwick walked back to the cab and turned at a noise to see the f
ake cop, on his feet, smiling, reaching for his pistol. Marwick drew his own weapon and fired before jumping behind the van. The sound of the shot hung in the air, and then he heard a click as the pistol misfired, then the brush on the far side of the wall crackled and scraped as the fake cop ran. Marwick jumped back into the road, but the man was gone. He swore fiercely and fired two more rounds into the black countryside, frustration driving out his common sense.

  He climbed into the cab and drove without looking back. He was safe. Someone had set him up, not the Romanians, no; he absolutely knew that Roy was behind this. He checked the wing mirrors as he drove and was relieved when the Casa finally came into view.

  It was a new building about a hundred yards back from the road leading out of Sant Carles and it looked like a diner, if anything, one of the real crummy ones out the back of petrol stations Marwick had seen countless times along motorways back home. A red sign on top had Casa d'Esclaus written in large white letters across it in the same font as the Coca–Cola logo. Radu waited in front, surrounded by his gang.

  Marwick pulled up in front of the building and Radu turned to one of his friends, said something and laughed. He walked over as Marwick climbed out and said, 'You're late.'

  'Am I?'

  'A joke, you're so serious.' He said something in Romanian to the man closest to him who turned and headed quickly into the building.

  'Is Sean around?'

  'Why would he be?' Radu asked. His eyes were large and wild and seemed to shine in the light pouring from the door of the building beside him.

  Marwick glanced across; the windows on both floors were tinted. The faint sound of music came from within. 'I thought this was his place.'

  'Is it?'

  'I had that impression.'

  Radu held Marwick's gaze for a second too long and then broke into a loud laugh. 'You are serious, too serious. You want a drink?'

  The man Radu had sent back into the building returned with four others and they strolled across to the van.

  Marwick looked over at them and said, 'No thanks.'

  'You have the key?'

  'Here.'

  'What is this stuff all over it, man?'

  'Who knows?'

  Radu tapped Marwick's shoulder, hard. 'No trouble?'

  'No.'

  'That's good,' Radu said, walking over to the van, 'after the last time.'

  'I need a ride into town.'

  'Timofey can take you, no worry.' He gestured to one of the men loitering by the van, a bony shaven–headed youth with a metallic grin. Jesus, Marwick thought, they must come off a production line. 'You want to see what you have brought?'

  'I just want to get home.'

  'No, I show you, then you know what all this has been, and it is interesting for you, and for me. I want to see your face.' He smiled again and said something in his own tongue to the man called Timofey who took the key from Radu's proffered hand. 'Come here.'

  Marwick stepped closer as the young man pushed the key into the rusting padlock and then, with some difficulty, forced the roller shutter up into the van.

  It was the smell first: acid, earthy, the smell of tears. Then the noise: muffled sobs and sickbed groans and then Marwick's sight adjusted to the gloom and he saw at least half a dozen young women crushed against the sides of the van or sprawled over the bed of the truck on three or four soiled single mattresses and a few towels. A skeletal blonde–haired woman looked up, blinking, her eyes dark beneath and he knew she was not looking at him, or anything, too stoned even to know where she was or how she'd got there. Dirt was thick in the girls matted hair. He must have paled as the Romanians began to snigger and Radu pounded his shoulder, overcome by laughter. 'Jesus Christ,' Marwick said, 'what the fuck is this?'

  'This,' Radu said, 'is our new venture.'

  Marwick turned and walked towards Sant Carles. Radu shouted after him, and the shout became a laugh.

  Chapter Six

  Louise Lynch, dressed in her generic tourists outfit of cargo pants, trainers and T–shirt, walked slowly along an age–old side street. She found the house, number 42 and rapped impatiently at the door. The street was very narrow and she felt it crowding around her. There was the noise of a building site and it was almost cold in the shade where she stood.

  Louise thought about Marwick. He'd struck her as a man who'd been shattered into pieces and glued back together wrong. In the old days, the high and wild days of their time together, he'd had a quality, a force almost that was dangerous and crackled from him like electricity; he was a man you knew capable of things most men were not.

  Marwick had lost something, and she hated to see it. They once went to the coast, making the most of a rare free weekend, and on the second day, bored, lacking anything better to do, they'd visited the Aquarium. They walked through a glass tunnel, laughing, and then she'd seen a shark, circling and circling high near the blue lights that were all that remained of the sense of sky above the tank. She stopped him to watch it beat its tail and swim around and around as though there would be some way out, some current, some stream of warm water to take it back. It caught her like the shadow of a low cloud beating over the sea. That was Marwick.

  Her daydream was broken by the door swinging open in front of her and by the tall, hippyish woman with long braided hair fading at the roots and a wide, suspicious face, who snapped in Spanish, 'What do you want?' The woman looked as though she had been crying for a long time and that this was nothing but a break from the serious business of weeping.

  'Señora?' Louise enquired, removing her hat, pulling it off her ponytail and smiling.

  The other woman scowled and waved her hand derisively at the appellation Señora. 'Maria,' she said.

  'My father was friends with your husband, I think.' She dug in her handbag and produced a piece of paper, a page torn from Charlie's book. It had Ben's name, and the date of his disappearance written across it in Charlie's hand. In her bag was another page of the book where her father, ever the assiduous note–taker, had recorded the Canadian's address.

  'Your father?' the woman, Maria asked. She stood with her hands jammed down onto her broad hips. 'Who is your father?'

  'Charlie Lynch.'

  At this Maria smiled, and said, 'Oh, Charlie, yes, my husband was a friend,' she sniffed, 'come in then.'

  A traveller's junk filled the room: carved wooden elephants from Kenya; beaten copper from Egypt and long wooden masks from Africa. It was light; the windows at the back of the house were open wide and smelled of patchouli and strong Turkish coffee. Maria waved her hand to a deep armchair where Louise, smiling a little, sat. Then Maria sat opposite and began to roll a large joint, collecting paper and hash from a small octagonal table beside her chair. 'Your father spoke of you,' she said, her voice muffled by the cigarette paper she held between her lips. 'He said you were beautiful and now I see it was not more of his bullshit.'

  'He was too kind.'

  Maria lit the joint inhaled deeply. 'You know what happened to my husband?' She asked.

  'No.' Louise leaned forward and looked into the other woman's eyes. She felt tired as she spoke, 'My father's missing,' she said. 'He was supposed to meet me at Reus airport and never turned up; I went round to his home and saw that he has not been there for weeks, and the only clue I could find, the only thing that pointed anywhere was your husband's name and a date, which was the date of the newspaper left in his apartment. So?'

  'My husband is dead, Miss Lynch.'

  Maria said this without passion, puffing on the joint and peering through the thick aromatic smoke at the young woman.

  'How?'

  'He was murdered.'

  'Murdered?'

  'Do I not say it right? Yes, he was murdered, cut like a pig, and why? He was a sailor, he went fishing on the blue water with tourists and he was happy in that. He went fishing with your father.'

  Louise looked away. There was a picture of Ben on the wall, displaying a red maple leaf tattoo
on his upper arm to the camera; he was laughing, and the sea behind him was grey beneath pink and orange clouds.

  Maria sighed, smoked a little more and then continued, 'One day your father brings a friend fishing, and this man, impressed by my husband, goes fishing again and again until the end of the season. “How do you make a living“, he asks, “in the winter?”; of course, my husband always struggled, “Would you like to make enough money to last you the rest of the year if you like?” And that was it; all he had to do was go south and bring a boat back to Sant Carles. That was the last I saw of him in this world.' She stubbed the joint out into a brass ashtray with a derisive snort, as though it disgusted her. She started to cry, quietly. 'All he had to do was bring back a boat.'

  'My father…' Louise started, but the sentence had no end to it.

  'How are you called?' Maria asked.

  'Louise,' she said.

  'Louise, your father, god save him, perhaps he will know why my husband had to die? Yes? Find him, and ask him for me. I need to know, you understand. I need to know why.'

  'Maybe there is no “why”,' Louise found herself saying.

  'There has to be,' Maria snapped, 'otherwise none of it means a thing.'

  Chapter Seven

  The gate buzzer sounded. Sean frowned, then pulled himself to his feet with some difficulty and walked to the intercom on the wall, one of many dotted throughout the property. The button was hot as a frying pan beneath his finger. 'Hello.'

  'It's me.' The cheap speaker strangled the voice.

  'I'm out back.' Sean pressed the gate release.

  He heard footsteps, hard on the flags, as he walked around the house and then saw Marwick. A fugitive, desperate glow lit his eyes and it looked as though he'd slept in his clothes. The beard was dark across his thin face. He took hold of Sean's sleeve. 'We need to talk.'

  'All right, well let me finish this drink…'

  'Now.' Marwick's voice was as hard and cold as slate.

  Sean's gaze flickered. 'Let's go into the house,' he said.