Marwick's Reckoning - Gareth Spark

by Near To The Knuckle

  'Who was that?' Louise said quietly.

  'Like you said, that was him, and now he's gone.'

  His face was very still beneath rows of streetlights. He turned another two corners and passed through an industrial estate. The edge of Pineda was on the other side of the tracks; tall rusty cranes stark against the dark sky, hotel blocks and the first of a hundred bars. He stopped the jeep and breathed slowly and it felt as though he was breathing for the first time in ages. He shivered. His clothes were cold and the blood on his hands was sticky on the wheel. Holidaymakers passed the vehicle, heading for a karaoke bar at the end of the street. 'We have to get rid of these clothes,' Marwick said, 'can we go to Charlie's place?'

  She was staring down at the dashboard. 'What just happened?'

  'Salvador was playing a game, too many sides against the middle; he knew secrets.' He breathed in slowly and then exhaled. 'The worst thing he did was mouth off round town asking for money; even if he knew fuck all, he was safer then under the ground.'

  'That man…'

  'He's Christie,' Marwick said, 'Seems Salvador felt he was safe selling out the bastard.'

  'He was going to kill you,' she said, 'if that boy hadn't turned up.' Marwick nodded, and then smiled at her. 'Every one you walk away from...'

  Chapter Seventeen

  It was one o'clock in the morning. Marwick had showered and cleaned up in Charlie's old apartment; then dressed in a baggy pair of chinos and a white shirt that still smelled of Charlie's aftershave. The scent of it caught him by surprise, and he stood for a few moments before the mirror in the bathroom, remembering the last time he'd seen the old man. That night led to four deaths and he knew it wouldn't end with those. It was only a matter of time before the police discovered the link between the dead men.

  He walked back into the living room. Louise sat opposite the door in a deep leather armchair; her hair was loose around her shoulders and blew slightly in the warm breeze coming through the opened windows. She turned and looked up at him, smiling. Her eye had started to bruise. 'You look better,' she said.

  He pushed his fingers through his hair. 'I couldn't have looked any worse,' he said, walking across to the window and looking down at the square. There was movement in the far corner, but a moment later, he saw that it was only a drunk heading home slowly, close to the drinking fountain, which he heard bubbling slightly above the noises of the night. 'Going to have to burn all them clothes, soon as.' He turned. 'What were you thinking?'

  'About Dad,' she said, looking around the room.

  He nodded and turned back to the window. 'I'm sorry you know.'

  'Sorry?'

  'For what happened,' he felt the force of her gaze between his shoulders. 'Nobody was supposed to get hurt.'

  'Somebody always gets hurt,' she said, 'that's how we make money; the people who buy that shit, the people growing it, all the way from the plantations to the streets, they all get hurt somewhere along the line.'

  'Don't.'

  'This is how we live, you, Sean, me, Dad. This world's rotten all the way through.'

  'You think I don't know that?' He turned, looking straight at her. 'I've seen things you wouldn't believe.' He reached for a packet of cigarettes on the mantel and lit one. His hands shook the match and he held the flame towards her. 'You see?' She sat very still, watching him. 'You see what you still do to me?'

  'You've decided you have a conscience after all, that's what this is. What did you think? You could go round doing all the shit you've done and walk away without a stain. Some can, but not you; you're not like that.' She stood and walked towards him. She wore an old dressing gown of her father's that hung from her slender body like a torn flag on a pole and her breath was warm against his face as she pulled him towards herself. 'We'll deal with them, and then it'll be over.'

  'How? The one lead we had is dead.' He pushed her away and dragged on the cigarette. 'Christie could be half way to the moon by now. We should run. I have some money saved.'

  She stared into his eyes. 'We can't,' she said, 'not until we're finished.'

  He held up his bandaged thumb. 'I've got this, you've got a shiner and I'm aching like a bastard. Think I've cracked a rib; not really Rambo am I? We'll end up fucked, like Mr. Rus back there.' He sat. 'We ain't got a lead anyway.'

  'There's the Casa d'Esclaus; that's as good a place to start as any.'

  'You still think the Stelescu's are behind all this?'

  'I'm convinced.'

  'Why?'

  'They knew Salvador and Roy Quinn could betray them, simple as; it's about power. They want the money and the network Sean has; they engineered this whole fucking show to get him over the barrel and when they have what they want, he'll be next, then you. Don't you see, Marwick? It all makes sense; it's the only way it can make sense.'

  'And where does Christie fit into it?'

  'Who knows? Rent–a–murderer? It doesn't matter.'

  He finished his cigarette and said, 'If you're convinced, why don't we do them?'

  'Because we need to be able to prove it to The Firm,' she said. 'They don't take anything on faith.'

  She leaned forward and kissed him. Her lips were cool and she tasted of mint gum. She took hold of his hand and pulled him to his feet.

  He grimaced and held on to his ribs where they ached. 'I'm going to fuckin' hurt in the morning.'

  'Don't be such a baby.'

  They walked to the bedroom and she reached over and killed the light. 'We'll deal with them.' She slipped the robe to the floor and her hard body was pale in the murky darkness of the room. 'Then it'll be over.'

  Marwick climbed slowly onto the bed and she pulled the clothes from his body. A second hand clicked inside a clock in the far corner of the room. She slid into the bed beside him; her flesh was cool beneath the cotton sheets, and then warm against the sweat on his thigh. He pulled her close and felt her lips on his chest. 'Nothing is ever over,' he said.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Marwick moved the police tape and entered Salvador's apartment; where to begin? None of the obvious places; Christie would have gone through those, the bed, behind pictures, inside the guitar. He let the room fill his senses and adjusted to the feel of it, trying to imagine himself hiding something important here. First, he went through the bedroom, searching quickly. Rus's things were still where he had left them. Nothing hidden among his clothes, or in the pages of his books; nothing stuck on the underside of the bedside cabinet, or beneath the worn blue rug lain across the floor. Marwick exhaled sharply in frustration. Time was short.

  He tried the bathroom next with similar lack of success, being as thorough as possible: the cistern, inside the tubes of lotion and aftershave and shower gel; checking for loose tiles and beneath the vinyl; water pipes that could come loose with a twist. Nothing.

  He wandered to the left hand side of the room, stepping over a square of carpet that must have served as a makeshift rug. It bore a large brown stain. He moved slowly now, trailing his fingers across the records stacked on a shelf beside the broad window. Luck, he thought, you just need luck, the luck of the devil. Devil. He turned and looked back towards the door. Immediately behind it, hanging from a nail in a place hidden by the door when it was open, was a demon made of painted wood. Marwick dashed across the room and, barely even hoping, lifted it down from the wall. There was a vacancy behind it, a hole punched through the cinder block behind the plaster. Rus had sealed it with a ball of tissue paper held in place by tape. Marwick pulled this away and, warily, pushed his hand inside the wall. Plastic. He pulled out a clear A4 folder, fastened by a zip; it contained paper and photographs, Rus's stash of information that he'd hoped would one day save his life.

  ***

  He parked up outside the first café he came to in Sant Carles. Marwick bought a tall glass of iced Vichy water and sat outside. He drank some of the water, which was so cold it made his head sting, and then dragged the folder out of the satchel. He glanced around. A couple argue
d softly at the table beside his; men unloaded meat from the back of a truck and carried it into a restaurant's back door; nobody cared, nobody looked.

  There were pages of a notebook that had been torn out upon which were lists of four digit numbers beside a variety of names; a photograph of an old man, dead, and a young man beside him, dressed in a Guardia uniform, his foot on the dead man, grinning; car number plates; the name of a ship and dates, times, weights. An address in Barcelona, a question mark, a spider beside it, drawn carelessly; a photo of a house on the top of a bank. Marwick turned the picture over. On the back, somebody had written Sean Mallon in capitals, and there were more codes, security codes. How did Salvador get this stuff? There were compromising documents implicating politicians, some whose names Marwick knew, in myriad schemes and frauds; a blackmailer's goldmine. He smiled. Salvador Rus had recorded details of every criminal undertaking he'd heard about or taken part in throughout his seedy life; there were even details of the Verge del Cami, Charlie's name written beneath it. Those made Marwick go cold. On another sheet of paper, he had inscribed the name Cezar Stelescu above a long list of names, the names of women.

  Marwick exhaled slowly, impressed.

  ***

  Louise was in the shower when he returned to the apartment, just before lunch. The shops in the street leading up to the Placa were closing for the siesta as he passed them in the car; old women drawing shutters across a halal butcher's shop; a tramp sleeping in the shade of the fountain; flies murmuring above the carcass of a gull in the gutter. Marwick walked quickly, his face shining with sweat. His bare forearms prickled where the sunlight hit them, the sting of the light was like the brush of a nettle.

  Louise sang an old Irish tune, her voice low beneath the splash of the water. She knew he was there, 'You took your time,' she said, switching off the shower, then pulling the white plastic curtain back and peering around it. 'Pass me the towel, will you?'

  Marwick passed her the cotton towel he had draped across the sink. 'I found something.'

  'Well you're a clever boy,' she said, drying herself, standing in the dripping cubicle, 'I never doubted it for a second.'

  'I need you to look at it with me, see if we can find anything together. I've looked, but there doesn't seem to be anything leading anywhere.'

  She stepped from the cubicle and kissed his forehead. He flinched away and she frowned. 'What's up?'

  Marwick smiled. 'Oh, nothing, forget me, I'm thinking too much.'

  'I'll get dressed.'

  Marwick spread the contents of the folder across the tile–topped table in the living room and sat hunched over them, shuffling the papers as though they were cards.

  Louise, dressed now in khaki chinos with pockets on the thighs and white polo shirt with yellow stripes, walked across and stood behind him. She bent down and kissed the top of his head. He made an irritated noise with his teeth and waved a hand above his hair as though a fly was pestering him. 'Come and have a look at this, will you? It's almost one o'clock.'

  She picked up a pack of cigarettes from the dresser as he walked around the back of the sofa and one was lit and between her lips by the time she was seated; the nicotine buzzed through her and she relaxed for the first time in many days.

  'I've been trying to call Sean,' Marwick said.

  'And?'

  'He's avoiding my calls.'

  'Why?'

  'Somebody must have seen me with you.'

  'I wonder what he'd make of this then.' She said, handing him a photograph from the pile of papers.

  'Sean's house, I know.'

  'Look on the back.'

  He turned the paper and ran his eyes down the list of numbers. 'You know what these are?'

  'I know what they are; don't you see how it's all coming together? This is what that man was trying to get out of Salvador Rus, the codes for Sean's place, for the day when they want to get rid of him without a fuss.' She gripped his forearm, hard. 'A couple of men slip in while he's sleeping; an accident; nothing for the cops to worry about; they don't want to blow his head off, he's too connected. I wonder if he'd ignore you if he knew.'

  'What else do you see? What have I missed?' Marwick asked, his eyes nervously scanning the tabletop. He licked his lips, which had suddenly gone dry.

  'There's this,' she handed him the piece of paper that bore the Barcelona address.

  He squinted through the smoke, turning it over in his hand, checking the other side, then said, 'Pretty picture.'

  'What do you make of it?'

  'I've seen two just like it.'

  She smiled. 'On someone's hands?'

  'It's got to be something,' he said, 'it's all we have to go on, and we've got to do something, anything, rather than sit here and…'

  'And wait,' she said, finishing the thought, leaning back against the sofa.

  Chapter Nineteen

  It was raining in Barcelona. One of the sudden showers blown in from the sea, soaking everything, settling the dust and bringing with it a sense of purity, of a world being sated and washed clean. Tall gothic buildings ran with the rain and a rising wind blew through narrow streets, clattering the lines strung from one building to the next. Ghosts of old anarchists, defeat, and countless unremembered lives seemed to fill the barrio, calling from one gloomy corner to the next across broken pavements running with the red sludge of dampened dust. It was almost dark. Marwick sat in the car. Rain ran down the glass, leaving trails in the dirt. He reached for a packet of Lambert and Butler that lay on the dashboard, lit one and drew the smoke deeply into his body. The directions, courtesy of Google, lay curled on the seat beside him. Raval; Streets you don't even walk in the day and Louise was out there taking a call; something about business; he didn't want to know.

  Three men, their faces shadowed by the peaks of baseball caps, stood in a doorway to right, sheltering from the weather, leaning against the drawn steel shutters of a defunct halal butcher's. They were North African; all held cigarettes and had turned towards Louise. She stood with her back against the fence surrounding a demolition site, an entire block of buildings between Carrer d'En Robador and Carrer d'Espalter, razed to the ground. Mud ran beneath the fence out onto the street. A young Asian girl ran past holding a folded magazine above her head; a group of men walked out of a cellar bar in the corner. Dance music played beneath the pounding of the rain. Louise wore a leather jacket and a baseball cap that hid her hair and stood with her back to the street, one arm crossed across her chest and the other holding the phone tight against her ear. Foolish, Marwick thought, turning your back like that, thought she knew better. A single white streetlamp above her shone down a cone of hard light and he watched the rain splash in puddles at the foot of the graffiti ravaged fence. She slammed the phone shut and walked back to the jeep. The three men watched her walk and then looked away; she had that confidence, the air of knowing exactly where you are and where you are going that deters the more predatory residents of Raval.

  She climbed back in and he could smell the rain, fresh on her skin. She glanced at him, her eyes luminous beneath wet eyelashes and said, 'Business.'

  'None of mine,' he said, stubbing out the cigarette on the dash.

  'I have to go somewhere tomorrow.'

  'Anywhere nice?'

  She looked at him; her gaze was inscrutable, then she said, 'Not really. Just a client I have to meet. Knew I was over here; he owns property in Alicante. I do have another life outside that has to go on and I advise people foolish enough to invest in this country.'

  The rain was easing; the water thudding against the roof was slower now. Marwick peered out through the gloom at the lights of the very tall brown buildings on either side of the vacant city lot. 'We should go,' he said.

  He pulled the CZ–99 pistol from the glove box, checked chamber, the brass round glittering against the steel of the top slide, and tucked the weapon into his waistband.

  Louise watched him and asked, 'Serbian?'

  'A girl like yo
u shouldn't know so much about it.'

  They walked slowly to the end and turned left, passing an electrical goods store with a sign written in Arabic script and a closed hairdressers. Steel shutters upon which there was a decade's worth of graffiti covered the windows; tags and slogans on every available space in a multitude of languages. A lone African man stood in the doorway of the hairdresser's, his face pushed tight against the shutter. The sound of his weeping was very loud.

  Louise ignored him. '35,' she said, 'this is the one.'

  It was above a closed kebab shop. Wrought iron balconies began on the second floor and the building towered above them, dark against cloud lit up by the city. The doorway leading up to the apartments was large with a vast stone lintel. There was shouting on the street behind them. Marwick tried the door. He was weary to the point of dropping, forcing himself to keep going. The door opened as though pulled by invisible hands. He entered. The narrow lobby was dank, warm and stank of boiled cabbage and sweating meat. There was a staircase on the right leading up to the first landing. Louise paused before a tall, dark door at the end of the hall. There were two other doors. 'That one,' she said.

  Marwick tried the handle; locked. He glanced at her unsure what to do. His loose hair, wet from the rain, lay plastered to his forehead and he pushed it to one side as he waited. Louise bent down and pulled a small leather case from her jacket; it contained lock picks.

  Marwick sighed as she worked. She turned and looked up at him across her shoulder. 'You want to do this?'

  'Not really.'

  She pushed the door open and stood, wiping her damp palms across the front of her jeans. 'Nothing to it.'

  The door opened onto an empty room. Dust lay thick on the exposed floorboards. Marwick inched inside, holding the pistol before him as he moved from one room to another, finding each as empty as the last. The only piece of furniture remaining in the apartment was a tall, narrow table in one corner, upon which stood a battered red telephone.