Marwick's Reckoning - Gareth Spark

by Near To The Knuckle

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A small dark man, with thin hair and a bristly moustache peppered with grey, Doctor Jimenez was a bland figure, pure beige, unremarkable. Originally, from Ronda, he had worked his way to Catalunya, escaping always when the time was right, obeying a sixth sense that never let him down. It was twitching like hell now. He'd done it all: prescription frauds, disability swindles, sewing up bullet wounds and knife scars on thieves, gangsters and illegal immigrants. He'd lost his licence long ago. Yet for a Medico with the right friends, there was always work.

  The Englishman came down to the door himself. Jimenez remembered the worst insult one man could give another when he'd been a child: Hijo de Ingles, son of an Englishman. They were and always would be a nation of Francis Drakes: of thieves, privateers and murderers.

  'Buenas, Snr. Marwick,' he said, looking down at the doctor's bag he carried.

  Marwick held up his hand, wrapped in a towel through which the blood had seeped.

  ***

  It was cool in Charlie's apartment. Marwick, stripped to his underwear, winced as Jimenez applied butterfly stitches to his thumb. 'Not so bad,' he said, 'light wounds, nothing more.'

  'I trust you Doctor.'

  'There, and see, it is done.' Jimenez wound a dressing around Marwick's left thumb. 'Don't get dirty. The rest will heal. Shall I send ticket of bill to Mr. Mallon?'

  'I'll pay it now.' Sean's voice boomed from the doorway. He looked up at the large figure filling the doorway to the apartment and smiled. It was an involuntary action, a mixture of relief and friendship.

  'Well,' he said, 'speak of the devil.'

  Sean hugged Doctor Jimenez and asked after his family in woeful Spanish. The Doctor shrugged his shoulders, refusing to be drawn and Sean offered him a wad of fifty Euro notes. 'This covers it?'

  'Yes,' the Doctor replied, gazing greedily at the banknotes, 'this will do well.'

  'Thank you for your work on my friend here, what was it?'

  Jimenez turned to Marwick and said, 'A blade.'

  Sean said, 'Marwick, what have you been getting into?'

  Marwick stood. 'I'll show you.'

  ***

  The three men walked down the broad stone steps of the apartment building. It was refreshingly cool, and Marwick allowed the other two to walk before him. Sean and Jimenez discoursed as if a pair of best friends, while Marwick limped after them, tired tremendously. He watched the back of Sean's head before him, bobbing through the gloom of the ancient building. The man's influence on the course of Marwick's destiny had been huge, a magnetic pole he'd always steered by, malignant, strange and, in the end, unknowable. He knew it had to end soon.

  The sun was strong, on the powdery ochre dust scattered in the corners of the square, and rose from several parked cars in a shimmer. Marwick moved stiffly. The fresh bandage wrapped around his left hand shone brilliantly in the hard light, and he watched Sean clap a hand on Jimenez's shoulder and say goodbye.

  Sean pulled the fabric of his shirt out from his body and fanned cool air across his bare white gut. He wore sunglasses and smiled across at Marwick. 'You've been causing a hell of a ruckus, Marwick,' he said quietly, crossing the square. 'You were there when Salvador Rus copped it, you've been running round town with Louise, London's eyes and ears, talking careless, you were the only one to come back from the boat alive, we've only got your word for what happened there. You know how it is, son. I don't want to lay the blame on you, but I sure as hell am not going to take it. Al's onto the coke now, he rang me last night, said he was knew where it was, he's going to take some of the boys up there to get it. If he doesn't, then I'd start running if I was you.'

  'It's the Stelescus; they had Roy in their pocket; he told them when the shit was coming; they stole their own gear so they could put pressure on you to compensate for the loss, giving them the land for their whorehouse. Roy got his when they figured he was about to let on to us about it, and there's this nutter running about out there, the man who did for Charlie, trying to get your home alarm codes from Rus. It's coming, Sean. All I was trying to do was watch your back. This is the thanks I get'

  'All you're doing,' Sean said, stepping close, 'is fucking things up and pissing people off. I'm more worried about London than I am the brothers. When they find out…'

  Marwick shook his head. 'I'd be more worried about this.' He opened the trunk of the car and gestured towards it with his bandaged thumb. Sean stooped beneath the baking metal and gasped, clasping a hand across his nose and mouth. The body had pushed against the spare tire and with the combination of the midday heat and the cramped space, the stench of bodily fluids was overpowering. Sean retched. 'Who the fuck's that?'

  'You tell me.'

  Sean stared up at him. 'What do you mean?'

  'I was supposed to meet you in the wee small hours, remember? Al called me, arranged it all?'

  Sean stammered, 'I don't know anything about it.'

  'When this fucker tries making mincemeat out of me guts.'

  'I don't know anything about it, Marwick; I swear.'

  'And Al?'

  'You've known him years, why would he try sticking ya? Think about it, son, think about it. You were in a crappy neighbourhood; this geezer probably wanted your wallet. It happens all the bleeding time.'

  'This ain't the first time I've seen this joker.'

  Sean glanced around the square quickly. A door had opened on the far side and a young family were piling out, heading for the nearest of the parked cars. Sean slammed the trunk shut. 'Close that for fuck's sake.'

  Marwick threw his cigarette into the dust. He closed his eyes, ideas and images spinning through his brain like the pieces of a jigsaw in a shaken box. 'I saw this fella before on the boat. It weren't any robbery gone wrong, Sean, this was a hit, and I was lucky this time. Who knew I was meeting you there? Somewhere I'd never even heard of? You, me…and Al.'

  'Here we go again, with the accusations! You ain't too bright.'

  Marwick said. 'Let's go for a drive and you can tell me how stupid I am.'

  ***

  They drove with the windows down and headed through the twisted streets of old Sant Carles. Marwick drove in silence, which irritated Sean. 'Ain't you got anything to say?' He asked, biting a fingernail. His face shone with sweat. They headed out onto the AP–7 passing the cemetery and then the municipal football grounds with their vast weathered sign reading Zona Esportiva.

  'I want out,' Marwick said, keeping his eyes on the heat haze.

  'Out of what?'

  'Out of this business; I want out of Sant Carles, this life, all of it.'

  'There's no such thing as out.'

  Marwick ignored him. 'I could say that ever since Charlie died things have been wrong with me, but it goes back further than that.'

  'You don't know what you're saying.'

  'I want the money I'm owed, what you owe me for the shit I've done for you. Then I'm gonna go.'

  'You can't go back to London.'

  'There are other places.'

  'Not for a man like you; you think you're escaping something, but I tell you what, the thing you're trying to get away from, it's part of you.'

  'I want what I'm owed, so I can start again, a new life, a better one. That's all I want from you.'

  'And is Louise in this new life?'

  'Maybe,' Marwick shook his head, frustrated. 'I don't know.'

  ***

  Stunted oaks and cork trees grew in thickets close to the clear rushing water of the Riudecanyes that cut through the dry land from the mountains like a silver blade. Marwick parked close to a point where the river fed into a broad pool. A riot of frogs clicked in the tall reeds and the smell of the water was fresh above the broader, muskier scent of the parched and cracked mud. Sean spoke first, 'It's the end of a beautiful friendship.'

  Marwick shrugged and opened the car door. He stretched his arms above his head and walked around to the trunk. Thick trees hid them from the road and the earth wa
s a beaten rusty shade dotted by white stones as big as a man's fist. 'Give me an 'and with this,' Marwick said.

  Sean stepped out of the car reluctantly. There were dark circles beneath the armpits of his shirt. They dragged the stiff corpse from the boot and let it fall to the earth with a thud, raising a halo of dust. Taking an arm each, they dragged it to the water's edge. Marwick pushed the body down the slight bank of the river, rolling it across knotted roots and stones and into the sharp bladed reeds. The calls of frogs, seemingly hundreds of them, clicked noisily from all sides as he waded out with the body and pushed it forward into the pool. It sank slowly and Marwick felt the wound on his chest sting as he watched the man's face turn up into the light and then vanish.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Marwick broke into Al's apartment early the next morning. It was empty. Al's car was gone. He searched the place, found nothing, not a trace, not a clue where he might have gone. No messages on the machine, no notes for the cleaner, nothing; Marwick waited a few hours, smoked cigarette after cigarette. Al had gone to ground.

  He called Louise, arranged to meet in Pineda, and left.

  ***

  The Golden Lion stood at the corner of Castell de Prades and Carrer Atenes in the eastern side of Pineda, close to the cliffs. The sky was a high, powdery blue, clearing now as summer approached. A digital thermometer on the wall above the bar showed 32 degrees. Marwick could tolerate that. The windows of the pub looked out onto the sea and he watched the white boats beat lazily against the current, their hulls burning before the deep azure of the water.

  An Englishwoman, dyed blonde hair with two inches of roots showing, walked quickly through the bar, her flat–soled shoes flapping on the tiled floor. She carried three plates one of which she dropped onto the circular table in front of Marwick. 'Anything else, love?' she asked with a heavy northern accent. The make–up around her eyes had turned to sludge in the heat and she blinked the sweat away.

  'Cheers love, that's great.'

  It was a feast: real chips, beer–battered cod with thick flakes of flesh that steamed as he cut into them, a slice of lemon on the side of the white plate, and steeped marrowfat peas – Yorkshire Caviar, that's what Charlie used to call mushy peas. Marwick felt a pang of loss. He stared ahead as he ate, the meal soured by memory. If I hadn't been so stupid on that boat, he thought, if I'd been a bit sharper and quicker, he'd be here eating with me, having a pint and a laugh. If I'd looked harder, if I'd taken another two blokes as back up, if I hadn't listened to Sean. A whole planet of “if only” and he knew the uselessness of that kind of thought.

  He saw Louise at the end of the bar and waved to her. Large sunglasses masked her eyes and she smiled as she sat opposite him. 'Don't know how you can eat that,' she said, looking around the pub with obvious distaste, 'I can feel my arteries clogging just looking at the plate.'

  'Well it was good enough for yer old man,' Marwick said, wiping his mouth with a paper napkin. He lifted the pint glass to his lips and sipped the ale. 'How did it go?' He asked, glancing up at her.

  'Business,' she replied, removing the shades. 'Anything happened?'

  'I saw Sean.'

  'And?'

  'I want out.'

  'We're close,' she said, reaching across the table and taking hold of his wrist. 'A few more days, then we can leave together, start a new life, you and me.'

  'It's not so easy anymore; somebody tried to do for me the other night.' He held his hand up above the table. The bandage was already. He lowered his voice. 'It was the other man from the boat.'

  'But you're okay?'

  'Better than he is,' Marwick said. 'Al rang, said to meet Sean at a certain place in the night and this man turns up instead, tries to cut me a new one. Sean says he doesn't know anything about it.' He laid the knife and fork across the plate, having lost his appetite. 'I would have trusted Al with me life.'

  'So he's working with the brothers?'

  'I don't think they've got anything to do with it.'

  'You and your hunches,' she said. 'Okay, I'll bite.'

  'You agree?'

  'No,' she said, 'maybe Al was their inside man all along, maybe Roy Quinn was a decoy. Either way, they're gone, and soon.'

  'We're going to go see the only people we haven't yet.'

  'Who?'

  'We're going to see Cezar.'

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Marwick drove. They passed by the pockmarked buildings lining the coast and soon entered the quiet streets of Quatre Camins, an Urbanització among the new suburbs of Sant Carles. Newly built houses, as regular as a child's toy bricks, were set amongst palm trees and alongside a golf course. Marwick hadn't been into this suburb for a long time. The kind of people with whom he associated would have been lost on the perfect, well–groomed streets. This is where the doctors, cops, teachers, politicians, TV producers and restaurateurs lived. It was also home to Cezar Stelescu.

  The Romanian lived on the top two floors of a stone building at the end of a small road. The apartment's balcony overlooked the Platja L'Esqirol and, beyond it, the sea. The 19th century tower in the heat hazy distance, burned orange against the pale blue. A large boat cruised slowly in the direction of Pineda, like a tiny white box on the turquoise water. Marwick stretched his arms above his head and turned back to the apartment block. It wasn't so grand. Cezar had the money to buy a villa ten times the size of Sean's, but his ego was not as fragile as the Englishman's was.

  Louise stood beside him. 'How do you know he's in?' She asked.

  'I don't.'

  'And if he's not?'

  Marwick shrugged and walked towards the building. He was sweating now, asking himself if this really was such a good idea. It seemed like the only thing he could do, the only path they hadn't tried. It was a desperate play, but the only one left.

  He pressed the intercom and waited. Then, after what seemed an age, he heard the elder Stelescu's breathing and then, 'Yes?'

  'Cezar Stelescu?' Marwick said. His mouth was close to the metal grill of the intercom.

  'Quien es?'

  'It's Marwick. Can I have a word?'

  There was silence, then, 'Are you alone?'

  'There's a lady with me, Charlie's daughter. It's important.'

  The door clicked open. Marwick looked over his shoulder at Louise and pushed his way inside.

  ***

  The apartment was cool. Air hushed through wide metal grills set high on the white walls. Cezar wore swimming shorts and a white T–shirt and he'd oiled his hair back from his melancholy peasant's face. His large dark eyes washed over Louise as he ushered them inside and he stroked the long, drooping moustache thoughtfully. 'I am surprised to see you,' he said, addressing Marwick and gesturing to a chair close to the patio doors leading out to the balcony.

  Marwick sat and said. 'I wouldn't have come to your home, if it weren't life and death.'

  'It's always life and death,' Cezar mumbled with a wry glint at the corners of his eyes. 'Sean doesn't know you're here, does he?'

  'No.'

  Cezar sat in a cane chair and looked through the opened door at the sea. The horizon melted into the sky and the breeze, heavy with salt, pushed gently into the room. Louise stood behind Marwick, staring hard at the old gangster. Cezar said, 'I am alone here, so speak.'

  'You and your brother,' Marwick began, not sure how to continue, how to spit out the hunches, the hints and faint perceptions into words without it sounding ridiculous or deadly. 'It goes back to the night we lost Charlie.'

  'The Verge del Cami,' Cezar said.

  'You know who hit the boat?'

  Cezar smiled. He reached over to the table close to him and lit a cigar. 'I have an idea.'

  'We do too,' Louise cut in. She stood with her arms folded tight across her chest.

  Marwick sighed. He was playing with his life now. 'Your brother did for Roy Quinn, because he was one of them hit the boat, and that's fair enough. I've been asking myself how he found that out. He sa
ys it was from Salvador Rus, but I don't see how. Rus is gone now too, maybe he knew something. Maybe he knew who really robbed that boat. Maybe, I'm thinking, it was your brother.'

  Cezar stared at him through the plumes of smoke, still smiling. 'Go on,' he said softly.

  'Think about it. Your brother knows Roy, they score together in Pineda, have a laugh, get some birds, play a little pool for a few Euros, they were good mates. Radu knows there's a king's ransom in coke coming, so he has this brilliant idea, let's just take it. They get some hard hitters, get on board and rip it off. Only her Dad and me turn up. They panic. Charlie gets his head blown off and I'm left there, maybe they wanted me to take the blame, I don't know, but they left me breathing.' He stopped. His mouth was dry as an ashtray. The words were pounding out of him. 'What I'm saying is that everything points to your brother. He saw it maybe as a way to get Sean in an awkward position, you know, you lost our money, now give us the farm to make us whole. Maybe he wanted the farm all along and that was a part of it. Maybe.'

  'So this would mean I knew about this too?' Cezar said. He reached out and tapped the ash from the cigar into a cut glass ashtray beside him.

  'I don't know what it means; all I'm doing is suggesting something to you.'

  'You think we stole our own cocaine? Why would we do that?'