by Susan Moody
There was silence when she had finished. Then Jefferson said, almost weeping, ‘The bastard, the double-crossing, murderous bastard; it was him who killed her all along.’
‘Is this the . . . uh . . . “Big Boss” we’ve been talking about?’ enquired Magnus, feeling that if he could only hang on long enough everything would be made clear, while Kate remembered Ms Bailey saying ‘I knew it . . .’ as the gunman stepped forward. She had wondered not long ago whether all the pieces would come together if she only concentrated hard enough. They were doing so now with an almost careless abandon, everything connecting with everything and everybody else. Did the fact that Jefferson’s stepfather had apparently been responsible for wiping out most of her family alter in any way how she felt about Jefferson himself at this moment or might feel about him in the future, were she to feel anything at all, a possibility about which she was fairly certain she currently had no opinion? As for Stefan’s father – Carl or Carlos – who was also the London Lover, how would that affect her relationship with Janine? It wasn’t as if either Janine or Jefferson was in anyway culpable themselves, yet somehow it all seemed a bit too pat, as though someone had deliberately withheld the final pieces of the jigsaw (Jefferson’s stepfather, Janine’s boyfriend) until the very end and then flourished it triumphantly (‘ta da!’) before irritatingly pressing it into place, something no jigsaw-puzzle-solver could easily tolerate.
Flourishing the Armagnac bottle, Magnus said, ‘I think we all need a drink.’
Melvin
Twenty-Five
‘And a cognac to finish with, Philippe.’
‘That’ll be on the house, sir.’
‘That’s very good of you.’
‘It’s a pleasure to have you back, sir.’
‘It’s a pleasure to be back, I can assure you.’
He meant it. He had been away for far too long.
‘That’s good, sir. Would you perhaps like your cognac in the lounge? There’s a nice fire in there.’
‘Excellent idea, Philippe. I’ll do that.’
In the lounge, Melvin sat back, looked around at the heavy furnishings, the red marble fireplace, the elaborate ceiling rose (plastic, almost certainly), and felt at peace with the world. There were newspapers on a side table, plus the upmarket magazines and for a moment he contemplated getting up and bringing a couple back to the sofa he was occupying. As he’d passed he had noticed the big headline in the local paper, Widow Butchered in Own Kitchen, which titillated him; he always enjoyed reading about really horrific murder cases, particularly if they took place somewhere he actually knew. He loved those misery memoirs about some kid forced to drink bleach and having his hand held on to a red-hot oven plate, or being raped by her father before being hired out to service all his friends, and, equally, it always looked good to be seen reading The Economist, you never know which of the guys in the lounge might not end up being people he’d do business with, but in the end he felt too lazy to get up; he really had to do something about his weight, even the woman he loved had said something about it last time they’d met, wiggling her bum at him, white stilettos showing off her legs as she crossed them and leaned forward, her brow wrinkled in that cute way she had. (‘Oh Melvin, mein liebchen, you really are getting chunky, aren’t you, not that it matters to me, I like it, I’m just concerned about your heart, carrying that extra weight.’)
This was one of his favourite things to do: have dinner in a top-notch place, all by himself, wearing good clothes, knowing that people looked at him and thought, I bet he’s someone. Well, of course he was someone, but someone someone, not necessarily a celebrity someone, but certainly a man who was doing well, came from a good background, had the world at his feet, someone people looked up to and admired.
He had Mum to thank for that, of course, as for most things. No state comprehensives for her boy. The fees at Haddon Hall weren’t cheap, second-rate little public school though it was, but she’d managed to find the money somehow, bullied Dad, most likely, plus working like fuck at the job there, and like she always said, it got him mixing with the right kind of people, adopting the accent, not that he ever used it at home, except to Mum, to make her laugh – he could just imagine what the rest of the family would have said if they’d heard him speaking posh, trying to pass himself off as one of the boys at school, even though they went home at the end of the day to some choice farm in the country, or at the very least a large detached house in the best suburbs, while he made his way back to their cramped little semi on the far side of town, he’d love to see the look on their faces if they could see him now, that po-faced Jeff Andrewes, for instance.
He couldn’t wait to take Mum to the house he’d just bought, show her that her sacrifices had been worth it, introduce her to the woman he intended to marry. He hoped she and Mum would hit it off. If not, then he’d have to ditch her. After all she’d done for him, Mum had to come first. Stubborn old cow, he thought, with wry appreciation. He’d bought her the house, paid enough money into her bank account so she’d never have to work again, but she insisted on going out every day to that crap job of hers at the baker’s shop, you had to admire her, taking the bus, said she couldn’t be doing with a car, said she’d go bonkers if she didn’t have something to keep her occupied, she wasn’t the sort to be tidying up the herbaceous borders or taking up golf, that was for sure. There’d be grandchildren before too long, though, with any luck, and that might change her attitude a bit, and he was planning to convert the stable block, move her in, whatever she said now he knew she’d love it; when he was inside, the first time he got sent down, for stealing cars, some seasoned old lag had told him the first rule of success was never to trust anyone, not even your sweet old white-haired mother, but he knew that his mum would die before she betrayed him.
He sipped his cognac appreciatively. The waiter who’d brought it to him was now leaning one elbow on the counter, chatting to the bartender about the murder, bloody shocking if you ask me, poor old girl, more or less cut her to bits, wonder who they was after, police seemed to think nothing was taken, one of them big forty-two-inch-screen TVs still there, plus her handbag, jewellery, disgusting, really, what people get up to these days, bits of the poor old biddy all over the kitchen, her own kitchen, think you’d be safe there, wouldn’t you, nowhere’s safe these days, mate, bring back the death penalty, I say.
He knew he’d been stupid, fucking stupid, helping to snatch a girl like that off the streets, taking that little fucker’s word for it that she was just some bint who’d dissed him and needed to be taught a lesson. And then the stupid arsehole only has to let her escape, doesn’t he, and then the shit really hits the fan. He himself had managed to get away, though it meant spending six bloody weeks cooling his heels in bloody Ecuador, Boss’s orders, waiting for the fuss to die down. Sometimes he’d thought he’d rather have turned himself in, taken his chances in an English nick: at least they didn’t have bloody mosquitoes in HM’s prisons, nor would he have found himself using an insect repellent which brought him out in hives, and swelled up his lips until he looked like he’d been kissing bloody wasps, let alone his eyes came across like he’d gone ten rounds with that big American boxer, Michael Something, having to grow a beard, for Chrissakes. And on top of that there was Montezuma’s Revenge, malaria, dysentery, hepatitis A, you name it, he got it. He’d been lucky to miss out on cholera, dengue fever and housemaid’s knee. He’d visited the country many times before, on business for the Boss, but never long enough to see what a hell-hole the place really was, or he’d certainly have thought twice about decamping to South America, Latin America, whatever, even under orders.
He’d known all along it was a mistake, snatching her, someone classy like that. He’d have done better to trust his instincts, just dump her somewhere and head off as fast as he could in the opposite direction, ditch the van as soon as possible and keep a low profile for as long as it took. But what could he do? He was supposed to be keeping an eye out, give the li
ttle wanker what he wanted, within limits, yada yada yada, at least until the business with the guy’s father was completed. And to be honest, it had been fun, what a turn-on, off at work, knowing she was back in the house, waiting, terrified, his to use whenever he wanted, and not a fucking thing she could do about it, for all her stuck-up ways, not, of course, that he ever got to make use of her being there, and it was pretty clear that Stefan Wanker hadn’t, for all his talk; he was more into porno mags and Internet sites, dirty little bugger. Melvin had been round to his flat once, message from his dad – ‘I’m no messenger boy,’ Melvin had said, but the Boss had made it clear that if he knew what was good for him . . . So round he’d gone, nice enough place but dirty? My God, crusty little screwed-up bits of Kleenex full of cum all over the place, TV blaring away at ten o’clock in the morning, Melvin never put the telly on until six p.m., unless it was sport – football, maybe, or the golf; he was planning to join the local golf club soon as he was settled, got his name down already.
He could feel himself harden, just at the memory of the girl. Maybe one of these days, he’d try it again, pick some bitch up and really enjoy himself. He’d read a book once about this guy who kidnapped girls, one at a time – The Collector, it was called, by John Somebody – and kept them in his cellar until they died, at which point he went out and got another one. And he knew just the right place for a bit of fun and games – though the girl might not think it was as much fun as he would! Sound-proofing round the doors and windows, proper bondage gear this time, cuffs and chains, leather masks, whips, there were shops for all that kind of stuff, not to mention the Internet. Yeah, one of these days he’d definitely get that sorted. He thought briefly about the woman he intended to marry: would she go in for that sort of thing? Probably not, and anyway, could he do it to her, hurt her? Could he bear to catch contempt, even hatred, in her eyes instead of love? Nah . . . he’d keep her right out of anything sordid. It was brilliant enough that she seemed to love him, too. God only knew why, but that German – Austrian – accent, that gold chain round her ankle, sexy, he really liked that.
He swallowed more cognac. Apart from the exile in fucking Ecuador, it had been a pretty good life. So far. Touch wood. He resolutely thrust aside the faces of his sister, younger boys at school, Mum that one time – what kind of man mugged his own mother, especially when it all came to nothing, that bloody Andrewes making him pay it all back? If you can’t stand the heat, he told himself, survival of the fittest and all that, caveat emporator or whatever it was, never had much time for Latin; he’d only managed one year of it and then he was out of there, doing something useful like double maths, and he remembered his sister’s dog with a touch of shame, shouldn’t have done that, bloody animal, crapping on Mum’s new carpet, definitely out of order there, him and the dog, at least nobody knew it was him who’d cut the thing in half – what did she call it? Cary, after Cary Grant, didn’t look anything like Cary Grant. And now there was the money, stashed away, all cash, thank you very much, no bank accounts for him – bank records could be hacked into, bank accounts tracked down – nice packets of untraceable tenners, that’s what he liked, money carefully creamed off the top of the profits, never too much, never enough to make them suspicious, the bloody Latinos hadn’t a fucking clue, and they’d never find the place he’d stowed it, all packed away in his good-quality briefcase, couldn’t be safer, and once he’d pushed it through the system, they’d never even realize it had gone. Besides, thanks to Silvio and his magic fingers, he had any number of identities to fall back on, all the documentation fair and square, social security, birth certificate, credit cards so good even the issuing companies could hardly tell them from the real thing, plus a couple Silvio knew nothing about, had them done in Quito, which was how he’d managed to get back to dear old Blighty without being collared, the only good thing to come out of his ‘exile’, every cloud has a silver lining. Not that there was too much of a lining, since the Boss had made it clear he was only to come back for the one job, fly into Paris, get the ferry from Boulogne, train up here, top bloody Stefan, and heigh-ho for Edinburgh and back to Ecuador for however much longer was necessary.
Briefly, he felt a frisson of unease as he thought of American thrillers he’d read, gangster movies watched with half an eye on long-haul flights to Quito and back, remembered grim tales of the mob bosses never resting till they’d tracked down those who cheated them, torturing them with knives and branding irons and the like, and for a long moment, he saw himself naked, tied to a chair in some dark warehouse, while they ripped out his balls or snipped his fingers off one by one with a wire-cutter.
Naaah . . . never going to happen. Not to him. He’d been much too careful.
He paid the bill, left a big tip, as usual, strolled outside. Daylight was only just fading behind the rooftops, illuminating the sandstone facade of the Town Hall and the gothic architecture of the Butter Market. He tried to visualize the farmers’ wives in the olden days, sitting underneath the curiously arched roof, bonnet strings hanging down, baskets of butter between their knees, and gave thanks that he’d been born into a civilized century. He’d decided to stay at the Grand tonight, rather than out at his hidey-hole. He retrieved an overnight bag from the boot of his lovely new Merc, always wanted one of them, always promised himself he’d have one eventually, and now he had, and walked on down the street for a while. It was too nice an evening to go back to the hotel just yet, so he dropped the bag off with the porter then sauntered on, down towards the river.
Across the water he could see the warehouses, cranes hanging above them like lovers, yellow and red in the spring dusk. All being converted now, some already occupied, classy high-ceilinged flats, criss-crossed with girders, huge windows letting in a panoramic view of the city. He’d looked at one once, but decided it was more like a haven for dust and spiders than a home for respectable human beings. He never could abide spiders, couldn’t imagine sitting there of an evening watching the light on the water while they span and wove and caught flies above his head, just imagine them getting careless, dropping the fucking things, one of those wrapped flies, right into your glass of good wine. He shuddered in prospective disgust. Once he’d moved in to his new place, there’d be a regular cleaning service, thanks very much.
He turned left where the river did, the lock dark on his right, and beyond it, the canal. Up the little steps carved out of the bank by people wanting a short-cut, down to where the bigger houses began, stroll along Bathurst Avenue admiring the plantings in the front gardens, down Greenfield Avenue, cross the road towards Maitland Park Road, with the museum at the end of it.
It was as he stood waiting for a gap in the traffic so he could cross the road that he thought he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He was too canny to turn round, let them see he’d noticed – if indeed there was anything to notice. He’d look into the window of the big carpet wholesalers opposite, see if there was anything reflected in the glass and if it turned out to be something, then he’d have a chance to turn the corner and then run like hell. He danced dangerously between the cars, and fetched up on the other side of the road, stood staring in at the window – and there they were, the two of them, the fuckers, looking to right and left, waiting to get across after him.
He dismissed the flicker of fear which heart-burned in his chest, walked nonchalantly to the corner of the street and then took to his heels, running for his life, thinking that’s what it might very well be, his fucking life, and no way was that going to happen, not now, not after all he’d done to get where he was now. He wasn’t worried; he might be big but he kept himself in good shape, down the gym working out most weeks, regular check-ups, strong as an ox, his doctor down in London told him, never had so much as a filling at the dentist.
Panting, he paused at the junction of Maitland Park Road and Chillenden Street. He could hear them now, coming after him, their footsteps echoing on the empty pavement as he turned down Chillenden Street, hurrying between the
blank, closed facades of houses whose inhabitants were watching telly or already tucked up in their beds. He was heading in a roundabout way back towards the canal; there was a cop-shop just over the footbridge and round the corner, a couple of blocks down: he’d drop in there, say someone was following him. He could just imagine their cynical reaction. (‘Following you? Following you, Micky lad? ’Ere, Sarge, can you believe it, someone’s got the bleeding nerve to be following young Michael, or should I call you Melvin, or is it Martyn these days, Martyn-with-a-Y, better call in Scotland Yard on this one.’) He smiled quizzically to himself – who’d ever have thought that he’d feel safer among the pigs than among his former associates? But he’d seen enough of that lot and the way they could use a knife to extract information: he preferred to keep his Johnson in good working order, thank you very much, plenty of life in the old boy yet, and he liked the way his face looked, especially now he’d lost the beard, didn’t want it rearranged by those crazy Latinos; he’d seen one of them take off a nose and a lower lip before the victim even realized the knife was out. There were guys down in London whose only reason to be thankful was that they were still walking round, despite the fact that their faces looked like something that would’ve turned even Hannibal Lecter’s stomach, and he experienced a faint flash of sympathy for the poor old cow who’d been butchered in her own kitchen. You never knew these days, old girl living on her own, one more reason to persuade Mum to come and live at his new place.
