by Claire Askew
She felt a pang of guilt, then. She wanted to say, I’ve been thinking of you, too – that was the romcom line, the line that just might seal the deal. But if she were to say it, it would be a lie. Whenever Anjan had ghosted into her thoughts, she’d tried to exorcise him. She’d been completely immersed in the situation with Charlie these past few days – much good it had done her.
‘I . . . really appreciate that,’ she said. It sounded pathetic. She dug around for some truth. ‘I wish none of this had ever happened.’
Anjan nodded. ‘Isn’t that so often the case,’ he said, ‘for all of us?’
Birch wasn’t sure what else to say. Part of her brain screamed, Stay, Anjan, I like you so much. But another part hissed, Get out, Anjan. You’ve made everything worse. She opted to say nothing, and for a moment they simply looked at each other.
‘I hope,’ Anjan said at last, ‘that you can forgive me. Maybe after a bit of time has passed.’
Still, Birch was dumbfounded. Say something, she thought. Anything would be good at this point. But now Anjan was on his feet.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I need to go and see to the final, grisly spectacle, I’m afraid.’
Birch nodded. ‘Okay.’ Her voice was hoarse. ‘Thank you for coming to see me.’
‘Of course. I’m glad we spoke.’
Anjan walked to the door, but then stopped and turned back to face her. ‘You’re always welcome to call me,’ he said. ‘I’ll always be happy to hear from you.’
It was last November, late on in the month. I remember, because Toad was using the van that night and I’d had to get a bus. It was idling in traffic, right by George Square, and everything was held up by pedestrians in huge crowds milling around. It took me a minute to realise it was the official switching on of the Christmas lights. Then, right there, as the bus honked and inched along, the whole place lit up. The massive tree, the rows and rows of coloured lights. Seeing it, hearing the cheers go up, I got such a wave of nostalgia that I felt physically sick. I’d been down there, once. I’d been part of those crowds. I remembered being sat between the paws of one of the big white stone lions, my knees pulled up to my chest. Nella was between the paws of the other one, and she’d seemed so far away. We waved to each other, tried to throw sweetie wrappers across the divide. Maw had told us to stop it, to look up, it would happen any minute. And I remembered how the tree seemed to catch fire, it was covered with so many bulbs. I remembered jumping out from under the lion’s jaws and running towards the lights. And I remembered that my maw was dead, and I hadn’t seen her in fourteen whole years.
I got back to the flat and hit the drink: poured myself a triple Scotch and settled in to brood. My phone rang and I ignored it. Ignored it once, ignored it twice. The third time I looked to see who it was, and it was Toad. Fucksake, that guy really picked his moments.
‘Schenok,’ he said. I could hear he was somewhere loud, somewhere busy.
‘Yeah, man,’ I said. I’d already demolished most of the triple, and I could feel it prickling hot under my skin.
‘I must,’ he said, in English, ‘ask a favour.’
Oh, here goes . . .
‘Look, I’m sorry, pal, but we talked about this – I can’t do these on-the-side jobs for you, I really—’
‘This comes from Solomon,’ he said.
My heart kicked. ‘What does?’
I heard Toad sigh. This wasn’t going to be good.
‘He needs a body man,’ he said. ‘And driver. Temporary. Two weeks, maybe a month. He asked me.’
I blinked. ‘What happened?’
I could hear Toad was moving. The noise around him ebbed.
‘Abdul got beat up,’ he said. ‘Quite bad. He’s in the hospital with . . . how do you say in English?’ Toad rattled off some Russian.
‘A punctured lung,’ I said. ‘Jesus.’
‘Yes,’ Toad said. ‘Quite bad.’
‘And he asked you?’ I tried not to sound too surprised. Toad was a mountain of a man: huge, imposing, but also fucking ancient.
‘A courtesy, I think,’ Toad replied, ‘or a test. But I am on my way to St Petersburg. Right now I am behind the security gates.’
An airport. That explained the noise.
Oh shit . . . ‘Wait.’ My brain was finally catching up with my ears. ‘Are you saying you suggested me?’
‘You have been working in that sauna too long, Schenok.’
I winced. That meant yes.
‘Your skills are being wasted there. It is time you got more money. Time you got the good work.’
‘Fucksake, Toad!’ I was panicked then. He’d clearly just signed me up for the job. ‘I don’t want that sort of work! I don’t want to be within a mile of that arsehole, you know that.’
There was a brief silence – or rather, Toad didn’t speak, and I listened to the airport sounds as things happened around him.
‘I have told you,’ he said, ‘it is not a good idea to speak of him this way. Not safe.’
Toad could be a renegade, but Solomon was glavnyy, the boss man. You could run your own jobs, you could do stupid shit like hire a random kid to translate your documents for you without running it by anyone; but speak ill of the boss? Apparently not okay.
I couldn’t speak.
‘It is important that you do this,’ Toad said. ‘We all work hard, it is necessary to. You have not been working hard. It is time for you to show loyalty. Not to Solomon, but to me. Time for you to trust me, when I say I need you to do this. And it is good money. Very good.’
I didn’t doubt it.
‘Toad . . .’
‘I mean it.’ I rarely heard him sound this stern. ‘Schenok, have I not saved you many times? Have I not spoken for you when no one else did? Do you not trust me?’
I closed my eyes. ‘I do,’ I said. It was true, after all.
‘Then trust me now. There are reasons you must do this. They will become clear to you, and then you will thank me.’
I had no idea what he was on about. But I could hear the you owe me one in every syllable he uttered.
‘But I don’t have the van,’ I spluttered at him. ‘And who will take care of the girls? There’s only me. I can’t . . .’
These were shit excuses. I don’t know why I thought they’d save me.
‘No need for the van,’ Toad said. ‘But it is at the lock-up at my place. The key is hidden as always, you will find it. But you will be driving the car of Solomon. You can take a cab to his place. He will pay.’
I winced. I’d never been to Solomon’s mansion, but I knew where it was. I’d Google Maps-ed it a few times, when I felt like making myself sick. It had a tennis court.
‘But the sauna—’
I could practically hear Toad roll his eyes on the other end of the phone. He knew I was bullshitting him.
‘I have spoken already with Izz,’ he said. ‘He knows the place well. He will take care of the girls while you are gone.’
Fuck. He had it all figured out.
‘Do not exaggerate this, Schenok,’ Toad was saying. ‘It is two weeks. It is a month. The money is good. You can do this thing. You will do this thing, for me. For zhaba.’
His tone was peppy. He was giving me a you go, girl. I heard the buzz of a distant tannoy.
‘My flight,’ Toad said. ‘You will go in the morning. When I land, I will text you more.’
My mind was racing. ‘Zhaba,’ I said, ‘puzhalsta . . .’
‘The thing is done, Schenok.’
The line went dead.
And then I was in the inner circle. In fact, I was the inner circle: Solomon went everywhere with four guys, four body men, who stood around him at all times. Abdul was also the chauffeur, so I took over that role, too. When I got there, I buzzed in at the electronic gates and then crunched up the drive on foot with my overnight bag – instructions from Toad’s late-night text. Yew trees closed in on me on both sides, and overhead. I felt like I was walking into a horror movie.
But instead, Malkie met me outside the house. It was massive. Solomon had clearly had it built, because it looked newish, for all it had stone steps up to the front door and fancy columns. It looked like a cross between a Georgian mansion and a Barratt house, only . . . well, huge. But I didn’t get much chance to stand and look at it: Malkie dumped my bag and then took me straight to the garage. Inside: Solomon’s two identical Range Rovers. Both Autobiography models with V8 Supercharged engines, all matte black and muscle and chrome. Driven slowly, they’d be like cruise ships. Driven fast, they’d outrun any polis vehicle without even breaking a sweat. I whistled. I didn’t want the job, but holy fuck was this a silver lining.
‘Think you can handle one of these?’ Malkie had his arms folded, smirking at me.
‘D’you drive, pal?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘Then shut the fuck up, yeah?’
The body men were housed in a built-on wing at the side of the house. I took my bag into Abdul’s room, and tried to get comfy. It felt weird. I felt like I was in The Handmaid’s Tale. I sat on the bed and wondered what the chances were of me dying in this room, some time over the next two weeks, the next month. Abdul had postcards taped to the wall with lines from the Quran on them. So verily with the hardship there is relief – verily with the hardship there is relief. I wondered if Abdul felt relief now, free from Solomon for a short time, albeit in a hospital bed. But perhaps his hardship wasn’t Solomon at all. Perhaps he liked this line of work. I realised how far I’d crawled into my own head, these past few years. I struggled to think how anyone else’s reality could be different to my own.
Malkie went through my bag. ‘These are fine,’ he said, of my black jeans. ‘But the shirts are no good.’
He went away, came back with a variety of black clothes: a crew neck, a button-down, a pullover. He carried them in in a pile, folded into squares. They were his, I assumed – he and I were roughly the same size, whereas Abdul was much bigger.
When I lifted the pile off Malkie’s arms, I saw there was something else.
‘This is yours,’ he said, handing me the gun. ‘Well, it’s Abdul’s, but you’ll use it while he’s gone.’
I nodded. I’d carried before, and I had a couple of handguns of my own: hand-me-downs from Toad. But at Vyshnya’s request, there had never been a gun on the premises of the sauna, and I’d never actually done more than point mine at the odd guy who wouldn’t toe the line. Fenton had taught me how to shoot, years back, but I’d never actually needed to. I thought myself lucky. I hoped that luck would hold out – just two weeks. Just a month.
‘He doesn’t need us all the time,’ Malkie said. ‘But when he needs us, you be ready.’
I nodded again. I felt like a wind-up toy.
‘How will I know?’ I asked.
‘Don’t worry. I’ll come and get you.’
The first couple of days were uneventful. I’d arrived on a Friday, and Solomon observed the weekends, like normal people – this rather boggled my mind. He entertained a couple of business associates at home, took phone calls. My services weren’t required. I met the other two guys: Fitz and Ez. We sat in the shared kitchen, the four of us, and drank some beers. I cracked a joke about all the ‘z’s in their names, thinking of Izz, too.
‘I’m Turkish,’ Ez said. ‘If you tried to pronounce my full name, you’d choke on your tongue.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You British,’ he said.
The other guy was Scottish, through and through. He talked like Fenton. ‘Clan Fitzgerald,’ he said. ‘It’s no’ my name, it was ma grannie’s. It’s a bonny tartan we’ve got, an’ aw.’
I nodded. ‘So what the hell’s Izz, then?’ I asked. ‘What’s that about?’
Malkie laughed. ‘Years ago,’ he said, ‘we’d call him Scissors. All his fancy tailored suits, y’know? He liked it, thought it sounded gangster, started using it himself.’
Fitz cut in. ‘Aye. But we couldnae be bothered wi’ it, so it got shortened. Izz. Scissors. Ye ken?’
I couldn’t get over it. These were just regular guys. I wanted to ask if they’d ever killed someone, wanted to say, What’s the worst thing Solomon has ever made you do? But I couldn’t. A part of me really didn’t want to know.
‘And you’re just . . . Nick Smith?’ Ez asked.
I rolled my eyes. ‘I know, right?’ I said. ‘A bit obvious.’
Ez’s brow wrinkled, but Malkie and Fitz laughed.
‘But what’s your other name?’ Fitz asked.
‘Oh. They call me Schenok. Toad started that one.’ I screwed up my nose. ‘It means . . . um, puppy. In Russian.’
Malkie laughed, but Fitz didn’t.
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean your name. Your real name.’
Quiet fell between us like a ton of bricks.
‘No one uses that name any more,’ I said. ‘Except my family, and I don’t talk about my family. They’re off limits.’
For a moment, all three of them watched me. I saw the little bit of trust I’d just built get folded away again, as their faces hardened.
‘Okay,’ Fitz said. ‘I get it.’
What the fuck am I doing here? I texted to Toad.
You will find out, he wrote back. You will have contact soon.
Solomon needed us on Monday. I’d slept in, and woke to Malkie shaking my shoulder. I flinched: I’d no idea where I was. Then I remembered, and my heart seemed to hit the floor.
‘Half an hour,’ Malkie said. ‘Then we’re out front.’
I showered fast, got my hard-bastard uniform on, and grabbed my gun. Abdul’s gun. Whatever. It bounced against my hip in its holster as I jogged down the stairs, and then I fell into formation with Fitz, Malkie and Ez.
Solomon waltzed out of the front door of the main house. It was the first time I’d seen him in person since the night with Vyshnya. I felt the blood rise in my temples: I could hear it sloshing somewhere between my ears.
Fuck that guy, I thought. My hands made fists, almost unbidden.
‘Ah,’ Solomon said, crunching towards me over the gravel. ‘The new body man.’
He stepped up close, and I was surrounded by his smell. It took me right back to that terrible night in the sauna: Vyshnya in a bloodied heap, Karen balling up sheets to stem the blood. Me stuffing the girls’ things into bin bags, chivvying them along while they flustered and cried. Telling the 999 dispatcher, Never fucking mind who I am, just send the fucking ambulance. Tearing off in Vic’s van and leaving Karen to be picked up, disappeared. He smelled like all of that. I thought I might throw up.
‘You look familiar,’ he said.
I couldn’t believe it. I could not fucking believe it. All this time – years – I had feared and hated this man. I had not passed a single day without thinking about him, without worrying that somehow I’d be found wanting, my number would be up, and he’d send the boys in to deal with me. This man was in my dreams, often: watching from the corner while I beat up Vyshnya on his orders, or stepping out to block my escape as her miserable bone-rattle and wail chased me down a corridor that never seemed to end. And yet, he’d forgotten me. With those three words, he blew up the last handful of years of my life. I was nothing to this man. Did he even remember Vyshnya? Did he remember that night at all?
‘Toad recommended me,’ I said. I gritted my teeth together and added, ‘We have met once before.’
‘Oh yes?’
I nodded. ‘I’m Schenok,’ I said.
Not a flicker of recognition passed over his face. His eyes were so impassive, they looked like they were made of glass.
‘I’m . . . I run the Emerald for you,’ I said. ‘The sauna.’
His eyebrows twitched. The place, at least, he remembered. ‘Ah yes,’ he said. ‘I know who you are.’
He reached for my hand, and I had to give it to him. His handshake was limp, wet-feeling, like touching rotten meat. But he held on to my hand, for a moment.
‘Good to see you again,’ he said.
<
br /> I forced myself to hold his gaze.
After a moment, Malkie cleared his throat.
‘Ah yes.’ Solomon dropped my hand, but didn’t break eye contact.
I didn’t want to even blink. I wanted to see what was inside those eyes. I wanted to understand him, and then break him, and then break him some more. I could feel my nostrils flaring.
‘You,’ Solomon said, ‘will be driving, I understand.’
He had me drive them all to Devonshire Gardens, the big fancy hotel there. I’d never driven anything quite like the Range Rover. Plodding through Glasgow’s maddening grid, unable to use the power under my right foot, made me want to scream. The car made an absolute racket, the roar of its V8 echoing off the tenements, scattering pigeons.
‘Just pull up,’ Solomon said, as we approached. ‘Someone will come out to take care of things.’
Sure enough, the throaty rev of the Range Rover brought out a suited man, who opened the passenger side doors for Ez – in the back – and Malkie, beside me in the front. He then walked round to my window, and I rolled it down, killing the engine. The man looked a little surprised: used to seeing Abdul, I guessed.
‘You can leave the vehicle with me, sir,’ he said. ‘I’ll ensure it’s ready and waiting when you need it again.’
I glanced at Malkie, who nodded, so I climbed out, and handed over the fat, push-button key.
Ez and Fitz led the way, up the steps to the hotel’s main door. They looked like thick-necked bridesmaids in black. Solomon walked queenly behind them in his slate-grey suit. For the first time, I noticed that he seemed to mince slightly, picking his feet up like a dressage horse. Malkie and I brought up the rear.
‘There are signals.’ Malkie had leaned towards me, and was whispering out of the corner of his mouth. ‘Signals that he’ll be ready to go in five minutes or so. Once you start seeing them, you have to go and get the car. Abdul knows, but you won’t.’
‘What are they?’ I hissed back.
‘Don’t worry,’ Malkie said, ‘I’ll give you the nod.’
