(2005) Rat Run

by Gerald Seymour

  'Who are you? What you doing?'

  Not a quiver from the lips. Davey did not know whether it was dumb insolence or dumb stupidity. If the dosser had shown the fear then he might have frogmarched him up the length of Bevin Close and kicked his arse back on to the main road's pavement, and watched him go, then gone inside to get the supper out of the oven. The eyes stared back into his.

  Was the man mental? One of those Care in the Community people? Didn't seem that way to Davey.

  No madness in the eyes.

  He was not sure if the eyes laughed at him. They were bright and big and close. The dosser's hand reached up, not to strike but to release Davey's grip on the shoulder; like it shouldn't have been there. The hand tried to prise the shoulder free and the weight of the dosser's body was against him, as if the man had done the business that had brought him to Bevin Close and was now ready to leave . . . No bloody way.

  There was another rattle of questions in his throat -

  waste of time asking them. He used a knee into the groin, hard. The dosser was going down and Davey was shouting, couldn't hear himself, as he put in the southpaw short hook to the chin. The dosser was down. Davey readied himself for the kick to the head.

  'What we got here, Davey boy?'

  His breath coming in spurts, he looked up. Ricky leaned casually on the closed front gate, had a good shirt on as if he was dressing to go out and had been interrupted. The shape, like a rag bundle and like the men under the cardboard at the underpass by

  Elephant and Castle, lay in front of him.

  'Some bloody vagrant scum, Ricky. Outside your house. Looking at it. I've asked him what he was doing, who he was, why . . . Didn't get an answer.

  Didn't get nothing. I belted him, Ricky.'

  'Did you?'

  'I don't reckon he's Crime Squad, just some loony that needed teaching.'

  'You reckon.'

  'Teaching respect.'

  'Maybe you haven't taught him well enough.'

  There was that quietness in Ricky's voice. It marked times when Davey knew better than to speak further.

  He came through the gate and looked down at the dosser. The eyes in the head on the pavement were unwavering and steady. If he had been on the ground and Ricky's shoes had come close, Davey would have wrapped his arms round his head and curled up the better to protect himself; it was what men did when they were to be kicked, he'd seen it too many times to remember. The head jerked back from the impact of Ricky's shoe.

  The cry was urgent: 'Don't be a bloody fool, Ricky.'

  Mikey was out of his house, stumbling - like he was half-cut - towards them, and put himself between Ricky and the man on the ground, then turned on his son and pushed him away.

  'What do you want - the bloody police down here?'

  Ricky said, 'There's no call for the police, Dad.

  Didn't you see? He fell over. Probably pissed up. He fell over and hit his head. You weren't looking, Dad.

  You got to know what you're talking about when you call your son a bloody fool. Isn't that right, Dad?'

  'If you say so, Ricky.'

  'I say so, Dad . . . Get rid of him, Davey. We don't want people like that in our close. I'm surprised you let him get this far.'

  Davey shivered - always did when criticized by Ricky Capel. It was big of Mikey, and not usual, to stand against his son and call him a bloody fool.

  Davey wouldn't have done it, wouldn't ever. He pulled the dosser up by the shoulders of his overcoat, then dragged and half carried him away up the length of Bevin Close. It was only when he reached the junction with the main road, stood the dosser up and pushed him towards the line of steel-shuttered shopfronts that Davey realized what the smells were.

  Above the stink of the clothes was the stench of petrol.

  One more thing he didn't understand.

  He saw the man shamble away, lean on a lamp post and grip it for support, then move on. Davey went to rescue his meal from the oven.

  Still damp from the shower, he was as sleek as the Ferrari Spider towards which he walked.

  As a regular visitor he received an obligatory ducked bow of respect from the doorman who

  watched over entry and exit at the block. The mouseboy, as his uncle called him, might come once a week to Chelsea Harbour or once in two weeks, but Enver Rahman came three times a week. It was the great laugh between him and Maria that the besotted mouseboy had no idea that she was serviced three times more often, minimum, by him. There was a slight weight in his jacket pocket and he carried the video-cassette in his hand. She did not grunt, did not fake it, for Enver.

  There was always a tip, peeled from his wallet, of a twenty-pound note for the doorman, gratefully received. By now, the note would have been slipped into an inner pocket.

  Enver was late for the meeting. It did not concern him. He strode into the evening air and saw people back away from the Ferrari. Always it attracted attention, which he liked.

  Of course, as the nephew of Timo Rahman, Enver was expected to succeed. He had. He owned nine brothels spread through north Haringey, Soho and the area behind King's Cross railway station. They were for the ordinary girls with flat chests, gross hips or dirty complexions; they were paid a hundred pounds an hour by clients and were given five for themselves.

  Special girls, booked by telephone from hall porters'

  desks, were driven by Enver's people to the better hotels and they were paid two hundred pounds an hour, non-negotiable, and were allowed five to slide into their purses. His girls, from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, worked seven days a week and the money cascaded into his lap. If the girls broke the rules, Enver had men to beat them - beat them so they were unable to work, unpresentable, for a week.

  He drove across the city. It was his habit never to exceed the speed limit, never to crash a red light, never to overtake across a double white line - never to give a policeman, racked with envy, the chance to wave down the Ferrari Spider.

  More for fun and less for cash, Enver oversaw - and took the major cut - from kidnapping. Most he liked what they called the 'bomb burst'. An Albanian, in Brent, Colindale or Green Lanes, would have opened up a small business - a plumber, a carpenter, a bespoke shirt-maker. Taken into a car, his mobile phone would be lifted from his pocket. The 'bomb burst' was to ring every stored number and demand a hundred pounds within an hour from each number, and let them hear the screams of the man. The 'bomb burst' could make a thousand pounds in an hour . . . It was fun, entertainment, for Enver, as was the second way. Snatch a man as he came home at the end of his day's work, back to Brent, Colindale or Green Lanes, drive him the rest of the way, and keep him in the car as the door was banged at his home. Let his family see him in the car, and his terror. A thousand pounds to be collected in an hour, or two thousand, or the man would be taken to Epping Forest and killed. They always paid. It amused him to see the panic on the faces of others . . . Useful also. The 'bomb bursts' and the lifts were a way for him to evaluate the determination of potential recruits. Albanians and Kosovar Albanians, without money, picked out from the lines of immigrants at Lunar House, were desperate to prove themselves reliable. From kidnaps he could choose them, find the ones with skill. More money spilled into his lap and victims, like the girls in the brothels, would never talk to the police.

  He travelled along the embankment, then took a bridge over the river.

  The money from his lap went out of the country in suitcases and in vehicle hideaways to be driven home to Albania where he already had a villa - decently smaller - near to the older one built by his uncle. More money went to bureau-de-change outlets for changing into high-value euro notes. More went into the casino in which he had an interest, for laundering, and into three Albanian cafes of which he was part-owner; he paid tax from the casino and the cafes and made the money legitimate. A little was paid to Ricky Capel, at extortionate rates, to reward him for brokering the transport that brought in new girls. He thought the mouseboy rated him as a foo
l for paying too much

  . . . and with the money, as a bonus, was the constant offer of muscle to enforce Capel's own dealings. He allowed himself to be rated as a fool because that was what his uncle, Timo Rahman, had ordered.

  He had rung that evening, on his mobile, from Maria's bed, and asked for the meeting. The video-cassette was locked in the glove compartment. He hooted, long enough for a barman to come out of the pub. He said his Ferrari Spider was to be watched.

  Enver walked into the pub, and slipped the slight weight from his pocket into the palm of his hand.

  The mouseboy and the mouseboy's wife were

  sitting at a far table, away from the drinkers. It amused him to see her. Plump, pasty, if she had been his she would have worked in a brothel and not been one of the special girls for businessmen in hotels.

  The mouseboy looked down at his watch and the frown slashed his forehead, then noticed Enver's arrival. He was an hour late. The mouseboy half stood and the woman turned to face him. Enver saw the bruise on her cheek and the cake of cosmetics over it.

  He apologized, as if he were just a humble immigrant from Albania in the presence of a man of stature.

  'I am grateful you could meet me, Ricky.'

  'You were lucky I was free - I'm not often free.'

  'And again I regret my lateness, unavoidable business.'

  He thought the bruise on her cheek had come from a hard blow.

  'So, what is it that couldn't wait? I mean, I'm out with Joanne.'

  'I had a call from Timo, from my uncle.'

  'So?'

  'Timo Rahman requests your company in Hamburg

  - to discuss a matter of mutual interest.'

  'When?'

  'Within two days or three, that is what my uncle requests.'

  'I don't think I can do that. I've a heavy diary.

  Maybe in a week or two.'

  He leaned forward. The wife watched him. She would have known that Enver Rahman, associate of her husband, ran brothels in north Haringey, Soho and behind King's Cross. She would have realized that he had noted the bruise on her face. She watched him and he thought she loathed him. Enver took the mouseboy's hand, opened it, laid it against his own palm. The hand snapped shut on the gold chain. It had been on the bed - the clasp had broken open while the girl had grunted and faked.

  'Maybe I can rework my diary. I've never been to Germany.'

  'I will book the tickets and I will accompany you.

  The day after tomorrow.'

  Ricky Capel's fist was clenched tight. 'Yes, I can do that. It will be good to meet your uncle.'

  'My uncle will hope that he has not inconvenienced your diary, Ricky. He will be most grateful to you. My apologies, Mrs Capel, for disturbing the enjoyment of your evening. I will ring you, Ricky, with the flight.'

  He gave a last subservient smile, that of a lesser man, and worked his way out through the tables and past the drinkers. Outside, he tipped the barman another of his twenty-pound notes for watching the car, and drove away.

  Late, near to midnight, the Anneliese Royal docked. A poor catch. Hardly enough in the fish room, boxed in ice, to pay for the engine's diesel, and little enough for his son and for the boy's wage. For himself, there would be no money.

  Skilfully, Harry nudged the beam trawler alongside the floodlit quay. Beyond the harbour the bars of the east-coast port town were chucking out. When his boat was unloaded and he walked towards the gate, if he met other skippers he would be asked how his catch had gone. For an answer he would shrug and shake his head. If the Anneliese Royal had been bought with a bank loan or a mortgage, had not been given to him, he would have gone to the wall with what the catch paid him. He would have been another swamped by the quotas, the lack of fish, the cost of diesel and the wages bill. But Ricky Capel had given him the trawler and often enough there were

  packages to be hooked up from buoys off the German and Dutch coasts, and Harry Rogers survived as a fraud. The ropes were made fast and the boy had started to put the few boxes on the conveyor-belt.

  Harry said to Billy, 'Can't see any point hanging about this dump, not with the weather turning. No sense being here. I fancy home, going down west, till the storms are blown out.'

  'You been in a war, Chief?'

  'I'm fine, thank you.'

  'I don't wish to interfere, but you don't look all right, Chief.'

  'Very fine - never been better.'

  'Have you been robbed?'

  There was, and Malachy recognized it, genuine concern in her voice. It was an effort for him but he turned to the woman driver, took the change and the ticket that she dropped into the tray. Through the glass that protected her he saw the way she squinted at him.

  He grimaced, which hurt his chin. 'I don't have anything to steal.'

  'You should get them washed, those cuts.' She engaged the gears. 'Right now, get yourself a seat. On the night bus we go like the wind.'

  He clung to the pole, steadied himself as she pulled away from the stop, then lurched for the nearest seat.

  He heard her voice behind him: 'Him what done that to you, did he get pain?'

  'Not yet.'

  She giggled raucously, then accelerated, and Malachy slumped down. The bus raced through

  empty streets, took him home to the Amersham.

  Bruised and bloodied, he felt the first welling of respect for himself, after so long. Like he had climbed a ladder or scaled the terraced wall of the pyramid. He was too tired, too battered, to know how Ricky Capel would 'get pain', but he promised it.

  Chapter Ten

  He sat on the floor. Round him were the sheets of paper torn off his notepad, and on the sheets were pencil lines, and he did it as he had been taught. The lines on the paper were maps, as he remembered them, of the main road and the junction, the length of Bevin Close and the street behind it where the gardens shared the common fence with those of the cul-de-sac, and of the house, number eight. He searched deep in his memory for exact recall of everything he had seen under the street-lights.

  He heard the tap on the wall.

  The house had surprised him. He had expected that Lewisham's roads would open - without warning -

  into a closed suburb of high walls, high gates, with mansions set behind them, the equivalent of the supplier's place in the country. What he had found, its ordinariness, had wrecked his concentration: he had spent too long down the cul-de-sac after going into its mouth. It was clever, having a place so unremarkable, which could only be reached by going into the mouth and down the throat of Bevin Close.

  The tap came louder on the wall behind him, and its persistence grew.

  That very ordinariness helped him. Over London, over the country, there were three-bedroomed semi-detached homes, all built to a common design. He knew it by heart - as an officer, he had had one. His rank at Chicksands was assigned homes of that status in Alamein Drive - into a hall with a living room off it, then another door opposite the staircase into a dining room, a kitchen at the end of the hall; up the stairs and four doors, to two double bedrooms, a single and a bathroom; a garden at the back. In Alamein Drive, Roz had kept the second double bedroom empty and ready for the once-a-year visit of her parents, and he had used the single bedroom as an office bolt-hole.

  When he had been dragged along by the hair and the shoulder of his overcoat, in Bevin Close, he had seen a woman at the window of number eight - she had hung on to a child, as if to prevent him coming out and joining in the beating and kicking.

  The tapping was firmer, more demanding.

  The man from next door had shouted, 'Don't be a bloody fool, Ricky.' He had been called 'Dad'. At the cost of a cut lip, welts on his face and a knee in the testicles, Malachy reckoned he had learned much. Fair exchange. He knew the design of the house, knew that family lived alongside it, knew that the entrance to the close was watched. He tidied the pages of his maps.

  He locked the door behind him and stood for a moment on the walkway, then heard the distor
ted sound of the tapping, and rang the bell beside the grille gate.

  Malachy followed Millie Johnson into her flat. She walked unsteadily ahead of him, leaning hard on the medical stick, but she waved him away when he went to take her arm. She was smaller than when he had last seen her, smaller than she had been in the hospital bed when she'd had the fierce bruising and the tubes in her. She sat in her chair and her small eyes pierced him. She was pale, frail, and the arm in which the pin had been put was held in a sling. Would she like tea?

  Yes, she would. Did she have biscuits? She did: Dawn had shopped for her. He went into the kitchen, boiled the kettle, made the tea and did a tray of cups and saucers, milk, sugar and a plate of digestives. The woman had changed his life. He paused, in the kitchen, with the tray. The widow of the bus driver had changed his life, utterly, by going alone to an evening of bingo for pensioners. Without her . . .

  'Hurry up. I can't abide stewed tea. It needs to be fresh out of the pot.'

  'Of course, Millie.'

  He carried the tray to her. She watched, hawk-eyed, as he dripped in the milk, put a spoon and a half of sugar in her cup, and poured the tea. He'd get no praise for his care. He laid a biscuit on her saucer -

  and waited . She sipped the tea, nibbled the biscuit and irritably brushed crumbs from her lap. He broke the quiet: 'You're looking well, Millie. Very good.'

  She challenged, her gaze beading at him: 'What have you been doing with yourself?'

  'Not much.'

  She mimicked him, 'Oh, "not much". What's with your face?'

  'Walked into a lamp post.'

  'Try again.'

  'Must have been dreaming, didn't see the door.'

  'Do better.'

  'Tripped on a paving-stone, fell in the gutter.'

  'Is that the best you can do?'

  'Something like that.'

  'You think Dawn doesn't talk to me? Dawn talks.

  Who did it?'

  'Did what, Millie?'

  He saw the shrewdness of the old eyes. If he shifted in the chair, they followed him. If he ducked his head, they lifted. If he threw it back, they were with him. They were aged, but the eyes were keen.