Taking Pity

by David Mark

  There was a time when Mr. Nock would have recognized this little street with its stone bungalows and its simple, old-fashioned tea shop. He used to like it here. Knew a lass in the village whom he used to enjoy fucking a couple of times a year. He owns the freehold of the chalet park on the next rise. Owns half a dozen caravans and a farm within a five-minute drive. There was a time when he and Mahon would stroll along this cliff top, talking about who was earning their keep and who needed to be cut loose; which revenue streams were paying out and who was taking the piss. It is a place of happy memories for him. But here, now, his memories are a swirl of wet paint; a dance of gulls and black clouds.

  When the police car pulls up, he will run from it and not toward it. The older, more experienced uniformed officer will wonder what that says about the old, rain-soaked man. Then he will shrug the thoughts away and place a blanket around the old man’s shoulders and try to elicit a name.

  The younger constable will check Mr. Nock’s pockets. He will find the squares of card that Mr. Nock picked up from the kitchen counter when he awoke this morning into a world that spanned and dipped and shrank away from his grasp. He will find business cards for two members of the Serious and Organized Unit. He will call the first number and leave a voicemail. And then he will ring the curvy, motherly, sexy detective superintendent who half a dozen cops he knows would leave their wives for. He will tell her that a man with her business card has been found wondering on the cliff top. He’s an old man. Got a debit card belonging to a Raymond Mahon. And he will tell her, in response to her questions, that he is quite certain the man does not have half his face missing.

  The constable will hang up, satisfied he has done his job.

  And then he will make another call. A call far more profitable.

  He will call his paymasters. He’ll call Mark Oliver. And he’ll tell him that Trish Pharaoh and Francis Nock will soon be together, in the darkness of this remote cliff-top village.

  Alone, and ripe for the taking.

  • • •

  1:49 P.M. RAYWELL OLD HALL.

  Mark Oliver sits on a burgundy chesterfield sofa, watching a wall-mounted flat-screen TV. He is hunched forward; his bare feet resting on stripped floorboards and his hands pulling at the material of his dark jeans. Two mobile phones sit on the glass coffee table in front of him, alongside a crystal tumbler of scotch and a small, sleek laptop.

  The TV is tuned to the local news. A dark-haired reporter is interviewing an ugly, round-faced policeman against the backdrop of the city docks. He’s looking smug. Smiling, despite the rain that blows in sideways against his face. The estimated street value of the seized shipment will run to several million, according to the graphic that scrolls along the bottom of the screen. The cop keeps mentioning Humberside Police’s Serious and Organized Crime Unit and the hard work of one officer in particular, Detective Superintendent Patricia Pharaoh . . .

  Oliver leans forward. Empties his glass in one swallow. Reaches down and picks up the bottle. Refills the tumbler and takes another swig.

  A few hours ago he was standing over Piers Fordham’s body, watching the life bleed from him like red wine from a dropped glass. He’d won. The Headhunters were done. He’d slipped inside and taken over. He’d taken command.

  Here, now, it feels like things are slipping from his grasp. This shipment was the one that was going to make him. He’d needed capital to fuel his ambitions. He’d joined the Headhunters in order to secure the funds to launch his own enterprise. It had taken him a long time to build up the contacts and clout to make a deal with his Albanian suppliers. He’d seduced a lot of women and let himself be used by men in ways he never imagined. He’d made people like him. Had played endless parts and been a lot of different people as he made the right network of influential friends. Learned which palms to grease and whom he should never, ever upset. All he needed was funds to get things started. Those funds have just disappeared; seized at Alexandra Dock. He’s fucked up. He’s a dead man. And he has nobody to blame but himself. It’s the second time he has underestimated his opposition, and this time he has even farther to fall.

  There was a time when Mark considered himself untouchable. He has always been very good at the things he has tried. He got through two years of a law degree before he found he could make more money playing cards. Spent a couple of years on the gambling circuit before he upset some people and took a beating for his trouble. Took a job teaching casinos how to spot the con men. Then he conned them, too. By thirty, he had been inside only once and had learned how to get whatever he wanted out of people. His time in prison was a networking opportunity. When he came out, he started getting commissions. Private investigators would pay him to see whether distrusted wives were ready to jump into bed with somebody charming. Then the clients became richer. Scarier. He had to get women to share their security passwords. Had to keep them busy while other people stole the keys and pass cards for the companies where they worked. Soon he was bedding women so they could be filmed. Blackmailed. Used for leverage. He became important to important people. But Mark wanted more. He saw himself as more than just some pretty gigolo. He had ambition. Had ideas. He wanted a chance to prove himself, and the Headhunters promised that and then failed to deliver. He had no choice but to use his skills. Chatted up one of their best earners. Let the ugly fucker do what he wanted to him but got information in return. Found out where they were weakest. Poured honey in a few ears and persuaded a few lads to join him. Put together a little crew and began to earn. The Headhunters didn’t stop him. After all, he was handing over a large chunk of his earnings to their organization. He debased himself with the poof as many times as he could endure. Turned his head a little. Became more important to him than the benefits of keeping his mouth shut. Mark suffered, but learned all about the Headhunters’ plans to remove Mr. Nock from the throne. Soon, Mark felt comfortable to share his plans with the nasty bastard who liked to hold him and stroke his hair after fucking him so violently it made his teeth rattle. His name was Dave Absolom, and he used to be a copper. It was Dave who told him about the problems Nock was giving them. One of the Headhunters’ best men went to speak to an old Geordie villain called Lloyd. Lloyd ended up in bits on the beach and the Headhunter disappeared.

  That was when Mark decided to make his move. He approached the organization that had shown displeasure with the way the Headhunters had steamrolled into their operation. Mark had offered to put things back to how they used to be. All he wanted in return was the right to supply their gear and guns for twelve months. They bankrolled him. He used his connections to set up a shipment. Guns and gear. Only one other person knew when the drugs were coming in. Mark felt invulnerable. Felt emboldened. He sent Absolom to demonstrate the Headhunters’ frailty. Absolom was only too happy to please the object of his affection. He headed north to find Francis Nock and kill the old fucker. Beat Tom Spink half to death on the way. Spread rumors and lies about Nock in a bid to draw the old man out. But Absolom had done more than that. He’d drawn out Raymond Mahon. And Mahon had tortured him until he gave up everything that Mark had worked for.

  Mark drains his drink. Pulls at his dark hair. He stands and looks at himself in the reflection of the TV screen. He’s still good-looking. Tall. Sunbed-tan. Neat line of designer stubble along his jaw and upper lip. Slim, toned body, and ink to die for. He’s unblemished. Mark knows how to fight, but none of his scraps have left their mark on his skin. He’s too greasy for that.

  Mark should be feeling fabulous. He has played it all perfectly. Even found himself a tasty piece of skirt on Pharaoh’s team. Shaz Archer has been a fucking miracle. She’s hungry, ambitious, and as filthy in the sack as any of the whores whom Mark has used for his own pleasures. She’d been easy to seduce. Vanity, that was what it took. Wanted to be told she was good and that all those around her were nothing. Mark had obliged. Had liked the way he had backed up her opinions on the bitches at work. Tremb
erg. He remembered fucking that fat backside. Remembers her pathetic neediness. The way she’d clung to him. He hadn’t had the pleasure of Trish Pharaoh yet, but she’s caused him headaches this week and he hopes he gets the chance to meet her very soon. Archer had lapped it up. Sneaked him into the station and let him fuck her on Pharaoh’s desk. She’s given him everything she knows on the Headhunters. When that scruffy old fucker Colin Ray turned up at her door and told her that Piers Fordham was the mouthpiece of the organization, all the pieces came together. Mark killed him with pleasure. Had gone to sleep with Shaz’s sweat and Fordham’s blood on his skin and awakened expecting a phone call to say the shipment had arrived safely and he was about to become a very rich and important man. Instead, he had switched on the news and seen his world collapse.

  On the table in front of him, one of the phones begins to ring. It’s Shaz again. She’s just checking in. Seeing if he’s okay. He’d been quiet this morning. Is everything okay? Has she done something wrong . . . ?

  Mark ignores the call like he’s ignored the others. He doesn’t know what to say to any of the people who have been ringing and demanding answers. He can’t think straight. Rage is clouding his vision and his thoughts. He wants to hurt Pharaoh. She’s the one taking credit for his downfall. He wants to tear Francis Nock apart. If Mark hadn’t tried to get to the old man, he would never have put Absolom in the hands of Mahon. He wants to hurt somebody. Anybody. Everybody.

  Mark stands and crosses to the hallway. The man tied to the radiator is bleeding from a wound to the head and is holding himself in a way that protects his broken ribs. Mark kicks him in the guts anyway. Presses his bare foot against the man’s bleeding face and punches him twice in the top of the head.

  Colin Ray is gagged with a pair of Shaz Archer’s worn knickers and a length of gaffer tape. He doesn’t make a sound as the blows come. Waits until Mark has finished, then tries to say the word “cunt.” It makes him choke. His eyes start to stream, and blood runs from his nose. Mark pulls the gaffer tape from his mouth. Watches as Ray pukes up the red lace thong and a length of bloody spit and bile.

  “Shouldn’t have knocked, old man,” says Mark through his teeth. “Should have sneaked in. Should have waited for her to come back from work.”

  Ray growls. Coughs crimson phlegm onto his clothes and raises his eyes to Oliver’s. “You should mute the telly, son. I can hear every word they’re saying about your fuckup down on the docks. You’re a dead man. I’d go now, while I still had the chance.”

  Mark shoves the knickers back into Ray’s mouth and bangs his head off the radiator.

  “You’re not me. There’s nobody like me.”

  Mark returns to the living room. Lies on the sofa and closes his eyes. Broods on pain and revenge and all the ways he’s going to fuck Trish Pharaoh when he gets his hands on her fat little frame. He falls asleep and dreams of blood and bones. Wakes, sticky and confused, to the sound of a ringing phone.

  Oliver doesn’t recognize the number. Isn’t sure if it’s another of his creditors demanding delivery. But he takes the call.

  A minute later, Mark Oliver is pleased with himself again. Knows where to find them all and how to get them all together for one blessed extermination. Gives himself a little pat on the back. He’d known from the start that he would get nowhere without tame policemen. It had cost him a few inches from his stack of notes, but the coppers he had in his pocket were proving to be worth their weight in gold. Finding the right men for the job—that was the problem. How to find those with the capacity for a little gentle corruption. That was the skill that Oliver possessed. He saw what people wanted and he helped them get it.

  He picks up the other phone and calls the last number that Piers Fordham rang before he died.

  Baits a trap.

  He can barely keep the smirk off his face as he rings his driver and tells him to bring three good men. They’re taking a trip to the seaside. They’re going to put everything right. An old man is going to die, and they’re going to take his enforcer apart piece by piece. And if he plays this right, he’s going to get his drugs back and take out his frustrations on an interfering bitch.

  Mark wipes himself down with a tissue and slips into a silk shirt. Makes himself look good. Preens and poses and pampers himself to perfection. By the time he’s done, he doesn’t want to soil himself with Colin Ray’s blood. Decides to leave the fucker where he is. He’ll be a treat for Shaz when she gets home.

  Silly cow didn’t know what she was letting herself in for.

  She will soon.

  • • •

  BEFORE TRISH PHARAOH and Deputy Chief Constable Bruce Mallett entered the squat, pea-green pub off Hedon Road, it had six customers. Six customers, and perhaps twenty-three teeth. It is not a sophisticated establishment. It sits fewer than two hundred yards from Hull Prison and is the first stop for many of the inmates spewed out of the big wooden double doors and onto the busy road that leads east to the docks and west into Hull. A previous landlord used to provide a free pint for anybody who could prove they had been inside for doing harm to a copper. Those days are gone now. The bar does well off of the prison’s guards, who stop in for a drink after their shifts and drain a few jars with people who, a few hours before, they were responsible for locking up.

  Pharaoh wouldn’t have picked the place for a celebratory drink but her senior officer is the kind of man who likes to get his feet wet in the gutters from time to time. He’s new to Humberside Police’s top tier of officers but knows Hull from way back. He started out here in the early eighties and learned the ropes from old-school coppers. His career has been an impressive one. He was a sergeant by twenty-five, an inspector by thirty, and was running a CID team in Worcester by the time he was thirty-four. He’s pushing fifty now and was a surprise appointment when the new Humberside Police crime commissioner appointed him as deputy chief constable a couple of months back. Mallett is popular with the troops. He’s big, forthright, and ugly. He has a perfectly round head, shaved clean as a watermelon, and his teeth look like he ordered them off the Internet and hammered them in himself. He has already proven himself to be one of the lads by downing a pint of vodka at a farewell party, and there are plenty of officers who would put money on him to last more than five seconds with McAvoy in an arm wrestle. Pharaoh likes him, which is why she allowed him to pose for the photographs in full uniform at the docks this morning; looking serious in front of a table that groaned under the weight of seized cocaine, heroin, and firearms. Pharaoh hadn’t felt the need to get her mug in the photographs. She’s tired after a sleepless night and has black bags under her eyes that would probably drive her to suicide if splashed on the front of the Hull Daily Mail, so is content just for those in the know to be aware of where the intelligence came from. Her friends at Border Force are busy toasting her name with expensive champagne. Her own treat is a double vodka in this shitty pub half a mile from the scene of her triumph.

  Pharaoh looks around at the now deserted bar. Mallett’s presence has been enough to persuade the usual drinkers to bugger off and get pissed somewhere else. The two of them are sitting at a circular table beneath a dirty rectangular window obscured by an even dirtier lace curtain. Mallett is drinking bitter from an old-fashioned tankard and tearing the beer mat into strips.

  “Bloody good result,” he says loudly, for what must be the twentieth time. “Bloody good. I hate to think in headlines, but this kind of thing always helps us look a bit less shit, don’t you think? Somebody’s going to be spitting blood, don’t you think?”

  Pharaoh sips her drink. She wants to make it last. Doesn’t know her boss well enough yet to drain four doubles, then drive home.

  “Got lucky with a tip, sir. Friend of a friend, favor owed—that kind of thing.”

  Mallett examines her over his glass. Gives her a look that suggests he knows she is being evasive and that he doesn’t mind in the slightest.
>
  “You got somebody hidden away with their balls in a mincer, Patricia? I don’t give a shit where it came from. Border Force is doing cartwheels, I’ve got a nice seizure to keep the suits happy, and your unit has proven why it was set up. It’s a good bloody day, love. If you tell me you had to put the thumbscrews on to get it, I’m not going to stop enjoying my pint. Just a shame it’s going to get bumped for that pissing lawyer, eh?”

  Pharaoh nods and twists some life into her neck and shoulders. CID has spent a busy day trying to piece together why somebody would want to beat a disbarred lawyer to death in his own house in Newland Park. Pharaoh’s not involved in the case but has at least used the investigation to rid herself of one annoyance. Shaz Archer had requested to be seconded to CID to lead the investigation into Piers Fordham’s death and Pharaoh had been happy to agree. She reckons Archer was pissed off at not being invited along on the early-morning raid at the docks. Hopes the rich bitch will use the incident as an excuse to make the transfer permanent. Colin Ray will be back at work soon and the last thing she wants is the two of them plotting her downfall at a time when she has just given the unit its biggest success to date. She wishes McAvoy had been there to share some of the praise, but he’s still officially on sick and wasn’t even answering his phone when Pharaoh called him last night to update him on developments. She wonders if he’s upset with her. God knows, the Peter Coles case is a thankless task. She can’t help feeling that she may have stitched him up by accident, and even if she hasn’t, she expects to break his heart when she tells him where his wife and child are. She has tried to do everything the right way and ended up wronging only one person. But that person is the one that matters most.