by Greg Keen
The lock-up was four or five times the size of a domestic garage. It had a damp metallic smell and was colder on the inside than on the outside. Farrelly switched on a panel of neon strip lights, after which the shutter descended until it crunched into the restraining bracket.
Had I been quizzed on the three most likely things a lock-up owned by Farrelly might contain, the list would have read as follows: Weapons. Bullion. Hostages.
Extend to ten, or even twenty, possibilities and they still wouldn’t have included what took up two-thirds of the surface of the concrete floor.
The track was laid out over a series of waist-high tables. Attending it were trees, buildings, bridges, a car park, a football stadium, a factory, and even a half-inflated gasometer. A six-carriage train waited in a station complete with three platforms and miniature signals. I could almost make out the annoyance on the faces of the passengers that the 3.15 to Waterloo was delayed again.
‘Jesus, it’s a toy train set,’ I said.
‘Model railway,’ Farrelly growled.
‘Is it yours?’
‘Course it fucking is.’
‘What I meant was do you actually, you know . . . ?’
‘Operate it?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘No reason. How long did it take to put together?’
‘Ten years. Wired everything myself and made the buildings from scratch.’
‘Including the stadium?’ Farrelly nodded. Had he not been holding a loaded gun, I might have chucked him on the cheek as though he were an eight-year-old boy. Instead I went a different route. ‘Any chance we could see it in action? That would be good, wouldn’t it, Rocco?’
‘Er, yeah,’ Rocco said. ‘Terrific.’
Whenever Odeerie demoed some new piece of tech for me, it never failed to put him in a good mood. Hopefully the same would apply to Farrelly.
‘All right, then,’ he said. ‘I’ll send the loco round a coupla times.’
Laying his weapon next to an aluminium console, he flicked a series of switches and the locomotive chugged slowly to life. Shortly after leaving the station it entered a grass-covered tunnel and emerged six feet further down the track.
The engine picked up speed and passed a fire station that stood next to a scale model of a Burger King. The customers drinking in the beer garden of the Red Lion didn’t appear flummoxed by the train clattering two inches away from them; nor did the herd of Friesians grazing in the field next to a copse of mature oak trees.
After switching track by the Notley Road junction box, the train passed through a village of terraced houses, an esplanade of shops, a row of double yellow lines and an Ovaltine billboard. The carriages trundled past a branch of IKEA, underneath a footbridge, and then past a hospital outside which were a couple of ambulances. The train decelerated as it approached the station and pulled to a halt on platform 2.
‘Incredible.’ I said. ‘Absolutely incredible.’
‘Fucking genius!’ Rocco added.
‘Any chance you could take it round a different way?’ I asked. ‘Or maybe we could see one of the other engines in action . . .’
In sidings by the station were two other locomotives. If I could fully engage Farrelly’s inner geek, then perhaps he’d forget about giving Rocco a working over to find out the information he almost certainly didn’t have.
Farrelly stared at Rocco, who was grinning like a bastard. Then he transferred his gaze to the waiting model engines. Finally he looked in my direction.
‘Yeah, all right. But there’s something I need to do first.’
‘What’s that, Farrelly?’ I asked.
‘Torture that cunt,’ he said, nodding towards Rocco.
Farrelly took a steel-framed chair from a stack of three and instructed Rocco to sit. He used a roll of duct tape to secure his hands behind his back. Next he pulled an orange storage crate off a low-hanging shelf. First out was a car battery; then two leads emerged; finally a black metallic box with a couple of dials on the front. From it ran a thick black cord attached to a piece of tubular metal with a rubber grip. It looked like a pair of curling tongs.
‘What’s that?’ I asked.
‘Transformer.’
‘You’re not thinking of using it on him, are you?’
‘I’ll use it on you if you don’t shut the fuck up.’
‘He’s terrified. D’you not think, if he knew something, he’d tell us?’
‘How d’you know it’s not an act?’
‘Al Pacino couldn’t put that on,’ I said. Rocco was making a low keening noise and shivering like a man in a freezer. Farrelly had both leads secured by now.
‘This way, we make sure,’ he said.
He flicked a switch. One of the dials swung hard right and stayed there. He turned a knob to the right and the second pointer travelled a third of the way. Holding the probe in his right hand, he reached out with his left and tore Rocco’s shirt open.
‘You’re getting this whatever,’ he said, ‘just so you know what it’s like. Then I’m gonna ask you some questions. Lie and you get some more.’
‘Please don’t do this,’ Rocco begged.
‘It’s on half power,’ Farrelly told him, ‘but you’d best keep your tongue away from your teeth.’
He pressed the probe against the flabby sack of Rocco’s hairy abdomen. There was a whip-like crack and his body became rigid. After a couple of seconds, Farrelly removed the wand. It had left a brown scorch mark.
‘Did you kill Harriet Parr?’ he asked.
‘No,’ Rocco said, panting heavily.
‘Who did she meet that night?’
‘I don’t know.’
Farrelly considered his answer for a few seconds. Then he gave the knob another turn to the right. Rocco was screaming even before the probe made contact with his neck. The convulsions were so extreme, he toppled backwards and his head hit the floor like a ripe watermelon. He was motionless and didn’t appear to be breathing.
‘Fucking great,’ I said. ‘You’ve killed him.’
‘Course I ain’t. He’s just had a bang on the nut.’
Farrelly pulled Rocco up and slapped him across the face. He came round and began giggling like a kid over a dirty joke. Either the electricity or the impact had scrambled Rocco’s brain. The laughing stopped when he realised where he was.
I smelt an unmistakable odour.
‘You dirty bastard,’ Farrelly said.
‘I’m sorry,’ Rocco mumbled.
‘Fuck sorry,’ said Farrelly. ‘I don’t want to hear sorry. What I want to hear is the truth about what happened that night. Either you’re gonna tell me, or I’m gonna stick this thing up your shitty arse.’
He held the probe in front of Rocco, who strained away from it like a vampire presented with a crucifix.
‘What was that?’ Farrelly said, cocking his ear. ‘I didn’t quite catch it.’
Either Rocco had decided that silence was the best policy, or was so terrified that he was beyond speech. He didn’t say anything. Instead he began making the appalling whining noise again.
‘Fair enough,’ Farrelly said. He leant over the transformer and switched it off. I couldn’t have been as relieved as Rocco to see the dials dwindle to zero, but it still felt as though someone had unstrapped a piano from my back.
The feeling didn’t last.
‘Open your mouth.’
Rocco’s jaw tensed. He shook his head resolutely.
‘Open fucking wide,’ Farrelly demanded, like a demonic dentist.
When Rocco complied, the probe was inserted into his mouth. Farrelly grabbed the roll of tape and wrapped it around his head several times.
‘Right,’ he said, bending down over the machine again. ‘Five seconds and if I haven’t heard what I want to by then, you’re gonna kop the lot . . .’
‘He can’t tell you anything with that thing halfway down his throat.’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Farrelly said. ‘I
hadn’t thought of that. Oh, well, never mind . . .’
‘You’ll kill him.’
Farrelly shrugged and started the countdown.
‘Five . . . four . . . three . . .’
‘Get your finger off the switch or I’ll blow your fucking head off,’ someone said.
Strangely enough it was me.
I wasn’t a complete novice when it came to firearms. Before gun clubs were outlawed, a mate had taken me down to a range underneath the arches at Vauxhall. I’d tried out several weapons and managed to hit the target more often than not. That had been nearly thirty years ago. Pointing a gun at Farrelly was a world away from aiming it at a card full of circles.
Nevertheless, I had picked it up off the crate, interlocked my hands around the butt, and delivered my finger-switch-blow-fucking-head-off line. Admittedly there was a bit of tremble, but at eight feet the chances of missing were zero. I’d even remembered to release the safety.
Farrelly laughed. ‘Are you serious?’ he asked. ‘Put it down, you silly twat.’
‘Get away from the machine.’
‘Or what? You’re gonna shoot me?’
‘Yeah,’ I said.
Farrelly started cackling with laughter. I pointed the pistol three feet wide of his head and pulled the trigger. The sound was ear-shredding.
‘Now, get that thing out of his mouth and cut the tape.’
Farrelly didn’t move. I knew the question he was trying to answer. Ten seconds passed before he drew the right conclusion.
‘You’re fucked,’ he said quietly. ‘You know that, don’t you?’
‘Just do as you’re told.’
If I’d had a bad night, then it had been a total bummer for Rocco. He’d been unable to say anything for the last few minutes, but had conveyed a lot of emotion with his eyes. Having Farrelly approach him with an open lock knife allowed him a final bravura performance. The tape was cut and the probe extracted from his mouth. Then Farrelly sliced through the tape on Rocco’s hands.
‘Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,’ he said, and carried on saying it as though it were some kind of deliverance mantra. It got on my tits pretty quickly.
‘Shut up and get up,’ I told him, which he did. ‘Now you sit, Farrelly.’
‘What?’
For a moment I thought he was going to come at me regardless. Instead he sat down on the chair. ‘Fasten his hands behind his back,’ I told Rocco.
‘Do I have to?’
‘Only if you don’t want me to shoot you.’
The gun was having a bad effect. A single discharged round and I’d turned into Dirty Harry. That said, it was quicker than please and thank you for getting stuff done. Rocco grabbed the tape and got to work. While his wrists were being secured, Farrelly stared at me as though trying to make my head implode through the power of thought alone.
‘This is what’s going to happen,’ I said. ‘We’ll leave the door partially open so when people turn up for work they’ll find you. You can tell them that you got burgled or something. We’ll have to take your car, but I’ll text you where it is.’
Farrelly kept giving me the stare. For the first time since picking up his gun, my confidence began to ebb. He wasn’t the kind of bloke to forgive and forget over a couple of pints and a heartfelt apology. His jacket was hanging over the chair by the train console. I fished out his car keys and then pressed the door-release button.
Rocco was outside before the shutter was four feet off the ground. I wasn’t too sure what to do with the gun and ended up throwing it on to the roof of the unit. Rocco was standing by Farrelly’s car like a kid who couldn’t wait to go on his holidays. ‘Have you got any paper?’ he asked.
‘Are you thinking of writing your memoirs?’
‘No. I want to . . . you know . . . clean myself up.’
‘Oh, right,’ I said, remembering his little accident. ‘Hang on, I’ll look in the car.’
The best I could find was the RAC Atlas of Great Britain, so Rocco wiped his arse on most of the Home Counties. Despite his efforts, I still drove with the windows down. We were going over the Holborn Viaduct before either of us spoke again.
‘Who was that guy?’ Rocco asked.
‘Frank Parr’s chauffeur.’
‘Chauffeur! He’s a fucking lunatic. D’you think he’d have pressed the switch?’
‘Probably not.’
‘Looked like he was going to.’
‘Doesn’t mean he would have.’
‘Still . . . Thanks for what you did,’ Rocco said, before asking his second question. ‘Would you really have shot him?’
‘What do you think?’
‘You’d have had to.’
‘There we are, then.’
The answer gave Rocco pause for thought.
‘Just so I know for sure,’ I asked as we rounded the corner into Great Queen Street. ‘You really don’t know who Harry was meeting up with?’
‘You think I wouldn’t have told him?’
‘Not even the sex of the person?’
‘All H said was that she had to meet someone.’
‘And that was definitely a result of the call?’
‘Seemed that way to me.’
‘There’s nothing else? Maybe something you’ve only just remembered . . .’
Rocco stared out of the car window. The darkness was lifting and the city waking to a new day. A street-cleaning machine trundled along a gutter on the opposite side of the road. In an hour or so the Tube would start running. People would file into offices and shops to clock on for another eight hours of drudgery. Lucky bastards. At least they wouldn’t have a pissed-off maniac on their trail.
‘Actually, there is something,’ Rocco said.
‘What?’
‘It’s not about that night. At least not directly.’
‘Go on . . .’
‘Harry said that she’d had a row with her brother that day at lunch.’
‘What kind of row?’
‘Roger had been leaking stuff about Frank’s plans for the Post. H traced an email to this journalist. She was shit-hot at anything IT.’
‘D’you remember the name of the reporter?’
‘No, but I think she worked for the bloke who was trying to buy the Post as well.’
‘Lord Kirkleys?’
‘That’s him.’
‘Did Harry threaten to tell Frank?’
‘Nope. H didn’t like her bro much, but she’d have known how much it would have upset Frank if he knew his own son was fucking him over.’
‘So she did what?’
‘Said that if he didn’t stop then she’d have no other option than to bust him.’
‘She would have told Frank, then?’
Rocco shrugged. ‘Well, yeah, I suppose. But Rog knows which side of his bread is buttered, so it wasn’t very likely.’
‘Did you know him well?’
‘Nah, only time I met him was when we got married. You could see he thought he was a cut above, though. H said that he didn’t know if it was June or Tuesday when it came to work. If he hadn’t been his father’s son, he’d have been cleaning fucking windows for a living.’
‘So why put all that at risk?’
‘Haven’t a clue,’ Rocco said. ‘You’d have to ask him.’
‘Did you mention any of this to the police?’
‘Why would I?’
‘Why d’you think?’
It took a few seconds for Rocco to join the dots. He let out a protracted whistle.
‘Because it would give him a motive to kill her?’
‘Maybe.’
‘Fuck me. Imagine if he had. Maybe I should get in touch with this journo myself. Kirkleys would stump up a fortune for a story like that.’
‘Let me give you two reasons why that’s not a good idea, Rocco. Firstly there’s no way of proving it’s true.’
‘Doesn’t have to be. People can print anything these days. No one gives a fuck.’
‘Secondly
,’ I continued, ‘it would piss Frank off.’
‘How would he know it was me?’
‘Because I’d tell him and then he’d send Farrelly after you.’
As quickly as the mercenary gleam had arrived in Rocco’s eyes, the mention of Farrelly’s name dispelled it. ‘You’re right,’ he said. ‘Nothing’s worth that.’
‘It really isn’t,’ I said. ‘Rocco, why did you lie to me about Harry Parr and Dervla Bishop?’
‘I didn’t,’ he protested. ‘I swear to God they were seeing each other.’
‘Yeah, but Dervla said they hadn’t spoken for months. You said they were still involved.’
He shrugged. ‘That’s what Harry told me.’
‘Why would she make that up?’
‘How d’you know she did?’
I didn’t have an answer to this, so I concentrated on my driving. A couple of minutes later we pulled up outside Rocco’s flat. It had been the longest night of my life and then some. I had a feeling the same was true for Rocco. We said goodbye without shaking hands. It said something about him – although I’m not quite sure what – that throughout everything he had still kept hold of his Stetson. He got out of the car and pulled it on. Despite a tattered shirt, shit-spattered trousers and multiple scorch marks, it seemed to put a snap into his stride.
I wondered if I should get one.
TWENTY-THREE
I sat in the car and pondered what Rocco had told me about Roger. Why had he leaked the information? Surely it couldn’t have been about the cash. The journalist might be blackmailing him but it seemed unlikely. One thing that working for Odeerie has taught me is that everyone lies. Often to themselves, frequently to other people, and especially to me.
I gave the fat man a call. It had just gone six thirty. ‘Bit early for you, isn’t it?’ he said. ‘Been on a bender?’
‘Something like that. I need some information.’
‘To do with Harry Parr?’
‘It’s connected. I want her brother’s address.’
‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all.’
A bit of heavy breathing from Odeerie before he said, ‘Name?’
‘Roger Parr.’
