Loose Head

by Jeff Keithly

  He was halfway to the elevator when he noticed the little girl. She was perhaps four years old, dressed in dirty bell-bottomed jeans and a juice-spotted Teletubbies t-shirt, clutching a stuffed horse. There were tears on her face as she ran through the lobby on stubby legs, dodging clots of towering grown-ups, falling farther and farther behind. After a moment Leicester spotted her father, striding furiously through the throng with a group of companions, ostentatiously ignoring her terrified whimpers. Occasionally the man would call something encouraging over his shoulder – “Hurry up, or I’ll leave you!” or “I’ll give you something to cry about when we get home!” Then she dropped her stuffed horse and ran back to get it. Her father had reached the elevator; with a snort of disgust, he pressed the “up” button. She cried out in terror as the door opened and he stepped inside without her.

  As the doors began to close, Leicester inserted his body in the gap, held them open until the frantic little girl could rush inside. She held up her arms to her father, a tall blond man with blue eyes the hue of glacial ice. He ignored her. “Can you let the doors go, please?” he asked Leicester – “We’re in a hurry.”

  “Obviously,” Leicester observed mildly. “You almost forgot your luggage.”

  “Luggage.” He frowned down at her. “That’s about it. Now move. Please.”

  Leicester stayed where he was. “Why don’t you pick her up? She needs comforting.”

  The blond man glared at him in outrage. “Why don’t you butt out?”

  “Do you realize just done the damage you’ve just done to her? To your daughter. You can never undo it. Hadn’t you noticed she’s just a child?”

  “She’s not my daughter – she’s my wife’s. And you’re really starting to annoy me, you Limey prick. Now move, or I’ll move you.”

  But Leicester didn’t move. Instead, he made a contemptuous sound. “You’re just a bully. I know bullies. Now pick her up and comfort her.”

  The man hesitated, daunted by the smoldering fury in Leicester’s eyes. But he was losing face in front of his companions. He looked at them; they nodded and surged forward, fists flying. Leicester jerked his head to the side; the man’s first wild blow glanced off his cheek. The brawl spilled out of the elevator onto the lobby floor; now punches were coming from every direction. Leicester went down beneath the weight of bodies, his kit-bag hampering his movements.

  Abruptly his assailants were seized by their collars, jerked to their feet and shoved reeling backwards. Dex Reed, Bernie Plantagenet and Jester Atkinson stood over him, rolling up their sleeves. “A punch-up?” Jester asked brightly. “Haven’t had one in ages. Whom should we kill first?” And he turned his mad gaze on the blond man, who took an involuntary step backward.

  Security materialized in seconds, a phalanx of burly men in blue coats and earpieces who inserted themselves between the combatants with the ease of long practice. “Gentlemen?” asked their grey-haired supervisor, arriving a second or two later. “What’s the trouble here?”

  Leicester had risen to his feet. “No trouble. We were just going up to our rooms.” He could feel the violence leaked out of the situation like air from a balloon. For just a moment, he caught and held the blond man’s gaze. “Remember what I said,” he called as the elevator doors began to close. “Get help!”

  Dex was looking at him inquiringly. “Tosser. It was the little girl – I couldn’t stand to see him...” he shook his head. “Forget it. Thanks, Dex. Jester. Thought I was roadkill for a moment. Dinner’s on me tonight.”

  III

  Though he was now, by some calculations, the fourteenth-richest man in the U.K., Bob Leicester had little patience for the trappings of wealth, and pursued a lifestyle that was as simple as his father’s had been imperial. He lived alone in a spacious but austerely-furnished flat on the 51st floor of one of his Canary Wharf high-rises, ate simply, drank little, pursued a vigorous daily regimen of running, swimming and weight-lifting, and drove one of his own modest hydrogen-powered sedans. Bob believed that the money that flowed from his business empire should itself be put to work, rather than allowed to lay idly about. Over 90 percent of Baobab Holdings’ nine-figure annual profit went to fund a network of charitable endeavors so vast that Bob Leicester was now generally recognized as the greatest English philanthropist since Charles Dickens.

  In truth, Leicester had a keen admiration for the 19-century novelist, whose tireless advocacy of the poor and downtrodden, and personal example as a dynamic, hands-on architect of social change, had made him the most revered Englishman of his age. Stocky and energetic, with a luxurious salt-and-pepper goatee, Leicester even resembled Dickens physically.

  Like Dickens, Leicester also had a particular sympathy for the working-class youth who were being denied opportunity by an increasingly technological society. The keystone of Leicester’s charitable empire was the Magwitch Project, named for the mysterious benefactor of young Pip in Great Expectations. The Magwitch Project had centers in every major metropolitan area in the U.K., providing housing, sustenance, counseling and education to thousands of homeless and at-risk children and teenagers.

  Like Dickens, Leicester immersed himself in every detail of the project: architecture, curriculum, rules, even the menus served in the cafeterias. When the uniforms worn by the centers’’ clients proved too drab, he sponsored a competition among the British fashion elite to design smarter ones. He spent as much time as possible at the centers themselves, taking a personal interest in many of his charges. When one of them dropped out and returned to the street, he had been known to plunge personally into the septic maelstrom of Eastcheap or Manchester to convince them to return to the Magwitch Project’s benevolent fold. Here, perhaps more than anywhere else, he simply refused to tolerate losing. It was an affront to his competitive nature.

  Leicester didn’t believe in simply throwing money at problems, or at people – he knew they had to have a goal, a compelling reason to make a permanent life-change. Simply being on the dole wasn’t going to do it. He made them learn – bullying, coaxing, cajoling, rewarding – until they began to see the light. The ultimate reward, of course, was lucrative employment with one of his companies, which had an insatiable need for qualified engineers, managers, technicians, workers. His diversified holdings were immune to the usual economic upticks and downturns; employment with one of the Baobab Holdings’ subsidiaries was effectively employment for life.

  Leicester’s sole personal indulgence was rugby. In addition to providing an outlet for his ruthlessly competitive nature and need to push himself to his limits, it left him physically drained and at peace. Oh, he would never be the most popular bloke on the team – he was simply too serious, too tightly-wound, to let go, to allow himself to be seduced unreservedly by the occasionally-terrifying hilarity that was rugby touring. Then, too, there were those on the team who bitterly envied his wealth, his power, his seemingly-inevitable success. But he enjoyed it all the same.

  He also loved the fact that, particularly when the Hastewicke Gentlemen toured foreign lands, he was completely anonymous. Here, in Las Vegas, no one had the slightest inkling of who he was. Which suited his agenda down to the ground.

  Because the truth was that, like Dickens, if the old bugger had been honest with himself, Leicester’s philanthropic activities served another, darker purpose: they filled him with a deeply sexual sense of power over those he so energetically labored to save. Old Ian must have experienced much the same thrill of stern Victorian paternalism, with its undercurrent of quivering sexual dominance, as he inspected the ex-prostitutes of Urania Cottage, his “home for fallen women” in Shepherd’s Bush.

  Leicester, too, found himself magnetically drawn to the young female clients of the Magwitch Project, whose nubile charms were so apparent, yet as inaccessible to him as the Korolev Crater on the dark side of the moon. How simple it would be to insinuate himself into the intake process for the Magwitch Project, and gratify his darkest desires as a condition for their acceptan
ce into the program! But to lose control in such a way, even once, would be to invite a disaster of nuclear, elephantine proportions. In Britain’s rabid, tabloid-fueled news climate, both the reputation and the empire he had labored so long to build would instantly be reduced to dust and twisted girders.

  No, he had more self-control than that. But here, in the glorious anonymity of America... ah, that was a different story. No one but his mates even knew he was here. And in Las Vegas, where anything was available for a price...?

  Two hours later, there was a knock on the door of Suite 455. Leicester answered it, then paused, looking them up and down. They’d do – lithe, beautiful, and not a day over 16. The taller of the two had hair of glossy blue-black, with the long, muscular legs of a professional tennis player. The smaller one, the blond, had perfect breasts and a sweet, virtuous face, with eyes that twinkled with sin – just the way he’d always imagined Agnes Wickfield in David Copperfield.

  “Well?” Agnes asked. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”

  Wordlessly he stood aside, closed the door after them. The blond girl -- Agnes -- reached into her purse and pulled out a sheet of paper. She studied it for a moment, then looked up, face shining with carnal amusement. “We’re here for the, uh, entrance exam,” she smiled.

  “Put these on,” said Leicester throatily, holding out a pair of Magwitch Project uniforms. He watched, entranced, as they stepped un-self-consciously from their clothes, and slipped the short, flattering dresses over their heads.

  And then all of his dreams had come true.

  Chapter 13

  I arrived at Hendon early the next morning to put the finishing touches on my report to Oakhurst about the historic indiscretions of the Hastewicke Gentlemen on tour. It hadn’t been easy to strike the right balance of juicy tabloid innuendo and discretion, but when I laid the report on Oakhurst’s desk, I thought I’d done a reasonably thorough job of it.

  “One thing I’ve never fully understood,” said Brian later as we walked briskly through Green Park, on our way to interview Harry Barlowe at his sculpting studio. “Oakhurst is younger than us, with less service. Remind me again how it is that he’s our boss? It can’t just be his virtuoso talent for rhinoprocty, although that’s obviously been a factor.”

  “He evidenced the leadership competencies they were looking for through those ridiculous team-building exercises he designed.” I paused. “And there was Docklands, of course.”

  “Ah. And he hates your guts for the same reason, naturally. I agree with Wicks that he’s set you up masterfully on this case. You’re going to have to play this one very, very carefully, mate.”

  I nodded grimly. “Tell me something I don’t know, Sherlock.” Docklands had been a very nasty business indeed. During the 1990s, I had been assigned to the drugs squad out of Wapping Station. There, in an operation called Docklands, I was wounded in the line of duty – very seriously wounded. Oakhurst had been my partner at the time. Docklands made him my nemesis.

  In the fall of 1997, there was an unsolved murder in the East End – a middle-aged man found floating in the Thames with his throat cut. He had cocaine in his system, in very high concentration. His name was Sid Hamilton, and he worked as chief financial officer at a brokerage firm called Central American Trading Partners Ltd. in Docklands.

  Right about that time, one of my confidential sources tipped me that a massive shipment of cocaine would be arriving shortly in the East End. I poked around a bit, and discovered that the masterminds of the operation were two young traders who, coincidentally, also worked at Central American Trading Partners. Through a brilliant tap-in and analysis of Central American’s computer system, led by Emma Kwan, we discovered that the two of them had used corporate funds to put together a once-in-a-lifetime deal – a cargo container-load of 90 percent pure Colombian cocaine, which would pass through their hands in a single night, leaving behind a profit of £100 million. They had figured out a way to use wire transfers of corporate funds to take, then replace the money, all within minutes, and make it look like a bank error. The two would then divide their ill-gotten gains and disappear.

  Well, that was enough cocaine to supply the entire London metropolitan area for two years. As soon as I’d confirmed the accuracy of the information and identified those behind the deal, I brought Oakhurst in on it. He took it up the food chain, coordinated the details of the raid and press coverage with our supervisors. It was the kind of career-making case that comes along once every 20 years or so, complete with budget-bloating photo-ops of the Chief Superintendent surrounded by mountains of confiscated cocaine.

  And so we come to the night of the raid. We ringed the building with an armed strike force; Oakhurst and I had agreed that I would enter the facility, in my role as “buyer,” to confirm the stuff was there before the cavalry broke down the doors. “Don’t take any chances,” Oakhurst told me – “we’re all waiting for your signal!”

  And so I had gone in – only to emerge 10 minutes later on a stretcher, fighting for my life. Someone had tipped one of the “managing partners” that their “buyer” was an informant -- not a copper. They wouldn’t cancel the shipment for an informant, you see; they would just kill him, as they already had Sid Hamilton, the company comptroller, who had happened upon their scheme during an unscheduled check on the accounts. When he had confronted them, they had stuck him in the back of the neck with a syringe of product, which they were sampling themselves at the time, then slit his throat and tipped him into the river. So you see the kind of blokes I was dealing with.

  Funny, the things that stick in your mind during traumatic events. For me, it was a snatch of conversation: “Damn you, Dex! You should’ve tipped us off sooner! We might’ve saved you!” Oakhurst’s voice. I knew he had betrayed me then, double-crossed me in order to further his own ambitions, and claim sole credit for a once-in-a-career bust. Obviously he didn’t think I’d survive. Fortunately, he was wrong.

  It took six months for me to recover sufficiently to resume my duties. By then, Oakhurst had already made Detective Chief Inspector – the youngest in Metropolitan Police history – on the strength of his role in organizing this mammoth drugs bust and for his cool head in saving the life of an over-impetuous fellow officer. What I didn’t know was that, in the leadup to the raid, he had done his damndest to cut me out of the picture entirely with our superiors – to them, it was all his sources, his initiative, his hard work, that had started the ball rolling. By the time I left hospital, his version of events – that I had insisted on a daring solo entrance, over his strenuous objections, and that only his prompt action had saved my life and captured the suspects – was more or less set in concrete.

  I couldn’t prove, of course, that Oakhurst had set me up, so I made no official challenge to his version of events. However, I made sure that the truth of what had happened that night received a wide airing among the rank-and-file. DCI Wicks, for one, believed me, and, after my recovery, transferred me to Hendon Specialist Crime Directorate, that fascinating catch-basin for the crimes that didn’t really fit – or transcended – the usual categories. Much to Oakhurst’s annoyance. It was at Hendon SCD that I had met Brian.

  One day, the elevator doors opened, and Oakhurst stepped in. The doors closed, the lift moved downward. We were alone. Oakhurst studiously ignored me; finally I spoke. “It won’t be today, and it might not be tomorrow. But I know what you did, and there will come a day, you self-serving bastard, that you’ll wish you’d never joined the Metropolitan Police.”

  Oakhurst merely nodded, an infuriating little smirk twisting his fleshy lips, as if to say, “Fair enough, mate, have a go, then.” And that was how we’d left it – until now.

  “And now he’s got you by the balls,” Brian observed cheerfully. “What’re we going to do about it, then?”

  “There’s no ‘we,’ Brian. This is my fight. And I don’t know yet what I’m going to do. But I know what I won’t do – I won’t cooperate on this report of his
. Oh, I’ll feed him a few stories, just enough to jolly him along. But I’ll resign before I make my mates’ behavior on tour a matter of record in this case.”

  Brian stopped and looked at me very seriously indeed. “That’s exactly what he wants you to do, Dex, so that’s exactly what you won’t do. He wants you to resign, he’s begging you to give him grounds for disciplinary action. Don’t you see? Then anything you have to say about Oakhurst and Docklands just becomes the ranting of a disgruntled former subordinate. And you’re wrong about one other thing. This is my business. You’re my partner, and you’re also my mate. If Oakhurst goes after you, then he’s going to have to deal with me as well.”

  We had arrived at Harry’s studio, a sprawling former stable building ‘round the corner from the Horse Guards Parade. Harry answered our ring covered in fine white dust, his eyes ringed like a raccoon’s from the protective goggles that now hung by a strap from around his neck. “Hullo, Dex, come on in – don’t mind the mess. You must be DI Abbott.” Harry shook hands. “Dex has told me a lot about you.” And he ushered us inside.

  The studio was a vast open room, brick-walled, with skylights every 10 feet or so dispelling the gloom. A block of white Carrara marble 10 feet on a side dominated the center of the space, surrounded by a snowstorm of fine rock chips; the rough figures of a man astride a great winged horse struggled to escape their stone prison. “My God, Harry, it’s immense! I had no idea you worked on such a scale!”

  Harry shrugged. “It’s my largest to date. Taken me three months just to get this far.”

  “And how long to finish it?”

  “A year.” He caressed the rough marble with casual affection, brushing away a few stray chips. “The roughing-out is the easiest bit. It’s the detailing and finish-work that really take the time.”