Happy Days

by Hurley, Graham

  Kinder had tagged this the Bobby Sands strategy, in memory of a convicted IRA gunman way back who’d got himself elected to Parliament while banged up in the Maze prison, and the gambit, as ever, had worked. The journo had originally been pitching for the New Statesman, but on the train to London, reviewing his notes, he realised that provocative copy like this belonged in a right-wing mag, partly because the hot favourite in Portsmouth North was the Conservative candidate and partly because Bazza’s life story chimed very nicely with what Kinder called the ‘Tory narrative’. Bazza Mackenzie had done very well for himself without taking a penny from the state, and in the shape of Pompey First you were looking at the perfect template for the thrust of the coming Central Office campaign. If it was true that no one in the country had the first clue what David Cameron meant by the Big Society, then maybe they ought to start listening to the likes of Bazza Mackenzie.

  The article had appeared in the Spectator at the end of last week. And every broadsheet paper in the country had quoted it over the weekend.

  ‘So what did the Chief say?’ Winter helped himself to more peanuts.

  ‘I’ve no idea. But Willard’s spitting bullets.’

  ‘You’ve talked to him?’

  ‘I talked to Parsons. Most days it’s the same thing. If Mackenzie takes this thing to the wire, people like the Chief are going to be ducking some hard fucking questions.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like how come we’ve never laid a finger on this guy? Like how come Pompey’s narco-king ends up in Parliament?’

  ‘But he’ll never make it, son. He’ll never get anywhere near it.’

  ‘That’s not the point. The point is that he might. And that’s enough, believe me. At their level, people like the Chief deal in possibilities. That’s the language they speak. The trick is to identify the threat and neutralise it.’

  ‘Meaning Mackenzie.’

  ‘Of course. And that means you.’

  ‘Us, Jimmy. Us.’

  Suttle shrugged and checked his watch again. 10.43. Nightmare.

  ‘So tell me the latest …’ He pulled his pad towards him and produced a pen. ‘You know the deal. I need hard-core facts, the truth plus provable lies. Once I’ve typed this stuff up, you’ve got to attest it, sign it, the lot.’

  Winter nodded. This was the protocol he’d agreed after a series of covert meetings back in September. Behind Suttle, who was his lead handler and prime point of contact, lay an Operational Management Team that numbered upwards of half a dozen officers. Under Parsons’ overall command, with the CPS lawyers on her shoulder, each of these guys had a specialist input – intel, comms, surveillance, disclosure – and later, once the operation began to mature, the going would get tougher.

  The intention just now, though, was to monitor the development of Pompey First while acquiring a detailed analysis of exactly how Mackenzie managed his business interests. In Winter’s view, the real opportunities lay in the narrow space between the two. Putting it crudely, soon his boss was going to run out of money. And once that happened, given his ever-rising exposure to electoral expenses, Bazza would have to take a risk or two.

  The entrapment of Mackenzie had earned itself a code name: Operation Gehenna. It was generally agreed that the next phase of the operation wouldn’t begin for a couple of months yet, but in the meantime it was Suttle’s job to keep Winter legal. Any u/c operation like this carried enormous risks. In court Gehenna would face an army of highly paid lawyers who would pick over every shred of the prosecution case. Any slip at any stage – an unattested detail, provable enticement, unfair harassment – and six months’ work could be down the khazi. That was a result that neither Suttle nor Winter was prepared to contemplate. Suttle because the prospect of promotion was beginning to matter. And Winter because he had literally nowhere else to go.

  For the next half-hour or so Winter talked while Suttle made notes. Mackenzie, he said, was riding the crest of a wave, most of which had been generated by his recent recruit.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Makins. Andy Makins.’

  Suttle recognised the name. This was Megan’s ex.

  ‘And he’s full time?’

  ‘Yeah. Three grand a month. Mackenzie thinks he’s got a bargain.’

  Makins had been around for a while, Winter said, and to be honest no one had taken much notice of him. He was young, probably very bright, but a bit of a recluse. From Mackenzie’s point of view, he was exactly the guy he needed to sort out the youth vote. Kinder had crunched the numbers and reckoned a registration drive might yield a four-figure windfall for Pompey First. These were kids who’d never even thought about voting, largely because they couldn’t be arsed, and it was Makins’ job to give them a shake and get them in line.

  ‘How?’

  ‘By using the Internet. Kids live and die on the net these days. Baz thinks it’s all nonsense but knows he can’t ignore it.’

  Winter told Suttle what he knew about Makins’ input. There’d been lots of talk about Facebook groups and some kind of Tweeting operation, and he knew Makins was banging out a whole load of blogs under various names. Despite his impatience with the Internet generation, Bazza was hugely impressed. Makins was monitoring traffic on the sites and they’d begun to attract a sizeable following. The trick was to generate stuff that would push people towards Pompey First without revealing the fact that the whole operation was masterminded from the War Room.

  ‘The what?’ Suttle had stopped writing.

  ‘The War Room. Bazza loves all this stuff. He should have been a commando or a para or something. I’m going to buy him a dagger for Christmas and a stick of dynamite.’

  ‘But you’re serious? The War Room?’

  ‘Yeah. It’s down in the basement. That’s where Kinder works.’

  ‘And Makins?’

  ‘He’s got a hotel room upstairs. Says he needs space to think. He’s the golden boy. Whatever young Andy wants, he gets.’

  Winter told Suttle about the soap opera he was producing. The first episodes of Smoutland, he said, were due to hit the net early in the New Year. He explained the concept, three generations of Pompey inbreds to give YouTube fans a good laugh. Suttle didn’t see the point.

  ‘Neither does Marie. And neither, if you’re asking, do I.’

  ‘You’ve seen this stuff?’

  ‘I’ve seen a couple, yeah. It’s Makins again, his idea. He’s doing it with a couple of guys at the uni. They’re using a bunch of amateur actors from Portsea. You don’t need to pay people these days. Fame’s enough.’

  ‘So what’s it like?’

  ‘It’s funny. And cruel as fuck. Makins scripts the things himself. He says it’s Voltaire with bells on. The word he’s using is Candide. Ask me what the fuck he’s talking about, I haven’t got a clue. But Baz is convinced he’s got a real line to the kids, always finds the sweet spot, never fails.’

  ‘But what will it do for Pompey First?’

  ‘Spreads the word. Puts it on the map. That’s Makins talking, not me.’

  ‘And Kinder? The pro? What does he think?’

  ‘He’s hedging his bets. The way I read it, the big ask is to get yourself noticed, get yourself talked about. You remember those horrible Benetton ads? Bleeding bodies? People dying of Aids? Boatloads of Albanian refugees? Apparently they worked.’

  ‘Weird.’

  ‘Yeah. But that’s what you have to do these days.’ He shrugged. ‘You want to take a look at this lot?’

  Winter handed over a sheaf of figures. He’d spent most of the afternoon over in Southampton with Bazza’s accountant, checking the health of every arm of the Mackenzie business empire. From Pompey tanning salons to a multi-million-euro retirement complex on the Costa Dorada, he was glad to report that the news was grim.

  Suttle flicked through the figures. Lots were in red. On the fourth page his finger paused on the Kubla Khan investment in Montenegro. He’d known for months about Winter’s Budva adventure. Indee
d, Operation Gehenna owed its very existence to Winter’s night on the carpet in the Hotel Neptun. After that, he’d told Suttle, there was no way back. He and Mackenzie were through.

  Suttle wanted to know if the Russian was still in touch.

  ‘Kokh?’ Winter shook his head. ‘Not a peep.’

  ‘So the Pompey thing? Mr Moneybags?’

  ‘All bullshit. We’ve been dicked, son. The guy’s taken us for a million and a half. We won’t see a penny.’

  ‘And Mackenzie knows that?’

  ‘Mackenzie’s in denial. He thinks there’s a great big moolah tree out there just waiting for us to give it a shake. I tell him there isn’t, and I tell him we’re in the shit, and I stack all the bills up on that great big desk of his, and I ask him very nicely who’s going to pay them, and you know what he says? He says talk to the bank.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘The bank don’t want to know. They used to be into lending. That’s all changed. Some days, son –’ he tapped his head ‘– I think Mackenzie’s got a problem.’

  ‘So what happens?’

  ‘The shit hits the fan …’ Winter grinned ‘… just the way I said it would.’

  Mackenzie and his family were back at Sandown Road by just gone midnight. At Mackenzie’s insistence, Makins had come too. When he’d appeared at the party Bazza had known at once he’d been drinking and now he was determined to help the boy finish the job.

  ‘Scotch? Brandy? Name it, son …’

  They were in the big sitting room at the back of the house. French windows opened onto the south-facing terrace, and during the summer Ezzie’s kids practically lived here. Guy, the oldest, had developed a special run-up that took him the length of the living room, out onto the terrace and thence into the swimming pool, and Marie could always judge the day’s success by the number of tiny wet footprints on the living-room carpet.

  Ezzie was Mackenzie’s daughter, a striking blonde with her mother’s leggy good looks. She’d qualified as a lawyer but after marriage to Stu, a hedge-fund manager, she’d settled down in a big Victorian house nearby. She and Stu had three kids, and sharing Christmas together had, to Marie’s delight, become a family tradition.

  Neither Ezzie nor Stu had met Makins before, and Ezzie in particular was underwhelmed. She believed in the importance of first impressions and could only suppose that Makins had got dressed in the dark. She’d been aware of him from the moment he’d slipped into the party at the hotel, his cargo pants at half-mast, and from the start she had him marked down as a loner. For whatever reason he didn’t make the effort to mix with the other guests and after the third glass of wine he’d had to find somewhere quiet to sit down. He’d remained there for the rest of the evening, his legs crossed, his head slumped, his eyes closed, untroubled by passing revellers. To be frank, she wasn’t surprised. A haircut like that, she thought, would put anyone off.

  Makins had asked for a Bacardi topped with Coke. He’d never been to the house before and was very obviously out of his depth. Busy families talk in code, laugh a lot and tend to ignore anyone who doesn’t get stuck in. By the time Mackenzie returned with the drinks, Makins was in the far corner of the room, pretending an interest in one of Marie’s watercolours. Mackenzie, who could be surprisingly sensitive in situations like these, gave him his drink, took him by the arm and steered him towards the door. His den lay on the other side of the house. He switched on the light, nodded at one of the two chairs and told Makins to make himself at home.

  Makins peered around. The den was a shrine to Bazza’s passion for Portsmouth Football Club. A pinboard was covered with snaps from the 2008 Wembley FA Cup final, while the truly classic shots qualified for proper frames.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Makins nodded at a tall figure with an explosion of wild hair flinging himself across a goal. The shot was tightly framed, with a blur of Pompey faces on the terraces behind.

  ‘David James. On a good day he can be brilliant, and that was a good day.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He saved the penalty. Other days he can lose it completely. That’s why they call him Calamity.’

  Makins laughed. He liked it. Calamity James.

  ‘And that one?’ He indicated another shot.

  ‘Steve Claridge. Pompey legend. Titchfield boy. Not his fault. Old-style centre forward, brave as you like, couldn’t wait to get stuck in, used to run and run all afternoon. He was all elbows and knees, Stevie. Defenders loathed him. No style. No finesse. Just a bagful of goals waiting to happen. Can you imagine someone like him in Hello! magazine? Players like him can be a bit of an embarrassment these days.’

  ‘A bit like Pompey?’

  ‘You mean the club?’

  ‘I mean the city.’

  ‘You think it’s an embarrassment?’

  ‘No, I think it’s everything you say. All elbows and knees. All right angles. This isn’t the prettiest place I’ve ever lived.’

  ‘You’re telling me you know somewhere better?’

  ‘Of course I do. Maybe not better but prettier, more restrained, less in your face all the time.’

  ‘Is that what we are? In your face?’

  ‘Definitely. Maybe it’s the island thing, too many people. We’re all banged up. Wherever you look there are queues. Traffic lights. Shops. The railway station. Car parks. It has to be sorted.’

  ‘Says who?’

  ‘Says me, for starters. But it’s out there on the net. I read this stuff every day. People love living here, don’t get me wrong, especially the students, but then students are dossers by nature, animals really, hunting in packs, so it probably doesn’t affect them. I’m talking older people. You can feel the vibe. They’re pissed off. They want to get things moving.’

  ‘So what do you suggest?’

  ‘I suggest we go with it – launch a new transport policy, frame the thing up properly, make an offer the punters can’t refuse.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘I dunno.’ Makins was relaxing now, back on his own territory, ‘Pompey Fast might be a start.’

  ‘Pompey Fast?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Brilliant, son.’ Bazza gave him a congratulatory pat on the arm and nodded at his glass. ‘Have another one. Happy Christmas, eh?’

  Jimmy Suttle had perfected the art of getting into his house without waking the baby. He stood in the street, feeling for his keys. As far as he could see, the lights were off downstairs. With luck, Lizzie would be asleep as well.

  He fed the key into the lock and slipped inside. At the far end of the hall a tiny strip of light beneath the door told him he was wrong. Lizzie was perched on a stool in the kitchen. She had a pile of presents on one side and rolls of wrapping paper on the other. Late-night jazz was playing very softly on the radio and steam was still curling from the kettle. As far as Suttle could see, none of the presents had been wrapped.

  Lizzie gave him a kiss. She seemed to mean it. She didn’t mention how late it was.

  Suttle dumped his anorak on the tiny two-seat sofa and hunted in the fridge for something to drink. He rarely checked on the state of their booze supply, far from it, but he swore the bottle of vodka had been half full last night.

  ‘It was.’ Lizzie giggled.

  ‘You’re telling me you—’

  ‘We. She’s in the front room. I let her kip over. Insisted, actually.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Gill.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Exactly.’ She started to giggle again, abandoning the scissors and beckoning Suttle closer. Then she kissed him properly, tenderly, running her tongue around his. Suttle responded, trying to mask his surprise. He could feel fingers exploring the zip on his trousers, then the gentlest tug.

  ‘You could fuck me if you want,’ she murmured.

  Suttle could taste the vodka on her breath. He eased himself back an inch or two and then cupped her face in his hands.

  ‘What’s going on?’ he said. ‘What is this?’


  ‘Nothing. Passion. Sex. I love you. I want you. Fuck me. Just fuck me.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Wherever you like.’ She put her tongue in his ear.

  With some difficulty, she discarded her jeans. Then the thong she’d taken to wearing again. Then pulled her T-shirt over her head. Back on the stool, naked except for a pair of ankle socks, she opened her legs.

  ‘Help yourself,’ she said.

  Suttle sank to his knees. She loved oral sex nearly as much as he did. She came within a minute. World record.

  ‘Fuck.’ Suttle was impressed.

  ‘Don’t stop.’

  He bent to her again. This time it took longer. Towards the end she lifted his head and told him to take his clothes off. Then she nodded at the other stool and settled herself on his lap.

  ‘As quick as you like.’ She kissed him. ‘I’m Santa.’

  Suttle wanted to laugh. He couldn’t remember sex like this ever. Not with her. Not with Trude Gallagher, Not with any of the women he’d known. Ten minutes ago he’d been dreaming up clever ways of avoiding a row. Now this.

  She began to move, her eyes half-closed, her hands cupping her own breasts. This, too, was new, and a definite turn-on. Maybe she’s been on the Internet, Suttle thought. Maybe Gill has a favourite site and they’ve been getting in the mood. Seconds later Lizzie came, Suttle too. She clung to him for a long moment. Suttle could feel the thump of her heart through her tiny frame.

  ‘Happy Christmas,’ she whispered. ‘I love you.’

  Misty was asleep when Winter made it back to Hayling Island. The sale on his Gunwharf apartment had finally gone through, and his solicitor had organised completion for 2 January. What was left of his belongings occupied a modest stack of cardboard boxes in the otherwise empty sitting room, and he’d called by to pick a couple more up. These last few weeks he’d been living full time with Misty, an arrangement that seemed to be working remarkably well.

  He returned to the Lexus and carried the boxes into Misty’s hall. She’d cleared a couple of rooms downstairs for the bits of furniture he wanted to keep, pending – in Misty’s phrase – whatever the fuck happened next. This subject, to Winter’s relief, they were both leaving well alone. Misty was sentimental about Christmas, and the last thing she needed was a row. Over the last couple of months he’d noticed a slight reticence on her part, a hint of detachment he’d never seen before, but he’d been careful to fence off the weekends so they could have a bit of time together, and after a couple of drinks things went pretty much the way they’d always gone. Plenty of laughter. Some excellent sex. And still friends next morning.