by John Barlow
He puts the fake note down, then looks around for a waiter and signals for another beer.
“He was really proud of himself,” she says, lowering her voice, “all the secrecy, like he was the Godfather or something.”
“Did you tell anyone about this?”
“Of course not.”
“And you’re sure he gave you these?”
“Sold.”
“Now you’ve gotta be kidding. How much did he charge, just out of interest?”
She raises an eyebrow.
“Twenty-five.”
“Twenty-five pounds?”
“Percent. I paid five pounds for each.”
Which is only partially true. Freddy sold her a thousand pounds’ worth of notes for two hundred and fifty, the majority of which she took to Manchester, using each note to buy a packet of chewing gum, a box of matches, or a can of Coke. Fifty different shops and market stalls over the course of five long and very tedious hours. With all the change she’d bought a ball of hashish the size of a small child’s fist. Not knowing how strict the British drugs laws were, she had transported it back to Leeds the safest way she knew how.
“Here,” he says, pulling out his wallet and handing her three twenty pound notes. “Take these instead.”
“Is the same to me.”
She takes the money as if it’s irrelevant.
His new Corona arrives.
“I used to pass off fake tenners as a kid,” he says, pocketing the three counterfeits then pouring half the beer down his throat. “I’d be about thirteen, fourteen. Joe used to sell me them. We never told Dad…”
Connie sips her spring water and listens, although it is not entirely clear whether he is talking to her.
“…I’d screw ’em into balls, spray ’em with vinegar water, y’know, get some age into the paper. Train to Sheffield or Bradford, up and down the streets, buying a packet of Polos in every newsagents, nine pounds-odd in change every time. Petrol stations, corner shops, amusement arcades, anywhere. I was inventive. By the end of the day I’d usually got rid of forty notes pretty carefully. Back home with a few hundred quid profit. I lived an elegant life at college with the money I saved.”
“Sounds like you enjoyed it.”
“It’s addictive! And every fake tenner netted me about seven quid. You turn a bunch of crumpled paper into hard, untraceable cash. I only did it for a couple of years but Christ it was fun!”
He stops, looking coy.
“I’ve never told anybody that before. I bet you didn’t expect anything like that from me.”
And why the hell did I just tell you?
“It’s good,” she says, takes a drink of water. “A good story.”
“So.” He manoeuvres the last remaining fajita towards his mouth. “This is what we’ve got. Freddy has access to counterfeit money, he’s in love with a prostitute, and he’s spending a lot of time with a couple of dodgy Ukrainian tractor sellers. Living the fucking dream, Freddy lad.”
“I think he looks up to you,” she says.
“Apart from Den, he’s the closest person I’ve got. Snide notes, though? I thought he’d got over his love affair with the criminal world.”
“He’s young.”
“So are you, but I don’t see you getting into this kind of shit.”
She says nothing, casting her mind back to that trip home from Manchester, trying to get comfy on the springy train seat, a turd-sized wedge of marijuana rosin wrapped in a condom constantly threatening to poke its head out of her bum.
“Living the dream!” John repeats, as he looks around the restaurant, trying to think straight.
Something’s not right. A salesman from Tony Ray’s Motors just happens to know how to get fake money? That’s a big coincidence, on top of everything else…
“Come on,” he says, “it’s past ten. I’ll drop you off. Dave’ll be waiting. Hope he hasn’t had an Indian tonight.”
Eighteen
A back-street behind the Grand Theatre. Half way along there’s a Lebanese restaurant, and two doors down a late-night sandwich bar. In between is an old shop front with blacked-out windows and a name plate so discreet you’d miss it unless you knew it was there.
Nominally a public bar, Park Lane is where Lanny Bride’s many business interests are registered and where you come if you need to contact him. John has never been inside, but he had no trouble finding the place.
Joe and Lanny were the same age. Lanny never had much of a family of his own, and by the time he was in his teens Tony Ray’s Motors was where he spent most of his time, kipping down on the office floor more often than not. He and Joe were permanent fixtures in the showroom, where they’d get kicked around by the men and sent out for fags and bacon sandwiches. But when they were fifteen, Lanny picked a fight with one of Tony’s men. They both ended up in hospital, but Lanny was out first, and a couple of months later the other bloke was found face down in the River Aire.
It was then that Lanny and Joe decided to work their own jobs, knocking off small warehouses and wholesalers. Nobody at the showroom complained. The boys had Tony Ray’s backing, but that’s not why nobody complained. It was because of Lanny Bride. He let Joe take a lot of the credit as the two of them worked their criminal apprenticeships, but Lanny was always going to be the one.
These days the Bride empire stretches across northern England and includes restaurants, bars, sandwich shops, amusement arcades, lap-dancing clubs, car washes, motor parts depots, and a thriving import and export business, all profitable and all tax-declared. Drug wholesaling and illegal immigration are amongst the activities he prefers not to declare. But so much cash from these highly lucrative activities is channelled back into his legally registered concerns that the Revenue would be delighted if a blanket exemption from criminal proceedings were placed on Lanny Bride; his overall contribution to the nation’s coffers each year is comfortably into six figures.
John pushes the door open. A person doesn’t have to be a product of his past. That’s what he had told himself, eighteen years old, sitting on a train going south with no intention of coming back. Whatever life had to offer, he’d seek it out far away from Hope Road and the Lanny Brides of this world. Now, after all these years, he’s got the answer. This is exactly what the world is offering him, and now, as he steps inside Park Lane, the carefully constructed line that separates him from the rest of his family disintegrates.
“Damn you, Freddy!” he whispers, smiling to himself, and glancing up the street as if Den might be watching.
The walls glow with blue and purple light that emanates from the floor. The tables are low, on each one a candle in a glass holder, tiny white flame fluttering. The only other light comes from a bar at the back of the room.
He senses the casual attention of about a dozen people, who sit in twos and threes, conversations at a whisper, KD Lang in the background. He moves over to the bar, guided by the light from a glass-fronted cabinet full of Veuve Clicquot.
“John Ray!”
A big, round-shouldered man sits at the bar. Black trousers and black shirt open at the neck, deep tan, a small thicket of chest hair.
“Roberto? Is that you?”
The large man chuckles, raps his knuckles on the bar until a young waiter appears.
“What you havin’?” he asks, his London accent as strong as ever.
“I’ll have a beer, thanks. How long you been working here?”
“Me? Few years. General manager. They put me out to pasture!”
Roberto has worked in and around Leeds for years, but has never lost his accent. He did jobs for John’s dad in the eighties, disappearing briefly during the Old Bailey trial. After that he’d gone his own way, eventually joining Lanny Bride.
“Can’t keep up with the young boys?”
“I could beat the shit out of ’em all if it weren’t for these fuckin’ knees.”
“I know what you mean. About the knees, that is.”
“You? Bad knee
s? What are you, forty?”
“Forty-three. And the meniscus is no respecter of age, Roberto.”
The beer arrives, a bottle of Sol with a bit of lime in the neck.
“Yeah, I know,” the fat man says as they both look at it with contempt.
“Lanny about?”
“Lanny? Nah! Lives in Malta now. Didn’t you know? Got a big place over there, moved the family an’ everything. Don’t see so much of him these days.”
“The other half, eh?”
“Done well for himself.”
KD Lang becomes Diana Krall.
“Good music you’ve got here.”
The fat man nods.
John removes the lime from the Sol, takes a drink.
“Heard your boy’s got a bunk for the night down Millgarth,” says Roberto.
“You guessed this wasn’t a social call, then.”
“Funny, saw him in the paper this morning. You too. Showroom gone legit, eh?”
“Something like that.”
“Who’s the girl?”
“She’s Spanish.”
“Bit young for you, isn’t she?”
“She’s my step half-niece.”
“That’s a new one…”
They pause. Both men know what this is about.
“Donna?” John says. “Donna Macken?”
Pain spreads across the fat man’s face. He shakes his head, as if he wishes John hadn’t asked.
“What a fuckin’ business,” he says. “Twenty-two she was. Did Freddy do it then?”
John shakes his head.
“Not a chance.”
“You got Henry Moran onto it, I hear.”
“News travels fast.”
Roberto says nothing.
“Did you know her?” John asks.
“Donna? Knew her well.” He tuts, as if he’s angry at her for getting herself killed. “Poor kid, but, y’know.” He sighs.
“What?”
“Don’t want to speak ill of the dead.”
“Force yourself.”
He shifts on his stool, rolls his shoulders.
“Great girl, she was. Heart of fuckin’ gold. Cliché, innit? I’d’ve done anything for Donna. Lotta people feelin’ the same way tonight, people who come in here. Lanny included. He had a soft spot for her.” He stops, screws up his face as if he’s squeezing the grief out of his skin. “I don’t care who did it, Freddy or not. Soon as we’re sure… I’m telling you now, John, so as you’ll know…”
“Fair enough. But Donna?”
Roberto sags on his stool, arms out in front of him on the bar.
“Lippy bitch,” he says. “Always had a lot to say for herself. Slightest fuckin’ thing. I’m not joking. I had to throw her out once. Out of here, if you can imagine that.”
“Was she a regular?”
“Here? Yeah. She’d been getting work up at the Radisson, one or two other hotels round about. She’d call in after, or before. In here all the time.”
“Ever seen her with Freddy?”
Roberto looks down. “They were in here together last week, John.”
“It’s okay. I know he had a thing about her. Doesn’t mean he killed her.”
“Course not, course not…”
“Something else, do you know a bloke called Mike Pearce?”
“You don’t know Mike?” Robert asks, confused.
“That’s the second time someone’s asked me that today. When did Mike Pearce get so famous?”
“No, what I mean is, he’s over there in the corner.”
***
“Yeah, I know,” says Mike Pearce before John has had a chance to introduce himself, “you’re Joe’s little brother.” He pulls himself up from a slouch. His voice is tired, his face old, too drawn to express emotion.
John takes a seat.
“Used to see Joe in here all the time,” Pearce says. “Good lad, he was.”
“Yeah, he was.”
“Never your cup of tea, was it, all this?”
His tone is somewhere between punch-drunk and sarcastic.
“Not really.”
“I’ve been down Millgarth most of the day,” Pearce says, “and at midnight I’ve got another shift at the hotel. Fuller’s trying to carry on as normal. What a fucking mess.”
He’s drained and haggard. And he reminds John of the kind of men that used to hang about down at the showroom when he was a kid, men that smelled of diesel and booze and ruffled your hair until it hurt.
Pearce drinks his whisky. “Freddy gets Moran to look after him, and I get a duty solicitor who’s so far up CID’s arse you couldn’t pull him out with a fucking winch.”
“Do you think Freddy killed the girl?”
Pearce looks at him, his eyes watery, half closed.
“Well somebody did and it weren’t me. I’ll tell you what, I’ve got previous, but who’s in the cells tonight? Done time for GBH, I have, twice. And one of ’em I were lucky, it were a bad ’un.”
He says this as if it’s some kind of achievement.
Diana Krall and a string orchestra make a slow start on Why Should I Care? As the two men sit there, John begins to ask himself exactly that.
“Found her in your car, didn’t they?”
John nods.
“Been in for questioning, have you?”
There’s a grim camaraderie in Pearce’s voice.
“You were at the hotel all last night, then they questioned you all today?” John asks.
“A long night. I should’ve locked up and gone home. It’s not like there were any guests.”
“The Ukrainians?”
“Aye, Mr Bilyk! He’s got his own keys. Comes and goes as he pleases.” He drains his glass. “After he went to bed I was there on me own, and I did some thinking.”
“And what did you think, Mike?”
Pearce considers the question for a moment, peering into his empty glass.
“I decided that when they took me in, I’d tell the truth.”
“And did you?”
“That I did. About a dozen times.”
“Fancy giving it one more run-through?”
“Why not?” he says, stifling a yawn and glancing at his watch. “Most nights I come up here, have a chat, you know, see what’s going on. Same as last night. Then I have a few down the Templars, and after that I walk up York Road to the hotel. Keeps me fit. I get there at midnight, same as last night. Same as every night.
“Soon as I get in I do the rounds. There’s only two floors. Walk up and down, have a sniff around. Takes a couple of minutes. So yesterday I see a door hasn’t shut right. I knock. Nothing. Push it open. Lights are on. Room’s smashed up bad. There she is, lying on the floor next to the bed near the door.”
“Was she dead?”
“I knew straight off. Stood there looking at her, don’t know how long. Poor bitch. She could’ve been shit-faced, y’know, passed out. But the way she’d fallen, you wouldn’t fall like that if you were pissed.
“And I panicked. Bloke with my record? I panicked. Went straight to the video room. There was a new tape just gone in. I rewound it. Stupid thing to do. I was thinking, y’know, if she’s dead I’ll deny going into the room. No one saw me. I’ll just say I never. Stupid, I knew it was. I’d had a few. I wish I hadn’t done it. But I did.”
“Was Craig there?”
“He went home, soon as I arrived. Like normal.”
“And you told the police all this, about the tape?”
“I did.”
“If you were so sure she was dead why didn’t you call the police in the first place?”
“What if I’d been wrong? Anyway, I told Fuller. He’s the manager. It was his job.”
“And he rang Bilyk. They walked her out like she was alive. You saw that?”
“Yes. I was watching it on the screen.”
“That security tape. Who normally changes it?”
“It runs twenty-four hours. Person on nights normally changes it,
start of the shift.”
“At midnight?”
“Or just after. I do it after my rounds most nights.”
“But yesterday Craig changed it, before you got there?”
“Yeah. Whoever’s there changes it.”
“You rewinding the tape made Freddy the main suspect.”
Pearce shrugs.
“I told ’em what I did, an’ I told ’em everything I know. Can’t do more than that.”
“What did you tell them about Freddy?”
“Don’t know the boy.”
“You told them that?”
“Yes.”
“And what’s the truth?”
Pearce scratches his chest.
“Works for you, doesn’t he?”
“Yeah.” John doesn’t like the implication much. “So what?”
“I don’t wanna get mixed up.”
“Mixed up in what? I sell cars. This is not the old Ray family.”
“Yeah, well Freddy’s been getting a bit flash if you ask me. Been in here with that young Ukrainian guy, bottles of bubbly, back slapping, all that shit. He’ll be handing out fucking Panatelas next.”
“Fedir?”
“That’s the one.”
“And is he working for them?”
“The Ukrainians? You tell me. He’s been round the hotel often enough.”
“Big shot tractor salesmen, eh? In Leeds?”
“Something like that.”
“Sounds like bullshit to me.”
“And to me, my friend.”
“Did you mention this to the police? About Freddy?”
“Nah.”
“Thought you were gonna tell the whole truth?”
Pearce smiles. “You gonna start poking your nose in everybody’s business, Mr Ray, you better remember what your last name is.”
John can’t work out if this is a threat or advice. He lets it go.
“Donna Macken. Did you know her?”
“Saw her once or twice at the hotel. Poor lass.”
“What kind of girl was she?”
“Like I say, didn’t know her.”
Pearce looks at his watch again.
“Can I get you another?” John asks.
“Aye, why not?”
