The Price Of Darkness

by Hurley, Graham

  Deano said he could. Stuff like that happened everywhere. Gave the sport a bad name.

  ‘Too right. And you know something else? QHM could do bugger all about it. Except it got serious, really serious.’

  ‘How?’ Even Winter was interested.

  ‘Can’t say.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Bazza looked coy for a moment, shook his head, touched the side of his nose with his finger.

  ‘State secret, Baz?’ Mackenzie didn’t do coy.

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘OK, so tell us.’

  ‘All right, then.’ He leaned forward, gesturing the two heads closer. ‘They call it asymmetrical warfare. Out in the Gulf the Navy guys are bricking it. Aircraft carrier, battleship, it doesn’t matter what you’re sitting on. A couple of dozen blokes on jet skis can see you off. Rocket launchers, kamikaze attacks, it doesn’t matter how they do it. Dagger-dagger … boof … and you’re history. A million quid’s worth of guided missiles and there’s still fuck all you can do about it. Sweet, eh?’

  Winter began to wonder where this conversation was leading. Bazza never did anything without writing the script beforehand. What part did he have in mind for Deano?

  Deano was equally curious.

  ‘I don’t get it,’ he said.

  ‘Of course you don’t, son. All I’m trying to say is the QHM, my mate, he’s got a very big problem with blokes on jet skis. Leave out all the macho bollocks about the ferries and bow waves and there’s the real stuff underneath. Week one the ragheads are blowing themselves up on Tube trains. Next thing you know they’re strapping themselves to a load of Semtex and hopping on a jet ski. Comprende?’

  ‘No.’ At least this youth was honest.

  ‘OK. Here’s how it works. The QHM has got himself in a bit of a state. He thinks he’s staring disaster in the face. Fuckwits on jet skis. Everywhere. Plus something much worse down the road. So what does he do? He does the clever thing. He makes some phone calls. He sorts out the blokes who take jet skis seriously. He gets them onside. He asks them to put on a little show, out there in the harbour. And you know what? They do it. They plan it. It all happens. Sixty-odd blokes on jet skis back around May time. All day. Off the naval dockyard. And you know something else? The punters turn up in droves and they just love it. Fancy displays from blokes like you. Free rides if they’re lucky. Brilliant. But you know the best thing of all? The QHM thinks it’s Christmas. From now on, he loves jet skis, can’t get enough of them, and pretty soon someone’s on the phone to Yamaha, and you know what they do? Give him three free ones, three kosher jet skis, so he can add them to the Harbour Patrol. And you know what happens then? The bloke he’s talked to first, the bloke who’s organised the gala day out, all those jollies for the punters, he volunteers to organise a rota for weekends, guys from the club he’s in, so suddenly the QHM finds himself with full cover at weekends, all year round. Sweet, eh? Problem solved.’

  Deano was still having trouble with the small print.

  ‘These blokes are taking on the terrorists?’

  ‘No, son. They’re sorting out the dickheads who’ve been making life on the Harbour a misery. The ragheads are something else. But that’s the whole point, see. It’s the same whatever game you’re in. You set a thief to catch a thief.’ He leant back, shooting a grin at Winter. ‘Ain’t that right, Paul?’

  Winter ignored the dig. He’d spotted a break in the queue but when he got to his feet Mackenzie told him to sit down again.

  ‘The boy’s up against the clock.’ He nodded at Deano. ‘You need to hear this next bit.’

  He turned back to the youth, explained about his brother. Mark had fallen in love with jet-skiing out in Spain. He was no great shakes at it, would never hold a candle to blokes in Deano’s class, but it was a good buzz and a bit of a laugh, plus Mark had ended up on a knockout stretch of coast. The best way of seeing that coast was on a jet ski and Mark had been out on the water whenever he got the chance.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘He hit a rock. Submerged, it was. Not his fault.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He died. The doctor I talked to said he was knocked unconscious, swallowed a lungful of water, ended up drowning. Bloke said he wouldn’t have known a thing about it but he was probably being kind. Either way, it’s the same result. We buried him a couple of days ago.’

  ‘Bummer.’

  ‘You’re right.’ Bazza nodded, looked away for a second or two. Winter was watching his eyes carefully but there was no sign of emotion. Bazza, typically, had moved on. ‘So, son …’ he turned back ‘… question is, what do we do about it?’

  ‘Do about what?’

  ‘My brother. Mark. We need some kind of memorial. There’s no way we’re going to forget him.’

  Deano frowned. Dimly, like Winter, he was beginning to fathom what Bazza had in mind.

  ‘Are we talking jet skis?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘What, exactly?’

  ‘I dunno. That’s why I belled you. That’s why you’re here.’

  He bent into the conversation again, mulling over the possibilities. At first, he said, he’d thought about some kind of parade of jet skis, like a waterborne funeral procession, loads of blokes, loads of people watching, pictures in the paper, flags at half mast, maybe even coverage on TV.

  ‘Where?’ It was Winter this time.

  ‘Pompey.’

  ‘But no one knows Mark there. Not amongst the jet skiers.’

  ‘Exactly. Wank idea. The QHM would stop shipping for a bit while the blokes did the business, I know he would, but you’re right - it doesn’t cut it, we’d be pissing in the wind.’

  ‘So what else do you fancy?’

  ‘Well, then I thought about some kind of statue, Mark in his skiing suit. There’s a launching ramp over at Lee-on-Solent. You could put it there.’

  ‘Same problem, Baz.’ Winter shook his head. ‘No one would have a clue who he was.’

  ‘You’re right. So then I came up with something else. Listen. The Mackenzie Trophy. How does that sound?’

  ‘Trophy?’ Deano had just looked at his watch. ‘Like in Cup?’

  ‘Yeah. A race. A Grand Prix race. The biggest jet-ski race in the country. In Europe. In any-fucking-where. Mega prize money. Sponsorship. Telly. Lots of fanny in little bikinis. Loads of celebs. Huge crowds. Plus people like you, Deano, the top blokes, the cream of the fucking cream, all fighting for the Mackenzie Trophy.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Pompey. Spithead. Every year.’ Bazza spread his hands wide, the sorcerer, the showman, the guy who makes things happen. ‘Genius, eh? And you know something else?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The QHM loves it.’

  It was nearly half past nine before the officer at the front desk rang to say that Stephen Benskin had arrived. Faraday grunted an acknowledgement and went next door to fetch an extra chair. D/C Tracy Barber was on standby to join him for the interview. When she put her head round his office door he asked her to sort out some coffees while he fetched the property developer from downstairs.

  Benskin was a squat, powerfully built man in his early forties. His closely razored hair had left a blueish shadow on his pale skull and he wore his lightly striped grey suit with the restless impatience of a nightclub bouncer.

  ‘Mr Benskin?’

  Benskin turned to face Faraday, tossing the copy of the Force news-sheet he’d been reading onto the counter. His eyes were hard, more black than brown, and the lines on his face, deeply etched, spoke of a sense of almost permanent irritation. Here was a man unused to being kept waiting.

  ‘And you are … ?’

  ‘D/I Faraday. You’ll have talked to my colleague, D/C Suttle.’

  Benskin’s handshake was firm. He looked Faraday in the eye a second or two longer than was necessary, watched him punch the numbers into the door lock, then followed him upstairs.

  Tracy Barber was already unloading the coffees onto
Faraday’s desk. Benskin caught her eye before Faraday had a chance to do the introductions.

  ‘You do tea as well?’

  ‘Whatever.’

  ‘If you don’t mind, love. Earl Grey if you’ve got it.’

  The word ‘love’ brought Barber to a halt beside the door. She might have been a year or two younger than this man but she always stood her ground.

  ‘The name’s D/C Barber,’ she said, ‘next time you want to ask a favour.’

  Benskin watched her leave, his thin mouth curled in what might have been a smile.

  ‘Stroppy,’ he said softly. ‘We like that.’

  Faraday ignored the comment. By the time Barber returned with the tea, he’d established that Benskin had been in his apartment in Limehouse on Monday night. He’d spent the evening working on his laptop in preparation for yesterday’s meeting in Barcelona. This morning he’d driven across to Wimbledon to pick up Sally and bring her down to Portsmouth. To be frank, he said, he thought she was still in shock.

  ‘She’s a strong woman, Sally.’ Benskin was watching Barber. ‘But no one can really handle something like this.’

  ‘I’m sure you’re right. How well did you know them? As a couple?’

  ‘As well as I know anyone. Better probably. People say there’s no sentiment in my game. That’s a lie.’ He threw the phrase out like a challenge.

  ‘You’ve been together how long? You and Mr Mallinder?’

  ‘Eight years. Give or take.’

  ‘You knew him before?’

  ‘Before when?’

  ‘Before you went into business together.’

  ‘Yeah, by reputation I did. He was with another firm, much bigger. He put together some bits of land in Slough. I liked the way he did it. Land assembly in a place like that can easily turn into a nightmare. He did it brilliantly. No drama. Everyone still mates at the end.’

  ‘The name of this firm?’ The question came from Barber. Benskin was looking at the notebook open on her lap.

  ‘What’s the form here?’ He addressed the question to Faraday.

  ‘It’s an interview, Mr Benskin. We ask the questions; you tell us about your partner. You’ll appreciate our need to know. At this stage in the inquiry, to be frank, we’re pretty much in the dark about what your firm’s been up to. Pretend we know nothing. Just make that assumption.’

  ‘I never make assumptions. Is this on the record?’

  ‘D/C Barber keeps notes but you’re not under caution so none of this is admissible.’

  ‘In court, you mean?’

  ‘Of course.’ Faraday offered him a cold smile. He wanted to know more about Benskin, Mallinder. Had Benskin been operating on his own before Mallinder’s arrival?

  ‘No. I was with another company. Not Mallinder’s outfit.’

  ‘So the business started with the pair of you?’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘Equal shares?’

  ‘Down the middle. Jonno bought one kind of expertise to the table, me another. We were a perfect fit. That’s the way I saw it from the off and that’s the way it played out.’

  ‘What was Mallinder’s …’ Faraday frowned ‘… special talent?’

  ‘Negotiation. Face to face, he was awesome. He could strip the flesh from your bones and you’d still be smiling when they carted you off. To be frank, I never quite worked out how he did it. Maybe it’s a Jewish thing. Maybe it’s in the blood. When he needed to be, he was ruthless as hell. But you still loved the guy, regardless.’

  ‘And your special talent?’

  ‘Pretty much everything else. Sorting out the money side. The legal side. The contracts. Jonno was the guy for the big picture, the headline coup. That stuff, it’s all vision and timing. Some people love it. Jonno adored it. It’s like the Lord Mayor’s Show. He needed to be in the golden carriage, he needed the attention. Me? I swept up afterwards.’

  ‘Was that ever a problem?’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

  ‘Mallinder grabbing the limelight?’

  ‘Christ, no. At the end of the day it’s about profit, and like I say we carved the turkey fifty-fifty. Jonno was a class operator, don’t get me wrong, but most of these deals turn to ratshit unless you get the small print right.’

  ‘And that was your job?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Faraday nodded, waiting for Barber’s racing pencil to catch up. He’d stationed a cassette recorder on his desk and cued it before the interview, but psychologically there were advantages to writing the key facts down. Benskin was on the record and he knew it.

  ‘Talk me through those first few years,’ Faraday said.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it may help. Unless, of course, you’ve got a problem with any of that …’ The smile again, even chillier.

  Benskin shook his head, said it didn’t matter. Once they’d got the business up and running, he and Jonno had cut their teeth on small brownfield sites in prime commuting country around London. Already it was obvious that New Labour had a big problem with the lack of new housing starts and a business opportunity was staring them in the face.

  ‘It all boils down to votes,’ he said. ‘The punters who’ve moved out to the country don’t want some bloody great new estate spoiling their view. But the people left behind in the cities can’t find anywhere to live. So what can politicians do without pissing anyone off? Easy. First off, they commission a survey. The survey finds all kinds of wasted space in what us lot call the urban environment. Derelict land, old warehousing, knackered shops, whatever. Each of these little bits of land could support half a dozen starter homes or a smallish block of flats so next they pass a bunch of laws that force local authorities to start taking this kind of shit seriously. They have to find room to house people. So they start looking round for likely sites and - hey - guess who’s got there before them?’

  ‘You.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  Benskin was beginning to relax now. This was his story, the narrative that had shaped his professional life, and it wasn’t hard to sense a boastful pride in the way Benskin, Mallinder had set about turning a housing crisis into a personal fortune.

  ‘What kind of scale are we talking here?’

  ‘We started with a couple of punts in Enfield. Horrible area but they worked a treat. We assembled four parcels of land, sold them on to a builder or another property developer, and made money on the turn. This wasn’t rocket science but pretty quickly we realised where we were going wrong.’

  Their mistake, he said, was selling for cash. On a slowly rising market that would have made sense. But post-9/11, once the world had settled down, house prices had gone barmy. On average a competent builder could throw a block of six flats up in under a year. But within that time, you might have been looking at a 15 per cent rise in the market.

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘We started selling for cash plus.’

  ‘Plus what?’

  ‘Plus a slice of the proceeds of sale. Gross, of course.’

  ‘How big a slice?’

  Benskin looked at Faraday, disbelieving, then shook his head.

  ‘That’s commercial. In confidence. I’m here to help you out with Jonno. Why would you need to know this kind of detail?’

  ‘Because it might help.’

  ‘With what?’

  ‘The bigger picture.’

  ‘Really?’ He thought about the proposition then shook his head. ‘No way. Sorry, guys.’

  ‘OK.’ Faraday shrugged. ‘But it made you money?’

  ‘Of course it did. That’s what businessmen do.’

  ‘A lot of money?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So what did you do next? More of the same?’

  ‘Of course. Because the situation, deep down, hadn’t really changed. People still needed somewhere to live. Plus we were getting swamped with immigrants, especially round London. They were pouring in. More heads. More roofs. Most politicians liv
e in la-la land. They haven’t a clue what’s going on out there, they’re a complete waste of space. People like us were different. Jonno and I lived and breathed it every day of our working lives. We’d developed a business model you wouldn’t believe. We couldn’t stop making money. Still can’t, actually.’

  Tracy Barber had put her notebook aside for a moment. Faraday gave her a nod.

  ‘I’m not quite clear about this business model of yours,’ she said. ‘What exactly was so special about you two?’

  ‘We travelled light.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘It means we never got suckered into full-blown development. We didn’t have huge offices. We kept staffing levels incredibly low, just a handful of the kind of people we really needed. Businessmen talk a lot about vertical integration. That means land purchase, outline planning permission, full-spec drawings, sorting out a builder, advertising for punters, the whole kaboodle until the moment Mister and Missus step into their nice new house. There are loads of people in that game, loads of them, and we always thought they were carrying too much fat. The truth is, vertical integration can be a pain in the arse. Every day you’re looking at another hassle - builders, planners, the utilities people, punters, you name it. Jonno and me? We spotted opportunities, assembled land, got outline planning permission, cast a fly or two and then moved on. You know what they started calling us in the business? The Ghost Squad. Brilliant. Jonno loved it.’

  Tracy nodded and reached for her pad. Faraday’s turn.

  ‘And it’s stayed that way? Land assembly? Selling on?’

  ‘Basically, yes. Though naturally we became more ambitious.’

  Three years ago, he said, they’d got wind of a town-centre parcel of land in Farnham in Surrey. Not a huge site but absolutely prime commuting country. Within a month or two some neighbouring land came on to the market. Put the two bits of land together and they were tantalisingly close to a fourteen-townhouse development.

  ‘That’s significant? Fourteen houses?’

  ‘Very. Put up more than fourteen houses and you had to make provision for social housing. Nowadays it’s worse. Nowadays it’s only ten houses. But either way, that means getting the scrotes in, and that means lowering the tone. In a fourteen-unit development in the middle of Farnham we were talking 450K a pop, easy. Ask people to live alongside families on benefit, and you’d be lucky to see 300K. Aggregate the difference and you’re talking over two million quid. We can all do the maths. It’s simple. It’s just a fact of life.’