A Life for a Life

by Andrew Puckett

  He watched Sebi work it out, hoping he wouldn’t spot the obvious flaws.

  ‘All right, but I don’t believe it.’

  He quickly left the room and came back a few moments later with a slim book. Tom opened it and flicked the pages – it was well filled.

  ‘Have the police seen this?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Could I keep it for a day or two?’

  ‘No, I don’t like the idea of that.’

  A push too far… ‘Fair enough. I’ll need a little time to look at it here, then.’

  He took Sebi’s silence for acquiescence and turned his attention to the book. The obvious thing to do was note down any names that sounded like firms, although his gut feeling was that it was more likely to be under a name like Paul or Stephanie… or maybe he should look at the latest entries for each letter…

  He took out his notebook and had reached E when Sebi got up and looked out of the window.

  ‘It’s Dad, excuse me…’ He left the room again.

  Tom thought quickly. Flint senior would almost certainly take a dim view of his presence. Should he take the book and run for it? No… He turned to the very end, where he himself sometimes noted numbers that didn’t fit anywhere else… Sure enough, there were three, headed F, P and one on its own. He scribbled them down and had just put his notebook away when a bullfrog of a man strode into the room.

  ‘You can hand that over right now,’ he said, standing over Tom with outstretched paw.

  ‘OK,’ said Tom equably and held it up. It was snatched away.

  ‘Now, who the hell are you?’

  Tom stood up and produced his ID, then watched as the man studied it. He was over six feet, smartly dressed and with a handsome face that was just beginning to run to dissipation. He looked about fifty.

  He flicked the card back to Tom. ‘My son said you had a notebook – I’ll trouble you for that as well.’ He held out his hand.

  Tom said, ‘I am speaking to Dr Flint, I assume?’

  ‘Mister Flint – I’m a surgeon.’

  ‘Well, Mr Flint, the address book is yours, or at least, your son’s – but the notebook is mine.’

  ‘Not the information you wrote in it.’

  Tom smiled and shook his head. ‘Your son, who is his mother’s executor, allowed me to copy it, and the notebook and its contents are mine.’

  Flint dropped his hand. ‘All right… if that’s your attitude, you can get out.’ He gestured towards the door.

  As Tom passed him, Flint grabbed the fingers of his right hand and, bending them apart, forced his arm up behind his back. ‘Get it, Sebi, quick!’

  Tom struggled, but his fingers were twisted further apart and his arm yanked up. ‘Keep still… Come on, Sebi…

  As Sebi reluctantly came forward, Tom glanced down, took aim and slammed his heel on to Flint’s instep as hard as he could – the instep being the second most sensitive body part of the human male.

  Flint gave a gratifying howl and collapsed on to the floor, nursing it.

  ‘What have you done?’ said Sebi.

  ‘Stepped on his toe,’ said Tom. ‘Excuse me.’

  Sebi went over to his father as Tom left the room. ‘That’s assault,’ he shouted after him. ‘I’ll have the police on to you for this.’

  Next to Sebi’s Nissan was a very smart black Mercedes sports car, the sort that quietly makes a Porsche look like a toy. Being a surgeon evidently paid even better than a rep on the make, Tom reflected.

  His car phone was ringing as he got to the Cooper.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Tom, it’s Agnes. I still haven’t been able to contact him.’

  ‘I think I’d worked that out,’ Tom said and told her what had happened.

  She sighed. ‘You’d better get down here and we’ll put a statement together…’

  After they’d done it, they phoned Garrett, then took it along to him at the police station.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us about the address book?’ Garrett demanded after he’d read the statement.

  ‘I assumed you’d already seen it.’

  ‘Then why not ask us about it instead of barging in where you’re not wanted? All right, I know, you were only doing your job… Were you intending to stay in Avon much longer, Mr Jones?’

  ‘I’d have been on my way home by now if it wasn’t for this.’

  ‘Well, you can do me a favour by doing that and staying there, sir. We’ll sort out Mr Flint.’

  In the event, they went back to Agnes’ office and tried the phone numbers Tom had found. There was a chiropractor, a health farm, a personal friend, and, most surprisingly, a dating agency. But there was no stockbroker.

  *

  Fraser continued going to the English classes with the Romanians, but one look, or listen rather, to the machine shop was enough for him and he went to the library instead. After flicking through a few thrillers, he decided on impulse to read Don Quixote – Cervantes had written it in prison, so the least he could do was read it.

  Mary came to see him.

  ‘How is she, Mary?’

  ‘She’s doing well. Once she’s through with this round of treatment, she’ll come and see you herself.’

  Agnes came and told him about her adventures with Tom. He smiled when he heard about Charlie Flint’s foot.

  ‘At least he seems to be taking it seriously,’ he said.

  He came to value the exercise periods above all. It could so easily have driven him mad, he thought, the sights and sounds of freedom: the sea, the gulls, the comings and goings of the boats; instead, they became the things that kept him sane, saved him from becoming institutionalised.

  There was a black fishing-boat that puttered back every afternoon from somewhere or other, a gin palace that had plenty of visitors but never seemed to go anywhere (although the owners couldn’t be that loaded, he thought, or they’d have found a more prestigious location) and a scruffy little cruiser moored to the wharf on the seaward side of the ship that a man came to work on every morning. He obviously kept his equipment on board, because he arrived in fairly tidy jeans and T-shirt, vanished below and then reappeared in a boiler suit.

  *

  One evening about a week after he’d arrived, Fraser was waiting in the queue for the phone. It was fifteen minutes before lock-up and he was twitching with impatience, moving his weight from one foot to the other. With five minutes to go, the man ahead of him put the phone down and turned away. Fraser was moving forward when, from nowhere, someone stepped in front of him and picked it up.

  ‘Hey!’ said Fraser. ‘Excuse me…’

  The man turned and looked at him. ‘Gotta n’urgent call – aw righ’?’ He was about an inch shorter than Fraser with a round face, cropped hair and small pale blue eyes. He turned back to the phone.

  ‘No, it’s not all right,’ Fraser said as someone behind him murmured:

  ‘Leave it, mate, jus’ leave it…’

  The man turned again and fixed Fraser with his eyes. ‘You dunno ’oo I am, do ya?’

  ‘No, and I don’t care,’ Fraser said. ‘You’re—’

  He didn’t get any further because the man’s forehead crunched into his nose and then his fist sank into his belly. He gagged and fell to his knees.

  ‘What’s this then?’ Humber, one of the senior officers, had appeared. ‘What you playing at, Sutton?’

  Sutton said, ‘Jockstrap ‘ere tried to push in front of me an’ got nasty when I wouldn’t let ’im.’

  ‘He’s lying,’ Fraser croaked from the floor.

  The officer turned to the others. ‘What happened?’

  There was a pause. Sutton stared at the man behind Fraser who said reluctantly, ‘It was like Sutton said.’ The two others murmured agreement.

  ‘All right, let’s be ’aving you…’ Humber and another who’d joined him hauled Fraser to his feet and led him away to the first aid station.

  ‘So what really happened?’ he asked as he cleaned up
Fraser’s nose.

  ‘He pushed in front of me and did this when I objected.’ His nose felt twice its normal size.

  ‘Thought it’d be somethin’ like that.’

  ‘Then why didn’t you—’

  ‘Because it’s your word against Sutton and three others. No one argues with Mickey Sutton.’

  ‘But that’s intimidation… Who’s running this place, you or him?’

  ‘Listen, Callan – one day Sutton’s goin’ to slip up an’ when he does, we’ll hit him like a hundred tons of shit. But until then, you keep away from him. OK?’

  ‘But—’

  ‘You’re not listening, Callan… I said, keep – away – from – him. Right?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘He’ll get his someday, I promise you that, but don’t you have any part of it.’

  Back in his cell, he told the others, who simply repeated what Humber had said.

  ‘Him bad guy,’ Ilie said. ‘Don’t mess.’

  Petru had a bad summer cold and was even more taciturn than usual. He’d never been as friendly as Ilie, and Fraser didn’t know whether it was because Petru resented him or whether he was just naturally that way.

  He rolled another cigarette and lit it and broke into a fit of coughing, interspersed with Romanian swearing. He didn’t put the fag out, though. Ilie caught Fraser’s look and shrugged.

  After lights out, Fraser couldn’t sleep, partly because of the pain in his nose and belly and partly because Petru was making even more noise than usual – a mixture of snores, coughs and groans. As Fraser listened, the groaning got worse. Ilie said something in Romanian that probably meant Shut up, but Petru seemed beyond hearing.

  Fraser sat up suddenly, listened a few more moments, then threw back the bedclothes and gingerly climbed down the ladder. Ilie opened his eyes and grumbled. Petru suddenly gave a deeper groan and tried to turn as he vomited. It spilled over the bed and floor.

  ‘Ah fuckit,’ said Ilie, reverting to English.

  ‘He’s ill,’ Fraser said. ‘I mean, really ill…’

  Ignoring the vomit, he felt Petru’s forehead, which was burning hot. He put his hand under the back of his head and tried to bend it forward, but Petru’s neck remained absolutely rigid. He pulled back the bedclothes, felt under Petru’s knee and eased his leg up, then tried pushing it down again… it wouldn’t move. He examined his chest and belly, but couldn’t see anything, so he rolled him over – Ah! About a dozen purple spots covering both cheeks.

  ‘Meningococcal meningitis,’ he said, as much to himself as Ilie. He went to the door and pounded on it with his fists. ‘Hey, boss,’ he shouted. ‘Guv, come here, quick!’

  Footsteps and a voice: ‘All right, all right… you’d better have a fucking good reason for this, Callan.’

  ‘It’s Petru…’ Fraser couldn’t remember his surname. ‘He’s ill, he’s got meningitis.’

  ‘How the fuck would you know… oh yeah, you’re a doctor, aren’t you?’

  Keys rattled and the door opened. ‘Christ, what a mess. Are you sure it’s meningitis?’

  ‘I’m certain, and if he doesn’t have treatment, now, he’ll die.’

  ‘All right.’ He sent the other officer who’d just arrived to call the prison doctor.

  By the time the doctor arrived ten minutes later, Petru was visibly worse. He’d vomited again although he was barely conscious, and the rash had spread. The doctor quickly examined him.

  ‘Any other symptoms?’ he asked Fraser.

  ‘He’s Kernig’s sign positive,’ Fraser said, pointing to Petru’s leg.

  ‘So he is. It’s meningococcal meningitis all right – call an ambulance,’ he said to one of the officers, who sped away. ‘I hope to God we’re in time…’ He filled a syringe with penicillin as he spoke, injected it straight into a vein, then followed it with another of sulphonamide. Then he turned to Fraser. ‘Have either of you two got any symptoms?’

  Fraser looked at Ilie, then shook his head.

  ‘Better take these to be on the safe side.’ He gave them some sulphonamide tablets.

  The officer came back. ‘It’s on its way,’ he said.

  ‘Good. Now we’d better check all the others…’

  Petru was taken away quickly, but it was nearly two hours before all the other prisoners on the wing were checked and Fraser and Ilie had cleaned up the cell.

  Fraser tried to phone Frances in the morning, but no sooner had he reached the phone than Sutton appeared.

  ‘Piss off,’ he said to Fraser as he picked up the phone.

  With clenched jaw, Fraser did as he was told. Sutton waited until he was out of sight before handing the phone to the next man.

  Fraser was worried the same thing would happen in the evening and was going to ask someone to phone Frances for him when the news reached him that Sutton wouldn’t be bothering him for a while. He’d gone down with meningitis and had been taken to hospital. He was the only other person on the ship to get it.

  That evening, Humber sauntered past Fraser. ‘How the hell did you do it?’ he murmured and went on his way.

  All round the ship, people looked at him with respect, even awe. He decided not to enlighten them.

  Both Petru and Sutton recovered quickly and were back after a few days. Petru was pathetically grateful and couldn’t do enough for him. Sutton left him alone.

  18

  The English of the two Romanians, especially Ilie’s, improved dramatically with Fraser’s help, and after a game of chess one evening, he told Fraser their story

  They’d been born in the same village about fifty miles from Bucharest and their parents had been peasant farmers, impoverished, but not unhappy. Then, when the boys were ten, Ceausescu’s master plan had been unveiled. One morning, the police had herded the entire population into temporary huts while the bulldozers razed every building to the ground.

  ‘Even the church,’ Ilie said, his face twisted with hatred.

  ‘Are you religious?’ Fraser asked.

  ‘No, but my mother and father were. And my mother’s mother and father – it kill them.’

  High-rise blocks of flats were jerry-built over the ruins and the villagers forced to live in them.

  ‘Petru,’ Ilie said, indicating him with a thumb, ‘they make him help build.’

  ‘What was your house like,’ Fraser asked, ‘before that?’

  ‘Small. Very small, but better than flats.’

  There was no work for them in the new order; after a while, their parents could no longer afford to feed them and the boys were forced to move to Bucharest. They found work and tried to send money to their families, but things got worse and worse and one bad winter, all their families except Petru’s mother died.

  Then came the coup and Ceausescu was deposed and shot.

  ‘Nothing change,’ said Petru darkly. ‘Should have shot all…’

  ‘Same people rule us,’ said Ilie.

  They’d tried going home, but there were still only the bleak flats and no work. Even when the regime became more liberal, it was still difficult to earn more than enough for the basic necessities.

  Then Petru’s mother had died. When he went through her effects, he found a gold pendant, a family heirloom he hadn’t known existed. Normally, the state would have confiscated it, but Ilie had black market contacts, so they sold it and decided to use the money to come to Britain.

  ‘Why Britain?’ Fraser asked.

  ‘Is most… generos…?’

  ‘Generous,’ Fraser said. ‘Liberal.’

  ‘Da! Yes.’

  They’d been transported across Europe in a succession of old trucks and even older vans, usually with groups of gypsies. Ilie spoke the word with undisguised contempt – non-judgemental principles were evidently a concept unknown to him.

  In France, they were sewn into the canvas sides of freight wagons bound for Britain through the Channel Tunnel.

  ‘Oh, come on,’ Fraser said in disbelief.

 
; ‘Is true! Is true!’

  ‘What about food?’

  ‘No food, little water only. No want piss.’

  ‘How long were you in there?’

  ‘Two, three day.’

  They’d suffered cold to the point of hypothermia during the actual journey, then they’d been shunted into a marshalling yard and left. They’d waited till dark before cutting their way through the ceiling of the wagon. Petru had gone first, reaching for the cable conveniently placed overhead only to find it was electrified and badly burning his hands. He held them up now for Fraser to see – they were still scarred.

  They’d had no idea of what to do or where to go, and before long they were both arrested. This was just as well in some ways; Petru couldn’t have gone on much longer and, as it was, he had to stay in hospital for a week.

  Their pleas for asylum had been turned down and they were charged with illegal immigration. They were offered better terms for informing on the people who’d brought them over, but the organisation had covered their trail too well.

  ‘Is fuck up,’ said Petru, a man of few words.

  ‘Do we have chance at trial?’ Ilie asked Fraser.

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll ask my lawyer if you like.’

  He asked Agnes, who said they’d almost certainly be found guilty and then either deported immediately, or imprisoned for a few months first. Either way, they’d end up back in Romania.

  *

  The bolt fell the following week.

  At visiting time, Mary wouldn’t meet his eyes. Her own were red and swollen.

  ‘What is it, Mary, what’s happened?’

  ‘Oh Fraser, she’s relapsed. She’s really ill and I don’t know what’s going to…’ She began crying while Fraser sat stunned. He remembered now that Frances had seemed distracted on the phone the evening before but, wrapped in his own problems, he hadn’t really paid attention at the time. He reached out and covered Mary’s hands with his.

  ‘Have you spoken to Dr Saunders?’

  ‘Yes…’ She gathered herself up and dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. ‘He says they’re going to stabilise her, get her into remission again and then go for a marrow transplant.’ She told him how they’d already taken blood from her for matching and that Frances’ brother in Africa was flying over. ‘Fraser, what are her chances?’