by David Thorne
22
I SHOULD HAVE known that Gabe would not stand by helplessly while other men accused him of a crime that he did not commit. I should never have underestimated him. When I get home the next evening he is in my kitchen, sitting still at the table, back straight; in his bearing and the fix of his eyes he radiates intent. It is the same certainty and resolve he carried back with him from war zones when he was on leave, an impression of strength which enabled him to lead men into action, into mortal danger. And which, I suspect, put the fear of God into his enemies.
‘Hey,’ I say.
Gabe nods at me. ‘Daniel.’
‘Thought you were away.’
‘Found better things to do.’
I am still holding my bag and I put it on the floor. ‘Like?’
‘Like finding out exactly what the fuck is going on.’
Gabe is still looking at me and I know without a doubt that he has found out, if not everything, then enough about what is happening that this conversation will not be an easy one.
‘And?’ I say.
‘You might want to sit down.’
I pull out a chair, sit opposite him. Gabe is my best friend; what is between us here, right now, is the biggest test our friendship has ever faced. The situation I have placed him in is unforgivable. The atmosphere is as tense as before the main card on fight night.
‘Go on then,’ I say.
‘Question is,’ says Gabe, ‘where to start.’
Gabe began with what he knew: that Doolan and Akram had planted a murder weapon on his property. In the army he had spent days, weeks keeping enemy positions under surveillance, lying in jungle, deserts, rivers. Watching Doolan and Akram from the comfort of his car was no great hardship.
‘Don’t seem to do a lot of police work,’ he says. ‘All their best friends are criminals.’
He shadowed them as they carried out their duties as officers of the law, or failed to. He followed them to snooker halls, car scrapyards, waited outside a flat while they used prostitutes, saw them collect money from a doorman outside a nightclub. That they were corrupt was clear; they seemed to have less regard for the law than the criminals they mixed with. But it still did not answer the question: why him?
Four days ago he waited in his car opposite the police station for Doolan and Akram to come out. They got into their car and he followed them out of town, kept well back as they drove too fast through leafy villages where commuter bankers lived with their perfect families in seven-hundred-year-old coach houses worth two million upwards. Their presence in these idyllic surroundings seemed wrong, like coming across a drunk at a children’s party; Doolan and Akram belonged amongst the lost and desperate and morally bereft, not in this respectable paradise.
They pulled up outside a large converted barn which had a Porsche and a brand-new Mercedes parked on the raked gravel in front. Gabe watched them get out and open a rustic five-bar gate, walk to the front door. A small boy answered and Doolan bent down, hands on his knees, to speak to him. As he spoke a man appeared behind the boy. He took a look at Doolan and Akram and put his hands on the boy’s shoulders, turned him away from the policemen and back into the house.
Doolan showed his badge to the man, spoke to him while Akram looked on. The man shook his head, kept shaking it, no no no. Gabe could hear nothing of the conversation; all he could hear was birdsong from the woods next to the house, the coo of a pigeon. Doolan said something to Akram and he laughed, and the man in the doorway put both hands to his head as if protecting himself from falling debris. Doolan and Akram took a couple of paces back and waited for the man to regain his composure. Eventually the man put his hands down. Doolan said something – Gabe caught the word ‘soon’ – and pointed once at the man before they both walked away.
Gabe followed the policemen back into town, wondering what he had just witnessed, what they could want with a man like that. They had not placed him under arrest, but whatever they had said had terrified him, caused him to act as if the world was falling in on top of him. Back in town, Doolan and Akram pulled up outside a bar called Karma. The day was warm and they sat at an outside table. A woman brought Doolan a beer and he drank it in two hits before leaning back in his chair, watched the world pass in lazy satisfaction.
‘You know whose bar that is.’ Gabe is not asking me a question.
‘I know.’
The bar they were in, Karma, is owned by Vincent Halliday; it is one of the many businesses he uses to wash his profits from drugs and running brothels. Halliday and another man came out of the bar, joined Doolan and Akram, shook them both by the hand. From Gabe’s description I guess the other man was Kane. They spoke for some time, then Halliday stood, shook the policemen’s hands once more, gave them a set of keys. They all laughed, entirely at ease, as if there was no inherent contradiction in two police officers enjoying the hospitality of a known gangster.
‘You’ve got history with this guy, right?’
‘Something like that,’ I say.
‘So at this point, I’m starting to wonder,’ says Gabe.
I do not respond. I can imagine where this is all heading, but I will let Gabe take me there. He knows that he has got me on a hook and this is his method of payback, leading me along his journey, drawing out my shame and culpability. Fuck it. I deserve it.
‘Go on.’
Doolan and Akram drove to a flat, used the keys to get in. It was the same flat they had visited before, above a launderette, where young women, some little more than girls, had sex with men for money. Only this time, it was on Halliday, his treat. He’d given them the keys, given them the run of the place. What had they done to earn this privilege?
I stand up, take a bottle of Scotch down from my kitchen cupboard. Listening to Gabe put the case against me is not easy. I need some help. I wave the bottle at him, holding it by its neck, but he shakes his head. I find a glass, pour, come back and sit opposite him again. Gabe raises an eyebrow and I drink, nod him to go on, drink again. I feel a hit of warmth in my chest and pour more Scotch. I do not know how much longer I can meet Gabe’s pale and level gaze. I cannot read the emotions behind it. Hurt? Anger? Disappointment? Gabe, I am so sorry.
‘So I go back to see that guy.’
‘Okay.’
‘Tell him I’m from the police, internal, tell him we deal with corruption within the force.’
I nod in appreciation. ‘Good move.’
‘Guy’s so desperate, he doesn’t even ask for ID. Looks at me like I’ve been sent by God himself.’
It turned out the man was a property developer who had invested several hundred thousand of Halliday’s money in a resort he was building in Spain, a holiday complex twenty miles up the coast from Marbella. But Spain’s economy went south at the same time as construction started going up, and three months in, the man pulled the plug on the project, Halliday’s money quickly following down the drain.
The man was a perfectly respectable businessman who had made his initial fortune trading derivatives before moving into property, building a portfolio worth, he didn’t know, took a guess at seventy million, could be more. He wrote off the Spanish project as one of those things, the risk everybody takes when investing. Halliday, though, could not accept the loss of his investment with such equanimity. He wanted it back. He didn’t get it back, the man would have to pay in other ways.
I nod as I listen to Gabe. Sicking Doolan and Akram on the man made sense. From Halliday’s perspective, the problem with dealing with the respectable business world was that as soon as you put the frighteners on them, they went to the police. Not something they could do if the people putting the pressure on were the police. No wonder the man was frantic. No wonder he was so pleased to see Gabe. Doolan and Akram had told him they’d set him up, expose him as a child abuser, a paedophile. Did he know what happened to people like that in prison?
‘So, Doolan and Akram are working for Halliday. Halliday’s got history with you. I’m starting to think, maybe
what’s going on, maybe it’s got nothing to do with me.’
‘Gabe—’ I say, but he holds up his hand.
‘So, there’s this guy hangs out with Halliday. Halliday, he never goes anywhere. But this other guy, always doing his business. Always laughing, got this dopey smile.’
‘Kane.’
Gabe does not seem surprised that I know him. ‘So I follow him, see what he’s up to. He meets this kid, big kid, got his hand bandaged up. Been knocked about.’
I pour more Scotch, do not meet his gaze.
‘I stick around, talk to this kid. Ask him what happened to his hand. He tells me you did it. Same with his face.’
‘Maz.’
‘That’s him. And that’s more than coincidence now. Halliday, now this kid. I’ve never met them, seems you’ve got business with both of them.’
The irony is that I met Maz because of CJ; he had nothing to do with Gabe’s story. But the local underworld is a small place and it does not surprise me that Maz is connected to Kane. Whatever, doesn’t matter. I owe Gabe an explanation, have owed it for weeks now. He knows enough. Time to level.
But before I can speak the front door opens and I hear Maria and CJ, their voices in the hall. They come into the kitchen, busy talking, see us. Maria knows about Gabe, what he is going through; she goes straight over to him, gives him a kiss. CJ stops, sees me, smiles.
‘Hey, Daniel,’ she says shyly.
‘Hi, CJ.’
Gabe and Maria have known each other for years, played tennis together when they were growing up; Gabe is more of an older brother to her than a friend. And I know Gabe as well as I know myself. He will not bring his problems to Maria, will not let them affect her. He stands up, says, ‘I was just leaving.’
‘Stay,’ says Maria. ‘Eat with us. You look like you need it.’
Maria is right; Gabe is unshaven, and although he has always been whip thin I can see more bone structure in his face than I have before and his eyes look deeper in his face, their pale blue sunk in dark holes.
‘Another time,’ he says, and he says it tersely so that Maria stops and hesitates, unsure of how to react.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘But don’t be a stranger.’
I follow Gabe out, open my front door. Don’t be a stranger. I have known this man for thirty years, grown up with him, made sense of life through him. I do not want to lose him.
‘Let’s go for a drive,’ I say.
‘Where?’
‘I’ll show you. Gabe…’
He waits for me to finish and I try to think of the right words. But ultimately, there is only one thing I can say. ‘I’m sorry.’
We drive to the apartment block, the block that I bought out from under Halliday, the one he wants back. It is late and dark and most of the windows are black. Although night has fallen, it is windy, a storm on the way, and a tree blows across the light from a street lamp, throwing strange shadows on our faces as we sit in the front seats.
I tell Gabe about the bodies buried in the foundations, the bullets still in them, bullets which match a gun still held by the police, a gun taken from Vincent Halliday. I tell him that without this to hold over Halliday, my life is forfeit. I explain that I wanted to sort things myself, keep Gabe out of this; that it is my problem and that I never wanted him to be involved, never imagined something like this could happen.
When I have finished Gabe sits in silence, processing what I have told him. I watch litter blow, an empty can skitter across the road.
‘And now he’s in a coma,’ Gabe says eventually.
‘Rafiq? Yeah.’
‘So okay. We can’t get to him. We go for Halliday.’
‘And do what?’
‘Get him to call off Doolan and Akram.’
‘How are we going to do that?’ I say. Gabe does not answer and I look across at him, his drawn face gazing out into the street. Growing up, we were so close I could almost read his mind; on the tennis court we shared a common purpose which sometimes felt like telepathy. But after he left for the army, part of him became unknowable; he did things in Iraq, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone that I would never hear about. I think of the years post-9/11, of extraordinary rendition, foreign prisons, confessions obtained under torture. Kane waterboarding my father. I have no doubt that Gabe could get Halliday to do anything he wanted.
‘It’s my fight,’ I say. ‘You shouldn’t be involved.’
‘But I am,’ says Gabe.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say again.
Gabe nods. ‘Been better if you’d told me right away.’
‘You could be dead now.’
He laughs. ‘Could have been dead twenty times over.’ He looks at me. ‘Danny, I know what Halliday did to your mother. Don’t you want payback?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then let’s fucking give it to him.’
That night the storm hits. Maria and CJ are asleep and I sit in my garden to watch the spectacle. The sky is covered with cloud and distant flashes of lightning light them up, bright white shocks projected from behind. They seem like explosions from some godlike artillery, the rumble of thunder coming from an epic war being fought way beyond the horizon. Perhaps Gabe has a point. Perhaps it is time Halliday disappeared from my life. I think of my promise to Maria, that I will keep violence away from us. Wonder if I can keep the coming fight from her. I nearly lost my best friend. I do not want to lose her, too.
23
THE NEXT MORNING I get a call from Sophie, the girl who Luke Gove humiliated at his country club while we were playing tennis. She is excited and delighted and cannot wait to tell me what has happened, in a voice still amazed that, ultimately, bad deeds will be punished, regardless of who has committed them.
The night before, Luke Gove was drinking at the bar of the club, fresh from having beaten a seventeen-year-old boy 6–2 6–0. He had already drunk too much, and the waiting staff, most of whom were young women, were giving him a wide berth, as you would an unpredictable animal. The club had a high turnover of staff and there was a new waitress on duty that evening, a girl called Shelley who did not know about Luke Gove’s predatory reputation and who did not think to keep her distance. She was sixteen and pretty and, in her life up until then, had probably never encountered anybody like Luke Gove.
Luke Gove had a twenty in his hand, was about to order another vodka. As Shelley passed, he dropped the note on the carpet in front of her. She stopped.
‘Couldn’t pick that up for me?’ he said.
‘Of course,’ Shelley said brightly. She bent at the knee, retrieved the note. But before she could stand back up, Luke Gove had put a hand on her head, stopped her so that it was at the level of his crotch.
‘And while you’re down there…’ he said, a smile on his face which conveyed nothing but contempt.
Shelley shook her head to get out from under the pressure of Luke Gove’s hand but he did not let go.
‘I’ll let you keep the twenty,’ he said.
Shelley had got the job at the country club through her father, who was a new member. He was a man who had made his millions on oil fields around the world and had spent his youth mixing it with other roughnecks on rigs in the Middle East, South America, central Africa before launching his own company and striking it rich in Nigeria. He was also enjoying a beer at a table not ten metres from the bar where Luke Gove was forcing his daughter’s head towards his crotch.
The man got up from the table, crossed to the bar, took Luke Gove’s wrist and lifted it away from his daughter’s hair.
‘Get your things,’ he said to Shelley. He let go of Luke Gove’s wrist, took a step back and then slapped him across the face, hard. ‘Wouldn’t risk my knuckles on shit like you,’ he said, before slapping him again, and again.
Luke Gove fell off his stool on to the floor, got up on his hands and knees, dazed and bewildered. The man picked up a jug of iced water and poured it over Luke Gove’s head.
But Luke Gove was a man used to privilege, ex
ceptions being made for his behaviour, rules bent in his favour. In his mind, the treatment he had just received was both unmerited and unacceptable.
‘Get the manager,’ he told the barman from his position on the floor. He looked up at Shelley’s father. ‘You can kiss goodbye to your membership.’
The manager was already on his way, a short, balding man with oiled-back hair. He stopped next to Luke Gove, who was now getting to his feet. The manager looked him over with eyes which betrayed nothing.
‘This man—’ began Luke Gove, but the manager interrupted him.
‘This man,’ he said, ‘did us all a favour. Now if you wouldn’t mind, Mr Gove, I’d like you to empty your locker, fuck off, and never come back.’
Sophie tells me that Luke Gove’s face was a picture, and that there was a smattering of applause from the members seated at tables in the bar following the manager’s short speech. Luke Gove walked straight out of the club, got into his car and drove away, the rear wheels of his Aston spitting gravel. Sophie tells me that Shelley’s father was bought drinks all night, and many of the members did not leave until three in the morning.
Sophie laughs and I cannot help but smile, thinking of Luke Gove’s face, his walk of shame out to the car park, still wet from the soaking he was given in the bar. But then I think of Sabina Antonescu, hoeing her small piece of land, her daughter gone, vanished from her life with no explanation.
‘The girl he bought a car for, the one you told me about,’ I say. ‘You got a number for her?’
‘Think so,’ says Sophie. ‘Why?’
‘Luke Gove is the kind of man who’ll keep doing this. I want to stop him. But to do that, I need people who’ll speak up against him.’
‘She never said anything about what happened.’
‘She might speak to me.’
Sophie is silent for a second. ‘Yes. She might.’
She gives me the number of the girl, tells me her name is Claire. I thank her, hang up, and think about Luke Gove.
