by Joe McNally
‘Ah well, at least I know Bradley wasn’t just picking on me. You ever come across this Ember bloke?’
‘Never. Not once. There are some who think he’s a figment of Chief Constable Bradley’s imagination.’
‘Well, I hope I’m not putting you on the spot asking you to speak to him?’
‘Let’s try Bruno first and see what he knows. I’ll ask him to call you.’
‘Thanks again, Monty.’
‘My pleasure.’
Ten minutes into my run across the nearby fellside, Bruno rang and I had to ask him to hold until I found shelter behind a rock. I said, ’Sorry, Bruno, I couldn’t hear you for the wind noise. I didn’t expect you to call so soon.’
‘I can ring back if it’s easier?’
‘No, no, I’m fine now. Did Sir Monty tell you what it was about?’
‘In brief.’
I told him about my confrontation with DJ and asked if he knew anyone higher up the Deadwood food chain.
‘I don’t, but I can find out.’
‘Would that take long?’
‘A couple of calls. If the people I need to speak to are available, I should have something for you in an hour.’
‘Good. Thanks. I’ll be home and showered by then.’
‘Okay. I’ll call you.’
’Thanks, Bruno.’
‘Goodbye.’
I pushed the phone into the zipper armband and set off toward the ridge, wondering what Bruno Guta’s life was like. He always seemed on auto. I’d never known him do small talk and couldn’t imagine a social situation in which he’d fit comfortably.
Or maybe it was that I couldn’t picture a social situation where others would feel comfortable around him. Bruno would just sit there smiling the smile that said, “I can see right inside your head, and you can see nothing of me.”
58
I shaved in the shower, each razor stroke bringing to mind how close a man can be to bleeding. The next confrontation with DJ might be just hours away.
I was confident of beating him if he wasn’t armed, but he probably would be. Maybe it was time to pull my ice-axe from behind the wardrobe and put it in the car.
For a few years now, I’d been wondering how I might replace the adrenaline rush of riding. Most jump jockeys had retired by their fortieth birthday, and I intended to do the same, to go while I still had the strength and energy to learn ice-climbing.
I’d bought all the gear, but I didn’t want to do it part-time. The plan was to wait and then go at it all out. Until then, the boots, the crampons, the ropes, the technical clothing had been vacuum packed and stored.
The past scrapes I’d been in helped convince me that the ice-axe might one day save my life before it had bit into anything cold. I’d yet to use it but, from time to time, I’d haul it out and swing at imaginary Himalayan mountain faces…it was my version of air guitar.
When I went downstairs, still barefoot, I saw Mave in her customary tucked-leg position at her desk and I crept toward her. Without turning, she said, ‘Nice shower?’
I stopped, ‘You must have some hearing. I was in stealth mode.’
‘Smelth mode more like. It was the smell of the gel that gave you away.’
‘More like the antiperspirant. I had to layer it. I think the sweat might be on in Deadwood tonight.’
‘You’re definitely going?’
‘Strike while the iron’s hot, and all that. Speaking of which, remind me to put my ice-axe in the boot.’
She stopped typing and looked up, ‘You think that’s a good idea?’
‘If DJ and his friends are armed, I’m going to need something to…subdue them with.’
‘Eddie, you subdue people with pepper spray, or water cannon or maybe Tasers. With ice axes, you kill people.’
‘Well, let’s hope DJ knows that, too.’
‘I thought Bruno Guta was going to help you?’
‘He said he’d get me the name of Mister Big.’
‘Well, wait for that and bypass DJ.’
‘I’ll be doing my best to bypass DJ, but we’ll be in Deadwood, and that’s where he hangs out.’
‘So, ask Bruno to come along.’
I put a hand on her shoulder, ‘Come and sit with me in the kitchen. I’ll make you a coffee.’
She sighed and got up and followed me, saying, ‘If Bruno can’t come with you tonight, you should skip it until he can, or until Sir Monty can maybe give you someone else.’
I filled the kettle, ’As we speak, Alice is probably finishing packing.’
Mave folded her arms and stared at me. I opened my arms and said, ‘What? Why are you looking at me like that?’
She pushed a chair out with her foot, ‘Sit down,’ she said. I sat, smiling. Mave said, ‘Whatever zone you’re in this time, check yourself out for a minute, so I can talk to you.’
Still smiling, I opened my hands on the tabletop, ‘What’s up?’
‘Eddie, seriously, switch off for a minute, will you? You’ve been building up to this all day. I knew when you went out running, you’d come back like this.’
‘Like what?’
‘You ran the ridges, didn’t you?’
‘Yes. Why?’
‘Because you hammer along there with nothing above you and picture yourself at the top of the world so that everyone else, every problem, every danger is below you.’
I laughed, ‘Mave, you-‘
‘You work yourself up into one of these vision scenarios like you do before a big race. You ride it a hundred times in your mind until everything comes out perfect. You’re doing it now. I can see it in your face, and you need to come back to earth for long enough to protect Alice.’
‘What do you mean by that?’
‘Oh, don’t go all defensive on me now. I mean ask yourself what will happen if you’re the one left bleeding in the gutter this time. What happens to Alice?’
‘Well, you come with us, then.’
‘And do what, fight off DJ and his team like Wonder Woman? Think about what you just said.’
I continued staring stupidly at her. She said, ‘Wind your neck in…drop your shoulders. Sit back and just think about what you’re planning.’
And I did…and the muscle tension steadily eased until I sat half slumped, forearms and hands loose on the table, the fire gone from my eyes, steadily clearing my vision until I could see how right Mave was. I glanced away from her…looked down and lowered my head.
I saw Mave’s thin little fingers slip into my field of view as she reached to take my hand. Slowly she squeezed it and we were startled when the silence was broken by my ringing phone. I pulled it from my shirt pocket. Bruno Guta’s name was on the screen, ‘Bruno, hello…’
‘Eddie, DJ works about four levels below the top man, a guy named Kelman Hines.’
59
In the dusk, Mave walked with me to the car as we discussed the best way to keep Alice cool. I said, ‘Just tell her I was ready and packed for Deadwood when Bruno called. She’s a big fan of Bruno, so if it looks like the cancelled trip is down to him, she won’t be so upset.’
Mave said, ‘I won’t tell her about Hines or she’ll be up and off after him.’
‘If she gets too antsy, call me and I’ll speak to her.’
‘I will.’
I opened the car door then turned and hugged her, ‘Thanks for talking me down earlier. I think Alice had become some kind of Superwoman in my head, rather than you.’
‘Gee, thanks.’ She put her arms around my waist.
I laughed, ‘You know what I mean.’
She leant back and looked up at me, ‘Mister Malloy, I always know what you mean, often before you do.’
‘Just as well.’ We kissed.
Mave stepped aside as I backed the car away from the sandstone wall of the barn, the flaring reversing lights spotlighting her so starkly in my rearview mirror that she seemed to live in just one dimension, like a photograph.
When I’d spoken to Di
l earlier, I hadn’t said why I was coming, but had warned him not to let Prim out of his sight. With her hold over Hines, I felt that Ben was almost within touching distance.
Dil was watching at the window and came to meet me as I walked from the car. He began talking before he reached me, ‘Eddie, don’t say anything in the house, okay? I’m worried it might be bugged.’
I reached to shake his offered hand, ‘Who would bug your house?’
‘Take your pick. The more I find out about this Hines guy, the more worried I get. And Vita has been real quiet since she’s been in New York.’
‘You think Vita might be bugging you?’
‘I don’t know. I just don’t know. I don’t feel like taking chances, though.’
We walked across the yard. I saw Prim’s outline as she stood with her back to the window. I said, ‘Dil, if your place is bugged, they’ve already got themselves all they need from our conversation last night.’
He leant across, barging me slightly as he tried to look into my face, ’How do you know that, though? How do you know they’ve got exactly what they need?’
I stopped and turned, ‘Dil, you started this. I don’t know anything. You don’t know anything. You’re getting paranoid.’ I pushed him gently to start him moving again, ‘Come on, let’s get Prim.’
He caught my sleeve, ‘Eddie, she won’t talk in the house, either.’
‘So where are we supposed to go?’
‘The haybarn.’
We sat in a huge chair of haybales. The sweet smell and the textured softness took me back to when I was twelve and had kissed a girl in a haybarn, sitting on bales packed much more tightly than these, hiding us, hiding us from my father.
And it had not been night.
It was a July day in the holidays and she, Catherine, had been bright with hope and dreams and I had been sweating with a mixture of fear and excitement and I’d said sorry to her for my armpits, which smelled so bad and she had said it didn’t matter, said it in a way that made me believe it.
‘Eddie,’ Dil said.
‘Sorry, Dil. Long time since I settled in a haybarn for a secret talk.’
Prim looked haggard and hunted. Her dark eyes in the dim light had the look of a prisoner's in a condemned cell. I said, ‘Tell me where you are now with your plans.’
Dil glanced at Prim. She turned her head away. He said, ‘Kelman Hines says his guy will take the rap and do his time. Hines will pay him.’
‘The guy who did it? Boffo?’
‘Mike Boffo,’ Dil said, ‘He’s only twenty-eight. Reckons he might get away with two years.’
‘So, Prim, you’re out of this, and now Hines is too. That leaves your father and Boffo to take the hit?’
Prim looked at me, then at Dil who said, ‘Mike Boffo has made an offer to Señor Romanic…he wants another million to take the fall for him too.’
Prim would not look at me. I said, ’So Boffo soaks it all up, the mastermind, the tech guy, the betting man, the falsifier of bank accounts, the putter-in and taker-out of speakers, the sender of signals during the race…do you seriously believe Mac and his boss at the BHA will swallow that?’
‘Gladly,’ Dil said, ‘I think they’ll jump at it. One delivery, all nicely wrapped, no loose ends.
I nodded. He might be right. Mac would know it was bullshit, but his boss would tell him to live with it. I turned to Prim, ‘Are you happy with that?’
She said, ‘Eddie, I just wish I could rewind my life.’ She looked away. Dil glanced at me as if to say “well, what did you expect?”
I said, ‘Prim, how well do you know Kelman Hines?’
She shrugged, ‘Haven’t seen him for years.’
‘That’s not what I asked.’
Dil shuffled forward, the seat of his jeans rasping on the hay, ‘This is hard for her, Eddie.’
I said, ‘Dil, can you give me five minutes with Prim?’
‘Why?’
‘We’re hardly strangers, are we? I’m not going to give her a tough time.’
He put an arm across Prim’s shoulders and ducked to look up into her face, his heavy hair falling like a curtain to block my view. She mumbled something and Dil got up slowly, dusting off strands of hay, ‘I’ll go and fix some drinks,’ he said.
As the sound of his footsteps faded in the night, Prim turned and held my gaze under the dim light. She said, ‘I’m sorry for all this, Eddie, truly sorry. I feel like I dipped my toe in the water then fell right into a whirlpool. I wish I could go back to the start. I’d give anything to do that.’
‘Wouldn’t we all, Prim, wouldn’t we all? I‘ll tell you straight off what will help, stop allowing Dil to treat you like some terrible sinner who must forever bow at the master’s feet and do everything she’s told. Dil is loving this, believe me. I always liked Dil, but since this kicked off, I’m not so sure I do any more.’
‘He’s just trying to protect me, Eddie, you saw that.’
‘Prim, what he’s doing is manipulating you, dragging you around on some kind of invisible lead, tied to him by obligation. He’s making himself out your saviour here, but from what I can see it’s your father who’s saving you, and I might as well tell you now, I don’t think you should be getting away with this. And I believe you don’t think you should either…’
She dropped her head.
‘…and that’s what’s bothering you most. You just don’t realize it yet.’
She sighed and, with both hands, ran her long fingers through that black mass of hair, pulling it into a tight gathering. She looked at me, ‘I think I do realize it.’
‘Good. Now all you have to do is find a way to live with it. And what I have to do is find out all you know about Kelman Hines.’
‘Why?’
‘I want to know what else he might be into before I try to sell this bullshit story to the BHA.’
‘I wouldn’t know what else Kelman was into. He runs a big company. He branched out into different parts, different services in racing, but as far as I know that’s all he does. I haven’t seen him for years.’
‘But you had an affair with him?’
She glanced away, then straight back at me, some fire in her eyes now, ‘It wasn’t an affair. It was more a fling. Nothing serious.’
‘It was serious enough to blackmail him with.’
She nodded slowly, ‘Ouch,’ she said quietly.
I said, ‘Weren’t you afraid of blackmailing him? Of him retaliating, threatening you?’
‘He wouldn’t do that, not in a million years. Not his style. He was a bit flashy, not unlike Dil in many ways, but Kelman was the type who’d moan about food if we were out somewhere and then, when the waiter comes along asking if everything’s okay, Kelman would smile and say, “Perfect!”’
She went on, ‘There was the business Kelman and the private Kelman, which was…well, he was timid. He was cautious, that was the main reason the fling never turned into…into anything more serious.’
‘He backed out?’
‘I backed out. Well, I finished it. He was making me feel I was the one sneaking around. I wasn’t in a relationship at the time. Kelman was married. I got tired of it.’
‘Did he talk to you about business?’
‘No. We talked racing quite a lot. He loved racing.’
‘But, other than the businesses you know about, the nutrition, the heart-rate monitors, all the vet-type stuff, there was nothing else?’
‘Not as far as I know. As I said, he didn’t talk business much, so there might have been.’
‘Have you spoken to him since this all blew up in your face?’
‘No. No, I haven’t.’
‘I might ask you to call him to arrange a meeting. How would you feel about that?’
‘I’d do it if I need to, but…well, maybe talk to Dil about it first?’
‘Prim-‘ I was about to set off again on another Dil lecture. In the end, I just waved my hand and turned away, then went out to find Dil. My intent
ion had been to tell him that I believed Hines was holding Ben, but I couldn’t risk someone warning Hines. Dil’s focus was on juggling two women. His worries about the horses were over. All that my worries seemed to do was multiply.
60
I was home in time to hear the brass clock on the mantelpiece chime midnight. Mave and I settled by the fire with mugs of tea and a marked up map. I said, ‘You’ve been busy.’
’Took ten minutes. Whatever Hines is doing crimewise, his lab business looks squeaky clean. All the properties belonging to Byerley Hines are listed on the website.’
‘All the legal properties,’ I said.
‘Well, yes. I did some digging in the accounts, and I can’t understand why people like Hines mess around with shit like trafficking and race fixing and whatever else he’s into.’
‘The race-fixing’s a new one, though, isn’t it? Prim’s got him into that.’
‘Maybe. But given his history, it’s something he could have easily done years ago. He’s got good relationships with racecourses, an army of vets, a lab full of bubbling chemicals…you’d have thought that offered more profit for less risk than trafficking teenagers, wouldn’t you?’
‘I suppose so, yes.’
She watched me, then said, ‘It just doesn’t compute, Eddie. Trafficking girls is organized crime. It’s gang stuff, like drugs. It’s competitive. It’s dangerous. Hines owns seventy-two percent of the company he runs. Conservative estimate would make him worth ten million. Why would he piss around with idiots like DJ in places like Deadwood? Is there a chance Hines could be working for somebody like this guy, Ember?’
‘Monty ruled him out, didn’t he?’
‘I know, and he backed up your impression that Bradley’s obsessed, and maybe even mad. But that doesn’t compute either, does it? Jeez, he’s a chief constable. They don’t give that job to idiots.’
‘Wannabet?’
‘Eddie, I know you’ve bumped into some dunderheads in uniform, but not at that level.’
‘Okay, okay. Maybe Bruno can go back and ask a few more questions…whoah, wait a minute! If Bruno warned DJ off and there was no comeback, then whoever runs DJ is afraid of Bruno. That computes, does it not?’
