Sight Unseen

by Graham Hurley

  ‘I’m thinking the money might have come from you. Am I right?’

  I don’t even bother to answer him. A shake of the head is all I can manage. Our son has got a gun. Thanks to last night, he knows how to load it, point it, pull the trigger. Desperation and late adolescence go hand in hand. We should have left him alone last night. Now, literally anything might happen.

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Like he starts holding up banks, corner stores, old ladies on park benches, whatever it takes. We’ve driven him away when we needed him here. How clever was that?’

  The thought of Malo embarking on a life of crime seems to amuse H.

  ‘It’s a nice idea,’ he admits. ‘But he wouldn’t have the fucking bottle.’

  ‘Then why take the gun in the first place?’

  ‘You tell me.’

  ‘You thinking he might have gone back to London?’

  ‘Yeah, I do.’

  ‘To get Clem back?’

  H nods. He’s given this proposition some thought already. He’s now convinced that Malo has been in touch with the kidnappers. Hence his visit to Brixton with Mr Dreadlocks. When Wes last checked the underside of the Audi, the tracker had been removed, more proof – in H’s eyes – that his son has fallen into shit company.

  ‘These people know exactly what they’re about,’ he says. ‘They check everything, every last detail, and that’s because they can’t afford not to. Each of these county lines operations nets around a hundred K a week. That kind of money, you take no risks. Malo’s a choirboy. Glock or no Glock, they’ll eat him alive.’

  ‘And Clem?’

  ‘She’s the wildcard, and the way they’ve doubled the ask tells me everything I need to know. These people are arrogant. The top guys are in the fucking blue yonder. I’m now betting the Somali kids on the ground for the heavy lifting, Larry Fab as the enforcer, Mr Dreadlocks as the Plug and some guy at the very top to boss the whole operation. Wes says the Somalis are off the scale and I believe him. No manners at all. Kill you. Eat you. Rape your mother and leave her upside down in a wheelie bin. You think kettling’s horrible? The Somalis wouldn’t even plug the fucking thing in. They’d cut to the chase. Take your head off and mail it to someone you love. That’s why God invented those really big Jiffy bags.’

  ‘You know all this? For sure?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you think you can really take these people on?’

  ‘No chance.’

  ‘Then what was last night about?’

  H gazes at me for a moment. I sense he’s trying to work out whether I’m taking the piss.

  ‘Tell me,’ I say again. ‘Pretend I’m even more stupid than you thought.’

  ‘It was about the boy, about Malo.’

  ‘You really wanted to frighten him?’

  ‘Of course I fucking did.’

  I gaze at him. I shake my head. Pavel had it right all along.

  ‘Brilliant,’ I mutter. ‘So guess where that leaves us now.’

  H and Wes depart in the Range Rover after lunch. H doesn’t tell me where he’s going but my guess is London. Wes, apparently, is a genius when it comes to picking locks. There isn’t a door in the kingdom, H once told me, that can resist the attentions of Wesley Kane. Clem’s place, I tell myself. A whole night ripping the place apart.

  There’s no way I’m going to join them. London is an enormous city but I can visualize only too well the moment when the pair of them appear in my car park with yet more bad news from the front line. Some document they’ve found at Clem’s place. Or maybe another phone. Or a list of names, some of whom need frightening. For the time being, I’m better off here, doing whatever I can to understand the chain of events that led to Clem’s disappearance.

  Late afternoon, I pay Jess and Andy a visit. Jess, according to Andy, is asleep upstairs. Andy makes me a cup of extremely thin coffee. I want to know more about Danny Flannery.

  Andy says there’s not much to tell. Decent chippie. Makes respectable money, especially for this neck of the woods. Lives alone. Chases demons. All-round good bloke.

  ‘Demons?’

  ‘He jacked his marriage in. His missus is a bit of a nightmare, got a real mouth on her, and there came a point when he’d had enough. Since then you’d think he’d never look back, but that isn’t true, either. I think in some weird way he misses her. Weed’s fine in small doses but he’s smoking far too much. He got it on with another woman recently, Suze, but she’s got problems of her own.’

  ‘I know. He told me.’

  ‘And did he tell you about her kids? They’re off the planet, all of them, and the oldest isn’t even a teenager yet.’

  ‘So what happened to the father?’

  ‘Fathers. Plural. They fucked off.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘All three of them. Don’t let Bridport fool you. They talk a great game round here – foodie heaven, fancy shopping, property prices through the roof – but blow the dust off and it’s as fucked-up as everywhere else. If you fancy getting seriously depressed I’m sure Danny would do the business. In fact, I know he would.’

  I nod. I enjoyed talking to Danny the other evening, and I was grateful for him getting me out of the Landfall in one piece, but it wasn’t hard to sense the tristesse behind the witty one-liners and the easy smile. Now, thanks to Andy, I’m a little wiser about what it takes to keep your head above water in blissed-out west Dorset.

  ‘So you don’t think it’s a good idea me seeing Danny again?’

  ‘Depends what you’re after. If you want a good night out he’d be happy to oblige. Like I say, he’s a nice bloke, heart of gold.’

  ‘That’s not it. I want to find out what happened to Clem.’

  ‘Then Danny can only take you so far.’ He pauses. ‘This thing is out of control. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘Clem. Malo. Most of all, H. I’ve seen him like this before, years back, after a bloke called Bazza Mackenzie got killed. That was in Pompey and H was the heir apparent. He loved Bazza. They were that close. And when the Filth took him down he wouldn’t leave it alone. He had names, blokes in uniform, blokes in CID. He wanted to set the record straight. He wanted revenge, restitution, blood. For weeks, until other people made him see sense, he lost it completely. This is very similar. As you saw last night. And unless we’re careful, he’s going to blow it again.’

  ‘Blow what?’

  ‘This.’ Andy gestures vaguely at the window, at the looming shadow of Flixcombe Manor and the untold acres beyond. ‘We’ve been here for a while now and we take all this for granted. We shouldn’t. No one’s bulletproof. Not even H.’

  I nod. It’s not hard to see what Andy and Jess have to lose here. At the same time, there’s someone else at stake.

  ‘Clem,’ I remind him. ‘You’re thinking we just forget about her?’

  ‘Malo told me about her dad and the K&R guy.’

  ‘O’Keefe?’

  ‘Yes. In life, just sometimes, it pays to defer to the professionals. That was never H’s style but in this case it might be the sweetest way to get the woman back. Make contact, open negotiations, strike a deal. That’s a red rag to the likes of H because he hates losing control. But that can make him his own worst enemy.’

  ‘Says you.’

  ‘Says me.’ Andy is watching me carefully. ‘So what’s your take?’

  ‘Mine?’ I shrug. ‘I think there’s more to it than meets the eye.’

  ‘Care to tell me why?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘But this is more than a hunch? You’ve got evidence?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And is this about Malo?’

  I hold his gaze and shake my head. I’m not saying. Andy nods, as if he understands, and then I look round, suddenly aware of another presence in the room. It’s Jessie. Her hair is tousled and she’s rubbing the sleep from her eyes. She must have got up and stolen down the stairs. Now she’
s standing in the open doorway and I’m guessing she’s been privy to most of our conversation.

  Andy makes room for her on the sofa. ‘Tell Enora about your bloke in the swimming pool,’ he says. ‘And see where it takes us.’

  TWENTY-NINE

  Jessie, it turns out, is a keen swimmer. She drives down to the Bridport Leisure Centre three times a week and tackles the seventy lengths that clock up her personal mile. She’s been doing this since Christmas, one reason she’s in such good shape. Gradually, over the months, she’s come to know a handful of the other regulars that churn up and down but recently all of them have had to make space for a new face in the pool. This is someone much younger and – more to the point – very, very good.

  ‘Good, how?’

  ‘Style. Stamina. Speed. This boy must have been born a fish. He leaves all of us for dead.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘I’m guessing. Maybe eighteen? Nineteen? He’s definitely started shaving but that’s not the point. This lad isn’t from Bridport at all.’

  Malo’s age, I think. Interesting. I want to know more.

  ‘We think he’s probably down from London.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘One of the guys talked to him in the showers. I don’t think it was the easiest conversation but he’s definitely not local.’

  ‘Some kind of work placement?’

  Jessie laughs. Nice idea, she says, and probably not a million miles from the truth.

  I tell her I don’t understand. Is he with a local firm?

  ‘He’s a drug dealer.’ This from Andy.

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Jess has seen him in the rugby club car park next door to the leisure centre. He drives a nearly new BMW. Badge of office. It’s even the right colour.’

  I’m assuming black and it turns out I’m right. Andy nods. How many kids can afford a motor like that?

  Jessie picks up the story again. From time to time she’s had brief eye contact with this youth. ‘You know the way it goes. You start by nodding if you meet at the end of a length. Then you might get a grunt of apology if you get in each other’s way. We’re not best buddies. We’ve never even had the beginnings of a chat, but there’s the makings of a connection there.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘I had a problem with the car the other day. It turned out to be the battery but I didn’t know that at the time. I was under the bonnet for a while, poking this and that, and the Beemer was nearby. During that time he had three customers. All boys. All young. It was very slick. The dosh. The handover. Done.’

  ‘We’re talking a couple of bags?’

  ‘More. In old brown envelopes.’

  ‘No CCTV?’

  ‘One camera but the Beemer is invisible behind a hedge. It’s always busy at the leisure centre, people coming and going, kids in the holidays and at weekends.’

  ‘Is he black, this boy?’

  ‘No, white.’

  ‘And does he have a name?’

  ‘The guys in the pool call him The Machine. That’s to do with his swimming. I think it’s a compliment.’

  ‘And they know he’s dealing?’

  ‘No. I’ve kept what I just said to myself. I still can’t be a hundred per cent certain but without the flat battery I’d never have sussed him. Me? I’m a Pompey girl. You get a nose for stuff like this.’

  ‘He helped you with the battery?’

  ‘He did, and that was nice of him. He even offered to run me round to a garage he knows to buy a new one.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I took him up, of course I did. I blew lots of smoke up his arse, told him what a fantastic swimmer he was, star of the pool, but when it came to any kind of conversation, proper conversation, he didn’t want to know.’

  ‘Accent?’

  ‘Neutral. Could be London.’

  ‘But you think he’s living in Bridport?’

  Jessie shrugs, then glances at Andy.

  ‘That would have to be a yes,’ Andy says. ‘You’re feeding the market and this is the biggest place around. These guys make base camp, recruit local dealers, spread the word, and then wait for the punters to arrive. My guess is he’s running a team of kids and they rock up to the car park for re-supply.’

  ‘Are any of these kids black?’ I ask him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Somalis?’

  ‘Yes. And scary, some of them.’

  Jessie’s nodding in agreement. There’s one other thing. ‘This boy has a friend,’ she says. ‘A really pretty woman. Dark. Mad hair.’

  ‘She swims, too?’

  ‘Never. But she often comes to watch. I’ve seen her in the Beemer, too. When she thinks no one’s watching she’s all over him.’

  ‘Age?’

  ‘Older. Maybe late-twenties.’ She’s smiling. ‘To tell you the truth, I’m not sure I blame her.’

  I nod, say I’m grateful for all these leads. She says it’s no problem.

  ‘You want to borrow a cozzie?’ she asks. ‘I’ve got one going spare.’

  I’m not a great swimmer. I enjoy Mediterranean beaches and the odd frolic in the shallows to cool down but in my mum’s judgement, as a Breton girl growing up in a house overlooking a beach, I was always a bit of a poule mouillée, which means ‘pussy’ or ‘wuss’. Bracing dips in La Manche, the moment early spring arrived in Perros-Guirec, were never my style.

  Jessie, bless her, offers to accompany me to the pool next day. The Bridport Leisure Centre lies to the south of the town and we’re parking up in Jessie’s car before eight o’clock in the morning. Jessie points out the black BMW behind a hedge in the adjacent rugby club car park. She’s going for a swim and I’m welcome to join her but I elect to stay at the poolside. For the umpteenth day in this wonderful summer, the weather is near-perfect.

  The moment I tug on my plastic bootees and step inside the pool area I recognize The Machine. He’s swimming crawl. Every stroke seems effortless, head tucked under his rising arm, mouth half open, and he glides through the water with barely a splash. The pool looks new, six lanes, twenty-five metres long. Early-morning regulars are thrashing up and down but The Machine carves a path through the bodies with never a glance left or right. When he comes to the end of a length he somersaults under water before pushing off again with his legs, resuming that mesmeric rhythm.

  Jessie appears within minutes, tugging on her swimming cap, and she pauses at poolside to nod at the blur in lane five before diving in. Her breast stroke is more than accomplished but The Machine laps her and everyone else for length after length.

  He’s out of the pool by half past eight. He has a swimmer’s body: powerful shoulders, broad chest, narrow waist, skimpy Speedo briefs. He peels off his goggles and runs his fingers through his sodden black curls. I’ve checked everywhere for the rumoured girlfriend but there’s no sign.

  Jessie has given me the keys to her car. I make myself comfortable behind the wheel and wait for The Machine to appear. He emerges from the leisure centre within minutes, picking his way through the other parked vehicles, making for the nearby entrance to the rugby club car park, a mobile pressed to his ear. He’s wearing designer jeans, flip-flops and what looks like a brand-new white T-shirt. No trackie bottoms, no hoodie. Beside the BMW he lingers to finish the conversation before getting in. This morning of all mornings he may elect to drive off but mercifully he doesn’t. I have a clear view across the car park. He’s on the phone again.

  I wait, debating what to do. I trust Jessie completely. I believe her story about the deals going down. If I don’t take the initiative and seize this moment, I tell myself, then the rest of the morning will have been pointless. At length, a black youth I judge to be in his mid-teens appears beside the BMW and bends to the driver’s window. In return for what looks like a fattish roll of notes he gets a brown envelope. Then, just as Jessie described last night, he’s gone. Five seconds, absolute tops. Glance down to check my own mobile, I think, and I’d never h
ave laid eyes on him.

  Minutes go by. Then another figure turns up, male again but white this time, in torn jeans and a Liverpool football shirt. More notes. Another envelope. Gone. The Machine’s on the phone again. He’s gesturing with his left hand, a splay of fingers, short jabbing movements. Is he angry? Excited? Is trade especially lively on a Sunday morning? I’ve no idea. Is it the mystery girlfriend at the other end? Pass.

  The call over, he relaxes back against the seat and then seems to be fiddling with the radio. What does he listen to? What kind of music fuels a drug dealer in late adolescence who swims like a fish?

  I get out of Jessie’s car. Now, I’ve decided, is the moment to find out. Before another supplicant arrives. Before he’s had enough and fires up the BMW and roars away. Before I exhaust my own small stock of courage.

  I tap on his window. He turns his head. He still has reddish rings around his eyes from the goggles but the eyes themselves are the brightest blue. Coloured lenses, I think at once. He’s put himself together the way actors do before they make their entrance on set. The two-day stubble. The black curls gelled just so. The single silver piercing at the very top of his ear. The faintest hint of a smile.

  ‘Yeah?’ He’s looking up at me. There’s no warmth in the question, quite the contrary, but I’m ready for this.

  ‘May I?’ I’m nodding at the passenger seat.

  ‘May you what?’

  ‘Get in?’

  ‘Why? What do you want?’

  The accent, as Jessie has warned me, is neutral but what comes as a surprise is just the hint of a lisp. I tell him I want to buy two rocks of Bad. Bad, I understand from Andy, is street talk for crack cocaine.

  ‘Are you Filth, or what?’ The word ‘Bad’ seems to amuse him.

  ‘I’m no one. I’m me. Enora. Enora Andressen.’

  It’s awkward trying to shake hands through an open car window and he makes no effort to be part of this pantomime. Something about me seems to have caught his attention.