One London Day

by C. C. Humphreys

  There was a parking spot right in front of his house, which was not always the case. He’d driven up and down three times, scoping it, and all was fine; precautions he could probably do without but habits were hard to break. He sometimes wondered if it was like a… what was it called, he’d read it in a book recently, a… fetish? He’d thought that was only sexual, like being into women’s shoes or something; but apparently it was also a way of behaving, like a ritual, to bring luck or some such when you did things like place a bet, or repeat a tricky activity. A bit like the footballers crossing themselves when they ran onto the pitch; though most of the players at the Gunners, who he still loosely kept an eye on, appeared to be Mohammedans these days.

  He’d been annoyed to think that he might have fetishes. They would make him easier to track, like spoor on the tundra. Yet he still went to the gym before each gig, did the exact same amount of bench presses, shoulder lifts and sit ups. Still drove past his place in Gants Hill three times after each hit.

  Satisfied, he got out of the car, grabbed his duffel bag and the bin liner, went into the house. Outside, it was just like the others in the terrace – two storey brick, white windows with lace curtains, slate roof, chimney. But inside, the door opened not onto a narrow corridor but straight onto a whole floor. When he’d bought it, for peanuts at an auction in the late 80’s crash, it had looked like all the others in the terrace with their little box rooms, faded wallpaper, and dark, cramped kitchens in the back. He’d opened it all up, taken out the internal walls, sunk the living room around a fireplace that he got working again. The kitchen was now bright, clean, functional. Most early gigs he’d bought something new for the place. ‘State of the Art’ it was, though he despised that term. He still had lace curtains on the back windows, and he’d also planted Cypresses; now they topped the brick wall of the tiny garden by a good five foot. In case anyone was sneaking about.

  After tapping in the security code at the front door to turn the alarm off, he went to the kitchen, lobbed the overalls and cap into the Bosch washing machine, added bleach and powder. Set it to hot. Then he made himself a cup of tea, crushed an avocado onto some toast with a spray of lemon juice and black pepper, ate, drank and cleaned the Glock. The four spent bullet casings he put into a glass jar filled with vinegar; he’d wipe them, then drop them down different drains later in another part of town.

  His phone rang. ‘Rondo a la Turk’. Sharon. He let it go to Voicemail. It would just be a nag, ‘what time you coming for Meaghan?’ He thought of blowing her out, he was bit knackered. He wasn’t worried about annoying his ex. There was little he could do these days that didn’t. Still, he didn’t want to disappoint his daughter. He’d take her for gelato, show her the brochures from the Maldives.

  When he got back to his phone, he saw that Shazza – as he called her to annoy her – had added text to two, he saw, voice messages.

  We need you earlier. Lots to do. Can you please pick up your daughter by noon?

  The clock on the stove said 1025. He could power nap for forty minutes and, even if the North Circ was still busy, he could make it by then.

  He texted back a thumbs up; then, just in case that tosser Malcolm happened to be looking, he added a kiss, then went to bed.

  He was woken by a beep from one of his pre-paid phones. He went to the utility drawer and pulled the phone out, reading the message through the plastic of the bag it was in.

  Coach and Horses 630.Work tonight.

  He sat in his dressing gown at the computer and looked up the Coach and Horses. Behind Cambridge Circus, famous for drunkards, media world and also, at that time of day, punters coming in for a drink before the theatres; loads of them nearby. Suit, he decided, not fancy. Blue shirt, dark red tie. He could be a theatre lover fresh from an office, or a commercials’ director.

  He’d wondered if they’d be in touch fast. Suspected so, since these books were obviously so important to the Shadows. How important? Well, they’d just ordered the accountant who kept them, this Severin bloke, killed. They didn’t want what he’d created for them in the wrong hands, that was for sure. Phipps had wondered, not if he was in the books, he was almost certainly a line of expenditure in them, but how. Knowing these jokers with their love of absurd titles, he was probably Nemesis, or Megatron, or some such crap. But even if he was a number in the books, not a name, it would still be a clue to him. Yeah, he thought, pocketing the phone, he didn’t mind being a collector this time. He’d like those books too, just in case.

  If I have to live on a hill I prefer Gants to Muswell, Mr Phipps thought, as he pulled up before 46 Conniston Road. When he’d been a teenager, not far away in the Archway, Muswell Hill had been a joke, a shopping area you couldn’t even reach by Tube - not that you’d want to. Now it was so lah-dee-fucking-dah, with all the bollocks required for the perfect middle class life. Gastro pubs, trendy cafes, sushi, Waitrose and Oddbins with the few non-white faces serving you your macchiato, and other Europeans speaking some Slavic language behind the deli counters.

  Perfect for Shazza.

  Still, he thought, unbuckling, it’s safe for Meaghan and the schools were better than down his way. He had no nostalgia for his shitty education, was more than happy to pay his share so his daughter’s only problems stemmed from a brief shortage of poster paints rather than knives, or learning to cuss in Urdu.

  He got out of the car, looked up at the house. Almost twice the height of his, what with the attic conversion. The brickwork a deeper red. The dormer windows a richer cream. It was the only thing he envied though. Open the door and it was the same poky layout that the Edwardians who built it had craved.

  He rang the bell. A large shape loomed through the frosted, stained glass. Fuck, he thought. Malcolm.

  “Oh, hullo there.”

  Mr Phipps looked up at him. Had to, straining his neck, because even though he wasn’t that small – five ten, good height for a Para – Malcolm Potter was probably six four and wide with it. He’d been in the Territorials, so when Shazza had first started up with him three years back, Malcolm had thought that made them comrades. Which was bollocks of course. There was some ok guys in the Terries but the public school, rugby playing, home cunty officers tended not to count amongst them. So he’d shut down the camaraderie quite fast by mentioning Goose Green and South Armagh to contrast with weekends on Bodmin Moor and the two weeks spent each Summer near Darmstadt. Malcolm tended to go into a sulk whenever they met now, which Phipps tried to keep to a minimum.

  Which made the expression on his face now a little disturbing. Not to mention the tone of his voice, thick with plum. “Good to see you, old chap. Thanks so much for popping round. Do come in,” he said.

  Phipps thought of all the comebacks he could make, but it truly wasn’t worth his time. He didn’t move. “I’d rather just collect Meaghan and go, if it’s alright with you, Malcolm.”

  “Ah yes,” Malcolm replied, and coloured slightly. “Well, um, the mem sahib wants a word about her first.”

  Mem sahib? God in heaven, Phipps thought, sighed, stepped into the hall.

  “Come on through, there’s a good chap.”

  They went to the back. When they were together, Phipps had insisted that Sharon spend some of the divorce payout from her first husband and open up at the back. So a wide kitchen with marble top island gave onto a dining room, which gave onto the garden. Fuck me, he thought, it’s a ringer for Severin’s kitchen, even down to the primrose paint job. I thought it looked familiar this morning.

  Sharon was at the breakfast bar, on her iPad. “Ah, there you are,” she said, standing, smiling. “Cuppa tea?”

  Phipps stopped where he was. Usually Shazza began each conversation with no greeting, just a barrage of complaints as to his tardiness, his neglect, his general… uselessness. He’d been readying himself to tune it out, as usual. This friendliness made him wary. He looked at her a little more closely. Her make up was not as carefully applied as usual, her auburn, grey streaked hair pul
led back into a bun. She looked…brittle. Her voice was brittle too. “Where’s Meaghan?” he said, going to his immediate concern.

  “She’s… fine.”

  She said it in a way that implied she hadn’t been. “I didn’t ask how she was. I asked where she is.”

  “Upstairs. Getting ready. She’s - ” She looked over his shoulder at Malcolm, standing just behind him, slouched against the door that led to the utility room, then swallowed. “She wasn’t feeling very well this morning.”

  “She ill?”

  “No. She was upset. She - ”

  The clatter came, fast feet on the stairs. In a moment the whirlwind that was Meaghan burst into the kitchen and ran straight into Phipps’ opening arms. He bent to absorb her force – and to try to hear the words his daughter was sobbing into his chest. “What is it, love? What are you saying?”

  She pulled back to look up at him. Her china blue eyes were liquid, and she had salt and snot trails all over her cheeks. “He hit me,” she wailed.

  “Now look here -”

  “That’s not what happened at all. She - ”

  Phipps went cold. There was a lot of explaining going on, but he couldn’t focus on any of it. Only the look in his daughter’s eyes. Outrage… and fear. He took a deep breath. Another, then bent down, pulled her close and whispered, “Meaghan, love, it’s alright. Daddy’s here. Will you do something for me? Go into the living room and watch Beat Bugs for a bit?”

  She rolled her eyes, something she’d only just learned to do. “Not Beat Bugs, daddy. Paw Patrol.”

  She wiped her nose and, with one glare for her mother, one for Malcolm, she turned and marched out of the kitchen. It was impressive bounce back for a five year old, and Phipps admired it, even as he turned back to look at his ex.

  She started in. “He didn’t… Malcolm didn’t hit her.”

  “Of course I didn’t. She was being…”

  “…cheeky. No, downright rude, refusing to tidy up…”

  “…I gave her three chances to pick up her…”

  “… then he said she used foul language - which I can only assume she learned from you…”

  “…three light spanks, that’s all it was. She…”

  Phipps had stayed silent, listening, taking it in. It was kinda like when prisoners babbled under interrogation, especially at the beginning when they were still trying bravado. They always gave away something. “You weren’t there?”

  “What?”

  “You said, he said that she used foul language. You didn’t hear it.”

  “No, but Malcolm told me straight afterwards. He was totally within his rights - ”

  “His rights?”

  “As her stepfather.”

  “He’s not yet.”

  “In two months he will be. We discussed this. Malcolm is here and he must have the power…”

  He’d heard enough. He turned about to fully face Malcolm. The man had come away from the doorframe and his meaty hands were held before him. “I warned you once,” Phipps said, “That if you ever laid a hand on my daughter…”

  He shouldn’t have been surprised, the speed with which it all kicked off. Still, he was. They’d been expecting it, he guessed, from the moment he arrived. What their confession might provoke. And though he’d never once hit Sharon, barely ever raised his voice, she’d told him later that she’d always been scared of him. His penchant for violence, she’d said, with no evidence, just his history at war, almost none of which he’d told her.

  But scared people do silly things. He heard hers, in the sound of air displaced.

  He turned in time. The tea mug she’d been holding was plunging for his head. He got his left hand up, turning to brush it aside, letting her own force carry her down and away.

  That was when he heard the grunt from behind and turned, just a little too late.

  Malcolm had swung and unlike Sharon he at least knew how to do it. Phipps hadn’t time to deflect it but got his right arm up anyway and took the blow, aimed for his head, on his upper arm. It fucking hurt, but Malcolm was a punch up artist, all those dust ups on the rugby field, not a real fighter. So Phipps, bending at the knees, swivelling his hips, drove the heel of his left hand straight up into the bigger man’s chin. He reeled back into the door of the utility room, smashing it in, then crashed into the stack of machines before sinking to the floor.

  The dryer beeped, started, as Phipps turned back to Sharon. He could see the fight had gone out of her, she was still clutching the tea mug, holding it in front of her like a shield. He stepped close and she shut her eyes, and he thought of the woman in the hall that morning, Mrs Severin, shutting her eyes when he shouted at her. He didn’t shout now. “If he ever touches her again,” he said softly. “I will kill him. Do you understand me?” She didn’t react so he raised his voice just a little. “Do you understand?”

  She didn’t open her eyes. But she nodded, just once.

  He looked down at Malcolm who gazed back, glassy eyed, trying to pull himself upright. He could have killed the fucker with that same strike, if he’d aimed for the nose, not the chin. Driven the bone up into his brain. But that wouldn’t do any of them any good.

  He didn’t say anything else. Sharon would make the rules clear. Sharon was good at that.

  He went out to the living room. Animated dogs were scrapping on the screen. “Come on, Megs. Grab your stuff. Let’s go.”

  She pressed the remote. Her bag was by her feet, and she didn’t need a coat with this heat.

  As he got her into the car, he tried to lift his right arm. It was pretty dead, and he wondered if he had nerve damage. His fingers tingled and they didn’t move too fast when he curled and uncurled them. Fuck, he thought. If I need the Glock tonight, I’ll have to use it left handed.

  15

  Monday, July 30th 2018 – 11am

  Sebastien parked in a resident’s bay on the street called Parliament Hill. This time he’d taken the correct vehicle from the 6 pool – an Astra - for the notice hanging from the mirror. This time there would be no kerfuffle with authority. No trail whatsoever. And if any warden observed him walk, they would sympathise. He looked disabled. He felt disabled.

  All of him ached. He couldn’t decide which part of him hurt worst. They alternated in their claims. When he bent to take his briefcase from the passenger seat, his back protested. When he closed the car door, his wrist complained. When he entered the gates of Hampstead Heath and began the trudge up Parliament Hill itself, his legs wobbled.

  To begin with, he’d thought it was only his nose, shoulders, arms and wrists that had suffered. When Bernard had finally reached the hotel and freed him, he’d been dangling there, stretched out for an hour. But this morning he’d woken, feeling like he’d played in an especially ferocious rugby match the day before – a sport he’d loathed at school, mainly because thickoes he’d mock in the Bedales’ corridors and classrooms would take such delight in knocking him over and sitting on him. He ached now as he had then. He’d obviously twisted his back in his gyration to try and reach the phone, and bent his legs in ways they were not meant to bend. His wife had always urged him to attend yoga with her. This morning he wished he had.

  An aged jogger passed him halfway to the crest, giving him a sympathetic grin. He paused, looked up. There was a bit of a breeze today – hot like everything else about this bloody summer! – so the kite flyers were out. And there, amidst the swoops and dancing tails, stood Bernard. Already there, watching him climb. It was Bernard who had decided on the venue for the meet. In the Shadows’ rotating schedule it was his turn. But instead of a club, pub or restaurant, Bernard had obviously chosen the top of Parliament Hill, and gotten there first, for this very reason: to see Sebastien struggle up it. When he’d first come into the hotel room, he’d stood for a full ten seconds observing before beginning the search for the keys. Drinking in the sight of dildo and handcuffs. They’d always mocked each other, since prep school they’d sought fuck ups to use to l
ord it over the other. Those ten seconds had given Bernard the advantage for years to come. He hadn’t even said much. Hadn’t even smiled, was all concern. Storing it up.

  He was smiling now though. Sebastien knew he had a way of wiping that smirk away. By mentioning one name. Sonya. By telling what he had planned for her. But he would not do that, not yet. Later – afterwards - when all was certain. He looked forward to the moment of telling. It would restore the balance between them.

  “Oh, my dear fellow,” said Bernard, when he finally limped up. “Here, I’ve baggsied us a seat.” He moved back to the bench, over which he’d spread a raincoat, and left his briefcase in the middle. He cleared them to the side and they sat, Sebastien with a sigh that he could not restrain.

  Bernard noted it, of course. “How are you feeling?” he asked, all false solicitude.

  “Like shit, thanks. And you can stop pretending you aren’t thrilled.”

  “I’m hurt, Sebastien. I care about you. You’re my oldest friend.” The smile was in the eyes if not the mouth as he continued, “Though I must say, it’s indelibly lodged, the sight of you with that… thing.” He held his hand palm down about nine inches above his groin. “You still don’t wish to tell me what happened? I mean, is it anything to do with… us?”

  Us. The Shadows. It has everything to do with us, you fucking idiot, Sebastien thought. You’ve been sleeping with a Russian whore whose been sleeping with our book keeper’s mistress. It was so tempting to confront him with that now, take that look from his eyes. But he mustn’t. Because then he’d have to tell him what he had planned for her, soon, maybe even as soon as tomorrow. The softy would object, argue against it, perhaps even muster the votes against him. This was one thing he certainly wasn’t going to take to sugar. Sometimes a decision needed to be made by only one of them. He was, after all, primus inter pares, whatever the rest of them thought. He’d set up the Shadows. Now he would dissolve it. Besides, though Sonya may have picked up something from Severin’s girlfriend, he’d concluded she wasn’t KGB. None of his research pointed to that. She was, as Bernard had told him to his mocking disbelief, a part timer trying to earn money for her brat at home. Therefore his action had nothing to do with them. It was personal.