The Long Firm

by Jake Arnott

  ‘Where’s the guvnor?’

  ‘He’s upstairs in the office.’

  ‘Right. I’ll go up.’

  Wink at Trev.

  ‘You can keep each other amused,’ I say, patting Beardsley on the back.

  I go out to the foyer and start going up the steps. One of the doormen cocks a chin at me.

  ‘All right?’ he says, all cautious like.

  ‘I’m going up to see Harry. He’s expecting me.’

  ‘Careful.’

  His eyeballs roll upward.

  ‘There’s Old Bill up there.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ I say, coming down a couple of steps to cock an ear. ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘Mooney.’

  That filth. Detective Inspector George Mooney. Remember him back in the fifities when he was just a Detective Constable in the Flying Squad. Liked to think he was tasty. Ex-Met light-heavyweight champion with a reputation for heavying into villains. Arresting officer for an armed blag I got pinched for. Tried to get me to name names. Do a trade. I told him to fuck off. Got a kicking in the cells and a three stretch for my trouble.

  Then he made his name as a DS working out of West End Central. Number one fit-up merchant. Planting evidence and beating statements out of minor-league villains who haven’t been keeping their payments up. Broke a Maltese racket back in 1962. Now he’s OPS. Obscene Publications Squad. The Dirty Squad. Aptly named. Skimming off all the porn in Soho. Taking a percentage on all those smudges, yellow backs and rollers being touted down Old Compton Street. ‘Licence fees’ they called it.

  Get to the landing and the office door is half open so I can hear the chat.

  ‘So what’s all this got to do with you, George? You’re not Murder Squad.’

  Harry.

  ‘Yeah, but they reckon there’s some sort of sexual angle. This lad, Oliver, he was a rent boy. So I’ve been seconded to their inquiries.’

  ‘Your specialised knowledge?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘So you’re checking on all the homos?’

  Mooney coughs. Embarrassed.

  ‘Well, I can be very discreet in your case.’

  ‘Don’t bother. I ain’t ashamed of nothing.’

  ‘Yeah, well, they’re checking on known homosexual offenders. And they asked me and the Dirty Squad to sniff around a few known haunts. Murder Squad are concentrating on a period of eleven days unaccounted for. Where and who this kid was with in that time.’

  ‘So, what’s this got to do with me?’

  ‘Come on, Harry. Bernie Oliver was one of your boys. He’s been known to attend some of your, er, parties.’

  A pause. Harry coughs.

  ‘So. I don’t know nothing about what happened to him.’

  ‘I don’t care what you do or don’t know. This is just a warning. Cover your tracks. You don’t want to be implicated in any of this. It’s bad for business. Speaking of which . . .’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Well, I was wondering whether you’d be interested in expanding in the bookshop trade.’

  ‘Depends on the competition. What about the Maltese?’

  ‘Don’t worry about them. They’re still mostly running old-fashioned vice. You know, clip joints, prostitute flats. To be frank, I don’t much like dealing with the spicks. The thing is, though, the porn racket’s growing. But it’s not organised. I’m having to deal with every Tom, Dick or Harry down Old Compton Street. It would be easier to have someone running the whole thing. Easier to regulate. To keep the lid on things.’

  ‘And easier to collect off.’

  ‘Yes. But you need to keep your nose clean. Cover your tracks on this Suitcase business. Make sure everyone connected to you keeps their head down. There’s a big “searchlight on vice” operation going on to keep the papers happy. It’ll soon blow over. Murder Squad aren’t going to waste too much time on this one.’

  ‘Unless they find the sick fucker what did it.’

  Mooney coughs.

  ‘Quite. So, think about it. Once this has all died down maybe we can do business.’

  Sounds of Mooney getting up out of his chair. He comes out of the office. Nearly walks into me.

  ‘Well, well,’ he says, beady little eyes twitching at me. ‘If it isn’t Jack the Hat.’

  I sort of grunt. Don’t want to appear too rude. Not if Harry’s planning to do business with him.

  ‘Keeping out of trouble, Jack?’

  ‘Yeah, yeah.’ Give him a big cheesy grin. ‘I’m a reformed character.’

  Mooney laughs and shakes his head. Makes his way down the stairs. Cunt. I wander over and rap on the open door.

  ‘Yeah?’ Harry’s voice weary.

  I go in.

  ‘Jack,’ he sighs. ‘You hear any of that?’

  ‘Some of it, yeah. You thinking about moving into porn then?’

  ‘Yeah. Maybe. I don’t mean that. I mean this.’

  He taps the Evening News lying on his desk. SUITCASE MURDER headline. I nod. Seen something about it myself somewhere.

  ‘Yeah. I heard some of that.’

  ‘Well keep it to yourself.’

  Harry rubs at his face. Tired.

  ‘Thing is, I did know the kid. Bernie. Poor little fucker. He was only seventeen, Jack.’

  Only seventeen and cut up and turned into luggage. Sick. I frown. Think: Harry’s not involved in all this, is he?

  ‘So, Jack.’ Harry stretches, yawns. ‘What do you want?’

  ‘It’s what we want, Harry. And I got it.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, get to the point. I’m knackered.’

  ‘Well, you know you said we needed another body for the Airport job?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Well, I’ve got someone. He’s downstairs.’

  ‘Good. I better come down then.’

  I lead Harry over to where Beardsley and Trevor are sitting. They seem to be getting along. Beardsley’s taken his hat off and let Trevor touch the fuzzy little pelt of his barnet. Trev’s all wide eyed and giggling but he straightens up and looks serious as soon as he clocks Harry and me.

  ‘There he is,’ I mutter to Harry.

  Harry frowns and talks though the side of his mouth to me.

  ‘But he’s just a kid, Jack.’

  Bareheaded Beardsley does look younger than ever. Innocent even. I try to reassure Harry.

  ‘He’s all right. Honest. Got a right nasty streak in him. Can handle himself too.’

  ‘You sure, Jack?’

  ‘Yeah. Of course.’

  ‘Well, I’m holding you responsible if anything goes wrong.’

  Then we go over to the table. Introductions. Harry, Beardsley. Beardsley, Harry. Harry has this stern demeanour. This kind of quiet fierceness he puts on when he meets people. His I-mean-business look. Beardsley’s impressed, tries to mirror it a bit himself.

  ‘The crop looks great, doesn’t it Harry?’ Trevor pipes up.

  ‘Yeah,’ mutters Harry. ‘Look Trevor, we’ve got some business to discuss so make yourself scarce.’

  Trev wanders off in a bit of a huff and we get down to it. Plan to meet up next day and pay a visit to a certain car-park supervisor.

  Next day. We take the Daimler over to an address in Brentford. I’m in the front, driving. Harry likes to be chauffeured on jobs like this. I don’t mind. Lovely motor, handles beautifully. Harry’s in the back with Beardsley explaining the scam, of how the car-park staff have been on the fiddle, manipulating the time clock mechanism of the ticket machines. Also, detailing how we’re going to persuade them to hand over a percentage.

  ‘Remember,’ he says finally. ‘I do the talking.’

  We arrive in the middle of suburbia. Nice little semi-detached houses with well-trimmed hedges around them. Follow Harry up the garden path of one of them. Neatly mown front lawn. A gang of gnomes hanging around a stupid little fish pond.

  Harry presses the bell. Ding dong. Avon calling. Sound of footsteps. Door opens a crack and Harry g
ives it an almighty shove just in case the bloke has second thoughts, and we pile into the hallway.

  ‘Hello Charlie,’ Harry announces with a big frightening grin.

  Charlie’s on his hands and knees. I close the front door behind us. Harry points at the door to the front room.

  ‘Come on, Charlie,’ he says. ‘Show us through.’

  He gives Charlie a kick up the arse and he crawls through into the lounge.

  ‘What do you want?’ Charlie sobs up at us.

  ‘Now, that ain’t very friendly, is it? Not very hospitable. You should say, “Make yourselves at home.”’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I said,’ Harry goes on very deliberate like, ‘you should say, “Make yourselves at home.”’

  ‘Make yourselves at home,’ Charlie whimpers.

  ‘Well thanks, Charlie. We will and all.’

  Harry gives us a nod and we grab the settee. Beardsley plonks his steel-toe-capped boots on the smoked-glass-topped coffee table. Harry goes over to the bay window and peeps out through the net curtains.

  ‘Nice neighbourhood, Charlie,’ he says. ‘What’s a nasty little thief like you doing in a place like this?’

  He starts to draw the chintzy curtains.

  ‘Don’t want to upset the neighbours, do we?’

  The room darkens. A few shafts of daylight spread out across the wall-to-wall carpet. Harry turns around and looks down at Charlie crouched on the floor.

  ‘Time to talk business, Charlie. A new business arrangement.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You know what I mean. Our cut of all the money you’ve been filching from National Car Parks Limited.’

  ‘That’s all finished with.’

  ‘What, because a certain firm’s been banged up?’

  ‘Yeah, that’s right.’

  Harry sighs and shakes his head.

  ‘It ain’t finished, Charlie. Why don’t you show us around the house?’

  We go upstairs. Charlie’s a gibbering wreck. Harry sniffs about, looking in the bedroom, the bathroom.

  ‘What’s in there?’ He nods at another door.

  ‘Spare room.’

  Harry grabs the door handle, rattles it about. The door stays put.

  ‘It’s locked, Charlie.’

  Charlie stutters something. Harry nods over at Beardsley who gives it a good kicking. The frame splits and it swings open.

  ‘Well, what do we have here?’

  The room was a sort of office with a little desk and a chair. On the desk were piles of papers. Harry sorts through them, tossing about account statements and flipping through bank books.

  ‘Look at all this.’

  He opens a drawer and takes out a handful of bank notes. He waves them in front of Charlie’s face and then lets them sail to the floor. He spots a tea chest in the corner and goes over. He looks in and starts to laugh. He puts a hand in and scoops up a handful of silver coins. He lets them slip out through his fingers and clatter into the chest in a pantomime of richness. He tries to lift the tea chest but it doesn’t budge. He grunts.

  ‘Give us a hand with this, Jack,’ he says.

  I go over and we grab it each side. It still won’t give so we tip it over. All the silver comes sushing out all over the floor.

  ‘I think we hit the jackpot,’ Harry declares.

  Charlie starts to yack.

  ‘I, I wanted to stop, I really wanted to, but we couldn’t, you see.’

  ‘Shut it,’ Harry orders. ‘Come over here and sit down.’

  Harry grabs the chair and turns it round. Standing behind it he draws it back a little, like a waiter in a posh restaurant.

  ‘Take a seat, Charles.’

  Charlie reluctantly comes over and sits down. Harry walks around him and fishes out a few lengths of rope from his pocket, handing them to me and Beardsley.

  ‘Make him comfortable,’ he tells us.

  I go around the back and start to tie his wrists together. Charlie starts to protest.

  ‘Don’t say a fucking word!’ Harry orders sharply.

  ‘You’ll have time to have your say,’ he continues in a softer tone. ‘I just need to say a few things. Beardsley, tie his ankles together. You haven’t been looking after your accounts very well, have you? You need somebody to help you in putting your finances in order, don’t you? Take his shoes and socks off.’

  Beardsley does as he says. Charlie starts to giggle as his bare feet are handled.

  ‘Shut him up, Jack,’ says Harry.

  I grab the socks from off the floor and shove them in Charlie’s mouth.

  ‘Hold his feet up.’

  Beardsley lifts up the pair of yellowy plates of meat. There’s a corn plaster on the right little toe. Harry crouches down in front of Charlie, looking at him with that mad stare of his.

  ‘Naughty of you, lying to us like that. Don’t want that to happen again, do we? We want to establish an amicable business arrangement. Don’t we?’

  Charlie nods frantically, straining to speak through the woollen gag. Harry tuts and shakes his head.

  ‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, Charlie. It ain’t polite.’

  He brings out a cigarette lighter from his pocket. Gold-plated Ronson, very flash.

  ‘Hold him steady,’ he says.

  He flicks open the top and sparks it up. Charlie strains against us as he sees the flame. Harry lets it lick against the sole of each foot. Muffled shrieks from the car-park supervisor.

  After a few seconds Harry clicks it shut. Charlie goes limp on us, heaving heavily through his nostrils.

  ‘See, it’s quite simple really. We can do business together. Everything sorted out nice and proper. You just need to know who the guvnor is.’

  Harry flicks the lighter on and warms up the feet again. Charlie tenses up. Chewing at the smelly socks in his gob. A choked scream tearing at the back of his throat. Sounds distant.

  ‘This is just a taste. Just a little taste of what will happen if you fuck around with us. If you lie to us. Grass us up. If you do anything out of line.’

  He stops again. Looks straight into Charlie’s eyes.

  ‘All you’ve got to do is hand over our cut. That’s all.’

  Charlie’s nodding, tears streaming down his face.

  ‘Good.’ Harry pats him on the head. ‘Good boy. Now, just one more go for good measure, eh?’

  Harry burns him again. I catch a whiff of toasted foot. Horrible cheesy stench. Then we’re finished. We let go of Charlie and Harry pulls the socks out of his mouth. He’s quivering away, wheezing and sobbing. He starts to gibber. Harry nods.

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he says. ‘Tell us all about it.’

  ‘We wanted to stop it,’ Charlie blubbers. ‘Really we did. Thing is, we couldn’t. If we stopped fiddling the machines there’d be such a leap in the takings that head office would have got suspicious.’

  ‘So you just carried on.’

  ‘Yeah, we’d got into a routine. Everyone was getting their whack. It kept everyone happy.’

  ‘Except with certain people away, the main whack wasn’t going anywhere, was it?’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘You just didn’t know what to do with all this money, did you Charles?’

  Charlie shook his head.

  ‘Well, your troubles are over. We’ll take care of that now. Let’s get down to business. Beardsley, why don’t you make us all a nice cup of tea?’

  ‘Uh?’ replied Beardsley.

  ‘Put the kettle on son. Jack, untie Mr Charles. I’ll bet he’s gasping for a cuppa.’

  ‘Right,’ says Beardsley, a bit bewildered, and wanders off downstairs.

  ‘And don’t forget to warm the pot,’ Harry calls after him.

  We drive back east. Drop Beardsley off at Shepherd’s Bush. Harry slips him a wad by way of a sub. He can afford to be generous. He’s set to take a grand a week off the car-park fiddle. Easy money. Get onto the Westway Flyover and bomb down into the City.
The Westway. Think about the rumour about Jimmy.

  ‘All right, Jack?’ asks Harry.

  ‘Yeah.’

  Feel like asking: It true that Jimmy Murphy’s helping to hold this thing up? Think better of it.

  ‘Fancy a drink?’ Harry offers.

  ‘Yeah, why not?’

  Get off the Flyover at Paddington. Go to one of the seedy little drinking clubs in Praed Street that Harry’s protecting. A handful of second-rate Lisson Grove faces trying not to gawk. Everyone nervous and polite. Drinks on the house. Respect, that’s what it’s all about.

  ‘Well, your boy seemed all right,’ says Harry as we grab a second bacardi.

  ‘Beardsley? Yeah, he’ll be fine.’

  ‘Thing is, it’s not going to be so easy when we go up against the baggage handlers. Some of them are proper villains. There’s more at stake and they might not be so eager to hand over the swag.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ll see, eh?’

  Beam a big nutty grin over at Harry.

  ‘Silly cunts think they can fence all that stuff themselves,’ he says. ‘Jewellery, industrial diamonds. You need proper organisation to offload gear like that.’

  ‘Yeah, well, we’ll just have to point out the error of their ways, won’t we?’

  Laughter. We have another drink. Then Harry goes all quiet. Thoughtful.

  ‘There was another thing I wanted to chat about, Jack.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’

  ‘It’s a matter of some delicacy,’ he says softly, looking around the room.

  I frown. What the fuck’s he on about?

  ‘The other night at the club. What Mooney was going on about.’

  ‘Dirty Squad business? You thinking of heavying into the Maltese?’

  ‘No, no. Well, not at the moment, anyway. No, the other matter.’

  I suddenly get it.

  ‘Oh, the Suitcase Murder,’ I blurt out, a little too loud for Harry’s comfort.

  He winces and puts a finger up to his mouth.

  ‘That kid who got sliced up?’ I whisper. ‘What about it?’

  ‘Well, as I said,’ he goes on, ‘it’s a matter of some delicacy. I need a hand.’

  Hang on a minute, I think to myself. What’s all this about? I don’t want to get involved in any of this. Maybe he did have a hand in it and wants to cover his tracks. Never know what these queers are into. I don’t want to know. And I know what Harry’s capable of. This afternoon, that was just kid’s play. He’s done nasty things, worse things than that. Jimmy Murphy propping up the Westway Flyover. We’ve all done horrible things. Madge. I crippled her. Poor cow, she didn’t deserve that.