Текст книги "The Bug House"
Автор книги: Jim Ford
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Текущая страница: 3 (всего у книги 10 страниц)
‘I’m not including you, Ptolemy.’
‘I don’t understand, sir.’
‘There’s more to Major Crime than murder investigations. There’s something else I want you to do for me.’
The main door opens and a man comes in. He is skinny, with unkempt dark hair and a couple of days’ growth on his pale face. He is wearing drainpipe jeans and a battered biker jacket. He orders a pint of lager and a bag of crisps and then, to Ptolemy’s surprise, comes over to where they are sitting and pulls up a stool.
‘Who’s this?’ he says. His eyes are hooded, with dark circles underneath.
‘The new recruit,’ Vos says. ‘Kath Ptolemy, meet DC Sam Severin.’
FIVE
Nobody ever asks Mayson Calvert for a drink after work. They know he’ll just look at them through his glasses, with his head cocked quizzically to one side as if they’re some sort of microbial species, and then he’ll give a shy, almost embarrassed smile and shake his head; and then he’ll say ‘No, thank you,’ and walk away, and in that instant he’ll have forgotten you ever asked. It’s not that Mayson is rude, or even antisocial, and he doesn’t have OCD or ADHD or Tourette’s or any of the other syndromes that Huggins and Fallow think he’s got. Mayson Calvert is just, well, singular.
People who meet him – other policemen – wonder how the hell he ever got to be a detective. When they discover he’s part of Theo Vos’s Bug House squad they are astonished. But there’s more to Major Crime than swagger and physicality. The big-time thugs with shaven heads and steroid-enhanced muscles make up a very small percentage of those who are classified as Major Criminals. Looking and acting like a villain is a distinct disadvantage if you’re really serious about crime. The criminal who succeeds in making a living at it, who runs it as a business, is the one you never see or suspect. He is the next-door neighbour who walks his dog round the block every night, the twinkly-eyed old gent enjoying a quiet half of bitter in the pub, the family man who takes his wife and kids to Greece once a year on easyJet, who stays in modest three-star hotels and drinks inexpensive local wine at the local taverna.
These are the Major Criminals.
These are the people Mayson Calvert is employed to catch. Mayson lives alone, but he lives in some style. He has a two-bedroomed apartment on the top floor of an Art Deco building in the upmarket suburb of Jesmond. From his living-room window, he looks out over the verdant slash of Jesmond Dene as far as the Armstrong Bridge, where every Sunday he visits the arts and craft stalls. He shops at the local delicatessens and listens to eclectic live music at the Sage Centre in Gateshead, and he is a patron of the independent Tyneside Cinema, where once a week without fail he will watch a foreign language film. If it is in French or Italian, he will not need the subtitles.
Mayson Calvert is very much a Renaissance man, a connoisseur of culture.
But compared to normal people he is a little weird. There is no doubt about that.
It is 4 a.m. and Mayson is sitting upright in his armchair, staring at his mobile phone, which is held in both hands in his lap. He is debating whether or not to call the number on the screen. The number is DCI Vos’s. He has been debating this for two hours. He presses a button and a second number appears. Acting Detective Sergeant Bernice Seagram’s. Click, click. Vos, Seagram, Vos, Seagram. He settles for Seagram and his thumb hovers over the Send button.
The time is irrelevant to Mayson Calvert. Since he was a child he has been able to exist on four hours’ sleep, and it doesn’t matter to him when he takes them. They don’t even have to be consecutive. But he knows that, in this respect at least, he is different to most people. Their sleep requirements are set in stone and he knows from bitter experience that you disturb them at your peril. It is four in the morning, and that means nothing to Mayson but everything to Vos, Seagram and everyone else in this city.
He sighs and puts the phone on the armrest of the chair. There is no point in calling either of them. There is no point in calling anyone. Everyone is dead to the world and will be for at least another two hours. It never ceases to baffle him why, when there are so many things to do in life, the hours in which it is deemed acceptable to do them are restricted to a narrow window between nine in the morning and five in the afternoon.
Mayson turns his chair to the window and looks out through the open blinds. The room faces east, and in a little under two hours the sky will begin to lighten.
His news will have to wait until then.
John Fallow turns the corner of his street and sees the welcome sight of his own front door a hundred yards ahead. He checks his watch and notes to his dismay that he has added a whole minute to yesterday’s time for his two-mile morning run. This is not supposed to happen.
Paah! Whoargh! Paah! Whoargh! Ah-aach! Thwaoarf! That is the sound of Fallow’s breath, followed by a hawk, followed by a full-blooded, foamy gob onto the pavement before him as he heads for home and the sanctuary of the shower.
Fallow has always regarded runners as the most unsavoury characters imaginable, with their red faces, their startled expressions, their gasping and gobbing, their sweat-soiled groins, chests and armpits, and the malodorous smell that broils in their wake. He still does. But at the age of thirty, he lives in fear. He was scared to start running because he was so unfit; now he is scared to stop in case all his good work goes sproing! like the innards of a watch.
Most of all, he is scared of Phil Huggins.
It is two weeks since the CID piss-up. Two weeks since he and Huggins emerged from the Memories of Punjab at one in the morning, the last two standing. Two weeks since he categorically stated: ‘Nah, mate. I’ve had enough. I’m going home.’
Huggins had looked at him with disgust. ‘Whassa matter with you, Johnny-boy? Clubbing, man! Fuckin’ Aces High!’
‘Nah, I’m off home,’ Fallow had said, pulling his coat sleeve away from Huggins’s insistent grasp. ‘Shirley will kill me.’
‘Ah, fuck Shirley, man!’
‘She’s my fucking wife, Phil!’
But later, inevitably, Fallow had found himself in the dimly lit, half-empty nightclub, lurching along the edge of the dance floor to where a bouffant-haired woman in a low-cut T-shirt and tight-fitting jeans was sitting alone at an alcove table, running a long, dark fingernail around the rim of a cocktail glass and giving him an approving look.
‘Fancy a dance?’ he’d shouted over the music.
‘Why not?’ the woman had said, taking the can of Red Stripe from his hand and leading him by the other into the thin coppice of bodies swaying drunkenly on the strobed parquet. And at first light, as he silently let himself out of her house and made his way through the godforsaken council estate to the nearest main road, he’d cursed Huggins for leading him astray but felt nothing but disgust for himself, for his own weakness.
And now he is home, untying his trainers on the doorstep and stowing them neatly with all the other outdoor shoes beneath the coat rack in the hall, padding upstairs on the pristine cream carpet and entering the bedroom, where Shirley has already smoothed the duvet to eradicate any evidence that the bed has been slept in. He takes off his running gear and deposits it in the washing basket, picks a perfectly folded towel from the heated rail and steps into the en suite bathroom. He showers, dresses and goes downstairs to the kitchen, where she has already set the table for supper and left a note propped against the Tupperware cornflake container that he will be expected to clear away once he has had his breakfast.
‘Please empty dishwasher before you leave,’ it says.
Fallow puts the note in his pocket, empties the dishwasher, puts the cornflakes container in the cupboard and leaves the house without bothering to eat.
Bernice Seagram is in her dressing gown, watching breakfast TV and munching on a bacon sandwich, when Huggins emerges from the spare room. He is wearing boxer shorts and one of Seagram’s T-shirts, which only comes down as far as his navel, exposing the incipient beer belly that only his lanky frame keeps from being prominent. He grunts ‘Good morning’ and heads directly for the frying pan, tweezing a slice of cooling bacon and flopping it on a slice of white bread.
‘Did we make love?’ he says presently, squirting ketchup over the bacon.
‘Did we make love, guv’nor,’ Bernice corrects him, her eyes fixed on the TV screen.
‘I’ll take that as a no, then,’ Huggins says. He reaches for the tea bags and drops one in an empty mug. ‘Where’s the milk?’
‘I’ve run out.’
He slumps into a chair and shoves most of the sandwich in his mouth. ‘This will all change when we’re married, Bernie,’ he mumbles. ‘You will bide my words and ensure that when I come down for breakfast the larder is well stocked.’
‘What time did you come in last night?’
‘Dunno. One-ish?’
‘Bullshit. You rang here begging for a bed at two. Where did you end up?’
‘Talking bollocks with Frank Jarvis and the lads at Adriano’s.’
‘Was Fallow with you?’
‘Nah. John’s going through one of his periods of self-flagellation. I think he’s taken up running this time. It won’t last. It never does.’
‘You don’t help him,’ Seagram says.
Huggins feigns hurt. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper, Bernie? He’s a grown man. A grown married man.’
‘Not for much longer if he keeps hanging round with you.’
‘Dah, Shirley’s never liked me. I don’t even think she likes John. She just likes wheeling him out on social occasions so she can tell her friends from the riding club that she’s married to a policeman.’
Seagram slides off the kitchen stool and makes her way to the door. ‘I’m going up to get dressed now, DC Huggins. Then I will be leaving for work. If you want a lift – and I expect you do – you’d better be ready. And don’t get ketchup on my T-shirt.’
Seven forty-five a.m. Ptolemy is in Asda’s car park in Gosforth, watching the staff arriving for work. Although they don’t call them staff any more; they call them colleagues. ‘Colleague announcement: would a colleague please go to aisle six . . .’ And off they go, with their bucket and mop, thinking they’re making a significant contribution to the hive. Jesus, she thinks, the most frightening thing about this headlong assimilation into corporate-speak is that people have just sat back and accepted it.
Severin’s late. He’d said he might be, and his tone had suggested that he didn’t give a shit if he was. During the course of their meeting last night, Ptolemy had got the distinct impression that the world marched to Sam Severin’s beat and she’d better keep in time.
He’d told her to come plain-clothed, which is why she’s wearing jeans and Uggs and one of Ray’s old rugby shirts under a fleece jacket. She wonders, though, if maybe she’s too plain-clothed. Maybe she should have worn a blouse, or a skirt, or at least something more feminine. She wonders, as she sits in her car watching the colleagues trudging into the supermarket’s gaping, floodlit maw, if she just looks like a plain-clothes handler waiting to meet her undercover contact.
Shortly after eight thirty a black Ford Focus enters the car park and swings into the space next to her vehicle. The thud of the bass speakers cuts abruptly as Severin kills the engine. He climbs out and crushes his cigarette under a boot. He opens the back door of Ptolemy’s car and gets in. She immediately smells smoke and sweat and the faint tang of stale booze.
‘I don’t have long,’ he says, and when she looks in the rear-view mirror she sees his dark eyes staring straight back at him. ‘And I’ll need you to work fast, too.’
‘No problem. What do you want me to do?’
He reaches into his jacket and hands her a battered padded envelope. ‘That’s the first lot of paperwork. Get it copied and I need the originals back. There’ll be more where that came from.’
‘What do I do with the copies?’
‘You log them. And then you crosscheck them. And you make fucking damn sure you don’t make a mistake, because when this goes down the case against Tiernan has got to be watertight. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Then I’ll be off. I’ll meet you here tomorrow, same time.’
He opens the door and swings his leg out.
‘What if I need to contact you?’ she says.
Severin frowns. ‘You don’t, DC Ptolemy.’
And with that he is gone.
Nobody in the squad knows what time Una Cattrall arrives at the Bug House in the morning, because she is always at her desk before they are. But then she is the gatekeeper, and none shall pass without her permission.
‘Mr Vos will be in later,’ she informs Seagram, eyeing the dishevelled Huggins with suspicion. ‘He has a meeting at headquarters.’
‘Thank you, Una,’ Seagram says primly as Una buzzes them through the security door and into the squad room. ‘I was aware of that.’
It’s just before eight, but Fallow and Mayson Calvert are already there. Fallow’s normally red cheeks have an even rosier glow to them this morning, and his collar-length hair is still damp.
‘Where’s the boss?’ he says.
‘HQ,’ says Seagram, hanging up her coat. ‘He’ll be in later.’ She looks at him suspiciously. ‘What’s up, John?’
‘Brains has discovered something very interesting,’ Fallow says, putting his hands on Mayson Calvert’s skinny shoulders.
‘Time travel?’ says Huggins, heading for the coffee percolator. ‘Anybody gone for bacon sarnies? Where’s Ptolemy when we need her?’
‘Tell them, Mayse.’
Mayson clears his throat. ‘I did a thorough check of all known organizations, criminal or otherwise, that favour branding or tattooing as a form of initiation.’
‘Jesus Christ, Johnny-boy! Have you pinched my mug?’
‘No I fucking haven’t. Listen to Mayse, will you?’
‘Worldwide, there are over 17,000,’ Mayson continues. ‘You see bodily mutation – or is it art? – is viewed by some as being the ultimate expression of membership—’
‘Where’s my fucking mug, John?’
‘Listen!’ Fallow exclaims.
Fallow rarely raises his voice, but when he does it is surprisingly loud, and it has the effect of instantly silencing the room.
‘Thank you,’ Mayson Calvert says, fingering his collar.
‘You could just get to the point, Mayse,’ Seagram says.
He looks momentarily put out but continues nevertheless. ‘I believe I have identified the peculiar branding marks on the victim’s testicles,’ he says.
Huggins chortles. ‘You really do know how to enjoy yourself of an evening, don’t you, Mayson?’
‘The KK symbol stands for Kaplan Kirmizi, which in turn is Turkish for Red Tigers. The Red Tigers began life in the 1950s as a gang exporting heroin across the Kurdistan border on its way to western Europe. In recent years, they have spread across Europe to the extent that there are cells in most of the major cities synonymous with the drug trade.’
‘And they go around branding each other’s balls?’ Fallow winces.
‘Only those with a direct connection to the original gang,’ Mayson says. ‘It’s a sign of leadership and of clan membership. And if it makes you feel any better, the branding is done at the age of two.’
‘Trust me, Mayson,’ Huggins says, his expression aghast, ‘there is no good age to get your balls branded.’
‘So if Ahmed Doe is a member of this Red Tigers organization,’ Seagram says, ‘what the hell is he doing hanging from a railway bridge in Stannington? The last time I looked there was no big-time heroin trade in Newcastle.’
‘None that we are aware of,’ says Mayson. ‘But that has always made Newcastle an exception to the rule in this country.’
Huggins, happy now that he has found his mug, sits down on the corner of his desk. ‘Maybe our friend was trying to set up some business over here.’
‘Which someone clearly took exception to,’ Fallow says, nodding.
‘Which is why they were keen to send the Turks a message,’ says Seagram. ‘Good work, Mayse. You’d better print something out for the boss when he gets back. Meanwhile, you two hit the phones; I want to know where our Turkish gangster came from.’
‘What the hell is the boss doing at HQ?’ Huggins says. ‘He’s missing all the fun.’
SIX
‘Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?’ says retired Detective Superintendent Malcolm Gilcrux of South Wales Police in a manner that suggests he’s been waiting for a long time for this moment.
He’s a fat man with piggy eyes who must have thought his career and its associated importance were over once his thirty years were up, Vos thinks. But a job as an investigator with the Independent Police Complaints Commission has resurrected both, and he has clearly made an effort this morning: crisp shirt, egg-free tie, freshly pressed suit, polished shoes. It looks like his hair has been recently clippered at the sides, and his cheeks have been shaved so closely they are shining like two slabs of red-veined marble.
‘You had been investigating Jack Peel for a number of years, is that correct?’
The two men are sitting in an interview room at police headquarters in Ponteland. The room has been kept deliberately sparse in order to focus minds. The only furniture is a couple of plastic chairs and a table between them. On the table is a thick file. Gilcrux methodically scrolls back through the pages.
‘You could say he had been on our radar for a while, yes,’ Vos says.
‘How long?’
‘Two years, give or take.’
‘Why?’
‘Come on, Mr Gilcrux. You know how it works. You get to hear things, then you get to hear some more things, until eventually you decide it might be worth a look.’
Gilcrux makes no comment. He makes no indication of having heard a word Vos has said. Vos can imagine that the fat Welshman was a shit-hot interrogator in his time. And even though he knows this stonewall technique by heart, Vos still feels uneasy, because he has no idea what Gilcrux knows.
‘Go on,’ Gilcrux says.
‘We heard that Peel was involved in supplying class A drugs at his nightclubs. Coke, E, that sort of thing. We were keen to find out if this was the case, and if he was supplying them anywhere else.’
‘These nightclubs were in Newcastle, were they?’
‘Yeah. They still are. Peel Leisure owns pretty much every club, casino and lap-dancing bar on the Quayside.’
‘Tell me about your investigation into Mr Peel, Mr Vos?’
‘What? All of it?’
‘Everything you believe to be pertinent,’ Gilcrux says.
Vos winces theatrically at the policespeak, but Gilcrux appears not to notice or care. So Vos tells him about the investigation into Jack Peel, and Gilcrux listens and does not interrupt. His hands are folded in front of him and he makes no notes. There is no need; it’s all in the file that he has already read and digested. But that’s not the point of this exercise. This is all about observation and body language. It’s about Gilcrux getting the measure of Vos, the way a boxer uses the first couple of rounds to analyse his opponent, looking for strengths, identifying weaknesses.
When Vos has finished, Gilcrux asks him if he wants a break. Vos says no. They have been in this room for over an hour now.
‘What was your relationship with Mr Peel?’
‘My relationship?’
‘You investigate someone over a period of time, you get close to them.’
Vos shrugs. ‘As far as I was concerned I was a copper and he was a villain.’
‘What about his wedding?’ Gilcrux’s eyes are like two lasers boring into Vos’s skull. ‘June this year, wasn’t it?’
‘It was hardly a social occasion. We regarded it as more of a reconnaissance mission.’
‘We?’
‘Myself and DS Entwistle. You see, Vic’s daughter is due to get married next spring and he thought he might pick up a few tips. And Peel had had plenty of practice. This was his third marriage. Charming lady name of Kimnai Su. He went all the way to Thailand to get her.’
Gilcrux blinks slowly. ‘What happened?’
‘We sat at the back of the church, sang a few hymns and then shook hands with the groom on the way out.’
‘After which Mr Peel made an official complaint of harassment.’
‘Yes, well, if you check your notes, you’ll see that he withdrew the complaint, Mr Gilcrux. In fact, old Jack was suddenly all sunlight and joy as far as I was concerned. Must have been that married life finally agreed with him.’
‘He invited you to his house,’ Gilcrux says. ‘August 28 this year.’
‘He did indeed, Mr Gilcrux.’
‘That was three weeks before his death.’
‘I’ve never thought about it, but yes, I suppose it was.’
‘Why don’t you tell me about that day, Mr Vos?’
It is one of those improbably hot Indian-summer days when the temperatures in Northumberland exceed those in southern Europe. Jack Peel is wearing an unbuttoned Hawaiian shirt and shorts on the patio of his £3 million house in the village of Whalton, north of Newcastle. He’s a stocky man whose fifty-five years are only now beginning to erode a once-powerful physique. The abundant hairs on his chest are turning white, the leathery brown skin beneath beginning to slide away from broad slabs of pectoral muscle. Knotted veins stick out like spaghetti from the flesh of his exposed legs.
‘Hey, Al, come and get a drink!’ Peel calls out.
Sitting in a whirlpool spa is Al Blaylock, Peel’s lawyer, a middle-aged man with a tan and a comb-over. He grabs the side and levers himself and his huge gut out with some difficulty, then grabs a towel from one of the sunloungers and wipes his face. Beneath the flabby overhang, his modesty is concealed by the skimpiest of black thongs.
Peel sniggers. ‘Look at that. What the fuck does he look like? Hey, Al, what the fuck do you look like?’
Al smiles bashfully and waddles across on spindly white legs to where Vos sits, leaving a trail of wet footprints on the baking slabs.
‘I think he looks very nice,’ a girl’s voice opines from the other side of the patio. ‘Very Californian.’
‘You would, sweetheart,’ says Peel.
Melody Peel, her honey-blonde hair scraped back into a ponytail, is lying on one of the sunbeds. She is eighteen years old, wearing a red bikini. She slowly raises her head so she can scrutinize her father and his associates through oversized, red-framed mirror sunglasses.
‘You want to get some UV lotion on, girl,’ Peel remarks.
‘Maybe I’ll get Mr Vos to rub it on for me,’ his daughter replies.
‘Mr Vos is charged with upholding standards of public decency,’ Peel points out solemnly. ‘And do me a favour, will you?’ He gestures to an iPod dock that is pumping out Kanye West. ‘Turn that crap down. I can’t hear myself think.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Melody says tartly, sticking out her tongue and sliding from the lounger. ‘I’m going to check on the horses, away from you boring men.’ She picks up her iPod dock and kisses her father on the top of his head. ‘Love you, Daddy,’ she says.
‘Love you too, sweetheart.’
‘Nice to meet you, Mr Vos,’ she says coquettishly.
‘Likewise,’ Vos says.
Melody smiles, then sashays through a set of open French windows into the cool of the house.
Peel chuckles. ‘Eighteen years old. Fuck me, where did the time go, eh?’
‘It’ll be boyfriends next,’ Al says. ‘Then the fun really starts.’
‘Yeah, well, we’ll see about that,’ Peel says, all trace of humour suddenly gone from his demeanour.
There’s a moment of awkward silence. Then Al says, ‘You should think yourself lucky, Jack. My Maggie was still a bloody tearaway when she was eighteen. She never showed any respect to me or her mother.’
Peel glances disparagingly at the razor wire jammed between Al’s shapeless buttocks, then winks conspiratorially at Vos. ‘I’m not fucking surprised.’
‘It’s a thong,’ Al retorts. ‘And I’ll tell you something, they’re all the rage.’
Peel snorts back. ‘I think I’ll give your Janet a call and tell her to take you back. Ever since she kicked you out, you’ve been under the delusion that you’re twenty-one again and with a waistline to match.’
For a while they sit and watch the horses in the distant paddock. Then a figure slips out through the French windows. Kimnai Su, Jack Peel’s third wife, is soberly dressed in a white blouse and silk sarong. She moves towards her husband on dainty, sandalled feet, carrying three drinks on a silver tray.
‘Here she is,’ Peel exclaims, reaching out his hand and placing it gently on Kimnai Su’s backside. ‘Why don’t you serve our guests first, sweetheart? You remember Mr Vos from our wedding, don’t you?’
‘Please to make acquaintance,’ she says, offering Vos a chilled gin and tonic from the tray.
‘ “Please to make acquaintance”,’ Peel says, chuckling. ‘Don’t you just love that? You ever been to Thailand, Mr Vos?’
‘Can’t say I have, Jack.’
‘You should go. Beautiful country. Beautiful people. They call it the Land of Smiles, you know that?’
Kimnai Su is a tiny woman of around forty, with plain, almost harsh features. Vos takes the drink and thanks her, but she does not meet his gaze and there is no flicker of a smile on her face. She dutifully serves Blaylock and her husband and then dis-appears back into the house.
‘I know what you’re thinking, Mr Vos.’
‘What’s that, Jack?’
‘You’re thinking: stupid old bastard getting himself hitched to some money-grabbing Thai bride.’
‘Not for a minute,’ Vos says, although he has been thinking precisely that.
‘Well, I used to think the same thing,’ Peel says. ‘But I’ll tell you this: I wouldn’t swap Kimnai Su for a hundred of the old skanks you see wandering round Newcastle, with their fucking spray-on tans and tit jobs. She’s no fucking oil painting, I’ll grant you that, but she’s fucking unconditional. And she’s devoted. And you know something else, Mr Vos?’
‘What’s that, Jack?’
‘She’s fucking dynamite in the sack.’
Vos exchanges a fleeting glance with Blaylock. ‘Then I’m very happy for you, Jack,’ he says.
For a few moments nothing is said. Then Peel swings his legs off the sunlounger and leans forward, cradling his glass in his fingers.
‘But that’s me, Mr Vos. How about you?’
‘I’m good, Jack.’
‘You must be wondering why I asked you here today.’
‘It had crossed my mind. It’s not about the wedding, is it?’
Peel’s face momentarily clouds. Then he waves his hand, as if swatting an annoying wasp. ‘That’s ancient history,’ he says. ‘Let bygones be bygones, that’s what I say. Life’s too short to bear grudges – although if you’d wanted an invite, all you had to do was ask.’
‘Glad to hear it.’
Peel raises his glass in a toast. ‘I have to tell you you’re getting a reputation for good work, Mr Vos. For bringing the undesirables of our wonderful city to book.’
‘That’s very gratifying to hear.’
‘As a businessman, I find it immensely reassuring to know that there are police officers such as yourself looking after my best interests.’
‘I do my best.’
‘I know. And that’s why it grieves me when I think how the city rewards you for your efforts. What are you on, Theo? You don’t mind if I call you Theo, do you? What do they pay you?’
‘My old mum told me never to discuss my pay packet or who I vote for,’ Vos says.
Peel laughs. ‘Then she was a wise lady. But specifics aside, I’ve got a pretty good idea what your average detective chief inspector’s wage is. And believe me, for the job you do, Theo, it’s a derisory sum.’
‘I get by, Jack.’
‘I know you do. But it can’t be easy. I mean, there’s the young lad to consider. What’s his name? Alex? Bright boy, by all accounts. Bright boys deserve the best. A good education at a good school, for starters. But how can you possibly afford school fees on your wages? Especially when half of it goes to the ex-wife. I should know – I’ve got a couple myself. Fucking parasites they are. And where is she again, your ex-missus? Oh yeah. Florida. Living it up with that dentist friend of hers. Must be hard to take that, Theo. All your hard-earned going to fund some Florida dentist’s lifestyle. And it’s not as if they don’t earn a packet over there anyway.’
Vos takes a sip of his gin and tonic. ‘You seem very well-informed about my family, Jack. And my finances.’
‘I’ve had my eye on you for a while, Theo,’ Peel announces with a wink.
‘That’s very flattering of you. But unless I win the Lottery, I can’t see my circumstances changing anytime soon.’
‘Of course not. And they say you’ve got more chance of being hit by a meteorite than you have of winning the Lottery.’
Peel waits patiently until Al Blaylock’s sycophantic laughter has passed. Then he leans over and tinks the base of his sweating glass against Vos’s.
‘I just want you to know, Theo, how much I appreciate the work that you’re doing – and if there’s anything, anything at all, that I can do to make life more comfortable for you and your family, you don’t hesitate to get in touch. Understand?’
‘Peel was attempting to bribe you?’ Gilcrux says.
‘Bribe. Threaten. Call it what you will. To be honest, I don’t know. Listen, Mr Gilcrux, I know what you’re thinking. Jack Peel had something on me, so I pushed him off a fire escape. But you’re wrong. He was a little man who watched too many Godfather films. I’m sure you’ve come across dozens of them in your time. As far as I was concerned, he was a joke.’
Gilcrux shifts slightly in his chair. As he does so, a single bead of sweat emerges from his hairline and begins rolling down his temple. It is the first sign Vos has seen that his interrogator is not made out of wax.
‘Let’s go back to that day at the casino,’ he says. ‘Why were you there?’
‘We had a tip that Peel was taking delivery of a shipment of cocaine from his associates in London. But he had people who worked for him. We certainly weren’t expecting Peel to be there in person.’
‘What happened?’
‘We waited until we got the signal and then we went in.’
‘Signal from who?’
‘One of my squad was working undercover.’
‘I see. Go on.’
‘Peel saw us coming, started running.’
‘And you gave chase?’
‘That’s right.’
‘You personally?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Because the other members of my team were otherwise engaged with Peel’s men. Because I didn’t want him to get away.’
‘And this pursuit ended up on the fire escape?’
‘Correct.’
‘And then?’
‘Peel continued to evade arrest,’ Vos says. ‘And then he fell.’
‘How?’
‘Because he was trying to jump between two buildings. Because he was fifty-five years old and should have known better than to think he was Spider-Man.’
‘Where were you when he fell?’
