THE DOG STAR RAGES (Part6)

THE DOG STAR
RAGES
(Part6)
3 April – 9 April
In which Atticus asserts himself, gets a lecture on shit
and in which a few more accidents befall.
This is a work of fiction.
I am not I.
You are not you.
He is not he and
she most definitely is not she.
Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the
author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
organisations, events or locales is entirely coincidental as are
references to actual people living or dead.
2
The story so far …
The UK is in the grip of the worst recession in living memory. Atticus
Lane, partner in a struggling law firm, is suffering his own personal
and financial crises. Driving into the office one morning he hears that
Derek Crouch, his investment partner in the ill-fated Riverhaven
property development, has been found dead in his car.
At Derek’s funeral he is accosted by two characters in the employ of
local gangster, Michael “Mad Dog” Kilkenny. He is subsequently
kidnapped and taken to Riverhaven where he is told he must find £30
million to buy Kilkenny out of Riverhaven or they will kidnap his
daughter and sell her to people traffickers.
Back in the office things go from bad to worse. A dossier is left on his
desk, however, by the mysterious Deepthroat. It gives a detailed
account of the activities of the Chapter … a covert partnership carried
on by a number of his partners which owns assets worth nearly £500
million, fraudulently expropriated from client accounts.
Things look temporarily better when Atticus is invited to join the
Chapter. Before they will let him in, though, he is told he has to kill
five of his partners. The list of his proposed victims falls into the
hands of Mad Dog Kilkenny …
Milton Ratchet, Head of Corporate, falls from his window … did he
fall or was he pushed?
Bertie Blight, corpulent Head of Property, falls down the lift shaft …
was the lift mechanism sabotaged?
Read on and find out who will be the next to die …
3
Saturday 3 April
Tried to call Ayres last night after speaking to Deepthroat. Mrs Godwit
picked up the phone and I made an appointment to see him and Sir
Evelyn next Tuesday which is the first time they’re both in the office
at the same time.
Went down to see Honey Thorogood after that but she’d gone. End of
the week. Felt bereft. Empty as a love-sick adolescent.
Five mile run around the Shanty Wood again this morning. Stopped
off in Beadlam village for a lottery ticket and the Saturday edition of
the Norchester Recorder. I’m in the kitchen cooling down with the
Recorder and an OJ. Page 3 ... Sir Christopher Caulfield the exChairman of TMB (the man who put the Tit in Titan) has a new book
out. There’s a picture of him looking like a rational but very optimistic
rat. Coincidentally there’s a picture, too, of Lucas Wilde, the old Chief
Exec, next to an article about corporate excess. What the hell ever
happened to his head? He looks like Bart Simpson’s Granddad caught
shoplifting. I snort juice though when I get to the headline on page 5:
FOUR DEATHS AT CITY LAW FIRM
CD Winthrow again ... who the fuck’s CD Winthrow and why is he so
interested in what’s going on at Grace Withers?
Police were called yesterday to the offices of leading Law Firm
Grace Withers following the death of Albermarle Blight, head of
the Firm’s troubled Property Department. Mr Blight plunged
down the lift shaft yesterday morning at the firm’s city centre
headquarters and died instantly. Police are investigating the
circumstances of his death and are believed, in particular, to
be looking into certain irregularities relating to the
maintenance of the lift mechanism.
This is the fourth time in only six weeks that death has struck
at the firm. Partners were still mourning the loss of Derek
Crouch who committed suicide in February when former
Senior Partner Julian Crouch passed away at his desk earlier
this month. The firm was stunned again just last week when
4
Head of Corporate, Milton Ratchet, fell to his death from a
fourth floor window.
Speaking from his office in London, Senior Partner, Sir Evelyn
Grace, said ...
Shit. I close the paper and reach into a kitchen drawer for the bottle of
Kalms I keep there for emergencies. That’s all we need ... the press
getting involved. I do some deep breathing exercises and try to put
Grace Withers out of my mind. I need to get ready for tonight.
Tonight ... 3 April ... “SC” in Laura’s diary. Tonight I’m going to find
out just what the fuck’s going on with this Stud Committee bullshit.
Sunday 4 April
Last night: asked Laura up front where she was going. She wouldn’t
say. She left about seven thirty dressed up to the nines. I jumped in the
car and followed. I was nearly clocked at Meredin’s. They have a big
old farm house just off the road to Scargill. Laura went in and three
minutes later a taxi came out and went past me.
So what do I do?
I decide to follow it.
It went into the countryside ... deep into the Shire to a place called
Unthank. I had to keep a safe distance back in case they picked up
they were being followed but after a while it seemed they’d got into a
convoy: there were five or six cars all seemingly headed to the same
place. At one point I picked up an idiot behind me ... headlights only a
couple of metres off my back bumper as I took the twists and turns ...
then we got to a straight stretch and he shot past ... a dark coloured
Bentley Coupe just like the one Ayres drives. I didn’t catch the
number plate and by the time I got to the far side of the little village
they’d all disappeared. I turned back and just after the church I saw the
sign for Unthank Hall next to a small gate house at the top of a lane.
Uhuh?
5
I was about two hundred yards down the lane approaching a gateway
when a dark figure moved out from the shadows and stopped me with
a raised hand. He signalled me to pull over and wind down the
window then he came round to the side of the car. There was a radio
attached to his breast pocket and he wore an ear phone.
“Can I see your invitation please, sir.”
A security guard for Christ’s sake.
I won’t take you through the whole demeaning interview. The taxi I’d
followed went by me on the way out and I could see the Bentley that
passed me parked next to a small stable of similarly flash vehicles on
the gravel sweep before the Hall which was lit up like Christmas.
Suffice to say I was turned away. I turned left at the top of the drive
and drove on through Unthank village. Sometimes these places have a
back entrance. I found it but there was a car parked inside the gateway
and when I stopped I saw a figure move inside. More security.
There was nothing else for it. I came home.
Fell asleep about two o’clock and woke again at four thirty. She still
wasn’t back. Woke again at Seven thirty. Looked out of the window
and her car was there. Twelve thirty in the afternoon now and still no
sign of her up and about.
5.30. Millie dropped off by her friend’s mum. Try having a chat with
her (Millie, not the mum) about behavioural issues at school. All I got
were the eyes. Felt like a phony. Who am I to make judgements or
give advice?
7.30. Open a bottle of Chateau La Mission Haut-Brion ’00
Tasting Notes:
Curious structure ... earthy tannins with elusive notes of fruit.
Ripe and rich with plenty to put out but strangely hidden.
Monday 5 April
6
9.05. Sirius Fermin calls. Mrs Godwit has brought him up to speed
with events. He is calling to tell me that the police may want to
interview partners.
Any partners in particular, I ask, trying not to betray anxiety.
They’ll provide a list. They will also want to look at office diaries.
Office diaries?
Office Diaries.
Why would they want to look at Diaries?
I’m afraid I have no idea.
There’s nothing in mine that would ... there’s hardly anything in it at
all.
Would you have any objection to them seeing it?
They’ve asked to see it?
In the event that they do.
Jesus Christ!
Call 666 on the new Blackberry as soon as the ghoulish emissary of
the underworld is off the phone but there’s no answer.
In.
Out.
In.
Out.
Irish bastards. Never there when I want to speak to them.
9.30. GO Jimmy comes in with the post.
“What’s up, Mr Lane?” he says dropping off a large manila envelope
franked with the name of Gilbert and Riddle, Solicitors of
Cheltenham. “You look like shit.”
Thanks a fucking bunch there Jimmy.
The letter encloses a writ and asks if I will kindly acknowledge service
to avoid the embarrassment of having process servers attend me at my
office.
Donegal Bloodstock ... Nucky O’Connell ... Sixty thousand fucking
quid. Where am I going to get ... Hang on just a second. What did
Deepthroat say about asserting myself ... getting into the game? Four
7
hundred and ninety five million quid we’re talking about here. They
can come across with a mere sixty thousand. I’ll raise it with Little and
Large tomorrow.
10.00. Call from Sir Wilfred “Quincey” Quince, Chairman and major
shareholder in Ilium Pharmaceuticals. They’ve got a problem ... fuck
me – some legal work for a change: a competitor alleging
infringement of intellectual property rights on a product under
development. I’ll get a litigator over straightaway I say. It’s more
complicated, says Quincey. The product is core to their strategy going
forward. They’ve told Latour Bros., their financial advisers, and
they’re considering whether or not they need to make an
announcement to the Stock Exchange. There’s a crisis meeting at
Latours on 22 April to discuss things which gives them a couple of
weeks to assess the damage and come up with a strategy. He needs a
litigator on the case now ... they’ve had someone on the inside feeding
information to their competitor, he thinks – some kind of industrial
espionage. He wants me at the summit meeting to handle Latours.
Wants me you see? Not just a pretty face after all.
I’m just putting the phone down when Honey Thorogood comes
through the door, a vision of incomparable beauty drenched in her own
personally directed beams of celestial fire.
She smiles as she hands me a coffee: “Problem?”
If you only knew the half of it.
I confine myself to legal issues, taking her through the conversation
I’ve just had with Quincey. “I’m going to have to speak to Meany to
see who we’ve got in Litigation who can handle this sort of stuff.”
“Talk to Joel.”
“Joel?”
“Joel Storm.”
Cue inward access of jealousy and insecurity.
“Why him?” I struggle to keep my tone neutral.
“It sounds like the sort of case that’s going to need a really hot-looking
lawyer,” she answers straight-faced then she laughs at my facial
expression: “Because he’s a specialist IP litigator,” she says. “I’m
8
pretty sure he has a couple of big industrial espionage cases on his CV
from his time in the States.”
“Interesting,” I attempt to recover a little poise.
I’ll look a bit pathetic now if I don’t speak to him at least.
Honey leaves me to enjoy my coffee alone. I’m on the brink of calling
the Perfect Storm when my new Blackberry goes off ... 666 ... I take
the call.
“Top o’ the mornin’ to ye, Atticus.”
Top o’ the mornin’, eh, Tonto? It’s a phrase that’s been playing over
and over in my mind for the last twenty four hours … ever since
Sergeant Talon told me the engineer I saw in the lift was bogus.
“This thing,” I say, “the list and all that ...” (there’d be no point asking
Tonto if he knew anything about the lift) “it’s got to stop,” I’ve
decided to assert myself. “I want you to put a stop to it right away.”
“Atticus man ... ye’re gibberin’”
I tell him the police are getting involved, they’re coming to speak to
Partners. I tell him enough’s enough.
“That’s all very interestin’, Atticus,” he says, “but assumin’ for just
one minute oi had the sloightest oidea what it is ye’re talking about,
how the bejasus d’ye suggest oi moight be able to help.”
“You can ask Mr Kilkenny to suspend the project,” I say. “Tell him
I’ll have the paperwork all signed up by tomorrow. Once that’s done
I’m sure we can bring things to a head commercially and reach a
conclusion satisfactory to all parties.”
There’s a long pause. He doesn’t say anything.
“Is that okay?”
“Oi’ll have a word,” he says. “The trouble wit’ the Boss, though,
Atticus, as oi’ve troid to tell ye before, is that he’s one of those in-fora-penny-in-for-a-pound sorts of fellers. The sort who finishes
somethin’ once he’s started.”
“I understand that but ...”
I’m speaking to myself again. The line is dead.
9
Tuesday 6 April
Breakfast. Laura has the Recorder open.
“Partners at your place seem to be dropping like flies,” she looks over
the top of the newspaper. “How is it you manage to survive?”
“Thanks a lot sweetness,” I try to control the beating of my heart. “Am
I to ascertain that the unfortunate demise of Bertie Blight has made the
newspaper this morning?”
“Just a mention,” she folds the page and passes it over. “It says the
police are going to investigate.”
I glance at the half column on page three. CD Winthrow again. Has
the interfering little shit got nothing better to do?
“When they’ve finished poking around in the lift would you mind
mentioning the mysterious case of my missing necklace and earrings?”
she pours herself another cup of tea. “I may have to refer the matter to
them if they don’t turn up soon.”
“Ha ha ha,” I give her the fixed grin. “Very droll.”
It’s only speculation, I’ve convinced myself by the time I’ve driven in
to the office – just some nosy journalist putting two and two together
and getting five – but when I get into reception Sergeant Talon’s
sitting there under the gimlet eye of Mrs Frost. Another person sits
alongside him, a human bloodhound sporting a moustache and various
additional, unmistakeable hallmarks of the constabulary. Feign idle
chit chat with Mrs Paraphernalia when I get upstairs which reveals
they’re here to see Sir Evelyn in connection with the events of last
Thursday. Let’s hope the fat bastard can wear the mask, then, with his
usual aplomb.
Two minutes past ten sees me turning the handle of Conference Room
Two with a firm hand. I’ve decided I’ll be a little late – keep them
waiting for a change and, sure enough, when I go in Noddy and Big
Ears are sitting there like one o’clock half struck.
10
Sir Evelyn’s wreathed in smiles the instant I set foot through the door.
Ayres, as usual, wears the expression of a piranha fish waiting for its
pig to set foot in the river.
“What did the police want?” I do my best to remain suave and steelyeyed as I put the question to the Great Imperator.
“Nothing Fermin can’t handle,” he waves the question away.
“Maintenance schedules, things like that. I must say you’ve been very
ingenious: it’s all health and safety as far as they’re concerned.
Inwardly I breathe a sigh of relief as Sir Evelyn makes a speech about
how well things are going and how pleased they both are with the
progress I’m making. Outwardly I wear the mask of a man with iron in
the soul. He’s in full swing when I stop him.
“Nice speech Evelyn,” I say, “but shall we cut to the bottom line.”
For a fraction of a second the iron fist tightens visibly inside the velvet
glove. I take the ensuing silence, however, as an invitation to go on.
“At the moment,” I say, “we’re on the horns of a dilemma. The
situation bears a little legal analysis actually.”
Ayres raises an eyebrow.
“You’ve asked me to do a job in return for which I’m to receive what
we lawyers call valuable consideration: to wit, my appointment to a
position to which certain remuneration attaches by virtue of the
insertion of my name in a Deed in your possession. Your problem,” I
press on, “is that, should you put my name in the Deed before the job
is finished, I might not finish it.” Neither of them speaks. “My problem
is much the same: if I complete the job before you put my name in the
Deed you may or may not get round to it. Normally we’d put some
sort of escrow arrangement in place but I assume that’s not going to be
possible given the circumstances.”
“My dear chap ...” Evelyn begins but again I cut him off.
“I don’t want another speech about trust Evelyn. I’m here to make one.
You asked me for a demonstration of good faith which I provided ...
then you upped the ante and asked me to do more. I’ve come through a
second time. I think I’ve shown enough good faith. It’s time I saw
some in return.”
“But ...”
11
Again I hold up my hand
“The Deed of Appointment we talked about last time we all met ... the
Deed that appoints me Chancellor. I want my name in it today.”
“Or what?” says Ayres with a curl of his lip. “You’ll go wunning to ve
aufowities?”
“I don’t have to,” I look him in the eye with all the steel I can muster.
“They seem to be here now on a regular basis.”
“Gentlemen, gentlemen,” Evelyn becomes more unctuous than ever.
“Is this any way for partners to behave?” He nudges Ayres who turns
over the documentation in front of him. “If only you’d let me finish,
Atticus,” he reaches out a soft and pudgy hand, “the exchange you’ve
suggested is exactly what we’re here to effect.”
A couple of perfectly manicured sausages push two documents across
the desk. I check through them. They seem fine as far as I can tell in
my condition of heightened anxiety. The first is the Deed of
Appointment executed by Derek (may he never rest in peace)
resigning his position and appointing me (my name has been typed
into it) as sole trustee of all Chapter assets “both real and personal and
wheresoever situated including but not limited to those set out in the
attached Schedules.” The second is the one that will be used in an
emergency in case anything should happen to me. It’s a carbon copy
of the first except it’s me resigning and appointing someone else; my
successor ... the name is left blank.
I sign the first Deed accepting the appointment as trustee and thereby
become Chancellor of the Chapter. It’s an historic moment. I’m now
worth millions and at the same time I’m implicated up to my neck in
what must be one of the biggest and most comprehensive cases of
embezzlement committed by the partners of a law firm in the entire
history of the legal profession in England and Wales. My pen hovers
over the second Deed. “If I sign this,” I look at Evelyn, “you can
remove me at any time simply by writing another name in it.”
“As long as you keep making good progress with the project, why
would we?” he’s all dazzling teeth again.
Jesus have they got me by the balls?
12
“It’s not something anyone would go into lightly now is it?” he smiles
his most reassuring smile. “This,” he picks up the first deed, “will be
sent by Fermin to the Trust Company in the Cayman Islands through
which the Chapter’s assets are controlled.”
Cayman Islands eh?
“It will take about a week to register you as the Trustee. In the
meantime I’ll ask Fermin to take you through the relevant accounts,
asset schedules and valuation reports to get you familiar with
everything. I think it’s time we got you feeling a little more embedded.
By the time he’s taken you through it all you’ll see we don’t choose a
new Chancellor lightly and you’ll appreciate why it’s essential that we
have this in place,” he indicates the second Deed. “If you would please
sign,” a sausagey finger taps below the dotted line where my name
appears, “I’ll hold it until the ...erm ... the project, as it were, is, so to
speak, complete in all respects. It can then be placed with the rest of
the Chapter documentation under your control to be used at some far
distant point of time in the future when, after a long and prosperous
stint as Chancellor of our brotherhood you might decide to surrender
the yoke, as it were, and retire to a less ... demanding role.”
I look him in the eye. He talks about the brotherhood as if he hasn’t
personally commissioned its wholesale decimation. I wouldn’t trust
the bastard as far as I could throw the building we’re sitting in but I
sign ... what else can I do? As soon as I’ve done so Fermin appears
mysteriously like a genie from a lamp and Sir Evelyn hands him both
deeds like he’s the fat and smiling Caliph who summoned him.
There’s a little small talk between them about getting the first deed
registered with the afore-mentioned Trust Corporation and various
banks and we arrange for Fermin to have the Chapter records returned
and placed in my office and to take me through everything on
Thursday afternoon. These matters attended to, Fermin vanishes as
silently as he appeared.
“There’s just one more thing,” I say when Fermin’s gone, pushing
over the letter I received from O’Connell’s lawyers yesterday. “It
would complicate matters a little if your new Chancellor was declared
bankrupt before his feet were under the table,” I wait a few moments
13
as they peruse the writ. “I have a few other minor difficulties
connected with my having had to extract myself from a property
development project in Spain which, I’m afraid to say, went
comprehensively tits up.”
Ayres: “How big were ve tits in question?”
Almost as big as Evelyn’s, comes to mind.
“Big enough to hold down a job in our Property Department,” I say
instead. “The top and bottom of it is that I urgently need a seventy five
thousand pound cash injection if I’m to remain solvent.”
Ayres mouth has turned into a grim line but nothing, it seems, can dent
the boundless bonhomie of our Senior Partner this morning. “The
Chapter keeps a substantial cash float for contingencies in an account
under Fermin’s control,” his jowls wobble as he nods in man-of-theworld fashion. “I’ll see to it he makes the requisite advance this
afternoon.”
Business concluded as satisfactorily as I could have hoped for I rise to
go.
“Just one more thing,” Sir Evelyn gestures to me to stay. “That chap
here from the police this morning.”
“Yes,” I answer warily. “I thought we’d covered that?”
“Yes, yes, yes,” he dabs a placatory hand at me. “Fermin’s sorting out
the maintenance records and so on. They asked if I knew of anyone
who might hold a grudge against the Firm or against any of our
partners in particular.”
“Still fairly standard stuff then.”
“Yes but we were thinking,” Sir Evelyn shares a glance with Ayres. “It
might be as well to let a little water go under the bridge ... to let things
settle down a bit before we go forward with the, erm ... the next phase
of the project?”
I nod. Perfect, I think as I stand and prepare to exit stage left: a bit of
a breather suits me just fine.
“And perhaps,” says Ayres as I reach for the door handle, “we might
fink about going off-site for ve next one ... get a little distance between
us and ve next ... ahem ... termination.” I turn to look at him. “If vat
were possible?”
14
Wanker.
Buoyed with the success I’ve had with my new get-tough policy I call
Honey Thorogood and ask her up to my new eyrie on the fourth floor.
Things are looking better at last. I’ve finally got the paperwork sorted
on the Chapter situation on top of which Itchy and Scratchy want
things slowed down which is great. It gives me time to get my feet
under the desk, establish a negotiating position and buy my way out of
this whole pile of shit I’ve got myself into.
A few minutes later Honey shimmers in looking like a sunbeam with
endless legs and modestly assertive breasts. “Hi,” she says, “you’re
looking happier than usual.”
“Yeah?” I stand up and go to the window. I’m just about to sit on the
sill when I realise I’m about to do a Milton Ratchet. I lean back
instead. Expansive ... a player ... a man in control of his own destiny.
“Have you been working out?” she asks.
“Why do you ask?” I suck in my belly and try standing a little
straighter.
“You’re looking toned that’s all ... buff. Hey,” she changes the subject:
“I hear you called Joel,”
It’s true. I called him yesterday as soon as I finished speaking to
Tonto. We’re going out to Ilium Pharma together on Thursday to see
Quincey.
“He seems to know what he’s talking about,” I acknowledge.
Toned, eh? Buff. Maybe all the running and the power plate work-outs
are starting to have an effect.
“Have you had any more thoughts about Head of Corporate?” she
switches tack again. “You should go for it,” she says when I shake my
head. “Carpe diem.”
Carpe diem is right. I’ve already carped quite a bit of diem, as a matter
of fact, and I’m in the mood for carping a little bit more ... a bit of
noctis as well while I’m on. “What are you doing tonight?” I ask.
She looks a little crestfallen: “I’ve got something on.”
My crest must wilt a little too.
“I’m free tomorrow,” she brightens.
15
“Fisherman’s Lodge?”
“What time?”
“Seven?”
“I’ll bring the car and meet you there,” she says. “We don’t want
people seeing us leaving together all the time.”
Sweet Mother of God we’re conspiring ... she’s acknowledged the
illicit nature of the arrangements. We’re on the way.
“How are you getting on with the plot?” I try to keep the tremble out
of my voice.
“Great,” her eyes flash. “I had a moment of inspiration. I’ve decided
that the Partners in the firm have this kind of a secret society ... all of
the old guys are in it. Everyone’s in except the one who’s killing them
all.”
“Yeeeeaah,” I sit down slowly. Where the fuck is she going with this?
“What kind of secret society?”
“You know ... like the Grisham novel ... The Firm. They all work for
the Mafia. Corporate fronts ... money laundering ...that sort of thing.”
I feel myself relax a little.
“We might as well set it in America,” she goes on. “If we’re going to
sell the film rights that’s where it’ll end up.”
America ... Film rights. Yeah, why not? Let’s start the way we mean to
go on and sell out right from the off. Set it in New York City. Scorsese
and the Coen brothers can fight over the script. John Malkovich would
make a fabulous Steppenwolf, Scarlett Johansson can play the love
interest and Kevin Spacey has the necessary depth, I suppose, to pull
off all the subtle nuances required to carry the Atticus Lane role ...
Hang on just a second though: I’m not in it.
Wednesday 7 April
Think I’m becoming drug-dependant. Triple dose of Amitriptyline last
night – I’ve already almost used up three months’ worth – wake up
feeling like shit again, dreaming all night about murdering people. I
16
think I’m going to have a heart attack. Sit on the lavatory peeing like a
girl as I wait for the room to stop spinning. Staring into the mirror as I
wait for the water from the tap to run hot. I look like shit.
Road-rage incident on ring road this morning. Gave the finger to
white-van-man who turns instantly into a homicidal maniac, swerves
across two lanes and starts following me two feet off the back of the
Jag. Shitting myself, praying for lights not to turn red in case he gets
out and unceremoniously cleans my clock. Eventually get to police
station where I drive into car park and wait until he’s finished his
febrile, simian gesturing and fucks off. Millie, late for school, wants a
note from me saying I’m a freak and it’s all my fault
Get into the office. Travel up in the lift with GO Jimmy. He takes a
long, hard look at me.
“I know Jimmy ...” I try to head him off.
“Mr Lane.”
I know it’s coming.
“Mr Lane ... you look like shit.”
“Thanks Jimmy.”
I’ve just hung up my coat when he comes into my office with a
handful of internal stuff for my in-tray. He’s going to give me the full
lecture on shit and there’s nothing I can do to stop him.
“Do you know, Mr Lane,” he begins “my old grandad used to do a bit
of boxing when he was a lad.” I did know that. “The old Duke, his
Grace, used to lay a wager or two on him. When he hung up the gloves
he took him on in the gardens up at Rookhope. Had a bit of a soft spot
for him, the old Duke, his Grace.”
I bet he did.
“Took him into his confidence ... Came to see him almost as a kind of
adviser.”
I know better than to question this.
“Do you know what my old grandad used to say?”
I do (I’ve had the shit lecture before) but I shake my head anyway.
“It’s all about shit.”
17
I told you.
“Did you know there’s shit inside you all the time, Mr Lane? You’re
full of the stuff.”
Neutral expression.
“When you go for a shit you don’t get rid of the lot,” Jimmy shakes his
head sagely: “Not by a long chalk. There’s plenty more shit inside.
Some of it’s been there in your guts for years, weighing you down,
making you feel bad. The key to it isn’t just the amount of shit inside
your guts though; it’s the kind of shit. It’s having too much of the
wrong kind of shit that makes you feel heavy, jaded, uncomfortable,
are you following what I’m saying?”
Nod.
“Do you mind me asking Mr Lane ...”
Frightened expression.
“ ... have you had a shit this morning?
Nod.
“Did you notice what your shit was like?”
Shake.
“Thought not. People don’t pay enough attention to their shit. People
should be looking at their shit ... checking it. The worst kind of shit is
dark shit. But the really worst kind is soft, dark shit. I look at you Mr
Lane and, no offence meant, I can see you’re full of soft, dark shit that
doesn’t want to come out.”
Helpless pleading look.
“Don’t you worry Mr Lane. Next time you have a shit check the
colour and the consistency for me and we’ll take it from there. Diet
and exercise,” he deposits shit of an entirely different kind into my intray: “We’ll soon have you right and regular as rain with the best kind
of shit inside you and not too much of it.”
“Thanks Jimmy.”
I thought the crazy bastard was never going to go
I’ve just seen the back of Professor Shit when the phone goes. It’s
Vitus Balman from Halcyon Novelties an old client I’ve looked after
18
since I was a trainee. He’s thinking about retiring and wants to talk
through his options. “What are you doing now?” he says.
“Right now?”
“Can you come over?”
“Well I was about to telephone a bunch of murdering, drug-dealing,
psychopaths to ask them to put a hold on bumping off a number of
people I’ve got a contract out on.”
“Atticus,” he chuckles, “always the joker. Listen, that’ll have to wait.
Come over for ten thirty. I’ll have the tea and scones waiting.”
“Put an extra scone out and I’ll bring a colleague. You’ll enjoy
meeting her.”
Half an hour later I pull into the car park at Halcyon Novelties with
Honey in tow. She takes a look at the sixties-built, flat roof officecum-factory on the Chainbridge Road where they knock out a whole
load of party hats, decorations, Christmas crackers and similar yuletide
tat. “Not our usual standard of client,” she says.
“Yeah well ... I’ve known Vitus for nearly twenty five years.”
It’s Vitus himself who comes out to reception: a bouncy little ball in
his sixties. His eyes light up when he sees Honey. “Atticus,” he says
though it isn’t me he’s looking at. “You knew it was Christmas
cracker time so you brought one of your own. Here now,” he takes
Honey by the hand: “We’ve been doing the cracker jokes all morning.
See if you can tell me ... what do snowmen wear on their heads?”
She thinks a while and then: “Ice caps?” she ventures.
“Clever too,” he turns to me doing his best to hide his disappointment
and I make the introductions. “Honey, eh?” he scratches his head and
then: “Knock knock,” he decides to give it another go.
“Who’s there?”
“Honeydew.”
Her nose wrinkles: “Honeydew who?”
“Honeydew want to come out dancing with me tonight?”
Dancing! That’s how old the jokes are.
19
“I’d love to Mr Balman but,” she laughs and throws a slightly
panicked glance in my direction, “I have a prior engagement that I just
can’t break.”
My heart jumps as I look at the snow-man clock on the wall. Ten
thirty five. Eight hours and twenty five minutes: five hundred and five
minutes and then ...
We spend a hundred of them at Halcyon drinking tea, eating scones
and listening to a stream of execrable Christmas card and lawyer gags.
For most of the time we’re there I sit back and wonder at the beauty of
Honey Thorogood. She listens, she laughs, she cracks jokes of her
own. I find myself staring at her profile wondering if last Wednesday
really happened.
Somewhere along the way we talk about the plans Vitus has to sell the
business on. We give him a few useful pointers about restructuring
things for tax purposes and I find myself wondering why we weren’t
content to make a business out of helping people like this: real people
with real lives, instead of chasing after clients like Titan and Postillion
where you have to spend half your life kissing the ass of counterfeit,
ladder-climbing tossers like Hitman, Bairstead and Napoleon fucking
Bonaparte.
I’m still a little blue when we get back to the office and by mistake I
get out on floor three with Honey. The lift’s on its way back to
reception by the time I realise.
“Still on for tonight?” I whisper as she heads for her office.
“Are you crazy?” she whispers back, “Of course I am,” and with a
quick “catch you later” and a song in my heart I’m headed for the back
stairs and the balmy climes of the fourth floor. I’m half way past Harry
Haller’s office when the picture I’ve just seen through his open
doorway registers and I turn back.
“Harry. What the fuck ...”
The Steppenwolf (allegedly) is sitting there with a thousand yard stare
on, trimming his finger nails with a hunting knife that would give
nightmares to a Utah survivalist with Armageddon on his mind.
“What?” he comes out of his trance.
20
“The knife,” I say.
“Someone left it on my desk.”
“Someone ...”
“Maybe it’s a hint. Maybe they want me to slash my wrists with it or
something. I’ve been using it as a letter-opener”
“Harry,” I look him in the eye. “Is there anything you want to tell
me?”
He thinks for a second or two. “You’ve heard the Jimmy Page solo in
Good Times, Bad Times,” he says.
I nod, though I’m a little bemused.
“Apparently he was still using the Telecaster.”
The afternoon limps by. To help the time pass I try to get on with
some of the interminable admin bollocks that pollutes even the fourth
floor. Five o’clock eventually arrives: Tina pops her head around the
door to say she’s off on the dot. She has to pick her mother up from
hospital. Leaving a bit early but better to be safe than sorry.
Indeed, I wave her off.
Better to be safe than sorry ... Safe ... Safe sex! What if all my dreams
come true tonight and she wants to practice safe sex ... Honey. I don’t
mean with a safety net or anything ... I mean condoms. What if she
insists?
Thursday 8 April
What a disaster. What an unadulterated (in every sense of the word)
fucking (no cancel that because it definitely doesn’t apply) disaster.
Three dead … all my fault. And the Hand of God … I keep hearing it
over and over … the sound the guy made …
It’s about six thirty when I get back from buying the johnnies. I
decided to walk up to the twenty four hour garage on the West Road in
case anybody recognised me.
21
Rush hour. Fucking hilarious. I’m standing in the cue holding a Mars
Bar and a bottle of lucozade sport with that sub-Vitus Balman joke
going round and round in my head:
“A hundred condoms please.”
“Fuck me.”
“Fair enough … make that a hundred and one.”
I get to the front of the cue:
“Is that all, love?” she puts the mars bar and the Lucozade through the
till.
“Er, I’ll have a packet of condoms too please,” I murmur.
“A packet of what, flower?”
“Condoms,” I say a little louder this time, feeling my neck begin to
redden.
“Any particular kind, flower?”
I feel the queue behind me shifting restlessly.
What kind do they have? The bloody things are behind the counter.
What kinds are there and what are their distinctive properties? Do they
come in different shapes and sizes? It’s so long since I’ve had to do
anything like this there might have been all sorts of developments.
I look at the different packets. People are shuffling about behind me,
getting restless. “Elite ... get the natural feeling.” Sounds good.
“Extra Safe ... a little bit thicker.” Don’t like the sound of that much.
Don’t want to be surrendering one iota of that snug and tactile gliding
on the altar of caution, no sir! “Pleasure Max ... go for the ultimate
enjoyment.” That’s got to be the one.
I look at the face of the woman serving me: the biro behind her ear, the
grubby Elastoplast uncurling from her finger, the faded selfadministered tattoos on her arms ... not a likely source of the best and
most sensitive advice. Someone coughs behind me and I’m struck by
sudden inspiration.
“Do you have any of the ones that are ribbed for pleasure?” I ask
thinking the females in the queue will at least see what a generous and
considerate lover I must be and anyway, let’s face it ... I probably
need all the help I can get.
22
I try tucking the contraband into the inside pocket of my jacket as I
walk past the petrol pumps but there’s something else in there ... I pull
out the obstruction ... by some serendipitous intervention on the part of
the benign forces of the universe (I’m bloody owed one) it’s the
Viagra I found in Derek’s desk. I’m wearing the suit I had on the day I
went to Gallowhill Manor to root around in Derek’s study. Fuck it. I
do need all the help I can get. I pop one out and wash it down with a
swig of lucozade. Try stopping me now, think’s the God of Love as he
turns into Cooper’s Reach and sees the entrance to the car park ahead,
thinking of Honey Thorogood’s beautifully scented skin, her velvet
eyes, her hair, her no doubt wonderfully strong yet silky thighs:
feeling like a love machine just waiting for the switch to be flicked.
Which is when the long, dark Beamer pulls up at the kerb beside me
and the needle on the Barry White sound track playing in my head
scrapes horrendously across the grooves.
The car window comes down slowly and a face I recognise looks out
at me with a slightly jeering expression in its eye.
“Hello Satan,” I say to the dog.
“Get in,” Tonto leans across behind him.
I look at my watch ... six twenty. “I’m sorry I can’t,” I hesitate. “I was
just about to ...”
The back door of the car opens. A mountain of a man gets out and
holds it for me. He has tattoos on his hands, his neck ... he even has a
tattoo across his forehead. I’ve an inkling I’ve seen him somewhere
before though just at the moment I’m unable to place him.
“Mr Lane,” says Tonto, “Would you please, for feck’s sake, get into
the car.”
We slide past Vane Court and slip into the traffic.
“Where are we going?”
Tonto avails himself of the bus lane: “To see a mutual friend.”
In the next twenty minutes he uses every nefarious art imaginable to
ease the car through the dregs of the rush hour and soon (though to
me, as the minutes towards the time appointed for my rendezvous with
Honey tick by, it seems like forever) we’re on the outskirts of town
23
and heading into the countryside at such speed it feels like my hair’s in
danger of igniting. I glance at the homunculus sitting next to me. The
overpowering smell of rum is all the clue I need. I last saw him lying
comatose on the gangway of the Madonna – the old rust-bucket
Kilkenny has moored down on the Swill to pull out the staithes. It’s
the guy who drills them. He catches me looking and smiles a genial
smile though I notice many of his teeth are missing and those which he
has resemble a vandalised cemetery. My eyes go inexorably to the
letters tattooed roughly in capitals across the Neanderthal verandah of
his brow. It’s not so much a tattoo as the work of a kid in primary
school left to scrawl on his face with a felt tip pen.
“Physco,” he says looking out of the window with an air of
embarrassment.
What the hell is that supposed to mean?
Tonto glances in the rear-view mirror. “Sorry Atticus,” he says, “Oi
should have introduced ye. This is the Physco Kid.”
I look up into the rugged yet kindly face of the giant, my eyes going
once again of their own accord to the jagged legend carved across his
forehead.”
“I did it myself,” he mutters by way of explanation, “in the mirror.”
I try a kindly nod.
“It’s supposed to say Psycho.”
The next ten minutes are a blur. Seven o’clock is rapidly approaching
and we’re heading in the opposite direction to the Fisherman’s Lodge
at speeds which would do credit to Valentino Rossi. I fish in my
pocket for my mobile and note with horror that the battery’s low. As
we hurtle from side to side I look for the number of Honey
Thorogood’s mobile in contacts and try to call her but there’s no
signal. When I finally give up I see, with a spinning head and a strange
hollow feeling in the core of me, that we’re heading through Farnley
and moments later an awakening premonition is confirmed when we
turn down a lane past a familiar sign:
GALLOWHILL
24
PRIVATE
NO THROUGH ROAD
“This is Petunia’s place.” I say as lime trees fly past on either side in
the settling dusk.
“A mutual friend,” Tonto throws over his shoulder: “did oi not say?”
and seconds later the Beamer screeches to a halt below the columns of
Gallowhill Manor in a slew of flying gravel, Tonto jumps out, opens
the door for Satan, and trots up the steps to the front door.
I glance at my watch ... five minutes past seven, fuck ... then look out
of the window towards the water clock. In the fore-ground a familiar
sight greets me. Satan is curling a shit between the rear legs of a lifesize bronze stag behind which the goddess Artemis herself, hunting
horn to her lips, is sounding the alarm. It’s exactly the same scene I
see enacted every morning and evening at Beadlam Hall minus Satan
and the bum cigar.
“Nice furniture,” The Physco Kid seems much taken with the statuary.
“Bronze,” I murmur distractedly.
“Bronze?” he whistles. “Must be worth a bit.”
Tonto is hammering at the door.
“Heavy do you think?” the Kid’s still looking at the statues.
“It took two men to lift the stag.” I seem to remember Paul telling me
they’d had a bit of difficulty getting it out of the Transit.
“Big lads?”
“One of them,” I say and, patience finally running out, I jump out of
the car and head up the steps. “Tonto,” I call out feeling more than a
little dizzy. Must be the speed we travelled and all the corners we
took. “It’s nearly ten past ...”
The door flies open and Petunia Crouch appears dressed in only the
flimsiest of camisoles.
Tonto leaps back like a cat as she flings up her arms and shouts out:
“Coooee ... Party time.”
I step back too but too late, she’s seen me:
“Atticus!” she cries out in delight as her bosom settles back around
her waist, glancing as she does so at my trousering where I realise with
25
horror there’s a suggestion of preliminary tenting owing to the
influence (shit!) of the Viagra I popped earlier and the consequent
emergence of an incipient Jeremy Paxman.
Let me gloss over the next few moments. Petunia has evidently run out
of the herbal remedy supplied to her by Father Brillig at Derek’s
funeral and, anxious to replenish her stocks, has called the number on
the business card which the very kind Mr Tove left with her. Tonto is
here to supply her with a further fifty tablets at only three hundred
pounds cash: “to defray the research and import costs of the Holy
Vatican,” he crosses himself. “Any profit goes doirectly towards the
development of schools and hospitals in Africa.”
“The poor natives,” says Petunia in a rare sombre moment as she
opens her purse but, with Tonto’s little vial of tablets in her hand, her
celebratory mood is quickly re-established and her eyes are searching
eagerly for evidence of elevation in the region of my groin. It is only
by pushing her forcibly back through the door of Gallowhill with my
foot and closing it in her face that I’m able to effect an escape, pushing
Tonto and my trousers (which fortunately he doesn’t seem to have
noticed) ahead of me.
“It’s quarter past seven for fuck’s sake, will you get in the car,” I hiss
at the Physco Kid.
He has one of the hunting hounds that follow Artemis in his arms and
seems to be hefting it in an appraising manner.
“Keep your hair on,” he says restoring the bronze dog to its position
on the gravel and closing the door on Satan who has resumed his
customary position in the front passenger seat of the car.
“I had a very important meeting at seven o’clock,” I say curtly to
Tonto as the rear tyres of the Beamer send a spray of gravel pinging
into the goddess, her quarry and her hounds. “God knows why you’ve
brought me all the way out to Gallowhill but I’d be very grateful ...”
“Sit back, Atticus. Relax,” Tonto slips expertly through the gears.
“Oi’m takin’ ye to see the Boss ...”
“Kilkenny!”
“Aye. He has a meetin’ down at the boat and then he’d loike to talk
wit’ ye about ...”
26
“The boat? At Riverhaven?” The tattered image I still carry in my
head of Honey Thorogood sprawled naked on a bed, lips parted in
anticipation, evaporates.
“Aye. At eight o’ clock,” the car swerves onto the main road and the
engine howls.
I’m thrown back into the seat next to the malodorous bulk of the
Physco Kid where, having confirmed that the battery on my mobile is
completely shagged, I slump back in sullen silence and wait for the
suburbs of Norchester to appear.
At eight o’ clock precisely the Beamer goes bucking and bouncing
along the same roads we travelled together, myself and Tonto with
Father Brillig, that evening, a century or so ago, when I first met Mad
Dog Kilkenny and was introduced to the alarming extent of the
liabilities I’d unknowingly incurred in connection with Riverhaven
according to the peculiar personal interpretation he’d put on the
contracts and the much more alarming consequences there’d be if I
failed to discharge them. At one minute past eight we pull up on the
banks of the Swill a little further downstream from the place where
Tonto parked Sir Evelyn’s Roller the last time we visited. The rusting
corpse of the Madonna sulks low in the river beside us.
We sit for a while in silence: Tonto, Satan, myself, the Kid and the
aching erection which has continued to accrue on the way from
Gallowhill and which secretly juts now like a granite finger-post in my
lap until, a few moments later, a huge silver Mercedes emerges
through the dusk and glides like a fish along the same road we
followed, and parks beside us. A further ten minutes elapse in silence
then a pair of headlights on full beam stab through the gathering
darkness. “They’re here,” says Tonto taking something from inside his
jacket and putting it in the glove compartment out of which he takes
something else and tucks it into his sock. He flicks the lights of the
Beamer twice then and one of those huge black Hummer vehicles
favoured by Premiership footballers comes tearing along the track and
swerves to a halt in front of us.
27
“The Sorrbs,” he says: “Siska’s boys. Did ye know that when Saint
Patrick t’rew the snakes out of Erin’s fair oisle they all went slitherin’
away to Sorrbia ...” he turns and winks, “the ones that didn’t go into
studyin’ for the law.”
“Serbs?” All I can think of is the threat Kilkenny made that night and
my heart starts hammering. Why have they brought me here to meet
the Serbs?
“Wait here,” says Tonto (Fine by me!) then he gets out. The Physco
Kid follows and we’re left, just me, Satan and the Paxman-like
erection, to watch events unfold from the back seat of the car.
As the Hummer comes to a halt, Kilkenny gets out of the driver’s side
of the Merc. None other than Father Vincent Brillig gets out of the
side nearest me. In his left hand the demon priest carries a small
attaché case. I note with an involuntary shiver, that the enormous
leather clad Hand of God swings free. Brillig and Kilkenny go and
stand with Tonto and the Kid next to the gangway to the Madonna as
three dark men in black leather coats get out of the Hummer and walk
towards them. One of them has a beard and wears a hat. Each of the
other two carries a large holdall. They meet by the gangway like two
packs of hyenas, wary and uncertain of each other. The Serbians raise
their hands so that Tonto can pat them down. The process is then
reversed: one of the Serbians patting down each of Kilkenny and his
men in turn, and when this preliminary has been concluded to
everyone’s apparent satisfaction they all pass, one by one, over the
gangway and onto the boat.
Half an hour ekes by. The severity of my impressively rigid but utterly
pointless boner eases not one jot. You’d think present circumstances
might be enough to take a little of the wind out of its sails but it seems
that no amount of anxiety will put a dent in it. I’ve tried all the old
tricks of youth ... the nineteen times table, holding my breath for as
long as I can, scary visuals ... Mrs Godwit, Mrs Dropsy and Mrs
Paraphernalia have all passed in horrifying succession through my
fevered imagination striking shameless and in some cases
orthopedically improbable poses, even Petunia Crouch for fuck’s sake,
28
but the damn thing refuses to be intimidated by any fantasy no matter
how grotesque: it still points implacably up at the roof of the Beamer
like Nelson’s fucking Column. Unhelpful thoughts of Honey
Thorogood wearing nothing but a pair of white stockings and highheeled shoes begin to intrude and I begin to wonder if a quick four
knuckle shuffle might be the only way of taming the damned thing.
A quick glance at Satan tells me he’s not looking – he’s got the boat
covered waiting for Tonto to come back – so I ease back in my seat
and slowly unzip my fly. I’ve just got it out (to be honest I’ve paused
for a moment to admire its perfect inflexibility and to enjoy the
momentary relief afforded by the cooling air) when Satan growls low
in his throat. Fuck off and mind your own business I think as I take a
practised grip on the fleshy prong then, out of the corner of my eye I
see that the convention on the Madonna must have concluded and
they’re all coming back over the gangway.
Shit a fucking brick!
As I struggle to force the aching pillar of flesh back into my pants I
note from the corner of my eye that the Physco Kid is now carrying
both holdalls and one of the Serbian heavies has the attaché case.
Business must have gone down well because Kilkenny, wreathed in
smiles, has his arm round the shoulder of the Serbian guy with the hat
and the beard.
They converse for a minute or two on the riverbank like the best of
pals then Kilkenny points towards the Beamer and gestures for me to
join them. What the fuck am I going to do? The erection is still forcing
the front of my pants out like the bowsprit of the Cutty Sark. I decide
to ignore him but he gestures again, this time more emphatically and
this time when I don’t respond I see his face harden slightly and,
patting his new friend on the shoulder, he gestures for him to follow
and they both start walking towards the car.
I wind the window down.
“Mr Lane,” says Kilkenny, “I want ye to meet a very good friend o’
moine. This here is Miko Siska.”
As I nod and smile through the window at the guy with the beard
Kilkenny imparts in a muttered aside that he’s told the Serbians I’m
29
his financial backer. Apparently I’m going to bankroll them in tripling
business over the next twelve months. Miko nods and smiles then he
says something in Serbian to one of his colleagues who passes it on to
Tonto.
“Problem?” Kilkenny looks at Tonto, still grinning.
“Mr Siska wants to know if there’s annyt’in’ wrong with Mr Lane’s
legs.”
“His legs?”
“It must be a respect t’ing,” says Tonto. “Oi t’ink he wants him to get
out of the car.”
“Mr Lane,” says Kilkenny through the window with a tightening
smile, “Oi wonder if ye’d be koind enough to jump out here and say
hello properly to Mr Siska.”
I smile a panicked smile in return and wonder how I’m going to
accomplish this without causing a diplomatic incident.
Kilkenny’s grin tightens further when a few more seconds have
elapsed and I haven’t moved: “Mr Lane,” he mutters, “Do you perhaps
have shit in yer ears?”
“No but ...”
“Well look aloive man will ye; we’re all waitin’ out here.”
I open the car door and swing my legs out.
“There now,” the spud-faced psychopath steps back, his good humour
restored as I struggle out of the car and stand before them doubled
over like I’m in the grip of severe stomach cramps.
“Must’ve been something I ate,” I grimace.
My performance is wasted on Miko, however, he seems not to have
noticed, and Serbian etiquette apparently requires nothing short of a
bear hug when greeting the financial backer of a fellow underworld
drugs Czar. He hands me a business card and, before I can even read
it, he’s reaching out and pulling me towards him and there’s nothing I
can do to stop him.
Miko’s embrace only lasts for a matter of seconds. As I straighten he
feels something hard as a gun barrel pressing into his belly. He pushes
me back, stares hard into my eyes with a startled expression that
30
speaks of betrayal and, reaching behind him, utters a short string of
words in the guttural tongue of his homeland:
“Pazi! Ima pistolj!”
The result is electrifying. His comrades jump back like scalded cats
and guns appear from nowhere. One of them turns on Kilkenny who,
jumping sideways like a dancing baboon, shoots him in the belly just
as Tonto plants a bullet straight between the eyes of the other. Miko
Siska has his gun trained on Father Brillig. He pulls the trigger but a
split second earlier Tonto’s pistol has cracked a second time and the
Serbian’s gun flies out of his hand – the bullet he fires whining
harmlessly over Father Brillig’s head and into the night.
Four or five seconds crawl by as the Serb looks up into the eyes of the
diabolical priest, enough for him to read his doom written in the empty
wastes he sees there, then the Hand of God climbs slowly upwards,
and takes him by the throat.
“Leave him Vinnie,” Kilkenny tries to wrestle him off but the look in
the eye of the priest is as cold and hard as winter in Sandzak and the
unrelenting arm is banded it seems with muscles made of iron.
“Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble,”
growls the priest as the terrible hand lifts the Serbian by the throat and
begins to squeeze.
“Vinnie, oi’m tellin’ ye,” Kilkenny steps back and points the gun at his
head. “That’s Dragan Siska’s kid-brudder. Put the fecker down ...
Now!”
The priest ignores him. The Serbian is lifted bodily from the ground
“Vinnie … oi’m not feckin’ about …”
The threats avail him nothing. The priest has gone to another place.
Tonto licks his lips and grins. The gentle face of the Physco Kid looks
on in fascinated silence as the dreadful hand begins to tighten and
squeeze, as the hat topples from the Serbian’s head and his
whimpering turns to a whistling gasp.
“Vinnie ...”
A cold and tugging wind blows salt and diesel fumes off the Swill,
brings the idiotic mewling of the gulls like the screaming of lunatics
out of the darkening sky as Miko’s feet begin to kick and struggle.
31
“Vinnie ...”
There’s nothing Kilkenny can do, gun or not. There’s nothing anyone
can do. We look on helplessly as the face of Miko Siska begins to
swell and purple.
“Vinnie, for the love of all the Saints …” Kilkenny makes one final,
futile plea as the Serbian’s eyes roll upwards into his head.
But Father Brillig cannot hear him. He can only hear the demons
chanting in his head: “Man born of woman is full of trouble,” he
growls, shaking his prey like a dog would shake a rat. “He comes forth
like a flower, and is cut down.”
Strange sounds come out of the Serbian’s nostrils as the Hand of God
continues mercilessly in its throttling. The kicking of his feet becomes
gradually weaker and weaker then finally, with a last great shudder,
the life goes out of him.
“He fleeth as a shadow,” Father Brillig drops the limp and lifeless
body to the ground at last, “and continueth not.”
“For the love of Moichael,” the spell that has bound the rest of us is
broken as soon as the body hits the riverbank. Kilkenny looks from
one body to the other to the third. Seeing the Serbian’s hat on the river
bank he takes a swing at it with his boot, misses, swings again and
misses again. “Jasus Chroist and all his feckin’ saints,” he draws back
his boot a third time. This time he connects sending the hat twirling
into the Swill. He turns to Tonto, to myself and then the Kid, panting
from his exertions: “What the feckin’ bejasus was that all about?” he
says and though the enormity of all that has happened in the last sixty
seconds has my mind jangling I feel the finger of fault about to swing
in my direction.
The third Serb, the one Kilkenny shot, lifts himself up onto his elbow,
saving me with an injudicious groan. Kilkenny walks over, puts the
gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger. “Gut-shot,” he says to me by
way of explanation when he sees the expression on my face: “There’s
not’in’ worse.” He pulls the hair-piece off his head then and mops his
brow with it. “There’ll be feckin’ hell to pay when the Dragon hears
about this.” It’s the first time I’ve seen him look anything like worried.
32
“That’s his little brudder,” he points to the sprawl of limbs the Hand of
God has dumped in the dirt. He heaves a sigh: “At least it was.”
I look at the card he’d pressed into my hand a few moments before:
DRAGAN SISKA
IMPORT AND EXPORT
and there’s a number underneath.
“The days of man are but as grass,” Father Brillig hasn’t finished with
the Scriptures: “for he flourisheth as a flower of the field. For as soon
as the wind goeth over it, it is gone: and the place thereof shall know it
no more. The Book of Job, Chapter 14, Verse 1.”
“Amen,” says Kilkenny looking round him now to see what might
have triggered the shootout. His eyes alight on the Physco Kid who is
staring dumbfounded at the priapic distension which even yet
protrudes like a monstrous flagpole from my groin. Kilkenny’s eyes
follow the Kid’s. Soon all four survivors of the shoot-out are staring
with, variously: wonder, horror, admiration and disgust at the hapless
tumescence which (unbeknown to them) sparked the carnage sprawled
along the banks of the River Swill.
“For the love of God, Mr Lane,” Kilkenny scratches his head and
replaces the hair-piece at an unsuitably jaunty angle. “For the love of
God,” he says again and for the time being this seems to mark the
limits of his ability to express the inner tumult of his feelings.
“I’m sorry,” my helpless gesture echoes his own: “There’s nothing I
can do about it.”
“It happens,” Kilkenny looks round at the bodies again and shakes his
head philosophically. “There was a feller in the Falls Road Provos,” he
says, “Tommy Guthrie was his name but the lads in the brigade they
all called him Woody on account of the hard-on he got every time we
went out on a job.”
“Oi t’ink oi heard of him,” Tonto says cheerfully. “Was he not plantin’
a bomb one noight outsoide the barracks down in Ballymena when the
feckin’ thing went off in his hand?”
33
For a moment there’s nothing but the slap of the wind and the smell of
the river then Tonto begins to laugh. The Kid joins in and then
Kilkenny’s face cracks open and he, too, joins in the laughter. Father
Brillig only shakes his head then, having reached down to close the
eyelids of his victim, he straightens, makes the sign of the cross and
begins to mutter a prayer over the bodies.
Kilkenny reaches up and adjusts his hairpiece with meticulous care
then picks up the attaché case. “T’row our associates there onto the
boat when he’s finished, will ye?” he says to the Kid then, with a last
bewildered glance at the still imposing outline of my indefatigable
member, he gestures to me to follow.
It was ten o’clock by the time I got to the Fisherman’s Lodge. I was
another white-faced hour on the boat with Kilkenny. How was I
“gettin’ on wit’ the paperwork,” he wanted to know as soon as we sat
down in the wheel-house and so I told him: how they’d signed over
the Deed, how it was being registered with the bank that held the
assets in the Caymans, how everything was going just perfectly. We
can sit back and take it easy for a while, I told him ... build up an
understanding, a position from which to negotiate.
“No more killing Mr Kilkenny, please,” I begged him, “It isn’t
necessary. The newspapers are onto it now and the police are asking
questions ...”
“Killin’,” the spud-like countenance tightens up and a shifty look
comes into his eye, “… who’s been doin’ anny killin’?”
There’s a thump behind us as the Kid hefts a body into the boat.
“Discounting Serbians?”
“Self-defence,” he spreads his arms. “If ye but new the trouble …” he
shakes his head.
“The list …” I begin but his eye hardens and he starts to lecture me
again about investment criteria.
I can’t remember half the things he said … my mind was still back on
the riverbank. I seem to recall him mentioning the considerable
investment he’d already made in me personally and how the winners
in life were people who stuck to their guns and started what they’d
34
finished. He lost his thread a bit at that point ... went into a sermon
about freedom and sovereignty and the British and the history of the
Troubles which, according to him, would all have been over a long
time ago if only a few people had shown a bit more resolve ... a bit
more determination … had stuck to their guns!
I nodded in all the right places … shook my head when I was
supposed to, I’m sure, but to be honest I wasn’t really taking much of
it in. All I could hear were the gurgling noises that came out of Miko
Siska’s nostrils as the Hand of God throttled the life out of him. All I
could see was the little hole appearing in the guy’s forehead when
Tonto pulled the trigger, the other guy doubling over when Kilkenny
shot him and Miko’s eyes revolving upwards into his head. A few
weeks ago I was leading the boring life of a corporate lawyer in a
recession. Now …
“Now isn’t the time for backin’ away,” the Mad Dog looks at me, eyes
burning with the lost causes of his ancestors.
“I can see that but ...”
“D’ye see that star,” he points to the brightest of all the lights up in the
sky, “the big feller just behoind the Hunter there ... the Dog Star dey
call it, ’tis the star oi follow. An’ oi’m tellin’ ye ... whoilst that star
still shoins up there in the skoy at noight the Mad Dog won’t back off
an’ he won’t back down.”
“Alright,” I agree with him, “but even a mad dog knows there’s more
than one way to skin a cat ... please Mr Kilkenny, no more killing ...
there doesn’t have to be ...
He starts to laugh and makes another speech I find difficult to follow
... it’s all about death. “’Tis nott’in to be froightened of,” I remember
him saying at the end of it ... “’tis but another step on a path, a step
that every mother’s son will one day have to take. A man that worries
himself about doyin’ is a man that never lived. What d’ye say
Vinnie?”
The dark face of the priest looms up from the deck: “Yea though I
walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil,” he
mutters. “Psalms 23, Verse 4.”
35
It’s only when Tonto drops me at back outside the office (erection
only just beginning to flag) that it really sinks in. I’ve seen three
people murdered. Witnessed it with my very own eyes. And what had
I done ... what should I do now?
I drove to the Fisherman’s Lodge where, ironically, the erection finally
deflated. The place was closing and Honey, of course, was long since
gone. The whole night had been a disaster, an unmitigated fucking
tragedy and there was more to come. It was on the long and lonely
road to Beadlam that it really sank in. The killing wasn’t over. I’d had
no success at all in trying to persuade the Mad Dog to rein it all in.
Father Brillig still had the list. There were three more names on it.
Three more people whose days were numbered
I threw down the last six Amitriptyline tablets I had left as soon as I
got back to the Hall and tried a couple of sleeping tablets. I still only
got about half an hour’s kip and when I woke up this morning with the
Hand of God crouching on my chest like a spider as usual it all came
flooding back ... I thought I was going to vomit up my pancreas and
have another cardiac arrest.
7.30 Thursday morning. Breakfast. My hands are still trembling.
Message on mobile from Fermin announcing an emergency
convocation of the Chapter to be held at Sodbury Crematorium prior
to Bertie Blight’s conflagration. He’s being cremated? Fuck me, I
hope they render him down first. They’ll get enough oil to run their
furnace for a month.
Waiting as usual after breakfast for Millie to get her ass in gear. I take
my car keys out of my coat pocket and another key, old and small and
tarnished, falls out onto the gravel. I stoop to pick it up and find
myself wondering for a moment where it came from. Then I
remember: Julian’s safe ... Satan (nee Brutus) and the turd in the
sandpit! I’m about to trouser the key and go back inside to shout
another pointless summons at Millie when some strange presentiment
strikes me: this key is somehow important, very important ... and in
my condition of heightened agitation I almost forgot it even existed.
I’m wondering where I can put it for safekeeping when I see Millie in
36
the kitchen. Hurry up will you I think then, as I unlock the car, my
eye alights on the goddess Artemis. Who better to look after a little
key? Jogging over to the statuary I slip the key into the funnel of her
up-turned hunting horn and hear it clink at the bottom.
9.00. Sodbury Crematorium: the same motley pageant of arachnid
senility and managerial incompetence as the last time minus Ming
Sourby for some reason and, of course, Milton the midget and Bertie
Blight, both since deceased. Sir Evelyn draws us all to one side, the
older ones hanging together, moving like a single insect coated in
dandruff and scurf. Standing beneath the No Smoking sign, our leader
announces that the convocation has been called at the request of Titus
Meany and Cyril Leech.
“Are we going to be getting our dividend soon?” Uriah Mildew, exHead of Property and deaf as a post looks hopefully at Cardinal Grace
from a soupy eye.
Ninian Ticklecock shushes him as the corpulent nabob invites Brother
Titus Meany, Head of Litigation, to explain why he asked for the
meeting to be convened.
Meany steps forward, skeletal and scowling. He looks like a bin bag
full of wire coat hangers. “To talk about what’s been happening,” he
hisses, glancing suspiciously around at each of us, reserving his most
penetrating glance for myself.
Ayres yawns: “I’m afwaid I’m not following.”
“Derek, Julian, Milton,” Meany counts them off on his fingers, “and
now Bertie.” He shakes his head: “It can’t just be coincidence.”
“What else could it be?” Ayres puts him on the spot.
“Murder!” Meany glares at him, his eyes like blisters.
“Murder?” Sir Evelyn makes a noise like gas burbling softly through a
faulty valve.
“It isn’t funny Evelyn.”
“A little melodwamatic, vough, perhaps.”
Cyril Leech, who has been truffling absent-mindedly in his trousers,
looks up with an apologetic grin: “We’ve been rumbled,” he says.
“Rumbled?” Sir Evelyn savours the word.
37
Meany’s tongue flickers over lips like a serpent’s: “Someone’s found
out about the Chapter.”
“And ven what?” says Ayres. “They decided to bump us all off, one
by one.”
“So it would seem,” the lips of our Litigator-in-chief close as primly
as a stab-wound.
“Wouldn’t vey just muscle in and ask for a share?”
“What if it’s some disaffected partner,” Meany sticks to his guns,
“someone who holds a grudge, who wasn’t invited in?”
“Like who?”
He glances shiftily around: “Like Harry Haller,” this time a ferrety
grin.
“You might as well say Atticus here,” Sir Evelyn smiles. “People
started dying before we voted to elect him.”
“Atticus isn’t boasting about it on the internet though is he?”
They’ve heard about the Steppenwolf blog then ... some of them
anyway. There’s a brief interlude whilst Meany and Sir Evelyn bring
the old fogies up to date with the internet, blogs and the Steppenwolf
blog in particular. I fade out. For the next five minutes I’m back on the
banks of the Swill watching Serbians die, until the babbling of the
brothers brings me back to the present.
“Shocking,” says one.
It’s the Steppenwolf they’re talking about.
“Scandalous,” says another.
(Both have been party to fraud on an inter-galactic scale for the best
part of fifty years.)
Cue group discussion on the recent ravings of the Wolf on Twitter
until Meany steps in, his pale and praying hands aloft. “We don’t have
time for all this,” he says. “It’s all been going on for far too long.” He
wants to know who’s behind it if it isn’t Haller ... the blog and all the
rest of it ... and what his end-game might be whoever it is.
Evelyn lets the steam blow for a moment or two before throwing in his
five penn’orth: Yes it could be Haller behind the twitter, he says ... it
could be one of a number of people ... we let six partners go not so
long ago. Strong management makes waves ... you can’t take everyone
38
with you. Criticism, even ill-informed, anonymous criticism delivered
below the belt is just a part of the territory as far as the great
Maharajah’s concerned.
“Very laudable, Evelyn,” Cyril Leech cuts in, “but taking the piss is
one thing, bumping people off is quite another,” he glances at Meany.
“We want something done ...”
“About what?” Sir Evelyn spreads his hands. There’s no evidence that
links anyone to the damned blog or the twitter... don’t you think we’ve
looked into it? You can never find out who’s set the damned things up
– that’s why the internet’s plagued with them. We can bring the police
in if that’s what you want but …”
Shifty glances all round … no-one likes the sound of that.
There isn’t a shred of evidence that suggests foul play in any event,
Evelyn starts pouring his oil on the water. “Poor old Derek committed
suicide, God rest his soul. My father was well into his nineties ... he
could have gone at any time and as for Milton and Bertie, well ... acts
of God, force majeure, unfortunate accidents ... call them what you
will, but tell me,” he appeals to Meany and Leech (two of the thre
remaining victims nominated by himself): “how do we legislate
against that kind of misfortune?”
Meany’s hiss and Leech’s whine versus Sir Evelyn’s purr: the cat has
the better of the remaining exchanges. None of the other Chapter
members is persuaded that the existence, much less the inner
workings, of their covert brotherhood is known to any but themselves
and, whilst Harry Haller is by common consent an unsavoury
character (“a very bad egg altogether”: Ticklecock’s summation), noone can see how he or anyone else for that matter could have
discovered anything about their closely guarded secret society. When
the doors of the inner hall open a quarter of an hour later, the meeting
is adjourned. Titus Meany slithers disconsolately into the pews to sit
with Leech behind Cardinal Grace and together we watch half a dozen
bearers struggle unequally up the aisle with the mortal remains of
Nimrod Mortimer Albemarle Blight.
39
Thank God we didn’t have to wait until Bertie was reduced to ash
before we could leave the Crem. Rumour has it the old folk of
Sodbury couldn’t boil a kettle that morning as extra reserves of energy
were drawn into the furnace from the local grid to dispose of him.
I was the first to leave, anxious to get back to the office to pick up Joel
and prepare for the meeting I had at eleven o’clock with Ilium Pharma
(the wheels of commerce continue to turn regardless of one’s personal
trials and tribulations) and then, of course there’s Miss Thorogood.
What the hell am I going to say when I see her?
That question is answered almost immediately on my arrival at the
Gulag. I’m on my way up in the lift when it stops at the third floor
and, to my absolute horror, she gets in. I didn’t say anything as it
happens. She gives me the hackies when she clocks me to which I
respond by pulling a face like a village idiot being fired out of a canon.
She stares at the floor until the lift doors open then leaves without a
backward glance. “Hell hath no fury etc.” it’s true. As her perfectly
formed curves precede me along the corridor I think ruefully of the use
to which I might have put the magnificently inflexible Jeremy Paxman
I was temporarily endowed with last night if the Mad Dog hadn’t
intervened. If only I could have revealed it to her in all of its absurd
and remorseless splendour.
The meeting at Ilium is bloody complicated I can tell you but
fortunately Joel turns out to be a chip off the Thorogood block ... he’s
as capable as he is cool. Quincey starts off by introducing us to
Ambrose Welch, head of R&D who, I’ve got to be honest, looks a bit
wan and spineless to me. The most worrying thing about him though is
his luxurious hair. Strawberry blonde, thicker than Evelyn Grace’s and
just as shiny. He has it cut into one of those Brideshead Revisited sort
of wedgy bob cuts which makes him look like a forty two year old
school boy with ears like jug handles. You might think it’s a little
intolerant of me to think I could cheerfully decapitate someone with a
spade just because of his hair and his ears: if so my description hasn’t
done them justice. Plus he has lips like a fish. Anyway … forget my
personal ordeals for the moment … within the first five minutes Joel
40
has the pair of them eating out of his hand leaving me to sit back and
bask in reflected excellence as he gives us a twenty minute symposium
on computer hacking, phone tapping, bugging and the admissibility of
evidence obtained by lawful and unlawful means – you’d think he’d
written a bloody text book on the subject.
Here’s the scoop (as close as I can give it) in case you’re interested:
Ilium has been working on a pharmaceutical super-product for about
five years: something to do with hair loss ... a cure for baldness no
less. There were four key features of the pharmaceutical design: call
them A, B, C and D. They’d had A, B and C in the bag for ages but
they couldn’t crack D ... (it had something to do with attaching some
kind of polymer to a protein or something like that – I was miles away,
back on the banks of the Swill watching Miko Siska struggling with
the Hand of God – I was doing a lot of nodding and head shaking,
anyway, and hoping like fuck that Joel knew what they were talking
about). There it was, anyway: one of the elusive super-products of the
Pharma-technology industry, destined to sit forever on the drawing
board until someone else cracked it ... until Ambrose Welch (fish-lips)
joined the team, that is, and they had a critical breakthrough.
“Congratulations,” I treat the haircut and ears to a beaming smile
noticing just a fraction of a second too late that Quincey looks as if
he’s sucking a lemon. Ilium has sunk close to twenty four million into
R&D, clinical tests and forward marketing, he tells us: they’re on the
brink of going into production and projected sales are critical to
forward projections. “It’s out in the market, in spite of all our best
efforts. All the analysts have based their numbers on us having some
kind of super drug. It fundamentally underpins where the share price
has got to over the last couple of years.” To cut a long story short: if
anything happens to throw doubt on the viability of this new wonder
drug, the price of Ilium stock will go down quicker than Jordan at a
Brad Pitt look-alike reunion.
“So what’s the legal problem?” Joel goes immediately in search of
brass tacks.
41
Quincey hands him a letter from Hubert Chance (City mega-law-firm)
alleging infringement of intellectual property rights owned by their
client Attica Sciences Ltd.
It’s as complicated as fuck but the bottom line according to Quincey is
that the solution developed by Ilium for process D (see above) is pretty
damned similar to something Attica already had in development. The
two issues are:
1. how is theirs so similar to ours; and
2. how did they find out?
“There’s some bastard on the inside feeding them information,” says
Quincey with more feeling than I can do justice to.
We agree that Joel will spend the next few days on site with Ambrose
(hair, ears, lips) assessing the extent of the damage following which
we’ll put together a strategy for blowing the other side’s case out of
the water. After that we can draft an opinion that should get Latours
off his back. Joel makes it sound like a piece of piss.
“Spend what you have to,” Quincey’s parting shot. “The future of
Ilium is at stake.”
Meeting over we head back to Joel’s vintage Merc (I asked him to
drive given the state of my nerves and the amount of sleep I’ve had
recently) and, as I shove my briefcase into the boot, I’m thanking him
for his help and asking him how he got to be such a world authority on
the legal ins and outs of surveillance and industrial espionage. He gets
all coy and says he’s always been interested in that area of the law and
I happen to notice as I put my briefcase next to his that he has a state
of the art laptop in there ... much more sophisticated and expensive
than the Dell standard issue crap we get at GW. A bit of the shine goes
off for me at that point, I’m afraid. I mean … does even his frigging
hardware have to be better than everyone else’s?
Something funny happens as we get back to the car park at Vane
Court. It’s about 1.15: Joel’s handing his keys through the hatch to
Digweed when my Blackberry goes off with the stupid howling Honey
rigged up to tell me it’s an incoming tweet from the Wolf. The thing is
Joel’s iPhone goes off at exactly the same time and, cool though he
very well might be, he drops his car keys when he hears it. As he’s
42
grovelling around picking them up and I’m trying not to piss myself
with pleasure at how the mighty are fallen, I get the tweet up on the
screen of my Blackberry. It’s from the Steppenwolf alright but all it
says is:
Bahooooooooooo
What the fuck is that supposed to mean?
I think of Harry sitting up there in his office with the great big fuck-off
Jim Bowie hunting knife and I wonder if someone shouldn’t take it off
him before he runs completely amok.
Run through sudden downpour of rain from the car park to Reception.
Check the Recorder. Nothing about the Firm or gun battles last night
on the banks of the Swill, thank fuck. When I get up to my office,
though, I find Tina’s in a bad mood. Fermin’s had all of the Chapter
records and paperwork returned to their old resting place in my office
but he’s locked the filing cabinets and told her she doesn’t have
access. I smooth things over. Give it a few weeks, I tell her. He’s a bit
set in his ways.
“Set in his ways?” says Tina. “He gives me the heeby jeebies. It’s like
Stephen Hawking and Dot Cotton had a love-child.”
2.30. The product of the unlikely union posited by Tina knocks
discreetly on my door and enters like the smell of funeral shrouds,
dead man’s shoes and bad tidings.
The afternoon is dark and gloomy enough as it is but when Fermin
enters the office even the daylight seems to lose its colour.
“Is now still a convenient time?” he murmurs, eyes downcast.
“Indeed, Sirius, it is,” I answer with uncharacteristic gaiety for this is
the afternoon appointed for our first session on the Chapter’s assets
and accounts and, notwithstanding the hellish vicissitudes of recent
days, I have, in a strange way, been looking forward to it – who
wouldn’t be interested in seeing how the levers work on a half billion
pound financial empire they’d just been put in control of?
43
I note with some slight surprise as Fermin puts his ledgers down on
my desk that he’s a trifle moist ... caught in the rain perhaps? No ...
moist and perspiring. “A glass of water Sirius?” I ask, ever the
gracious host.
Perspiring! I didn’t think he had a pulse.
Turns out all of the Chapter’s assets are held through the offshore
Trust Corporation in the Cayman Islands I heard about on Tuesday,
The Cayman & Leeward Islands Trust Corporation to give it its full
handle, apart from a substantial cash float kept in a numbered account
in a Swiss Bank with a branch office in Mayfair which can be
accessed by any two signatures out of himself, Mr Ayres, Sir Evelyn
and now ... he flourishes a handful of forms ... myself.
I sign ... Fucking A ... progress at last. Atticus Lane, dipshit
extraordinaire, is now signatory on a one million pound cash float.
Things are looking up for a change.
An hour later though: my eyeballs are crusting over and are in danger
of falling out of my head. We’ve been through the structure and
constitution of the Trust itself (governed by a trust deed which,
interestingly enough, limits distributions to income and 2% of capital
in any one year – presumably to prevent the sole trustee from
denuding the Trust in one fell swoop) and the Trust’s administrative
framework (all handled through a couple of characters at the Cayman
and Leeward Islands Trust Corporation who trade under the
remarkable names of Balthazar Getty III and Ichabod Falchuk IV).
We’ve been through offshore tax strategies and valuation reports on
both stocks and shares portfolios and US and European real estate.
Fermin is taking me through the Asian stock holdings showing me the
investment criteria agreed by Derek (all of which seem extremely
sensible) when the shock of last night’s events begins to catch up with
me plus I’ve hardly had any sleep for a month ... I’m almost on the
point of nodding off.
“Would you like to adjourn for the time being, Mr Lane?” Nosferatu
asks in a manner which somehow manages to reinforce his own
superiority without in any way implying criticism.
44
I take him up on his very kind suggestion thinking to myself that for
all his scrupulous rectitude and intellectual one-upmanship he’s dibs in
four hundred and ninety five million behind me and I’ll grab forty
winks under the desk like we did back in the old days just as soon as
he’s pissed off back to the vault and pulled the lid down on the coffin
he sleeps in. As he packs up his papers and prepares to leave, however,
a strange half thought flickers through the few still functioning
synapses in my sleep-impoverished brain:
“Sirius,” I say. “How would you react if I said “Deepthroat” to you?”
He blinks: “Well that would rather depend Mr Lane,” he says.
“On what?” I give him my shrewdest look.
“On whether you were wishing to engage me in conversation about the
informant who contacted the Washington Post in connection with the
Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of President Nixon or
soliciting me to perform an act of fellatio.”
“No, Sirius ... aah ...”
He sees my confusion: “I prefer to think it would be the former,” his
smile is like a razor.
“Neither Sirius, thank you, just for the moment.”
Suddenly, more than ever, I need sleep.
He’s on the point of leaving when Tina bursts in without knocking:
“Have you heard?” she says, all wide eyes and breathlessly heaving
bosom.
Fermin coughs – he’s been coughing all afternoon actually, the same
dry consumptive little bleat every time I’m about to nod off – and
looks at her with sallow disdain.
“Heard what?” I’m a little irritated with her for giving him the
opportunity.
“Titus Meany.”
“Mr Meany,” Fermin is old school to the bone.
“What about him?” I ignore the ghoul.
“He was mugged at lunchtime on Tempest Street outside the Blue
Bamboo.”
“Mugged?”
“Stabbed. He’s in hospital now on the critical list.”
45
“Still alive?”
“I think so.”
Meany at the Crem this morning ... adamant there was a murderer on
the loose.
I look at Fermin. His eyes are unreadable.
“Thanks Tina,” I sit down at my desk feeling weary to the bone and
suddenly the room begins to spin.
What the fuck is going on?
Conflicting visuals … Harry Haller sitting at his desk with a great big
hunting knife. Or is this what Kilkenny meant last night when he
talked about protecting the investment he’d made in me, about the
importance of finishing what you started? Jesus … but Tonto warned
me? He doesn’t let the grass grow under his fucking feet does he?
There’s another issue now, I realise with another great lurch in the
belly. Meany ... he’s still alive. What if he saw who did it? What if he
can identify who stabbed him? If it’s Kilkenny and the boys will I be
implicated? And if it’s Harry, what does that do for me with Butch
Casserole and the Sundance Squid – will they throw me out of the
Chapter if it comes out that I haven’t been the architect or engineer in
any of the membership cancellations that have taken place to date ...
that Harry Haller killed them all?
I’m still sitting there an hour or so later, trying to hold it all together,
when my Blackberry goes off like a banshee again. My nerves are so
shot to pieces now I hardly react. I pick it up and scroll listlessly to the
screen that carries the Steppenwolf’s latest tweet:
The fang of the Wolf is like a knife
The Wolf has tasted the blood of the snake
Bahoooooooo
I shut the screen, scroll to “Contacts” and call the doctors’ surgery in
Beadlam village. I give them a crock full of shit about how I had my
overnight bag stolen with my supplies of tablets in it and how I’m
going on holiday soon so I need to stock up. She takes down the
46
details and says she’ll talk to the doctor. If he’s prepared to write the
prescription she’ll have it waiting for me tomorrow evening.
Tomorrow evening. I feel a howl of my own coming on.
Bahoooooooo.
I need the stuff now.
Friday 9 April
No happy pills last night. I’ve used them all up. Fuck knows when I
wake. I keep the pillow over my head and pretend I’m in another
world where none of the bad things that have happened have
happened. For a while it seems real but then I realise it isn’t and
suddenly I’m crying. Crying like a baby
“Atticus Lane, Bay 13,” apple, road, the Dark Satanic Mill, where
caring counts, Mrs Frost.
Hello? Four people are gathered in a knot all squinting at the same
newspaper. Fifty Watts is holding it. Quaker and a couple of
youngsters from Litigation are reading over his shoulder.
“Have you seen this?” Quaker catches my eye and beckons me to join
them.
I head over and they all make room:
DEATH STALKS CITY LAW FIRM
Front page head line of the Recorder. Underneath there’s an article by
CD Winthrow:
Yesterday afternoon City Lawyer Titus Meany, partner in
Grace Withers, was struck down outside the doors of the Blue
Bamboo Theatre Club by a knife-wielding maniac. Witnesses say
the assailant struck from behind on a crowded pavement at
around about quarter past one as busy offices were emptying for
lunch. Robbery seems not to have been the motive as, according
to witnesses, the attack was not preceded by any confrontation
or demand for money.
47
Errol Parboil, 24, a Computer Games Analyst who witnessed
the incident was left puzzled by the apparently motiveless nature
of the attack. “It happened right in front of me,” he said. “At first
I thought they’d just stumbled into each other but then the
snake-faced guy went down and the other one ran off. I didn’t
get a look at him. There was blood everywhere. I don’t know why
but I got the feeling they knew each other.”
Meany, 49, Head of Litigation at Grace Withers, lost
consciousness immediately. He was taken to Norchester Royal
Infirmary where his condition remains critical. If he doesn’t pull
through he will be the fifth GW partner in almost as many weeks
to fall victim to the death curse which seems to have struck the
firm.
Derek Crouch, 53, a private client partner, committed suicide
in February. A few weeks later ex-senior partner Julian Grace,
93, died at his desk. The ashes in Grace’s urn had hardly cooled
when Head of Corporate, Milton Ratchet, 48, plunged to his
death from his office window and only last week Head of
Property Albemarle Blight, 49, died in a bizarre incident when he
stepped into an empty lift shaft on the fourth floor of the firm’s
Vane Court HQ.
A source at the firm who did not wish to be named said that
tension among partners had increased recently as a result of the
economic downturn and deteriorating profitability. Police are
waiting to interview Meany if he recovers consciousness. They
are believed to be considering instituting an investigation into
the apparent spate of bad luck which GW has suffered over the
last few months ...
“Are you okay Mr Lane?”
I look up at Fifty Watts and Quaker and realise that my lower lip is
trembling uncontrollably. “Yeah,” I say, heading for the lift.
“What do you think?” Quaker calls after me.
What do I think lads? Good question.
“Do you remember the goal that Cantona scored for Man U against
Sunderland,” I say: “... where he turned in the box and chipped the
keeper?” I press the lift button. “Do you remember the way he turned
and looked, as if even he couldn’t understand?”
“Yeah?”
The lift doors open. I enter and press four then I turn and look back at
Quaker and Fifty Watts, their expectant faces. I give them the benefit
of all my years of accrued experience and wisdom:
We should all go in search of that feeling.”
48
“Believed to be considering instituting an investigation.” Fuck me
Winthrow, hedge your bets by all means. I sit back in my chair and
close my eyes. When did it all begin to go wrong? What false step did
I take? What inadvertent act or omission offended the Gods so badly
they set their faces against me like stone?
I start counting the dead. I can’t get past Derek and Julian, though,
which sets me thinking ... were they part of the sequence? Did Derek
kill himself or did someone bump him off and make it look like
suicide? Maybe it was Ayres and Sir Evelyn. Maybe they got wind of
Riverhaven and ... But what about Julian? Even Sir Evelyn isn’t a big
enough bastard he’d bump off his own father. What did the Romans
used to do with patricides ... sew them into a sack with a monkey, a
cockerel and a dog then throw it into the Tiber. A monkey, a cockerel
and a dog: how perfectly appropriate ... I get a mental picture of Sir
Evelyn, St John Ayres and Sirius Fermin all sewn into a sack together.
Where am I going with this? I need to stay rational. No ... I don’t
believe it was Evelyn who did for Julian. He wouldn’t get his
manicured hands that dirty and he was clearly shocked. So how then?
Did he die of natural causes or did Harry do for him like he said he
would? Harry getting out of the lift after Ratchet fell; Harry on the
stairs with his tools the morning Bertie went down the lift shaft; Harry
on Wednesday sitting at his desk with the knife. But if it’s Harry then
where does Kilkenny fit in?
It’s all too confusing.
I read somewhere once that to look at a star by glances was the only
way to see it distinctly: to view it in a sidelong way. But full on,
glances, sideways, upside fucking down, I can’t seem to catch sight of
the black and deadly nebula that seems to be sucking all the goodness
out of my life. No matter which way I look at it I can’t seem to make
head nor tail out of anything that’s going on around me. Maybe I’m
giving too much credit to Kilkenny and the boys. Maybe I’m giving
too much credit to Harry.
Derek, Julian, Ratchet, Bertie Blight and now Titus Meany: maybe
they’ve all been accidents, random events or acts of God, who knows?
49
My nerves are so shot I can hardly tell my arse from my elbow
anymore.
I’m still sitting with my eyes closed, trying to make my mind up about
who killed who when I hear the door swing open. St John Ayres struts
in and by the expression on his face and the way he slams the door
shut he’s got something large and jagged up his ass.
“What the fuck ...” he begins.
“Take a seat,” I gesture to the chair in front of my desk.
“What ... the ... fuck,” he squeaks.
I spread my hands as if I need a little more to work on.
“What part of “let fings settle down a bit” do you fail to
compwehend?”
“It’s not so ...”
“Have you seen the fucking Wecorder?” In case I haven’t he throws a
copy onto the desk. “Fwont fucking page. What’s vat going to do for
client welations?”
“I haven’t ...”
“Fwee ... fwee in fwee weeks,” he squeaks. “For fuck’s sake we’re
going to have ve gendarmes swarming over us like flies.”
“And what are they going to find?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s the point you keep making isn’t it ... where’s the evidence? No
evidence: no crime.”
“You’d better pway vat Titus Meany doesn’t wegain consciousness
ven because if he does and he saw you ve game’s up.”
Well if he does he didn’t you wanker, I think, so the game might very
well be up but not the one you’re talking about. “Keep your fingers
cwossed,” is all I say and with a snarl he snatches up the newspaper
and heads for the door.
“Hey Ayres,” I say when he gets there: “You said you wanted to see
the old dynamism, the old drive, the old sense of action,” I make a gun
out of my finger, I point it at him and pull the trigger. “Welcome to the
topsy turvy world of Atticus Lane.”
50
I get out the new Blackberry and try ringing 666 – no answer. Still
feeling light-headed and in the mood now for confrontation I head for
the lift, for the third floor, for the misapprehending but never-the-less
delectable Honey Thorogood. When I get to her office she’s by
herself, which is good, but the daggers she looks at me aren’t and my
steely resolve to put her right about Wednesday night crumbles into a
half-arsed enquiry as to whether or not she’s up for a coffee.
“No thanks,” she answers icily.
“Come on ...”
“I’m not used to being stood up,” she glares then she glances at the
door and looks down at the papers on her desk.
“What happened to keep it professional?”
“Nothing,” she snaps back. “Believe me that’s the rule from now on.”
I sigh. “Come out for a coffee,” I say. “Give me a chance to explain.”
“Why should I?”
“Because there’s nothing I could do about it. Because I’m asking.
Because I’m dying.”
She melts a little.
“Please.”
After five more minutes begging she gets her coat.
We’re in the lift.
She buys the excuse ... watchfully ... stuck in meeting with Chief Exec
of Postillion: Why didn’t I call ... sodding mobile ran out of juice ...
number stuck in contacts. Why didn’t I call the Fisherman’s ... Tried
twice but they were engaged. By the third time you’d left.
By the time we’ve bought coffees and left the little van the glacier has
thawed.
“What do you think about Titus Meany,” she says as we turn the
corner back to the office. Her eyes are back to their exhilaratingly
sparkling, conspiratorial best.
“What do I think?”
“Who did it?”
A sudden thought crosses my mind. “Where were you yesterday lunch
time,” I ask her.
51
She stops. For a split second her eyes are like chips of ice again then
she puts her hand to her chest and laughs: “You think it was me?”
“Were you in the office?”
“Why?”
“I’m just wondering if Harry was around. Did you see the knife he
had?”
She laughs: “You’ve bought it then?”
“Bought what?”
“The plot. I’ve done a lot more work on it. I had a lot of spare time on
Wednesday evening,” she does the thing with one eyebrow. “Harry’s
going round killing all his partners ...”
“Wooah! Harry is?”
“Well ...”
“Look ... I don’t want to come across like I’m wimping out here but ...
isn’t the Harry thing a little too close to home? I mean, what if ...”
“Atticus,” she looks serious: “It’s the crossing point between fiction
and reality. Do you really think for a minute that Harry Haller, partner
in staid, establishment law firm, Grace Withers, is killing off his
partners?”
“Well ...”
“Do you?”
“I don’t know.”
Well that’s the God’s honest truth. I don’t. I can’t tell her everything I
know can I? Let’s stick with what she knows and get an objective
view:
“Did you get his tweets?” I ask: “The first one ... what time was it?”
“About one fifteen.”
“Yeah?”
“Coincidence. Come on ... it has to be but ...
“And what about all that “the Wolf has tasted blood,” shit?”
“Grandstanding ... playing to the Pack.”
“There’s really a Pack?”
“I told you ...”
“There are actually people who ... “
52
“Half the office for a start and they’ll’ve all sent links out to their
mates. Half the lawyers in the country are probably following the
Wolf.”
“Fantastic!” I can’t hide my apprehension.
“It’s just a bit of fun Atticus.”
I’m about to say it’s in pretty poor taste but I hear it in my head first
and I sound like such a prig ...
“Look,” Honey laughs,” “Do I think Harry’s a little crazy? Yes. Do I
think he’s crazy enough to go around killing people?” she thinks about
it: “Maybe, actually: maybe he is. But do I think he’s crazy enough to
go around killing people and then claim credit for it ...”
“You said you can set these blogs up so they’re untraceable.”
“Yeah but still ...”
Quaker and Fifty Watts come out of Reception as we approach. We
nod we smile.
“Listen,” she says when they’re past, “of course it isn’t Harry killing
them all but the fact you think it could be is perfect …it’s fiction but
it’s real.”
“Okay,” I hold the door for her. “I’ll go with the flow as far as the
plot’s concerned but,” I whisper as we cross Reception under the eyes
of Mrs Thaw, “do we have to call him Harry in the book. It might be,
you know ... libellous.”
“It’s just a working name I’m using for now,” she says, “it isn’t
important. I decided on Wednesday evening, for example,” her
expression turns arch, “that his first victim’s name is Atticus.”
I look suitably penitent.
“It’s set in Chicago.”
“Chicago?”
“Or Vegas. They act for the Mafia remember?”
We get into the lift. I’m half listening but really I’m still trying to
piece it all together … Harry, Kilkenny …reality! What would she say
if she knew half the things I know?
She’s still wittering on about the plot when we get to her office.
“Sounds like you’ve made a lot of progress,” I say. “Now ... at the risk
53
of getting my head handed back to me ... how about meeting up
tonight so that we can lay the whole thing out ...”
She pulls a face.
“I’ll make it up to you,” I plead.
Seven o’clock at the Fisherman’s Lodge?
Jesus, she agreed.
I get the eyebrow: “And don’t be late.”
2.00. Sirius Fermin shimmers in for a further afternoon session on the
ins and outs of the Chapter wonga. For an hour and a half his dry,
monotonous cough and sacerdotal murmuring escort me through a
labyrinth of deposit accounts, Asian media and insurance interests and
European stock dividends at which point ... it’s Friday afternoon after
a long hard week ... I’m flagging once more. Shit a fucking brick, I
have to be on my best form, too, in just a few hours’ time.
“Can I take some of this stuff home and look over it at the weekend?”
I intrude at last over Fermin’s interminable drone, intending to grab a
quick forty winks under the desk as soon as he’s gone.
“Certainly,” he stands. Nothing’s too much trouble for Fermin, you
see: nothing puts him out.
There’s to be a meeting on Tuesday, he says before he goes, to discuss
GW’s finances: myself and the Dynamic Duo with Fermin in
attendance. Fine, I say then he hits me with the bomb-shell. The police
want to interview me. Monday morning, ten o’clock.
“Me?” I sit bolt upright like a rabbit caught in a set of headlights.
“Why me?”
“Sir Evelyn and Mr Ayres are in London on business,” he says. “I will,
of course, be on hand to assist but Sir Evelyn volunteered you as the
senior representative they’d want to speak to. He said he thought you
were perfectly placed to handle it. Oh and by the way,” he continues
as I’m grappling to understand the significance of what I’ve just heard.
“The accommodation you requested on Tuesday ...”
Accommodation? What the fuck’s he talking about now? I’ve got my
new office.
“The sum of money you requested ...”
54
“Ah yes,” I nod.
“I think you’ll find that it’s in your account should you wish to
disburse any part of it.”
I thank him. I get rid of him. I check my account on line. Seventy five
grand paid in today be buggered. I quickly make arrangements to
transfer fifty thousand pounds to Gilbert and Riddle in full and final
settlement of Nucky O’Connell’s action over the horse (ten grand
short but I’ll show my arse in Debenhams if they don’t accept) then
trot down to Hagglers the pawn shop to redeem Laura’s bling. It was a
fucking ordeal just being in the same room again as the spivvy little
Assistant Manager but at least it’s over now: I’ve got “the pieces”
back and I can put all that shit behind me.
Two hours. I close the door, set the alarm on my mobile and lie down
on the floor behind my desk. In two hours I’ll be in the Fisherman’s
Lodge staring into the dark and melting eyes of the delectably melting
Honey Thorogood.
To be continued …
Download Part 7 of the Rages now at
www.thedogstarrages.com
and don’t forget to
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