A Cool Head (3 page)

Ten Merchant Crescent was a council house on a council estate. But there wasn’t too much graffiti and no supermarket trolleys or burned-out cars. It was quite nice, really. I parked the car by the kerb and had to work out how to use the hand brake. Then I walked up her path and pushed the bell. I didn’t hear any noise from inside, so I tried again. Then I knocked instead, and a voice called out from behind the door.

‘Who’s there?’ It was a woman’s voice.

‘I’m Gravy,’ I called back. ‘I’ve come about Benjy.’ See, the thing was, I needed to tell someone. I needed someone to know what I knew.

‘Who?’

‘Benjy. Your friend Benjy.’

‘I don’t have a friend called Benjy.’

I looked at the piece of paper. ‘It says Celine Watts.’

‘It’s pronounced Se-leen,’ she called out. Then the door opened an inch and I could see a bit of her face and one of her eyes. ‘Who are you?’

‘I’m Gravy. A pal of Benjy’s. Look.’ I held the paper up so she could read it. ‘It was in his car, and now he’s . . . he’s had a bit of an accident.’

She stared hard at the piece of paper, and then her eyes met mine. ‘Who sent you?’ she asked. She sounded scared.

‘Nobody sent me.’

‘Are you going to kill me?’

‘No.’ I think I sounded properly shocked.

‘You don’t look like you are.’

‘I’m not.’

‘But I don’t know anyone called Benjy.’

‘He had your name in his car.’ I pushed the piece of paper closer to her.

‘So I see.’ The door had opened another couple of inches. I could see more of her now. Her hair was brown and short. Her face was round and shiny. Her eyes were green. ‘So this friend of yours called Benjy, he had my name and address in his car?’

I nodded, and she looked over my shoulder.

‘Is that his car or yours?’ she asked.

‘His, I suppose.’

‘You suppose?’

‘Well, it’s not his usual car. His usual car is green, a bit like your eyes.’

She almost smiled. ‘And what’s happened to Benjy?’ The door was all the way open now.

‘He’s not very well.’

‘Who is he? What’s his last name?’

‘I don’t know his last name.’

‘Do you work with him?’

‘No.’ I paused while I had a think. ‘I don’t know where he works. But he must have a job because he always has money.’ Then I corrected myself. ‘Always
had
money, I mean.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘Are you saying he’s dead?’

I sniffed and rubbed my nose. ‘I suppose so,’ I said. Celine Watts lifted the piece of paper from my fingers.

‘And you found this in his car?’

‘Yes.’

‘But it’s not the car he usually drives?’ She was looking over my shoulder again. ‘How did he die?’

‘I don’t know.’ I think she could see that I was lying. ‘Do you mind if I take a look?’

‘A look at what?’

‘A look at the car.’ She squeezed past me, leaving her door wide open. I wanted to tell her that all the heat would escape, it was the sort of thing my mum would say. But instead, I followed her. She opened the passenger door. ‘Area like this, you should have locked it,’ she said. She was opening the glove box.

‘My gloves wouldn’t fit,’ I explained, but she wasn’t listening. She took out a book and started turning its pages. It had drawings of all the parts of the car. But at the back there was another piece of paper, folded in four. She opened it up.

‘It’s a bill,’ she said, ‘for fixing the car.’ Then she stopped speaking. There was a gurgling sound in her throat. Her mouth stayed open.

‘Gravy,’ she said, ‘do you know a man called Donald Empson?’

I shook my head. ‘Is this his car?’

‘I think so,’ she said. ‘It’s his name on the bill.’

‘And you know him?’

She placed a hand to her chest, as if to check her heartbeat. Warm heart, cool head. ‘I know who he is,’ she said quietly. ‘Are you sure you don’t know how your friend Benjy died?’

‘I think someone killed him.’ Tears were coming into my eyes. I wiped them away.

‘He was a friend of yours?’

‘Yes.’ I repeated it four more times for luck. She seemed to be thinking about things, staring into the distance. Then she turned her attention to the open door of her house.

‘Police told me I’d be safe,’ she said. She shook her head slowly. We stood together in silence for a minute, and then she asked me what was in the bag. It was on the floor in front of the passenger seat.

‘It’s not mine,’ I said.

She was already unzipping it. When she looked inside, she saw my gloves first, but then she saw what was beneath them and she placed the hand to her chest again.

‘It’s Benjy’s money,’ I explained. ‘I don’t know what to do with it. I was hoping you’d be a friend of his . . .’

She looked at me and then smiled. It was a big, beaming smile, and it was followed by a laugh.

‘I
am
a friend of Benjy’s,’ she said, taking my arm and squeezing it. ‘This was supposed to be my surprise.’ She nodded towards the bag. ‘And now you’ve delivered it. Thank you, Gravy!’

I was a bit confused. ‘The bag’s for you?’

‘It’s money for my holiday.’

I thought about it, but it still wasn’t clear. It seemed all fuzzy in the middle.

‘I need to be going,’ she was saying. ‘Quite soon, Gravy.’ She was looking at the open door again. ‘I just need to pack a few . . . no, maybe not. I can buy whatever I need. No passport, though.’ She bit her bottom lip. ‘Passport’s at my flat.’

‘Is this not your house?’

‘My cousin’s. Police called it a “safe house”, fat lot they know. I’ve only been here two days, and Don Empson’s got the address.’ She looked around us, suddenly fearful. ‘Need to get out of here, Gravy,’ she decided. ‘Somewhere safe. Can you drive?’ She realised what she’d said and laughed a short laugh. ‘What am I saying? You drove here, didn’t you?’

‘I did,’ I said.

‘So maybe you can give me a lift?’

‘The bus stop?’ I guessed, but she shook her head.

‘Edinburgh.’

‘That’s miles. We could run out of petrol.’

‘We’ve got money,’ she said, grabbing my arm again. ‘Plenty of money, remember? My holiday money.’

And with that, she lifted out the bag, then got into the car, resting it on her lap.

‘Are you going to leave the door open?’ I asked, pointing towards the house. ‘The heat will get out.’

‘Let it,’ she snapped. But she could see I wasn’t happy. ‘The rooms need airing,’ she explained. ‘Place gets stuffy otherwise. Now come on.’ She patted the driving seat. ‘I want your best Jeremy Clarkson impression.’

‘Who?’

She sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘Just get in and drive, Gravy.’

‘I don’t know Edinburgh. I’ve never been there.’

‘We’ll take the motorway. Don’t worry, you won’t get lost.’ Her face went sad again. ‘Unless you don’t want to help a friend of Benjy’s. If you don’t want to help me, just say so.’

But I did want to help her. I wanted to see her smile again. It was a good smile. A smile like my mum’s.

‘Okay,’ I said.

Chapter Four

Don Empson is Hunting

Jim Gardner was Benjy’s best friend. When Don Empson left him, he was bleeding and weeping. Don didn’t think Jim knew anything about anything. But he’d asked him questions all the same. Who else did Benjy know? Who might he go to for help? And Jim had done a lot of talking. Don felt bad about it, felt he’d worked out a lot of his own anger on Gardner. That was hardly professional.

Don had been busy since leaving the scrapyard. He’d borrowed one of the cars. It made noises that warned him it was dying.

‘You and me both,’ he’d told it. In his case this was certainly true. Six months, the hospital had told him. Maybe a year with treatment, but his quality of life would suffer. He’d spend half his time on a trolley in the hospital corridor.

‘No thanks,’ he’d said. ‘Just give me painkillers, lots of painkillers.’

There were some in his pocket right now, but the only things that hurt were his knuckles. Jim Gardner had told him there was this graveyard, out by the old blocks of flats. Some bloke there, Benjy said he was useful. He would hide things for him.

All sorts of things.

Gardner didn’t know the man’s name, but that didn’t matter. On his way to the graveyard, Don called his friend in the police. For the price of a few drinks, his friend would put out a call to all patrol cars. They would keep their eyes open for Don’s car, the one Benjy had taken. For another few drinks, this same friend would ask all the hospitals in the area if anyone had been brought in wounded.

‘Wounded?’ the cop had asked.

‘Don’t worry,’ Don had told him. ‘It’s not anyone who didn’t deserve it.’ He didn’t want to spook the cop.

But when Don called from the car, there was no news. He reached the graveyard in twenty minutes. It was even closer to Raymond’s garage, maybe twelve or fifteen minutes. No distance at all. The gates were closed. He got out and checked them. They were held shut by a chain. Don peered through the bars but couldn’t see any signs of life.

‘Just signs of death,’ he said to himself. He had already planned his own funeral, a cremation with music by Johnny Cash.

If he lived that long. He thought of the compactor and had to shake the image away. He looked around him. There were some kids further up the hill, gathered around a couple of bikes by a lamp post. Don drove towards them and stopped the car. He got out again. Twenty pounds, a fiver for each kid, and he had some more information. The guy who worked in the graveyard was called Gravy. He was ‘not all there’. Don listened, and then described his own car. There were nods. Then he described Benjy. More nods.

‘Did you see the car leave?’ The boys couldn’t really remember, until another twenty had changed hands.

‘Never seen anything as funny in my life,’ one of them said. The others were smiling at the memory.

‘Gravy, trying to drive!’ He burst out laughing, and his friends joined in.

‘Any idea where he was going?’

They shook their heads.

‘And no sign of the other guy?’

They shook their heads again.

Don just nodded slowly and wondered if another twenty might help. Probably not. So he saved his money and got back into the dying car. Could the money be in the graveyard? Could Benjy be in the graveyard? Don turned the car around. The boys were walking away. They gave him a wave. He waved back and pressed his foot a little harder on the pedal. The car hit the gates and snapped the chain. The gates flew open. Don kept driving, aware that, somewhere behind him, the boys were cheering and clapping. He did a circuit of the graveyard, but couldn’t see anything unusual. He stopped the car and got out. There was a hut, but it was padlocked shut. It had a window with wire mesh covering it. He looked inside, but there was no sign of life. Behind a hedge, he found a digger and a wheelbarrow, but nothing else. He stood there in the darkness, scratching his head.

And that was what he was doing when the police car arrived.

It took him an hour to talk his way out of it. They took him to the police station. The desk sergeant knew who he was, and didn’t believe his story. Some kids, joyriders, smashing their way through the gates and then running off . . . Don Empson, concerned citizen, completely innocent, checking the scene.

‘I wanted to make sure they hadn’t damaged anything.’

‘So the car’s not yours, sir?’

‘Never seen it in my life.’

When they let him go, he breathed the cold night air and took his phone out of his pocket. Nothing else for it. He would have to bring in Sam and Eddie. They always travelled together. They’d been best pals since primary school, nutters, the pair of them. But that wasn’t really the problem. Problem was, he couldn’t let them know what he knew. He couldn’t let them know Benjy was the shooter.

Because Benjy was family. He was
Don’s
family, his nephew. And if Don didn’t get to him first, the lad was as good as dead. Always supposing he wasn’t dead already. Don felt a stabbing pain in his stomach. He rubbed at it, for all the good that would do.
Benjy, you bloody idiot
. No happy ending.

He thought back to the garage, how it had taken him a couple of seconds to recognise Benjy’s build and voice. He’d been on the point of saying something when the first shot had rung out. And afterwards, just for a moment, Benjy’s wide, scared eyes had met his. Then he’d screwed his eyes shut. Chest wound. Should Don have stopped him driving off? Should he have called out,
Let me get you to a doctor?
Probably. The question now was, had Benjy known it would be his uncle in charge of the cash? If so, he’d gambled either that he wouldn’t be recognised, or that Don wouldn’t grass him up.

Big gamble.

It came down to that moment of eye contact. There had been no surprise there, so Benjy had expected Don, and, furthermore, had expected to be clocked by him . . .

Happy to land his uncle in the mire.

‘Cuts both ways, lad,’ Don said to the night air, rubbing his stomach again.

Chapter Five

Stewart Renshaw’s Casino

Stewart Renshaw was in one of his casinos when he got a call from his brother.

‘George,’ he said into the phone. ‘Did everything go as planned?’

The silence on the other end of the line was enough of an answer. Stewart’s face tightened and he decided the gaming floor was too public. There were only a few punters in, but it was still early, not quite midnight. He pushed open a door marked PRIVATE and entered a hallway used by the staff. There was nobody around.

‘Talk to me, George,’ he said.

‘There was a bit of trouble,’ Gorgeous George finally owned up. ‘Someone came in with a gun, shot Raymond and took the cash.’

‘Is Raymond all right?’

‘Funeral job.’

Stewart leaned against the door and closed his eyes. ‘What about Hanley?’

‘Nobody else got hurt . . . except the shooter.’

‘Is he dead, too?’

‘Raymond shot him in the chest. He won’t get far.’

‘But he’s got my money?’

‘Yes.’

‘And you told me it was a piece of cake!’ Stewart hissed. ‘Don’t tell me you sent Sam and Eddie?’