A Poison Tree (Time, Blood and Karma Book 3) (7 page)

“It’s got to be better than
this
.”

“And what makes you think I’d want to work for you, David? You’re the one who sacked me in the first place. Without you I wouldn’t be here.”

“I’m not the one who broke up your marriage, Mark,” I said. “
That’s
why you’re here. Pull yourself together, and stop this self-destructive behaviour.”

“Well, pardon me,
Mister
Braddock, if we can’t all have perfect marriages like yours. Although I doubt yours is exactly perfect.”

“What do you mean by that?”

He dropped his eyes and put more food into his mouth. “Nothing,” he mumbled.

I stood up and put one of my business cards on the mantelpiece.

“Call me when you’re in a more receptive frame of mind, Mark.”

“That might be some time,” he responded. “Let yourself out, would you? I’d like to watch the end of the news.”

My cell phone rang and I answered it without checking the caller.

“David Braddock.”

“Hello, David,” said a robotic voice.
“Have you checked on Claire yet? You should, you know.”

“I’m sorry, you must have the wrong number.”

I switched the phone off.

“Who was that?” asked Claire, setting the dinner table.

“Another wrong number. I keep getting them. Damn phone company.”

Without
question, I should have just told Claire I’d been getting malicious calls. Then perhaps the whole thing would have been over. We could have had a laugh about it and put it to bed. But something held me back. I think it was a conversation we’d had a few years ago when we were on one of our regular holidays in Bali. It was the sort of exchange you have when you are in love and you know you have nothing to worry about.

We were standing on a hillside admiring the green rice terraces and some local girl had given me a flirty look. Claire had punched me when I’d
waved back.

“If you ever decide to have an affair, David, just don’t tell me about it, OK?”

“OK,” I replied hugging her, “and if you ever have one don’t tell me either.”

“Deal,” she said and kissed me.

“Oh, yuck,” grimaced our daughter. “You two should get a room.”

“We have one, sweetheart. And what is more we’ll be making full use of it when we get back to
our hotel.”

“Too much information, Dad. Way, way too much.
You know, I will have to have therapy for this later. It’s not natural having parents this lovey-dovey.”

“Oh, shut up, Katie,” laughed Claire. “Now, let’s have a family photograph.”

Of course we don’t really know anything for certain, do we?

Do we?

I don’t know what it was that made me look through Claire’s handbag that evening. Maybe it was that second phone call, although that seems a rather lame explanation. There
was no logic for why I should give credence to the words of some malice-inspired coward who disguises his voice; for why I should mistrust my partner of twenty years.

But I did.

And let’s face it, when it comes to matters of trust, logic has no part to play. We are at the mercy of our rawest emotions. Some creature decided to pour poison in my ear; invited me to act upon my vaguest and most ill-founded suspicions; then rubbed its hands in glee as I obeyed. And so, while Claire took a shower upstairs, I found myself rifling through her bag for evidence of culpability – since evidence of innocence is impossible to find. With alternate sensations of embarrassment and slyness, I examined the clutter that she carted around with her.

And then I found
something.

It was a small piece of paper tucked into her purse. On it, in Claire’s handwriting, were the words
,
23-25 August, Imperial Hotel, Kensington

The sensible Braddock said this was
a discovery of no consequence, that I should be ashamed of myself for my shabby actions. Like Macbeth’s conclusion on life, my imagining about Claire was a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury yet signifying nothing. The other Braddock, however, copied the words and filed them away for future reference.

Then I opened my Conan Doyle and read
The Adventure of the Red-Headed League
.

8

JAMES

The Thai Airways flight to Bangkok out of Heathrow was almost full and Jim Fosse was one of the last passengers to board.

He took his seat in business class next to
a smartly-dressed Japanese man who was engrossed in some World Bank report.

“Can I get you a drink, Mr
. Fosse?” asked the purple-clad stewardess. “I am afraid there will be a slight delay before we take off. Heathrow is very busy this evening.”

“A scotch on the rocks, please.”

“And anything else, sir?”

“Only your phone number.”

Jim checked his watch. It was coming up to twenty past nine. The night flight was scheduled to arrive in Bangkok a little before four o’clock in the afternoon.  He still had plenty of time, even allowing for a flight delay and queuing at immigration. His meeting in the restaurant was not until eight. He had two days in Bangkok before flying on to Manila for negotiations on acquiring a stake in a power plant – so even if the restaurant meeting did not resolve matters, there would be the opportunity for a further meeting.

The stewardess returned with the scotch and gave him a shy smile.

He took a scuffed black pocketbook from his briefcase and flipped through it until he found an entry for ‘Khemkhaeng’ beside which was a cell number. A shady business acquaintance in the Philippines had supplied him with the contact and a third party had arranged the introduction. That was how things operated in Thailand, and for that matter in most other places in the world where ‘grey’ transactions were involved.

Khemkhaeng
worked for the Sangukhon family as a senior lieutenant who – at least allegedly – looked after the operational side of the family’s drugs and prostitution business. He was a man who knew people. People who could get things done. Jim needed to talk to one of those people and he was hoping the Thai would be able to give him a name.

Jim flipped through the dog-eared book. Throughout it were scattered arcane lists, names, phone numbers, email addresses and sundry oblique snippets which would cause any casual reader to conclude the book’s owner was a disorganised
hoarder of random data. But Jim Fosse was anything but disorganised. He was a methodical concealer of information which might prove incriminating. Distributed over the pages – could anyone but find the trail of guilty breadcrumbs – was a coded record of signposts, checklists and activities dear to the heart of the illicit businessman.

He paused his page-turning at a scribbled margin entry which read
250k LIFW#2
, and beneath it a date in February 1998. Only the writer would know the note related to the taking out of a life insurance policy on his second wife. The rest of the page was covered in doodles, fictitious flight schedules and phone numbers taken from the pages of telephone directories. Furthermore, Jim Fosse was the only person who would be able to tell this was merely one item of an agenda which he was working his way through.

He picked up his scotch and turned to a page near the back of the book where in the top left-hand corner was written
David Braddock W#2
, and underneath it
Feb 99
. He took out a pen and wrote
Aug 99
beside the other date. Jim’s brow furrowed for a few seconds as he looked at the entry, then a smirk crept over his face. He put away the book and checked what was showing on the in-flight films.

Tough choice:
Kiss Me Deadly
or
Double Indemnity
.

Maybe he
would watch both. It was around twelve hours to Bangkok and Jim Fosse never slept more than six hours. It was all he needed to recharge.

Besides, being awake was just too much fun.

9

ADELE

The girl was of elfin
shape, her dark brown hair cut short. Her skin was pale, highlighting hazel eyes already enhanced by black mascara. She wore a greatcoat that was several sizes too big for her, making her look distinctively gamine.

She shook out her sodden umbrella on the steps of the apartment block before proceeding into the lobby. A small Indian man, who occupied one of the second floor flats
, wished her a good afternoon before buttoning up his coat against the unseasonably cold weather and proceeding out into the rain. She had no idea what his name was. Indeed she didn’t know the names of anyone in the block, nor did she want to. The bank of apartment buzzers was anonymous. It only showed the flat numbers. The tenants here changed often, and no one seemed interested enough to announce their presence. The girl surmised many of her fellow residents were either illegals or living on benefits. For all she knew she was the only one in the building who had a job.

She unlocked her mailbox in the dingy hallway and took out two envelopes, both bills, addressed to
Ms. Adele Darrow
. She pushed them into her shoulder bag and walked up the three flights of stairs to her floor. The lift had been broken for a few weeks and the landlord showed little concern with effecting repairs.

Once in the apartment, she hung up her coat, dumped her bag on the kitchen table and switched on the kettle. Through the window she could see the rain was now falling heavily, scour
ging the streets and the grey houses. A youth in a hoodie ran along the pavement and took shelter in a doorway. He shivered, lit a cigarette and squinted up at the sky. He looked soaked through.

While she waited for the kettle to boil, Adele spooned instant coffee into a mug and checked the fridge.

“No fucking milk,” she said in a voice that carried a slight Scottish burr. “It’ll have to be black then.”

On the fridge door
, attached with small round magnets, was a photograph of a boy, aged around three years. The boy was sitting on a see-saw in a park and was laughing at the camera. Adele touched the photograph with the fingertips of her right hand and said, “Sorry for the swear word, Jamie. Your mummy is a wee bad girl.”

She poured the boiling water into the mug, and managed to get rid of most of the
floating lumps with a teaspoon. The two envelopes were retrieved from her bag and snorted at. She tossed them into a drawer.

Adele c
hecked her watch while she sipped the bitter coffee. There was about an hour before the appointment.

She stripped off
her clothes and stepped into the shower, relaxing while the hot water ran over her small breasts and slim body. She leaned forward and felt the soothing flow down her back to the Celtic tattoo symbolising a tree that spread out at the base of her spine. Her mind drifted.

Two years
. It had been two years since she boarded the train in Glasgow and ended up in this unexceptional Midlands city. An old school friend had offered her a bed on her sofa until she got herself ‘sorted out’. But in reality, it was her friend, Nicola, who needed sorting out. She was high on drugs most of the time – cocaine when she could afford it – and after Adele found a checkout job at a discount store she had moved into her own place at the earliest opportunity. Nicola for her part had disappeared off to London with her layabout boyfriend shortly afterwards and Adele hadn’t heard from her since.

The job at the discount store paid the rent and utility bills
, and her earnings from prostitution paid for everything else, with a little bit over for a rainy day. And there were plenty of rainy days in Leicester.

Adele had performed the occasional trick in Glasgow, and now that she had anonymity and no chance of bumping into anyone she knew, she decided to augment her income by joining the staff of
the Gold Club where she worked two long weekend shifts.

The Gold Club
was situated in an uncared-for Victorian house in the Frog Island area of Leicester. It was equipped with a dungeon – which Adele declined to frequent – and five bedrooms each containing a Jacuzzi and a corner shower. The Jacuzzis were hardly ever switched on, since most clients only wanted a one-hour ‘quickie’. This was just as well as only two of them worked. The walls of each room were painted dark purple, the floors were uncarpeted and the whole building reeked of sweat and stale beer. Miss Connie, who owned and managed the place, sold booze as well as sex.

Adele found a degree of camaraderie among the
ladies of the Gold Club, although she didn’t want to become too friendly. It was better that way.

Most of the women who worked there were local housewives picking up a little cash on the side although
Leona, a blonde girl from Wolverhampton, was working her way through Law School. When Adele had expressed surprise at this, her colleague had pointed out ‘lots’ of female students did it. Furthermore, according to Leona, many of the female lawyers in Cuba were also on the game. “Law practice just doesn’t pay enough there,” Leona announced. “Besides, there are plenty of men who would like to screw a lawyer after all the lawyers who have screwed them.”

Because she
could still pass for a teenager – at least in the club’s low lighting and the twilight world of the male mind – Adele often attracted the sort of client who liked his women to dress up in a school uniform. She couldn’t have cared less. The uniform attracted an extra payment. She didn’t even bother to have a pseudonym, although everyone else who worked there did.

What the fuck
,
she thought.
Nobody knows me anyway
.

Adele soaped herself in the shower and reflected on just how creepy most men were when not bound by the chains of convention and everyday appearance. And the existence of
the Gold Club’s dungeon testified to how many men preferred to be bound by real chains. Nina (real name Daphne), the house dominatrix, had difficulty hiding her contempt for many of her clients. She took especial pleasure in inflicting beatings on some of them. It just seemed to make them eager for more.

“Civilization is a thin veneer over something really dark,”
Nina had observed to Adele one day. “I can’t wait to save up enough money to get out of this business.”

“What is it you want to do
instead?” Adele had asked.

“I want to open an art gallery in Hull,” was the
enthusiastic reply, “and maybe offer painting classes for children. Now, would you be a darling look after my beer for me? I have to go and pee on a customer.”

Adele switched off the water and stepped out of the shower. She wrapped herself in a
thick white towel and padded into her small bedroom.

The walls were covered in an off-white pebbledash, which she
deduced the landlord had chosen because a slop with a paintbrush would quickly conceal any nasty stains left there by less caring tenants.

She had
made efforts to make the room more welcoming. Cheap prints of watercolours hung on the walls and a tapestry was positioned over the bedhead. Bright patterned cushions were piled on the bed itself and a large teddy bear sat on a cabinet.

Adele opened the bedside drawer to check she had
a supply of massage oil. She had. Two half-empty bottles snuggled in the drawer among packs of tissues, tampons, condoms and a tube of lubricant.

While she dried herself, she selected an outfit from the wardrobe; a
black lacy bra and panties, a short grey pleated skirt and a white blouse which she tied below her cleavage to expose her midriff. Then she returned to the bathroom to apply her makeup. Not too much. Her client didn’t like her to appear too tarty and she wanted to please him.

There were only two men Adele allowed back to her apartment. She had almost increased the number to three a few weeks ago: a tubby American she had met at
the Gold Club who was charming and generous with his tip. But something about his eyes made her pause. There was coldness and a ruthlessness lurking there, and it made her feel a little threatened. He was one of those men whose smile stopped at his mouth.

No
. Two is enough anyway. And I don’t want the neighbours seeing a procession of men in and out of the flat. That’s a recipe for trouble.

S
he was fond of her two regular clients. Neither of them had any propensity for shows of temper or violence, and safety was a key consideration in Adele’s line of work.

The first man was a fellow Scot who had taken early retirement from working in a coal mine not far from Glasgow
, and later moved south to live with his widowed sister. Adele suspected from his occasional bouts of coughing that his retirement was on medical grounds, but he never proffered any information on this and she was too discreet to ask. She had met him at the club shortly after arriving in the city. He was a gentle individual – given to occasional bouts of melancholy – who would recite Burns’ poetry any time the opportunity presented itself. He called himself Robbie, and Adele was inclined to believe that was his real name.

The second client was an Englishman, of athletic build, who had started seeing her eighteen months before. It had been, he said, his first ever visit to a brothel.
More to the point, it would be his last, but would it be possible to see Adele again? She had given him her number without a second thought. They had never met at the Gold Club again, and she knew he had never been back. It was just not his style.

Adele examined herself one final time in the mirror
before consulting her watch. She had half-intended to call her mother, but was relieved to see there wasn’t time now before her guest was due to arrive.

David was always punctual.