From Humble Beginnings (Joe Steel) (11 page)

Hearing Juliet’s voice surprises me.  A part of me wants to be brisk, to get her off the phone so I can talk to her father, but the sight of that hand pops back into my mind’s eye.  It’s affected me more than I’d thought possible.  I’m used to shiners and bruises and bloodied noses.  I was in the boxing club and on the rugby team at school.  The worst injury I’ve seen was a broken leg with the bone bursting through the skin. 

That
had made my stomach turn. 

So this was a bloody nightmare. 

“Juliet? Why are you at your father’s so early? He isn’t ill, is he?”

“No.  He’s fine.  We’ve just been talking that’s all.” There’s an intimacy to her voice, a relaxed tone that tells me her relationship with her father is on the up and up.  That’s good; it might mean that Bernard will tell her himself about his marriages and relationship with Cass and that I won’t have to do the deed.  But at the same time, I can tell that she wants to talk and I don’t want to upset her. 

“I’m glad.” Clearing my throat, I murmur, “Juliet, would you mind if I called you later?  I have to speak with your father.
Urgently.
”

“What’s wrong?  Why do you need to talk to him?”

“You don’t want to know, honey.  You don’t want to know.”

“You see that just pisses me off.  If it’s important to you, then it matters to me too.”

“I appreciate that train of thought, Jules, I really do.  But not at this minute.  Now, if you could put him on the line?”

“Of course.” I can tell she’s irritated, as
pissed off as she says; but, I think I handled her pretty well in the circumstances!  I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to soothe her.  I want to know what’s going on over here.  Bernard always knows more than he tells us and it’s about time he levelled with me. 

“Joe?  What’s wrong?”

“Why was the factory so cheap, Bernard?  Why does it come with a villa and designer cars?”

“The government wanted to offload it; nothing more nothing less.  Why?”

“Because we’ve just received a gift in the post.”

“A gift? What kind of gift?”

“A severed hand.  That’s what!”

Bernard repeats my outburst in shock and then probably regrets it,
instantly!
  As in the background, I can hear Juliet squawk.  I can also hear the sounds of squabbling over the receiver as she tries to drag it from her father. 

“Tell her I’m fine.  It isn’t
my
hand.  That’s still attached, thankfully.  Why did the government want to offload it?”

“You’re sure it’s a real hand?  It could just be a prank,” Bernard asks, his voice urgent. 

“Of course, I’m sure it’s a real hand.  The skin is dying and you can’t fake blood like that.”

“They assured me that everyone had been cleared out of the district,” Bernard mutters, almost to himself. 

“Who’s everyone?” When he didn’t reply, I bark, “Who’s everyone, Bernard?  Answer me, damn it.  Are we in danger here?  Because if we are, we’re getting on the first flight back to the UK.  Christ Almighty, putting up with death threats is not in our job descriptions, Bernard!”

“No.  No, of course not.  But surely it’s some kind of mistake.  Why would anyone send something like that to you?  They were all sent to prison.  Every last one of them.”

“Stop generalizing.  Who’s they? Give me specifics.”

“The factory was a mafia-front.  Laundering, drug peddling, that kind of thing.  The factory owner was the fall guy for the entire operation.  Not one piece of documentation didn’t have his signature or his name on it.  If things had gone tits up, then he would have been in the shit.  No one
else.  The police managed to convince him to talk; to reveal names and details if they could ensure his protection.  Because of him, they managed to haul about ten men to prison.”

“And you think that an operation of that nature… laundering, drug peddling, required only ten men? Are you out of your bloody mind?  What the hell have you involved us in? Some kind of turf war?”

I’d had my back to Cass, had been staring at the kitchen door, and waiting to see if Brigida would come back in, but she hadn’t.  I had a sneaky suspicion that she was eavesdropping though.  I could have easily called her bluff, simply by leaning against the door, but I chose not to.  Especially as Cass grabbed my arm and stole the phone from my hand.  

“What have you done, Bernard?”

Her shriek hurts my own ears and I can see that Cass is on the brink of a panic attack.  Having never seen a softer side to her, save the time I caught her with Bernard with their pants around their proverbial ankles, this is coming as a great shock. 

“You bastard!  How could you do this to me?  How could you send me here? Send me
in to danger?”

Listening to a one-sided conversation is irritating, because Cass isn’t the only one pissed off.  In all honesty, I’m not frightened like she is.  Shit like this is unnerving, but I’m not exactly petrified.  It’s a warning.  A warning against what, I don’t know.  And until the police get here, we won’t know.  Then, hopefully, we’ll have more answers.   The ring was obviously left there so that the hand’s original owner could be easily identified.  There lies the answer as to whether we’re in danger or not. 

Cass, regardless of logic or not, is petrified.  She’s more than angry; she’s furious because of her fear and the fact that Bernard has led her into this situation. 

I can understand.  If I was fucking a man, had been with him longer than some marriages lasted and he sent me into a turf war over a knicker factory, then I’d be pretty upset pissed off too!

“Don’t bullshit me, Bernard.  What made you do it?  All the factories in Europe and you had to pick one knee deep in gang wars and mafia territory.  I’ll never forgive you for this.  Never.  I don’t care how many times you tell me that the police sorted the wheat from the chaff and got rid of all the criminals in the area.   Joe’s right!  You never get rid of all the ties. 
Never
.  If anything happens to me, if anyone harms even a hair on my bloody head, I’ll sue you for negligence.  You see if I don’t!”  With that, she slams the phone down on to the marble table. I try not to wince as the sound of the screen cracking penetrates the silence.  That was a new phone too.

“That bastard.  He knew,
knew
that the mafia was here.  That’s why it was so bloody cheap.  All of this! The government wanted it off their hands as soon as physically possible.  I want to go home.” The latter’s almost a wail.

I grimace, because that’s at the forefront of my mind too and I know it’s not possible.  “I know, I want that too, Cass, but we can’t.  The police will want to talk to us.  There will be procedure and protocol.  They’ll just call us back if we leave.”

“I don’t fucking care.  I don’t want anything to do with this.”

“Look, the police are on their way.  Just wait, talk to them.  As soon as they find out who the hand belongs to, then we’ll know if we’re in any real danger.”

“What the fucking hell are you talking about?
Real danger,
” she mocks.  “Of course, we are.  They sent that as a threat!”

“To whom, Cass?
To us? To Bernard? We don’t know.”

She’s still shaking as she sat down.  The bowl of half-eaten fruit has long since been ignored and now, she clears them out of the way, pushing them aside, totally uncaring if the plates crashed to the floor or if they were knocked to the side.  I ignore the crashes, refusing even to wince.  If it shuts her up, if the violence of the motion soothes her, then that’s fine by me.  We’ll deal with the police and then be able to take our next step. 

Surrounded by the carnage of crockery, I watch as she rests her elbows on the table and places her hand on her head. 

The sounds of a car rolling down the drive are easily audible and I stride out of the dining hall and to the front door.  Pulling it open, I holler, “Brigida, we’ll need you to translate.”

The policemen jump out of their cars, armed with pistols at the hips, and stride over to me.  Simultaneously, Brigida appears and begins to explain in smooth Italian what’s happening.  Or at least, I hope that’s what she’s saying.  Shit, she could have been telling them that we’d just chopped off her husband’s hand, for all I know!

Before she can say another word, I motion with my hands to the open doorway of the dining room.  I’d prefer it if Cass was there.  She doesn’t have to focus 100%, but any smattering of information would have been most useful. 

After the peculiarity of Brigida’s reaction to the sight of that abomination, I don’t trust her. 

It’s a bitch when out of the four Italian people we’ve met, I trust the short-arsed, mite-riddled, smelly gardener more than any of them. 

And only God knows how honest these cops are.  In mafia land, they’re probably as bent as a set of Uri Geller’s spoons!

Cass lifts her head to stare at the policemen and whispers a phrase that has them frowning. 

Feeling clueless, I wander towards the kitchen, knowing that one has followed me and that the other has gone to Cass.  The Italians are suckers for a pretty face.  Especially a distressed pretty face. 

Opening the fridge, I point to the box and the policeman grabs a pen from his pocket and lifts the flaps.  Spying the severed hand, he reaches for his radio and calls it in. 

Without waiting, I retreat to Cassandra’s side.  Letting her explain the situation in her own words and not those of our psycho housekeeper. 

An ambulance comes to collect the box, not before a man dressed in a white suit, who from TV shows I can tell was in forensics, had dusted the remainder of the post and the exterior of the box for fingerprints. 

“I’ll have to go to the police station either today or tomorrow to give them my prints.  They want yours as well as Brigida’s and Marco’s,” Cass eventually says, her voice dulled.

“They don’t think that we had anything to do with it?” I ask, astounded that they might, because who in their right mind sends severed hands to themselves?

“No.  They just want to clear us from the investigation.  Any finger prints that aren’t ours could belong to the person who mailed the package.”

“I didn’t even touch the box.  Nor did Brigida.”

“They’re just dotting every
I
, Joe.”

Marco appears
, his stench alongside him and as he answers the questions the police put to him, Cass translates for my benefit. 

“He says he found it on front porch.  On the top step.  There was no note, no letter.  He just assumed it was for us.”

“Yeah, because we know so many people in these parts, don’t we?”

“They’re asking him if he has any idea who the hand might belong to.” Cass’ eyes dart to Brigida who is sullenly glaring at her husband.  “The police have asked the pair of them and they both said no.”

“If she doesn’t know, then I’ll eat my hat.”

“You’re not wearing a hat.”

“Okay, I’ll eat my
invisible
hat.  She’s involved somehow.  You were too far out to notice,” I whisper, so that Brigida can’t hear me.  “But you should have seen the way she reacted.”

“Everyone reacts differently.”

“To a point!  She didn’t react at all.  I’d say this isn’t the first package like this received by this household.  She was way too used to seeing it.  She didn’t even bloody whimper.  You started to pant, for God’s sake.  And you’re cooler than a bloody cucumber.”

Cass blanches again and says, “I couldn’t help it.”

“I wasn’t criticising you.  I was just saying that if you couldn’t control your reaction, then Brigida sure wouldn’t be able to.  You’ve got years of boardroom experience on your side.  Never showing your true emotions to the opposition.  She’s a housekeeper!”

“Yeah.  A servant.  A bland face is the only protection you get from some of the people you serve.  Leave her alone, Joe.  She’s probably as freaked out by all this as we are.”

Choosing to remain silent, because as soon as the words pop out, I remembered that Cass’ family served Bernard, I sink back against my seat and stare at Brigida. 

She sure
doesn’t look freaked out.  Merely pissed off.  Pissed off, because the police are here? Or pissed off because her husband is?

I don’t know the answer to that, although this morning’s row deserves an explanation.  The argument had been forgotten in the furore of discovering the hand, but that had been unusual to say the least!

Where had the usually calm woman disappeared to, when she’d thrown that plate at Marco’s head?

I know Italian women are volatile, but bloody hell! That’s a bit extreme; especially as I don’t think Marco was the man behind her assault.  Had he had bruises on his fist and if I was able to condemn him as a wife-beater, then he more than deserved an omelette thrown at his head. 

But there were no bruises.  And I don’t think Brigida lets Marco close enough to so much as brush by her, never mind thump her. 

No, whatever’s going on here, Brigida is on it.  Up to her skinny, olive-tone neck!

And if Cass can’t see that, then that’s her mistake.