Kill and Tell (7 page)

Staffe follows Rimmer into the boardroom at Martin Goldman’s premises in Half Moon Street, a grand confection of a room and something beyond what you might expect of a one-man show.

He still can’t understand why Rimmer is here. Pennington said Rimmer has done some excellent background work on Attilio Trapani and deserves the chance to see his man in the headlights. And after all, he and Rimmer are equals. ‘You are aware of that, aren’t you, Will?’ Pennington had said, pinning Staffe to the Leadengate floor with one of his stares. ‘I can’t do anything about that.’

Martin Goldman says, ‘We are here at the request of our good friend and devoted father, Carmelo Trapani. Carmelo is missing and, God forbid he actually expected this, but he came to me just a week ago, with specific instructions.’

‘My God,’ says Attilio Trapani.

‘This is very strange,’ says Anthony Goldman.

‘It’s very Carmelo,’ says Maurice Greene. ‘Very Carmelo.’

Martin Goldman breaks the seal of an envelope. ‘Carmelo specified that I was not to know the outcome in advance.’

‘But you’re his lawyer,’ says Attilio.

‘When he came to see me, Carmelo advised that he had just changed his will. It was verified by Northcotes, in Stamford.’

‘That’s outrageous,’ says Helena. ‘You’re his solicitor.’

‘He wouldn’t discuss the contents, merely the people he wanted present. Northcotes have an impeccable reputation and they have confirmed everything is above board. The soundness of mind is, as we know, beyond question. The revised will and the codicil will be the last word, should a last word be necessary. And let us pray that it is not necessary. Any testaments will, please, be unopposed.’

‘What is a codicil?’ asks Appolina Sartori.

‘A variation to the terms of a will,’ says Maurice Greene.

Martin Goldman’s eyes widen as he scans the documents. He reads quickly, occasionally clasping the muzzle of his mouth and jaw; other times he scratches his head, rubs his temples. When he is done, he exhales loudly.

Attilio Trapani says, ‘Come on. Let’s have it.’

Helena says, ‘Surely, it’s a minor change.’

Maurice Greene smiles to himself, hunched in his tweed coat and rubbing the end of his turned-up nose.

Martin Goldman reads aloud, slowly, mechanically. ‘“As my accountant will be aware, my investments have been complex and wide-ranging and with this in mind, I engaged a Guernsey firm to simplify my affairs.”’

‘It’s a damned insult,’ says Anthony Goldman.

‘You knew about this?’ says Leon Goldman.

‘I tried to dissuade him!’

‘However,’ continues Martin, ‘“in recognition of his advice and assistance so far beyond duty, I wish to bequeath my oldest portfolio to Anthony Goldman. He receives one hundred per cent of the shares in Dundee Investments.”’

‘The bastard,’ says Anthony.

‘Anthony!’ booms Leon.

‘It’s a hotchpotch of all those failed venture capital projects and some half-built apartments on Corfu with more debt than equity. It’s a liability!’

Martin continues, ‘“Palazzo Adriano, my home in Beauvoir Place, is bequeathed to my nephew Maurice Greene and my lifelong friend Jacobo Sartori, and it shall be jointly enjoyed by them in equal measure, not disposed of while either remains alive.”’

At this, Appolina begins to weep. She raises a kerchief to her nose, saying, ‘Where is my Jacobo?’

Maurice Greene takes out a piece of paper from his overcoat, begins to scribble.

Attilio Trapani says, ‘What about me? What about us?’

Martin raises a finger to his lips, waits for quiet and says, ‘I beseech you all to pray that this is nothing more than an academic exercise and that the police here can find Carmelo, and none of this may come to pass. The only thing available to any of us today is the fondness of our memories; or a little shame. I urge the former.

‘Now, returning to the will,’ Martin smiles. ‘‘‘My boat,
San Angelo
– so enjoyed by my good friend Martin Goldman – is bequeathed to him and his family. It will remain in Ischia and Martin will find that a mooring has been purchased in perpetuity. I will laugh when he laughs, will take a sip of grappa when he sips.”’ Martin wipes a tear from his eye.

Attilio Trapani drums the desk with his fingers, exhales loudly. His wife, Helena, has turned a greyish white. She holds her mouth, as if she is unwell.

Maurice Greene leans forward. ‘Whilst everybody is here, I would like to register an interest in purchasing outright the interests of the other beneficiaries in Palazzo Adriano – at the market value, of course. I would like to live in it.’

‘Where would you get the money for that?’ says Attilio. ‘You are a layabout. You’ve never worked a day in your whole life. How the hell did you even get to be here today?’

‘I have my flat, and some savings. I can borrow against the house itself.’

‘You’re not even proper family,’ says Helena.

‘Please. Everybody please exercise a little restraint,’ says Martin. ‘The will is quite clear. The house is to be jointly enjoyed.’

Appolina says, ‘We need to move on, to forget. How can we do that if there remains a connection?’

‘Forget?’ says Maurice.

Appolina says, ‘That house contains all his memories. None of us should be burdened by that.’

Burdened?
thinks Staffe. An inappropriate word, you might think.

‘What about the cash?’ says Attilio. ‘He had lots of cash.’

‘Not so,’ says Anthony Goldman.

‘The Guernsey investments, then,’ says Helena.

‘There is a little cash,’ says Martin.

‘How much?’ says Attilio.

‘Eight hundred thousand pounds.’

‘Not to be sniffed at,’ says Helena.

‘Half of which will endow the school in Cefalù. Carmelo wished his son, Attilio, to be the trustee of the endowment,’ says Martin.

‘Trustee? For someone else’s benefit?’

‘And the other half of the cash is bequeathed to Bogdan and Vanya Livorski.’

‘Who the hell are they?’ says Helena.

‘His bloody conscience,’ says Attilio. ‘This is a joke; the devil’s joke.’

‘Which brings us to the final item of significance. There are a few minor affairs, such as the settlement of outstanding commitments, and the funeral, but let us pray that is unnecessary.’

‘Do we know precisely when he made those arrangements?’ says Staffe.

‘Just three days before he disappeared.’

Maurice Greene says, ‘He knew he was going. My God, he knew.’

‘What of the Guernsey investments?’ says Leon Goldman, ‘I’m most intrigued. They must be substantial.’

‘Carmelo has indeed simplified his affairs,’ says Martin, leafing purposefully through the document. ‘His investments are: US Treasury Bonds, value seven million dollars; Cable Portfolios, value sixteen million pounds and comprising minority holdings in twelve different investment trusts.’

‘Sweet Jesus,’ says Helena, clutching Attilio’s arm. ‘That’s over twenty million pounds.’

‘There’ll be death duties,’ says Attilio Trapani. He leans back, hands in his hair. He is sweating profusely now, looking sidelong at Goldman with a curled lip, daring to smile.

‘Who is the beneficiary?’ says Leon Goldman.

‘Isn’t it obvious?’ says Helena Ballantyne.

Staffe looks at Anthony Goldman, then around the table, readying himself for the reactions.

‘Abraham Myers,’ says Martin.

‘Abie?’ says Appolina, a wry smile upon her face.

Anthony Goldman’s expression doesn’t budge.

‘Abie Myers,’ says Leon Goldman. ‘The wily dog.’

‘It’s an error,’ says Helena.

‘Like Attilio said, the devil’s joke,’ says Anthony Goldman.

Attilio Trapani clutches his heart, leans forward on the table and wheezes.

Helena says, ‘He has these things.’ She looks at him contemptuously. ‘The doctors say it’s asthma.’

‘We need to speak to Abraham Myers,’ says Staffe.

‘Good luck with that,’ says Anthony Goldman.

‘Does anyone have an address?’

Martin Goldman writes the address for Staffe and the meeting falls into a near silence. Attilio and Helena stare into a void and Leon Goldman shares a confidence with Appolina Sartori. Maurice Greene says nothing, surprisingly underwhelmed for a young man whose future has just been secured.

Slowly, under firm encouragement from Martin Goldman, everybody leaves, save Staffe and Rimmer, who says, ‘The nephew gets more than the son.’

Martin says, ‘Carmelo had strong emotions and the most steadfast morals, so whatever his reason for finding such kindnesses for that boy, and for the Polish family, they will be benign.’

‘But Maurice Greene was right – when he said that Carmelo knew what was going to happen to him, before it happened.’

‘Which means it is somebody who knows him,’ says Staffe. ‘If Carmelo could see it coming, the abductor—’

‘Or the murderer,’ says Rimmer.

‘They planned it – way ahead of time.’

‘Could it be Carmelo himself?’ says Rimmer.

Staffe looks around at his colleague, impressed with that odd train of thought.

Martin Goldman says, ‘I think, today, Carmelo took the earth from beneath all our feet.’

‘He put the wind in your sails,’ says Staffe.

Martin smiles, tight-lipped, and hands Staffe Abie Myers’ address.

As they leave, Rimmer says, ‘I don’t get it. Attilio doesn’t stand to get a penny.’

But Staffe is elsewhere already, deciding how to play Abraham Myers, and wondering if the address can be correct.

Staffe walks east, across the Commercial Road. He picks up the lunchtime edition of
The News
.

Six arrests have been made for public order offences in Hackney. A burnt-out police car was found on Hackney High Street where the officers had attended a bogus domestic incident. All six arrested men are black and the Police Commissioner has issued a statement denying that London is on the verge of a late summer of riots.

Staffe quickly flicks through the paper, skims a ‘Where Are They Now?’ article by Nick Absolom featuring four rioters from the summer 2011 riots.

When he reaches Stepney Green, Staffe sits in the gardens opposite the Arbour Youth Boys Club. The street where Abie Myers lives was once at the hub of London’s sweatshops. This is where the Communists thrived, where they and the Jews pushed back Mosley’s Fascists on the day the people said ‘Enough!’ and a quarter of a million people took to the streets to stop the Fascists coming. The police came to protect the Blackshirts and the East End’s children threw pepper in their eyes, tossed marbles under the horses’ hooves. And the people won.

Slowly, surely, favoured sons of the East End moved away from the Mile End Road to Hampstead and the north’s gentle woods and village high streets. Staffe appraises Abie’s slender, three-storey house.

Abraham Myers has just come into twenty million pounds and by all accounts that won’t even get close to doubling his wealth, yet he lives amongst the poor, still. Abraham Myers will know by now of the vast increment to his vaster capital. Might he have been aware of the contents of Carmelo’s will already?

At Leadengate, Staffe had invested an hour, discovered that Myers made his first bob or two running a razor gang down in Brighton, enforcing his illegal gambling books. Only later did he move into property, housing immigrants in slum dwellings in good areas and waiting for values to drop before buying more. He changed the complexion of parts of Notting Hill, for example, and waited for the area he dragged down to rise again. And Abie has always liked the nags. As the years progressed, he built quite a string. Even now, he still has horses in training.

The twenty million from Carmelo isn’t to be sniffed at, of course, but it won’t change Abie’s life. So why on God’s earth did Carmelo Trapani snub his own son to heap yet more millions on Abie?

A Bentley pulls up outside Abie’s house on Stepney Green and a slender, athletic man in a shiny grey suit gets out, leans against the car. He has a suedehead and cheekbones like hammer-heads. Staffe perceives a look of the ex-army about him: the straight back and the loose, relaxed hands – ready.

Staffe clocks the registration plate and makes a call as Josie appears, parking up on the other side of a large skip.

Rimmer picks up, and after he’s taken the Bentley’s details, he says, ‘I’ve just finished talking to Northcotes, and Carmelo Trapani saw them four times in the last month. He was even in the day before he disappeared, and that’s when Cable Portfolios was fully endowed with its trusts. He was switching his money all over the place, right up until he disappeared. So Attilio would have still thought he was in for the lion’s share.’

‘Is Cable Portfolios an off-the-shelf company?’

‘No. There’s a Certificate of Incorporation of Change of Name,’ says Rimmer, sounding pleased with himself.

‘How did you get on at the funeral directors?’ says Staffe, thinking about the name Cable Portfolios.

‘Carmelo gave them ten thousand pounds last week and told them exactly what he wanted. They said he was jovial.’

‘They said “jovial”?’

‘Jovial.’

An elderly man emerges from the slender house, walking with a stick and pausing on the step to his front door. The suedehead rushes to help but the elderly man shrugs him away. The old man is scrawny but has bright eyes. His face is wrinkled, like a St Bernard. Wisps of grey hair float beneath the band of his fedora.

‘Where are you? What are you up to, Staffe?’

Staffe hangs up, watches Abie Myers get into the back of his veteran car. His face isn’t that of a man who has just become twenty million richer. His eyebrows pinch and he talks constantly, spitting venom. He buckles up and they move off, slowly. Staffe steps to the kerb and Josie picks him up, saying, ‘We follow the Bentley?’

‘Wherever it goes, and for however long it takes to get there.’

‘Pulford called. I was going to see him later.’

‘Is he going to disclose to us? Maybe we should go now.’

‘There was an incident, but I’m trying to get us a visit.’ She puts her hand on Staffe’s knee, smiles across. ‘He’s going to be all right.’

‘Do you think he’s cracking up?’ says Staffe.

‘I called North Yorkshire Police. They’re doing a knock on his mother’s street, saying there’s been a cable TV scam; just to keep an eye. They were really good about it.’

‘We should lean on those young pricks on the Attlee Estate. If we can prove who exactly is putting pressure on Pulford, that will get us closer to the evidence for who really killed Jadus.’

‘You don’t think there’s any chance it was Pulford, do you, sir?’

‘No way!’ As he says this, Staffe’s words fail him a little. But this is what he must believe.

‘If we put pressure on those boys in the Attlee, word will get back to Pentonville. You saw what happened in the visitor centre, and if anything happens to Pulford’s mother . . . Christ, sir, I’m not sure I could live with myself. And imagine what Pennington would do! We can’t move on them until Pulford opens up.’

Staffe knows she is right, knows also that there is a law to uphold in the midst of this. Pulford strayed – somehow – and these are the consequences, but he is innocent. He must be.

Josie drives one-handed, reaches out with her gear-change hand and she clasps Staffe’s hand tight. ‘It’ll be all right, won’t it, sir?’

‘It’s a bloody mess.’ He squeezes her hand, puts it on the gear stick. ‘Now, tell me what you know about our new friend Abie, with his designer bodyguard.’

Josie weaves in and out of the traffic on the A23. She says, ‘Abie was born in Lublin, eastern Poland, in 1920. His father came over here in 1929, with his wife, their elder son Benjamin, and Abie. Benjamin died a few years later. Abie married a woman called Esther who nobody knows about. He built up quite a property empire – housing immigrants – but before that he was a bit of a rogue, something to do with betting.’

‘I knew that. There’s nothing more? What about the wife?’

‘You called me away, remember?’ Josie lets the Bentley get away from them on the dual carriageway sections. ‘Rimmer is looking into it.’

He puts the radio on low and a Joni Mitchell song comes on. Even though he thinks she must be too young to know it, Josie sings along. She can carry a tune but is kind of out of key. He watches her mouth saying the words and smiles.

Many songs later, Josie’s mobile rings and she takes it on hands-free. He recognises the voice from the other day in the Hand and Shears. She’s been seeing him since before Staffe got back from Spain, and Staffe wonders whether this Conor will hurt her. He wants them to go to Dublin for the weekend. When she says she can’t, he says they should go to Borough Market on Saturday instead and he’ll get some Dublin Bays. He’ll make dinner for her. Staffe looks ahead, can’t see the Bentley. In a raised voice, he says, ‘Where’s the Bentley?’

Conor says, ‘Oh, you’re with—’

‘I’d better go,’ says Josie.

‘You’re going to have to floor it,’ says Staffe.

‘Drive safe,’ says Conor.

Josie cuts him off, pulls them back into third and presses her foot to the floor of the souped Mondeo. It has 210 brake horsepower camouflaged beneath its blue bonnet and it throws them back into their seats as Josie thrashes it to eighty along Preston Road, just going into Brighton, but the road forks and she can’t see the Bentley any more.

‘Ease up,’ says Staffe.

‘I can’t see them.’

Staffe points up and to the left. ‘Go up here.’

The Bentley is waiting at the lights by a park, one brake light glowing red; the other out.

‘Sorry about that, sir.’

Staffe puts the music back and Joni Mitchell is replaced by Tracey Thorn. He says, ‘I like this one.’

‘I won’t ruin it by singing then,’ she says, slipping the amber, slowing as soon as she sees the brown sign to the ‘Racecourse’.

‘You can sing if you want,’ says Staffe. ‘I like it when you sing.’

Josie turns and her eyes seem soft.

‘He’s good to you, this Conor?’

She nods and they take it slow, Staffe closing his eyes, wishing the world would go away, for just a day or so.

Levi Salmon scrubs down after luncheon service. He is alone in the kitchen with the knives, which he shouldn’t be, but Mister Crawshaw likes a fag after service and Levi can be trusted. Mister Crawshaw will be back soon with Chef and Roadknight, the other orderly, and then they will painstakingly return the knives to their cabinet, which will be locked tight. Each knife has a white outline of itself so even an idiot can tell if a knife has been taken because its white outline will be glaringly unconcealed.

Levi scrubs some more. You can never quite get rid of the smell of fish fingers, nor the cooking fat, which Chef never changes because he’s got to try and do a fiddle somehow. Everyone has a fiddle, even if it’s only saving twenty quid a month on cooking oil.

Yesterday, they sent in that young scrote Louis with the tail of poor Pulford’s dog. Levi thinks he might not be able to bear this cruelty much longer, but then he thinks about how his mother is being looked after by Brandon and Haddaway, and how they have to develop fresh talent like Louis so the older gangsters, like him, can get a higher ride. You’ve got to keep building layers of fodder between yourself and the law, but bringing in the tail of that dog – fucksakes. He hated to see that copper’s face break up the way it did.

He will have to put more heat on the copper, so he takes out the sachet of black paint that Louis brought him and he smears out the shape of the paring knife in the cabinet – his favourite knife. He uses it to chop onions and peel potatoes. He is mustard, according to Chef – but if Chef knew anything, why the fuck would he be working in Pentonville nick with Levi and a prick like Mister Crawshaw?

There are good screws and bad screws, and Mister Crawshaw is one of the worst screws. Levi shouldn’t be left alone with the knives. What if he was a slasher? And he knows for sure that Crawshaw brings in smack and it’s him that sorts out access to that poor copper. They say the POs are worse than the inmates: they choose to come into jail. Some of them think they can do some good, can heal, or at least stem a tide – but not Crawshaw. And it makes a difference when you have a man’s teenage daughter in the palm of your fist.

He can hear them coming, so Beef blows on the black paint where the paring knife should be, and he puts the knife back. Tomorrow, or the next day, when he takes the knife and wraps it in baking paper and slips it between his butt cheeks so they can’t feel it when they pat him down, they won’t see white where the knife should be.

‘Come on, Salmon, put your fuckin’ yoghurt gun back in your Calvins and let’s get you back to your pad, you cunt,’ shouts Crawshaw.

Roadknight and Chef laugh and Crawshaw locks the cabinet and comes up close to Levi. ‘Beef,’ he whispers, patting him down lazily and stinking of smoke, ‘I’ve had word to take you to see our friend again.’

Levi’s heart sinks but he puts on his soldier face and flexes, nods slow. ‘Bring it.’

‘They say you’ve to fucking take him to the edge. But don’t get all gangster. Don’t spoil it for fucking everybody.’

Crawshaw pushes him out of the door and together they slope back to the wing. Everyone else is locked down and as they walk along the fire road between the wings, they get abuse and whistles and catcalls. Levi puts an extra roll to his walk, buffs up his chest and gives his sign when he passes the pads of his soldiers, who call out to him, ‘Beef’! It makes him look big, but each day of bird he flies in here, he feels a little smaller. What can a man do, when all he’s good for is being big and bringing hurt?