I was in the Copper Jug having a pint at the bar when I called Gemma over and handed her a pen and paper. ‘Write this down then run it through the word processor for me, will you? To Marshal and Cochrane. They’re drink distributors; you’ll find their address in the book.’
‘OK.’
‘“Dear sir.” New line. “I’ve had enough. I’m not taking any more. It’s not worth the hassle. Nothing’s working out.”’
As suicide notes go, it wasn’t the best. I couldn’t be too obvious about it. I couldn’t start saying stuff like ‘I’ve had enough of this “life”.’ She’d have thought I wasn’t right in the head. As it was, she was wondering what it was all about. It was in her handwriting – that was the main thing.
‘They’re messing me about with corked wine. One look at that and they’ll be on the phone begging to keep my custom. Might get a price reduction. Print it out and stick it in an envelope.’
I stayed away from the Jug after that, kept in touch with Fra by phone, had a casual drink with Ted Lyle and just dropped it into the conversation that I thought he’d have added Gemma to his list.
‘You surprise me, Ted. I thought you’d’ve been in there.’
‘Some girls do, some girls don’t, Red.’
‘That surprises me too, Ted.’
He was bound to know I’d paid Gemma for it a few times. How, I don’t know. The bar staff might have talked. Gemma could’ve told Sally and it got back to Ted. Not important. He knew. What he said proved it to me.
‘You’re a fucking eejit, Red. She went with you because she’s in love with you. Not for money.’
I laughed it off. ‘Fuck away off, Ted. And you’re supposed to know women.’
To be honest, I didn’t think I’d let her get that close to me. I can’t bear the thought of anyone having those kind of feelings for me. ‘In love?’ Fuck that. I can’t explain why intimacy hits me like vomit – it just does. The thought of someone ‘wanting’ me, Jesus. And ‘in love’? What a corny way to put it. Not at all like Ted. Usually it’s ‘she fancies you’ or some shit like that. Less sting in it.
‘Wise up, Ted, for fuck’s sake. Put one of your big-shot weekends together, get Sally to invite Gemma on the quiet, liquor her up. Let her find a grand in her pocket next morning. That’ll put you straight.’
‘What do you care whether she works for me or not, Red? I’ve never known you to take this interest before. Anybody’d think she got to you.’
‘Got to me, my bollocks. Swagsy has a difficulty coming up. She’ll do nicely for it.’
If Ted didn’t run with a nudge like that, he wasn’t the villain I knew him to be. I didn’t need to explain it to him. The remark automatically told him that a ‘difficulty’ that included Charlie Swags using one of his girls meant he’d be in for a slice. And a slice from Charlie was like a whole vanload from somebody else. He’d run with it all right.
How he’d do it was his own affair. My guess was he’d get Sally to hit her where it would do most damage – her mother. Sally was fond of the needle. I wouldn’t say she’d more track marks on her arms than a hillwalking map, but she’d a £300-a-day habit and Ted kept her in the best of clients to pay for it.
‘Wouldn’t you want your mother to see how well you’re doing? See what you’ve made of yourself? Nice car, real money in the bank,’ no doubt came into the leverage. I do know that Lyle finished it off by telling Gemma he was short of girls Friday nights – that I was getting fed up with his regulars. She could fill in. He figured that because I saw whoring as nothing to get excited about, she wouldn’t think I’d be bothered by her doing it and turn my back on her. She wanted to be near me, he reckoned, and would do whatever it took.
My own guess is she went with it because of her mother. Fuck all to do with me. I wasn’t the attraction. Read it any way you like. It happened. That’s all I know or give a bollocks about.
I’m in The Minstrel and in walks Gemma. I take her upstairs and act no differently than before. She comes at me a lot closer, with the sighs of emotion and all that crap, and when she leaves, she’s looking back at me, as if she doesn’t wanna go, as if she wants to stay only with me, that she’ll do it because I’m part of the package. Did you ever hear such a pile of shit in all your life? ‘Love’ – Jesus, no thanks. The last thing she said to me was: ‘See you next week, Red?’ I gave her a smile to keep her going. That was it. Thank fuck for Charlie, that’s all I can say. This stuff with Gemma was stirring shit in me that I didn’t want stirring.
By this time, things had moved on as far as what Charlie Swags had said to me was concerned. My reading of him turned out to be right. I knew a bit more about this than I said earlier. And it all added up to Charlie walking in looking like things had just taken a turn for the worse. And he walked into The Minstrel.
Now knowing Charlie as I do, I know his moods – whether he’s pissed off because things haven’t gone as planned or if there’s something personal in it. And that’s what this had come down to.
Drake – that fucker who owned the garage I was telling you about – had decided not to sell, and he was putting it about that he’d made a fool out of the ‘Great’ Charlie Swags. Which was a load of bollocks. It was simply a deal that had fallen through and Charlie would’ve seen it like that if Drake hadn’t gone mouthing off. Since Charlie was nodding towards the table in the corner, where we got down to the bones of it, it was more than obvious that as he was running it by me, he was looking for something with an edge to it that’d make Drake sell.
So I sat back, gave it some thought, downed a whiskey, nodded to the barman for another round – including a swig for Charlie’s two heavies on their high stools – waited till it was brought over, Charlie tipping away at Irish Mist …
‘Drake married, Charlie?’
‘He is.’
‘Other women?’
‘We’re all fond of a bit of skirt, Red.’
‘Kids?’
‘Daughter.’
‘How old?’
‘Fuck knows. Eleven, twelve …’
‘Hit him there.’
‘With what?’
‘What do men fear above all other things when it comes to sex, Charlie?’
‘Not being able to get it up any more?’
‘What else?’
‘Ah …’
Charlie never sees the angles. Even at this stage, when he’d become like one of those guys you read about in the Sundays – ‘Crime Boss Guilty of All Sorts of Crap’ – he still never sees the angles. Not that he’d ever been in the Sundays, though Chilly Winters had been refusing promotion for years trying to put him in them. Winters was still carrying a grudge over his daughter. He’d found out after she was taken that Charlie was behind it. And Winters knows, more so then than now, that where Charlie went, I went. He blames me too. No proof though. You’d think he’d wise up. In order to beat us, he has to catch us. If he doesn’t catch us, that’s a reflection on his abilities, a failing on his side. He should look at it like that.
‘Y’know that new girl Ted Lyle has working for him, Charlie? She was at a hen party one night in the Carmine Club, wore a dress no bigger than a pillowcase. Long blonde hair, no tits, small enough to go down on a guy standing up; very young looking. Gemma Small.’
‘Didn’t she used to work for you?’
He’d had his eye on her. Charlie likes them young. ‘She’s into electrolysis.’
‘What’s that – some kinda vibrator?’
‘No muff.’
‘So?’
‘Scams are about perception, Charlie. What people perceive to be the truth, not the truth itself. Set her up as a tourist in that hotel you said Drake drinks in. Nice and easy does it; she’s not to rush. See what happens. Maybe he’ll bite, maybe he won’t. If he does, it’s up to her room with a hidden camera on the go. I’ll set it up, all part of the service.’ I had surveillance gear, the kind top-notch private investigators use, with built-in phones, microphones, speakers, ‘always-on’ broadband access, VCR jacks, camera lenses the size of tie pins, the works. I call them surveillance ‘laptops’, mainly because they’re portable, but they’re much more than the ones you’d buy in the shops and about twice the size. ‘If my guess is right, a little thing like Gemma without the pubic hair will come across on screen as a minor. Send Drake a copy, then ring him up and reduce your offer. When he scoffs, ask him what kind of videos his daughter and her schoolmates like to watch. That’ll tell him you’re the one who sent it.’
The kid element gave it the edge he was looking for.
‘God bless you, Red.’
‘No problem.’
‘How the fuck do you come up with these scams so fast?’
‘You know me, Charlie – always like to have one ready in case of a quick getaway. I’m also a genius.’
Genius, my bollocks. I’m no smarter than the next guy. I just take everything from experience. When I was a kid, I saw two lads with a Christian Brother. They were both about the same age, but one had pubic hair and the other one didn’t. The one without it looked a lot more like a minor because of it. That was probably my first lesson on how things look based on how you present them. If you’d shaved the lad with it, he too would’ve looked like a minor. Your basic everyday logic. That’s the lesson I took from it anyway. When I saw Gemma, it came back to me.
I saw the upshot of this, incidentally, when Ted Lyle’d recorded it onto one of my surveillance laptops. Gemma had a doll’s mouth. When she went down on Drake, her lips had a job getting round it. Brought back memories. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said she was only coming into her teens. But I knew her – Drake’s wife wouldn’t. She’d have seen him fucking what looked like a kid. Then Drake went and got hit by a car and ended up in hospital, and Charlie put that part of it on hold till he was up and about.
Of course, the extra angle was that while we were waiting for Drake to hit on Gemma, others would hit on her. Top hotel, leave the camera rolling, in the hope she goes down on a top cop or a politician. Or maybe a judge. Nothing like having His Honour in your pocket if the bastard happens to be looking down on you at the time with his wig on. This is the sort of stuff I told you I dabbled in from time to time, when girls brought celebrities back to my hotels. Most of the videos I’d never used. Kept them for my own private collection in case they ever came in handy.
Then there was the money angle. She was bound to pick up businessmen. We could see if they were worth hitting on or not. What could be easier? Clean the cunts for every penny they had; get as much out of a scam as you can.
Women were another angle. If one picked up Gemma, a woman fucking her would give it another extra. All kinds of offshoots. Oddly enough, though I didn’t know it at the time, Gemma swung both ways. She had a couple of girlfriends round the clubs.
Anyway, all scams have to end. You can only milk them for so long. And when they’re finished, the girl involved has to go. That’s why I’d nudged Gemma into this.
So I sat down and wrote Gemma a letter. She would think it had come from her mother, in response to the one I’d typed for her but never posted. I can’t even remember what bullshit I wrote. Something like:
Dear Gemma,
I’m sorry for taking so long to reply to your letter. But as much as I wish things were different, they are what they are … My family are unaware of my past … I wish you all the best in life.
Love Angela
The usual ‘fuck-off’ letter mothers like Gemma’s send.
It was to tie in with that suicide angle I was telling you about. The suicide was weak, I grant you that. I hadn’t had enough time to work on it. The law’d find Gemma’s body on the pavement outside a high-rise, her ‘mother’s’ letter and the one I’d dictated to the drink company in her pocket, pointing to her having jumped because she couldn’t live with Angela rejecting her twice. I’d cut the ‘Dear Sir’ bit off the one Gemma’d handwritten for me. Anyway, that’s the way it was supposed to work out. The law would suspect Charlie was behind it, but the suicide note would colour it and keep the pressure off him. He’d expect me to have an angle like that working for us.
I’d driven the sixty miles into Allens, County Longford to mail the letter so it would have the right postmark on it. Gemma would have a read of it the following day then be seen to have bowed out that night. Up the emotional pressure on Lucille, all that. That’s how I was seeing it. But I wasn’t the only one with designs on Gemma.
Let me put that another way: someone else was intent on having designs on her. And when I say designs I mean designs. Literally. And it led to me getting the goods on one of the best killers this town had ever known.
Even I hadn’t planned on this one.