“Who the fuck are you?” I was on my feet in an instant, fists bunched, the piece of paper forgotten. I’d gone from being fairly relaxed to being prepared for a scrap in less than a second. Looking at the two gorillas in my cell, this would not be a scrap I would come out of on top. They were both very, very big lads, and that is no understatement. Well over six feet, the pair of them, broad shouldered, not gym big but just big. They could have been brothers, and as I looked at them a bit more closely, I realised that they probably were. I had no idea where Mac was, but given the size of these two, he wouldn’t have been much help, anyway.
Neither of them replied to my question, so I repeated it. “I said, who the fuck are you?” They both just looked at me with impassive expressions, and a few seconds later the one nearest the door moved to let a third man walk into my cell. It was getting cosy.
“Mr Dawson?” the new arrival asked. He was nowhere near the size of the other two, but he carried himself with the air of a man who was used to being in charge. Aged late forties at a guess, his grey hair was cut almost to the skin in a crew cut. He didn’t have the pallor of long term prisoners or any prison tattoos. I was sure that if I’d seen him and his two monkeys wandering around Whitemoor, I would have noticed them. I said nothing but just stared at him. “You are Mr Dawson?” he repeated his question, and I caught a clipped accent. Not an English one.
“Who wants to know?” I replied, trying to make myself look as menacing as I could. Given the circumstances, it was the only thing I could do. The man just laughed in reply, but I didn’t think it was with any trace of humour.
“I do, Mr Dawson. You don’t have to be so defensive.” I tried to place his accent. Polish, maybe? “May I sit down?” My visitor gestured toward the only chair in the room and, when I nodded, sat down. The other two rearranged themselves on either side of him and he pointed at my bed. “Please, sit down. I only want to have a, how do you say it, a chat?”
I sat on the bed, feeling slightly less apprehensive but not by much. The fact that this gentleman had brought two bodyguards along for a ‘chat’ meant that either a lot of people wanted to kill him so he needed the protection, or he wanted to threaten someone. In this case, me. Neither option was very palatable.
“My name is Mr Demeter, but please, call me Gejza. This is Lasho,” he said, pointing over his left shoulder, “and Yoska.” He pointed at the other gorilla. I looked back and forth between the two of them. They stared back at me, expressionless. “And you are Mr Dawson, yes?”
“I think you know I am. Sorry, what was your name? Gejza?” I replied, grim-faced.
“Yes, that’s correct. You almost pronounced it correctly, which is unusual,” he said. “It’s more of an ’s’ sound than a ‘z’.” He looked at me with his eyebrows raised, so I said his name again. With more of an ’s’ sound. “Perfect,” Gejza laughed. “Now, Mr Dawson, we need to have a chat about a friend of yours.”
“Who?” I replied.
“Robert Wainwright.”
“He’s hardly a friend of mine. You know why I’m in here, I take it?”
“Yes, I do,” Gejza said. “You murdered him.” I thought for a second about correcting him and pointing out that although I’d been convicted of his murder, I didn’t kill him. We looked at each other for a few seconds before he continued. “I used to work for a gentleman called Mr Caran. Now I work for another gentleman who took over Mr Caran’s business interests after a disagreement back in Romania. Your friend,” he put his fingers in the air and mimed air quotes around the word ‘friend’. “Well, Mr Wainwright owed my new employer quite a lot of money.”
“What’s that got to do with me?” I asked.
“Well, it’s got everything to do with you. Where I come from, where we come from, a debt doesn’t die when a person dies.” He narrowed his eyes. “It gets transferred.”
“Transferred? Where?” I said.
“To you.”
“Well, that’s bollocks.”
“No, I’m sorry. Not in this case. The debt is outstanding, and if you hadn’t killed Mr Wainwright, then it would have been re-paid. Therefore, it’s now your responsibility,” he replied. I still thought it was bollocks, and I told him so.
“Look, Gejza,” I said, emphasising the ’z’ just to annoy him. “Robert Wainwright has nothing to do with me. Whatever he owes you, or your employer, is none of my business.” Gejza looked up at one of his gorillas, either Lasho or Yoska, I had no idea which one, and then back at me.
“I’m afraid you’re wrong, Mr Dawson,” Gejza said, almost in a whisper. “That’s not how it works where I come from.” I considered telling him that in this country, at least, what worked where he came from didn’t mean shit, but thought better of it.
“How much are you talking about?” I asked. When he told me, I let out a low whistle. That was a lot of money.
“Well I’m sorry to disappoint you, Gejza,” I said. “But even if I was liable for that amount of money, which I’m not, there’s no way I could pay it. I don’t have any money.” I sat back on my bed and regarded my visitor. “And my earning potential is a bit limited for a while. So, I think you'll have to forget about that debt. Write it off to experience perhaps?”
“I don’t think so, Mr Dawson,” Gejza said. I saw his gaze shift over my shoulder and rest on something on the wall behind me. The only thing on the wall was a photograph of Jennifer. “If you can’t pay, then we will have to take payment another way.” The threat hung between us for a few seconds, and I stared at the man sitting opposite me.
“That’s a photo of my wife you’re looking at,” I said. He paused for a few seconds before replying.
“She’s beautiful,” he said, almost whispering. “It would be such a shame if anything happened to her while you were in here.”
I looked at the man who was threatening my wife. My dead wife. He obviously didn’t know she was dead, and I considered my next step. I could say nothing about what had happened to Jennifer, let him find out for himself. I could tell him, but I couldn’t see how that would help in the slightest. What I really wanted to do was to launch myself off the bed and attack him. I knew it wouldn’t last long and that his two gorillas would be on top of me in seconds, but if I got one good punch in it would be worth a kicking. As if he knew what I was considering, Gejza got to his feet and moved to stand between his bodyguards.
“Have a think about things, Mr Dawson,” he said. “Work out what the best way ahead is for you.” His eyes flicked back to the picture of Jennifer, and I pushed my hands against the bed, springing to my feet. The second I did that, Gejza took a step back and the two gorillas both stepped forward in a choreographed move that left me looking between their shoulders at the smaller man. “I’ll be in touch,” Gejza said as he turned to walk out of my cell. His bodyguards followed him and as he got to the door, he said something else which I didn’t understand. It wasn’t in English.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a flash of movement from the gorilla nearest me. By the time I’d realised what was going on, it was too late to do anything to avoid the fist coming towards my face.
There was a flash of white light, a brief split second of pain, then everything went black.