The Night the Rich Men Burned (13 page)

Jefferson’s unlocking a drawer in his desk. Taking out a small wad of cash. Counting off fifties. As he peels them from the wad, Glass is thinking about Ella. Thinking about that first morning. The first morning, when Peterkinney was there. Never saw his girl again. The silent one. Ella knows her, but Peterkinney had no interest in seeing her again. He called Ella a prostitute. Glass argued. Said she was just a girl who went to parties. Worked them. No big deal. Not the same as being a hooker. He still tries to believe that.

Jefferson’s sliding the cash across the desk. ‘I want you to sign this contract,’ Jefferson’s saying. Contract means almost nothing. A piece of paper with no legal weight whatsoever. But it gets Glass’s signature in Jefferson’s office. Makes it feel official, which adds to the intimidation factor. Means Glass can’t deny that he borrowed money from Jefferson. But that amounts to very little as well. If this comes to an argument, it’s unlikely it’ll be settled by the presence of that signature. They both know what happens if you refuse to pay. It’s not the sort of thing a contract has any role in.

Glass is signing. Not reading it, just signing. The money’s on the desk in front of him. He wants it in his pocket. He wants to get out of this office. Phone Ella. Tell her he has plenty of money for the both of them. Maybe she hasn’t left the flat yet.

Jefferson’s taking the piece of paper back, slipping it into the drawer. ‘It’s been good doing business with you, Alex. I hope the money serves you well. I’ll put you down in the book. Let’s say six weeks from today as the deadline. If you have the money for me before then, obviously, drop in. Sooner the better,’ he’s saying with a smile, and reaching out a hand. Sooner the better is bullshit. Alex knows that. They both know that. Sooner is the worst option. Keep the money, build up the debt. The longer it builds, the more the lender benefits. He can’t lose.

They’re both thinking the same thing as they shake hands. If this debt isn’t repaid inside a week or two, it’s going to become a millstone. Jefferson knows it and he likes it. He’s not like a bookie. If a bookie lets you run a tab you can’t pay back, the bookie loses that value. They need that value back, every penny. That’s their legit profit. With a moneylender it’s different. Your final debt is guaranteed to be a lot higher than your initial borrow. The lender can sell the debt to a collector, and as long as he gets more than his original outlay back, he’s up on the deal. A five-hundred-pound lend becomes a three-grand debt. He sells the debt to a collector for a grand and a half. Triples his money without doing a damn thing. And he’ll usually sell for more than 50 per cent.

Glass is thinking about that as he walks out of the little office. He needs this money for tonight. Try and spend as little of it as possible. If he can keep a hold of some of it, get a few jobs from Marty in quick succession. It could happen. He could have enough to pay it off inside three or four weeks. He’ll have to pay three or four times what he borrowed. When was the last time he made two grand in a month? Never has.

Getting his phone out of his pocket. Scrolling to Ella’s name and tapping to dial. One hand holding the phone, the other holding the notes in his pocket. Come on, where are you? Pick up. Through to voicemail. Shit. Hide your disappointment.

‘Ella, it’s Alex. Listen, I just came into a bit of money. Got enough for a good night out. Couple of good nights out, you know. So, yeah, I thought I’d let you know. Give me a call, whatever. See you later.’

Hanging up, dialling again. Through to voicemail again. Hanging up. Phone’s back in his pocket. Walking along the street, instinctively heading home. Ella will be gone. Peterkinney. He might be around. Phone out of his pocket. Trying Peterkinney’s number. This person’s phone is switched off. Shit. Might be a good idea to spend some time with Peterkinney in the next few weeks. Money seems to be gravitating towards him.

6

Getting dark. Good. That’s what Peterkinney’s been waiting for. Marty had a job for him. Go find Gordon Aird. He owes eight hundred quid. Tell him he owes a grand and knock him around a bit until he pays. Aird borrowed a couple of hundred, and has zero chance of even paying that back. Aird is a user. He borrows money, injects it, borrows from another lender to pay off the first debt. Always going round in one big depressing circle. Not even trying to solve his problem.

Marty doesn’t expect any money to come back to him. He didn’t say that to Peterkinney; you always cross your fingers and hope. But a couple of months is enough time for Peterkinney to know how this works. Marty likes to use people like Aird. If they can pay up then that’s great. But people like Aird rarely can. And a guy like Marty knows that when he takes the debt. Aird is such a mess; he’ll do whatever’s asked of him to get through another day. All about survival. Marty likes that. He can use that. But first you have to soften them up. Make sure they know you’re serious. That’s where Peterkinney comes in.

Marty hasn’t told Peterkinney that he’s his best muscle these days. Peterkinney worked that out for himself. Being given increasingly awkward jobs. Getting more frequent work than most other muscle. It all adds up to Peterkinney being the best. Fine, whatever. He doesn’t much care. This is short term for him. Make some money then walk away, best or not.

Working for Roy Bowles might be more long term, but it’s not frequent enough. If Bowles came up with the work often enough, Peterkinney would settle for it. Ditch Marty and his shitty, scum-of-the-earth work. But that’s not an option. Need the regular income. Bowles is so careful, keeps his workload down. The work is carefully plotted, reassuring. But there’s so little of it. Peterkinney has to earn more than Bowles provides. He wants to get a place of his own. Needs to. Starting to climb the walls in that damp little flat of his grandfather’s. The flat’s no worse than it ever was, nor is his grandfather. But the more money he saves, the more he wants. The closer he comes to escaping the flat, the more desperate he gets.

Anyway, he’s been waiting for the darkness to come. Shouldn’t need to. Aird isn’t going to make an issue of this. You get to his point in life and you don’t make an issue of anything. Aird’s living on the edge. He won’t fight back. He won’t argue. He’ll take whatever’s dished out to him. He’ll be grateful for anything that stops short of pushing him over the edge. The challenge for Peterkinney is to make sure he doesn’t go too far.

A guy like Aird is easy to misjudge. You knock him around, maybe he panics. Maybe he turns up at Marty’s office with the money. Marty doesn’t want that. Can’t use a man who pays his debts. Can’t misuse him. Intimidate him, but don’t send him running to another lender. Intimidate him enough to put him under pressure. Then, when a favour is requested, he’ll be only too happy to oblige.

Peterkinney doesn’t ask about the favours. Marty needs something done, he sends someone round to Aird to request a favour. Tells a man who owes a grand that he can have three hundred dropped if he does something useful. What constitutes useful in Marty’s world is Marty’s business. Peterkinney doesn’t care. He can guess. Go rob a house owned by a rival. This car will be parked in this location. Go trash it. Use expendable, desperate losers to annoy and intimidate your rivals. That sort of thing. He’s hardly going to give them important work, is he? Just risky, trashy, low-grade stuff that he couldn’t persuade anyone else to do. If it’s a woman who owes the money? That’s different.

Aird lives in a shitty little flat in a rough part of town. According to Marty there might be a couple of other people living there with him. Might be. Marty doesn’t know. Rumour has it that Aird doesn’t live alone. Needs other people to help him pay the rent. But Marty can’t be sure, because Marty can’t ever seem to be fucking sure. It’s always vague information and a demand for the job to be done as soon as possible. Not that Marty couldn’t find out. He could, if he could be bothered. He just doesn’t care about the risks his staff take.

Peterkinney’s learned how sloppy Marty is at what he does by working with Bowles. Bowles is good. He knows how to handle these things. He understands the value of information. Understands the need for preparation. It’s not just because Bowles has more experience. And it’s not because what he does carries more risk. He does have more experience and gunrunning does carry more risk. But that’s not it. Bowles cares about people working for him getting into trouble. Entirely selfish. He doesn’t want them arrested, hospitalized or killed. That would raise awkward questions. But he also wants to make sure that good employees stick around. Marty doesn’t care. Everyone’s expendable to Marty. If Marty cared to make an effort, he could match Bowles for detail. Even exceed him. Marty has connections Bowles can’t get. But Marty’s only thinking about Marty. Not even taking the collection business all that seriously, it seems to Peterkinney. Too lazy, too distracted by the other strings to his bow.

That’s why Peterkinney’s already looking for a way out. Not desperately. He’ll keep working for Marty until an opportunity comes along. But he won’t settle for this. This won’t be the rest of his life. No way working for someone like Marty can last. Too unpleasant. Sitting in his car, outside this block of flats. A street of four-storey blocks. Watching lights come on as daylight runs away. He has the address for the flat. Might as well get this out of the way.

He’s not wearing a balaclava, although he has purchased one. One of the first things he did when he knew he was going to be working for Marty. Bought a balaclava and a pair of gloves. Ditched the gloves. They were a stupid idea. As seen on TV. Wearing a pair of actual gloves makes every part of the job harder. Some thug working for Marty tipped him off to thin surgical gloves. Sort of thing cleaners wear. You can buy them by the boxful in the supermarket. But he’s not going to wear them either. Not tonight.

Tonight isn’t a job that needs any sort of protection. Tonight is a job where faces can be seen and fingerprints left. There’s nothing that Peterkinney could do to Aird that would make Aird go to the police. Not a thing in the world. Could torture the boy, he still wouldn’t go to the cops. See, a boy like Aird lives in greater fear of the cops than Peterkinney does. Aird has a habit that will get him into trouble. He has probably resorted to paying for that habit by doing things he shouldn’t. He won’t want the police getting his fingerprints on file, comparing them to those found at the scenes of robberies and muggings. No, the police have no role to play in tonight’s criminality.

Through the door of the building and along to the front door of the flat. Ground floor, which helps. Something else Peterkinney has learned. You don’t know how fast you’ll have to get away. Look, Aird should be soft. People like him almost always are. But there could be other people there, Marty said. One of them might decide that the best way out of debt is to kill the collector. Attack him at least. People react stupidly, violently. You have to know the way out. Need to have a clean run to the exit. That’s easier if you don’t have a dark stairwell to negotiate.

Knocking on the door. No need to kick your way in. That was a mistake Peterkinney only made once. Made it when him and Glass went after that Jim Holmes character. That was a fuck-up. A lucky fuck-up, but that doesn’t make it any less of a fuck-up. Kicking down the door? Behaving like the bloody A-Team. You don’t kick down doors. You knock on them. Even people who know they’re in trouble answer the door. Even people in trouble know other people who might come visit. As long as you’re not too late in the night, there’s nothing suspicious about a knock on the door. You just have to know how to make the work easy.

The door’s opening slowly. Looks like the description of Aird. Mop of thick black hair. Broad-shouldered but skinny round the waist. Brown bags under his eyes. Befuddled look. Doesn’t cope well with the unexpected. Not a lot of people knock on his door. Someone new turns up, and it’s likely to upset him.

‘You Gordon?’

‘Uh, yeah.’ Had to think about that one.

‘Good. I’ll come in then.’ Take the initiative. Never give them the chance to pull the strings of the conversation. Once they get used to the sound of their own voice, they’ll try and fill the room with it. Make sure yours gets there first and takes all the space available.

Peterkinney’s pushed his way inside. It’s small, narrow, almost empty in here. Furniture is a luxury for people with the spare cash. Aird has something else to spend his money on. Smells like a small place, never cleaned and always occupied. Bloody freezing as well. Too bad. Aird has his life, Peterkinney has his. When this is done, Peterkinney will go home to his grandfather’s flat. He won’t give Aird and his little hovel another thought.

‘You know that you owe money, Gordon.’ Peterkinney standing in the gloomy corridor. Nothing on the walls but flaky white paint and damp. There’s no bulb or shade on the light above them. The only light reaching the corridor is coming from the open door to the empty living room. Peterkinney stopping in the corridor. Good a place as any. Less space for Aird to wriggle out of a punch. ‘Been a long time since you made any effort to pay.’

‘Ah, shit, yeah.’ Early enough in the evening for Gordon to know what he’s in trouble for. That helps. You occasionally get people who are too far gone to remember who they owe money to. You knock them around. Following morning they wake up with cuts and bruises and no memory of how they got them. And still no memory that they owe anyone cash. They’re not faking it. It comes as a shock to them to find out they owe anything at all. Almost no chance of gaining anything from those ones.

‘So it’s time to pay up. You owe a thousand pounds, Gordon.’

‘A thousand. Do I owe a thousand? Shit. Thousand pounds is a lot of money, you know. I don’t think I owe that. Do I?’

‘You do. And you need to pay it, before it gets any bigger. Need to pay it now.’ Putting a harsh tone into his voice. Don’t let the junkie run the conversation round in circles. Confusion can be infectious. ‘So are you going to pay?’

Aird is making a startled noise. The idea that he would have a thousand pounds on him is pretty startling. ‘I don’t have that cash. I don’t. But I’ll get it. I mean, I can. I can get it.’