‘In the belly of the beast. You’ll see.’
For the third time in succession, the door was opened by a different person. Dougie Terry didn’t say a word; he let us in and stood aside. I knew the way by that time.
Manson was behind his desk, contemplating what looked like two burgers, or possibly steaks, each in a big, floury bap. He looked at McGuire as we crossed the room. ‘I see we’ve both got new minders. Skinner.’
I took the fake pen from its stand and broke it in two, then ripped its wire loose. His smile vanished. ‘Hey, what the fuck are you doin’? It’s not switched on.’
‘Who gives a shit?’ I barked. ‘I’m in that sort of mood. Mario, now that you’ve met Mr Manson, you might want to go and have a longer chat with Mr Terry.’
‘You serious, boss?’ the DC asked.
‘Yes, go on.’
I waited until he’d left then headed round the desk. Manson saw that I really was serious; he panicked, opened the top right-hand drawer and reached into it, but I slammed it shut on his hand and pressed hard. ‘Bastard!’ he yelled. I pulled him over backwards, right out of his chair, and took the gun he’d been after. He started to rise, and I slugged him with it, backhanded, across the face. He sprawled on the rug, in a bay window that looked out on to the completely secluded garden, free of onlookers. He wasn’t done, more fool him. I pocketed the automatic as he got to his feet, then hit him, a big right-hander on the temple that knocked him back down, and right out.
When he started to come to, I was in his chair, pointing his own gun at the middle of his forehead, with half a burger in my left hand. ‘That was the biggest mistake you’ve ever made in your life,’ I told him, when he was ready to listen, and I had finished chewing. ‘We were just going to have a chat until you went for the gun. Are you fucking mad?’
‘What gun?’ he mumbled. ‘You brought it with you.’
‘No, I didn’t, but I’m taking it away. There’s an amnesty on just now, post-Dunblane, pre-legislation, and this is going in the river.’ I put it back in my pocket (the safety catch had never been off), picked up the other bap from the plate on his desk and handed it to him.
‘Cheers,’ he said, sourly.
‘Actually, Tony, you did me a favour,’ I confessed. ‘I wanted to give you a slap, very badly. I’m angry, very angry. I’ve just been to see a lad in hospital. You’ve been screwing his wife and now you’ve ended his career for him. You know what? As well as being a fucking criminal, you are an arsehole of the first order.’
‘Nothing to do with me,’ he muttered, then winced as he took a bite from his roll and felt the pain. I’d caught him with the gun between the right cheekbone and upper jaw. His face was swelling and his eye was going to be closed before too long.
‘Where’s big Lennie?’ I asked.
‘He’s gone on holiday for a bit.’
‘Sure. He left last night I’ll bet, via Blackford Hill.’ He frowned and I read his mind. ‘No, forget that,’ I told him. ‘Derek’s story is still that he was hit by a car, but we both know that’s crap. We also know that there’s only one guy in town who’d tackle a job like that alone, against a young, fit guy, and inflict the damage that he’s got. You’re a bastard on that score as well. You like Lennie, yet you used him to do that. What about Bella?’ I continued, keeping the pressure on him. ‘Where’s she?’
‘Back at her own place. She’s got Marlon’s funeral to sort.’
‘And she’s safe, of course, now you know there’s no threat against her.’
‘There never was,’ he replied. ‘She was upset about the kid. We both were. I just wanted her here for a while, that was all.’
I shook my head. ‘I still don’t get it, man. Okay, you’ve got a thing going with Alafair, but she’s a fucking trophy for the likes of you, that’s all. You don’t want to marry her, for Christ’s sake. A week’s nookie in Ibiza and that would have been it, am I right?’
‘Maybe.’
‘So, she goes home, Derek finds out, they have a big fight, he loses it and hits her. And she phones you crying about it. The Tony Manson I know would have said, “Your business,” and hung up on her, but instead you set big Lennie on the guy you’ve been cuckolding, the highest profile sportsman in town, and you break his fucking legs! I do not get that, Tony; I don’t get it at all. Explain it to me, no witnesses; go on.’
He took another bite of burger, with the other side of his mouth, and I finished mine. When he was done, he looked up at me, and said, ‘Just this once, okay?’
I nodded. ‘Okay, if you want.’
‘It was a matter of principle. A message had to be sent; now it has been and the story’s over. I’ll compensate the boy. His debts are wiped at the casino, forty grand’s worth. I doubt if he’ll ever go there again, but if he does he’ll have another ten coming in chips.’
I whistled. ‘That’s the noblest thing I’ve ever heard,’ I told him, ironically; I must emphasise that, in case you thought I was being serious, for irony is very difficult to convey on the printed page. ‘But I don’t get your fucking message.’
‘It wasn’t for you, but trust me, it’ll have been received.’
‘By whom? Derek? For fuck’s sake, Tony. What good’s that going to do now? Oh, and by the way, I’d sooner trust a politician.’ I frowned. ‘You’ve got a lot in common, mind you. They keep on getting away with it, just like you will this time.’
I reached out a hand and pulled him off the floor, then gave him back his chair. ‘No more, Tony, no more,’ I warned him. I patted my pocket. ‘And no more toys either. Once this new ban on handguns comes in, if I raid this place and find any, you’ll be gone for five years.’
McGuire and Terry were outside in the hall when I left, eyeing each other up, the latter more than a little warily. I sensed that something had happened. I patted the DC on the shoulder. ‘And he’s on our team too, Dougie. I’ll bet that hasn’t made your afternoon.’
The gates had been opened for us when we stepped outside. Neither of us said a word until we were off the property and back in Essex Road. It was McGuire who broke the silence. ‘What happened in there, boss?’
‘Tony and I had a wee chat. We’re old acquaintances. Don’t be offended that I asked you to leave. Some things are better one on one. I wanted you to see him before we got down to it. I’m sure you’ll bump into him again before you’re done.’
As it happened he did, a few years later; it was a one-sided meeting, though, since Manson was dead at the time.
‘We heard a shout at one point,’ the new DC said, quietly. ‘Terry was for going in there.’
‘Did you have to restrain him?’
‘No, sir. He thought better of it.’
They usually do with him. I grinned. ‘Thanks for your confidence,’ I remarked. ‘It might have been me that was shouting.’
‘I never thought that for one second, sir. Neither did Terry, from the way he reacted. Did you get anything out of Manson?’
‘I’d read the script before I heard the performance.’ I summed up the sequence of events for him, but left out the more physical side of the discussion.
‘If we know all that, don’t we have a chance of a prosecution?’ he asked.
‘Of course. If… Derek Drysalter, who’s getting fifty grand from Manson for pain and inconvenience, plus, I imagine, an insurance payment that might be in doubt if the truth came out, was to change his story and make a complaint, if… a couple of witnesses come forward out of the blue and make it to the trial unbribable or undamaged, if… Alafair confesses to everything including running to Tony after Derek hit her, and if… big Lennie doesn’t happen to have been in a roomful of oath-taking friends at the exact moment the attack took place, then… yes, we might have a chance of taking it to court. The only problem is that none of those things is going to happen.’
I understood his concern. I’d been as idealistic as him ten years earlier. ‘We just have to keep doing our best, Mario,’ I told him. ‘We get most of them in the end.’