The Last Darkness (40 page)

He found number 9, stopped outside the door.

‘Lou?'

Perlman turned. Rifkind was coming down the corridor towards him. He wore pyjamas and a robe. ‘What are you doing here?'

‘Visiting Colin.'

‘He's asleep, Lou. Come back in the morning.'

‘I'm tired of being told that,' Perlman said.

‘He's exhausted.'

Perlman touched the door handle. ‘The alsatian at the desk said you'd gone home.'

Rifkind smiled. ‘He's paid to say what I want him to say. Sometimes I sleep here when I need to keep an eye on specific patients. I have a small apartment upstairs. If you're worried about Colin, there's no need. The operation went like a dream. Is something troubling you? You look fraught.'

Fraught, yes. Totally riddled with
fraught. ‘
I just want to see him, Martin. He's my brother, for God's sake.'

‘You sound very petulant, Lou. Will you stamp your feet next? I think we keep a jar of lollipops somewhere for naughty little boys. Would you like one? Red? Green?'

Perlman said, ‘I'm going inside.'

‘No. Wait. You'll only disturb –'

‘I won't wake him. I'll just look at him. How does that sound?' Perlman turned the handle, pushed the door, saw thin white light burning above his brother's bed. Colin sat up in bed wearing an unbuttoned pyjama top. His chest was bandaged, and he had an arm attached to a saline drip that made a quiet
glugging
sound.

‘Well, brother,' Colin said. ‘An unexpected visit. I'm lying here in a post-op haze, and the hell of it is I can't sleep. They give me painkillers and big fat jellybeans loaded with downers, but nothing seems to kick in. Prowling the neighbourhood, were you?'

‘Sort of,' Lou Perlman said. ‘I just wanted to visit.'

Rifkind said, ‘Ten minutes. No more.' Then he went out.

Lou sat on the edge of the bed and scanned Colin's face. The saline drip
plopped
. There was bruising around the place where the drip went into Colin's arm.

‘The operation was successful,' Lou said.

‘They tell me,' Colin said. He looked healthy; maybe a little drained, which you'd expect, but there was colour to his face and a light in his eyes.

Lou Perlman was quiet. He looked at the Lucozade and Kleenex on the bedside table, the pills, a get-well card in which he could see Miriam's signature followed by a bunch of Xs. The sense of betrayal wasn't weakening inside him; the knowledge that Colin had lied stoked his anger. And yet he wasn't ready to speak, because too many half-formed sentences went racing through his mind and he couldn't corral them cohesively.

‘Say something, brother,' Colin said.

‘You've heard about the murders?'

Colin Perlman said, ‘I've heard. Wexler is dead.'

‘Cruelly,' Lou said.

‘I saw the story on the box. Who killed him, Detective?'

‘I'd be guessing if I said anything.'

‘No suspect in custody?'

‘No.'

Colin made a gesture with his hand; the tides of fate were unpredictable. ‘Hard to believe Artie's … gone. Artie and Lindsay both. Strange, eh?'

‘And Bannerjee's dead. You see that?'

Colin said, ‘Aye, I saw it.'

‘What do you think of his murder?'

‘I'm supposed to have an opinion on the death of this Indian
parech
? His passing doesn't mean anything in my life, wee brother.' Colin grimaced. ‘Give me that little brown bottle, will you.'

Lou Perlman picked up the prescription bottle from the bedside table and handed it to his brother, who slipped a capsule out and conveyed it to his mouth with a short stiff movement of his arm.

‘I hurt like a fucking pincushion,' Colin said.

‘I'm not surprised.' Lou leaned a little closer to Colin. What was it you said before,
bruder
? You were lying in this hospital bed
taking stock of your life
? Was that the phrase you used? I wonder if you reached any conclusions. ‘You never knew Bannerjee anyway, did you, Colin?'

‘I'm glad to say.'

‘Never ran into him.'

‘Didn't I just say that? Are you here to interrogate me or something?'

Lou Perlman laughed. It didn't sound right in his ears. A fake laugh, a cocktail-party whoop. ‘Just passing through, Colin. Besides, I was worried about you. Wexler dead. And Lindsay. I wondered if there might be a hit-list, and your name was on it for future disposal.'

‘My name? What have I done?'

Lou Perlman saw the opening. ‘You've lied to me. We can start there, if you like.'

‘And how have I lied, wee Louie?'

Wee Louie, Perlman thought. He hadn't heard that one in years.
Wee Louie'll clean up the mess. Wee Louie'll clear the chess pieces away
. He understood Colin was trying to put him back in his place of youthful servitude. Yessir, Colin. No problem, Colin. Happy to be useful.

‘You lied about Bannerjee, Colin.'

‘Oh? Did I?'

‘He's the name you couldn't remember. Lindsay's client? The investor?'

‘
That
. Slipped my mind. Big deal.'

‘Bannerjee – whose name was practically a fucking synonym for scandal in Scotland – just
slipped
your mind? He was in every tabloid and broadsheet for months. The morality of our politicians. Do ethnic-minority members make good politicians. Don't bullshit me, Colin. Don't start.'

‘Is Wee Louie angry?'

‘Fuck that Wee Louie
dreck.
'

‘You're all grown-up. I forget.'

‘Bannerjee said you invested money for him. Illegally. Says you told him you were good at it. You'd done it hundreds of times.'

‘Sweet Jesus. You don't grasp the truth about money, do you, old son? There's one and only one objective when you have it, Lou. To keep it. Nothing else matters. You vanish it. You put it where nobody can find it. You place it beyond the law, beyond the tax authorities, you stick it inside a trick cabinet, and when you open it – abracadabra, what cash? Where the hell did it go? It was here a minute ago, right? Illusion. There was no money. You only thought you saw it. I'm a fucking magician, Lou. I'm the
kuntzenmaker
. Years later, when you reopen the cabinet, the money's appeared again. Only this time it's more than you remembered. You put x into the cabinet, you get x-plus back. What a trick.'

‘You're a crook, Colin.'

‘With manicured nails. You're the cop, and your nails are all bitten down. What does that tell us?'

‘Villains have more money to spend on their vanities.'

Colin smiled. The fetching smile, the charmer. ‘I'm no villain. I manipulate the system. That's what it's there for.'

‘You lied about Bannerjee, Colin. It comes back to that.'

‘Amnesia happens.'

‘Aye, right. I suppose you don't remember your association with Nexus either?'

‘Again with the questions. It's like the Chinese water torture listening to you go on and on.'

‘Take a gander at this, Colin. Refresh your memory.' Perlman took the clipping from
Pax
out of his pocket, hesitated a moment before he tossed it on the bed.

Colin picked it up and looked at it without expression. ‘You dig up an old picture. So?'

‘You told me to my face you had no connection with Nexus. You could hardly even remember the name when I brought it up.'

Colin let the clipping drop from his hand. ‘I was somewhat preoccupied with my surgery, Lou. Let's say my mind was elsewhere. Do you understand that? Or are you too damned obsessive to grasp the idea that people don't concentrate
all
the time?'

‘So this just sort of slipped your mind as well, Colin. It must be like a ski-slope in that head of yours. Look. See picture. Big dinner in London. Monkey suits. Friends of Nexus. Part of the prosperous Glasgow contingent. You were a cog in the Nexus machine.'

‘I raised some money for them.'

‘How much?'

‘Oh, come on. Who remembers now? Lou, huge sums go through my hands all the time. I don't remember every transaction.'

Perlman picked up the clipping where his brother had dropped it on the bedcover. ‘Tell me how well you know this man,' and he pointed to a figure in the picture.

Colin peered at the shot. ‘He falls directly into the acquaintance department.'

‘And no more?'

‘Why? Do you expect more, Lou? You want me to say we're bosom buddies? You want me to say we're joined at the hip and participants in evil schemes? That would satisfy you, would it? That would please your wee police brain, eh?'

I don't know what would please my wee police brain, Lou Perlman thought; and he looked at the photograph again. Slightly shadowed on Colin's left stood a fifth figure in the shot of the Glasgow contingent: Leo Kilroy, dressed in whale-sized tux and enormous cummerbund and outsized bow-tie. Kilroy's face was big and bloated, and his eyes were like slits made by a knife in a lump of pizza dough.

Lou glanced back at his brother. ‘You know this man's rep? It's as rank as a barrel of bad herring, Colin.'

‘I've heard rumours.'

‘Rumours? Do me a favour. You worked with him to help raise funds for Nexus.'

‘Our paths crossed. We attended some fund-raising dinners in Glasgow a few times, then Edinburgh. I think we went down to Newcastle and Leeds once or twice. It's fuzzy. We were never friends, Lou. And even if we were, I wouldn't fucking apologize for it.'

Lou Perlman took off his glasses and squeezed the bridge of his nose. ‘Let me get it straight. The money you raised for Nexus went into accounts you set up in funny places. Instead of transferring this money directly to Nexus, you took it and you played with it. You and your little gang. The Famous Five.'

‘Are you saying I stole it, brother?'

‘I imagine that's what I'm saying.'

‘You disappoint me.'

‘It's reciprocal. And don't give me that soulful hurt look, Colin.'

Colin Perlman sighed. ‘I think I need to rest. I'd prefer it if you took your arse out of here.'

‘A minute more, that's all.'

‘No, now –'

‘You didn't transfer the funds where they were supposed to go, and a man called Yusef Barzelai was suspected of having embezzled them. As a result, he was shot dead by some of his more rabid Nexus associates, who seem to have been judge and jury and executioners –'

‘Barzelai? I don't know if that name rings –'

‘Shut the fuck up. I'm not riding that old tramcar of yours, Colin. I know its destination. Feigned ignorance. You remember nothing, your head is fuzzy, it's all such a long time ago, yack yackety yack –'

‘Go shit in the ocean, Lou –'

‘Barzelai died because you and your wee gang cheated him.'

‘Have you been smoking whackybaccy you confiscated in a drugs raid?'

Lou ignored his brother. He ignored the cold smile that was meant to be derisory. He had that certain tremor he always got when he suspected he was rushing towards truth; it had to be the same kind of shock that went through the hands of a man with a divining rod when he discovered a deep source of water.

‘I had an encounter with Barzelai's son,' Lou said.

‘His
son
?' Did Colin show just then a flicker of interest? Some movement of eye, or eyebrow, corner of mouth? In the bad light, it was hard to tell.

‘The boy was sent here from Israel to eliminate Lindsay, Wexler, and Bannerjee.'

‘Then you've caught your killer?'

‘I wish I could say so. But I can't.'

‘You just said you'd encountered this kid –'

‘Encountered, aye. But I didn't say he was the killer, Colin. He wanted revenge for the people directly responsible for his father's death. Somehow he learned they're in Glasgow. He came all this way ready to do deeds. Except all the deeds were done for him, but in such a way it looks like he's the villain. He was here to be the fucking
patsy
, Colin … Then one of my diligent constables provides me with this picture, and here's my own brother photographed alongside a character who's rotten to the marrow, somebody who certainly wouldn't be beyond arranging a few killings, if he had to.'

‘Kilroy? Haul him in for questioning then.'

‘He's been hauled in half a dozen times in the past couple of years, Colin.'

‘You couldn't nail him.'

‘Not on anything. He's always got alibis up to here. Takes a shite, he's got an alibi.' Lou paused. ‘Here's my next question, Colin. If three men are dead, what's keeping
you
alive?'

‘Why would anyone want me dead?'

‘Easy. Because of your associations with the victims.'

‘I'm sleepy.'

‘Stay awake, Col. I have other questions. Who told the kid to come to Glasgow? Who give him the names?'

Colin Perlman kept his eyes shut. ‘You're asking me?'

‘What if I eliminate Kilroy as a candidate, who does that leave?'

Colin Perlman turned his face to his brother and smiled. ‘You're serious?'

‘Everything's possible.'

‘I can't laugh in this condition,' Colin said. ‘It hurts.'

‘You were all taking bites out of the Nexus apple, right? You were all sucking on the same juice. So why are you alive and the other three dead?'

‘Kilroy's alive also.'

‘Play along with me, Colin. Take a short stroll through possibilities.'

With some difficulty, Colin Perlman manoeuvred himself into a sitting position, but kept his shoulders hunched. ‘Let's nail this down. I'm your brother, your
blood
, and you're suggesting I might somehow be responsible for the deaths of these men? No, Lou. No fucking way. This is all about something else and we both know what it is, don't we? You've been waiting for years to get a shot at me. Years and years. All your life.'