The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) (12 page)

Somebody saved my life.

I stand weakly, and notice that despite still being dressed as before, my clothes are damp and I am draped in a towel. Outside the glass is blackness. I am in very unfamiliar territory, and I would immediately look for escape if it weren’t for my rising curiosity, and the notion that whoever brought me here doesn’t mean me harm, if indeed this is the home of whoever pulled me from the water. As I look out of the glass, I see an expanse of water, flickering along at a high, wind-driven pace. I follow the current along the main body, and see a huge edifice lit in neon, with blocky curves and all the hallmarks of modern architecture. It is the Lowry, in Salford Quays. And that must mean... I am standing in Felix Davison’s house.

Well, that is not what I was expecting. In fact, in the seconds since I have woken up and realized I am no longer a popsicle, I hadn’t even got to working out what I thought had happened to me. But being here adds another complexity to things. Another layer to this complex unfolding onion of criminal circumstances.

Before I can think any further, a voice behinds me breaks the quiet - a low, soft, male voice, wavering and almost timid.

‘He’s up,’ the voice says.

I turn to see a little old man approaching me. He has a bald head, with a soft ring of white fluff around the ears. He wears grey slacks, and a white casual shirt, and wide round glasses. His face is ruddy, chubby and downright grandfatherly, and wear a kindly smile. I don’t whether to thank him or ask for a bedtime story.

‘I am indeed,’ I respond, playing along, not entirely convinced how to handle this. ‘Felix?’

‘Yes,’ Felix replies, taking a couple of steps towards me. They aren’t the most sure steps, so I instinctively walk forward to meet him. ‘Jack said that he would leave it to you to make your introduction.’ A very slight accent dwells somewhere in his speech, but seems clipped and well controlled. It is north European, but is buried well down, the only remnant now being the odd vowel out of place and different intonation. I don’t think he is English.

‘Jack’s alright?’ I ask.

‘He’s fine,’ Felix replies. ‘I had him taken home. He fared a little better than yourself, I’m afraid. I would have arranged for you to be dropped off home too, but I didn’t know where that might be.’

‘I’m staying in town,’ I reply.

This is the part where I give a name. Do I go with one I make up, or do I go with my own? Felix holds out a small weathered hand, and smiles, and I find myself reaching for it, still undecided. We shake.

I find myself wanting to be honest, wanting to be true to myself. I reason that even if Felix finds out my full name, it’s not like he is likely to be too onside with police or anything. And if they root into my backstory, they may find I’m a man not to be messed with.

‘Ben. My name is Ben.’

‘Ben. Thank you for looking after Jack. I mean that whole-heartedly.’

Felix places a hand on my shoulder.

‘It’s been such a difficult time for him, and I worry about him greatly. He is like his father, I’m afraid, a single-minded soul when he eventually works out whatever it is he wants.’

‘He was kind to me. I’ve known him for a little while, but I always like to repay favors.’

‘It’s nice to know there’s still decent men out there. Would you like a drink?’

‘I wouldn’t say no.’

‘Something hot, I take it?’ Felix smiles warmly as he turns. ‘Will coffee be ok?’

‘Sure. Black, please. Could do with the pick-me-up.’

‘I’ll be right back. Make yourself at home.’ Felix slowly paces back towards the main house.

To my left is the pool, and a smart table with accompanying matching chairs. I take one. I am so disorientated, my previous expectations far removed from reality, and I try to make sense of things. Is this man really Felix Davison? Is Felix Davison all those things Jack says he is? What is going on here?

In a foreign setting, my mind’s default response is to source an exit - but here I find myself longing for answers. This situation certainly holds my interest, especially now I have met the main man himself, and he is nothing like what I had imagined. It raises questions as to what more surprises lie in store. Nothing appears to be what it seems.

As I listen to the trickle and hum of the pool filter, and smell the chlorine and chlorophyll intertwining harmoniously, I feel more than a bit seduced. I have so many questions, that my head feels like rush hour traffic jammed into a blender.

I hear footsteps echoing, and see Felix is returning once more, holding a little tray with a couple of mugs on it. We appear to be alone, which I’m amazed by. Completely amazed. This old man, who some argue is most wanted and sought after, is holding court with a perfect stranger, in his own home in the middle of the night, alone. He must be confident, assured and at ease. Either that or we are not alone at all.

‘Are you warming up a bit?’ Felix asks, placing the drinks tray on the table. His eyes are warm and genuine concern seems to alight them.

‘Yes, thank you. I was beginning to think I wasn’t going to get out of that river,’ I grab the mug and squeeze it with my hands, staving off icy memories of earlier.

‘I’m not going to take you for a dummy, Ben. I’ll assume you know how I know your friend Jack, and why Jack dragged you over to that restaurant.’

Felix’s vision fixes on a point off in the distance, his mind pawing at something.

‘I knew that the people there were unhappy with his father. But I desperately didn’t want to tell him that. He... just wouldn’t take no for an answer. He threatened so much, and, in so many ways, I don’t blame him. If I refused to tell him what I knew... I ended up giving in. I didn’t want to, I just... wanted to do right by him. Help him. Like you.’

I listen. The old man seems torn by it, as if he’s not willing to acknowledge that that moment of decision has long gone, and dramatic and possibly deadly consequences have since been perpetrated.

‘I think it would have happened the other way round if you had not have done so,’ I say. ‘I checked into a hotel as Jack yesterday, and a man from the Floating Far East tried to kill me, assuming I was Jack.’

Felix looks disturbed, his bottom lip drooping.

‘This happened earlier?’ he asks, still softly put with a firmer edge.

‘Yes. I think the paths of Jack and Sparkles Chu were going to cross regardless of whether you told him or not.’

‘Dear God...’

‘I don’t think Jack is going to be troubled by Sparkles anymore.’

Felix’s demeanor lightens a touch, the gravity of his gloom just lifting a little. ‘No. I suppose not. What happened over there?’

‘I don’t want to betray Jack’s confidence, given your complicated relationship with him, but, as you will expect, we went to confirm if Sparkles had indeed killed Jack’s father. The occasion went sour, we were both in great danger and I had to act.’

Felix seems distracted. ‘Jack says our relationship is complicated?’ He seems a little hurt by that.

‘That’s just what I got from his description of things.’

‘I... didn’t know he felt like that,’ he says, before pausing while his eyes drift to his feet. He seems so troubled. ‘I care for that kid a lot.’

‘I believe you were there at his birth. The baby and the brandy?’

Felix snorts.

‘That old legend. People talk about it, misty-eyed and rose-tinted. They hear the story and like the romance of it all. The doomed love, the elation of new life when all seemed lost. It’s the story that, in a lot of ways, has everything. Nobody ever gives a second thought to how terrible it was. The blood, the hopelessness... The sheer scale of what was at stake. Seeing someone who means so much to you, struggle so fatally when doing something that should be such a simple natural act.’

‘I know the main points of the story, but... what happened?’

‘Something that doesn’t happen anymore. It was the 80’s - it was the era of excess. Good men were whipped up into a frenzy of proving themselves, buoyed by what I can only suppose was a liberation and a descent. A liberation of sensibilities, and a descent into entitlement. Men wanted it all, and they wanted it then and there. Sarah - Jack’s mother - was a collateral casualty of that greed.’

I want to ask who’s greed was the catalyst - Felix’s, Royston’s, Sarah’s or someone else entirely, but the man is on a roll, and I’ll leave him to it. He’s surprisingly easy to talk to, and even easier to listen to.

‘She was just 19,’ Felix continues. ‘A baby having a baby. None of us ever got over that.’

A question pops into my head, the answer to which will tell me exactly the power and ruthlessness of the man who sits next to me, and how much I am to fear him perhaps.

‘Did the person who did it get away with it?’

Felix looks me straight in the eye, and I worry I’ve made a mistake. It wasn’t intended to be a challenge, but it may have come out that way.

‘We never knew,’ he replies eventually. ‘Maybe. Royston was too preoccupied with losing his wife and gaining a son to concern himself with it. We are many things, Ben, but cold killers is not one of them. I never wanted Jack to go to that damn restaurant, I didn’t want bloodshed to come from the death of my dear friend.’

‘You and Royston were good friends?’ I ask.

‘It’s an oft-trotted cliche but he was more like family,’ he replies, putting his own mug on the table and cleaning his glasses. It’s a theatrical gesture, that suggests a resignation, an acceptance of the situation and circumstances. ‘It was in the late 1950’s when I realized that my career progression was gravitating towards a different path, one that was on the other side of what you may call legal. It was in the early eighties when a young mover and shaker was moving and shaking in my eye line. That was Royston, and he courted my attention like a suitor. He had designs on an employment path that wasn’t being fulfilled in other avenues, and he forced me to take note of him. I had no interest in working with a young man, but he was persistent. I gave him a chance, and grew to love the boy like my own. One Christmas, he asked if he could spend it with me and my family, as opposed to his own.’

He keeps mentioning work casually like he may have an office job. I’d love to know what work is for him. It might explain a great deal, and fill in the blanks somewhat.

‘Royston’s death will herald change for us all. But I know that he died because of his association with myself, and even though he was a grown man, who made his own decisions a long time ago, I can feel the uneasy spill of blood on my hands.’

It is strange to watch a man I’ve never met before, reveal himself so candidly and intimately, his doubts, fears and sadnesses creeping around the edges of his character and presenting themselves for me, a complete stranger. He’s inviting my judgement, it is almost his confession, taking the opportunity to clear his conscience of the things that dog him the most. Despite myself, I find my voice.

‘We all are forced to make choices. There are those that accept what comes from those choices, who will always sleep the best because of that. It’s those who go one further, and learn from the consequences of those choices... In the fullness of time, they are the ones that resonate as good and worthy men.’

Am I right in counseling this man? I don’t know him at all, aside from the hint of a legend regaled to me less than a day earlier. When I got up this morning, I hadn’t heard of him, and now I’m sipping a late night winter-warmer in his home, talking about the things that keep him awake long into the night and philosophizing cack-handedly about the errant nature of man and his foibles.

‘I’m just an old man, Ben. An old man who was better suited to the fifties. You knew where you were back then.’

‘Forgive me for saying, but you don’t seem to be doing too badly.’

That elicits a slight smile. He leans back into his chair, as if exhaustion finally catches up with him, and his weary engine is running on fumes.

‘Please stay here tonight. The spare room is made up. It’s far too late to head back out into town, and it’s the least I can do after how much you looked after our Jack. You kept him alive, and I won’t forget it.’

Suddenly tiredness sweeps over me, too. The fresh, opulent setting in which I sit presently suggests there is a huge kingsize double bed somewhere upstairs with my name on it. I can only think of sinking into it and wallowing in the luxury. I don’t know what to make of what is happening, and frankly I am too tired to make sense of it tonight. This is surely a dangerous offer to accept, but I just don’t sense any immediate threat from the old man. We seem completely alone, and he seems to have placed his trust in me. If he wanted me dead, he would have had his associates make sure I never got out of the freezing river, let alone drag me out of it, if that is indeed what happened. I think of my predilection for good intel, and it’s gathering, and I comfort myself in the thought that if I want to learn about Felix, here will undoubtedly be the best place to do it.

‘If that isn’t too much trouble, I’d be happy to,’ I say.

‘Excellent,’ says Felix, rising carefully. ‘Follow me.’

I do just that, tottering after the little old criminal mastermind, ready to spend a night under his wing. As the saying goes, keep your friends close but your enemies closer. But confusion, tiredness and disorientation is allowing me to lie closer than I’m normally comfortable with, with curiosity my mischievous guide.

14

I wake up ferociously, my skin cold and clammy, and my brow burning. I feel skewed, nauseous and disorientated, my breathing rushed. The surroundings are unfamiliar, but waking in unfamiliar places doesn’t usually bother me, since I do it often enough. My subconscious has been deeply active during my sleep, and has whipped me into such a frenzy it has woken me with a start.

The fever I am blighted is surely from my narrow brush with hypothermia, and my body fighting back whilst trying to achieve an equilibrium. But my mind nags and claws, and it is a feeling which is familiar. It floods back, the doubts and depressions, a relic of a period in my life I try hard daily to leave behind. I am being pushed back in time, shoved against my weak will by circumstances, dragged there by repressed feelings reappearing from the mental abyss I had banished them to.