The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) (21 page)

Suddenly, Michael speaks, while raising a pint of what looks to be a pale real ale, perhaps an IPA of some kind. My mouth floods with saliva.

‘To our dearest friend Royston, and his son, Jack. We miss you pal,’ he says. His eyes are bowed, but fixed. He doesn’t seem like a man dominated by emotion, and that he is more of a ‘function over form’ kind of man. There’s an economy to him, a well-managed control. Which makes his reported actions all the more concerning and unnerving. There will be mysterious depths to him - men like that always do.

Everyone drinks, and this time so do I. The champagne is sharp, sweet yet dry, and it feels like an electrical charge has been set off in my mouth. It is a thing of considerable enjoyment, and my senses sing.

‘And one quick toast to Ben,’ he says, gesturing his glass to me. ‘For looking after, Jack, and for settling the score’.

Drinks are drunk again, with added grimness. I don’t know whether to smile, drink, protest - not a clue. I find myself nodding at Michael, who nods back. Christ alive, I’m getting good at this duplicity, here at my enemy’s side. Schmoozing my enemy is something that I never expected to do, nor ever had to before, but I feel much can be gained from doing so.

‘Ben, I’ve made some inroads into that thing you were after before,’ Michael says.

‘Really? How’s it looking?’ I ask.

‘It won’t be a problem. My guy just needs a name, a photo and he’ll do the rest. What do you fancy calling yourself?’

‘Sean,’ I say. ‘Sean Miller. I’ve no idea why, but I’ve already started getting used to it.’

I can feel myself dangerously brushing that fine line between playing my cards close to my chest and over-sharing. That’s the name I’m checked in under at my hotel.

‘OK then. I’ll let him know. Should be ready tomorrow. Face me,’ says Michael, holding up a camera phone to me. I sit up straight and look to him. The flash goes, and he pockets the camera, his economy of movement still visible even in such a simple mundane, action.

‘Blimey, that’s fast. How best to settle the balance with your guy?’ I ask.

Felix pipes up between us. ‘I’m taking care of it, Ben. As a thank you.’

I don’t like this. Favors, last night, this morning, now... I don’t want to be indebted to this man nor his people. This is counterbalanced by the notion that it is genuinely a help, and that to have a totally new identity to walk into, a big weight is lifted.

Problem now, is that this group of people know what I’m going to be called, and if I am to use it in any sense, they will be able to track me down. This is not a good idea. It’s only six people, but still... I’m far from keen. It rankles within me, offends my sensibilities which ordinarily dictate an acute carefulness.

‘What are you going to do with your new identity, Ben?’ Felix asks. ‘What future plans do you have?’

What a question. How best to answer... It hurts, to be asked this. I’m gutted this moment has come with this man and not my own father. This moment, a chat over a quiet drink, was all I wanted from my father when I came home in disgrace. And in rejecting me, and sending me on my way, my father has essentially set me on another course, that led me to this point. He has pushed me from one father figure to another. Is it any wonder I am fucked up?

But the answer itself? What is the answer itself? A couple of years back, when I needed this conversation with my own father, I would have answered something along the lines of employment. A job somewhere, a nice stable nine to five. I may even have asked if he had any contacts still in the steel industry, anyone who could give me a chance. But now? I can’t very well tell Felix Davison, of the notorious Berg, that I intend to devote the next fifteen years of my life to knocking people just like him off their perches.

But I can’t deny that part of me feels fulfilled by the question. A question as simple as: what do you want, Ben? A question that was never asked of me, by people who should have done so. The mother of my unborn child didn’t. My army superiors didn’t. My parents didn’t. And because of that, I’ve had to take matters into my own hands time and again, swimming against the current along a river course set by hands not my own, but hands that were nevertheless supposed to have worked with my interests somewhere in their field of vision.

I’m indulging myself here. I’m becoming more and more dragged into those areas of my psyche that bother me the most, and it’s all brought on by the treacherous, delicate situation I find myself in. I remember Nietzsche again, and the looking-glass abyss I’m staring into, forcing my own demons to look back at me. I’m uncomfortable.

I had fooled myself. In so many ways. I felt ready, but there was always a darkness beneath the surface, and all it took was a simple generous question to loosen the clasps to my doubts and fears just slightly, and now they are seeping out. I’m bleeding mentally. I feel foolish, but still surprised.

‘I... don’t know,’ I say, lying through my back teeth, knowing that the real answer would go down like coal at Christmas. ‘Whatever it is, I want to start afresh. Put my skills to use in whatever way I can. I’ve long since forgone thinking that I can serve my country, so a blank page is what I’m after.’

‘Here? Abroad?’ Felix continues. He sips his cranberry through a short thin straw.

‘Doesn’t really matter,’ I reply. ‘As long as it’s different.’

‘Would you consider staying in this city if there was work for you here?’ Felix says, thoughtfully.

Wow, hang on a minute. Where is he going with this?

‘I haven’t thought about it,’ I manage to reply. I didn’t expect this direction. The overtures have been pretty solid and sweet, but I suddenly feel very trapped in this little booth. The ‘rock and a hard place’ analogy has never felt more appropriate.

‘Do I need to spell it out for you?’ he says. He stirs his drink with the straw, as the full realization thunks in my noggin - I have been buttered up and smoked like a kipper. They want me to work for them. I say nothing, so Felix continues.

‘Think about it. You need a fresh start with a new identity. I could do with another man close to me, to add to this inner circle. You are wildly qualified, in a number of ways. You can handle yourself, you are a man of honor, you are a gentleman. In my eyes, you are the ideal candidate.’

I wonder whether Jack heard a variation on this speech. My stomach feels feather-light and drippy. I came out to crush people like this and all I’ve managed to do so far is convince them to try to hire me.

‘We discussed it, today, after you left,’ Felix continues. ‘We are most impressed with the way you handled yourself last night, the way you cared for Jack, and the respectful way you carry yourself, amidst all your obvious attributes. I am on the lookout for one last väktare. That’s the way this business works, and that’s the way I intend it to continue.’

This is the first glimpse I have had of the man behind the myth, of the serpentine, game-player that dwells inside the body of a sweet, old granddad. You don’t get to the top of any trees without having a cutthroat competitive streak. His career must have been built on opportunism, seizing moments, taking chances, and making the most of circumstances. And here he is again, doing just the same thing that has got him so far. It’s hard not to view it as tasteless, his full-speed courting of a replacement for one of his closest allies so soon after his passing, especially after all the talk in the past couple of days of how destroyed everyone is by the loss of Royston.

That loss feels a world away in this happy setting and the offer of Royston’s position. Yet again, a moment has occurred which I am completely unprepared for, and confused by. For the time being, I decide to play along.

‘I’m flattered. Very,’ I reply, exhaling. ‘I wasn’t expecting that.’

‘Would you, at least, just take the time to think about it?’

I remember Jeremiah, and what he needs to trust me. Joining Felix Davison is surely not one of those things.

‘Tell me,’ I say shifting my position, ‘for arguments sake, what the position entails. All the details.’

A silence befalls the table, in an anticipatory sense. Felix looks at me, and gives a smile so gentle I barely notice it. I think he enjoys my straightforward, methodical caution. It seems to prove he was right to approach me.

‘I can take this,’ says Michael. ‘We are responsible for the main operations of the business, from the ground all the way up here to the top, strictly in a management sense. Final say on everything belongs to Felix. All areas of the business are already up and running, in a pre-existing infrastructure. It is delegation and problem-solving which is our primary concern.’

‘Can you give me an example?’ I ask. I really want to hear something incriminating.

‘A simple example would be this. You won’t find us on the street pushing the dope, but if we lose a pusher we are responsible for finding a replacement or alternative.’

‘Is that an area of the business I would be expected to operate in?’

‘As
väktare
we cover all areas of the business, so that would be the arms dealing, the heroin, and of course the crystal meth. Felix likes to handle his fishy side-project on his own. Frankly, I wouldn’t know where to start on that score.’

‘I have my sources,’ Felix says, winking.

‘Where do you distribute and what is it you distribute in those areas?’ I ask. The more information I can ply Jeremiah with, the better, but that doesn’t seem to have gone down so well. The men are looking at each other, while the girls are riveted. It’s like a dirty little secret is about to be revealed to the ladies, and it seems we are having a conversation that they have never been privy to. ‘I mean no disrespect, but in order to make in informed decision, I’d like to know. We can speak on this more privately if you’d like?’

Felix sets his jaw and merely nods, signaling Michael to continue.

‘This business is borne entirely from respect, and thrives on it’s maintenance. In the North West of the United Kingdom, there are a number of big players each with their distinct territories, which operate in conjunction with smaller entities to fulfill demand. Think of the ocean, with an ecosystem of big fish and small fish, all with roles and places they frequent, all of them with prosperity as their main goal.’

Interesting analogy, but still extremely vague.

‘So which territories do the Berg operate in?’ I ask. I want to force that issue, and skin this beast.

‘May I?’ interjects Samson, leaning in enough so that his ample forearms actually dim the brightness of the booth.

‘Go for it,’ replies Michael, relaxing a little. They don’t look completely at ease sharing such intricacies with me, an outsider. They have gone all in here, showing their hand for what it really contains. One with risk but with a reward they can feel - and it’s most strange to know that my tenure is the reward that they seek.

‘Heroin runs from Carlisle down to Stafford, the east side of Liverpool over to Halifax. We can’t get at Leeds. This is obviously a big chunk of the country, and is very much a mainstay of the business, the big earners in there obviously being Manchester itself, Warrington and Stoke-on-Trent. Crystal meth is similar but a bit tougher, so that circle has a smaller radius and leaks west a bit. So we are talking Preston down to the crazy housewives of Wilmslow and Alderley Edge, then Chester over to Rochdale. We do have a line into North Wales with that one though, stretching through to Llangolen. Kind of like a circle with a leg.’

I love that now I have in my head a cheery little circle with one leg, on a map, smiling at me, strangely signifying a vast-enough crystal meth empire.

‘Arms, now that’s difficult. We have - more I should say, we had - a good solid reliable network, but that’s changed. We used to have big independents who relied upon us, and kept coming back. And the spread for that area was much bigger. We were active right down to Gloucester, and up far as north as this country goes. That was three quarters of the country. And we were coast to coast. We almost had this country in our pocket, it was over 12,000 square miles at one time.’

There is a misty-eyed quality to his speech - a ghostly remembrance of better times since passed. But I know that now, I have what I need. Consider this one busted wide open.

‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘We became outdated, and we still don’t know how,’ answers Leonard, sipping a drink I hadn’t noticed he had but, in being tall, strikingly cyan, and festooned with tiny umbrellas, fits his overall persona immediately - the ultimate accessory. ‘But the tide is turning back in our favor’.

I don’t know what that means, but there is a meaning laced into his words that are both impossible to miss but also impossible to interpret. The only response I feel I can offer is an extremely pseudo-business one.

‘Do you expect that upturn to remain? Are forecasts good?’ I don’t know whether this will impress or bemuse. The vernacular feels uncomfortable and forced.

‘I would say that the change is definite. Prosperity will return,’ says Samson.

I get the feeling that they are rounding on me, encircling me, bombarding me with their argument. Do they really feel this strongly about my recruitment? I have a nagging doubt that screams ‘smokescreen’. I think that the more questions I ask, or the more seriously I take this conversation, the more revelatory the answers will be. I press on with playing the role of careful investor.

‘What guarantees do you have in this regard?’ I ask. That seems to impress Felix who almost giggles to himself.

‘Wise sailors never want to join sinking ships,’ laughs Felix, smiling broadly. The other men echo his gesture, chortling with each other, like lapdogs. I’m detecting a smugness that I was unsure existed, a self-confidence that I was waiting to experience for myself. It’s here alright. It just took the right environment for it to present itself. I suppose all parents are proud of their babies, and the baby in question here is a criminal empire.

‘It’s for definite,’ says Leonard, through his grin. ‘Nothing to worry about there’.

‘And on the front of the siamese fighting fish...’ Samson continues, ‘Felix has all of Europe in his pocket.’