Closer Still, page 13
part #8 of A Brodie Farrell Mystery Series
He had a number of regrets about tonight’s work. A lot of man-hours and a big slice of budget had gone into spotting Daoud early enough to manage his arrest safely; but they’d missed him, and because of that Dave Salmon was being rushed to hospital with a chest wound, and Charlie Voss was shivering with shock, and a man who could have answered vital questions wasn’t telling anybody anything ever again. All these things were regrettable. But at a personal level, all he felt about the violent death of a violent man was relief. Any way a wolf dies, the lambs breathe a little easier.
He turned and looked at Voss. ‘If Daoud shot Salmon, who shot Daoud?’
‘I did,’ admitted Voss.
‘You weren’t armed.’
‘Dave was armed. Daoud knocked the gun out of his hand.’
‘And you picked it up.’
‘Yes.’
‘And shot him. Twice.’
Voss blinked. ‘Did I? I fired a lot of rounds. I didn’t know how many hit him. I just kept firing till he went down. I didn’t think I had a choice. He’d have killed us both.’
‘You don’t have to explain it to me, lad,’ said Deacon with a kind of gruff kindness. ‘You did the right thing. Remember that. Anyone tells you otherwise, they’re wrong. They weren’t there, they don’t know. You did what was necessary.’ He sniffed. ‘Now will you for God’s sake get off to hospital and stop bleeding on my crime scene?’
If Joe Loomis had had a wife, or a mistress, or even a casual companion, Brodie would have spoken to her. So far as she could discover he hadn’t. She wondered about that. No one who knew him would have described Loomis as the answer to a maiden’s prayer, but even the most unpromising men can usually find a partner if they play their cards right. And there are plenty of women for whom money, even dirty money, is the ace in the hole.
So his lack of attachment was a puzzle. Brodie wondered briefly if it wasn’t women’s names she should be looking for but men’s. But nothing she knew about him suggested he was easily embarrassed, and when you rule a criminal empire – or perhaps more a criminal emporium – essentially by fear, you don’t have to worry about people poking fun. If there’d been a man in Loomis’s life Brodie was pretty sure she’d have got wind of it by now. There must be another explanation.
And there was; and it was so obvious she felt foolish for not spotting it sooner. The man didn’t just deal in drugs, he dealt in prostitutes. And he was exactly the kind of man to think that you don’t need to buy a box of chocolates when you’ve got the key to the pick-and-mix.
The Rose in Rye Lane was not the sort of pub where respectable unaccompanied women take lunch. It was the sort of pub where respectable women, and men, do an about-turn, mutter something about their parking meter and beat a hasty retreat if they wander in by accident. It was dark, it was dirty, and the best that could be said of the regular clientele was that when they were adding to the fug in The Rose they weren’t making the rest of Dimmock nervous.
So when Brodie came inside, appropriated a high stool and slapped her handbag on the bar in front of Wally Briggs, the background mutter of nameless crimes being reminisced over stopped dead. Every eye in the place was on her.
She waited about ten seconds – which in such circumstances is longer than it sounds – before half-turning on her stool and saying calmly over her shoulder, ‘Don’t get your hopes up, guys. I’m here on business but not that kind of business.’
She turned back to the bartender and took from her bag a handkerchief that wasn’t much more than a large, rusty stain with a lace edge. ‘Do you want to guess what that is, Mr Briggs?’
For a lot of years Wally Briggs had stayed safe in dangerous company by never venturing an opinion on anything. He wasn’t about to break the habit of a lifetime for a woman who looked like a princess, talked like a hooker and was clearly up to no good. He shook his head.
‘It’s Joe Loomis’s blood. Your boss’s blood, Wally. Someone stabbed him and he came to me for help. Do you know what his dying words were?’
Wally shook his head again, so quickly it looked like a tic.
‘He said, “Find out who did this. Tell my old mate Wally to give you any help you need.”’
Wally Briggs felt his jaw dropping. Being helpful was even worse than offering an opinion, even more likely to blow up in your face. But Joe Loomis was his boss. Well, strictly speaking had been his boss, but Wally wasn’t a man who adjusted to change quickly. Other people had taken over the pub, and other aspects of the Loomis enterprise, but down at gut level where survival depended on jumping for the right voice, Wally still reckoned to work for Joe. In the man’s unavoidable absence, he owed his allegiance to Joe’s blood on a bit of cotton.
Brodie would have sworn the bartender was actually speaking to her handkerchief. ‘What do you want to know?’
‘Who’s running his stable now?’
Wally avoided her eyes. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Of course you know what I mean,’ said Brodie impatiently. ‘Joe kept a stable of prostitutes upstairs at The Rose. Everybody knows that. Now, I don’t believe they all went into convents first thing last Wednesday morning, so someone’s taken up the reins. I want to speak to him.’ She pushed the stained handkerchief across the bar. Wally recoiled. ‘It’s what Joe wants.’
‘Her,’ muttered Wally.
‘Her?’
‘The girls talked it over. They didn’t want none of Mr Loomis’s minders telling them what to do. Donna Sugden’s keeping the book.’
‘Then I’ll talk to Donna.’
Nothing terrible had happened to him. Wally rallied a little. ‘I’ll see if she’s free.’
‘Good idea,’ nodded Brodie. ‘I’ll come with you.’
Wally couldn’t think how to stop her. The prostitutes worked upstairs but the office was at the back of the rambling old inn. As he led the way he said, with awe in his voice, ‘Did Mr Loomis really send you to me?’
‘Of course he didn’t, you stupid man,’ said Brodie dismissively. ‘That was soy sauce on the hanky.’
Donna Sugden was older than Brodie and no longer boasted the kind of looks that make a certain kind of man reach for his wallet. But her continued presence in a working brothel didn’t surprise Brodie. She could see immediately what the woman had to offer. Her face was alive with expression, the eyes intelligent, a quirk of humour lifting one corner of the mouth. Probably none of her clients came here looking for a forty-year-old woman whose laughter lines were turning inexorably into wrinkles. But men who would have trouble distinguishing one pneumatic blonde from another after they sobered up would remember Donna, and seek her out again. And she had the girls’ vote. Brodie had met several prostitutes in the course of her career. They were canny about everything except their own lives.
Donna nodded a cautious greeting. ‘Wally said you wanted to see me.’
‘Yes. Thanks.’ Brodie hesitated a moment. ‘Do you know who I am?’
‘You’re the one who found Joe.’
‘Yes. Well – Joe found me. He knew what I do for a living. I think that’s why he came to my door rather than someone else’s.’
Donna was obviously puzzled. ‘What do you do?’
‘I find things. Sometimes, I find things out. Like, of all the people who might have wanted Joe dead, who actually stuck his own knife in him? And why?’
She saw an ambivalence in Donna Sugden’s eyes. This was territory a working girl would rather avoid. Loomis was her pimp. He probably wasn’t the first, and sooner or later, whatever the girls decided, there’d be another. It didn’t do to get emotionally attached. Yet Brodie felt it there, hanging in the dusty air between them – the unwise affection she’d felt for him.
‘Shouldn’t the police be doing that?’
Brodie snorted derisively. ‘Seen a lot of the police since it happened, have you? Keep tripping over forensics teams and technical teams and guys going through the books – both sets of books – with a fine-tooth comb? I thought not. The police don’t care who killed Joe. They think there are more important crimes to solve, nobler victims to get justice for. I’m not arguing – of course there are. But somebody should be standing up for Joe.’
‘Why you?’
Brodie gave a wry shrug. ‘Good question. We weren’t friends. Actually, he was trying to scare me off. But now he’s dead and nobody cares. I’m not looking for his killer,’ she admitted frankly. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with him if I found him. I’m looking for something to get CID back on the job. If I can tell them it was a drug deal that went wrong or a border war that got out of hand, they’ll take it from there.’ She looked the other woman in the eye. ‘And I thought, maybe Joe talked to you about things he didn’t discuss with anyone else.’
For a moment it seemed Donna was going to deny it. Then the blank expression cracked and she gave a reluctant little nod. Even a woman who made her living the way this one made hers was embarrassed to admit liking Joe Loomis. ‘I worked for him for fifteen years,’ she explained defensively. ‘I may have been the closest thing he had to a friend.’
‘What kind of friend?’
‘You mean, did we sleep together? Sure.’ This admission bothered her less than the other. ‘Like I say, we were together a lot of years. Neither of us had anyone else. So yes, we slept together. Sometimes. Sometimes we just talked, and sometimes we didn’t even talk. You know someone well enough, you can do that – just watch telly and drink cocoa together. Don’t get me wrong.’ Her tone sharpened. ‘I didn’t think he was a nice man. I didn’t when he was alive and I don’t now he’s dead. But we had some nice times. For a basically crap human being, he was OK with me.’
‘Then you’ll help me?’
The older woman thought a little longer about that. ‘If I can. Without stirring up more trouble than I can handle.’
Brodie pricked up her ears. ‘Trouble for who?’
‘For me; for the girls. I don’t know who killed Joe. But if it turns out it was someone after his business, I don’t want him thinking I’m a problem. Working girls are vulnerable, you know? I’m sorry about Joe, but not sorry enough to risk having his killer come here one night with a petrol can.
Brodie was nodding. ‘Fair enough. But you could tell me about Joe, couldn’t you?’
‘What do you want to know?’
‘If he was worried about something, would he have told you?’
‘Probably,’ said Donna.
‘And was he? In the week or so before he died?’
Donna shook her head. ‘No. I mean, little everyday things – who’s creaming the profits, who’s pilfering the goods. Nothing to get killed over.’
‘Was he at loggerheads with any rivals?’
Donna immediately became wary. ‘I don’t know.’
‘He and Terry Walsh had a longstanding mutual dislike,’ said Brodie. ‘Any developments on that front?’
That was easier to answer. ‘Not that I heard.’
‘Did he owe anyone money?’
‘Always. No more than usual.’
Brodie was running out of questions. ‘What about his personal life? Would you have known if he was seeing another woman?’
Donna laughed out loud. ‘Of course I’d have known. He’d have told me. We weren’t married – we weren’t even living together. If he’d found someone who actually liked him I’d have been happy for him. There was no one. I don’t think he was looking for anyone. I think nights with his feet up in front of my telly suited him fine.’
Donna was making it sound like The Little House on the Prairie, not a criminal and his cathouse madam. Brodie frowned. ‘If he had no enemies, why is he dead?’
‘He must have had an enemy,’ agreed Donna. ‘No, that’s stupid – he had lots of enemies. But they were old enemies – he knew them, knew what they were capable of. He wouldn’t have let any of them close enough to stick him. Someone took him by surprise. Whoever it was he went to meet.’
‘He went to meet someone?’
‘Must have done,’ said Donna. ‘That place where they found his car – there was no other reason for him to be there. But that’s funny too, because if he’d felt in any danger – any at all – he’d have taken muscle. He took muscle if he was going down the betting shop. He took muscle if he was buying a birthday card. If he went alone he knew who he was going to meet and he wasn’t expecting any trouble.’ She looked up with a tremulous little smile. ‘The last mistake he ever made, yeah?’
Brodie twitched her a smile in return. But she was struggling with an incredible image. ‘Who the hell did Joe Loomis buy birthday cards for?’
The woman winced as if she’d been struck, and Brodie was immediately contrite. ‘I’m sorry, that was rude. It’s nice that he bought you a card. It’s nice that he had someone to watch television with. I didn’t imagine him having much of a home life.’
‘He hadn’t,’ said Donna honestly. ‘He spent time with me because there was no one else. He’d reached a point in his life where he didn’t even want anything more. Coming to me was easy, cheap, comfortable and undemanding.’
‘So he had no family.’
Donna’s thin eyebrows drew together. ‘Actually, he had. He had a kid. But they never saw one another.’
For some reason Brodie was surprised. ‘A son or a daughter?’ But Donna didn’t know. ‘Who was the mother?’
But Donna shook her head. ‘I never knew her. Before my time, Joe said.’
So it wasn’t a baby. It could be a teenager, or a grown man or woman. ‘And he had nothing to do with it?’
‘That was stupid,’ Donna said sadly. ‘He could have kept in touch. He should have made the effort. I said to him, “It’s not too late. You’re the only father that kid’s got, and it’s not like you’ve got any others. You should get in touch – get to know one another, make up for lost time.” And he said …he said …’
And Brodie watched in astonishment as this tough, intelligent woman wept over the memory of a vicious thug. ‘What did he say?’
‘He said, Over my dead body!’ wailed Donna Sugden.
Chapter Eighteen
‘So Joe Loomis had a child.’ Daniel sounded almost bemused.
‘Apparently,’ said Brodie. ‘It wasn’t part of his life. Donna said he wanted nothing to do with it.’
When she didn’t get a response Brodie peered at him. But Daniel was off in his own private world and maintaining radio silence. ‘Daniel?’
Albert Einstein was asked once to explain how radio works. ‘Wire telegraphy is a kind of very, very long cat,’ he said. ‘You pull his tail in New York and his head is meowing in Los Angeles. And radio operates exactly the same way. The only difference is that there is no cat.’
There was an invisible cat connecting Brodie and Daniel too. When you stroked his back his head purred; when you pulled his tail he spat. Perhaps the cat had got longer and more relaxed than he once was, perhaps whole weeks passed now where you hardly noticed him at all. But there was always a cat. They had a way of knowing each what the other was doing, what the other was feeling, that drove Jack Deacon mad.
And Brodie felt like a hatpin to the heart the thoughts preoccupying her friend. ‘Daniel …’
He didn’t try to deny it. Not just because he didn’t lie, but because Brodie would know what he was thinking whether he lied or not. He gave a painful little smile. ‘It’s all right. It’s just, every so often it strikes me. That even a thug like Joe Loomis can produce something as perfect as a child. And I’m …really good with numbers.’
If this had been about anything else she’d have reached for his hand. But she was afraid of hurting him. She said softly, ‘If that’s what you want – children – you have to find someone to have them with.’
Gentle and stubborn as always, he shook his yellow head. ‘Nobody gets everything they want. You try too hard, you lose what you have. Yes, I’d like a family – but not just any family. Everyone’s choices carry a cost. There’s a saying, isn’t there? – Take what you want, says God, and pay for it. Well, this was my choice, this is the price tag. It’s worth it to me. If it wasn’t I’d do something else.’
His honesty transfixed her. There was no one in the world, not even him, to whom she would have revealed herself like that. Even when she felt that way, about her husband in the early years of her marriage, she never declared it; and the way the marriage ended seemed to prove her wisdom. Not even to punish him – and there had been a long time when she wanted desperately to punish him – would she have had John Farrell know just how much losing him had hurt. She would have suffered agonies rather than confess her weakness. In Daniel, though, it hardly seemed a weakness. His honesty about wanting something he could never have seemed almost like a strength.
‘If there was anything I could do …’ she whispered.
‘I know.’ His smile tore her heart out by the roots. ‘Brodie, this is the story of my life. The wrong time, the wrong place, the wrong person. I’m used to it. And wanting more out of this than you do doesn’t blind me to the fact that I already get more out of it than I ever expected. I get you. Not all of you, but quite a bit. I get your children. I get people I care about caring about me. Don’t underestimate that. A lot of people go their whole lives and never come close.
‘And one of them,’ he added, giving himself a kind of mental shake and returning to the subject, ‘was Joe Loomis. He had a child – but he didn’t know it and he didn’t want to. How lonely is that?’
‘He had Donna,’ mumbled Brodie, struggling to move on. ‘Without her I think he’d have been entirely alone.’
‘Well, I don’t think having a child is what got Joe killed. Knowing him and what he did for a living, there have to be grimier secrets in his coal cellar. The mother might have set the Child Support Agency onto him – she wouldn’t have stabbed him in the heart.’
