The Graft

  ‘Want a line, Tammy?’

  She nodded, pushing her plate away. All her good intentions were going out the window at the first sign of upset.

  ‘I thought you would never ask, sweetheart.’

  Siddy and Billy were drinking brandy, Spanish brandy like rocket fuel. They were in Pepe’s Bar, looking over the beach.

  ‘I feel a cunt doing this really, but who would have thought she would have moved out here for this long?’

  Siddy shrugged. ‘She had a lot to contend with, by all accounts, and without Nick, who is she really? While she was his old woman and had his protection she was all right. Now though, she is nothing.’

  They both digested the words in silence.

  ‘I only hope Laurie Metcalf can keep her occupied so we can get in and out without her sussing anything.’

  ‘From what Alan said, she is champing at the bit, likes the old one-eyed snake, does Tammy.’

  ‘She should have been back in Blighty by now and this would all be over.’

  ‘Do you think she knew a lot of what was going on with Nick?’

  Billy shook his head sagely. ‘I doubt it very much, she was off her trolley most days. The last time I saw her she was coked out of her nut, and dressed for a night at the opera. Bearing in mind it was eleven o’clock in the morning and she had enough Tom on to sink the fucking Belgrano. Tammy was just a player and, as I said before, with him gone she is nothing.’ His voice and manner dismissed her.

  ‘He had no real respect for her, anyway, though from what I hear, she runs the buildings all right but then she has got a lot of help there, ain’t she?’

  ‘I suppose, but I think she is shrewder than people give her credit for. Her only fault was seeing Nick as a saint and, be fair, we were all guilty of that one.’ Billy’s voice sounded trite even to his own ears, but Spanish brandy did that to a body.

  ‘Let’s hope Laurie can charm her drawers off long enough for a poke around if you’ll excuse the pun.’ Siddy laughed at his own joke.

  ‘Never took anyone long to get into Tammy’s knickers.’

  ‘Poor cow, she had a lot of grief with that ponce.’

  Billy nodded. ‘Nick was a lot of things, we all know that, Siddy, but he had a lot of people on his payroll and he knew all the right people. Whatever he was in his private life, in business he was the business.’

  Siddy digested this bit of logic and ordering two more brandies he once more checked his phone for messages. He was nervous suddenly.

  Billy watched him from the corner of his eye. Siddy was a nice bloke and all that but he was acting like a fucking teenage girl on her first date and that irritated him no end. They were supposed to be faces, supposed to know the score. Why was Siddy getting so jumpy? They were dealing with Tammy Leary not the fucking Yorkshire Ripper. He had made this trip out here at considerable expense to himself and he wanted to have a bit of a relax before the off. Siddy, as he was just finding out, was a nervous man, was a man who would not relax until the dirty deed was done. Now he was stuck with him for the duration. Still, it was worth it. Once they made the trade off they could all go home and resume their everyday lives. He was here with Siddy, not the most interesting man in the world when he wasn’t telling jokes, and Colin was back at the penthouse making small talk with Soraya because he was tired! That left him well and truly lumbered because if he knew Colin, he would be trumping her by now.

  Then Billy saw a lovely little bit of spare walking in to the bar and was annoyed with himself for not allocating a few more days for a bit of R and R. Christ knew, he could do with it.

  Laurie was impressed with Tammy’s villa and that pleased her. She loved to see people’s expression when they realised the extent of her wealth.

  The indoor and outdoor pools were spectacular but it was the cinema that really blew him away. Sitting in the dark with Tammy as they watched Goodfellas was almost surreal. This place showed exactly what Nick had been capable of. It was over the top and it was expensive and it was a far cry from the council estates they had all hailed from.

  This had been Laurie’s dream all right, night after night, banged up in his Peter Dell, this had been his dream. When the screws had turned off the lights on the wing, so even reading was practically impossible without a torch and a supply of AA batteries, he had lain there listening to snuffled snores and the quiet whisperings, when every now and then a shout had broken the silence, the silence of hundreds of men all banged-up like animals, and trying to make some sense of it.

  It had been the same when he had been a kid, and he had lain in bed dreaming of having nice things, a nice home, nice kids and especially a nice little wife.

  He had been nabbed once too often for it to happen for him now, he was first call every time a bank robbery went down. He was stuck in Spain, and the place got on his tits. He liked the smoke, liked his roots. And if fate had been a little bit kinder this could have been him now, and he would have been happy.

  Men needed a Tammy to survive, and he realised that now. Someone to stand by them through the lean years, someone who was loyal, who helped them on their way. Yet most of the men he knew, once they made it, had replaced the first wife for a newer, younger and far more expensive model. He knew that because he had done the same thing himself. He knew men of nearly sixty with young children, who had grandchildren older than their newly acquired families. Children born because they set the seal on a deal that couldn’t last, because nature will always out. Youth eventually wanted youth, men eventually wanted a fucking rest from it all and then only wanted the women they were with for appearances.

  He was being slowly strangled just trying to keep his head above water. His clothes were getting old and his face was showing the strain. He couldn’t do the big nights out because he didn’t have the capital to bankroll his mates any more. He had wasted so much money over the years and it haunted him now. He remembered hiring a plane just to go to lunch in France, remembered big expensive holidays with young birds he hardly knew who bored the fuck out him within a few days. He had wasted so much money.

  Yet here was Tammy who had never done a day’s collar in her life and this was all hers. This was hers by right and he didn’t begrudge her any of it. But it reminded him too much of what he had missed out on.

  Tammy was watching him, in the flickering light she saw the sagging of his jawline; men aged faster than women in some ways. Unless they were staggeringly handsome they aged terribly. You could see that Laurie had been away a lot in his life, you could always tell. Men like him were well sculpted, had used the gym a lot in prison for something to do at first, eventually because it whiled away time. He also had that quietness about him of someone who had learned the hard way to like his own company. They looked after their clothes too well, and they were too easygoing, having learned to live with other people while still trying to keep their privacy in a place where privacy was practically unknown.

  It took a lot of strength of character to come out from a long stretch and still have some kind of charisma. Still have some kind of lust for life and what it had to offer. Whole youths had been spent idling away in a cell, and to still be of a sound mind and still have a lust for life was an achievement. A real achievement.

  She felt sorry for him, felt in some ways she understood him because, although she had not been shipped off to the Island, had not been sentenced by a judge, she had found her marriage was very similar. As her friend Illana had once pointed out, you got out of prison early for good behaviour but what did that gain you in your marriage?

  She grabbed Laurie’s hand and he squeezed it back hard. She sensed the slight tremble under his skin and for the first time in ages felt the charge of a new conquest. But she had something to do first and she wondered just what the upshot would be. She went over to the bar and poured them both brandies, she made sure his was in the large balloon glass that Nick had loved so much. Port and brandy, that had always been the nightcap when they were out here. Her father had alway
s said never mix the grain and the grape, but it had mellowed Nick out, helped him relax, made him sleep. They would cuddle up and put on a good film and watch it in peace, just the two of them. She had been happy at those times. She had him then, he had been all hers. And at the end of the day that is all she had ever wanted wasn’t it?

  To be with someone. Someone who loved her and wanted her.

  She looked around the cinema, her eyes were once more sad. They had been happy here, her and Nick, she had loved him so much and once she had got over the fact they were not going to own the biggest penthouse in Marbella, she had actually learned to love this place and the peace it afforded them. Not that she would ever have admitted that to him in a million years of course. She had acted as if it was a real chore to come here, and she knew that had hurt Nick because he had adored the place.

  She thought of Rudde’s villa next door and her face hardened once again. Of course Nick had loved it here, they had been only an hour’s drive from Gibraltar and not an hour again from Morocco. Oh, and the Moroccan boys, she had had a good shufti at them herself. Oh God, she had been such a fool, such a bloody fool.

  But why did it still hurt? A year later and it was still like an open wound.

  She brought the drinks back to where Laurie was watching the film, wrapped up now in the characters. He took the balloon glass from her gratefully. It was heavy, really beautiful, and she saw his appreciation of it even as she wanted to smash it through the cinema screen. It suddenly encompassed all that her husband had been. Beautiful, big, overblown and basically fucking useless.

  She cut to the chase. ‘Why are you here and what are you after?’

  Laurie was nonplussed for a second but she admired how quickly he recovered.

  ‘You didn’t answer me before but I want you to answer now, and I want you to answer me carefully and truthfully.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you mean, Tammy.’

  She grinned. He was good, she would give him that, but she had a finely tuned built-in shit detector and it was telling her to be wary of this man and his handsome face. It had never failed her before. Even Nick had relied on her ability to suss people out. Had trusted her innate instincts.

  ‘You my love, have some kind of an agenda, I realised that within minutes of talking to you, I thought it was the usual agenda where I was concerned but I was wrong. You just don’t feel right, you’re a nice geezer and all that but there is something about you that I can’t put my finger on. That I don’t trust.’ She waited for the risqué reply and it didn’t come. That was when she knew she had him.

  Laurie had known this woman for a night, and already he was into her and all she stood for. He had also seen that she was not the Greebo that everyone thought she was. There was more to her than met the eye. Tammy was not about to be laid and left, she was too clever for that. She would fuck him, he knew that but it would be on her terms and that for some reason attracted him.

  All his life he had scratched, scratched a living, a livelihood, a place in society. Tammy had already hewn herself into the person she wanted to be. He admired her, he liked her and that would probably be his downfall.

  ‘Do you really want the truth, Tammy?’

  She laughed then. ‘ ’Course not, who in their right mind has ever really wanted that?’

  ‘Come on, you two, we are clear.’

  Colin walked back to the Range Rover and waited for the other two men to get inside. Pepe’s Bar was packed now and no one took any notice of them when they left. Colin drove them to the beach and parked the Range Rover carefully. He had had a few drinks with Soraya and he was mindful of that fact.

  They all retraced their steps to Tammy’s Spanish home and slipped through the fencing. They walked confidently to the conservatory where the largest of the three hot tubs was placed. The door was open as arranged and they walked quietly inside, shutting the door behind them.

  ‘What a fucking drum, Billy, eh?’

  The men looked around them in awe. Nick had kept this jewel quiet and now they knew why. It was superb. It was a drum and a half. It was like a Californian movie star’s home and they knew it was worth three times the price. Nick had spared no expense and just a quick glance would tell anyone that they were in a millionaire’s mansion.

  The hot tub was not hot, it was not bubbling and the lights beneath it were not turned on. Billy and Siddy grinned at each other as Colin looked on. He had been having a nice evening with Soraya, and was miffed that it had been cut short by the call from Laurie.

  As he started to dismantle the hot tub they were all sweating with nerves. ‘I feel really bad, don’t you?’

  Billy shrugged. ‘ ’Course, but would you tell your old woman what was going down?’

  ‘Would I fuck!’

  ‘Well, there you go then. What she don’t know won’t hurt her, will it? We can hardly bring her into the frame can we?’

  ‘She would get a percentage of the price though, wouldn’t she?’

  ‘Does she look like she needs it then?’

  Laurie watched his friends on the CCTV cameras that were located in the thirty-foot kitchen. Tammy was sitting on a high stool at one of the breakfast bars sipping a drink and watching with him, her face showed no interest whatsoever. He admired her even more for her calmness. She looked at him as he poured himself a stiff drink. He needed one now he had put these men in the frame, but he would take the consequences. She had had enough to contend with and he had no interest in adding to her disillusionment.

  ‘I appreciate your honesty, you know, you won’t go away empty handed,’ she said.

  He sighed. ‘Have this one on me, Tammy. When it came to the crunch I couldn’t do it. You’re a nice lady.’

  She grinned but her heart wasn’t in it. ‘Want to stay here and watch while I put them out of their misery, eh?’

  He nodded. ‘I don’t feel the urge to rub it in, if that’s what you mean, Tams.’

  She was still smiling. As she left the kitchen he drank down his drink. After all this shit he would need to be anaesthetised when Billy realised what had gone down. But it was worth the pain. Tammy was all right, he couldn’t tuck her up for no one. He must be getting soft in his old age.

  ‘You looking for these?’

  Billy was convinced he was hallucinating as he saw Tammy Leary standing in the doorway with a pile of papers in her hand.

  Siddy and Colin were struck dumb. Colin had a screwdriver in his hand and his jaw was on the floor.

  Tammy was wearing a black silk dressing gown and carrying a large drink. Her blond hair was almost on end with the anger coursing through her veins. ‘You taking the piss out of me, Billy boy?’

  He was bang to rights and he knew it, consequently he didn’t bother to answer.

  Siddy was on the verge of fainting.

  ‘Why didn’t you ask me for what you wanted, eh? I would have been more than happy to oblige, I mean, why wouldn’t I?’

  The men were still staring at her in shock and trepidation. ‘You went through all this rigmarole to get a few names and addresses? Where the fuck do you think the numbers came from in the first place, eh?’

  She shook the papers out in front of her. ‘You think Nick did it all then? You think he was the one who talked round the local councillors? The local planning officers?’

  She looked at them all as she said disdainfully, ‘You fools! Nick couldn’t be arsed with any of that. I was the one who put all this in place. I was the one who got involved with them, not Nick. I was the one who made sure they had a few quid, a nice holiday. I bought off everyone, I found out their weaknesses and I exploited them. It was me, not Nick.’

  She walked towards them shaking her head in disgust and bewilderment. ‘Nick always took the credit, it was how we worked. I was the one who ferreted out the information, he was the one who used it.’

  The men watched her in fascination as she flicked a switch and flooded the place with light.

  ‘I graft
ed and all, you know, over the years. I was the one who dealt with the architects and the planning officers. It was me who started it in the first place, now I can get planning permission anywhere in the country mate. From local councillors I made my way through Great Britain. Remember cool Britannia and all that? Well I took a leaf out of the Blairs’ book and brought my property portfolio up to date. It now encompasses the whole country.’

  She smiled at the absolute embarrassment of the men before her, especially Billy Clarke.

  ‘You see, Nick was useless at that part of it all, he couldn’t be bothered to do the groundwork, he was like you, he wanted it all on a plate. But we were a good team. I knew when to button me mutton, and let him take the applause, and he appreciated that fact. Now I find you lot want to skank my hard work, when you know fortunes are charged for these numbers and these introductions. I just charged the money in my old man’s name. It was how we worked you see. And Nick and me were a good team. Be fair, thanks to your snooping you know that he shagged his boys and I shagged mine. Now you are trying to fuck me and it just ain’t going to happen.’ She was letting Billy know she was aware he knew the score, but letting him know that she also knew the score. She was fronting him out.

  ‘How dare you break into my home, try and skank my livelihood. Take the food out of my kids’ mouths.’

  ‘It is not like that, Tammy, and you know it.’ Billy was trying to justify himself, it sounded lame even to his own ears. They were going to take the lot and forget they had ever been here. This was worth fortunes and they had believed that Tammy had not known what she was sitting on.

  ‘Fuck off, Billy Clarke! You took my old man down, and I swallowed that. You were right to do it, he was out of order. But to come here, to send poor Laurie, who I sussed out in minutes by the way, to try to tuck me up!’ She laughed.

  ‘I thought you had more respect for me, and that goes for you, too, Siddy Haulfryn.’