Death of a Painter Read online

  ‘Mr Dancer,’ I replied. ‘Disco, listen, can I have a quick word?’

  David Dancer could have been the greatest carpenter in the Towns, he had a natural eye and instinct, he was more like a cabinet maker of old in the quality and craftsmanship he’d bring to his work, but the drink had got hold of him young and held him tight ever since. Somehow, he made it work for him. Instead of taking his time to deliver an outstanding piece of workmanship he became fast at delivering a standard one. He could crash out in a morning what most people would take a day and a half to do. He had to because around lunch time he’d start getting the shakes, it’s lucky he’s not sawn off a couple of fingers by now.

  As we made our way outside to the smoker’s shelter, I told Disco about Tommy. Disco rolled himself a fag, lit it and took a long deep drag on it. A peculiar moment of silence had fallen between us, neither knowing what to say next. Disco picked sticky white dots of mastic from his sleeve. He caught me watching him.

  ‘Boris the Plastic,’ he offered by way of explanation, meaning he’d been fitting upvc replacement fascias and soffits for Boris Gruber. Pretty boring, and straightforward but it was quick and easy price work, which suited Disco down to the ground.

  ‘Shit,’ he muttered after taking in my story. ‘What about Jen? Have you spoken to her?’

  I hadn’t. Senia had told me: ‘The police shall be informing the next of kin, and providing the appropriate victim support’ – the pompous twat. But I needed to talk to Jen sooner rather than later because I felt responsible for what had happened. It wasn’t an accident, it wasn’t a shaky scaffold or a dropped hammer: this was violence, this was murder. I knew I couldn’t have predicted anything like that. But, somehow, it still felt like I should have, especially if it should have been me lying there.

  Jen and Tommy had been together since school, but only got married a few years ago when Chloe came along – oh God, that poor little love, what’s she going to do now? This situation’s getting worse and worse.

  And yes, Tommy the compulsive shagger was married. I don’t know what compelled him, maybe he saw it as a perk of the job like the way other blokes help themselves to a bag of nails from site. But yes, he was married, very happily too. And now I must face his widow, offer sympathies and then apologise for my failure to not foresee someone coming into my job and doing this.

  Disco ground out his cigarette with a twist of his toes, the uncomfortable silence resumed and hung for a few seconds until a tap on the window released us. Disco was being beckoned back inside for the next round.

  ‘You coming in?’ he asked. I shook my head, I wasn’t in the mood. ‘Okay, I’ll, err, I’ll see you around I guess.’

  ‘Got much on?’ I asked.

  ‘Boris’s got enough to keep me going for the rest of the week, weather permitting.’

  ‘Oh, right, ok, I’ve maybe got a couple of bits coming up I can do with a hand on, so I’ll give you a call next week, maybe.’

  ‘Righto,’ he replied, and with that, headed back inside the bar. As I unlocked my van, I looked back at the pub. It was a funny place. Like so many others in the area it had been refurbished and redecorated, made fancy and gastro to appeal to a ‘better clientele’. Instead, its secure car park at the back and a misjudged happy-hour promotion saw it become the epicentre for the local building industry: meetings were held there, deals were done there, jobs were awarded there, accounts were settled there, and I could see that today Tommy’s demise was being announced there. As I moved away, I saw a toast being led by Disco.

  ‘Good luck Tommy,’ I whispered, and pulled out into the traffic heading towards home.

  As I waited for the lights to change at the corner my phone rang. In bold capitals a name that I’d hoped had forgotten mine leapt from the screen. Hamlet. Shit, that’s all I need. I pressed the Accept button – no one, I repeat no one, ever sends Hamlet to voicemail.

  ‘Hello,’ I called out, in my most jovial of tones, ‘long time no speak, how are you?’

  ‘I want to see you,’ came the reply.

  ‘Well, I’m... in the middle of something, tricky job, need to get it finished before the—’

  He cut me short with an angry ‘Bollocks! You’ve just been in the Golden Lamb!’

  Great – he knows where I am. There’s no point trying to second-guess who told him – to say he’s got people in his pocket would be an understatement, they reckon there’s so many you could make a pretty decent five-a-side league. And he knew I’d lied to him. I didn’t have a good feeling about this.

  ‘However,’ he said, with the benevolence of a shark scenting blood, granting me a favour I neither asked for nor wanted, ‘as you are no doubt extremely busy this afternoon, I will see you tomorrow. My office. Ten a.m. Don’t be late.’

  4

  The local evening news had just started when I swung the van into my little cul-de-sac. Tommy was the top headline, I didn’t want to listen and switched the radio off, coasting the final few hundred metres in silence. It had just turned six, but it was already cold and dark and, given the day I’d had, felt claustrophobic in the way it smothered me. I couldn’t be bothered decanting my tools from the van to the safekeeping of the adjacent lock-up garage. I wanted to be indoors. I backed up tight to the wall, if anyone was determined enough to rob the van, they were welcome to whatever they found, most of my stuff was still sealed off at the crime scene. I headed towards the house, and then finally, at last ...

  Home! Just like the sudden escape of warm air from inside, relief washed over me as I opened the door. Other than my parents’, this is the only home I’ve ever had, the first person in my family to buy their own house. Starter homes they called them when they were built in the 80s. I say built, more like mass-produced; huge estates of them popped up all over the place – remember Mickey Mouse with all the brooms? Imagine it had been the Town Planner that’d taken him on as an apprentice instead - pop pop pop, street after street, all the same.

  They were built with young couples in mind, just starting out on the property ladder or maybe retired people downsizing, and when I moved in, it was a nice community of folk all swimming in the same direction. But in recent years the Buy-To-Let mob outbid the newlyweds and up went the rental boards. Now no-one stays more than a year, no-one knows their neighbours and no-one cares. A new tenant had moved in next door to me this week. I’d been kicking cardboard boxes back onto their side of the path for days but still not seen them yet, probably never would. I don’t remember ever seeing the last lot either. Sad really.

  Mine’s the left-hand end of terrace, built in a yellow sand faced brick bought when I was nineteen with my then girlfriend who, I’m happy to say, three years later gave me the enormous pleasure of becoming my ex-wife.

  Small and plain – the house I mean, obviously – two bedrooms upstairs, small kitchen and living room downstairs, plenty big enough for just me. Plus, more importantly, almost paid off. I’d had a few good years, some nice contracts, and many more not so nice ones involving a lot of unsocial hours far from home, grafting through the night and sleeping in the van. Back-breaking, ball-aching work scurrying like vermin through dark confined ceiling voids, working in the tightest spaces to even tighter deadlines, ploughing on whilst the skin on your knuckles gets flayed off at every turn by hidden sharp edges, being unable to stand straight without it hurting for a week. Lots and lots of head-down, arse-up, nose flat against the grindstone hard work. But in three years I’m clear, a decade early on the repayment period. To be able to pick and choose my work would be a nice position to be in, and that’s my big ambition – at least, it was. The house was all I had left, everything else had gone to keep me afloat. The prospect of losing it now just didn’t bear thinking about.

  The comfort in taking my boots off was immediate and welcome, it meant I could relax – if ‘relax’ is the right word. ‘Process’, I think that’s perhaps the better word – I could at last process the events of the day without a sense of responsibilit
y for everybody else. I could take my time to understand what had happened and how it had affected me.

  Fifteen minutes in the shower cleared my head as it cleaned my skin, washing away all the crap and bad news that had piled up on top of me in the hours prior. Being alone with space to think, it suddenly struck me, and struck me hard, that I would miss Tommy greatly. I turned to face the showerhead above me and let the spray wash away my tears.

  An hour or so later, cleaned, fed and watered, with no appetite for watching television and the chance of sleep feeling more and more remote, I found myself reflecting on the day I’d had. I needed to find a solution, I needed it fast. But the more I thought the more I went round and round in circles.

  I returned from the kitchen clutching an ‘I love Belgrade’ mug, bugger only knows whose it was and how it had found its way into my house, but it was clean, unchipped and didn’t leak so the whys and wherefores weren’t important. I didn’t particularly want a drink, I simply hoped ten minutes of something mindless and mechanical like putting the kettle on would give me enough distance and space to make the grief-induced insomnia go away. No such luck.

  On my coffee table, in my lounge, in my best handwriting, was a list of everything I could sell, and believe me, I mean everything. But even if I managed to get top dollar for all of it, it still wouldn’t be enough to pay off Blunt alone, never mind the rest of them.

  One thing was certain, I needed cash, and needed it fast. In the past I’d been around huge piles of it, table tops carpeted in the stuff: ‘You haven’t seen anything, you don’t look, you don’t touch, do what you’re here for, do as you’re told and then get out, you have never been here.’ But that was another lifetime ago, that door was closed and I’d promised myself I would never step back through it. But I began to wonder whether I had any other choice. No, I knew what I had to do, where I had to go... and I already regretted it.

  5

  Hey… It’s me… you there? Can you hear me? Yes? No? Whatever, I’m just going to carry on, so listen.

  I don’t know what I’m doing any more. I thought I’d got my head straight, but quick as a flash it flips again. I don’t know my own mind anymore. That scares me.

  But I can’t be scared, that’s not me, I’m Marky Mark... everyone’s friend, always bouncing, always moving, give them a smile, crack a joke, another pint mate, keep the change darling, that’s me, Marky Mark. I don’t let anything get me down, because I know as soon you give in to the piss-takers they’ve won. I’m Marky Mark, cause no offence, take none either, just keep bobbing along, everybody’s happy, and if you keep on bouncing, they can’t hit a moving target.

  But they did. And that wasn’t meant to happen. That was never meant to happen.

  You’ve heard about Tommy? You must’ve. Poor, dopey, silly bollocks Tommy, Casanova in vinyl matt. It’s my fault, I mean, whichever way I look at it, it’s down to me. Again, someone I care about. Again I’m powerless. Now he’s dead.

  Chapman, he caused this. If he hadn’t disappeared with the money he owed, I could have paid everyone out, happy days all round. But no, he thinks he’s clever, he thinks he’s smart, he thinks he can tuck me up and knock me my money. Now I’ve got Blunt and all the rest after me, getting restless, getting angry... and rightly so. I’m angry, I’m furious. Worth killing for? This morning I’d have said no, but after seeing Tommy, now I’m not so sure. And why Tommy? Supposed to be me? It was my job, he was wearing my colours, from behind, heat of the moment, it’s possible they thought it was me. Or was it always meant to be him, as a message to me? It’s got my attention that’s for sure. I need my money and I need it fast, no-one else is going to suffer because Chapman robbed me.

  And now Hamlet’s summoned me in, as if things weren’t bad enough. I know, I promised – walk away, never go back, especially with what happened to... well, you know... but what can I do? The only good I can see coming from this is if anyone can get me retribution for Chapman – because I swear he’s the root cause of all of this – it’s Hamlet. If getting pulled back in to Hamlet’s orbit gets me my money, and gets Chapman his comeuppance, then it’s worth it, right?

  No, it’s not, I knew that’s what you’d say, I knew it. Why aren’t you here? Why aren’t you here to talk me out of this, Dad? Can’t you tell me it’ll all be alright?

  6

  Six am, woken by my own snore, I snapped awake. Through the open window I could see the street outside was quiet and still, not even the tail lights of a station-bound early starter. At some point, I must have fallen asleep in the chair. Belgrade was at high tide, the tea untouched and spoiled beside my scribbled list of everything I owned, valuing my worth – adding up to not good enough.

  By the time I’d dressed, the day was awake and the street had come to life. The schoolchildren were making noisy nuisances of themselves. ‘I love Belgrade’ had been refilled, and as I sipped, I spotted Mr Skinner watching the kids from the opposite side of the road with suspicion. I raised him my mug in greeting, but he blanked me and walked away.

  My phone began to ring. ‘Number withheld’. No, I don’t think so. I ignored it and waited for the ringing to stop while watching Mr Skinner shoo a couple of fat magpies off the lawn. A chime told me a voicemail message was waiting, I listened, it was Senia: ‘It would be greatly appreciated if you could come into the station to assist us with a few questions please.’ He was polite, I’ll give him that, but he’d have to wait. I had a meeting with Hamlet at ten, and I must not be late.

  When the rumour went round that Ian Hamlet was opening a new club someone joked he should call it Elsinore, but no-one got it. In the end, he chose the rather mundane ‘Town And Country Club.’ Just before ten I’d pulled up outside it.

  Located midway between Chatham and Rochester, it was a basement bar beneath a once-grand Georgian townhouse that had long since been carved up into units and then carved up once again into even smaller units, and then carved up yet again. He’s not getting any younger so I suspect he bought the property for its opportunities above ground: far easier money as a slumlord packing it full to bursting with vulnerable migrants than dealing with drunk punters every night. But then on the other hand, does his vanity still thrive on the local celebrity of being a club owner, who knows?

  There’d been a club here for as long as I can remember, in every incarnation you can think of – live music, live comedy, strippers, gay, goth, gay goth, you name it, they’ve tried it but nothing had ever stayed very long. Hamlet had relaunched it as an upmarket cocktail club and, for now at least, it was proving popular with young orange women and bushy-bearded tattooed hipsters.

  Two boneheads were unloading a lorry parked in front of me. They stacked crates at the top of the stone steps leading down into the club. The square-headed ginger one in the gold Brazil football shirt had the shape of someone who had spent too much time in the gym out of conceit rather than fitness: big chest, big arms, skinny chicken legs. His mate wore a t-shirt with a Dunlop logo, he didn’t look like a gym-goer, but instead had that sinewy, long-limbed, lean physique of a greyhound. Both looked as though they didn’t trouble themselves with too much thinking.

  Seeing me approach the entrance they together blocked my way. I knew exactly what they were, by day they hump crates, and by night they’re club security: nothing more than Hamlet’s dumb muscle. They’re there for the heavy lifting, the fetching and carrying, they’ll guard closed doors but won’t know what’s behind them: a disposable human shield to protect the girls, the drugs and the cash, and they don’t even have the brains to realise it.

  ‘Club’s closed,’ said Brazil, to which I replied, ‘I’m expected. Tell him Mark Poynter’s here.’ Brazil gave a nod to Dunlop who scurried down through the doors and then re-emerged thirty seconds later with a thumbs-up. Brazil stepped aside to let me pass. I entered the club leaving them to their crates.

  Inside I found Hamlet sitting at a tall circular cocktail table, a newspaper laid out in front of him, coffee mug i
n hand. What a piece of work is this man? He looked ridiculous. Every strand of hair was jet black and styled like a teen popstar. His T-shirt and jeans were young, trendy kids’ brands with Japanese symbols all over them. His forehead had that fresh Botox sheen. Perhaps in the artificial twilight of a busy nightclub he can get away with it, but under the harsh glare of daytime he looked every day of his fifty-five years and nothing could mask that.

  ‘Marky Mark,’ he said, beckoning me towards him. I knew what he was going to say next and I really didn’t want to hear it. ‘Marky the Sparky.’ There it was, the rhyming couplet, the bastard.

  ‘Marky Mark,’ said Hamlet, roaring with laughter. ‘It’s good to see you again, man. How are you? Haven’t seen you since, what, my Christmas party?’

  Of course, it suddenly came back to me, Hamlet’s Christmas party. I say party, more like conscription – you get an invite, you will attend. This place had been packed with two hundred of his most intimate friends and acquaintances – including that uniformed policeman with his insulting questions and footballer swagger from the Wilkes’s kitchen – that’s where I’d seen him before, that’s who must have tipped him off, he was one of Hamlet’s men.

  ‘No, I guess it must have been Christmas,’ I said. ‘How’ve you been?’

  ‘As merry as the day is long. That’s me. Tip-top, as if you care. How come we don’t see you around anymore Marky Mark? I thought we were friends, but then you just disappeared. Anyone would think you were trying to avoid me. I mean, you come to my party, first time we’ve clapped eyes on you since God knows when, but even then, it was blink and you’re gone, don’t think we didn’t notice.’

  ‘Sorry, things have been busy, no offence meant,’ I said, but he was right, I’d wanted distance. The problem is you never get away in the end, as today was proving.