Death of a Painter Read online

  ‘Nice to see you again boys,’ said Disco, stepping forwards to shake their hands. The Ronnies moved in towards Disco, one stepped aside, then one walked towards the building and the other followed, one went one way, the other went the other, one stepped forwards, one stepped backwards. My mouth puckered up in frustration, all their moving about, it was giving me the hump – now they were all jumbled up and I had no idea who was who.

  ‘We priced this job a little while ago,’ said One Ronnie. ‘Obviously didn’t get it though, surveyor said we were too expensive.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about that,’ I said. ‘All I do know is Tommy won it and for obvious reasons he can’t do it. So, do you want it?’

  ‘Why don’t you go back to the surveyor, tell him about Tommy and tell him to re-tender it?’ the Other Ronnie asked.

  ‘Two reasons: one, if all the other prices were already too high, he’d probably just shelve it and then nobody gets any work. And two, I want to do it for his wife and kiddie.’

  The breakdown to Tommy’s quote had built in a tidy little profit and as it was only a straightforward redecoration, it wouldn’t take much to manage it, especially with an experienced crew like the Two Ronnies on board, and then the profit could go to Jen to help her out.

  I explained all this to the Two Ronnies. No benefit in trying to deceive them, and thinking I’d be best off trying to appeal to their consciences, I laid on the bit about trying to help the poor widow and child as thick as I could before it began to sound like a Catherine Cookson. They didn’t walk away, so I guess it worked.

  ‘Look, I’m being honest with you, here’s Tommy’s breakdown, so let’s take off the profit and set that aside for his family, and here,’ I said jabbing a finger at a figure on the page in front of us, ‘here’s what he’s got in for the job. I’m earning nothing from it, you take all of it and make what you can.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said One Ronnie to another. ‘What do you reckon?’

  ‘We’ve already priced this and were too dear. We couldn’t match his price then, but now you want us to come down to his price and then down by another twenty per cent on top of that. I don’t think we can.’

  ‘Maybe you could think about using cheaper materials?’

  ‘Look at his rates, how’d he expect to do it for that? What was he painting it with, a fucking magic wand?’

  Disco chipped in, pointing to their shiny new van, telling them they could afford to do the right thing occasionally. I noticed one of them bristle, but Disco ploughed on regardless, getting right under their skin.

  ‘We’re all the same, all we want is to work safely,’ he reminded them. ‘It could just as easily be one of you that didn’t make it home one day and God forbid if that happened, you’d hope your mates would rally round to help your loved ones left behind.’ God, he was good, I could almost feel myself welling up.

  ‘I suppose we could try to make a bit of extra margin on the subbies,’ said a Ronnie.

  ‘I guess so,’ said the second Ronnie. ‘We could get Cookie to do the scaffold, he’s been complaining he needs more work.’

  I felt a sudden lurch roll in my stomach at the mention of the name, making me slightly lightheaded, slightly sick. ‘No. No Cookie. Promise me. No Cookie on this job.’

  The Two Ronnies looked at me like I’d soiled myself, but nonetheless murmured their agreement.

  ‘Look, we’ll talk about it, and we’ll call you later, is that okay?’ suggested a Ronnie. I gave my agreement, we all shook hands and headed back to our respective vehicles.

  As we rolled away from the kerb Disco turned to me, ‘What was all that about Cookie? Why are you so against him?’

  ‘Hmm… let me see.’ I tapped a mock thoughtful finger against my cheek. ‘How about the fact that he’s uncontrollable? He’ll never turn up when you need him, he comes and goes when he feels like it.’ Disco nodded as though he was mentally weighing up my words. ‘And how about that all his gear’s stolen off everybody else’s sites?’

  ‘Careful. You can’t prove that.’

  ‘Apart from the fact that it’s all painted different colours, branded and labelled with everyone else’s name on it.’

  ‘Fair point, I stand corrected.’

  ‘And how about the fact he’s a violent, racist, Nazi arsehole?’

  ‘Not any more, he’s not. He’s changed.’

  ‘Just because he’s covered over the tattoos doesn’t mean anything.’

  ‘Maybe, still seems a bit of an overreaction though.’ Disco gazed out the window. I could almost see the gears turning over, until… ‘You owe him money!’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said, snapping more anger into my reply than I intended and at once felt guilty when the embarrassment burned on Disco’s face. But he was right, I did, I owed a small fortune to the very cheap and extremely nasty Cookie, so the longer I stayed out of Cookie’s way the longer I stayed out of hospital.

  We travelled in silence to our next destination. A large modern, low-level, red-bricked complex with charcoal concrete roof tiles creating wide overhanging eaves across the paved walkways around it. Lots of windows and doors gave the place an open and airy appearance, and it looked nice sat amongst mature gardens laid mostly to lawn. At crawling pace, I rolled Tommy’s van along the service road, coming to a halt in the far corner of the car park, stopping beside a steel ship’s container. A fresh coat of deep forest green paint and a chunky padlock gave it the look of a semi-permanent fixture.

  The stern heavyset woman behind the reception counter looked at us with utter contempt as we entered. I suppose we looked a sight, me red-eyed from grief and two hours sleep and Disco, well, Disco was Disco.

  I asked for the manager and was told – in quite an unnecessarily haughty manner I might add – ‘Ms Fuller has just gone out for lunch,’ and that we’d have to come back later. I asked if we could have a walk around the home, but that was rejected without the merest hesitation, it was clear she didn’t want a couple of scruffs spoiling her well-ordered fiefdom. Despite my protestations and waving the Quentin purchase orders at her, she stood her ground and like an Alsatian in a polyester blouse, refused to let us in.

  Realising we were on to a loser, Disco and I headed back out to the van. I apologised to him which prompted a further torrent of fruity swearing. Just then I saw a face, vaguely familiar, aged and weathered in the maybe fifteen years since I’d last seen it and, even then, I wasn’t convinced until…

  ‘Hello Mark, you alright?’, Rob Beach, now there’s someone from a very long time ago. He was a little heavier, a little grey at the temples but, on the whole, he looked much the same. Beside him stood a young boy in a Spiderman T-shirt, four maybe five, and the resemblance was very strong. It seemed Beach had settled down and become domesticated in recent years, the gold band on his finger adding to that assumption. We tried to exchange pleasantries, the smallest of small talk, but I found it difficult to establish common ground with someone that I barely knew years ago. I think he was in the same position until he surprised me with, ‘I heard about your brother.’

  ‘Heard what?’

  ‘Well… you know…?’ An awkward lull fell across our stilted conversation, and to escape from it he did that thing parents do when they start talking through their children: ‘Got to go, we’re meeting Mummy, aren’t we Joe? She works here.’

  ‘I didn’t think she was one of the inmates,’ piped up Disco. Using that as our opportunity to leave, I bid Beach all the best, and pushed Disco, who was giggling at his own grab-a-granny jokes, in the general direction of the van.

  ‘Who was that?’ he asked.

  I looked back to make sure we were out of earshot, watching as the little boy in his Spiderman shirt ran up to a gaggle of ladies in their corporate navy-blue uniforms, the subject of much fuss and affection from all of them.

  ‘Nobody. Forget about him,’ I said, but Disco didn’t want to let it lie.

  ‘He’s a dick,’ I s
aid. ‘No friend of mine, he just used to be around, on the fringes, in the same places as me. Way back when, end of the Nineties, back when everyone went clubbing. Rumour was he was a dealer, Es and Whizz, not my thing at all, so I can’t say whether he was or not for sure, but he’d always be hanging about at all the clubs and parties. So, I sort of got to know him as a mutual friend of mutual acquaintance sort of thing.’

  ‘Seems like he knows about your brother,’ said Disco.

  ‘Everybody says they know about my brother,’ I replied. ‘Trouble is nobody knows anything about my brother.’

  ‘Well, on the bright side, he looks like he’s all settled down and loved up now,’ said Disco.

  ‘Yes, that struck me as odd as well,’ I said.

  ‘I guess age calmed him down. Maybe he’s grown up and matured,’ said Disco. ‘And speaking of getting old…’

  From across the car park we could see that the container doors had been opened wide, and propped up for all the world to see was a sign-written board with the words ‘JP Overy, Building Contractor’. Old John. So he was still about. And then as we got closer, there was the man himself, sitting in front of it on a plastic folding chair, munching away on a sandwich and he’d seen us: ‘Hello chaps, what brings you here?’

  They call him Old John because he’s very very old – that, and his name’s John – not all nicknames need to be clever. I don’t know how old he actually is, but they do say he started out as Brunel’s apprentice.

  Old John looked up at us from his seated position. His face is perfectly round like an apple, his cheeks are round and rosy, his glasses are round and his mouth is small and upturned. He looks like a cartoon caterpillar, so you’d expect him to be kind and avuncular, wouldn’t you? Wrong! You have never met a more prissy and pissy man than Old John. There’s being precise, and then there’s being a pain in the arse. And then there’s Old John. He was everything I hate about the building trade, never a good word to say about anyone, always picking faults in other people’s work. I’d only ever worked for him once but vowed never again.

  And he’s so slow, it takes him so long to finish anything. And that’s not just because of his age either, there’s a lot of chin stroking on Old John’s jobs – twists a screw half a turn, steps back and strokes his chin, fixes a handle, steps back and stroke his chin. Blokes like this drive me mad. If you’re working on a price you want a nice clear run at the job to get it all hit in one go, you can’t make any money if you’re always stopping and starting waiting for someone else to finish ahead of you, or even worse, being forced to do things out of sequence to try to work around them.

  Old John rose to his feet, brushing the crumbs from his lap, and adjusted his spotless white polo shirt, buttoned at the collar and neat ironing creases on the sleeves – like I say, prissy. ‘Welcome to my office, lads,’ he said, waving a grand sweep towards the container. ‘So, what are you after?’

  ‘Disco’s looking for a girlfriend, he likes the older woman,’ I said and, getting no reaction from anyone I continued, ‘Actually we were hoping to see the manager but she’s not about.’

  ‘Kate Fuller? I’ve just seen her go,’ he said pointing vaguely towards the main gates. ‘What do you want with her?’

  ‘Not a lot, we’ve got some work to do for her, that’s all,’ I said, and as I spoke Old John’s demeanour changed, he stood up straight, fists clenched, feet firmly planted shoulder width apart.

  ‘Work? What do you mean work? What sort of work?’ I raised the Quentin purchase orders to show him the list of general maintenance items to get on with but, startling me, he slapped the papers out of my hand.

  ‘I do all the work here. This is my patch, my client. I’ve worked for it, bloody hard too.’ Disco was scrabbling about on the ground trying to gather up the papers before they were taken on the breeze. Old John continued his tirade.

  I asked him to calm down but it was pointless, he was livid. I tried telling him we were finishing off Tommy’s jobs, but I don’t think he understood what I was saying.

  ‘Him? That randy little git. No way. He’s not coming here. I don’t want him here. I’m not having him on my job, he’s not coming here!’

  The more I tried to explain, the angrier he got. I felt a gentle tug on my elbow and I let Disco guide me to the van.

  At walking pace, the van rolled us back up through the grounds towards the main road. By now the car park had cleared out a bit and cars stood isolated amongst the empty bays and as we trundled past a silver Mondeo parked under the shady canopy of a large ash tree I noticed the driver appeared to be in the middle of a heated debate on his phone; the faint chimes of recognition jingled somewhere in my head, but any attempt to flesh out the familiarity was soon forgotten when Disco blew out his cheeks in expressions of amazement at Old John’s outburst, ‘Help the aged, my arse!’

  I was laughing when the phone rang: Senia requesting to see me again, I couldn’t put it off any longer so agreed that I would be there shortly.

  13

  I’d promised Disco I’d buy him lunch, so we pulled into the McDonalds drive-thru on the way to the Police Station. Parked up and plucking through the paper bags on our laps I broached the question I’d been putting off all day,

  ‘I’ve been looking through Tommy’s stuff, but something doesn’t quite add up, there’s a few queries.’ About a hundred and fifty thousand queries I thought. ‘Do you know who he’d been working for recently? What he’d been doing?’

  ‘He did the disabled riding school with Pervy Ken.’

  ‘Yes, that one I know, but anything else? Off the books?’ I said. ‘You know what I mean?’

  ‘No, not really,’ replied Disco.

  I thought hard; to be honest, this way of trying to talk around the issue was beginning to annoy me. I wasn’t very good at it and it was giving me a headache.

  ‘Was there anything… low profile, high value?’ I said, wishing I hadn’t bothered starting this, my nuggets were getting cold.

  ‘Oh, you mean dodgy?’ At last that penny had dropped. ‘Why didn’t you just say that instead of tiptoeing all round the houses?’

  ‘Don’t know,’ I said, mid-mouthful of tepid chicken. ‘Well, was he?’

  ‘Yeah, course he was,’ said Disco, although he seemed more interested in prising the sliced gherkin from his burger. ‘I thought everyone knew that.’

  Ever had that sensation when the world moves in slow motion? Everything around me had ground to a halt – the lady with the pushchair crossing the road, the gaggle of schoolboy footballers heading towards their training pitches, the smoker sheltering from the wind – outside my body it all moved at a glacial speed, the tendril of cigarette smoke hung frozen in the sky, but inside my head I was reeling, struggling to understand.

  After what seemed like a lifetime and a half, my internal and external balance was restored, the schoolboys sauntered past, their boot studs rattling on the footpath like hailstones on glass, and I begged Disco to tell me more.

  According to Disco, ‘everyone’ meant his network of gossips at the Golden Lamb, and ‘knew’ amounted to not much more than suspicion and rumour. Apparently Little Nicky, who has been Tommy’s number one man for as long as anyone can remember, had been complaining whilst partaking in his Friday inebriation. Disco said he’d been moaning that Tommy had picked up a lot of night work at fantastic money, but Nicky wasn’t getting a sniff anywhere close to it, despite being with him for years, scratching by on crappy low prices. When Disco and his chattering circle told him to take it up with Tommy, he said that he already had and was told he wasn’t right for the job. Nicky said that was bullshit, he’d got all the current certificates and clearances for railways, schools and even prisons but was told no, he doesn’t want to get him involved with this work.

  That immediately led Disco and pals to define that as dodgy, a three wise monkeys job: see nothing, hear nothing, say nothing. Sounds plausible, I suppose, and I admit I’d not seen Nicky around for a while,
not that I’d go out of my way to look him up as he was a whingey little bitch. He might do a nice job but he’d do my head in if I had to listen to him all day. I don’t know how Tommy put up with it to be honest.

  ‘Do you reckon you could find out what he was up to? Discreetly, mind.’

  ‘Of course I can, why?’ he said, between chews of his burger.

  ‘I’m wondering whether it might be what got him killed?’

  I’d never given anyone the Heimlich manoeuvre before.

  That’s not true, sorry. It just makes a better story than what really happened.

  Disco did say, ‘Yeah, course he was. I thought everyone knew that,’ and my world did go into a temporary freefall – that bit’s true. And Disco told me about Tommy and the cash, that bit’s also true. But Disco didn’t choke and I didn’t do anything heroic.

  Instead Disco started singing along to an old Blondie song that had come on the radio, while I shrunk inwards with embarrassment and questioned how I could have been so stupid. I felt ashamed, and I think also a bit cheated. Everyone knew that, everyone, except me. Why? Did I even know him, properly?

  I suppose it was natural we became friends; we often worked together on the same sort of projects and knew many of the same people. We made each other laugh, we both liked a drink and we’d hang out after work, some weekends, sometimes when there was a significant other to invite we’d do things as couples like fancy meals out. But what does that amount to though?

  Should I have known what he was up to every minute of every day? Known how he earned and spent every penny?

  I began to realise our friendship was based in the present – going to work, going for a drink – we’re there, we’re together, we’re enjoying the time as it’s occurring. But with Tommy, like with all my other friends, it never went too far below the surface, only discovering things about each other if it had an impact on the present.