FOUR
JAKE
When Tony Matteo tells you to do something, only a fool would refuse. He told me to go see Jonathan Fleming so I went. That's how I ended up walking up the steps into the house of a man I'd never met before. That's how all of this began.
I was in the middle of a job when he called. He never called in the middle of a job. That was how I knew it was serious. The job was a simple collection and I was almost done. A restaurant owed Tony money and it was my job to get it from them.
"They've been holding out on me," he said in the thickest Sicilian accent he could manage. Matteo was a dangerous man but the nearest he'd been to Sicily was watching the Godfather films. He'd never left England, yet to hear him speak, you'd think he'd only just arrived here. You'd never catch me telling him his accent was stupid though, I liked my fingers attached to my hands. "I've given them long enough, Jake. Go get my money."
I nodded. "Consider it done."
The restaurant was owned by a slimy little guy called Alberto. Every week he had a different excuse for why he hadn't paid his cut. If he'd been on my patch, the problem wouldn't have happened but this is the thing about being only one man, you can't be everywhere at once. The others are nowhere near as persuasive as me, they needed to up their game, I couldn't clean up everyone's mess, there weren't enough hours in the day.
I drove through the city and stopped across the street from the place. The sign was missing a letter. ‘Al-erto's,' it read. It wouldn't have surprised me if his excuse was he was saving up for a new letter for the sign. I sat for a moment and watched, casing the street just to be sure. Better to be cautious than dead.
The street was quiet enough. It was half past three, the lunch time crowd had gone and dinner wouldn't pick up for a few hours, the perfect time to pay a visit to a restaurant.
I crossed the road and weaved between the outdoor tables, pushing the door open before pausing, scanning the interior in under a second. A couple on the table near the bar, a middle-aged guy on his own to my left, a group of three by the window. Waiter by the kitchen door, another walking my way. No sign of Alberto.
"Can I help you, Sir?" the waiter asked, stopping in front of me. "Table for one?"
"You're new here, right?"
"I am, Sir. Just started today. Are you a regular?"
"Where's Alberto?"
"He went out, Sir."
"I'll wait."
"Excuse me?"
I leant towards him, just far enough to fix him in my hardest stare. "I said I'll wait."
He crumbled at once, blinking and swallowing at the same time, taking a step backwards before stuttering, "Of course, Sir."
I walked round him, taking the table furthest from the door. The sound of conversation faded away as I waited. He'd be back eventually and there was no way I was returning to Matteo without the money.
I was sat there for an hour. Every now and then the waiter would look across at me, as if he was thinking about coming over and asking me to leave. Then he'd think better of it and continue on his way. The middle aged guy left, followed by the trio. There was only the couple and me. When the door swung open and Alberto walked in, I waited, observing in silence as he struggled with too many carrier bags in his arms. He passed through to the kitchen without stopping.
Before the door had swung closed, I was across the restaurant and through, watching the colour drain from his face when he saw me.
"Mr Murdoch," he said, his voice quiet. "What are you doing here?"
"It's been a long time, Alberto," I replied.
My phone rang a second later. I held up a finger to silence him before answering.
"Where are you?" Matteo asked from the other end of the line.
"Alberto's."
"Get over to the Fleming place when you're done. He needs you to do something for him."
He hung up before I could reply, leaving me wondering what the hell was so urgent as to need to interrupt me at work.
Alberto was still staring at me, pressing himself against the counter top behind him. "What do you want from me?" He sounded scared. He looked as if he thought I hadn't seen him pick the knife up and hold it behind his back while I was on the phone.
"You know exactly what I want."
"I … I haven't got it. Things have been running a little slow recently."
"No excuses, Alberto. I leave here in two minutes either with the money or with your thumbs in a bag. What's it to be?"
He swung the knife towards me so slow it was laughable. I caught his arm and twisted it back towards him, not far enough to break it but close. He dropped the knife with a squawk as I pushed him down to his knees.
"That was stupid, wasn't it?" I said, bending his arm a little further. "How much cooking can you do with a broken arm, Alberto?"
I was in the car with the money in a paper bag exactly three minutes later. That's the problem with all the newcomers to this business, they listen to any old excuse, they let people get away with anything. Let them walk all over you and they'll do that forever. You just need to be firm with people. Don't take shit from anyone.
Normally, I'd head back to Matteo after a job like this, but not this time. This time I swung onto the road and headed out of town, the phone call had changed my plans.
I didn't know a huge amount about Jonathan Fleming. I knew he was a lawyer, who didn't? I knew he'd done some work for the Matteo family in the past, though what work that was, I had no idea. Legal stuff didn't interest me, that was for far bigger crooks than me.
The Fleming house was so famous even I'd heard of it, one of the biggest estates in the county. There was no mistaking it as I approached, the huge wrought iron gates painted blue and green, the rolling lawns beyond, the massive house on top of the hill overlooking the surrounding landscape.
I'd not been inside before and I had no idea what was waiting for me when I got there. I could only guess that Matteo owed him a favour and that's why I was waiting for the intercom to respond to me, my engine grumbling at being forced to stand still for so long.
"Yes," a voice snapped from the tinny speaker at last.
"Mr Matteo sent me."
There was no reply but a second later the gates swung open and I drove slowly up the drive towards the house. I wouldn't say my heart raced, it never did. But I did feel a slight feathery tension, the same thing I felt before every big job. I got the feeling someone needed taking care of and I was going to have to do it. Turned out, I was right, someone did need taking care of, just not in the way I'd imagined.
FIVE
JAKE
The front door opened as I approached it and I was greeted by a balding man in his fifties. The cut of his suit and the haughty manner with which he held the door told me I was facing the man of the house. His arrogance was belied by anxiety though, an anxiety that showed itself in the way his eyes fixed on mine like a drowning man stares at a life ring. What was wrong with him?
"You've got to help me," he said, grabbing my arm and tugging me into the house. "Please, tell me you can help me."
"All right," I replied, yanking my arm loose and passing into the hallway. "Just calm down."
"Calm down, he says," he replied, breaking into a nervous laugh. "Tony Matteo is going to kill me and he says calm down. That's funny."
Tony was going to kill him? What had he done? Tony never killed anyone himself. I frowned. "Talk."
"Talk, right, right. Sorry. God, where do I begin?"
"At the beginning is usually best."
"We haven't got time for that, she could be anywhere by now."
I'd run out of patience. I grabbed him by the shoulders and dragged him through the nearest doorway. I found a chair and shoved him down into it. Scraping another chair across the varnished wood, I sat opposite him and folded my arms. "Talk."
"You've got to help me. My daughter's gone missing."
"And what's that got to do with me?"
"She's supposed to be marrying Kingsley Matteo."
"I see." Now it made sense. Kingsley was Tony's only son. So that was why Matteo had rung me. He'd set Kingsley up with Fleming's daughter and she'd taken the eminently sensible step of running away. But why choose me? I didn't find people. I disappeared people.
"When you say gone missing, do you mean someone's taken her?"
"I don't know," he said, a flash of anger mixed in with the sorrow in his voice. "All I know is that she's gone. She's not answering her phone, there's no one at her place. She's just gone."
I took a deep breath before answering. This wasn't me, this wasn't my job. But for whatever reason, Matteo had chosen me to track her down. What choice did I have? If I turned the job down, it'd be me who'd be disappearing. Permanently.
"Will you help me?" he asked, leaning forwards in his chair.