Aloysius Tempo Read online

‘Now Rick is a bit of a headstrong businessman, knows his own mind sort of man, and is happy when he finds this ad deep down and tucked away there on the old deep, dark net, y’know, deep in the hard-to-track corners of the Web, y’know? He finds this ad and he has a wee anonymous email exchange with a bloke, you know? And he has a chat with this bloke. It was an ad for what they call ‘Military Services’, Aloysius. You know what I mean? It was an ad that said the person could ‘hard solve’ your problems. It’s not the sort of thing you would be looking for if you wanted to put someone in a bad mood, or wind them up or ruin their day, y’know? It’s more heavy duty than that, a bit more of a fuller job than that.’

  Martin sits back, takes another deep pull on his pint, sits forward.

  ‘So anyway,’ he says, smacking his lips unhappily, looking to his iPhone, ‘here’s a nice picture of Kris before he starting fucking around with Maya’s life.’

  Kris, shaggy-haired, trendy, good-looking, a white funnel neck sweater, a goatee beard, is on a Dutch street, is laughing.

  Martin points at the image, just so I’m totally sure who he’s talking about.

  ‘It’s Kris, okay?’

  And I nod.

  ‘And,’ he says, ‘this is what happened to Kris.’

  The side of a neck, a thin rope pulled tight, a deep furrow into his skin cutting off blood and oxygen to the head.

  Says Martin, matter-of-factly, swiping, ‘And then this.’

  Kris’s face, tensed, as the rope bites harder, shutting down his life.

  ‘This.’

  More shots of the neck, shrunken yet more by the rope, the face flushed with the effort of fighting the unstoppable.

  The strain, the bulging, staring eyes.

  Then fingers trying to dig their way under it, scrambling to pull it away.

  I don’t want to see this.

  ‘Horrible,’ I say.

  ‘Yes, awful,’ says Martin. ‘What a way to go, eh?’

  He swipes again, this time to a video, and lets the film roll.

  And I can hear it now, the gasp as the rope tightens, the raspy effort to suck in or blow out air, the oily, wet cry for help spilling from the closing tubes of Kris’s throat.

  The wider picture now, the hoisted Kris trying to loosen the noose, his feet, toes pointed, trying to find the floor just inches below him. His jeans are down, his underwear, as he kicks, fights for his life, eyes wide and filled entirely with terror.

  The camera walks around him now as he struggles, a compilation of revenge porn footage and images rolling in a loop on an open laptop on the nearby desk.

  And the kicking tapering off now, the dying sighs of a man fading away as his life ends.

  ‘Now that’s revenge porn,’ says Martin, chuckling. ‘That’s pure fucking revenge if I ever saw it.’

  He shakes his head, stops the video, takes a drink.

  He goes, ‘Atrocious stout,’ wipes his mouth and looks me dead in the face.

  ‘And it was you, Aloysius,’ he says. ‘You hauled that lad up there with a rope, you played that film to him. It was you who recorded this, who made this wee snuff movie. It was you who killed him, Aloysius. It was you who waited for him to stop kicking, who lowered him back down, left him slumped on the ground and shoved a plastic cock up his hole just so the story was crystal clear. You killed him as hard and as bad as any man could kill another man for doing wrong. It was you.’

  I screw my face up. My eyes narrow. Lips curl. I’m almost smiling at what he just said. A kind of a shocked almost smile.

  And just so I’m hearing this right, I go, ‘Sorry, say that again?’

  He sits back, looks around, happy with his work. He puts the phone back into his pocket, takes a drink, knows I’m watching him intensely.

  He fixes me again, says, ‘The police found him a week later. They found a scene that asked no questions of them. They found a wanker who wanked himself to death, an auto-erotic asphyxiation hand shandy thingamajig, dildo and all, an open-and-shut case.’

  I nod and say, ‘You’ve lost me, Martin. Seriously, you’ve lost me.’

  ‘But I haven’t though, have I?’ he says. ‘You did that to Kris, and there’s no doubt about it. And the interesting thing I’m starting to establish here today is that you did this to him without even knowing who he was, without even knowing what he did wrong. How in the name of fuck, Aloysius, could a man be so hard to someone they don’t know? What kind of a man has a passion like that in him against a man he knows nothing about? You knew nothing about the revenge porn, did you? You knew nothing at all about Maya, about the young man you did that to, did you? I can see it in your face, Aloysius.

  ‘Sure that could have been the nicest lad in the world you were strangling there, couldn’t it? But you didn’t give a fuck. You ended his life and made his legacy nothing but a dirty, open secret. Is a few euro enough to make that all okay for you?’

  He looks over at the barmaid, ducks in closer to me now.

  ‘So tell me the truth,’ he says. ‘Tell me. I want to know. What in the world is it that you have inside you, Aloysius? What is it? Eh? What’s the hidden, dark, dark bit of your heart all about, eh?’

  I go, ‘Martin, this is ridiculous and offensive and … ’

  He says, ‘Where were you for all those years after you left Ireland? What was it you learned? What did they put in your head over there in Chechnya? What is it that you have been doing? How do you learn to do that sort of thing over and over again, and still live with yourself?’

  I go, ‘Okay Martin, stop there. Time out. That’s enough. You tell me what this is about or I’m walking away. Tell me because … You ask me to Dublin, you ask me to meet some nosy woman, you show me porn, someone’s murder, you … ’

  He goes, ‘You never asked me to pay your flight, Aloysius, did you? When I asked you to Dublin on the phone you never said, “Ah Martin, yes, you’re a great man, pay the plane and get me a nice hotel up by the park and I’ll be over to meet Imelda.” You just said to me, “No problem, Martin, I’ll come to your meeting in Dublin.” ’

  I go, ‘But you did pay for the flight and hotel.’

  He goes, ‘I offered to. But you were coming anyway. You were coming anyway because you have money, you have a few grand about you, don’t you?’

  I shake my head. ‘I’m skint.’

  ‘No,’ he goes. ‘You act skint. You have a good few grand tucked away from doing a good few jobs like this neck trick.’

  He lifts his pint as if to toast me, takes a drink.

  ‘Still fecking waters and all that,’ he says, winks, drinks.

  ‘Go fuck yourself,’ I say, and I have what will be my last drink with this man.

  ‘I’m not a policeman, Aloysius,’ he says, putting his glass down, smacking his lips again. ‘I’m nothing like that. I did thirty-five years in the fucking civil service and I hated it. I worked for minister after minister and every one of them was a fucking asshole, you know? Every one of them. And the fucking red tape – Jesus – it would eat you up, eat your soul and chew it up and spit it back at you, you know?’

  He rubs his head.

  ‘I don’t do any red tape now at all,’ he says. ‘I never write anything, sign anything – nothing like that. And I’ve never been happier. I just have this bit of a thing now where I help out Imelda with her business, just the odd job here and there, going to lunches and making the odd call. I love it. And I do what I can for her, you know? She’s a good woman, a great woman, and you could trust her with your life, so you could. Honest to Jesus, she’s as sound and solid a person as you could find, you know?

  ‘And I’m solid enough myself, Aloysius. I hope you can see that in me, that you can get that from me. I’m not a snoop or a spy or a liar or anything like that. I’m just a man doing a job he enjoys, and he enjoys it because it doesn’t chew on his soul, you know?’

  A pause.

  He goes, ‘Will you meet her again? Will you give it another go? If it doesn’t work o
ut, we’ll say no more. I’ll never contact you again. I promise. If it does, well, I don’t think you’ll regret it. That’s the honest truth – you won’t regret it.’

  I push my bottle towards him.

  ‘You have told me today, Martin, that you think I’m a murderer,’ I say.

  ‘I have,’ he says.

  ‘That you reckon I got money to do … that … to a man I knew nothing about.’

  ‘I have said that, yes.’

  ‘And of that you are, you’re saying, certain.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says, taking a drink, adding, ‘100-percent certain.’

  I go, ‘You’re insane. Goodbye Martin. Goodbye, good luck.’

  And I go, ‘And keep that promise. Never contact me again.’

  He shrugs, says, ‘Fair enough.’

  Chapter Nine

  Amsterdam

  The Netherlands

  August 2016

  PHONE ALARM.

  5:30 AM.

  I’m dressed, eating scrambled eggs, downing coffee, at 5:47 AM. I throw on a coat, set basic security traps, reach to the top of the flat’s front door as I’m going out. I’ve cut a deep, slim pocket into the wood and, with two fingers, I tug my work mobile out of its hiding place.

  I lock up, go quietly down the stairs, outside, plug my head into a black woolly hat and suck deep on the cold, dark, street air. I walk fast, head down, shoulders up, to Vondelpark.

  The sun starts soaking up the night as I get to the tree, as I stop and look up to Tall Marianne’s tenth-floor flat.

  There’s a red vase on the windowsill inside which says she has no reason to think there is a problem. I cross the road, look at the camera, get buzzed in, take the lift and knock the door.

  Tall Marianne answers, eyes half closed, topless, jogging bottoms below, thirty years, three thousand late nights. She has a skinhead, a healed knife wound on her fake right boob.

  The floor inside says she has been doing a jigsaw puzzle and drugs and reading about confidence. It says she has been drinking wine and tequila and rolling among all of that while holding someone close.

  I close the door and she opens her mouth, the SIM card pushed at me on her tongue. I take it, she goes back to her warm bed and she’ll be asleep in ten seconds.

  I’m fixing the card into the old phone and walking among the debris of her just-ended night, towards the window I looked up to. On the sill I see the red vase, a US passport, a wallet, some coins, some paper dumped and crunched from travel. Whoever the American might be, he or she has had, I don’t doubt, a brain-boiler of a sexual experience.

  I click the SIM card into place, look outside, down to my tree.

  Two men standing there.

  They’re looking at where I am.

  I freeze, take stock, commit them to memory, step back slowly.

  I say, ‘Fuck,’ and my heart makes itself known.

  Jeans, jackets, clean, white, sober, alert, late thirties.

  ‘Fuck.’

  They have no business being there at this time, looking like that, looking in the direction they are looking.

  I leave in silence, shun the lift and take the stairs, going up.

  It could be coincidence.

  On the next floor I look out again and they’re still there. They’re looking somewhere else, checking the sightlines.

  On the next floor, they’re gone.

  I reach the thirteenth landing and lean against a wall, stop moving. I listen.

  Listen.

  Listen hard.

  There’s nothing. No clunk of the lift, no shoes on stairs, no words bouncing up this concrete block from the ground, no swing or shut of a door anywhere in this little tower.

  I look out again, can’t see them anywhere.

  I count to twenty and again listen, listen, listen.

  I see nothing, hear nothing.

  I start walking down the stairs, becoming pugnacious, getting ready for hard and fast, ready for confrontation, filling with shove and luck, and my heart slips into its stride.

  At ground, I watch the glass external door, take stock of everyone and everything I can. Nothing here tells me anything is wrong.

  Four minutes later and a daybreak tram is coming, the whirr of it closing is the only sound. I exit the building. Two cars pass. I walk fifty feet, to where the tram is stopping. No one gets off. I get on, flash my card.

  Nine people, none of them interested in me, none of them at the back. I sit in the last seat and try to see the whole city around me, try to see men in jeans who may or may not be trying to destroy my life.

  Six stops and I exit, walking alongside Keizersgracht, self-briefed that my human engine is on some kind of starting block, some adrenal launch pad.

  Three Englishmen and four Englishwomen, early thirties, are walking and laughing, trailing luggage, heading home. I stroll a few paces behind them, switch my body language, match their happy gait.

  I slip on my glasses, pull out the phone, finally checking it. It tells me I have no emails, just one message from three days ago. I look around, 360 degrees, put it to my ear and, nice and clear, a woman says, ‘I would like to order the potatoes, the vegetables and the beef in Munich, please.’

  I press delete and pull away from the walkers, veer off to the left, towards the nearest canal side.

  My gut, the brain in my gut, has me raise the phone as if busy, so that it won’t look so wrong if I stop and turn, if I need to act crazy, to shout or run. I check behind again.

  They’re there, the two men, 220 feet distance, watching me, matching my gait, not too close, not too far from their target. This is no coincidence; this is a crisis.

  I walk backwards for a moment, pretend I’m talking, move a hand in demonstration, watch them watching me.

  I act more now, put an arm out, chat away, laugh loudly, rub my head, stop, lean against a wall. I spread out, chill out, become a guy who takes up too much space, the most relaxed person in the place, the alpha male, the too-confident guy you would look away from because you know he will not let you look for long.

  But they don’t look away.

  I lock eyes with one, some flat-nosed dildo with a donkey jacket, and I’m slipping the SIM card out, sliding it into the fold of my right palm, now taking a firm grip of the phone.

  The bigger guy, the bald one, is staring too. Whatever Flat Nose and Big Baldy are doing, they are going to do it very soon.

  ‘Fuck flight,’ I say to the phone, ‘fight.’

  And I welcome in the feeling bigger than fear, the feeling that covers and smothers fear. I feel the limitless entering my limbs and urging me forward now. I push off the wall, hard walk right at them.

  I go, ‘Looking for me?’

  The bald one holds his hands up, goes, ‘If you want to be found, we’ll find you.’

  English. Midlands.

  He’s the bigger one.

  And he’s the target.

  The smaller guy with the flat nose laughs, ‘Or we can not find you, whatever you want, mate. Up to you.’

  English. South coast.

  And my way of walking is making them uneasy. And the rhythm I am giving this situation is making them get ready for risk, making them brace for the throb of the fray.

  Big Baldy puts a hand on his chest, poised to go get something in that coat if he needs to. But only if he needs to.

  I put my arms up.

  ‘No,’ I go, ‘it’s fine, you can find me, lads. Here I am. Right here in front of you. Front and centre.’

  And they’re thinking fast, maybe getting confused, as I close in.

  I go, ‘Here I am you fucking cunts, moving into your point blank.’

  They part, splitting the target, nervous smiles, but they’re competent – they’ve done this before.

  I’m imminent now, still fast.

  Both are going to go for me, but I’ve got pace and, as a matter of fact, I’m strong as fuck.

  They’re looking at the legs.

  I slam the end
corner of the phone onto Baldy’s crown, turn and elbow back hard as Flat Nose is grabbing, ramming his face.

  I slam Baldy again, again, again, and my arm is being pulled back, my leg being kicked.

  I slam again, hard as I can, stabbing him with the blunt edge of a phone, and he’s dropping to the ground, his blood jumping now, little red dolphins into the air. He’s thirty-eight.

  A hard whack on the head stuns me. I turn, get palmed in the chin. My tooth cracks, break. I step back, keep balance, regroup. Bastards.

  Flat Nose has pulled out a firearm, a pistol, but he does not want to use it. He jams it into my flesh, right to where it’s too hard into my guts to shove it away.

  One fierce, unexpected lightning knee in the balls, one serious, cupped-hand slap on his ear as he dips and he’s deaf, dazed, aching. And I know he is under orders not to kill because I am still alive.

  I whip off my glasses, fold the arms, jab them hard in an eye. Jab again, twisting. I slap the same ear again, this time throwing him off balance. The glasses are lodged into the head now. He’s thirty-six. I let go and punch those specs, finish that eye off forever, stab his brain. He falls back. Another boot in the balls.

  I check – both down, both out.

  I want to put one of the fuckers in the canal.

  I’m going to put one of the fuckers in the canal.

  But I can’t. They would die. That’s a bigger story. Keep the story below the radar, out of the water, off the agenda.

  I pull the bloody glasses out of the hole in his head and now I’m moving fast and breaking the SIM card in my hand, the taste of blood inside my face.

  Now I’m a hard-running target in the centre of the city. Now everyone is coming awake and looking at me, now I’m in deep shit. Now I’ve got to start the escape plan.

  Who are they?

  Rounding a corner, looking backwards, bashing into someone – male, twenties – a bicycle, knocking him off, him roaring in fury as I keep going.

  I cross a road, look back and there’s no one. I run on, cross two streets more, a hard right, looking back.

  No one.

  On Rokin, towards the bridge I need, pulling in first behind a row of shops, behind a restaurant. There’s an alley.