A Case of Noir (Atlantis) Read online

  I shifted in my chair.

  ’Is it fun?’ I asked.

  ‘The pub or the marriage?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘They serve their purpose.’

  ‘Which is?’

  She rubbed her fingers and thumb together.

  ‘I suppose marriage to Robert was what you would call a marriage of convenience,’ said Jola. ‘Though it’s not so convenient, these days.’

  ‘Better to regret something you’ve done than something you haven’t done,’ I said.

  ‘Indeed.’

  Leaning close to me, Jola put a hand on my shoulder and looked me up and down, like was deciding on whether or not to buy a second-hand car.

  ‘You’ll do,’ she said, dragging me out of the bar by my tie and through a metal door that was marked ‘Private’.

  I looked over at Rory, who was lighting a cigar, took a glance and ignored us. I got the impression that he’d seen this sort of thing many times before.

  Jola locked the door behind her and switched on a strip light that flickered and buzzed before it blanched the tiny room, which was stacked with crates of Johnny Walker and metal beer barrels. On the wall was a dartboard with a poster of Stalin hanging over it. Three darts perfectly placed between his eyes. I sat down on one of the crates.

  ‘Won’t Rory mind?’ I said, as Jola pulled down her knickers and took off her black leather skirt.

  ‘Not a chance,’ she said. ‘Robert ripped him off in a big business deal a while back. He despises my husband so much he lets me get away with murder.’

  Before I could take off my jeans, she pulled out my dick and slowly masturbated me before she slid herself on top of me. I pushed a hand under her sweater and tweaked a nipple.

  ‘Well, everything but that’, she gasped. ‘So far.’

  At some point during the night I woke up in my own bed, soaked in a cold sweat, with no recollection of getting there. Jola, naked, was smoking and gazing out of the bedroom window. The tip of her cigarette glowed bright red and then quickly faded to black. I closed my eyes and let the sea of sleep wash me away.

  In the morning, slivers of sun sliced through the blinds and slashed across my eyes, stinging like a knife blade. After a moment, I focused and looked around the room. Jola was gone.

  Days bled into weeks and then months. I visited Tatiana with the same regularity but dwindling enthusiasm. Sometimes we just talked until the early hours. She told me about the her lesbian lover with the violent husband. And how they were saving enough money to get out of Warsaw. She fell asleep and I left.

  A warm spring dusk was struggling to break free of winter as I left her apartment block in a daze which, for once, wasn’t due to the booze. I’d been drifting through the weeks like a phantom, with thoughts of Jola haunting me. For whatever reason, I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I knew I had to see her again.

  As I walked along the deserted street a massive figure suddenly stepped out of the shadows and in from of me. He was a real behemoth, with a shaved head, a black leather jacket. His gigantic fist grasped a knuckle duster that slammed into me and sent me sprawling backwards until I smashed into a kebab shop window setting off a burglar alarm.

  I sunk to the ground, blood oozing from my burst lip, as the giant shouted and screamed at me. My head was spinning and my Polish had never been too good but I did recognize one word that he said before storming off down the street. Tatiana.

  A small group of old women wearing mohair berets surrounded me, speaking too quickly for me to understand.

  I struggled to my feet and did the best thing I could think of. I went to the 24-hour pub.

  Nursing a beer and a shot of vodka, I called Tatiana and explained my predicament.

  ‘It’s Bronek,’ she said. ‘My former client. He’s getting crazier. He started following me. Watching my clients. He’s got it into his head that you are going to marry me and take me away to England.’

  I drifted out of her conversation and thought that maybe it was better hung for a sheep than a lamb. Hanging up, I ordered another shot of vodka.

  The Emerald Isle was far from emerald. The walls were painted a garish red. The furniture was pitch black. The atmosphere grey.

  John Martyn’s version of ‘Glory Box.’ whispered through the sound system as Robert Nowak, well-dressed and overweight, with what seemed like a constantly constipated expression, drank whisky and played chess with a statuesque Indian girl.

  A small group of fashion students sat sharing two beers, occasionally topping the glasses up with the contents of a bottle of supermarket vodka, while keeping a furtive eye on Robert.

  I sat by the window drinking my second duja Warka Strong. I briefly turned my gaze outside, to where the morning rain poured down in sheets and the wet pavement reflected a nearby kebab shop’s flickering neon sign. Police sirens screeched through the roaring wind.

  Jola came down a staircase at the side of the bar and briefly paused when she saw me. She helped herself to a drink and headed outside with a pack of cigarettes in her hand. She stood under a grubby umbrella smoking as if it was the last cigarette on earth.

  I waited a few moments and joined her. Turning my collar up against the rain, I sat in a grubby white plastic chair and lit up.

  ‘You shouldn’t have come here, you know? Robert is a very jealous man,’ she said, lighting a second cigarette, not looking at me.

  ‘Does he know about us? About that night?’

  ‘Of course not. But he has his suspicions. All sorts of suspicions. Especially when he’s snorting cocaine from morning to night.’

  ‘I … just wanted to see you again. I thought you might want to go out somewhere, sometimes.’

  She turned slightly and looked at me. Closed her eyes. Smiled.

  ‘Oh, why the hell not?’ she said.

  I grinned like a schoolboy.

  ‘When?’

  ‘We can meet tomorrow night, if you want. Somewhere out of the way, though?’

  I thought for a moment.

  ‘What about my place?’

  ‘Straight to the point, eh?’

  I smiled.

  ‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ I said.

  The night was like a thunderstorm of drinking, smoking, sex and conversation. In the early hours, we lay on my bed in the wan light listening to an old Mixtape that I’d brought with me.

  Gandalf’s version of ‘How Can We Hang On To A Dream,’ eased into a Bobby Womack song and Jola turned and looked me in the eye.

  ‘You know,’ she said. ‘Life with Robert is like a living death these days. I really do want to get away. Escape. I’ve managed to save some money but it’s not enough. Anyway …’

  And in the space of that short pause, the thought of running away with Jola was like the lone, beautiful whore in a rundown brothel, teasing and tempting.

  I said. ‘Can’t you divorce him?’

  ‘Ha! He’s a Catholic. He’d never let me divorce him. He’d never let me leave him,’ she said, stroking the bruises on her neck.

  As a mild spring marched on towards a scalding hot summer, our meetings became more frequent and dangerous thoughts hovered over us like a hawk ready to strike its prey.

  And before long, thought congealed into action.

  The plan was simple enough. We would wait until New Year’s Eve and when Robert was as drunk as a skunk, Jola would drug his drink with some cheap cocaine and take him to bed when he passed out. She would smother him with a pillow until he was dead. Then, after clearing the safe at The Emerald Isle, and Robert’s bank account, Jola and I would head off out of Poland, towards Spain, or who knows where.

  The hope was that on New Year’s Day, people would think that Robert would be sleeping off the previous night’s indulgence, giving us plenty of time to get out of the country. And when he was found, the police would put it down to a drug overdose. Simple? As simple as Chinese algebra.

  It started to snow and fireworks filled the sky as I headed through
an alleyway and into The Emerald Isle. The place was stuffed with drunken, overdressed people celebrating the New Year.

  Robert was clearly already drunk already, holding court to a group of no-necked skinheads. Jola was already on her way upstairs to the safe.

  The fire exit was propped open with a fire extinguisher and I eased my way through.

  I took out a cigarette and lit up. Feeling all too confident.

  And then a familiar behemoth stood in front of me. And this time, it seemed to growl.

  Robert casually smoked a large cigar, his bleary eyes frowning at me.

  ‘So, you are the one Bronek was telling me about, eh? The kurwa that is stealing my Ukranian whore from me. Eh?’

  Robert and Bronek stood either side of me. Grinning. Putting on knuckle dusters.

  ‘My brother Bronek can be very protective about our property,’ said Robert ‘and he has taken far too much interest in our little Tatiana. But that’s his right as my brother. So, it really wouldn’t do for us to let you take her away, would it?’

  I couldn't agree or disagree. I couldn’t say a thing and I couldn’t move. I’d taken a beating and was slumped in the oak and leather armchair like a fly trapped in amber. It was all I could do to try to shake off the shards of glass before the brothers raised their fists and the world turned red.

  The hospital stunk of antiseptic. Not that it bothered me that much. The morphine was working and in the last few days I’d been feeling stronger. Able to move around. And to check my emails on my iPhone. The usual crap. Spam. Jokes. New Year’s greetings.

  And one from Tatiana. A photo of her on a beach. With Jola. Thanking me for creating a diversion and allowing them to get away. And hoping that I would get well soon.

  I lay back on the small bed, closed my eyes, letting the sea of self-loathing wash over me. And sleep enfolded me.

  2

  Death on a hot afternoon

  Madrid

  Nathan Jones made a series of loud grunting sounds and jabbed a pudgy finger at the dusty old television set into the Bar Sierra y Mar.

  ‘That’s not what happens when you kill a man, Luke,’ he said, with a slight slur.

  On the flickering screen, a fading American fashion model had just picked up a sawn-off shotgun and blasted a gigantic, tattoo-latticed, German wrestler to bits. Standing over his corpse, she grinned and said something to the camera which, even dubbed into Spanish, had sounded more than just a bit cheesy.

  The commercial break was now showing an advertisement for indigestion tablets which I suspected Nathan would have found useful.

  He picked up a spicy chorizo sausage, stuffed it into his mouth and closed his eyes. His breathing acquired a regular rhythm as he chewed intensely and swallowed with a gulp. When he opened his rheumy eyes, he glared at the television and grabbed a handful of napkins from the bar. After he wiped his thick lips and greasy hands, he rolled the napkins into a ball and dropped them onto the already littered floor. I’d been sharing a flat with Nathan for over a month now and he was normally fastidiously tidy, even when drunk, so something had clearly spooked him today.

  He sighed, swigged down half a glass of Alhambra Mezquita. Burped. Leaned close.

  I held my breath.

  ‘What really happens is …your whole life turns upside down and never stops twisting and turning. It gets out of control. You know what I mean?’

  He blinked rapidly and looked like a deer caught in a freewheeling truck’s blinding headlights.

  I nodded sagely as he spoke, trying to look as understanding and sympathetic as possible, although I really had no idea what the hell Nathan was talking about. He certainly wasn’t my idea of a cold-blooded killer, that was certain. But then, not all of us were what we seemed.

  Nathan was a massive man but his size was all down to muscle that had turned to fat. He had once told me that he’d played rugby professionally in his youth, but now he looked more like a retired sumo wrestler than a rugby player.

  He was neither, of course. Nathan was a hack, just like me. An ageing, freelance journalist scraping a living in the fast-moving digital age. Attempting to fight-off competition from free blogs, comments-are-free newspaper columns and all sorts of online cyber crap.

  Like me, he occasionally worked for The Madrid Review, an expensive, glossy arts and current affairs magazine that was aimed at the swarms the wealthier ex-pats living in and around the Spanish capital. The work was infrequent and the pay was so-so, mind you, but there were perks. Little bonuses.

  The owner of The Review was the ever exuberant Pedro Dominguez, a bored rich kid who fancied himself as a patron of the Madrid arts scene. He owned a couple of expensive art galleries, a restaurant, a few bars, and an art house cinema. He’d even produced a couple of low-budget films that had actually made it all the way to the Cannes Film Festival one year, albeit without winning any awards.

  Pedro’s biggest success to date, though, was his recent stint as manager of the modern day torch singer, Lena K, whom he promoted as The Final Chanteuse. Lena had been a minor star on the local indie circuit, singing with a couple of rough and ready guitar bands until Pedro had spotted her busking in El Parque del Buen Retiro.

  She was in her early twenties. A tall, blue eyed blonde — very Teutonic looking. Pedro was the archetypal dark-haired, dark-eyed Latino — the mutual attraction had been volcanic.

  Indeed, they were almost arrested after Lena was caught down on her knees with Pedro’s dick in her mouth on the steps of the Museo Del Prado, one balmy August night. Luckily, Pedro’s family connections helped smooth the path away from a night in the prison cells.

  Pedro had later introduced her to the Seville-based record producer Carmello Estevez, whose star was then on the rise and which became positively incandescent once he started working with Lena. And Pedro was more than happy to be dragged along on tail of their comet.

  Lena was a bit of a mystery, which added to her appeal, of course. She was of German and Norwegian extraction, apparently. Although she spoke English with a perfect cut-glass accent. Indeed, no one knew much of her back-story before she’d arrived in Madrid. But, then, nobody came out of just nowhere that was certain. Like I said, everyone had a history. Things stuffed into the murky corners of the past. I, for one, knew that.

  I’d first met Pedro at a friend’s birthday party in The Quite Man, one of those homogenized Irish pubs, just off La Puerta del Sol. Pedro was a self-styled star of the ex-pat circuit. He seemed to have a thing for surrounding himself with foreigners, assuming it made him seem more interesting, perhaps, which is why he employed the otherwise unemployable likes of Nathan Jones.

  And me, of course.

  Nathan was deep in thought and I decided to leave him to it. I leaned back against the bar and inhaled my glass of Moscatel. Fanned myself with a copy of the Expansion Directo.

  I swatted a fly that crawled across the bar towards Nathan’s plate and threw the newspaper onto the floor along with the rest of the bar’s debris.

  I wiped my forehead with a napkin. I was sweating buckets, but Nathan was in an even worse state. His long, blond hair was plastered over his pink forehead. His once white, linen suit was soaked. His shirt was like a well-used dishcloth. And his harrumphs had turned into wheezes.

  Bar Sierra y Mar was a true dive and usually busy on a Saturday afternoon due to its great location and Pedro’s reputation. Today, however, Nathan and I were the only customers because the air conditioning and the ceiling fans were broken.

  And let’s be honest, who wanted to spend a steaming August afternoon in a bar without adequate ventilation? Mad dogs and mad Englishmen, of course. Especially those that could run up a bar tab without a problem, since this was one of Pedro’s places. One of the perks I mentioned earlier. The fact that it was also within staggering distance to the over-expensive apartment that Nathan and I shared in Fuencarral helped, too.

  Luis, the skeletal barman, sat at the end of the bar reading an Ian Rankin book. He had a
hand-held, battery-operated fan pointed at his saggy face. An unlit cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. Occasionally, he would look up at us and glare, clearly wanting us to leave. But there wasn’t much chance of that. Not unless the place ran out of booze. Or Nathan had a heart attack and keeled over. Which didn’t seem that unlikely, judging by the sounds he was making.

  Nathan swung his attention back to me. He had the look of a speed freak or a delirious preacher performing an exorcism. And then the words tumbled out of his mouth like a gaggle of unruly drunks at closing time.

  ‘See … at first, you freeze. Stare at the corpse. Sweat pricks your skin. Your heart thumps so hard you’re sure it’ll burst out of your chest.’

  He drummed his fist on his chest.

  ‘Your mouth goes dry, arid. And you puke. You fall to your knees and sob. Uncontrollably. Until a clammy, cold feeling crawls over your body.’

  He slammed his hand down on the bar. Picked up a dead fly. Examined it. For a second I thought he was going to eat it and I almost puked myself, but he threw it on the floor.

  ‘Then you act. Survival instinct kicks in. You dispose of the corpse. Clean up the crime scene. Wash yourself from head to foot as many times as possible. Scrub until you bleed. Try to carry on as if it hadn’t happened. And you succeed. For a while …’

  He pointed at the television screen.

  ‘That is not what happens when you kill a man.’

  His eyes glazed over. He was lost in thought again and I could see there was more to his ramblings than I’d originally assumed. I gestured towards Luis. Pointed to the bottle of DYC whisky next to the rusty old till. I took a couple of soggy notes from my worn leather wallet and handed them to him. Dollars. The Euro not being what it was. Luis smiled. Put the bottle on the bar, along with two glasses.

  ‘Maybe a little background music, eh?’ I said.