House of War. Scott Mariani
Thierry. I have a message from Abby.’
‘Who the hell are you?’ Pierrot gasped. He was about the same age as Thierry, with receding greasy hair, close-set eyes and a weaselly way about him. To Ben’s eye the guy had the look of a small-time drug dealer. He would happily have left Pierrot for Fraticelli’s boys, under different circumstances.
Thierry shook his head in amazement. ‘I can’t believe it’s you, man,’ he said in the whispery voice. ‘Christ, you haven’t aged a day.’
‘Wish I could say the same about you, Thierry. You look like shit.’ Which was harsh, but true. Time had not been too kind to the forger since Ben had last seen him. He looked weary and worn down and gaunt, and the bush of hair had mostly disappeared.
‘Abby sent you?’ Thierry asked ruefully.
Ben picked up Fraticelli’s sabre and ran his thumb lightly along the edge of the blade. It was razor-sharp. He moved around behind Thierry’s chair and started cutting him free. ‘She says she’s going to burn all the junk you left at her place. She also seemed to think you might have got into a little trouble. Wonder how she got that idea.’
‘We’re in a shitload more of it now. I was handling things just fine before you turned up.’
Gratitude was a wonderful thing. Ben said, ‘Oh, I could see that.’ The rope holding Thierry’s wrists fell loose. He slashed his ankles free and then started working on Pierrot.
Thierry stood up stiffly and rubbed his wrists, frowning anxiously at the unconscious bodies on the floor. ‘I’m serious. We’re totally fucked, man. Do you know who you just worked over? These guys are Unione Corse. Fraticelli’s a made guy. Now there’ll be a thousand of the bastards looking for us. And you, too.’
Unione Corse was the Corsican mafia. The kind of guys who’ll break your arms and fuck your knees up with hammers. And then some. Abby had no idea of the kind of nasty characters her boyfriend had been borrowing money from. This bunch had moved on from breaking arms and legs well before they got into their teens.
‘Then maybe it’s time to get out of town,’ Ben said. ‘Your buddy here as well. But first, there’s something I need you to do for me.’
Thierry brightened a little. ‘You mean, like, a job?’
‘You look as though you could do with one.’
‘It’s been a while. Work’s kind of thin on the ground lately.’
‘Are you up for it?’
‘You bet. Just like old times, huh?’
Ben said, ‘Then let’s talk. But not here.’ He finished freeing Pierrot and told him, ‘Pack your stuff. One small suitcase. Leave the rest.’
‘This is my place,’ Pierrot whined.
‘Not any more, it isn’t. When your downstairs neighbours see the blood coming through the ceiling and call the cops, it’s going to get a little crowded around here. You can’t come back any time soon. So hurry it up.’
Pierrot didn’t look too thrilled about abandoning his rathole apartment, but Thierry was looking more pleased by the second. ‘Oh, Ben?’
‘Yes?’
‘Thanks for, uh, you know, saving us.’
‘I needed the exercise. Now let’s go.’
The fat guard outside in the corridor was showing signs of recovery, so Ben knocked him out properly and dragged his corpulent bulk inside the apartment by the ankles. Then they pulled the door shut against the shattered frame and hurried downstairs, out of the building, past the Corsican boys’ Audi and up the street to where the Alpina was parked. Ben tossed Pierrot’s case in the boot, and they took off.
Thirty minutes later they were back at the safehouse. Pierrot was still sulking and hadn’t spoken another word. Ben ignored him, brewed up more coffee, then sat Thierry down at the table in the living room and told him what he needed.
‘Whose is it?’ Thierry asked, frowning at Romy’s phone.
‘You don’t need to know,’ Ben said. ‘You just need to unlock that video file. Think you can do that for me?’
Thierry spent a few moments fiddling with the phone, deep in concentration. ‘Yeah, I reckon I can.’
‘How long?’
‘Twenty minutes, give or take.’
‘You’re still my guy,’ Ben said.
Thierry Chevrolet might have seen better times and lost his sparkle, but the kinds of skills he possessed didn’t fade with age. Ben left him alone to work, and went over to smoke at the window while Thierry hunched over the smartphone at the table. Pierrot was still lurking, silent and morose, in the background. Ben would gladly have sent him out on some errand just to get rid of him, if he could have trusted the idiot wouldn’t return with half the Corsica mafia on his heels.
Eighteen minutes and three more cups of coffee later, Thierry leaned back in his chair, looked over at Ben with a sly grin and whispered, ‘We’re in.’
‘Don’t get too excited, chief,’ Thierry said as Ben went over to see. ‘It isn’t exactly what you’d call cinema quality.’
Pierrot was suddenly all interested. ‘What is it? Porno?’
Ben gave him a look that made him stay in place and keep his mouth shut. Turning back to Thierry he asked, ‘Did you see any of it?’
‘You’re the client. It’s none of my business what’s on there. I only looked at the first few seconds. Long enough to see what it isn’t.’ Thierry handed over the phone. Ben took it and sat at the table to look.
The video was less than a minute long. That made each second of its duration seem all the more precious, assuming the clip was of any value at all. After the first five seconds, Ben’s heart was beginning to sink, because he could hardly make anything out. Everything was dark and jerky, just a confusion of shapes and shadows. All that was clearly visible was the purple time and date stamp in the bottom left corner of the screen, which just confirmed the date on the file label, from three days ago.
Seven seconds in, something appeared on the right-hand edge of the frame, and moved inwards to fill a third of the screen. It was the vertical edge of what appeared to be a concrete wall, pitted and craggy. The camera’s focus sharpened on that, making the background even more blurry and indistinct. All Ben could glean from what he was seeing was that the person doing the filming – presumably Romy herself, though he had no way to be certain – was shooting the video clip in a furtive, clandestine way from behind the wall, not wanting to be seen. She, if it was her, seemed to be trying to angle the camera past its edge, around the corner, to film something happening further away. But the lighting was just too dark to see what.
Ben said, ‘This is terrible.’
Thierry shrugged. ‘You get what you get, man.’
As bad as the visual quality was, the audio was even worse. All Ben could hear through the phone’s tinny speaker was a lot of white noise. The phone mic was picking up all kinds of background sounds. He was sure he could hear Romy’s breathing, which was restrained, like someone trying to remain undetected, but fast and urgent, like someone very afraid of getting caught. He thought back to the one and only time he’d seen her alive. She’d been frightened then, too. Clearly terrified of whoever she thought was following her.
Had Romy witnessed something, Ben wondered. What were you doing? What did you see?
Somewhere in the middle of the white noise, barely audible, was the sound of muffled voices. Two of them, Ben thought. Both men, judging from the low-range tones. He strained