Undercover (12 page)

‘Museums can tell us much about ourselves.' Tom felt it vital to go along with the half-baked nature of this conversation. It suggested geniality and friendship, beyond mere business concerns.

‘Cavemen, for instance, and their early drawings of behemoths on the stone,' Leo said. ‘They needed something sharp and strong to do that with, otherwise they would have had to give up and we'd have no idea of behemoths. A museum can show us them hard tools that made the behemoth pictures possible.'

‘It's a mark of high civilization in a society that it's interested in its distant past,' Tom said.

‘This is a trading firm, Tom,' Leo replied, ‘the trade being in what are known as “recreational commodities”, or to put it simpler, gear. Well, that's obvious.' He crossed to a fine rosewood antique bureau. He took a rolled ordnance survey map of the city from one of the drawers and spread it on the flap of the bureau. Tom stood and went to join him looking down at it. Leo put a hand vertical, resting on the length of his little finger, at the centre, marking a division. ‘Think of my hand as like the late Berlin Wall. To the left of this, the west of the city, is our territory, Tom, our sphere, if you know that term.' He turned his hand flat and rested his palm on the left half to show possession, to show command, to show achievement in the spots where he and Jamie had smashed difficult bastards and walked over and on them, the bastards, teaching them what blockages they really were and the need to clear them.

‘Things are not so clear to the right, the east – there are battles between outfits there all the time as slices of ground are claimed by this one or that one or that one, how things used to be about Czechoslovakia in Hitler times. It's messy. It's primitive and wasteful. AK 47s, machetes, torchings, a disgusting fucking absence of what is known as decorum, Tom, meaning in good order. Some of that might be necessary at the start when building a firm and getting rid of the bastards who might be a fucking blockage, I admit, but this goes on and goes on. However, what we got on the west is nice and settled and brilliantly civic now. Look around the west and you won't see one site where a property has been arsonized.' He let the map roll itself up and returned it to the drawer. They went to sit in their chairs again.

‘This area – the west of the city – is a lot of ground, Tom, with a selection of all sorts. I mean different classes of people, different
grades
of people – that kind of thing. I don't want to be snobby, but it's got to be admitted the population of these isles, the GB isles, can be very mixed. There are men and women out there who don't have no idea what “decorum” even means. That wouldn't include you, Tom, I'm sure.

‘So, I've tried to divide our parish up into, like, sections. Three sections. I give them names. There's Section Arabella, called after my dear mother, God rest her soul, a woman worthy of remembrance, which all who knew her would admit without even minor hesitation. It's the north of our ground, an area gracing her: streets broad and tree-lined, very clean, Sealyhams on leads, detached properties, that kind of thing. The centre I think of as Montgomery Section, reminding of that great soldier in the Second World War, taking the Jerry surrender in a tent on a heath, very crisp and victorious. The south is Millennium Section, to mark how time moves on constant and demanding, bringing change, which Emily will confirm. For instance, it can't be BC no longer but is very AD, because, of course, you couldn't refer to a time as BC until you was into AD. BC people didn't know they was BC, because there wasn't no C.'

‘All these area names have quite a ring to them, a resonance,' Tom replied.

‘What I aimed for. You've hit it – resonance. That's what I mean, you see, Tom.'

‘What, Leo?'

‘This feeling I get of rightness – when someone
is
right, that is. That word “resonance”, it's not a word I would come up with spontaneous, although I know about it, and when I hear it from you I realize it's the exact word for it. This is two minds in a kind of harmony.' Then he spoke slowly, weightily, intoning like an awards ceremony, or the runner's names announced at a greyhound track: ‘Arabella, Montgomery, Millennium: yes, resonance.'

‘These three words take strength from each other and, spoken together, become a sort of impressive chant, or a bold drum roll,' Tom declared. It was necessary.

‘Here, again, metaphors. This is more mutuality,' Leo said. ‘The three helping each other towards a grand effect.'

‘Certainly.'

‘Now, each of these sections has its own staff and its own local chieftain. This is what's known in the commercial scene's terminology as “delegation”. That's to say, I give them the power to look after their particular district and make sure that region of the business hits target or even better.'

‘Many companies function like that. They have their headquarters where the chairman and chief executive work, and then branches maybe all over the country or even the world, each with its own head man or woman,' Tom stated.

‘The same with the police,' Leo replied.

‘Well, yes.'

‘In London, the Commissioner – top man. And then in all the boroughs, as the sections are called there, other top men or women in charge of their area. They are the top man or woman in that particular region but not as much a top man or woman as the Commissioner.'

‘Or Rupert Murdoch and his empire.' Tom could have done without this mention of the police, but thought he kept his face reasonably blank, reasonably non-panicked. He'd wanted to get off that topic, though.

‘Murdoch, yes. He's the boss of bosses, but sometimes things can go wrong with one of them lower level execs. Think of the
News of the World
, Tom, or, more vulgar,
News of the Screws
– its collapse. Now, the thing is, you see, I've got trouble with a local manager, too. This is in Arabella.'

‘North section?'

‘It's always a danger with delegation. You can get let down. They are supposed to work on behalf of you, but, of course, they are not you yourself as such, and they might drift off in a foully selfish mode. As my dad used to tell us, “If you want a job done right, do it yourself.”'

‘Murdoch himself had to come to Britain to try to sort it all out.'

‘This is not to do with phone hacking but serious matters for the business. Action's got to be took, Tom. A priority.'

‘I'd trust your judgement on that.'

‘There's a lad called Scray, Justin Paul Scray, controlling things in Arabella for me,' Leo Young replied. ‘We done a lot of research on him, and Scray seems to be his real name, although I never heard of any Scrays before. Martin Abidan said the family might of been immigrants way back – that's centuries, not now – from some country where Scray was quite a usual name, such as Germany or Mongolia. Scray could mean a carpenter or a blacksmith in one of them places, the way we have names such as Carpenter and Smith. People can't be blamed for their names.' Leo paused. Then he snarled: ‘I mentioned he's controlling things for me in Arabella. I want to pull that statement back. I think he's controlling things, but controlling
some
of the things, and most likely the juiciest things, for himself, the bastard, not for the firm.

‘Or not the firm as you and me think of the firm, Tom. No, his own sort of splinter firm. Basically, that's what your trip in the van is all about. And if you're in the back, Tom, scanning, and a local who's seen the ACME LAWN AND GARDEN SERVICES words comes, like, inquiring to the driver's cabin because he wants help with wisteria on a pergola, that kind of thing, you just got to stay quiet and not seen until he goes away. We don't need no complications. This is a delicate campaign.'

‘You want me to take the van to Arabella?'

‘This is a district recalling memories of my mother, so my anger at Scray's behaviour is greater than if it was in Montgomery or Millennium. It's an insult to her, a considerable disrespect. But, no. Though Arabella is where the problem starts – to Justin Scray's mighty shame, he knows it's named after my mother – yes, it's where the problem starts but not where we deal with it at this junction.'

‘Too head-on?'

‘Too hasty, Tom. Not enough info, not enough research.'

‘You're very careful, Leo. Scrupulous.'

‘That's another of them perfect words that shows you grasp a situation although new to the firm.'

‘Scrupulous. Measured.'

‘In this kind of vocation we got to be. This is not like, say, being a doctor or a colonel where there are rules of the game such as the oath where doctors promise to do what they can in surgery hours to keep people alive. We don't have an oath like that. How could we? People in this type of career got to work out for theirselves how to stay alive, perhaps with help from bodyguards if the expense is not too much: someone to get between you and the bullets for a good fee. We have to supply our own rules for the profession, and one of these says we should have proper, thorough info before turning against a member of the firm, especially if that member had enough going for him previous to get him to number three. I mentioned doctors. If a doctor's going to get struck off, as they call it, because he been dicking patients as part of the treatment, there has to be proper info from the women before he can get kicked out. Them patients must prove penetration on a consulting room couch with unnecessary removal of undergarments – unnecessary from the medical aspect, that is. It's got some other purpose, i.e., the penetration while people out in the waiting room have to hang about. The details are different but we must prove absolutely re Scray and his carry-on in the firm – that is,
in
the firm and
not
in the firm.'

‘I hadn't thought of it like that, the medical side of it.'

‘Scray's got two kinds of customers, we think. One kind, the ordinary punters. We know about them and the sort of money to the nearest K they spend with the firm through Scray. They're in the accounts and all obvious and normal. The stuff they get is OK, but only just OK because it's not much quality to start with, and then it gets a load of makeweight mix.

‘But – and this is the but of fucking buts, Tom – but we think Scray's also got another kind of punter. This other is for his private use. This other is most probably your richer, smarter set. Way back they probably used to think nostrils was for breathing through, but now they've found this extra, snorting use. They can afford to spend big and therefore get the very best stuff, and gladly cough up tidy money for it.'

‘Which Jamie can't find in the accounts?'

Leo gasped then chuckled. ‘You got it, Tom. You got it right away. But why am I surprised? I should of known you would. Didn't I say I had that feeling about you? Didn't I mention this mysterious flair for man management? I don't expect no special praise for that. It's just there, inside me, that's all, the way some are born with music seeping out of theirselves even at a very young age, such as a composer called Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The way you ask about the accounts is another bit of evidence that I picked correct in your case, Tom. You can see where this story is going. Good! But I want you to think about what it means if Jamie can't find no sign of these on-the-side deals in the Arabella accounts.'

‘But how do you know the extra, personal deals are being done if they're not in the accounts?'

‘That's a wise question, Tom. One I would expect from you. Although you didn't realize we have to make our own professional rules, you're quick on other aspects.'

‘You and Jamie think Scray's doing secret transactions?' Tom asked.

‘But
how
does he do them, Tom?'

‘On the quiet somewhere.'

‘I'm not talking about location,' Leo replied. ‘I'm talking about the wherewithal, if you know
that
word, too.' A sort of schoolroom atmosphere had taken over, Leo the gentle, patient, gobby teacher, but a clued-up teacher.

‘Which wherewithal?' Tom said.

‘How does he get this extra, elite-quality stuff?' Leo replied.

‘He diverts a proportion of what he's supplied with by you, by the firm – that is, the firm proper – and diverts it to his own racket.'

Leo smiled tolerantly at the blazing stupidity of this, never mind Tom's other smart aptitudes. ‘But that would be obvious in the accounts, wouldn't it, Tom? We know how much stuff he's been issued with, and we know how much it ought to produce in takings. There has to be a nice relationship.'

‘And the accounts don't show a shortfall?'

‘The Arabella accounts are absolutely OK,' Leo said. ‘On the face of it they're a grand and wholesome tribute to my mother, as she well deserves.'

‘But Jamie sees something wrong?'

‘Jamie does.' Leo Young waited. He smiled with extreme kindness, giving Tom a chance to suggest an answer unaided, as a good teacher would.

Tom shook his head. ‘This is almost supernatural. I'm stymied.'

‘What he sees as wrong, Tom, is that the Arabella accounts are
too
absolutely fucking OK. They're what's known as immaculate. That's a word with quite an impact in the religious area, but it's got other meanings, too, like kosher. Scray's accounts don't show no dips or surges, they're just steady.'

‘Is that bad?'

‘And why are they so steady?' Leo replied. ‘Because Scray don't want no special attention aimed at his trading. He'd hate an investigation of Arabella. He wouldn't know where it might go, such as more than one direction. He'd like to tell us through Arabella's accounts that everything is normal and regular and worthy, as a memorial to my mother, who he's aware is eternally precious to me. But in this business, Tom, things are hardly ever normal and regular. This is not like being a greengrocer or a baker. There's ups and downs, very big ups and downs. That's what's normal in this trade. That's what's regular – not being regular is regular. Our business has what's known as “variables”. These variables can come from all directions, sometimes lapping into one another like waves on a beach, sometimes staying separate. Perhaps you could tell me what some of them variables might be.' Again that lovely, encouraging smile from Leo.