DEATHLOOP (27 page)

The horrors of the last couple of weeks now seemed thankfully distanced, they had wreaked their havoc, certainly, but they had ultimately failed in their efforts to derail him. He was still Zack Fortune, effortlessly handsome, intelligent, rich, powerful and dynamic, and with all the nasty bits hidden away from view. As Zack strolled into his office he was even more buoyed up to see Rose buzzing round his desk like a bee round a hive.

“Mr Fortune,” she said, without looking up.

“Miss Crawford,” he replied, “God, Rose, I’ve missed you.”

Rose maintained her composure and although Zack’s comment had now been locked away in her secret filing cabinet labelled ‘wonderful moments that would often be returned to’, she still managed to look slightly disapproving of her wayward boss as she continued her relentless quest to provide him with the perfect work surface from which to cast his spells.

“The Wahlbergs are due at 10. Will you meet with them here or in Geoff’s office? You’ll want catering I expect.”

“Not here, that’s for sure.”

As Rose drifted off towards the door, Zack’s voice stopped her.

“I mean it, Rose. Some of us are reassured by the six o’clock news, some by the chimes of Big Ben, but for me… it’s Rose Crawford here in my office every damn time.”

This caused Rose to turn round and look at him. It was a curious look, as though she had just heard something she never thought she would hear in a million years. She nodded, and although it was like she was considering a smile, as usual, she resisted and went off.

A few moments later, Zack made his way to Sam’s office, but Sam waved him away. He was on the phone and whoever he was speaking to seemed to be giving him a hard time, so Zack went in search of Geoff.

“He’s in Geneva,” said Sharon, as though Zack really should pay more attention to these things.

“Of course he is, I forgot about that.”

“Anyway,
how are we
?” said Sharon “
feeling better now
?”

Zack had always thought Sharon extremely thick, too thick for irony anyway he assured himself as he told her that yes he was much better now, thanks for asking. When he returned to Sam’s office he found him stomping round his room like a little clockwork toy.

“All right?” asked Zack.

Sam shrugged, threw himself down on his couch and sighed. They looked at each other, neither quite sure what to say, then Sam stood up again and shot back to his desk like a homing pigeon.

“The Wahlbergs are in today aren’t they?”

“Indeed they are.”

“Well try not to knock them out, mate, or drown them in a river or…” as Sam’s words trailed away both men came to stillness.

After the required silence Zack said: “Well I’ll try not to, but no promises though Sam. Hell… you know me.”

Zack returned to his office and closed the door behind him feeling like someone had just punctured his balloon of confidence with a sharp pin. He was waiting for Sam to come in and apologize but he didn’t and after half an hour or so Zack realised he wouldn’t.

Later that day Zack managed to trick the Wahlbergs into thinking he actually cared about getting them the very best private equity funds the city could deliver. He was on auto pilot, but they didn’t spot it. For all their well-documented business acumen they failed to realise they were dealing with a fraud. This was heartening to Zack, of course it was, he hadn’t lost his touch after all, but it was also depressing. If he could trick the Wahlbergs into thinking he was the man for the job then he could do it with anyone, and where was the challenge in that?

For the next few weeks Zack kept a very low profile. He barely saw Sam because he got the distinct impression that Sam actually didn’t want to see him. Once in the corridor, when he came across him talking confidentially with Geoff their conversation ground to a halt as Zack passed by, only to start up again when Zack was out of earshot. This got to Zack. The idea of Sam conspiring with the enemy was too much, in truth, the idea of Sam conspiring with anyone other than Zack was too much. So Zack stuck his head in the sand and tried to ignore it.

Then, out of the blue one day Clarissa called up.

“My God, Clarissa, how are you?” said Zack, delighted to hear her voice.

Clarissa asked Zack to pop over. Zack was curious about the phone call, but keen to see Clarissa just to get the low down on Sam if nothing else. And they were nervous when they met up, like clandestine lovers he thought to himself as she led him into the flat

“So how are you,” she asked, tentatively.

“Great actually, and you?”

“Okay I suppose,” said Clarissa, who looked anything but, “and Veronica? How is she?”

“Wonderful, she’s saved my life.”

“I’m glad to hear it,” said Clarissa, clearly not glad to hear anything of the sort, “so… any more dead people?”

“No, not one, it’s over.”

“Well that’s something,” said Clarissa, relieved.

“Sam doesn’t want to know me anymore, has he told you?” said Zack, after a few moments.

Clarissa looked at him, surprised he had actually come out and said this. “He’s having some kind of crisis I think,” said Clarissa sinking into the Chesterfield and tucking her legs up beneath her.

“What kind of crisis?”

“Well I’m not sure. It’s like… he’s torn between how he
used
to be and how he thinks he
should
be. I can’t explain it. You’ve met his folks?”

“Yes, unfortunately, I have.”

“In the end maybe he’s just reverted to type.”

Clarissa was only confirming Zack’s worst fears, but to hear them said out loud like this depressed him.

“He adored you, you know that,” said Clarissa after a few moments, Zack even more depressed to note that she was using the past tense, “and he was always so grateful to you for Cambridge. If you hadn’t come along I don’t think he’d have stayed the course. Well, we all know he wouldn’t, he’s said it often enough.”

“So what are you saying… he’s done with being grateful, is that it? Or am I just too much of a liability these days?”

“I don’t know what’s up with him at the moment, but I do know that I miss you more than I ever thought I would.”

“We were good together, the three of us,” said Zack, trying to keep the conversation light.

“We were married, you know we were, and although we often despaired of the tensions that brought, this is the alternative and I actually can’t bear it,” said Clarissa with a surprising catch in her voice. “I’ve dropped the spooky stuff by the way. Look what it’s done to us, after all.”

Wary of opening up old wounds Zack thought it best to ignore this, but he was relieved to hear it none the less.

“What was wrong with Sam at Bellini’s, was he pissed?”

“Not really, he was just in a bloody awful mood.”

“I’d given him such good press too, telling Veronica how great he was, how great you both were…”

“Oh God, I’m sorry, Zack.”

“Remember Nick Mallik?”

“Who?”

“Nick Mallik, from Cambridge.”

“Oh him, yes,” said Clarissa.

“He was the only guy I’ve ever known who could keep up with me. In the drugs department, that is…”

“That’s what Sam was afraid of.”

“He chased him away you know, literally.”

“I know he did, and he wasn’t the only one was he?”

“It was the same thing at Bellini’s, that smug superiority.”

“I want it to be like it was, don’t you?”

“Yes, of course I do.”

“Maybe it’s a phase, do you think?” she asked, hopefully.

“Has he said anything about me going back to Nymans?”

“He said he thought you were just about holding it together.”

Zack let out a little laugh. “Not a bad assessment.”

“He’s become so… obsessed lately.”

“Obsessed?”

“With work… I always used to think he was on the verge of quitting, but he’s become so driven. Geoff this, Geoff that…”

“Angling for promotion I guess,” said Zack with a shrug, “and how about you Clarissa, what do you want from life these days?

“I can’t tell you that, Zack,” she said, quietly, “that would be unfair.”

On his way back to the office Zack’s head was full of his conversation with Clarissa. He knew that without Veronica this state of affairs would have been completely intolerable and he would have confronted Sam long before now and had it out with him. But Veronica was such a welcome distraction that the crisis of his stalled relationship with Sam was less than it might have been. Clarissa on the other hand had no such distraction, and he could see she was bereft.

However, later that afternoon when he shared a wary glance with Geoff in reception it made him face the truth. And the truth was he hadn’t confronted Sam because he was scared. He was scared of Sam saying finally that he wanted nothing more to do with him, and he knew that, to coin Geoff’s expression, he was deluding himself to think otherwise.

When Zack told Veronica about Jason, her view was that he should help him out, not just for Jason’s benefit, but for Zack’s too. “You said how you missed all that, so here’s your chance.”

Zack conceded the point. Defending Jason Heart had to be more rewarding anyway than dealing with the Wahlbergs. Jason had been sending Zack little notes for days, begging him to take his case and apologizing again and again for causing a scene at Nyman’s. A preliminary hearing had been set for the following week and as things stood, Jason was on his own, but there were flies in the ointment – his own court cases that were pending, plus Geoff, who had reminded him that he was but the servant of one master, not two. However, Zack did feel an obligation to explain this to Jason, face to face, so he called him up and suggested he dropped round.

“Not here, it’s not allowed,” said Jason, delighted that Zack had responded at last, but panic stricken at the idea of having to entertain him. So Zack agreed to meet him in his local pub just off the Holloway Road.

When Zack arrived at the appropriately named Dealer’s Arms, he saw that Jason had commandeered a large table in the corner of the saloon bar, presiding over it like a miniature hooded monk.

“So, what do you think?” asked Jason eagerly, almost before Zack had sat down with drinks and Jason’s bundle.

“Okay,” said Zack, “there’s your charge… and there’s the matter of me representing you on this charge, what shall we kick off with first?”

Jason didn’t reply straight away because he was distracted. He’d noticed how heads had turned when Zack had walked in, and how suddenly the snotty bar maid who always managed to make him feel like a pile of shit was gazing over at them, fascinated by the handsome stranger.

“Jason, I’m sorry, but I can’t help you with this.”

“What?”

“I don’t do criminal defence any more, I did tell you.”

“I don’t care.”

“Yes, but you will care if you go down for ten years through my incompetence. With criminal law… or any branch of law for that matter… you need to do it every day just to keep up to speed, apart from which it wouldn’t be allowed.”

“By your fucker of a boss?”

“No, not by my fucker of a boss, but by the law society,” said Zack, hoping this would sound official enough to get him off the hook. “But all is not lost, mate, because I know someone who’s really good, Tracy Bright her name is…”

“
A woman
?” said Jason, appalled, “no way! Women are shit at everything, everyone knows that.”

“Tracy’s not or I wouldn’t have suggested her, and you’d be in very safe hands.”

“Huh,” said Jason, who had never been in safe hands in his life.

“Look, you must have family somewhere… or someone who could support you through all this.”

“Yes,” said Jason, “you.”

“What about your mum?”

“She’s gone.”

“And your dad, where’s he?”

“He got killed in Iraq.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” said Jason, “it saved me the job.”

“Okay,” said Zack, attempting to revert to more neutral territory, “the charge is that you sold rather a large consignment of crack cocaine to undercover police officers… you can say what you like to me as I‘m not representing you, it won’t go any further.”

“So, what if I did?”

“Where did you get it?”

“I know people,” said Jason, “I know lots of people.”

Zack was now genuinely curious about all this because he was finding it increasingly difficult to believe that Jason would have the organizational ability to stick a stamp on a letter and post it in a pillar box, let alone set up a drugs deal single handed.

“Did someone put you up to this?”

“I don’t know anyone,” said Jason, “I just told you. I don’t know anyone at all.”

At this point Zack gave up. He was relieved now he couldn’t take Jason’s case because if this brief, confusing conversation was anything to go by, hitting on any kind of defence for him would prove difficult.

“Shall I get Tracy to give you a call?”

“What are dumping me on her for?”

“I’m not dumping you on anyone, I’m trying to help and I’m sorry if you feel I’ve let you down.”

“You don’t know how much,” said Jason, intently.

Later that night Zack thanked Veronica for encouraging him to meet up with Jason.

“It did the trick did it?”

“Yes, but not in the way we’d hoped.”

What it did do was to remind Zack just what hard work criminal defence could be. It was easy all these years later to think back to his time defending bank robbers, pimps and muggers as his glory days but after an hour with Jason Heart, Zack realised he was certainly guilty of one thing if nothing else, and that was selective memory.

“He’s seriously messed up this kid…”

“So you’re going to defend him are you?”

“I can’t. I’ll find him someone else though, someone good.”

Zack got the distinct impression from Veronica that he had failed in the task she had set him. She didn’t say anything, but then she didn’t need to, Veronica’s silence was eloquent enough.

It had happened gradually, Veronica spending time at Zack’s flat, and although she hadn’t moved in as such, often she would stay over for two consecutive nights. This was something new for Zack. One night maybe, but two together was unheard of.