The Claim (5 page)

So despite Beppe asking how the hell they were going to do what they needed to do, Rocco enrolled himself in a conversion course and inhaled the law. He also begged his father to keep his nose clean until he was fully qualified. A three-year degree condensed into one year didn’t even begin to challenge him. He read more, and he did a master’s degree specialising in criminal law. He applied to some of the biggest law firms in London for a training contract and walked every single interview. While others struggled to even get a look in, Rocco had a choice of firms. He attended the College of Law, and partway through the first tutorial on Business Accounts, he clocked Anna. The top of her red tinted curly head, really, because she was furiously writing down everything, calculator glued to her left hand. As if she could feel his stare, she glanced at him. Rocco sent her a grin. Her mouth twisted in disapproval. His grin widened. She carried on writing. The next tutorial, he sat next to her and watched her workings out.

“You’re right,” he murmured in admiration. “Can I copy?”

“Then how will you learn?” she retorted.

“I know how to do it, I just can’t be arsed today. It involves effort.”  

“I’m sure you’d have more if you weren’t so busy humping your way through campus.”

“How dare you? I’ve been untouched except for precious times with my priest.” Anna stared at him in horror. “What, not into Catholic jokes?”

“Child sex abuse is not funny.”

“It is when your priest does try it and he’s found floating in the Thames the next day.”

Anna put her pen down. “You need help. Honestly, I know some counselling services that’d be happy to help you out.”

“How about you help me?”

“I donate to charities via direct debit. I’m not into personal volunteering.”

“It’s not charity if I take you out.” He named the French restaurant two streets away which had two Michelin stars. “What do you think?”

“I actually eat, so offering to go there means your card better not bounce.”

“It won’t,” he promised. “Are you coming then? Help out a damaged young—”

“All right, just shut up and let me take these notes.” He caught the tiniest smile on her face and felt like he’d reached the summit of Everest. When she first smiled properly at him, because he showed up to their dinner in a suit and tie, it was like being given a knighthood. Anna made him earn her affection, and when he had it, blazing sun in the height of summer in the Sahara couldn’t compete with the heat of being with her. She had her own gravitational pull, and even though she could tell a person where to get off with specific directions to the Land of Fuck You, people wanted to be around her.

She crackled with energy, right to the tips of her flame-tinted curls. Her passion was employment law, she informed him, only because just as she was going into teaching, one of her aunts was unceremoniously sacked. Anna, incensed with the injustice of it all, went with her aunt to the Tribunal and won the case for her aunt on discrimination. Of the forty thousand pounds compensation award, Anna was given ten thousand which she used to pay for her conversion course. He heard from others at the college that Anna would get into long and involved debates with the tutor on aspects of the various employment acts and, moreover, the government for siding with businesses for the sake of money.

“It’s like she’s been possessed by the spirit of a thousand trade unions,” one guy sighed. But that was his woman. No bullshit, all smarts, honour and a legal bullet in the eye if you crossed her. Beppe didn’t like Anna at first. It was a typical clash of who knows best—best friend or girlfriend. But it was Anna who suggested a group trip to the Alps to ski, and after that and paying for several grappas for the chalet girls Beppe had his wandering eyes on, Beppe declared eternal loyalty to Anna.

“Because she paid for grappas?”

“No, fool, because she did it without asking. Without seeking my approval. Without being so desperate for it she’d make a show of it. Of all the people she’s started fights with she hasn’t started any with me because she knows that we are bredrins.”

“Don’t use that word.”

“What, I’m from Streatham, of course I’ll use that word. But she understands. So yeah, if you and her say moved in together and had a litter of puppies, the first three to be called Giuseppe, I’d be all right with that.”

And just as Rocco was looking at houses, rings and thinking about how well Anna and his sisters would get on, disaster struck. Massimo Da Canaveze called him. “I will be brief, Rocco, but your father has been extremely careless. He passed on some information to a loose-lipped girl who has been in contact with a detective constable. This detective has been after your father for a long time.”

“What’s happened?”

“Get rid of everything that connects him to her and us. I have told your father to behave as normal, which means the clean-up will rely on you. You know what to look for. If not, speak to Nicholas and Anthony. You will not have very much time to rectify his mistakes. Do your best not to get yourself caught.”

“Yes sir. Thank you.”

Rocco called Nick and Tony to meet up with him, angry that his father was again intruding in his personal life. “What can we get rid of?”

Nick shrugged. “Formulate new attendance notes, change the dates, not just on the files he’s got but on his accounts. Has he been skimming money from dividends as well?”

“Probably.”

Tony winced. “It’ll take some time. How far back am I going?”

“I don’t even know. Your dad said we can’t get caught.”

Nick lowered his lashes and thought. “Tony, can you access the server for his firm?”

“Easy, but there’ll be stuff on his computer as well. Hardware history.”

“We have to do this,” Rocco said. “This will kill my mother.”

“To be honest, mate, it’ll fuck up your career as well.”

Tony caught his eye. “Do yourself a favour. Don’t tell Anna. If this detective is after your dad, he’s probably got an eye on you and her too.”

Rocco looked to Nick for help. “Seriously, don’t get her involved. If she doesn’t know anything, she can’t resent you for giving anything away.”

“Fine.”

So he withdrew from Anna, trying to keep her integrity intact, while the three of them did their best to erase the tracks of fraud in Rocco’s father’s work. The last job was to go to the office direct and remove the same information from his PC and replace it with well-documented client meetings and letters of advice. They got caught.
He
got caught. The security guard, who had been well paid to run the feed as directed by Tony, let one camera slip, and Rocco was caught on camera in the corridor of the firm. The police pounced and Rocco, for the first time, found himself in the wrong seat of a police station in front of an officer who seemed unnaturally excited about it all. He’d introduced himself as a DS Norcross and landed himself at the top of Rocco’s shit list.

“Where were you last night?”

“Can’t say.”

“You’re not protecting your father, and you’re only going to ruin your career. You won’t be a solicitor if you have a criminal record, Mr. Mamione.” His eyes turned malicious. “That won’t impress your mother.”

Rocco cleared his throat, to prevent himself from ripping out Norcross’. “No comment.”

Two hours into the interview, Rocco’s father manned up and claimed the video was of him, tidying up some work after a client dinner meeting. “Doesn’t answer the question, junior,” the officer spat, four hours into the investigation. “Where were you?”

“No comment.”

Norcross pressed him. “Maybe I should ask your mother. She’d do anything to protect you and your useless father.” He leered. “Anything at all. Women like your mother tend to be really lonely. All they need is an ear. Or whatever takes their fancy.”

Rocco chuckled, even as his solicitor touched his shoulder. Laughing was better than trying to pull out the man’s paltry brains through his nostrils. “Amateur,” Rocco murmured.

The interview was abruptly interrupted and the officer left the room. Rocco’s solicitor turned to him. “Work with me here, Rocco. Were you there?”

“Don’t be so fucking thick,” Rocco thundered.

“Call your girlfriend.”

“What for?”

“It’s what will help.”

“No,” he refused. “She is not getting in the middle of this.”

“Then you are doing yourself no favours.”

“Can you hear me? I said no.”

Norcross came back in. “Well, well, well. Like father, like son, eh? Some girl has just said you were with her last night. Some girl who says she’s not your girlfriend and you don’t want your girlfriend to know. Sound familiar?”

Rocco didn’t let a flicker of a muscle move on his face. “It’s personal.”

“Don’t play about with me.”

“Look, I’ve said I wasn’t there. Other people say I wasn’t there. The person who was allowed to be in the office at the time says they were there. Why are you wasting my time?”

“Interview terminated at nine forty-eight p.m.” The tape was abruptly switched off, and Norcross pushed his face uncomfortably close to Rocco’s. “I fucking hate you Mamiones. Swanning around like it’s fucking Sicily in the 19 fucking 50s. You’re not smart. You are not fucking clever. You will slip up. One of you or all of you, and then I’ll have the pleasure of throwing every single one of you into Brixton Prison. Nice and cosy. See if you can run shit from there. It’ll leave your mother all alone and in need of a real man to look after her.”

Whilst Rocco couldn’t agree more, there was no way this slimy dick would touch his mother. “Nice meeting you,” Rocco replied. He hurried out of the station and saw how many voice messages there were. Ignoring all of them, he called Anna. It rang for a few beats before it cut. He tried again. Cut off. The third time, it went straight to voice mail. “Annie, call me.”

He rang Beppe. “What the hell, man?”

“Crazy bitch said you were with her.”

“What?”

“Imogen,” Beppe repeated, and Rocco’s heart sank to his toes. Jesus, that girl was mad. She had the weirdest obsession with having anything Anna gave a second look to, and he had been top of the list. Rocco wouldn’t touch her for fear of rabies. “She saw you get arrested and said you two were at your flat banging away all of last night so you couldn’t have been at your dad’s office. Anna called me, so if she doesn’t know now, she will do real soon.”

“Why the fuck!” Rocco roared.

“You can sort it out with Anna, later, but you can’t say anything. We can’t say you were with us, because that’ll put you in the shit, and you can’t say Imogen’s lying because that’ll put you back to square one—why the fuck were you at that office? Worst bit is your dad. That floozy he was shagging just showed the police where she got the money from. We didn’t have time to get to the company accounts, coz we didn’t think he was stupid enough to touch company money. He’s done for Rocks.” Rocco lost his stomach. All of that. For what? “Mate, look, it could have been worse. If they found anything of what we got rid of, he’d be in so much shit, nothing could help him. At the most he’ll get a few years, maybe a fine given his age.”

“He won’t. That cunt of a pig is after him, hardcore. If dad gets away with less than five years, he’ll be lucky.”

Rocco trod as carefully as if his whole world was laid with broken glass. Norcross stalked him and, worse, stalked Anna outside college for a fortnight to catch Rocco out in a lie. It meant that Rocco could only try to contact Anna at the college in a weak attempt to keep his alibi tight.

“Pretty girl,” Norcross said once, as Rocco finished his elective exam on company law. “Your ex. Does she know what you’re like?”

“I’m sure your wife got the measure of you,” Rocco retorted, opening his car door. “How long did that marriage last, sell by date of a loaf of bread?”

Norcross slammed the car door shut, invading Rocco’s personal space. Red lines splintered his face around his nose and under his eyes. A vein pulsed in the man’s temple. “You’re a bloke. But you wouldn’t understand how easy it is for me to make women like her talk.”

Spots danced in Rocco’s vision. He was going to black out, wake up and pieces of this dickhead would be all over the road, in bloody chunks. “She’ll tear you a new one. Feel free to try.”

Norcross smirked. “You’re bluffing.”

Rocco opened the car door again, sending Norcross stumbling away from the vehicle. “Your choice.”

Fear and anger made him ask his mother if Norcross had made advances to her. Carmen was embarrassed and ashamed. “Don’t do anything, Rocco. Your father hasn’t been sentenced yet.”

“What did he do?”

Carmen rang her hands in desperation. “He said certain evidence could go missing if I... Oh God, Rocco, I can’t say it, but you understand what I mean.”

“He’s going to die,” Rocco said bluntly.

His mother cupped his face. “You will do no such thing. He didn’t touch me—”

“Mama, the very insult is enough for him to be dead. The fact that he threatened Anna with the same—”

“Baby,” she whispered, “your father. It’ll just make things worse if that awful man goes missing. They’ll blame you, and then this whole family will be ripped apart. You keep everyone together. Please, just this once, do nothing more.”

Bail was set at a ridiculous amount, due to his risk of absconding. Who could blame him? Sicily was far nicer than the UK weather wise. But with his father reporting at the local station every day, Rocco had some time to talk to him. “What’s this guy got against you? It’s so far beyond personal.”

His father looked wary. “Norcross wanted in. I told Massimo Da Canaveze that he couldn’t be trusted. Not just because he’s hungry for power—obviously he’s a small man who’s never had a foothold in anything. But because he’s fucked up in the head. Nothing’s ever stuck because their men weren’t convicted of anything, but... He’s known to get his jollies from women who want to
help
. You know? Massimo took my word for it, and he’s been my arch enemy ever since.”

“Dad.” Rocco wanted to bang his father’s head into the nearest wall. “You could have warned me!”

“Your mother thinks you’re a hothead and she’s right. I couldn’t risk you doing something and him ending up on the ten-0’clock news. The idea of him anywhere near my wife made me sick. If it made me sick, it’d make you murderous. Just keep an eye on your girl. From a distance, mind you. Pray to the Almighty that this won’t be as bad as I think it’ll be.”