The Magpies A Psychological Thriller

Twenty-five


Jamie picked up the piece of paper, studied the phone number, lifted his phone. His finger hovered over the first digit: 0.

He dialled the number.

He spent the morning working out. The weights and rowing machine that he had bought during the summer had sat in the corner for a while now, untouched, gathering a gossamer skin of dust. He ran his index finger along the barbell, licked the dust from his finger. He lay on his back and lifted the weights above his chest. Up, then down. Up, then down. It hurt but he kept going until his muscles felt like they would combust.

He stood up and lifted the weights above his head. He gripped a smaller dumbbell in each hand and pulled them in towards his body – in, out, in, out. He sat on the rowing machine and rowed, back and forth, back and forth. This was how he filled the days, with monotonous exercises that didn’t require thought and at the same time obliterated thought. All he could think about was the pain in his arms and legs and chest; the ache in his back and shoulders. When he was straining to lift a barbell above his head for the fortieth time he didn’t think about Kirsty. He thought about the strain on his body; the bead of sweat that trickled down his forehead and hung above his eye, threatening to fall.

He wasn’t trying to make himself strong. He wasn’t preparing himself for a fight. He was just trying to stop himself thinking. Because thinking hurt too much.

Up, down. In, out. Back, forth. Push-ups, sit-ups, squat thrusts. Crunching his stomach muscles. Forth, back. Out, in. Down, up.

And repeat.

Sometimes he would drop a weight by accident, or fall onto the floor himself, and as the bang reverberated through the flat he would tense, hurting himself as he pulled his muscles inwards, trying to shrink, an animal instinct to hide taking over. He would crouch there in fear, waiting for the banging to start, or a knock at the door. Sometimes the banging came, the sound of a broom knocking against the ceiling, going on for perhaps ten minutes without pause. Sometimes nothing happened and, eventually, after sitting rock-still for five minutes, he would relax and wait for his muscles to stop cramping At such times, he always needed a cigarette. He lit up, inhaled, exhaled, flicked ash into an overflowing ashtray, a graveyard of cigarettes that he never emptied, filling the flat with a charred nicotine stink.

Up down in out back forth.

Every day.

It was a mobile number. He wouldn’t have expected anything else. He imagined a bear-like man at the other end, cradling a tiny mobile phone in his huge paw. They would listen to him and laugh and put the phone down. But he wouldn’t give up. He knew he could persuade them to do it.

He held the receiver in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He dialled the number that Mike had given him and listened to it ring and ring. He expected it to cut to a voicemail message at any moment, but it kept ringing. He was about to put the phone down and try again – thinking there must be some technical problem at the other end – when the ringing ceased.

‘Hello?’

Jamie took a deep breath, and couldn’t think of what to say.

‘Hello?’ the man repeated, confused and a little irritated.

Jamie sensed that the man was about to cut him off. He panicked. ‘I need you to help me.’

‘This isn’t the Samaritans.’

‘No.’ Jamie spoke quickly. ‘I know who you are. You’re Charlie. I need you to help me deal with someone.’

There was a long pause at the other end. Jamie could hear the sound of machinery in the background; drills and JCBs, men talking, cars rushing by. Jamie thought he had been cut off, but then the man said, ‘Who is this? How did you get this number?’

‘A friend gave it to me.’

‘What friend?’

‘I can’t tell you.’

He heard the man suck in air through his teeth. ‘Put the phone down and I’ll call you back.’

‘But–’

The line went dead. Jamie waited. Five minutes passed – five long, long minutes of dread – before the phone rang. Jamie grabbed it, almost hitting himself in the face with it.

‘What do you mean “deal with”?’ the man asked. The background noise had gone. Jamie guessed the man had gone inside somewhere. He imagined him sitting in a car, or a portakabin in a scrap yard. His head was full of movie images: the safe world of movie violence, vicarious thrills for those who lived far from danger. Jamie felt himself to be part of that world now. It was more terrifying than he had ever suspected.

‘I want somebody hurt. Scared.’

A low chuckle. ‘That’s all?’

Jamie realised he was asking if he wanted someone killed. ‘God, no. I mean yes. I mean hurt, but not killed. Frightened off.’

‘What’s your name?’

Jamie hesitated.

‘If you don’t tell me your name you can f*ck off right now.’

Jamie paused. ‘It’s James.’

There was silence at the other end. He realised that the man had put his hand over the mouthpiece and was talking to someone else. Mike’s other friend. He wondered if either of them was actually called Charlie. He doubted it. He strained to hear what they were saying, but couldn’t make out anything but the low drone of voices.

‘Give me the details.’

Jamie took a deep breath. ‘OK. It’s my neighbours. There are two of them. They’ve made my life hell and I want them scared off. I want them to know that I’m not going to put up with it any more.’

‘So we’re talking about a warning?’

‘Yes. A warning.’

He heard the man say something to his friend but, again, couldn’t make it out. ‘What the f*ck makes you think we’d do something like that? Who told you?’

Jamie had known all along that they wouldn’t do it without knowing who had put him onto them. As far as they knew, he could be a policeman. He could be anyone. And he hadn’t been able to come up with a plausible story. Sorry Mike, he said in his mind, and then he told them.

‘Really?’

They conferred again. Jamie wished he hadn’t had to tell them Mike’s name, but what choice did he have? He knew Mike had left them a message saying he had a job for them. His only worry was that Mike would have contacted them again and told them that if someone called them asking them to deal with his neighbours, they should tell that someone to f*ck off. But he was willing to gamble that Mike would have left it alone, not wanting to get involved any more than he already was. Maybe he thought that Jamie would chicken out; that he wouldn’t have the guts to go through with it. He was wrong.

He waited for the man to return to the phone. After a long wait, the man said ‘OK. Here’s what happens. I’m going to call you back later this afternoon and we’ll exchange details. You tell me the names and the address. I’ll tell you where to leave the money.’

‘The money.’

The man chuckled. ‘You didn’t think was a free service, did you, James?’

‘No, of course. How much?’

‘Ten grand.’

Jamie caught his breath. £10,000. He did a quick calculation in his head. There was just over £10,000 in his and Kirsty’s savings account – money they had been saving for a long time; money that was not supposed to be touched. Half it was Kirsty’s, and they both needed to sign the form to withdraw the money. That was easy enough – he had forged Kirsty’s signature many times, when paying bills, etc. But what about Kirsty? Wouldn’t he be stealing from her?

You’re doing this for her, a voice inside his head whispered. You’re doing it for both of you, to make your home safe again. Once this is over, Kirsty will come back and everything will be fine. You’ll be able to try for another baby. Everything will be fine. Kirsty will understand.

He didn’t even think about how skint he would be if he gave them that money. He had already given up his job. Yesterday, he had received a call from personnel, asking him why he hadn’t been in. Was he still ill? ‘No,’ he had told them. ‘I’m not coming back. I quit.’

£10,000.

‘OK,’ he said.

The line went dead.

He waited all afternoon for the man to call back. He worked out, pumping weights, rowing back and forth, back and forth. When he dropped the barbell on the floor – causing a great crash – he didn’t care. He felt powerful, energy flowing through him, direct current making his bones strong, his mind sharp. F*cking hell yes, they were going to pay. Oh f*cking hell yes.

Kirsty would come back.

Everything would be OK.

Life would be sweet again.

The man rang back at five o’clock. Again, there was no background noise. The man spoke quietly. ‘Right. Do you know where Mile End stadium is? Good.’ The man proceeded to give Jamie instructions of where to meet them. ‘We won’t pick up the money ourselves. Our courier will use a code word to prove who they are.’

Jamie almost laughed, giddy with a mad kind of euphoria. This was like the movies.

‘The code word is neighbour.’

‘Good choice.’

The man spoke in a low tone, shot through with menace: ‘This isn’t a game, James. If you think that, we can call it off right now.’

Jamie felt another surge of panic: ‘No, no, I don’t think it’s a game. It’s the most serious thing I’ve–’

The man cut him dead. ‘Yeah, yeah. Save it.’

‘It will take me a couple of days to get the money. It’s in a savings account.’

‘Yeah, whatever. We’ll make it Wednesday then. Thirteen-hundred hours.’

‘Fine.’

Halfway through the word, the man terminated the call.

He drove to the local branch of their bank and picked up the form he needed to fill out in order to withdraw the money. He took the form back to the car and signed his own signature on the left and Kirsty’s on the right. His hand trembled as he did so, and the ‘t’ in Kirsty’s ‘Knight’ wobbled a little. He remembered watching Kirsty practising her new signature when they got married. ‘Kirsty Knight. KK. Thank God my middle name’s not Katherine or Kate – I could never marry you. Or I’d have to keep my old surname.’

‘You could keep it anyway,’ he had said.

‘No.’ She kissed him. ‘I like the idea of us having the same name. It will be easier for our child, as well.’

Jamie’s eyes misted over and guilt stabbed him in the gut. Get a grip, he whispered to himself. Be a man.

He filled in the amount that he wanted to withdraw – £10,000, everything they had – then took the form back to the bank.

‘This will be available in 48 hours,’ said the clerk.

He nodded.

Two days passed. The two slowest days of his life. Minutes felt like weeks; hours like months. He tried to occupy himself. He smoked, he played computer games, he even tried to masturbate, but he felt no desire, had no feeling down there, as if all the nerve endings had shrivelled and died. He exercised endlessly. He drank coffee. He tried to eat but he wasn’t hungry. He felt too sick; there was no saliva in his mouth. He paced up and down.

He checked his emails. There was a message from Paul. He was still in Ibiza, but he had dumped the American and moved on to a local girl. She was beautiful, he said. He might stay in Ibiza for a while longer. He said he hoped everything was OK with him and Kirsty, that he was looking forward to seeing the baby when he got back and that he gladly offered his services as a godfather. He ended the message by saying, If you see Chris and Lucy, say hi to them from me.

Jamie turned the computer off without replying to the message. He unplugged it from the wall.

‘You are so wrong about them, Paul,’ he said to himself. ‘How could you be so wrong?’ It actually scared him – that his best friend didn’t believe what he said about Lucy and Chris. Nobody ever believed him – not Paul, not the police. In fact, the only person who had believed him was Mike: who he had just betrayed.

It was such a mess.

But it would all be sorted out soon.

He picked up the money – 500 £20 notes, bundled together with elastic bands. Somehow he had expected £10,000 to look a lot more substantial. He held the money in his hands and thought about what he could do with it. He could go on a long holiday; maybe go to see Paul in Ibiza, live out there for while. He could live on the money for a few months, pay the bills. He could put it towards moving.

But no, this money was meant for one thing only.

He drove to the East End, parked in a side street off Mile End Road and walked down the road towards the stadium. The sky was slate grey and drizzling rain soaked his face and hair and clothes. He had the money in a carrier bag in his inside coat pocket. His hands were so cold he couldn’t feel his fingers. He shoved them into his pockets, but it didn’t help much.

He passed a group of teenagers in designer sports wear. One of the boys bumped into him, and he grabbed at the money, paranoid that he was going to be mugged. A look of fear passed across the boy’s face. Jamie was confused. Why did the boy look frightened? He stopped and looked at himself in the side mirror of a parked car. His eyes looked wild; he was gaunt, his cheeks hollow, his lips bruised where he kept biting them. No wonder the teenager had looked so afraid. He must have thought Jamie was a lunatic, or a junkie. Somebody unstable and dangerous: a volcano ready to blow.

Minutes later, he found himself standing on the spot that the man had specified, behind the stadium. There was nobody around; the rain made sure of that. He looked at his watch. Ten to one. He had time for a cigarette.

As he crushed the cigarette out under his boot, he spotted a small girl of about seven or eight coming towards him from the direction of the main road. She was walking straight towards him. But where the hell was the courier? He didn’t want to be pestered by a little kid.

The girl walked right up to him. ‘Neighbour,’ she said. She was tiny, her face pinched and waxen like she’d never really breathed fresh air, like a miniature OAP.

He looked at her, surprised. She held out her hand. ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got all day.’

Jamie reached into his pocket and pulled out the carrier bag containing the bundle of money. All his savings. All his and Kirsty’s savings. He had a sudden glimpse of the absurdity of what he was doing: handing all this money over to a little girl to pass on to two men he had never even met, one of whom might or might not be called Charlie. But what choice did he have? He had to deal with Lucy and Chris. He gritted his teeth in determination. He would not let them win. And this was the only way. The only way.

He gave the girl the money. She ran off, swinging the bag as she went.

Jamie tried to follow her. He wanted to catch sight of the men who would be doing his dirty work, but the girl was too quick. She darted off between two parked cars and ran across the road. A bus went by, obscuring her from view, and when the bus had passed by she had vanished.

Shit.

Oh well, it didn’t matter anyway. In fact, it was probably better that he didn’t know who they were. He didn’t want to know. As long as they did what he paid them for – that was all that mattered.

He walked back to his car, smoking another cigarette as he went. He had arranged for the men to visit Lucy and Chris on Friday evening. He knew they never went out on Fridays. They hardly ever went out, full stop. There had been that time that he and Kirsty had seen them at the restaurant when, he was convinced, Lucy had somehow tampered with their food while he was in the kitchen. Otherwise, they seemed to stay in every night. Boring, stay-at-home psychopaths. It was almost funny.

Back at the flat, he checked the answerphone, hoping that Kirsty might have called. She had called just once since leaving, to let him know that she was at her parents and that she was safe. It was a tense, brief phone call. He could hear her parents talking in the background, speaking loudly, saying things about him. He didn’t know if Kirsty would tell them the whole story – he doubted it, as she wouldn’t want her parents to become involved – but no doubt they would blame Jamie for her miscarriage. They had never got on with him. Going away to Gretna Green to get married had been the final nail in the coffin of their relationship.

He sat on the sofa and thought about what he had done; the wheels he had set in motion. Had he done the right thing? He couldn’t think straight. His head was too full of images of pain and violence; pain and regret; pain and sorrow. Yes, it had to be the right thing to do. Kirsty would be so pleased to hear about it. Her face would light up with joy as he told her the good news: that the Newtons weren’t going to bother them any more. She would run back to him, throw her arms around him, cover him with kisses. He couldn’t wait.

Yes, it was the right thing to do. And anyway, the wheels were in motion now. It was too late to change things.