The Magpie Trap: A Novel Read online

  ‘I was always a little bit scared of you. You were a big man, or is that memory playing tricks with me? Perhaps it was your presence which was big. To a child, you seemed to radiate an intolerance which meant that you would silence the rest of the room. You had a blunt, unforgiving demeanour which for some reason was embodied in your angry moustache and furrowed brow. Even your roar of a laugh echoed with challenge, contempt, and arrogance.

  When you died I felt relief. I no longer have to live up to the expectations you had for me, I never have to suffer being ignored again. But, I am probably mistaken. Maybe you never ignored me. Maybe you simply couldn’t express your love for me, just like I can’t express my love for anybody else in my life. Maybe you were scared that you would hurt me… Maybe that’s why you didn’t want me in that room to see you slide away without a fight.

  But perhaps you never simply accepted death. Perhaps you raged against the dying of your light. Perhaps you swore and beat your fists against the hospital bed at the injustice of it all. Perhaps you wanted to see me have children, into whom you would pour all of the love that you were too embarrassed to show me.

  I didn’t know you at all. If I wanted, I could trace you in registry offices, speak to mam about you, or I could look at photographs, but I could still never meet you as you once were, and as I am now, as equals. All I ever wanted was to take you for a pint and to talk, man to man. To laugh with you. I want to know what you were like before you were worn down by broken dreams. You were a builder with big rough hands and a gruff voice. Perhaps I could build a you for me. Build something that I can remember. But, my father who art in heaven; you’ve always been a ghost to me.’

  When Mark finished his speech, he descended from the pulpit, but he didn’t walk back to his seat in the pews; he carried on walking, past the astonished, angry faces of the congregation, and straight out of the door at the back. As soon as he was out of the door, he was violently sick, but as the poison left his body, he felt as though he had exorcised some evil spirit.

  Jumping off cliffs when asked

  Snow-boarding; a sea of white-water rafting trips; a one-time-only visit to an underground fight club; numerous bungee-jumps; a spell of spelunking; a dangerous trip to Milan with the Leeds United supporters club; three sky-dives; drugs. Lots of drugs. There were designer drugs, lifestyle drugs, body-building drugs and mind-fuck drugs; the drugs that allowed him to forget but not to forgive. Ambition was a drug too, so he snorted that down with abandon. Then there were the sandwiches from Prêt, coffees from the stylish Italian joint on the corner of

  Call Lane, the endless meals out, the gym membership, the plasma screen and the remote-controlled existence in the flat-pack apartment. Quaffing the finest wines known to humanity, buying and losing a scooter within a week, the Joan Miro prints behind the eyelids. A tattoo. A fast car that was more hassle than it was worth, what with the parking problems in the city centre. An acquired taste for anchovies and for expensive cheese which had been allowed to ferment for years on the toilet seat of a peasant farmer in the French countryside. A secret desire to break away and experience something visceral and lasting. Risk; it all comes back to risk and a person’s attitude towards risk. What was there to lose? ‘What is there to lose?’ mused Chris Parker, pulling another toothpick from the container on the bar.

  Maurice popped his head up from under the heavy wooden counter where he had been bottling-up and sighed. ‘You wouldn’t have your nice flat and your nice car and your gym membership and your nice cheeses. That’s what you’d lose.’

  ‘I need to get away though, Mo. The city’s dragging me down. I try not to listen to myself in meetings when I’m at that place, but sometimes I can’t help it. I’ve turned into Daddy dear. Just you wait; in a few years time, when I’m not bothered about the gut anymore, I’ll trade in the gym membership for membership of the bloody golf club.’

  ‘Like another drink?’ asked Maurice, gesturing to Chris’s empty bottle of Nastro Azzuro.

  Chris stared at the bottle as though he hadn’t realised until then that he’d actually drained its contents. Maurice recognised his confusion, gave a patient smile and wiped his elegant hands on the front of his black and white chequered apron.

  In the background, the small radio fizzed and popped along with the latest chart hit from a local Leeds band called The Breech. The song’s chorus repeatedly asked the question: ‘Would you jump off a cliff if he asked you?’

  ‘Might as well,’ said Chris.

  ‘Nothing to lose, eh?’ grinned Maurice.

  The Brasserie was empty, apart from Chris; in fact, it was not even officially open. But people like Chris seemed to give off that air of not working to other people’s proscribed ideas of timely constraint. Chris’s looks and job made him the kind of person that was allowed into places where the general public was generally excluded.

  ‘Tell me more about this proposition from your mate,’ said Maurice, deftly cracking off the top of the bottle with an opener which was attached to his belt and depositing it in front of Chris on the bar. Chris eyed him cautiously for a moment as though weighing up how much to tell him or trying to work out how much of the Maurice’s concern was wrapped up with his worries about the business he’d lose if Chris were to leave Leeds.

  ‘Oh, he’s got some idea about working abroad,’ he said, dismissively. ‘Not really thought it through, but I can see to that side of things.’

  ‘It’s not something illegal, is it?’ asked Maurice.

  Chris paused briefly with the green Nastro bottle at his lips. He’d already convinced himself. He’d already talked himself into jumping off the cliff after Danny. What did it matter what he told old Maurice. Old Maurizio would be tight-lipped if the law ever came a-calling. Old Maurizio would know what happened to snitches, what with his constant viewing of the Mafia films by which he learned his accent.

  ‘No,’ said Chris finally. ‘But even if it was, I’d be in.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Maurice. ‘You’d give up everything for a shot of adrenaline in the arm?’

  ‘Better than sleeping your way through your life,’ said Chris, before taking another gulp from the bottle.

  ‘Your father would say that all this talk is just a cry for help. All this jumping off buildings that you do when you go on your adventure holidays… You just want someone to step in and stop you,’ said Maurice, bravely.

  ‘I’m not on your psychiatrist’s couch,’ said Chris. ‘And do me a favour; turn that radio up. I love this tune.’

  Maurice smiled nervously and twisted the dial on the little radio. Outside, a couple of women walked up to the glass double-doors and pressed their faces on the glass as though trying to understand why there appeared to be a man inside the restaurant drinking, despite the fact that the sign said the place was closed. One of the women tried the door but found it locked. Maurice sighed and shook his head before lumbering over to explain to them that they weren’t special enough to warrant the kind of attention that he was pouring onto his best customer.

  Chris smiled at the thought, and absently reached for another toothpick. As he did so, he felt his mobile phone vibrate in his pocket. He fished it out and regarded the screen with distaste; a withheld number. He hated withheld numbers and their anonymous but still very real threat of being a goddamn sales call. He pressed answer, believing that it would be one of the very last times he’d ever have to do so.

  ‘Chris Parker speaking,’ he said into the handset.

  ‘Ah, Mr. Parker. You may not know me, but please allow me to introduce myself before you press the ‘off’ button on your phone.’

  ‘Who’s this?’ asked Chris, fingering the label on the Nastro Azzuro.

  ‘You might know me as the consultant that has been dealing with your friend Daniel Morris.’

  Chris removed the phone from his ear and glanced at the screen once more, trying to work out whether it was some kind of crank call.

  ‘How did you get this number? Who are you?
What’s your name?’

  ‘My name is not important. How I got this number is not important. What is very important is that you listen to me. I will tell you exactly what to do and when to do it.’

  ‘Now hold on a minute,’ interjected Chris.

  ‘Would you please listen to what I have to say?’ asked the man. ‘At the moment, you may have heard details of a – how you say? – hare-brained scheme from your friend Daniel Morris. You might have your doubts about this scheme, but I would like to set your mind at rest. Just as I commissioned Daniel and Mark Birch to infiltrate the site electronically, I have also commissioned the three of you to infiltrate it physically. You must believe me therefore when I say that I have your best interests at heart. This project must go well or else you will be caught. How far do you trust your friend?’

  ‘He’s been my friend for years.’

  ‘You would trust him with your life? Your freedom?’

  ‘Well… I think…’

  ‘Why would you go along with a drunken plan as proposed by a man that cannot even be trusted to look after his own best interests?’

  ‘Now hold on a minute here,’ said Chris. ‘What are you suggesting?’

  Maurice, who was returning to the bar from the door, looked at him with concern. Chris stepped away from the bar and mouthed that it was a private conversation.

  ‘Danny’s a fool, but he’s trustworthy,’ continued Chris more quietly. ‘But wait a minute. Are you telling me that you’re behind the whole of this plan? Danny never told me anything about that…’

  ‘Daniel Morris is a key part of this plan. He’s the man that first told me about this Intertel Shift. But he’s careless, unreliable. That’s why I need you, Chris. I need you to be the leader. I need you to make sure that everything goes to plan.’

  ‘But how do I know I can even trust you? I’ve never met you… Never spoken to you before in my life, and now you’re telling me all of this.’

  ‘Would you trust me if I could tell you more about who gave Dawn Foster, the journalist, all of that information about your brother?’

  ‘What do you know about my brother?’

  ‘I know who’s responsible for the leak…’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Ah, all in good time. All in good time. Let me propose a deal with you. If you oversee this whole operation, then I will let you know. After the heist, I would like all of you to come to Mauritius.’

  ‘Where? Why?’ asked a breathless Chris. He was running his hands across the exposed brickwork as though trying to locate Mauritius within its coarse grain.

  ‘Mauritius; look it up on that powerful computer of yours. It’s not as though it will distract you from work… Chris, I’d like you to come and meet me. I will tell you everything then. For now, I would like you to listen very carefully and I will provide you with the cover story which you’ll require in order to explain why you suddenly leave the country after one of the biggest robberies in modern times.’

  ‘But why does it have to be so soon? I know this Intertel Shift thing is supposed to be this week, but we need more time to plan…’

  ‘There is no more time,’ said the voice. ‘You must do this now or never. And don’t let it be never.’

  Oh Danny Boy…

  The walls of the sales floor of the EyeSpy Security offices were littered with over-the-top motivational posters which were intended to inspire the workforce onto greater things. There was a print of a tiger, supposedly symbolising ‘attitude’, a picture of man and boy fishing which bore the legend ‘Carpe Diem: Seize the Day’ and Danny’s particular favourite: a still from the movie Forrest Gump which was headed by an altered version of the film’s most famous line. It read: ‘Life is like a box of chocolates… and so are our customers.’ Danny particularly liked this poster because of its inference that some of the customers were therefore ‘nutty’ or had ‘soft-centres’. Because of this poster, the sales team always referred to a particularly tough customer as ‘nougat’.

  Danny surveyed the office with a detached cynicism: he was only marking time here now before the big heist and his escape into a new life. He pictured himself in a place which resembled the lake which the man and boy fished in the motivational poster. He pictured his cares and worries floating away; being lifted gently up and down by the almost imperceptible eddies and swirls of the water. All around him was dead silence, and the folds of the mountains in the background acted like a wall to keep out the outside world…

  Danny was shaken out of his reverie by an insistent voice.

  ‘Danny? Danny, are you all right?’

  It was Paula, waving a bulky A4 file in front of his face as if it was a fan.

  Danny cleared his throat, ‘Sorry, just working some figures out in my head.’

  ‘Whatever you say,’ replied Paula, uncertainly. ‘Are you really all right though? A little bird tells me that Mr. Thomas had you in on a Saturday morning about your problems at home and that incident with the brewery bums… ’

  ‘Right,’ Danny sighed, ‘word travels fast around here. Anyone would think that the mugs that work here have nothing better to talk about. He’s given me a written warning.’

  Paula pulled a chair up next to Danny’s desk and touched his arm as though to encourage him. ‘I know. I was the one that had to type it up for him. Man types like he’s the ape at the beginning of 2001 and he’s just worked out that there is such a thing as technology…’

  ‘He’s not that bad,’ muttered Danny, remembering Fartin Thomas’s strange behaviour from Saturday morning; the way that he’d almost miraculously morphed into something resembling a nice guy once his wings of steel – the work suit – had been taken out of the equation.

  ‘Not that bad?’ asked Paula, raising her eyebrow. She continued, but this time in more of a whisper: ‘I’ve never heard you say anything about our great leader unless it was something about him being a complete and utter shit.’

  ‘I told him I’d buck my ideas up and he gave me a bit more time. It’s weird; he seemed almost normal without his suit. Well, normal apart from his usual goddamn analogies,’ replied Danny.

  Paula smiled in recognition. ‘What did he come up with this time; sales is like a game of snooker? Or is it crown green bowls now?’

  Danny smiled and then decided to chance his arm a little. ‘Have you seen Cheryl? You know… at the gym?’

  Paula’s face clouded over a little.

  ‘Course I’ve seen her,’ she said, after taking a brief look over her shoulder to check whether the other office-based goons were listening-in. ‘You know that we both still go up to Dragon’s gym together.

  ‘And?’

  ‘And…She was crying on the running machine, Danny, crying. So I grabbed her and we went for a drink in the bar, and she told me a whole lot about the sorry mess you’ve got yourself in. She still loves you but just doesn’t know if she can bear it any more if you don’t change. She’s trying shock tactics by leaving for a couple of weeks, but looking at the state of you today, it seems you’re not paying any attention.’

  ‘You’re on her side. Straight away, without even knowing my side of the story, you’re on her side. I should have known. Girls stick together. Well fuck you very much Cheryl,’ snapped Danny.

  ‘I am not Cheryl. I’m Paula. Look, she’s clearly on your mind; if you ever need anybody to speak to about all of this, please just give me a shout,’ and again she touched his arm as she got up out of the seat and began to walk back to her desk, before pausing again: ‘I nearly forgot; this is the file you asked for. Its Edison’s Printers; all the drawings, specifications and security detail. Thomas asked me to get it from the safe for you. Blimey, the amount of security you sell into them, it must be like Fort Knox by now.’

  Danny watched her pert bottom all the way back across the room and back to her desk by the front door. Her touching his arm like that had given him a couple of ideas, after all, it had been quite a while since he and Cheryl had done anything remot
ely sexual. He felt a stirring, like a returning old friend, or the itch on the invisible leg of a man whose leg has been amputated. The plan was giving him a new lease of life. Well, if she wanted to talk, he could think of a few ideas…

  He began to root around in his desk drawers, searching for the razor he knew he had put in there for exactly this type of emergency. As he walked past Paula’s desk, he gave her a wink; but it was one which could be interpreted as an ‘I’m okay’ wink, just in case…

  Danny hacked away with the blunt razor blade at his face, trying in vain to sculpt himself back into the ‘young Alec Baldwin’ look he had once cultivated after he had been told that he bore a striking resemblance to his character in Glengarry Glen Ross. As more and more stubble was removed, however, it simply exposed a tiredness in him which made him look more like that old Mike Baldwin character from

  Coronation Street. Well, he thought, at least I am neat and tidy, and a girl can’t ask for more than that. He slapped on some aftershave and re-emerged onto the sales floor, his face throbbing in naked pain from the hack-job he had suffered. Luckily, no blood was seeping out, yet.

  He approached the reception desk, where Paula was tapping rapidly at her keyboard, her face a mask of concentration. She brushed a stray hair away from her eyes and bit her lip. Danny was tempted…

  He watched her a little longer, marveling at the fact that nobody else seemed to have noticed that she was not only beautiful - despite the fact she seemed to want to hide this beauty behind a severe haircut - but also so obviously intelligent. From what Cheryl had told him, Paula was a folk musician; a highly talented singer and guitarist. The day job was just to make ends meet.

  Danny’s secret knowledge of her night-time activities made her seem to him an exciting, challenging target for his advances; to him, catching her would be like trapping a butterfly. He had often shared light-hearted banter with her, and always sat with her on work night’s out, inventing mad stories about their colleagues, but these nights had dried up once Paula had met Cheryl at the gym, and they had chanced upon a conversation about work. They had laughed at the coincidence at first, but had eventually become thick as thieves in their surveillance of the wayward Danny. He had stopped asking her out for drinks, and had almost forgotten about her until he realised that he might never see her again. He was de-mob happy, and had the confidence to try anything…