The Fourth Cart Page 22

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Magee pressed the bell on Paul Mansell’s front door, stood back and braced himself for the possibility of a fierce argument.

  As the door opened, Magee politely said, ‘Good afternoon, Paul. I was just passing. I wondered whether I may have a chat?’

  Paul Mansell crossed his arms and said, ‘You don't just happen to pass through this road, Magee. It goes nowhere. Is this visit official? I thought I heard somewhere that you’d been thrown off the case?’

  ‘My, my, news does travel fast, doesn't it? But yes, it's true. I have been taken off the case.’

  ‘Good! In that case, you can piss off!’

  ‘Fair comment,’ but Magee wasn't going to be put off easily. ‘Look, if you're guilty of being involved in these murders then I can understand you not wanting to talk to me. But if you're innocent then I'm sure you'd be interested in helping to solve the case. After all, you told me about the hotel job, or was that simply another trick to get the police looking in the wrong direction?’

  ‘What the hell? You still think I’m involved?’ Paul sighed deeply. ‘Jesus, Magee, you’re a real pain.’

  ‘Well, look at it from my point of view. You might have been trying to help, or you might have been playing games with me.’

  Paul looked confused. ‘Why? How? Look, I keep telling you that I'm not involved.’

  ‘Well I beg to differ, as I’ve said before.’

  ‘That’s your problem, Magee, not mine.’ Paul paused, frowned and added, ‘Anyway, what makes you think I can help with your case? I've already told you everything I know.’

  ‘Not yet, you haven't.’

  ‘Magee, you're beginning to bug me. I swear to god that I have nothing more to tell you. I’ve been implicated in two murders and it would have been three had I not decided to cancel all my current work and cooperate with you.’

  ‘You still haven’t answered the question, why is the murderer using you?’

  ‘I’ve told you already, I haven’t a clue!’

  ‘Well I have.’

  Paul looked stunned. ‘What? What do you mean?’

  ‘A photograph. Something tangible that links you to three murders.’

  ‘Bollocks, Magee! You’ve got no such thing.’

  ‘Want a bet?’

  ‘Show me then!’

  ‘Okay, if you insist. Can we go inside though?’

  ‘Sure. Come in.’

  Magee stepped inside the flat, followed Paul into the sitting room and made himself comfortable in an armchair before withdrawing from his pocket a reprint of the photograph he’d obtained from Mrs Gibson. ‘I’m sure you’ll be able to identify some of the people in there.’

  ‘Yeah, like hell.’ Paul took the photograph out of Magee’s hand, looked down at it and gasped in shock, ‘That’s John!’

  ‘Your brother I take it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘I’ve told you before, Magee, I have no idea. He left home when I was young and never came back. Jesus, that's Nick next to him!’

  ‘Anyone else you recognize?’

  ‘This one’s got to be Sean. Sean Fitzpatrick.’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘Not that well, but I talk to him occasionally when he’s around. He works for Nick sometimes. He's a strange one though. He grew up with Nick, lived in the same street, they worked together when they were young. He's always bragging how he'd been a millionaire once but spent it all on fast living. Sean reckons he had three wives in ten years and each one took him to the cleaners.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘Not sure. Nick told me he’s being going through a bad patch these last few years. He’s served time I think, for assault on one of his wives. These days he dosses around Brighton, wherever he can find a bed. Nick sets him up with a bit of work now and then. I don't think Nick really wants to, but I guess he feels sorry for him.’

  ‘Does Nick ever talk about his time in Bangkok?’

  ‘Bangkok?’

  ‘That's where this photo was taken, I believe.’

  ‘No. No, he doesn't. He doesn’t like anyone to mention the subject.’

  ‘Does he ever talk about where he got his money from? Originally, that is.’

  ‘No way! That's not the sort of question you ask Nick. What's with this photo anyway?’

  ‘I’m pretty sure that Todd Conners, Mike Harwood and Robert Harrison, the three victims so far, are in it. Then there’s a Keith Gibson, he’s in there too. He died a while ago, but I’ve got evidence to suggest he would have been victim number four. I've got to get positive identification of the rest because I think they did something bad out in Bangkok, and someone is now out for revenge. This might even be the murderer's death list, for all I know. If it is, then Nick and your brother are on it. Hence, there is a real connection to you. So, will you cooperate with me or not?’

  ‘Shit!’ Paul closed his eyes for a few seconds and rubbed his brow. ‘Okay, Magee. You win. I’m convinced.’

  ‘Thank you, Paul.’

  ‘How can I help?’

  ‘Tell me about John. I need to know about him and his relationship with Nick, and how you fit in.’

  ‘Jesus, Magee. That’s heavy stuff, a real emotional roller-coaster. I’m not sure I want to go there.’

  ‘Please, Paul, it’s important. It might help save John’s life. And Nick’s of course.’

  ‘Well, I’ll try, but bear with me, Magee. I may be coming on for twenty-five this month, but it hurts like hell thinking about my childhood and John in particular.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I need to know about, Paul.’

  Paul Mansell settled back on his sofa and closed his eyes briefly before starting. ‘I was happy as a kid, Magee, but only up to the age of about three. You see, I idolized John. He was my big brother, fourteen years older than me. One day something terrible happened, I’ve never been able to work out what it was. I just know my parents blamed me for it. I have these vague memories of my parents shouting at John and pointing accusingly at me. God knows what it was about. I remember John packing a rucksack. Dad took all the money out of his pocket and threw it on the floor at John’s feet. John said goodbye to me from a distance, as he opened the garden gate. I was screaming and being held back by my father. I just knew John was going away, never to come back, but I’ve never known why.’ He paused to wipe the tears flowing down his face.

  ‘I’m so sorry, Paul,’ Magee said calmly, ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘From that moment on,’ Paul continued as the tears continued, ‘my parents were never quite the same again. They were cold towards me, dad never cuddled me. He always looked at me in an off-hand way. My life was shattered. I’d been abandoned by John and rejected by my parents. Whatever I’d done, it must have been terrible to be punished so much.’

  ‘Maybe it wasn’t you.’

  Paul wiped away at the tears. ‘Oh, it was me all right. I know that for sure. My parents never let me doubt it. So, I grew up with an enormous guilt complex, feeling responsible for John's departure and my parent's neglect. I suppose that’s why I started behaving badly. I had a thoroughly disturbed childhood, I regularly played truant from school and mixed with the wrong crowd. By the age of ten, I’d been lured into vandalism and petty theft. By the age of fourteen I was quite a well-known hooligan around the Arnos Grove area. It’s not something I’m proud of, Magee.’

  ‘But you broke the mould?’

  ‘Yeah, thanks to Nick.’

  ‘Nick Price, your saviour. Remind me, just how did that happen?’

  ‘It was my sixteenth birthday. I’d woken up in the morning to find that my parents hadn't bothered buying me a present. They just wished me a happy birthday and said that now I was grown up I shouldn't need childish comforts like having presents to unwrap. I took that rather badly. I guess that was the one thing that I did need. It was the final straw, positive proof that my parents didn't give a damn abou
t me. I left the house after breakfast with no intention of going to school whatsoever. I spent the day kicking my heels with my unsavory friends, boasting that I was going to do some serious damage that evening.’

  ‘And you did, judging from your records.’

  ‘Too right, I did. I didn't return home that night, I was caught red-handed in the middle of a local department store smashing everything in sight. The police must have thought they had a lunatic on their hands, I was crying, screaming, hurling abuse and throwing around everything I could pick up.’

  ‘Were you drunk?’

  ‘No. Just angry. I didn’t do drink or drugs.’

  ‘Where does Nick fit in?’

  ‘Apparently, Nick had come looking for me at my parents’ house that day. He told them he wanted to invite me over for a chat and to offer me a job should I need one. Dad was impressed by Nick and was pleased that someone wished to give me a job, so he took Nick’s telephone number. Next day, Dad phoned Nick to say that I’d spent the night in a police cell and was in really serious trouble.’

  ‘And he came to your rescue?’

  Paul choked, ‘Yeah, he certainly did that. He came to see me at the station with a classy lawyer, then left to sort out the storeowner. Three hours later I was out.’

  ‘Out? What, you mean in the clear?’

  ‘Nick said the owner of the department store wasn’t going to press charges.’

  ‘Any idea how much damage you caused?’

  ‘Erm, no, an awful lot, I should think.’

  ‘And Nick paid for those damages?’

  ‘Yeah, I guess he did.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He told me he owed John a favour.’

  ‘It must have been an extraordinarily large favour.’

  ‘Nick said he owed his life to John.’

  ‘What about the charges?’

  ‘All charges were dropped. Well, I received a strong caution.’

  ‘Just a caution?’ Magee murmured. ‘How the hell did Nick swing that one?’

  ‘He said he had friends in high places. Friends that could fix things like that.’

  ‘That doesn’t surprise me. So, you came out of the police station indebted to Nick?’

  ‘Well, yes and no. I left the police station in tears of joy to find a Bentley waiting for me. I was driven all the way down to Brighton, shown straight into a gymnasium where Nick was working out. He made me put on a pair of boxing gloves, then he beat the shit out of me for the next half an hour.’

  ‘Hah!’ Magee said, broke into a smile. ‘Now that’s something I approve of.’

  ‘It did the trick. From that moment on, we were friends. I worked for Nick, I lived in his house. I guess he became both the father and elder brother I’d been deprived of for so long.’

  ‘You were close?’

  ‘Yeah, real close.’

  ‘And all this because of John?’

  ‘Guess so. Nick tolerated my problems, tried to sort me out. He did sort me out. Well, in the main, I guess.’

  ‘But not quite?’

  ‘Some matters have never been satisfactorily resolved. Like where the hell is John, and why did he abandon me.’

  ‘No clues?’

  ‘Only that Nick and John had known each other in Bangkok for a few years, that they’d run a bar together, that they’d had a happy time. Guess this photo shows that.’

  ‘Ever wanted to find John? To ask him what happened?’

  ‘Yes . . . no . . . I don’t know, Magee. I’m confused about that issue. I’ve been to Bangkok many times, as I told you. I’ve made a few half-hearted attempts to locate John, but something inside seems to hold me back, as though it doesn’t want to face the reality of what happened.’

  Magee sat in sadness. ‘You know Paul, I figured you wrong. You really need to sort that problem out; you’ll never settle into a normal life until you do.’

  ‘Yeah, I know that, Magee, but where do I start? I don’t want to screw up my friendship with Nick by digging too deep. He doesn’t like that, you know, being questioned about what he refers to as his bad old days. On the other hand, I could really screw things up even more for myself if I did find John and he told me what really happened to make him leave.’

  ‘I need to talk to Nick about this photo.’ Magee looked at his watch. ‘It’s not six yet. Will you come with me, if I go now? Maybe we can clear some of this up together?’

  ‘Sure. It’s time I faced the music, I guess. Just a second, I’ll get my jacket. I’ll follow you in my own car.’