Chapter 114
Elizabeth is out late, but Bogdan and Stephen have not noticed.
Bogdan has his lower lip jutting out to one side as he thinks.
He taps on the table, considering the right move.
He stares across at Stephen, then back down at the board.
How does this man play like this? If Bogdan isn’t very, very careful he is going to lose.
And he doesn’t remember the last time he lost.
“Bogdan, can I ask you a question?” says Stephen.
“Always,” says Bogdan. “We are friends.”
“It won’t put you off? I have you in a bind here. I wonder if you need to concentrate.”
“Stephen, we play, we talk. They are both special to me.” Bogdan moves his bishop. He looks up at Stephen, who is surprised at the move but not yet concerned.
“Thank you, Bogdan, they are both special to me too.”
“So, ask me a good question.”
“It’s only this. Well, firstly, what was the name of the chap?” Stephen attacks Bogdan’s bishop, but senses he is being lured into something.
“Which chap, Stephen?” asks Bogdan, looking down at the board, grateful for the chink of light that has just appeared.
“The first one who was killed? The builder?”
“Tony,” says Bogdan. “Tony Curran.”
“That’s the one,” says Stephen. He rubs his chin as Bogdan protects his bishop, and opens the board at the same time.
“What’s the question?” asks Bogdan.
“Well, forgive me if I’m speaking out of turn, but from everything I hear about it, I think you killed him. Elizabeth talks to me, you know.” Stephen moves a pawn but can see there’s nothing much doing.
Bogdan looks around the room for a moment, then back at Stephen.
“Sure, I killed him. It’s a secret, though; only one other person knows.”
“Oh, mum’s the word, old boy—no one will hear it from me. But I don’t really understand why. Not money, surely, that doesn’t seem your style at all.”
“No, not money. You got to be careful with money. Don’t let it be in charge.” Bogdan advances a knight, and Stephen sees what he’s up to at last. Delightful, really.
“What was it, then?”
“It was simple. I had a friend, my best friend when I arrived in England, and he drove a taxi. One day he saw Tony do something he shouldn’t.”
“What did he see?” Stephen surprises Bogdan by moving his rook. Bogdan smiles a little. He loves this crafty old man.
“He saw Tony shoot a boy, a young boy from London. About something, I don’t know, I never found out. A drug thing.”
“So Tony killed your friend?”
“Well, the taxi company is run by a man named Johnny. They called him Turkish Johnny, but he was Cypriot. Johnny and Tony were in business, but Tony was the boss.” Bogdan stares down at the board, taking his time.
“So Johnny killed your friend?”
“Johnny killed my friend, but Tony told him to. I don’t care, is same thing.”
“It is. We’re agreed there. And whatever happened to Johnny?”
Bogdan withdraws his knight. A waste of a move, but never mind, these things happen.
“I killed him too. Straightaway, pretty much.”
Stephen nods. He stares at the board in silence for a while. Bogdan thinks he may have lost him, but he has learned you have to be patient with Stephen sometimes. And sure enough.
“What was your friend’s name?” Stephen keeps looking at the board, trying to conjure something from nothing.
“Kaz. Kazimir,” says Bogdan. “Johnny, he ask Kaz to drive him to the woods; he has to bury something, and he needs help. They walk into the woods, they dig and dig, for whatever Johnny needs to bury. He was a hard worker, Kaz, and nice, you would like him very much. So then Johnny shoot Kaz, pop, one shot, and buries him in the hole.”
Stephen further advances his pawn. Bogdan glances up at him and gives him a little nod and a smile. He scrunches his nose for a moment as he looks back at the board.
“I thought Kaz had run away, maybe home, keep his head down, okay? But Johnny is stupid, not like Tony, and he speaks with his friends, and says he shot this guy in the woods, and the guy did all the digging, and isn’t this funny? And I hear about this.”
“So you go into action?” asks Stephen.
Bogdan nods, wondering about his bishop and whether Stephen might just have something up his sleeve.
“I tell Johnny I need to speak to him. Don’t tell Tony, don’t tell the others.
I say a friend works in Newhaven, at the port, and there might be some money for him, and is he interested?
And he’s interested, so we meet at the port, about two a.m.”
“And there’s no security?”
“There’s security, but the security man is a cousin of my friend, Steve Ercan.
A good guy. He really does work at the port.
Is easier to lie with the truth. So Steve comes along too.
Steve knew Kaz. Steve liked Kaz like I did.
So we walk across to harbor steps and get in a little boat, and Johnny, he is stupid, he just think about money.
We chug, chug, chug, and it’s choppy and I’m telling him the plan, and we use this boat to smuggle people, and Steve’s cousin will turn a blind eye, and think of all the money.
Then I take out a gun and I tell him kneel down, and Johnny thinks is a joke, and I say, ‘You killed Kazimir,’ just so he knows why he’s there, so suddenly he thinks it’s not joke, and I shoot him. ”
Bogdan finally moves his bishop, and it is Stephen’s turn to scrunch his nose.
“I take his keys and his cards. We weigh him down with bricks and throw him over, never to be seen. Back we go to Newhaven, we say thank you to Steve’s cousin, let’s not speak of this.
Then me and Steve, we drive to Johnny’s house, we let ourselves in, we take his passport, we pack suitcase full of clothes, there is piles of money, you know, drugs money, and we take this too, and anything valuable we find.
Some of the money is Tony’s, like, a lot, so I was glad to take it. ”
“How much money?” asks Stephen.
“It was, like, hundred grand. I send fifty grand to Kazimir’s family.”
“Good lad.”
“The rest I give to Steve. He wanted to open a gym, and I thought was good investment. He’s a good guy, no nonsense with him.
Then I drive Steve to Gatwick, he take flight to Cyprus on Johnny’s passport, no one looks.
Easy. Then Steve fly straight back to England on his own passport.
I call the police, anonymous, but I know enough that they take me serious.
I tell them Johnny killed Kaz, and they raid his house. ”
“And they find his passport gone and his clothes gone?”
“Exactly.”
“So they check the ports and airports, and find he’s scarpered off to Cyprus?” Stephen attacks Bogdan’s bishop with a pawn. Just as Bogdan had hoped.
“And so they check and check for Johnny for a bit in Cyprus, but he’s disappeared, and they just leave to Cypriot Police in the end. No evidence that Johnny killed anyone, no drugs money in his house, so everyone just forget in the end. Just move on.”
“Took your time with Curran, though, eh?”
“Always just waiting for the best time. Just planning. I didn’t want to get caught, you know?”
“I should think that would be the last thing you’d want, yes,” says Stephen.
“Anyway, couple of months ago I installed his surveillance system, the cameras, the alarm system, all of this. And I fitted the whole thing wrong, pretty much. Nothing recording.”
“I see.”
“And I thought, so, now is the time. I can get in house, I got keys made, no one can see me.” Bogdan attacks Stephen’s pawn, opening up a front that Stephen does not want opened up.
Stephen nods. “Clever.”
“Just after I did it there’s a ring, ring, ring at the door, but I stayed pretty calm, no worry.”
Stephen nods again and moves a pawn in quiet desperation. “Good for you. What if they catch you?”
Bogdan shrugs. “I don’t know. I don’t think they will.”
“Elizabeth will work it out, old boy. If she hasn’t already.”
“I know, but I think she will understand.”
“I do too,” agrees Stephen. “But the police would be a different matter. They are less easy to charm than Elizabeth.”
Bogdan nods. “If they catch me, they catch me. But I laid a pretty good false trail, I think.”
“A false trail? And how did you do that?”
“Well, when we went to Johnny’s house on that night, one of the things we took was a camera. So I—”
Bogdan breaks off as they hear a key turn in the door. Elizabeth back late from something or other. Bogdan puts a finger to his lips, and Stephen does the same in response. She walks in.
“Hello, boys.” She kisses Bogdan on the cheek, and then holds Stephen in a tight embrace. As she does, Bogdan moves his queen and closes his trap.
“Checkmate.”
Elizabeth lets Stephen go, and he smiles at the board and at Bogdan. He reaches out and shakes his hand.
“He’s a crafty bugger, this one, Elizabeth. A grade-A crafty bugger.”
Elizabeth looks down at the board. “Well played, Bogdan.”
“Thank you,” says Bogdan, and starts to set the pieces back up again.
“Well, I have quite a story for you both,” says Elizabeth. “Can I make you a cup of tea, Bogdan?”
“Yes, please,” says Bogdan. “Milk, six sugars.”
“A coffee for me, love,” says Stephen. “If it’s not too much trouble?”
Elizabeth walks into the kitchen. She thinks about Penny, surely dead by now.
That was how it ended, in an act of love.
Then she thinks about John settling down to a final sleep.
He had taken care of Penny, but at what cost?
Is he at peace? Is he out of his misery?
She thinks of Annie Madeley, and everything she has missed.
Everyone has to leave the game. Once you’re in, there is no other door but the exit.
She reaches for Stephen’s temazepam, then pauses and puts it back in the cupboard.
Elizabeth walks back to her husband. She takes his hand in hers and kisses him on the lips. “I think it might be time to cut down on the coffee, Stephen. All that caffeine. It can’t be good for you.”
“Quite so,” says Stephen. “Whatever you think is for the best.”
Stephen and Bogdan begin another game. Elizabeth turns back to the kitchen and neither man sees her tears.