Comeback

‘You bastard,’ he shouted and swung his fist at me.

It’s a good idea to be moving forward when you punch but only if it’s a straight punch. Move forward and swing roundhouse and you’re liable to lose your balance. That’s what he did. The punch missed anyway because I swayed back away from it. I caught his fist as it moved past, twisted his arm and had him pinned against the car with one bent arm and the other flapping ineffectively. I leaned my weight against the bent arm. He swore and the fight went out of him.

‘All right, all right. Let me go.’

He was big but a lot of the bulk was fat. He was breathing hard from just a few rushed steps and a poor attempt at a punch. I didn’t think he could cause me much grief. I released him, stepped back and let him unwind himself. He grabbed at the car for support. He was red in the face and older than I’d expected. It was my day for putting the moves on unequal opponents.

He was wearing a dark suit over a black T-shirt; a pair of heavy sunglasses stuck out of the pocket where people used to wear display handkerchiefs. Maybe some still do. If he put them on he’d have something like the hoodlum look, but one who should leave the heavy work to younger men. He brushed himself down.

‘Sorry,’ he said.

‘For what? That you didn’t break my jaw? Who the hell are you?’

‘You don’t recognise me?’

‘No.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve stacked on the kilos a bit. You don’t look all that much different, Hardy. Greyer, few more wrinkles, but I knew you straight off. I’m Ray Frost-Bobby Forrest’s father.’

We went into the house and I made coffee while he used the toilet.

‘Crook prostate,’ he said when he came out. ‘Crook just about every other bloody thing but I’m still here.’

I poured coffee into two mugs. He refused milk and sugar.

‘Got anything to give it a lift?’

I put heavy slugs of Hennessy brandy into both mugs and we went into the sitting room. He put his mug on the coffee table and felt in his jacket pocket.

‘All right to smoke?’

I put a saucer on the table and drank some of the laced coffee while he coughed, got a cigarette lit and coughed some more.

‘No point quitting,’ he said. ‘I could go any day and a few fags aren’t going to make any difference.’

I nodded. He took a big slurp of coffee and a couple of lungs full of smoke and probably felt better, although he looked worse.

‘You did me a very good turn twenty-odd years ago. Remember that?’

‘I didn’t remember the name but when Bobby told me about you I looked up the file. Yeah, it worked out okay for you, didn’t it?’

‘Right. When Bobby told me about his bloody problem I advised him to look you up. Charlie Bickford, the shyster-remember him?’

I nodded.

‘Dead now. He always reckoned you were one of the few blokes in your game he could trust. He said you did the job and didn’t play both ends against the middle like most of them.’

‘I’m sorry for what happened. I didn’t see it coming. It was a tricky business, all that online stuff, but it didn’t seem. .’

‘I know. I know. Look, I’m sorry I took a swing at you. Not your fault. I just had to take it out on someone. My only kid. I’m going to miss him like hell. I have to do something about it.’

‘The police are on it.’

‘The cops.’ He dismissed them with a wave of the hand that held the cigarette. Ash fell on the floor. ‘Sorry. How many contract killings do they clear up?’

‘You think it was a contract killing?’

He finished his coffee in a gulp. ‘I can’t get over the feeling that it was to do with me.’

I didn’t tell him that I had something of the same reaction, but what he said put us on the same page. I took a good look at him while he worked his way through his cigarette. Apart from all the weight he would’ve been reasonably presentable but without Bobby’s bone structure. That must have come from his mother. And Frost was dark. The gangsta clothes might have been an affectation or a necessary look. I went back to the kitchen and recharged our mugs. He had another cigarette going.

‘What do you do that could get Bobby killed?’

‘I run a business that provides men and machinery to construction companies. You wouldn’t believe what goes on in the tendering process, the bribes, the deals, the fucking politics of it all. I step on toes all the time.’

‘What kinds of toes?’

‘Big ones. Bad ones.’

‘Why the clothes? The Mafia image?’

‘The people I deal with-union types, security guys-you’ve gotta look the part. I need your help, Hardy.’

‘You’ve got a funny way of going about getting it.’

‘I said I was sorry, for Christ’s sake. What do you want me to do, kiss your boots?’

He was naturally aggressive, but so am I. ‘Drink your coffee and make that your last cigarette. Passive smoking kills. Have you stayed out of trouble the last twenty-odd years? I seem to remember you were in a spot of bother once.’

He drained his mug and stubbed out the cigarette. ‘I’ve sailed a bit close to the wind a few times, I suppose, but I’ve never had any charges laid since. . what you’re talking about. I was young and dopey back then.’

‘Not that young. What d’you mean you need my help?’

‘What do you bloody think? I want you to find out who killed my boy.’

‘And then do what?’

He felt for his cigarettes, remembered and stopped. He shook his head. ‘No, I’m not asking you to drop him in a hole. Let the law take over.’

He was hard to read. The aggression was real enough; it masked the grief, but that was real, too. Believing and trusting him was another matter. But how many of my clients had I fully believed and trusted? A majority, I thought, but not a big majority.

‘Well?’ he said. He wasn’t pleading but he wasn’t demanding either.

‘Why me?’

‘I remember that you were good. Discreet, didn’t blab about what you were doing and you got it done. You’re involved in this anyway. I’ve got blokes I could get. . ask to do it, but they’re too close to my business.’

‘You don’t trust them.’

‘You could say that.’

‘You reckon you’ve got candidates-people who might’ve wanted to hurt you this badly?’

‘Yeah, a few. I don’t know. It could still be connected to that fucking online dating shit. I wish he’d never. .’

He broke off and looked at me, his eyes shrewd. ‘You’ve got some ideas of your own, haven’t you?’

I told him Bobby had paid me some money and that I’d followed up a couple of leads out of obligation. I said I had some more questions and some ideas about how to ask them.

‘You mean who to ask them.’

‘No, I mean how to find out who to ask.’

‘You’ve lost me, but that’s what I want to hear. Will you do it, Hardy? I’ll pay whatever it takes.’

I wanted to do it and I had to do it. I had no other client and the publicity I’d got wasn’t likely to bring people running. I felt the obligation to Bobby and an obligation to myself to follow up the leads I’d uncovered, and I’ve never liked leaving unfinished business.

I keep a few contracts in the house from the time when I worked at home. My contracts are about as bland and non-specific as the law allows. They simply state that the undersigned has agreed to commission my services as a private inquiry agent and agrees to the following terms and conditions. These relate to the schedule of fees,