13. Jimmy
He drove back for the funeral after talking to Penny Rayner, and arrived just in time to take the one remaining space in the crematorium’s parking lot.
He sat in the car for a time after cutting the engine, hands tight on the wheel. He was tempted to restart the engine and drive away again. He didn’t owe these people anything, and probably none of them wanted him here, or would even notice his absence.
As he sat there, he saw cars pulling up in the long lane leading into the crematorium, parking half on the roadway and partly on the grass, despite the No Parking signs. As Glenn had said, there was going to be a good turnout today.
Outside, people milled about, waiting for the signal to go in. He saw familiar faces, family members he vaguely recognized, acquaintances of his father. Also, there were a lot of people Jimmy didn’t know. So much time had passed since he’d regularly mixed with the people who formed the backdrop to Trevor Lazenby’s life. So much must have changed.
He hated that it got to him like this. That he had even the slightest fragment of interest in what he might have missed in the last ten years.
He should have said no to Doug Conner, that day when he’d led him out of the Section’s London offices so they could walk by the river and talk in confidence. The death of his father hadn’t so much been the perfect ‘in’ they’d joked about, but the perfect trap.
He’d been drawn, though, as Conner had known he would be. How could he stay away?
He stepped out of the car, and was instantly aware of eyes on him, conversations stalled, muttered comments.
He was the black sheep of the family, the one who’d turned away, the one who’d disappointed them all by going straight. Sometimes it really sucked to be the good guy.
He saw Uncle Frank standing by the main entrance to the chapel of rest, a cigarette cupped in one hand down by his side, looking uncomfortable in his suit. He stood with a couple of twenty- something guys Jimmy didn’t know, and a woman with metal-gray hair who clung to his arm who he didn’t know either. Had Frank remarried? It wasn’t in the file.
Frank himself looked much older than the sixty or so years he must now be. His face was pitted and gray, his thin silver hair shaved close to the scalp so it was little more than a fuzz. He was still a big man, but he looked smaller than Jimmy recalled. Shrunken.
He nodded toward his uncle and, after a very deliberate pause, Frank gave a brief dip of the head in return.
Jimmy and Frank had been close. The two of them and Glenn. In some ways Frank had been more a father to the boys than Trevor had been.
But now? Frank had turned away already, muttering something into the woman’s ear so that immediately her look flitted toward Jimmy before jumping away again.
Jimmy remained standing apart, waiting. Willing the day away.
He should be working the crowd, he knew. He still didn’t know how the evidence stacked against his brother in the current investigation. Yes, he’d picked Harriet up and her phone had immediately gone offline, and yes, he’d been evasive about that, but they still didn’t really know whether Harriet’s disappearance was in any way sinister or simply a well-executed abscondence.
The one way to pin that down was to keep digging, and his father’s funeral had brought together pretty much all the people who might, inadvertently, expose any wrongdoing Glenn had been up to, if you knew which buttons to press.
But for some reason Jimmy’s mind had frozen.
It felt as if ten years of training and hard-won experience had all been wiped away. He felt like a kid again, not wanting to put a foot wrong. Cowed by the likes of Uncle Frank and Ronnie Bosvelt over there, by Rich Coombes and Emre Denis – more faces he recognized from the files. Ronnie Bosvelt was a Dutch importer/exporter with all kinds of dubious connections; he was talking to David Viera, a Spanish connection, which of course meant drugs; Rich Coombes and Emre Denis, studiously avoiding each other, were here to represent two of the long-standing London outfits.
It was a real Who’s Who of the European underworld.
All these people – names attached in the mind-map in his head to terms like extortion, prostitution, trafficking, narcotics.
He felt like a fraud. Not part of this crowd, but equally not worthy of the real reason he was here.
A complete fraud.
§
A low black limo with tinted windows swung into the turning area before the chapel of rest, and stopped so its passengers could alight.
Glenn stepped out first, looking easy in his suit, sunglasses pushed back onto the crown of his head. Clean-shaven today. He stretched, straightened his jacket, looked around. Gave a slight nod to himself, as if approving of the turn-out.
He turned and reached a steadying hand out to the elbow of another man as he climbed out of the car. Tall and slim, with a flop of sandy hair he swept back with one hand. Another name from the files: Thom Sullivan, the software magnate it was alleged Ronnie Bosvelt and Glenn were involved with. The money-man behind various enterprises that hovered over the wavy line between legal and not.
Events like this always highlighted the hierarchies and connections. It was interesting to see who was close, and who hung back on the fringes.
Jimmy caught Glenn’s eye then, got a nod, a wry pursing of lips. He tried not to resent the surge of – what? connection? bonding? – he felt at that gesture. An unspoken communication that they shared this, a thing they had to get through; that perhaps there were layers of emotion and history and baggage that only the two Lazenby brothers could fully understand.
Trevor Lazenby may have been a heartless, cruel bastard, but he had still been their father. That should probably count for something, even if Jimmy didn’t yet know what that something might be.
Then out of the front passenger seat of the limo another figure emerged. So tall and bulky it was a delicate operation to extract himself, almost an uncoiling of that imposing form as he straightened, turned, met Jimmy’s challenging look.
The man was tall, easily six-six, and he carried plenty of excess weight on a body that was powerfully built. He had a silver ring through his nose, a bar through one eyebrow, a thick, dark beard and a shaved head. He wore a black suit that looked about two sizes too small, to the extent that if he squared his shoulders or folded his arms it must surely burst at the seams.
Jimmy took one big stride forward. Another. Buried his fists in the front of Glenn’s shirt and drove him back against the limo’s closed door.
He’d known. That big bastard sent to scare the shit out of Mel, to damage her so badly she wouldn’t dare ask questions about Glenn again... Of course he had been one of Glenn’s henchmen.
Jimmy understood that, and Glenn knew he did.
But up to now they’d managed to skirt around it, avoid fully acknowledging it.
So to have his man here, now...
At Trevor Lazenby’s damned funeral!
Glenn was rubbing his brother’s nose in it. Making sure he knew where he must fit into all this. Making sure he knew Glenn was The Man.
For a moment, Glenn’s mask slipped. A grimace of pain as his back impacted on the car, a moment of panicked looking around for options as Jimmy practically lifted him off his feet, forcing him up against hard metal.
Then that sense of arrogant control descended again and his eyes met Jimmy’s, his eyebrows arched upwards in a So what now, bro’? expression.
The moment briefly froze, the tableau of the two of them up against the car.
Jimmy felt his heart hammering, his breath rasping. Felt the strain of Glenn’s weight bearing down on his arms.
He didn’t do this. He didn’t lose control. He didn’t ever do this.
The bastard. Glenn had got under his skin, quite deliberately.
And all around, a sea of faces gathered. A sudden silence.
Then the moment unfroze.
Strong hands closed on Jimmy’s arms, another hooked into the neck of his shirt and jacket at the back. A hefty blow landed in his back – to one side just below the shoulder blades, a professional blow landing in just the right place to force his diaphragm to spasm, driving the air from his lungs.
Winded, he sagged, unable to resist the hands dragging him back, throwing him to the ground.
He landed on his back, his skull smashing dizzyingly against hard ground so that blackness briefly swept across his vision.
Even as he gasped for breath, he instinctively drew his arms in to shield his body, his knees up, either to add further protection or so he could flip back up to his feet the moment his empty lungs allowed.
At any moment he expected more blows, boots to the body, the head.
Instead, he saw Glenn looking down at him, shaking his head.
“Not now, bro’,” he said in that soft voice of his.
Then Glenn stooped, reached out a hand, and waited for Jimmy to take it and allow himself to be hauled to his feet.
§
Jimmy stood at the back. That old thing that was so ingrained it was like breathing to him: cover your back, have a clear view, always know the way out. It wasn’t as if he expected anything to kick off, it’s just how it was. How he was.
The place was packed, which at least made it natural to stand at the rear with the others who’d filed in too late to secure seating.
As he stood waiting, he continued his analysis of the mourners. Identifying family members and, by association, the people with them, who must either be partners or family members added to the fold at some point in the ten years since Jimmy had left. Faces he knew from old, business partners and rivals – categories that were always shifting. Yet more he knew from the files.
Among the mourners, he knew there would almost certainly be undercover operatives – from the UK police at least, if not also the security services and Interpol. A gathering like this, drawing known villains and their associates, was too good an opportunity to miss, even if there were not any on- going cases against those attending.
Drone footage of his scuffle with Glenn was almost certainly being analyzed right now in an office deep in the bowels of New Scotland Yard, faces being matched, conclusions being reached: the return of the younger Lazenby, and what that might mean.
The mourners fell falteringly silent as music started up, Louis Armstrong reminding them what a wonderful world it was. Jimmy didn’t know who’d selected the music, but back in the day it had been a regular on the playlist at the Flag and Flowers. He suspected his father would have wanted a say in things, when he knew the end was near, but couldn’t help being suspicious about the irony of the choice of such a celebratory song.
Movement in the doorway, then the coffin entered, carried on the shoulders of Glenn, Uncle Frank, Thom Sullivan, and three men Jimmy didn’t recognize.
He didn’t know what he should feel, or what he actually did feel.
He knew there should probably be some kind of perceived slight at not even being invited to be one of the pall-bearers, but he felt nothing. It made sense; after all, until a couple of days ago nobody had even known he would be here.
There were tears already at the front, from the woman who’d been standing with Frank outside. Maybe he’d got that wrong: rather than being with Frank, had she been connected to the old man? A lover? There was nothing on the file to say he’d remarried, or was in any kind of relationship.
He didn’t know. All these people, apparently so close to his father and yet strangers to Jimmy.
He didn’t feel the kind of emotion that woman had on display. Tears, or anything close.
There was an emptiness, though. A space.
It was something, at least. More than he would have anticipated.
He still didn’t understand how his father’s death had affected him, messing with his thought processes and judgment. This was unfamiliar territory.
They reached the front, and eased the wooden casket onto a bier, then moved to seats saved for them at the front.
Just as he stooped to sit, Glenn paused, suddenly searching the crowd. When his eyes came to rest on Jimmy he arched his eyebrows again in that So what now, bro’? expression.
He nodded at the seats, at a space that had either been saved or created as people shuffled along.
Jimmy shook his head, but Glenn just repeated the expression, an impasse.
Everyone was looking now, and so Jimmy relented, threading his way across to the central aisle and down to the front.
He sat with his brother, felt a hand briefly squeezing his shoulder. Very publicly welcomed back into the fold for a time, at least.
§
The ceremony was brief, at least. A few words of introduction from the non-denominational celebrant, who seemed cowed by the reputations of those in attendance. There was a tribute from Uncle Frank, which was brief and to the point. Not much more than, “Trev, my brother. Meanest bastard you could ever know. And the meanest thing he ever did was go out the way he did, you know what I mean? He hated it. Almost as much as we hated seeing it.”
He told a couple of stories of how Trevor had been as a young man, full of life, always one for the ladies, how he was a proper gent in a world where that was rarer and rarer. He finished with, “I tell you, I don’t know where he is now, but there’s one thing I know for sure: the bastard’ll be shaking it up, good and proper.”
The crying woman – introduced as Auntie Cyn, so presumably she was with Frank after all – read a rambling poem. Finally Glenn stood up and read something from the Bible, the only religious touch – a hedging of his bets from a man without a religious bone in his body, assuming Jimmy’s father had helped plan this.
A short time later, they filed out into bright sunshine, and stood together, the four of them forming a family line: Glenn, Jimmy, Frank and the newly discovered Auntie Cyn.
Platitudes and condolences, smiles fake and genuine, suspicious looks at Jimmy as hands were shaken, cheeks kissed. Glenn was good with those platitudes, at thanking people for their kind wishes, at looking almost like he meant it, easy in this company, this patriarchal role.
“Come on,” he muttered to Jimmy at one point, “at least look as if you give a shit, would you?”
He did, though. That was the thing.
He could easily have missed the funeral altogether, and never known what it would stir. That would have been so much easier.
Because now he did know, and it unsettled him more than anything he could recall.
Afterward, as the last few cars pulled away from the cemetery, Glenn turned to face Jimmy. “Come back to the Flag and Flowers, Jimbo. Last respects and all that.”
Jimmy shook his head. He had things to do, and his father’s wake wasn’t one of them. He’d let things slip too far already.
And he couldn’t allow himself to be drawn any farther back into this world.
“That thing the other night,” he said, “sending your boy after Mel. That was out of order.”
And bringing your boy here to make sure Jimmy knew had been, too, but he didn’t say that. They both knew that point had been made.
Glenn spread his hands. “In this world you have to deal with the shit,” he said. “You have to stake out the territory and see off anyone who threatens it. Whoever they are. You should know that, Jimbo, whichever side of the fence you convince yourself you’re on these days.”
And the thing was, Jimmy got that, entirely. He’d grown up in this world, understood how it worked. Understood that when you’re the king of your domain you have to keep stamping down anything that might threaten that, and if he’d learned one thing today it was that Glenn had very much stepped into their father’s shoes.
So yes, he understood. He’d known exactly why Glenn had sent his boy after Mel that night. Hell, ten years ago, Jimmy himself might have been the boy sent on a job like that.
And he hated it.
“Come back, bro’.”
He squinted at his brother, tried to read his expression. Tried to convince himself this was just another wind-up.
“You’ve had your little walkabout. It’s time to come home.”
“Ten years.”
Glenn laughed. “Okay. You’ve had your big walkabout. Whatever. It’s not too late, is what I’m saying.”
Just then, Jimmy had a flash of insight. He’d been so thrown by his own reactions to their father’s death, he hadn’t given a thought to what Glenn must be going through. His older brother had been here, dealing with it all every day. The illness, the decline. The old man had been difficult at the best of times; Jimmy could only imagine how he’d got as illness took hold and he’d become ever less capable of being the ruthless old bastard they all knew him to be. As he’d come to rely more and more on others.
And now...
Glenn had taken it all on. He had Uncle Frank, but... well... “Lonely at the top?” Jimmy asked now.
“Fuck off.” Said with a smile, followed by a short laugh.
They still stood facing each other, as if this exchange was a fight, or at least a stand-off. Now, Glenn turned, put a hand on Jimmy’s shoulder, took a step, and they were walking side by side toward the remaining cars, Glenn’s hand still on his brother’s shoulder.
“I could use someone like you,” said Glenn. Again, by implication, he was telling Jimmy he knew who he was, what he was capable of, even though they’d rarely ever come close to saying such things out loud. Then, more explicit, he said, “Someone with your experience, your inside knowledge. It’s always handy to have someone working the other side, if you know what I mean?”
Not coming back into the fold, then, but an inside source in the security service, protection. He should have known: the family dabbled in all kinds of things, but it always came back to protection. And this time, what Glenn wanted was someone in law enforcement to feed his organization inside information, offer that protection.
Jimmy shook his head. Was pleased he hadn’t even hesitated before doing so.
“I’m not like that,” he said. “I’ve made my choices.”
They’d stopped by the limo. “Really?” Glenn said. “I thought you understood how the world worked.”
Glenn had mastered the same air of disappointment in Jimmy their father had. He did it well.
“I’m not like that. I can’t work like that.” And why was he even trying to justify his choices to Glenn? That strange family thing that had crept up on him this week, the need to be seen by people he’d rejected so long ago.
Glenn still had that easy smile on his face, that tilt of the head, but a hardness had crept in.
“Everyone’s like that,” he said. “You just haven’t realized yet. You should look take a look around yourself.”
This was it. Glenn always had a sucker punch. He’d wind you up, wind you in, and then deliver. Ever since they were kids.
“What?” said Jimmy.
He waited.
Slowly, Glenn straightened, looked away, looked back, smiled a little wider.
“All I’m saying is look at those around you,” he said. “Those closest to you. Everyone has their price.”
There was no-one close to him. He’d made sure of that. He never let anyone in. Never let anyone close. That had been one of his earliest lessons. One he’d learned from...
Glenn nodded, must have seen it in his eyes, the slow processing, the plodding journey to that conclusion.
“The guy’s close to retirement. He has a career’s worth of vulnerabilities, no matter how hard he’s tried not to. Everyone plays both sides at one time or another, don’t they, bro’?”
He couldn’t believe it, even as his brain raced to do so.
Doug Conner.
The straightest of the straight. A Section Eight man, through and through.
Jimmy had always done as Conner had asked. Followed orders without question. That was how they worked. But how much did he really know about his controller? What if things were not as black and white as he had always believed?
He saw the look on Glenn’s face. The smile.
Shook his head, turned away, all he could do not to lay into him again.
His brother was winding him up. Toying with him. Sowing those seeds of doubt to undermine him, just as he’d done before.
And he must know that no matter how clearly Jimmy understood this, no matter how much he would choose Conner’s word over Glenn’s every single time... those seeds had been sown. The doubt planted.
What if Conner had sent him in, kept this whole thing as an off-the-books case, because he couldn’t have an official investigation digging around any connections he might have with the Lazenby family’s activities? What if he’d found himself stuck between trying to find his daughter’s best friend and covering his own back?
Jimmy turned, went back to his car, knowing that for the entire journey back into London his mind would be leaping from possibility to possibility, doubt to doubt.
And Glenn had known he’d be doing exactly that.
More than anyone, Glenn Lazenby knew how to play his kid brother.
The bastard.