Chain of Vengeance: Chapter Four - Part One

LONDON

 

 

Dominic was looking at his watch when Jack saw him on the corner by the café where they sometimes met for lunch if they were both in the city. It was a noisy dark little place that played recorded jazz by day and live jazz by night.

He was slender and tall, wearing a suit that Jack had only seen him in a few times. His usual garb was a chequered shirt, slacks and slippers with a long cardigan; his white hair was always combed neatly back off his face as it was today. When he glimpsed Jack’s approach out of the corner of his eye he started walking in the opposite direction. Jack, who’d slowed down and started to reach to shake hands had to hurry to catch up.

“Where are you going?” said Jack. “I thought you wanted to eat.”

“We need to hurry. They close their doors at five o’clock sharp.”

Dominic was two and a half times Jack’s age if he was a day but he walked everywhere and it was a job to keep up with him. “Who closes their doors?”

“I’ll tell you on the way.”

Jack stopped. “Who are you taking me to see?” Dominic continued at the same hurried rate, leaving him behind. Jack started after him. “Is this what you told me about on the phone?”

“We have a meeting. I rang back the man who has been trying to track you down after we spoke this morning and arranged an appointment for this afternoon. I had to speak to your odorous landlord several times. He refused to take a message. In the end I arranged for an open-ended appointment. They were very keen to speak to you immediately.”

“You don’t have to worry about my landlord anymore. He kicked me out.”

This time it was Dominic who paused. “Really?”

“Yeah.” They resumed walking. “I’m out of money.”

“You should come to me when you’re running short Jack. You know I’ll always help you out.”

“Thanks Dominic; I know that; but it’s important for me to, you know… not need anybody else to help me to…”

“… be independent?”

Jack grinned. “I was going to say, screw up. But yeah. I guess it amounts to the same thing.”

Dominic glanced at his watch again. “It isn’t far down the road now. We should make it in time.”

“Are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

“They’ll explain everything when we get there. I think it might be better if you hear it from them.”

“Hear what? What’s going on? Who’s been trying to track me down? Is it—Is it the police?”

“Why on earth would the police want to speak to you?”

Jack found he couldn’t form a response.

“A man has rung me several times,” said Dominic, “a private detective, trying to find you.”

“A detective? Hired by whom?”

“The man we’re going to see. They tried to find you through your parents at first.”

“A dead end.”

“Then through more long-winded ways that proved difficult because you don’t get paid from your work in a conventional way.”

“It’s called not paying me.”

“In the end they went back to the family route and found me through your mother’s side.” Dominic stopped at the front of a grand townhouse that had been converted into offices. The brass plaque on the right of the door said MILES & DAVIS with the word SOLICITORS in smaller type below . “We’re here.” He started to climb the steps to the front door. Jack grabbed his arm and stopped him.

“Dominic. Seriously. What are we doing here?”

The old man thought for a moment, came to a decision then descended to street level. “Perhaps it is better if you hear the first part from me.”

“What is it?”

“Your father’s brother went to live in America in his early twenties.”

“Uncle Robert. I heard about him. Never met him though. My dad went to see him over there once when I was a kid. He lived in San Francisco; worked in the movies, right?” Jack flashed his eyebrows as though it were terribly exciting. “My dad didn’t talk about him much. I think they fell out.”

Dominic placed his hand on Jack’s shoulder. “I’m really sorry to have to tell you this Jack, but he died. Recently.”

“Died?”

“I don’t know how. Some kind of accident.”

Jack looked across the street. There was a park in the centre of the block, fenced all round with black railings. Inside he could hear the laughter of children. He tried to picture his uncle from photographs he might have seen, an old cine-film he had watched as a child, but couldn’t. “I didn’t know him. I’m sorry he’s dead but I never even spoke to him once. I wish I had now. I never even saw a photo of him that I remember. ”

Dominic looked him in the eye. “Well he felt he knew you well enough to leave you something in his will,” he said.