by Peter Bates
“No mate, nothing yet.” Terry looked slightly disappointed as he responded, but then put on a big smile, glanced at the quiet bar area, and quickly rose to his feet. “I’ll tell you what I will do though, before we go to Frank’s. It’s about time that I got some more beers in. That’ll cheer us up no end.”
Still smiling, Terry rose to his feet and had barely taken two paces towards the bar before his mobile phone began to buzz. He glanced at the phone, immediately halted in his tracks, and then pushed it firmly against his ear. After a just a few seconds, he quickly moved to the vacant and quieter side of the bar area and then continued to listen and respond to the incoming caller for several minutes. Finally, with a big smile on his face, he turned away from the bar and rejoined his three friends at the table.
“I thought that you were getting ’em in,” grinned Frank. “Are you short of cash or something?”
“No, mate. I’ll get the drinks in a few minutes time. In fact, I might even get double drinks when I do get ’em in,” he replied, increasing his smile at the same time.
“Have you had some good news?”
“You could say that, Reg. The caller to my mobile was Norman Pendleton. He tells me that after we drove up to and by the disused barn earlier on, his team of men were very close behind us and moved in after waiting for just half a minute or so. They caught the bastards on both sides red-handed, complete with the drugs and a huge pile of cash. Neither of them will be coming out of the nick for a very long time.”
“Brilliant.” yelled Frank. “What a great result.”
“Yes, it was. I’m really glad that Norman’s men didn’t move in too soon and stop the delivery vehicle. Doing it the way that they did meant that they caught both sides of the deal, and have taken some very nasty people out of the picture for many years.”
Reg laughed. “I hope the judge agrees with you, Terry, and doesn’t hand out some sort of pathetic sentence. We’ll keep an eye out for the result of the case. If the sentences that he hands out are not severe I’ll be knocking on the judge’s door and demanding to know ‘why not?’.”
“Well, lads,” said Terry, standing up once more. “This time I’m definitely going to the bar to get some beers in. The old Case Crackers have done it yet again.”
“Some bacon butties would go down very well too,” commented Roy. “I think we deserve some, don’t you lads?”
“Sounds like a good idea,” agreed Frank, “but not just yet lads,” he added, glancing sharply at his watch. “I think we need to go to the Pilgrim’s Arms right now. When we get there, Terry, you can change my beer order for a glass of malt whisky, at least for me. I reckon that it’s the least we deserve, being unpaid for our work these days. We can order some bacon butties as soon as we arrive.”
“Why go now?” asked Reg. “What are you thinking, Frank?”
“We must be due another trip to the Pilgrim’s Arms, Reg. You never know, we could get lucky again if Harrison and his crew arrive. I’ll tell you the rest when we get there.”
Before he rose to his feet, Frank performed a fast survey of his companions, quickly confirming in his mind that none of them were overdressed in any shape or form. There was no way that they would want to be noticeable, and with a brief smile, he mentally ticked off each one of his friends as he took note of their clothing. Drab was an understatement. Perfect.
*
The Pilgrim’s Arms was still reasonably quiet, and after confirming the order, Terry moved swiftly to the bar, collected four drinks on a tray, ordered the bacon sandwiches, and almost skipped his way back to the table. His three old friends were still smiling broadly as he rejoined them. Terry eyes quickly scanned their happy faces. Norman Pendleton’s great news had certainly lifted the lads’ spirits, and the unusual order of four glasses of the Pilgrim’s Arms finest malt whisky with a fresh pile sandwiches would certainly add to that. “We seem to be on top of our game at the moment, so I’m looking forward to what Frank’s got to say.”
“So long as we don’t get too loud,” commented Reg, throwing his usual quick sideways glance around the bar area as he quietly spoke. “These gangs have got ears everywhere, so we need to be a bit cautious when we’re out and about, especially if we have one or two whiskies, which could loosen us up our tongues a bit.”
“Reg is right, Roy. We need to make sure that we don’t get carried away. These days, we might still have the brains and the know-how, but we’re all a bit lacking in brawn if it came to a tussle. It’s good that none of us appear to be in any way a threat to the ruffians that we come across. On the other hand, though, it’s no longer possible now for us to just make a quick call and request some heavy duty back-up like we used to be able to do.”
“It is a funny mixture, Frank. Years ago, we could do things and make use of technical stuff that we can’t use now. The good news now is that we can do other things and tricks that we couldn’t do back then. We’re no longer governed by correctness and all the tosh that goes with it. We have to admit that Norman Pendleton has gone out on a limb to assist us when he can, though, and that has been a massive help to us.”
Terry raised his glass. “Here’s to Norman,” he said simply.
Four glasses clinked together, marking the toast, and the four friends sat back comfortably in their chairs.
Reg took a small sip of his whisky, returned the glass to the table top, and then looked up before adding. “Priority is to get Harrison and Thomas off the map? Come on, fellas, there must be a way, and you told us that you had something to say, Frank.”
“I really don’t know how many times we’ve brought this up recently, and we still haven’t come up with any really worthwhile answers,” commented Frank.
“Well,” answered Roy. “It’s not easy Frank. We have no evidence, no authority to bring them in for questioning, and not enough bodies on the street to keep them under permanent surveillance.”
Reg leaned forward and spoke quietly. “I know that we’ll never be able to connect it, but I wonder if some of that bag of dope was heading towards Harrison or to Thomas?”
“There’s every chance it could have been,” nodded Terry, “but you’re right, we’ve no chance of proving where it might have been going to. I reckon that it was almost certainly for this area though, and so the likelihood is that it would have ended up with one of them. That guy Kennedy was from round here, so it all adds up.”
“They won’t be pleased about losing the supply.” whispered Frank, “And as it happens, what you’ve just said was exactly what I was going to say to you earlier.”
“What a shame.” laughed Reg. “They’ll have to manage without.”
Roy joined in. “It could be interesting, though. When things go wrong, people sometimes get desperate and make mistakes that they wouldn’t normally make.”
“Roy’s absolutely right. If some or all of the dope was for them, they’ll be scratching around very quickly for a new supplier. They won’t want to lose the distribution network that they’ve already set up.”
“We’ve no idea who any new supplier might be.”
“Maybe not, but we haven’t done too badly so far, Terry. We’ll find out if we keep our eyes and ears open.”
Roy nodded thoughtfully, and then added, “We’re making an assumption here that the gangs’ supply of dope will have evaporated. That may not be accurate. What’s gone really are the two sacks — one with cash, one with dope itself. The collector and the delivery man definitely won’t have been front line. They will have just have been seen as disposables, and will simply be replaced. The guys that operate these sorts of outfits don’t put their own heads on the block, they find someone else to undertake the actual transfer. I doubt if the coppers will get any information from either of those two men as to who and where their employers were. They’d both be scared out of their wits to give up that sort of info. We could ask Norman about what he’s uncovered but I’ll bet you anything that he will have drawn a blank. Gangs like Harrison’s and Thomas’ have
many ways of getting to and silencing any of their blokes that end up in the nick.”
“I agree,” said Frank, “so if the stuff, or at least some of it was destined for Harrison, it will probably be a temporary irritation for him and no more than that. It would be good if we could find out exactly where he keeps his supplies and pass that info on to Norman Pendleton.”
“It would be good, Frank, but also extremely unlikely that we’d ever find out,” muttered Reg.
“I can’t believe it,” whispered Roy.
“Can’t believe we’d ever find out?” asked Terry.
“No, mate. I can’t believe who’s walking into the pub right behind you, but whatever you do, don’t turn and look round.”
“Who is it?” questioned Terry in a whisper.
“The man that we were just talking about. He’s halted in the pub doorway and speaking to someone behind him. I guess that he’ll go to a table at any moment. Maybe we’ve got lucky again. Just keep your ears wide open, and your voices down. Frank, you’d better get the newspaper out and open it up like you usually do. Split the paper in half and give the other half to Reg. I guess our new visitor will be grabbing a table very soon. Let’s hope it’s near enough for us to hear what’s going on. In the meantime, I’ll go to the bar before he or one of his men does, get a few beers in, and maybe a sandwich or two to keep us going. We don’t want to be sitting here with empty glasses.”
CHAPTER 48
Without casting any sort of glance at the still open pub door, Roy rose slowly from his chair and moved as casually as he could do towards the bar. The landlord was already clearly distracted, and staring apprehensively at the man framed in the door way at the pub’s entrance.
“Yes sir,” he said quietly, speaking to Roy, but with his eyes still fixed on the unwanted figure.
“I’ll have four pints of beer, please.”
“Mild or bitter?”
“Bitters, please.”
The landlord drew the beers quickly, his eyes constantly flickering to and fro from the pint glasses and then back to the entrance.
“That’ll be eleven pounds sixty.”
Roy quickly pulled a ten-pound note from a jacket pocket, and added two one-pound coins from his back trouser pocket.
“Keep the change, mate.”
“Cheers, pal.”
Roy quickly placed the glasses on a metal tray, evenly spreading them around its surface, and then slowly and steadily carried them back to the table. The last thing he needed right now was a spill that would attract immediate attention, and the less that he and the lads were noted by Harrison, the better it would be.
Roy carefully set down the glasses, and took the remaining chair, facing the inner wall of the bar area and away from the pub’s entrance.
“You’ll have to keep me up to date,” he spoke quietly. “I can’t see him without turning around.”
“He’s still talking to a guy at the entrance,” muttered Frank. “I think that it’s one of his gang members, but I can’t get a clear view of him from here. Harrison is certainly getting a bit animated and a little louder, but at the moment I can’t clearly hear what he’s saying. When he does start to come inside, Roy, I’ll just say ‘in’, so you’ll know. After that, we’ll just have to keep talking amongst ourselves, but keep our ears pinned back for what we can hear.”
Less than ten seconds had passed by before Frank quietly spoke.
“In,” he whispered, and then deliberately held up his piece of newspaper in front of his face. Reg, sitting to his right-hand side, followed suit, opening his own section of newspaper wide, and running a finger slowly down and across the printed page.
Harrison stopped briefly as he entered, casting his dark eyes around the seating area. Seemingly satisfied with what he could see, he moved directly to the bar, placed an order with the nervous barman, and took a table close to one of the side walls, a good twelve feet from a small group of harmless looking old guys, and even further from the other few younger occupants. Apart from three teenagers at the other end of the saloon, the only other occupants were two young couples at the opposite end that were sitting together at the same table, and two girls, both in their mid-twenties, both close to the bar. He lifted an arm and glanced at his watch. It was just after six fifteen. The other four lads should be in any time around now, and once again, they had a lot to talk about. They wouldn’t be leaving here tonight without some sort of a plan, and he’d been wracking his brains for a good one for some time. Foolproof was difficult, but he knew that it wasn’t impossible.
Mel Harrison was still taking his first sip of beer, as Bob, Alan, Gary and Kenny each pushed their way through the entrance door, and immediately joined him.
Harrison deliberately held back his customary opening smile. There was no point in any of these lads thinking that it was all a just a big bundle of fun. It was only fun when you were winning, and winning right now, they certainly weren’t.
“Get your beers in,” he ordered sharply as the others sat around the table. “You’re all late.”
Gary read his boss’s face immediately; this wasn’t going to be the best meeting that they’d ever had. He could already see it clearly in Harrison’s severe facial expression.
“I’ll get ’em in,” Gary immediately offered. At least he might miss the initial onslaught if he took his time at the bar.
Bob, Alan and Kenny glanced briefly at each other, each one of them wishing that they’d acted as quickly as Gary had done. Too late now though, and each man nervously took a seat at the table and looked apprehensively into Mel Harrison’s brooding face.
“We’ll wait until Gary gets back with the beers,” announced Harrison, taking a deep sip of his own, before reaching into his pocket and pulling out several sheets of folded paper, which he straightened and then placed on the table top.
Gary had hoped that there would be a long queue at the bar, but it wasn’t his lucky day, and he was the only customer. He glanced over his shoulder several times at Mel Harrison’s table. There seemed to be very little going on. As far as he could see, Harrison hadn’t even spoken yet, and the other three men sat motionless, each one staring blankly at the table top. It looked very much like his plan of quickly getting away from the table and over to the bar had misfired badly. Whatever it was that Harrison was going to say, he was obviously waiting for Gary to return to the table, and then say it to all of them. That was ominous — but there was no way that he could avoid it now. Less than a minute later, he had evenly piled the drinks onto a plastic tray, and carried it carefully to the table. He glanced briefly at each of his young friends’ faces, but their eyes were firmly fixed on the table top, and none returned his gaze, or even looked up at him.
“Here we go.” Gary spoke silently to himself, as he placed the tray on the table top.
He was still standing when Harrison hissed through clenched teeth. “Sit down, Gary — and listen.”
Gary lowered himself into his chair. Just like the other members of the gang, he stared blankly at the table top, and remained silent. Almost thirty seconds then passed by before Harrison spoke. When he did, it was not as quiet as it would normally have been in public, and clearly the man could scarcely contain his growing anger.
“The latest news is that our supply of powder, due in this afternoon, is no longer available.”
“Why not?” demanded Bob.
“Shut your mouth Bob, and listen for once.”
Bob’s eyes closed momentarily. He was angry, but certainly needed to contain it. If it came to the nitty gritty, he reckoned that he could take Harrison apart in a face to face punch up, but he also knew that Harrison had weapons in his armoury that he could not overcome, no matter how strong and fit he was personally. He also knew that Harrison would not hesitate to use them if he had to.
“Sorry, boss,” he finally muttered.
Harrison ignored the apology, and then continued. “Our powder got seized today by the coppers. Somehow, the coppe
rs must have got a tip-off about where the exchange would take place, and both the cash man and the delivery guy were taken out by armed police and arrested. The coppers have the dope and the cash, and it’ll be a bloody long time before either of the two men come out of nick.”
“How did you find out?” asked Alan.
“It wasn’t difficult. It’s all over the place. It seems like everyone already knew about it apart from us. Maybe it was on the local news or something, I really don’t know. What I do know is that we were looking at a huge wad of dosh from that deal, and now it’s gone down the drain.”
“What do we do now, then?” asked Kenny.
“Somehow, we find a fresh dealer. That may not be so easy. I’ll have to ask around. We’re not the only ones doing dope round here so there must be another supplier somewhere. It’s just a case of tracking one of them down, but information like that is very hard to unearth. Our competition isn’t likely to tell us where they get their stuff from, and it’s not as though the suppliers advertise for business.”
“You don’t think that Jed Thomas had anything to do with it, do you?” asked Alan.
“I doubt it, but I wouldn’t put it past him. He’d do anything at all to put us under pressure or out of business, as you guys already know.”
“Are we going to do something about him, boss?” asked Bob, rejoining the conversation after his earlier irritation.
“We certainly are, Bob. It’s just a case of how and when. The ‘when’ can’t come soon enough — the ‘how’ needs a lot of thought and careful planning. As I said to you lads once before, there’s no way that any of us guys are going down for putting him and his gang permanently under the ground. Whatever it is that we decide to do to them, we need to do it very well and be totally undetected.”
Mel Harrison reached his right hand onto the table top and removed the last blank piece of A4 paper that he’d placed there earlier, revealing some scribbled notes on the one below. One of his previously written notes was underlined in bright red ink, and he turned the paper round to face Bob, Alan, Gary and Kenny.