I froze for a second. Images of villagers rolling on the floors of their huts shivering with bubonic plague ran through my mind. Oh Christ, what godforsaken diseases had these guys brought with them? I thought of the roll call of horror listed in the Rough Guide to Africa. Malaria. Schistosomiasis. Ebola.
“Still engaged is it?” called Fistule from the bottom of the stairs.
“Yes. I need a slash and a shower too. I’ve got to get to work.”
“I think it’s a bit rough in there, to be honest. You might want to go in the garden. Urine makes good fertiliser anyway.”
“Does it, Fistule? That’s great to know. Who’s going to clean up the bathroom then?” There was no reply. I headed back downstairs, opened the front door and peed off the balcony onto the weed-strewn garden below. At least I could shower at work. I changed and headed for the tube.
As I pushed through the revolving door I could see Morelli and Rizzo, my questionable Asti suppliers, waiting for me in Gatesave’s huge, marble reception area. Their expressions were grim. My stomach tightened but I didn’t break my step. It was just seven and only a few early birds were filtering into the building. My suppliers spotted me quickly.
“Marco! Sergio! Ciao! What brings you to our office so early?” I said in my most business-like, early morning voice. “Do you have a meeting with logistics?”
The two men did not react at first. Rizzo remained unsmiling while Morelli looked at him nervously before looking at me. “Ah, no Felix, we came to see you.”
“I’m sorry, guys, I wasn’t expecting you and I have an early meeting. I’m afraid you’ll have to make an appointment for next week.”
“Ah, we have a problem with the load I think, it was sent to the wrong depot?”
I was conscious of Rizzo’s unsmiling eyes focused on my face. I chose not to return his gaze. My stomach knotted just a little tighter. “Not really a problem, Sergio,” I kept my tone light. “There was a mix up with our team and the wine’s in another depot. We’ll check the stock ourselves and send it on to you if we still need you to re-label it.”
I started to move towards the security turnstile but Rizzo moved suddenly to block me. I raised my eyebrows and raised my voice just a touch. Now was the time to act the arrogant buyer if ever there was one. “What seems to be the problem here, gentlemen? I fail to understand why you’ve ambushed me with a seven a.m. conversation about a shipment of sparkling wine. I have business to attend to.”
Now Rizzo spoke, gently but unsmilingly, his eyes boring into mine. “Felix, we were just concerned that the shipment did not take place as we arranged. We want this project to go perfectly, so it is very important that we re-label that stock properly. We do not want a problem with your law.” His eyes remained focused right on mine.
Problem with the law indeed, I thought. What was that, a trick to see if I looked nervous? Despite the twisting fear in my guts, I kept up my act. “I’ll ask our depot to check the stock. Then I’ll inform you if we need your services. We might be able to re-label it ourselves.”
I made a move towards the turnstile once more but Rizzo placed a hand on my shoulder. He gave a little smile of frustration. “Let us take care of this Felix. Please, it is our problem.”
I looked at Morelli, who was looking in turn at Rizzo, his face rather grey. Then I put my hand on Rizzo’s and summoned my most self-important tone. “The meeting is over gentlemen. Thank you for your concern. I’ll be in touch.”
I broke free of Rizzo’s hand and strode to the turnstile, waving my pass over the sensor and, as it beeped, moving through without looking back. I headed down to the gym, feeling like I was going to puke, and took a long shower.
When I returned to my desk I banged out a brief email to Morelli: ‘Good news. Our depot has checked the stock and the labelling is compliant with UK legislation. No action required from your side’.
I jogged over to the logistics department. There was no sign of Flaky, but Deirdre was on the early shift, just returning to her desk with a cup of tea. “Hi Deirdre. Could you check on the status of my Asti shipment please?”
“Oh, hello Felix. Goodness me, you are in early. What’s in those containers then, gold bullion?”
I froze for a second. Maybe Deirdre was in on the scam too? No, it was her who’d sent the stuff to the wrong depot. Christ, calm down Felix, you’re going to have a coronary. Deirdre chuckled and dabbed at her keyboard. A page of green figures glowed against the black background.
She adjusted her glasses at peered at the screen. “Twenty-four containers of Asti. Arrived at Braintree third-party container depot yesterday afternoon. Due to be shipped on to the central distribution centre at nine a.m. tomorrow. The other three hundred and ninety-two containers are now with our hauliers, due to leave Genoa over the next couple of weeks.”
Tomorrow morning. That meant I needed to keep Rizzo and company in the dark for twenty-four hours on the location of the shipment. After that it would be moved to our own secure warehouse and distributed around the country. In theory they shouldn’t be able to access that third-party depot but, given that I had waltzed in with a stoned, pony-tailed lunatic, then bluffed in a pensioners’ tour bus, and finally exited with forty-two Africans, I suspected Rizzo’s organised crime syndicate wouldn’t find it too tricky to get in either.
“Deirdre, the suppliers are being a bit funny about the shipment. If they phone you, please can you tell them it’s already been moved to our main warehouse and distributed to the four corners of the world?”
“Oh Felix. You haven’t done some sort of dodgy deal have you?” Deirdre winked.
“To be honest, Deirdre, they’re getting cold feet about the price. But once it’s in the stores it’ll be too late.”
“Oh Felix. You are naughty! Your secret’s safe with me.”
“Thank you Deirdre. And what about Flake… I mean Fiona? Is she in today?”
“Oh, terrible news. She phoned in to say she was scratched by one of her cats this morning and it’s come up in a massive weal. She had to call the paramedics. She’s inconsolable. She thinks she may be allergic to animals and she’ll have to let the cats go.”
“That’s awful,” I lied. I made a mental note to pray to the good Lord more often. If He was on my side, then perhaps Rizzo would assume his stowaways had escaped of their own accord, taking the dodgy merchandise with them, and chalk it down to experience. Hopefully Wodin would have abandoned the Somalis at a local mosque and disposed of the contraband too.
Which goes to show that hope, on its own, is rarely a good strategy.
***
It had been dark for a couple of hours by the time I got home. I unlocked the front door and stepped inside. There was a powerful smell of faeces, presumably human, pervading the house. I held my sleeve over my mouth and climbed the stairs, to find a queue of eight Somalis in front of the toilet door.
I noticed they were all wearing new t-shirts and sweat pants and there was a long row of trainers lined up along the wall. Without the grubby jeans and cheap jackets they no longer looked like desperate refugees – more like a bunch of inner-city Londoners queuing for the gym.
I jogged back down the stairs and into the lounge. Fistule was arranging clothes, which clearly belonged to the migrants, on a drying rack in front of the fire. Wodin was stretched out on a sofa, a large chunk of hashish on the table before him and an enormous spliff in his mouth.
“Guys,” I said, “it’s come to my attention that this house is still full of African immigrants and,” I pointed to a large stack of something in the corner, covered rather unconvincingly by a bright Hawaiian shirt, “commercial quantities of illicit drugs.”
“Admittedly there’s some good news and bad news,” said Wodin.
“I’m pretty clear on the bad news. Pray tell me the good news.”
“Actually, there is some more bad news,” volunteered Fistule.
Wodin passed me the joint and I took a deep draw and held my breath.
“The other bad news,” continued Fistule, “is that the toilet is blocked. It’s gone a bit Glastonbury in there.”
“Oh good,” I replied, exhaling. “So what are they queuing for?”
“They’re taking their dumps in the bath.”
I choked on the final bit of smoke.
“But it’s fine,” added Fistule, over my coughing. “We’ve filled the bath with compost.”
“Oh great,” I spluttered. “I’ll look forward to taking a shower in the morning then. At least they’ve got some decent clothes.” I passed the joint to Mercedes and flopped miserably onto a sofa.
“Yes, Fistule and I went shopping and bought them a load of stuff,” she said, taking a drag. “They look much better, don’t you think?”
“We also made some soup for the guys,” Fistule said. “It’s tasty, man. Do you want some?”
There was a large pan of vegetable broth on the table. Fistule ladled some into a bowl and handed it to me. It was mid-November and, with the heat from the fire blocked by drying clothes, it was chilly in the room. I spooned up the soup noisily. I’ll give Fistule his due, he was a good cook.
“I’ve worked out a vegan food rota,” said Fistule, peering at a notepad. “Each week we’ll need 10 kilos of fair-trade mung beans, twenty kilos of organic carrots, fifty kilos of chopped tomatoes…”
Each week?
“Also we need more bedding,” said Mercedes. “And most of the guys still need more clothes and shoes – they haven’t really packed for a British winter.”
“Maybe the autumn/winter collection hasn’t hit Mogadishu Marks & Spencer yet,” I muttered.
“And we’re going to need two new washing machines and two tumble dryers,” said Wodin.
I’d seen a large pile of festering rags next to our ailing washing machine. From the volume of clothes hanging up, and the stack of laundry still to be done, it was clearly in constant use.
“We also need medicines, man. And dressings, laundry detergent, soap…” read Fistule, running a finger down his list.
“Hang on,” I protested, “this is going to cost a fortune.”
“We’ve spent nearly two grand on clothes and food so far. We need to spend another five thousand right now, then it’s a grand a week,” confirmed Mercedes.
“Holy shit! Tell me your busking career has recently taken off, Mercedes, because I don’t have that kind of cash.”
Mercedes shook her head.
“And since when did we decide to house and feed the Somali diaspora? We just need to drop these folks off at the nearest refugee centre.”
“We took responsibility when you shipped them over here, man,” said Fistule, sparking up his water pipe once more. “You can’t just kick them out.”
“Why not? Why can’t I? They’re shitting in the bath!”
“You just can’t, man. Human rights.”
“I didn’t ship the poor buggers over here on purpose, did I?”
“Don’t worry Felix. We have a plan,” said Wodin with a conspiratorial smirk.
“Is this plan as good as filling our bath with compost and having forty-two Somalis defecate in it?”
“You haven’t heard the good news yet,” said Wodin smugly.
Fistule whisked the floral shirt off the pile of drugs with a flourish. “Half of these are actually cocaine, not hashish,” he smiled, holding up a paler-coloured brick.
“So, is your plan to become so paralytically wasted on cocaine that we don’t notice we’re paddling in a pool of turds when we shower? I suppose that if we get wired enough we could use the floaters as a kind of body scrub.”
Wodin took another long drag and smiled. “No, my friend. Our plan is to sell it.”
I looked at him through his halo of smoke. “You’ll be arrested before you’ve sold five percent of it. Not to mention knifed by the competition, and I don’t mean that figuratively. I suggest we burn it – apart from a small amount for personal consumption.”
I stood up and headed toward the wine rack. “And on the topic of personal consumption…” I drew a good Rioja from the wine rack. Using the small blade on my waiter’s friend I sawed through the thick foil protecting the top, then inserted the corkscrew. Each turn made a nice little squeak as the metal coil burrowed into the old cork. My mouth began to water in anticipation.
“That would be a criminal waste,” said Wodin, pointing his joint at the large pile of drugs.
“Not to mention bad for the environment,” piped up Fistule.
“You’ll still be shot before you’ve sold even one of those bricks of coke,” I said. “Who do you think you are? Scarface?”
“I’m not suggesting we sell it in bits,” said Wodin. “We sell it in one go, to the big man. Father Turk.”
I stopped turning the corkscrew and looked at him. He was well versed in the local narcotics supply chain, being a small-scale purveyor and a rather large-scale consumer. But Father Turk was a feared gangster and the lynchpin of North London’s drugs trade. “You want to sell it to Father Turk? And how are you going to avoid having your little stash taken from you and then being gently murdered?”
“Father Turk is a man of his word,” replied Wodin breezily, directing a long column of smoke to the ceiling.
“He’s a man of considerable viciousness,” I corrected him. “Didn’t he throw one of his henchmen off the roof of the Green Lanes Billiards Club last summer?”
“He has a robust approach to performance management, it’s true,” conceded Wodin. “But business is business, and we’ve got something worth buying.”
I returned to the Rioja, easing the cork from the neck of the bottle with a satisfyingly deep pop. I poured a generous measure into each of four balloon-shaped wine glasses, emptying the bottle except for a bit of sediment. After a deep sniff, I handed glasses to Wodin, Fistule and Mercedes. Due to its age the wine was nearly tawny in colour, but the nose was deep and fruity, with delicate notes of seasoned leather.
“Here’s to our next transaction,” suggested Wodin.
I grunted and clinked glasses, taking a full mouthful and drawing air through the wine to savour the palate. What a fantastic Rioja, I mused, allowing the gloriously rich liquor to flow down my throat. It nearly masked the smell of the overflowing khazi upstairs.
“We’re selling it tomorrow,” he added. “I went to see Father Turk myself, this afternoon. I’ll need you to come with me, Felix. We need to look as though we have some… presence.”
If I hadn’t swallowed the Rioja, I’d have splattered it across my lap. “Are you bloody mad? You’ve actually lined it up already? If you think I’m joining your little French Connection adventure, you can fuck off. There’s no way I’m wandering into a Turkish crack den and negotiating a business transaction surrounded by a dozen of North London’s most vicious bastards.”
“Half a million.”
“Pardon?”
“Half a million quid. In cash. These little chaps are in quite serious demand,” Wodin tapped the paler-coloured bricks of cocaine. “That’s a huge discount on the normal wholesale price, of course, but as new entrants that was the only way to get his attention.”
Truth be told, I’ve always had a soft spot for large quantities of cash, mainly because I’ve never had much. Half a million, even if I split it with Wodin, would go a very long way. I could buy my own apartment and still have plenty left over for some seriously high-class wining, dining and hell-raising.
“How can we trust him?”
“We can’t ever really trust him,” Wodin admitted, “but if several of us turn up and we look professional enough, he won’t be so inclined to rob us.”
“I’m more worried about being beheaded in a back room off Green Lanes than being robbed, to be honest.”
“That’s why we need to go in force. He can’t behead all of us. Not quickly, anyway.”
“Jesus Christ, Wodin. Are you seriously dragging Fistule and Mercedes into this? No offense, but I don’t think they’r
e going to intimidate Father Turk.”
“No, Fistule will stay here and look after things. We’re taking two cars – nice smart SUVs. I’ve hired them already, they’re parked outside. I’ll drive one, Mercedes will drive the other.”
“So who else are we taking?” I thought about my old school friends. Tariq would be handy, he was a big chap and with that beard he looked quite piratical. But he was already heir to a multi-million pound fortune, so why the hell would he put himself in harm’s way? Dan Golden? At five foot four he was unlikely to intimidate anyone over the age of eight, even with his Hitler moustache.
I took another deep gulp of Rioja, my mind whirring. The taste was incredibly intense. I felt slightly strange, as though my mind was running ahead of itself. “I can’t imagine many of your hippy mates tooling up and looking like they mean business.”
Wodin smiled and pointed upwards. What the hell was he on about? Divine intervention? Then it hit me. Our migrant friends! Christ yes, the big one was the size of a house – he’d scare the shit out of anybody.
“I’ve already picked half a dozen out. The huge one’s called Sharmarke. We’ll take Galad too, to reassure the others. Fistule measured them up and we bought them all suits from M&S. Except Sharmarke, we had to go to High And Mighty for him. He’s got a fifty-five inch chest.”
I took another big gulp of wine. “How does Father Turk know he can trust us? We could be a police sting.”
“His people know me – I’ve been buying grass from them for years. And a couple of his people will recognise you from the Billiards Club. I doubt they’ll think you’re a copper.”
“They still might think it’s a set up. How do they know the drugs are real?”
“I’ve given him a brick already. As a free gift.”
“Where are the guns?”
“Tossed them in the River Chess this morning, along with the ammo. They were making me nervous.”
“Me too. Good riddance. If we’re busted I don’t want them hanging around – we’ll be pensioners before we’re out of jail.”
“So, we’re on then?”
“I don’t like it.”
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