Chasing Aquila

by James Hume

  ‘Jesus. One percent of everything?’

  ‘Yep. That’s the same deal Oscar’s on, and dad would definitely pass it.’

  Eddie sat and thought about the offer. Sam wondered why he hesitated. Then Eddie nodded. ‘Thanks, Sam. I accept.’

  ‘Great, Eddie.’ They shook hands. ‘You had me worried for a second, there.’

  Eddie laughed. ‘It’s no problem to accept, Sam. I’m just a bit overwhelmed. But the girls now want to go to university to do medicine, and that’s helluva expensive, so I needed extra cash anyway. And I agree with you, this is brilliant.’

  ‘Good. So, when we get to Glasgow, can you call Dougan at the Horseshoe Bar, and set us up for a table tomorrow lunchtime. Let’s you, me and Johnny test this to make sure we understand how it works, so we can then train teams to do it themselves. Okay?’

  ‘Sure. No problem, Sam.’

  They made their way back to their seats and Sam put his head back and closed his eyes. He felt happy and relaxed he could make the new business a big success.

  He wakened with Eddie shaking his leg. ‘Sam. Wake up. We’re nearly in Glasgow.’

  Sam rubbed his eyes, got up and gathered his things. He led the way along the corridor, and carried his special case in front of him. People streamed past as he stepped down from the train. He caught the eye of a woman who had glanced over at him. Quite tall, dark hair, round face, maybe mid-thirties, with a smart dark-blue coat and hat. Nice figure, pretty enough, but with a touch of hardness and confidence about her. She’d had a glint of recognition in her eyes. She knew him, but he didn’t know her. It happened all the time, particularly in Kenny’s pubs and clubs. As one of the family, everyone knew him.

  He waited a second for Eddie to catch up, then joined the rest of the crowd surging down the platform towards the concourse. The woman in the dark-blue coat walked just a few yards ahead, her long shoulder bag on her left, her suitcase on her right, her bum cheeks bouncing under her coat in the middle. Bit of a sassy walk too. He liked confident, sassy women.

  But he’d seen these bum cheeks before. Then he remembered her. The floor manager of the VIP area in Kenny’s new nightclub that opened two weeks ago, though, then she wore a long, slinky dress. But it was the same confident, sassy walk.

  Johnny met them at the barrier into the concourse, and took his case. ‘Over this way, boss,’ and led him towards the Hope Street exit. He glanced over again at the woman as she headed towards the Gordon Street exit. Attractive, mature, and distinctly rideable. He’d talk to Kenny about her.

  Later, he caught Dan and Kenny together and told them all about the new business. They congratulated him on a job well done.

  Just before Kenny left for the club, Sam asked him, ‘You know the girl that’s the floor manager in the VIP area of your new club? Tall, dark hair, round face, pretty, bit of a sassy walk. What’s her name?’

  Kenny thought for a moment. ‘You mean Jen Strachan?’

  ‘Yeah, Jen. That’s her.’

  ‘Oh, Christ, Sam. Don’t tell me you’ve got your eyes on her now. You’re really a randy bastard, you know.’

  Sam laughed. ‘I know. She got off the train from London. Looked pretty good.’

  Kenny frowned. ‘You sure? What time did your train get in?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m sure. At least, I think so. About half seven?’

  Kenny went over to the phone and talked for a couple of minutes. Then came back and said, ‘It wasn’t her, mate. Jen’s been in the club since six doing staff training. Must be someone else.’

  Sam grimaced. ‘Shit. That’s a disappointment.’

  That night, as he made love to Helen, he saw these bum cheeks bouncing under the dark-blue coat, and thought how he’d love to squeeze them above him. Now, he might never find out who she was, dammit.

  ***

  A policeman stood on patrol outside Sandra’s house. ‘Good evening, ma’am.’

  Sandra smiled. ‘Good evening, constable. All quiet?’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  ‘Good. Thank you.’

  The house felt cold, so she switched on an electric fire and went through to the kitchen. She took the photos out of her bag. It was him. Definitely. Handsome but hard-faced. With his companion, the anonymous man. She picked up the phone and asked for the number.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Tom, it’s me.’

  ‘Oh, good evening, ma’am. Good trip?’

  ‘Yeah. I’ll tell you all about it when we meet. Guess who I saw on the train up from London tonight?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Sam McFadden. And he carried a brand new GT Pharma suitcase. Somehow that bastard has wormed his way into the organisation, and taken over the business for Glasgow. And that spells trouble. He had Mister Anonymous with him, you know the man in the cat camera picture with Jack Bruce? We need to get his name.’

  ‘Jesus. What do you want to do, ma’am?’

  ‘Put two or three teams together. Keep them well out of sight. But I want McFadden followed from first thing tomorrow. Put a tap on his home phone, my authority. And if he’s dealing, I want photographic evidence. Get on to Doc Roberts, and see if he can give you a couple of these miniature cameras he has. I want to nail McFadden good and proper.’

  ‘Right, ma’am. Will do. Talk tomorrow.’ He rang off.

  She stood and looked down at McFadden’s picture. ‘You threatening bastard. I’m coming to get you,’ she murmured.

  ***

  Next morning, the three of them entered the Horseshoe Bar just after eleven. They wore football scarves to fit in. Sam noted the table already had a ‘Reserved’ sign on it. Eddie went off to see Dougan and slip him fifteen notes. He came back a few minutes later and gave Sam a thumbs up. Sam went over to the table and sat down. He put his briefcase on the shelf under the table. Johnny stood at the bar three feet away.

  Within fifteen seconds, a ginger-haired lad sidled up to the table and sat down. ‘Have you taken over from Davy?’ he asked.

  Sam nodded. ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Thank Christ for that. What happened to him?’

  Sam shrugged. ‘I don’t know. He went off somewhere else I think.’

  ‘You got the same gear?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Sam eased a pack out of the briefcase and showed him under the table. ‘You see the symbol on one side and the letters on the other. It’s the same stuff.’

  The lad glanced down at it. ‘Right, I’ll take a pack.’

  Sam slipped it over to him. ‘That’s a tenner.’

  The lad gave Sam two fivers and relaxed back in his chair.

  ‘Did you know Davy well?’ Sam asked.

  The lad nodded. ‘Well, only through this. But I also saw him in the Ashton sometimes on a Thursday night.’

  ‘Oh, right. Where’s that again?’

  ‘Up the West End, just off Byers Road. It’s mostly artists and musicians go there.’

  ‘Did Davy do okay there? Wouldn’t have thought many people had money in their pocket on a Thursday.’

  ‘Well, we don’t work nine to five, Monday to Friday. We’ve odd hours and get paid at odd times. That’s why I use these pills. I’m a session musician. Do a lot of recording work. And that can last for days on end. With these pills I can keep going when others give up. Get a lot of business that way.’

  Christ, thought Sam, that’s a different world. ‘Do you know where else Davy went? I mean, we’ve just started and feeling our way a bit.’

  ‘Yeah, he told me he did the St Enoch Hotel bar on a Friday night, and the Central Hotel bar on a Saturday night, but I don’t know anywhere else. So, will you be here every Saturday lunchtime?’

  ‘Yeah. Well, me or my mate.’

  ‘Good. So, I’ll maybe see you next week then?’

  ‘Fine. What’s your name?’

  ‘Frank.’

  ‘I’m Andy. Nice to meet you.’

  ‘You too.’ The lad got up and left.

  Sam thought that had gone well. Lots
of useful info. And the false name just flowed out. Eddie had told him on the way in that Mary shopped and collected the pensions for their next door neighbours – two brothers. He’d filched the personal details of Andy and Alex Jardine from their pension books. Sam used Andy, and Eddie used Alex.

  Another older guy came to the table and sat down. ‘Your mate over there tells me you’ve got a pill that gives you a hard on for three days. Is that right?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Well, let’s not exaggerate. Two to three days.’

  ‘Jesus Christ. I’d love to try that.’

  ‘I’ve got them here. A tenner for five.’

  ‘Oh, Christ. I don’t want that amount. Just want to try one.’

  Sam thought him very keen. ‘Okay, a couple of quid for one.’

  He thought for a moment. ‘Okay, you’re on.’ He counted out two pound notes from his wallet and Sam gave him a tablet in return.

  Sam said, ‘I hope you don’t mind if I ask, do you have a woman lined up that you can screw for a night and a day?’

  The man pursed his lips. ‘Well, I think so. Why?’

  ‘Well, it’s maybe not a good idea to use your wife. She’d just become suspicious you’re up to something. If you want a girl that will last, call this number.’ He tore off a leaf from his pad under the table and wrote the number. ‘You’ll get a good girl there – whatever you want.’

  The man glanced at the paper and put it in his pocket. ‘Thanks, mate.’

  ‘No problem.’ Cross selling opportunities as well, thought Sam. Some business this.

  After an hour or so, Sam swapped places with Eddie, but found it more difficult to get people interested in the pills, and swapped back again. At half past two, they packed up, walked to the car, and headed home. They relaxed in Sam’s lounge.

  ‘So, what did we learn from that?’ Eddie asked.

  Sam pulled out his notebook. ‘Right, we made twenty sales, some to ex-customers of Davy, who were all pleased to see us. We sold a total of ninety-six tablets, for one hundred and sixty six pounds, an average price per tablet of one pound fourteen shillings and seven pence. Each tablet cost us eight shillings, so we made a gross profit of’ . . . he worked his slide rule, ‘seventy-seven percent. Not too shabby.

  ‘Now, we paid the bar fifteen pounds, and if we’d paid our staff in the way we talked about, Eddie, that would have reduced our profit to . . . just under sixty percent net.’

  Sam grimaced. ‘Shit, I wanted sixty-five percent net. Wait a minute. If we bought the two thousand packs, the tablets would only cost us six shillings each, which would give us a net profit of . . . there you go, sixty-five percent. And in Kenny’s bars and nightclubs, we wouldn’t have the bung to the bar, so that would give us a net of . . . nearly seventy-five percent. Bloody good, huh?’ He smiled at Eddie. ‘Now, it probably won’t finish quite as much as that because, as the volumes go up, we’ll maybe need to give more discounts, but it’s still a good business.’

  Eddie nodded. ‘But I think the model’s wrong, Sam.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘It’s good for people like Thomson, who use their own money, and give discounts to attract more business. But, for us, these discounts would just allow our guys to rip us off. We could never tell if they’d given a discount to somebody or had pocketed some tablets. I think we should forget about discounts. If the team goes out with a hundred tablets, they come back with two quid for every one they sell. End of. Now, if they, as a team, want to give a discount to attract more business, that’s up to them. But they pay us two quid a tablet. After all, the pub doesn’t give you a discount if you buy five pints. And we need to think the same way.’

  As usual, Eddie spoke a lot of sense, Sam thought. That’s why he liked him around. ‘You’re right, Eddie. Let’s do that.’

  Eddie nodded.

  Sam went on. ‘I also learned from one of Davy’s ex-customers that he used the Ashton bar in the West End on a Thursday night, the bar at the St Enoch Hotel on a Friday night, and the bar at the Central Hotel on a Saturday night. So, I think we need to go there and see if we can strike a similar deal with their bar managers. Can I leave that to you?’

  Eddie nodded. ‘Yeah, no problem.’

  ‘But we need to think of the skills required in the team. I mean, I could talk at the table one-to-one with customers, but I found it difficult to break into conversations at the bar and raise the subject of the tablets. We have to work out the skills we need for these jobs and create some sort of role plays to get our people up to speed. Can you do that too, Eddie?’

  ‘Sure. I found that bit okay, so I’ll see what I can come up with.’

  ‘Great. So. I think it’s a good start. Any points from you, Johnny?’

  ‘Ach. Just too many cops in that bar for me, I could smell them. I know they’re football fans as well, but I didn’t like doing business under their noses.’

  Sam nodded. ‘Yeah, that’s understandable. But remember, it’s legit. They can’t touch you for it. So, don’t worry. Let’s just push on with the business, and to hell with them. They can’t do a thing unless the politicians change the law, and they’ve too many other priorities.’

  Chapter 11. Jane

  The nightmares had come back. She’d had them almost every night, since Porritt told her of the Aquila link to Tommy’s death. But now, a vision of Tommy struggling in the fast flow of the River Clyde had joined her two original Aquila nightmares. The three visions ran like film loops through her head.

  Jane went to the British team doctor. He gave her some mild sedative tablets to help her sleep, but they left her drowsy during the day. One evening, a local mother at Stephen’s football club mentioned she took a ‘Hermann pill’ each day to give her energy and keep her active with a young family. ‘You can get them at any pharmacy. They’re great. Better and cheaper than coffee. Everyone takes them around here.’

  She bought some next morning. It said ‘Methamphetamine’ on the packet. She took one and couldn’t believe the difference, now so clear-headed and full of energy. She didn’t take her sleeping pill that night, and still slept like a log with no nightmares. Her ‘Hermann pill’ became one of the two things that steadied and stabilised her life.

  The other was Andreas Schaeffer, who managed the work of all the interpreters. When he’d heard from Porritt about the threat to Jane, he’d reassured her, and told her of the actions he’d taken. They now lunched together a couple of days a week, and one Saturday, he’d turned up at Stephen’s football game. ‘Just passing,’ he said. She thrilled at his interest, though she sensed Josef, her driver and bodyguard, didn’t share that view.

  The two men, about the same age, a couple of years older than her, were very different. Andreas had a much more mature and worldly approach, with his confident Swiss manner and dry sense of humour. Against him, Josef somehow seemed boyish. Still early days, though, on the romantic front.

  Since she’d come to Nuremberg, Jane had written to her grandma Weissmann in Dresden and her grandma Bilova in Prague. She’d given them her new address, and said she wanted to see them, now she lived nearer. She’d planned to visit them during the Christmas and New Year break, but for weeks had heard nothing.

  Her mother desperately wanted to speak to her mother, grandma Bilova. They’d tried to phone her on the number they had, but it didn’t connect. Jane felt relieved when, in mid-November, she received a reply from grandma Bilova that gave her new address, but no phone number. Jane wrote back that she and her mum and her two boys would visit her in Prague on Thursday, 27th December, stay two full days, and return on the Sunday.

  But with still no response from Dresden. Jane agreed with Andreas she’d work extra hours so she could take Thursday and Friday, 20 and 21 December off, and planned to visit Dresden to find out what had happened to grandma Weissmann.

  Hans Wolff said he could only protect her within the American Zone. His people could have problems in the Soviet Occupied Zone of Germany or Soviet Occupied Cz
echoslovakia, because the Russians detained Germans on the flimsiest excuses.

  She spoke to Porritt about it. ‘I need to go there, sir. I need to know what’s happened to my family in Dresden and Prague. Something’s not right, and I need to see for myself.’

  He agreed, and organised a letter from Sergei to help her cross into the Soviet controlled areas. On headed paper, in Russian and German, it said.

  ‘To Whom It May Concern,

  Please grant free passage to Mrs Jane Thomson, the holder of this letter, and her party, into Soviet Occupied Territory. She is a Friend of the Soviet Union, and works with us here at the Trials in Nuremberg.

  Thank you,

  Colonel Sergei Bazarov, Chief of Staff, Soviet Delegation, Nuremberg’

  Sergei had stamped and signed it.

  But Wolff refused to budge. When Andreas heard of Wolff’s response, he shook is head. ‘You’re not going to Dresden on your own. If Wolff’s man can’t go, I’ll go with you.’

  On the Thursday before Christmas, they met at the Nuremberg Rail Station. She’d reserved First Class seats, both ways. As they waited on the platform he asked, ‘You still okay?’ They spoke in German when they were together.

  She nodded. ‘Nervous. Don’t know what I’ll find.’

  The train came slowly into the platform, the Stuttgart – Dresden express. It looked packed full. However, they found their seats in First Class and she tried to relax.

  At Hof, where they crossed into the Soviet Occupied Zone, teams of Russian soldiers came on board to check everyone’s papers. As the soldiers slowly worked their way down the coach towards them, she swallowed, and slipped her arm through his. ‘I’m glad you’re with me,’ she whispered.

  He turned and smiled, and squeezed her arm.

  They handed over their passports and ID cards, and the letter from Sergei, to the Russian soldier. He looked through them, read the letter and looked impassively at her. She held his gaze. He gave them back their papers and moved on.

  They saw people escorted by soldiers on the platform. Across Europe, huge numbers of people were on the move, but the authorities kept a close eye on them, she thought.