by Mark Dawson
Smiler had vouched for Fabian, but it was once bitten and twice shy as far as Jimmy was concerned, and he had done a little research of his own. The old man was in his seventies and one of the most influential figures in the underworld. The legend was that Fabian had inveigled himself into the Costello family, a syndicate that had held sway over London during the war, and then taken them over from the inside through a mixture of deception and force. Fabian was old school and had maintained his position for four decades. To maintain his position all this time, with the underworld becoming a more dangerous place each passing year, was impressive. Jimmy had resolved early on not to underestimate him.
And now he found himself doubting the good sense of working with him, despite the successful job that they had just pulled off. His intuition had told him to be careful, and he had ignored it.
The song came to an end. Jimmy switched off the ignition, withdrew the keys and dropped them into the inside pocket of his leather jacket. He opened the car door and stepped out.
14
Signs outside the club advertised a New Year’s Eve party and Jimmy could hear the muffled bass of the new Jive Bunny song. Jimmy was well past the time of life when going to a nightclub was an attractive proposition, and the prospect of going into this one tonight—he knew it would be filled with drunks, and evidence suggested that the music would be awful—was not one that filled him with enthusiasm. He cursed Smiler again and promised himself that he would stay only as long as was necessary before he went back home.
The nightclub was as busy as Jimmy had feared it would be. The place was a dive: the interior had just been refreshed, and now it looked like a Duran Duran video shot in Pablo Escobar’s bedroom. The decor was a mixture of reds and blacks with gold brocade. There were artificial plants in china pots that were supposed to look like something out of the Ming dynasty. There was a grand piano in one corner behind a velvet rope. Jimmy looked around and shook his head: it felt like a party in a Chinese restaurant. The dance floor was packed. He saw men in shell suits, stone-washed jeans and white trainers eyeing up girls in mini-skirts, leg warmers and fingerless gloves. He saw three lads smoking dope in the corner and saw two drunken girls helping their even more drunken friend back on to her heels after she tripped down the steps to the dance floor.
“Excuse me,” Jimmy said, hopping out of the way just in time as a young woman vomited her Indian takeaway all over the monogrammed carpet.
Jimmy reached the door that led to the office on the floor above. There was a bouncer barring the way.
“All right, mate,” Jimmy said.
“What you want?”
“I’m here to see Mr Fabian.”
“What’s your name?”
“Jimmy Walker. He’s expecting me.”
“He’s in the office,” the man said. “Up you go.”
Jimmy climbed the stairs to the landing. There was a plain wooden door; he knocked on it and heard a voice from inside telling him to come in. He opened the door and went through.
It was a medium-sized room with a table and five chairs, a water cooler and a television resting on an old credenza. The neon sign that advertised the club was outside the window and it pulsed on and off, casting alternating flickers of red and blue into the room. There were two people sitting at the table: Smiler and Edward Fabian. There were three glasses and a bottle of Scotch on the table, together with the boxes of diamonds from the raid. One of the boxes was open, the stones inside glittering in the pulses of light.
The men looked up at him as he came inside.
“Evening,” Jimmy said, shutting the door behind him.
“Hello, Jimmy,” Fabian said. Smiler nodded his acknowledgement. “Take a seat.”
Jimmy sat down. “What’s up?”
“Thanks for coming,” Fabian said. “I appreciate it’s late, but this is important.”
Fabian took the top off the bottle, stood up and poured out two measures of Scotch.
“How was the job?”
Jimmy looked at Smiler. “You haven’t told him?”
“I wanted you both to be here,” Fabian said.
“It went well. In and out, just like we planned.”
“The safe?”
“I cut it open. No problem.” He nodded down to the open box. “You’re happy with the stones?”
“Very happy,” Fabian said.
“Good,” he said. “I’m glad.”
“Smiler said you were good and he was right.”
“So why did you want to see us tonight? I thought we were meeting tomorrow for the cut-up?”
“There’s someone I want you to meet,” the old man said.
Fabian went to the door. Jimmy had a blast of apprehension and pushed his own chair away from the table. Fabian opened the door and stepped to the side. Four men were standing on the landing: cheap suits, scuffed shoes, bad hair. The first man came inside and, as the three behind him shuffled forward, Jimmy heard the sound of feet on the stairs.
“Evening, gents,” the man said.
“Who the fuck are you?” Smiler said.
“I’m Detective Inspector Kennedy. Flying Squad.”
Smiler got up so fast that his chair fell back against the wall. “What the fuck?”
“You’re both under arrest for robbery.”
“You what?”
“You heard me.”
“Bollocks to that,” Smiler protested. “We ain’t done nothing.”
Kennedy came inside and Fabian took the opportunity to step out onto the landing. The policeman went to the credenza, turned the TV around and carefully pulled away a wire that had been fastened to the back of the case. He held it up for them all to see: the top of the wire ended in a small microphone.
“We’ve got you all on tape, lads. We can have a listen back at the station. You’re coming downstairs.” He pointed at Jimmy. “You first, son.”
Jimmy looked around the room. Smiler was open-mouthed, just slowly realising what was happening to them. Edward Fabian, stalwart of the London underworld, was selling them out. Here they were, caught with their pants down and thousands of pounds of stolen diamonds on the table. Jimmy ignored him and looked for the exits. There was no other door, and the only other possible way out was the window. He thought about it, then dismissed it; they were on the first floor and the Old Bill would have men down there in the event that anyone managed to get by the blokes on the stairs, not that that was very likely.
Kennedy stepped aside to let the other men come inside. The next officer to come through the door was big, built like a prop forward and, as he stepped from the gloom of the landing and into the light of the office, Jimmy saw that he was carrying a rubber cosh.
“Leave it out,” Jimmy said.
“Turn around. Hands behind your back.”
Jimmy did as he was told.
The big policeman took out a pair of cuffs. “You don’t have to say anything unless you wish to do so but it may harm your defence if you don’t mention, when questioned, something you—”
Smiler surged at him, drilling him with a right hand and shoving him back against the wall.
All hell broke loose.
Jimmy grabbed the bottle of Scotch from the table, took a half-turn and made for the door. Kennedy tried to block him, but Jimmy crashed the bottle down on his head. It had a heavy base and it didn’t smash; instead, Kennedy dropped to the floor, spark out. There were four more men outside and another on the stairs. They were all over six feet and heavy with it.
They were taller than Jim
my and they outweighed him. But Jimmy was as hard as nails, not afraid to fight dirty, and desperate.
He swung the bottle at the nearest man, but the officer got his arms up in time and deflected the blow. Jimmy drove his knee into the man’s gut and, as he instinctively dropped his guard, backhanded the bottle over his head. This time the bottle smashed, liquid and glass and blood mixing over the man’s scalp.
A second man grabbed Jimmy around the neck and tried to drag him down to the floor. Jimmy grabbed the man’s fingers and pulled back, two of them snapping like twigs as his grasp was broken. Jimmy grabbed the man’s jacket with both hands and butted him in the face. The man howled as his nose was broken, blood pouring from his nostrils.
Jimmy dropped the officer as he felt Smiler behind him. He lowered his shoulder and charged into the remaining men at the top of the stairs, trying to force them apart so that he could make his way to the exit. He didn’t get far; he felt a crack on the back of his head and then a starburst of pain. His legs went weak, he fell to his knees and, as a second blow careened off his skull, he fell back to see the big officer with the cosh standing over him.
The man raised the cosh above his head and swung it, for the third time, at Jimmy’s head. Jimmy ate the carpet and felt another blow as the lights in the room dimmed and then faded away.
15
The new year dawned bright and clear, and Mackintosh decided that he would begin it with a gentle walk through the park near his home in St John’s Wood. The streets around the park were quiet, with just a handful of children out and about. He paused to watch a couple of bright-eyed boys trying out brand-new bicycles and, as he broached the park, a father and his daughter flying a kite overhead.
The air was crisp and he felt invigorated as he returned to his house. He looked at his watch; it was eight, and he was due to take a breakfast meeting in an hour. He went inside to collect his leather satchel, then went back out and flagged down a black cab on Wellington Road.
“Where to, guv?”
“The Athenæum, please. Whitehall.”
“Right you are.”
He felt a buzz of apprehension as they pulled out into the light traffic. The meeting had the potential to be a portentous one. He needed it to go the way he wanted; he had spent the last week thinking about Élodie and about how he was going to avenge her. He thought about PICASSO, too, about where he might be and what might have happened to him, but it was really all about her.
*
Mackintosh had previously laboured under the illusion that the seat of British power and influence lay in Whitehall, but now he knew better. The Palace of Westminster contained both houses of government: the House of Commons and the House of Lords. Those august institutions were found on Whitehall Road, along with the headquarters of the Civil Service, but he had swiftly been disabused of his misapprehension after he joined the secret service. Power was displayed in these theatres; the real power was wielded in the private gentlemen’s clubs that were found nearby.
The taxi stopped on Pall Mall. The home of the Athenæum was a grand building with three imposing tiers and a portico supported by a row of double Doric columns. A frieze had been included around the outside of the building that reminded Mackintosh of the Elgin Marbles. Mackintosh had never been inside the building before and felt momentarily intimidated as he gazed up at the wide double doors at the top of the steps. He clutched his satchel and ascended, nodding his thanks to the member of staff who directed him through to a waiting room.
Another immaculately dressed staff member told Mackintosh to take a seat in a studded leather armchair before a roaring fire. He put the satchel down beside him, adjusting the thick folder that protruded from the top. He had worn his best tweed suit and had paired it with newly shined brogues. His old school tie accompanied a crisp, white shirt. He looked smart but, as elderly male members of the nobility were shown into the dining room for their breakfast, he still felt like an intruder.
An elderly waiter in full topcoat and tails beckoned Mackintosh to follow him. He got up and followed the old man into what appeared to be a small library. There were books stacked to the ceiling on every wall. A fire burned down in the grate, and two armchairs had been set facing the fire. In between the chairs rested a table with a decanter and two small glasses. The waiter filled both glasses, gave a subtle bow and left the room, closing the door behind him.
One of the chairs was occupied. The man, dressed in a three-piece suit, did not acknowledge his presence; instead, he picked up one of the glasses, murmured, “Good health,” and then took a delicate sip. “Happy New Year.”
Mackintosh stayed where he was. He wasn’t sure what he was expected to do.
“What’s the matter?” the man in the chair said. “Too early for you? It’s bloody freezing outside.”
“It is.”
“It’s sherry—a good bottle, too. It’s festive. Get it down your neck and sit down.”
Mackintosh took the glass and sipped the sherry. He took off his jacket and sat down in the empty chair. The man facing him in the other chair was Vivian Bloom, and he was legendary within the intelligence establishment. Bloom was in his early forties, although he could easily have been mistaken for much older than that. His suit might have been expensive once, but now it was showing the signs of wear and tear; the waistcoat was missing a button, the elbows and knees looked as if the fabric was starting to thin, and there was a stain on the jacket that had been removed with only partial success. His hair was thinning at the sides, with a tuft in the centre of his crown, just above his forehead, that looked as if it had been glued there. He had a long forehead, untrimmed eyebrows and a languidly expressive face that looked particularly apt for sarcasm. Bloom had worked for MI6, although his role had become more and more nebulous as time had passed. He had become a link between government and the intelligence services, and had, over time, accrued significant power and influence. That was the reason Mackintosh had lobbied for this meeting. Bloom had the power to give him what he wanted.
“What do you think of the club?” Bloom asked.
“Very grand,” he said.
“Did you see the frieze outside?”
“Yes.”
“Cost five per cent of what they spent on the whole bloody building. The Secretary of the Admiralty at the time was a man called Croker. He was one of the founding members and he insisted, said they had to do it. Other members said that it would be better to spend the money on an ice house to keep the place cool in summer, but he wouldn’t hear of it. They made up a rhyme about him: ‘I’m John Wilson Croker, I do as I please; instead of an ice house, I give you—a frieze!’” Bloom chuckled, a gravelly sound that rumbled up from his stomach. “I know,” he said. “Awful joke. Apologies.”
Mackintosh had never met with a senior government official before. Bloom was evidently eccentric and the experience was unnerving.
“How’s Berlin?”
“Terrible, sir.”
“Ready to go back?”
“I am.”
“You’ve recovered from what happened?”
“I have, thank you.”
“You lost an agent?”
“Yes, sir. Foulkes.”
“And the French liaison?”
He felt a pulse of anger that Élodie was being dismissed so glibly. “Yes, sir.”
“Fucking Stasi. Still—we were getting busy on their patch. No doubt we would’ve done the same to them.”
Mackintosh swal�
�lowed, trying to nudge the conversation along. “Thank you for meeting me, sir. I’m grateful for your time.”
“Pleasure’s all mine. I’ve kept an eye on your career, Harry. Very impressive. Time in Ulster, then an impressive foreign tour. Berlin’s the only real blot on the copybook, isn’t it?”
“Can I ask if you’ve had a chance to read my memo?”
Bloom turned away from the fire and met Mackintosh’s gaze. “Of course. Why do you think you’re here?”
“Might I ask what you think?”
“I think that it’s an interesting idea.”
“Thank you. Can I—”
“It’s an interesting idea and I’ll certainly look at it for the future.”
“But, sir, with respect, one of my agents was killed. Berlin Station is… well, there barely is a station anymore. It’s been hopeless for a long time… what happened just goes to show: the Stasi are laughing at us. The new men I asked for—I need them, very badly.”
“You need new men,” he said. “We can agree on that, and you’ll get them. But I’m not sure you need those men.”
“Sir?”
“Soldiers, Harry? Assassins? Really?”
“We have to do something. We can’t compete with them with what we have.”
Bloom exhaled. “I can see the merit. Times are hard at the moment. The Soviet Union is beginning to crack, the Baltic states want to leave, and the Kremlin is concerned, as well they should be. And the East German government is desperate. Given the damage that PICASSO could have done, it’s not surprising they did what they did.”