by Peter Cocks
“Same choices apply, really. I’ve spoken to Napier and Ian already. Ian’s handed this bit over to me, what with you being my protégé and everything. Lucky me.”
“I’m glad,” I said. And meant it.
“Either we spirit you away, and Sophie and her old man wonder why the hell you’ve disappeared. If he’s cracked the SIM, then by now he’ll know why and he’ll be after you wherever you’ve run to.”
“Or?” I asked. The first option didn’t sound great.
“Or you face the music and go down there.”
I was silent. Option two sounded every bit as bad.
“We can keep a close eye on you, get someone to track you down there. Put a marksman in the grounds. But once you’re in the house, you’re pretty much on your own.”
“I’m pretty certain nothing would happen in the house,” I said. “He likes his home life too much. It’s really comfortable in there. His wife’s lovely, the food’s great, Sophie—”
“Yeah, all right,” Tony stopped me. “Don’t forget that your cuddly Uncle Tommy slices people up for ninepence.”
“Right,” I said. My situation came crashing back. “But I’m pretty sure I’d be taken elsewhere if they were going to…” I didn’t like to think what he might do if he rumbled me. But it made my guts turn to water.
“So…” said Tony.
“So?” I asked.
“What do you want to do?”
I paused for a moment, summing up. But I already knew my decision.
“I’ll face the music.”
I spent the night in the flat off the high street so that Tommy’s driver would know where to come, but I didn’t feel safe there. It was shabby and rickety, not new and secure like the apartment down the road.
I hardly slept and was up at six, as soon as the light came through the curtains. I had a shower, gulped a Diet Coke and tried to listen to the radio, humming along to middle-of-the-road tunes to distract myself.
“I’ve had the time of my life, and I’ve never felt this way before…”
The cheap words made me feel worse, so I switched off the radio. I couldn’t eat. I felt like a condemned man waiting for the hangman to arrive. I paced the flat. I almost wished I smoked, which I would have done to calm my nerves and pass the time. I chewed my nails instead.
At five to nine, I looked down at the street and saw a large car draw up outside. It looked like it was turning up for a funeral: I hoped it wasn’t mine. A motorbike drew up on the other side of the street and the rider got off and went into the newsagent with his helmet still on.
I recognized the man who got out of the black, 7-Series Beemer. Dave Slaughter, Tommy’s driver. He’d driven us to the wedding. Of the men that hung around Tommy, Dave was probably the nicest, relatively speaking. Although he must have been six foot three or four, he had a friendly-looking face – unmarked, smooth and lightly tanned as if he spent his time off on a golf course. He was the only one I’d seen whose nose was straight and hadn’t been flattened across his face. His hair was short and always neatly combed, and his grey suit was immaculate. He almost looked kind.
Appearances can be deceptive.
Dave walked round the back and I heard the buzzer. With my heart banging like a steam-hammer, I picked up my jacket and went down the stairs.
“Morning,” Dave said. He didn’t sound unfriendly, or particularly friendly either. He opened the door to the back of the car. I climbed in.
We drove off towards Greenwich and I noticed that the biker who had gone into the newsagent was now following us. Dave noticed it too and I caught his eye in the rear-view mirror. He didn’t say much as we drove, except to curse at the traffic and comment on the weather. He kept checking the bike behind and, as we headed towards the traffic lights in the Greenwich one-way system, he suddenly sped up, crashing the red.
“Oops,” he said.
I didn’t dare look behind, and Dave shot off fast, taking a dog-leg through some back streets.
“Short cut.”
After a minute, I couldn’t hear the bike any more. Unless someone was tracking us discreetly, I was pretty much on my own. Despite my nerves, I managed to plant a small magnetic tracker underneath the passenger seat while I was doing up my shoes. I was determined that someone, somewhere knew where I was.
Twenty minutes later we arrived at Kelly Towers. Sophie was at college and Cheryl must have been out with the dogs, because there was no barking as we crunched up the drive. The house no longer seemed pretty; it looked cold and foreboding, not helped by the grey morning light.
I felt sick.
Dave opened the door and ushered me into the house.
THIRTY-NINE
Tommy Kelly was sitting in his study as usual. I could smell the cigar smoke as soon as I entered the hall. What was sometimes a nice smell of Christmas and celebration now seemed harsh and aggressive, invading my lungs. Overpowering me.
“Come in, Eddie.” His voice was no more threatening than usual. Not threatening at all. I stepped into the room and Dave stood behind me. “It’s OK, Dave. I’ll have a chat with Eddie, then call you in when I’m ready.”
Dave nodded and stepped back out of the room. Tommy was sitting on the sofa looking at a new piece of art propped up on the easel. It was a picture of a man’s head against a plain, dull-red background. The head was large and exaggerated. It looked like it had been through a mincer, as if the skin had been flayed and the flesh of the cheeks had been exposed. You could see all the teeth. The image was blurred. A bare light bulb hung over the head.
“Have a look,” Tommy said. It was quite similar to the picture I’d seen in Barney Lipman’s shed. “Looks like you can see his soul. Everything he feels. His pain. Bloody genius.”
I searched my brain for the name Danny had said.
“What do you think?” Tommy asked. The name came to me.
“Bacon?”
Tommy looked at me, surprised.
“You have come a long way,” he said. “Yes, Francis Bacon is exactly what I think we’re looking at. Self-portrait.” He got up from the sofa and beckoned me over to his desk, where he sat down behind a pile of art books and open catalogues. “It feels right, it smells right, but there’s nothing in any of the books.”
“Could you get someone to look at it?” I asked. I was relieved to be talking about paintings; I didn’t want to ask where he had got it.
“I don’t want some failed estate agent at Sotheby’s turning his beak up at it and making it worthless just because it’s been out of circulation. I’ve got to find it a bit of provenance. You know, who bought it, where it was exhibited, where it’s been hiding for thirty years and all that.” He laughed. “Or make it up.”
I nodded, not sure what I was supposed to be contributing.
“Sit down,” he said. I didn’t argue. “Listen, I’ve been thinking. You’ve left college, right? You’re doing a bit of ducking and diving on the market to keep your head above water. It’s OK – a good way of learning the ropes. But it’s not going to make you rich, is it?”
“No.”
“You know, you remind me a bit of myself when I was your age. Finding your feet. I was a porter – used to stack crates of fish over at Billingsgate. I used to come home smelling like a kipper’s knickers. Didn’t pull many birds at that age.” He puffed on his cigar, smiling to himself, enjoying his Big Daddy act.
I was still cacking myself about where all this was leading.
“So what I did was offer my services to more fishmongers than I could handle, so I had five or six jobs on the go. Then I recruited some boys from my neighbourhood, got them stacking the fish, collected the money, paid them, then took my cut.” He looked at me. “You see?”
I thought I did.
“So I got paid and didn’t smell of fish any more. QED.” I guessed that was the end of the gospel according to the Reverend Kelly. “What do you think?” he asked.
“Nicely done,” I said, trying to make it sound as
if he was a genius. I felt the need to flatter him. “Clever.”
“Exactly. Now, you’re pretty quick on the uptake and you don’t ask stupid questions.”
“Thanks.” I took it as a compliment.
“I just wondered if you wanted to do a bit of work for me?”
I nearly fell off my chair. “I, er…”
“Help me out a bit,” he said. “You’re enterprising. I think you’ve got an eye for pictures. You’re good with computers – you could do a bit of research, couldn’t you?”
“Doesn’t your son – Jason – work for you?”
“Yeah, he does. But Jason’s a bit of a law unto himself. Pictures aren’t really his thing. He’s more involved in the hands-on end of the business. Most of the people who work for me are hands-on. That way I can be hands-off.”
The question of what exactly the “business” involved hung heavy in the air. I felt myself slipping into deep, dark, muddy water. I looked at the floor. “I’m not sure what I’d be able to do for you,” I said honestly.
“There’s plenty to do in my firm,” he said. “I run a nice, tight family outfit. There are all sorts of jobs. Let me be straight with you…”
Here we go, I thought.
“Some of my businesses skate on thin ice, if you know what I mean. We skirt around the law a bit. Do deals.” He was the master of understatement. “But look at the City: the hedge-fund managers, the futures market, the stockbrokers, the insurers. Which of them isn’t propping up tinpot dictatorships? Which of them isn’t supporting drug cartels? Which of them isn’t fleecing old bags of their savings to line their own trousers?” He shook his head at the injustice of it all. I supposed he had a point.
He wasn’t finished. “It’s just that they do it all under cover of the City, the old boy network. It’s all about deals, putting people in touch with each other. I do the same, except I have my own rule book.” He looked at me, waiting for a response.
Short of telling him I was working for the other side, I didn’t have one.
“Well?” he said.
“I don’t know enough about pictures,” I said lamely. He chuckled.
“The pictures are my hobby, the icing on the cake. They’re a bit of bunce that work as a calling card. My main activity is putting interested parties in touch with each other. I’m a broker, a consultant. If someone from Russia wants something and I know someone in America who has it, I bring them together. Whether it’s a painting or a boat or a bit of hardware, I introduce them, take a fee. We hold a bit of stock here ourselves; you have to be diverse because markets shift and change all the time. Most of my clients like the high life and the paintings are a way of flattering them. It appeals to their vanity, makes them feel like they have good taste. Art’s the new status symbol for most of my associates. It sweetens the deal. They’ve had it with diamonds and watches and helicopters. Art is what marks you out as a tycoon.” He paused for a moment. “And most of them don’t know what the fuck they’re looking at.” He laughed loudly, so I smiled.
I couldn’t help feeling that I’d been given a pretty glossy version of what actually went on. I didn’t know what he meant by “stock”, but I guessed it wasn’t shirts and knitwear.
“You can start straight away,” he told me. I felt a rush of panic. “If you don’t like the look of the business, we can talk again.” I was being backed into a corner. “Cheryl likes you,” he said. “She thinks I can trust you, and that’s good enough for me.”
I was about to protest, but then he opened his desk drawer. He took out my phone and pushed it across the desk to me.
“You forgot this the other day.” He fixed me with a cold, grey stare. I’d seen the same look in Sophie’s eyes. “Be more careful next time,” he said.
And I knew I had no choice.
FORTY
Donnie hated Monday mornings like these. He had a bit of a head. He’d drunk half a bottle of whisky when he’d got in from the pub the night before, which on top of six or seven pints hadn’t given him any problem sleeping, but a whisky hangover always made him feel aggressive. More aggressive.
He’d picked up a few grand from a couple of clubs and dealers on his way. Some of it insurance money, some of it for goods. Everyone had paid up, which was a little disappointing, as he was in the mood to give someone a slap. Then he got Dave’s call and felt even more like thumping someone.
“Don, get yourself back to HQ,” Dave had said, his voice full of irony. “His Nibs wants to give the kid the SP. The basics.”
Donnie seethed and muttered to himself all the way back round the South Circular. He didn’t know what things were coming to.
Donnie had the ultimate respect for Tommy Kelly. Tommy hadn’t had to touch the mucky end of the business for at least ten years now. He had accumulated enough from the firm’s various enterprises to sit back and control everything from his study. He didn’t have to get his hands dirty – he paid others to do that for him. The genius scam he had pulled off, Donnie and Dave agreed, was franchising out the Kelly name to other firms. So if a smaller gang wanted to pull off a bigger job than they were capable of – a one-off armed blag or a quick-hit fraud – Tommy would hire them some muscle and administrative back-up, enabling them to put the fear of God into the underworld by claiming to work for the Kelly gang.
Special K, they called it. A crime “brand”.
All the small firms had to do was pay Tommy fifteen per cent of their haul, or a minimum £250 k for the use of the family name. Just like a multinational investing in start-up businesses. Genius.
And if they didn’t pay, Donnie was there.
Tommy didn’t have to get nasty because he paid others to get nasty for him. Donnie, Dave Slaughter and their associates: blokes like Johnny Reggae and Stav Georgiou, Engin Kurtoglu and Paul Dolan. Hard men, enforcers. Early on, Tommy had been careful to make allies within the Brixton Yardies and the Greek and Turkish gangs in North London. He’d also got in with the Irish Republicans. Tommy came over all Blarney Stone when he talked to the Irish – liked to think he was one of them. He’d bought The Harp in New Cross to keep up his links with the Paddies.
Tommy had shown them that cooperation with each other was the way ahead in business. He’d encouraged them to bury the deadly rivalries of the past and continue in a spirit of mutual support. The law was their enemy, not each other.
But Donnie had noticed a change in the boss in the last year or so. Like he was trying to kosher up; appear more straight, like a legit businessman, an art dealer or something. Which would be hard, seeing as all his gear was nicked or fake. Maybe it was his age, Donnie thought – Tommy must be fifty-five. Maybe Cheryl was behind it, or the girl.
Whatever was bugging him, Tommy was still well in charge of the discreet organization that kept them all in business, but sometimes Donnie questioned the guv’nor’s wisdom.
Donnie and Dave both agreed that the son was getting bang out of order. He wasn’t a chip off the old block at all; wasn’t developing the business the way the old man wanted. He was more like Tommy’s nut job brother Patsy, who was holed up in Fuengirola, drinking himself to death. Jason must have inherited some Irish pikey gene: he’d nick anything if it stood still long enough and he was a fair enough businessman as long as the deal involved porn, a fight, dancing girls and enough drugs up his hooter to stun a horse. Although Donnie wasn’t a big fan of Jason Kelly, at least he knew what made the beast tick.
And now, as well as getting Jason more involved, the boss was welcoming in the kid who was hanging around with Princess Sophie. Stupid.
Donnie had seen the boy once or twice, but he didn’t much like the smell of him. He seemed quite mature, well-built, but too straight. Probably good-looking if that was your thing. But no one knew him. Donnie had learnt that this business depended on knowing exactly who you were dealing with – someone’s son or brother. Someone off your patch, with a pedigree. One of the tribe.
Bringing in outsiders had never worked, in Donni
e’s experience, and now and again he’d had to sort them out. This one came from nowhere, and for reasons best known to himself, Tommy had taken a shine to him. Risky, Donnie thought. But orders were orders. No one questioned Tommy Kelly.
Donnie took a quick snort from the tiny bottle in his glove compartment and headed down the A20.
Dave took me out by the front door. A sleek, navy Mercedes had pulled up outside and I recognized it from when I first saw Sophie being dropped off outside college. I also vaguely recognized the scary bloke who drove it.
“Eddie, Donnie,” Dave said as the big bear got out of the car. “Donnie, Eddie.”
Donnie grunted at me and nodded his head. “Where we going?” he asked Dave. He didn’t sound like he wanted to go anywhere.
“Erith,” Dave said. “In your car.” They got in the front and I got in the back and we headed for the M25 – in a car I hadn’t bugged.
There wasn’t much conversation, but what there was related to the “business”.
“Mr Kelly wants us to show you part of the enterprise,” Dave said. “We have various businesses around London, and one or two offshore. There are managers in most of them. Donnie and me tend to keep an eye on the south-east and we have colleagues in other parts of London and abroad.” He made it sound as if they were involved in sales management.
The vast pillars of the Dartford Crossing came into view and we pulled off the M25 on to a slip road. I always shuddered when I went near the bridge, given what had happened to my brother. But I reminded myself of why I’d got into this thing in the first place; resolved that I was doing it for Steve. We drove down towards the river, the sweat sticking my shirt to the leather car seat. I still wasn’t convinced about the real aim of this trip.
A sign on a roundabout directed us to Erith and Long Reach. The area was grey and bleak, with patches of rough, faded grass at the side of the road, scattered with car wrecks, gypsy ponies and junk. We turned off into an industrial estate and parked outside a unit at the far end. Barbed wire lined the fence beyond.