by Peter Cocks
As Gary Cribb held my arm up in the air, the contest – being outside the normal jurisdiction, which had scrapped the saved by the bell rule years before – was declared a draw.
There would have been an outcry if the fight had been on telly, but this was underworld rules. A few quid in a few pockets could sway any decision. Donnie watched as Gary helped me from the ring. The honour – if you can call it that – of the Kelly family had been saved, but I had been robbed.
***
I lay in the spare bedroom back at Kelly Towers in the dark, propped up on soft, feather pillows. It was nearly 2 a.m. and I couldn’t sleep – from the pain and the adrenalin buzz that was gradually seeping out of my system.
For reasons best known to herself, Sophie had insisted that I went back there. I didn’t want to, but after she had got me out of A&E with six stitches in my eyebrow, a burst blood vessel in the other eye, a cracked rib and various other cuts and bruises, I was too weak to argue.
“You should have seen the other bloke,” I’d joked feebly to the nurse who was stitching me up. She’d spent too many nights in Hackney sewing up knife wounds to find me amusing.
In a way, it was true. Jason had taken a while to come round and was suffering from dehydration. Probably because he was pumped full of speed, Gary had said. He’d been taken away to spend the night under observation in a private hospital in Blackheath.
I had seen nothing of Tommy or Cheryl since the fight. I understood from Sophie that Cheryl had been unhappy about it all and had left before the end, and that Tommy was ashamed by the outcome and had slipped off without speaking to anyone.
Including his son.
Their bedroom door was firmly shut across the hall and all was silent. Until my bedroom door opened.
“Are you awake?” It was Sophie. I could just make out her hair in the half-light. She leant over me and the thin fabric of her nightdress brushed against my hyper-sensitive skin. She kissed me lightly and I could taste salty tears on her cheek. “I’m sorry, Eddie,” she whispered.
“It’s OK.” My voice came out small, weak and cracked.
I felt her weight as she edged onto the mattress beside me. Even in my frail state, I couldn’t help but worry about her old man, just a couple of doors away.
She planted small kisses all over my battered face and I felt her fingers trace across my belly, under the duvet, and tug at the waist of my boxers. A small sigh escaped from my throat. She must have thought she’d hurt me. She hadn’t.
“Sorry,” she whispered again.
I shuddered as she lifted her arms up and pulled off her nightdress. I remembered something about a birthday treat. Her fingers found the button on my shorts and undid it.
And as she slid down the bed beside me, I felt my pain begin to disappear.
V
Elgar
FORTY-NINE
I lay back on the deck, looking up at the blue sky above the mountains and thinking that life could be a lot worse.
Croatia was much prettier than I’d imagined. I’d thought it would be all grey buildings and nothing to eat except gherkins and garlic sausage, but I’d only just arrived and we’d had a top lunch outside a pink, quayside restaurant: noodle soup, crayfish risotto and some crisp, cold white wine.
OK, so I’d broken my pledge, but lounging on a massive yacht living the high life in the summer sun had made it impossible to resist. To tell the truth, since I’d begun to relax into my new role in the firm, I’d slipped off the wagon quite a bit.
I had been working for Tommy Kelly for a few months now, and he’d been pretty true to his word. I’d worked mainly on the paintings: making lists, Googling images on the computer. I would research auction prices for work and invent histories for pictures that had been “missing” or that had never existed until they had been “discovered” by Barney Lipman or one of a network of other artists that Tommy used.
He would often sit and watch me, still protesting that he couldn’t work a computer. I didn’t think that it was because he couldn’t, it was more that he didn’t want to. He didn’t want to send his fingerprints into cyberspace, or leave evidence logged on a hard disk or server, ready to come back and bite him on the arse sometime in the future. Tommy never even used a phone: he spoke to Dave Slaughter and Dave used one. Tommy never laid his hands on anything more incriminating than a kitchen whisk.
Early on, I made sure that I installed the software that enabled the traffic to and from Tommy Kelly’s computer to be monitored. If I’d been one of the spooks up at Beaconsfield reporting to Baylis or Tony, I would have been pretty disappointed with the results. It was all just Google searches and downloaded auction catalogues. All the emails were businesslike: questions and answers, sent and received by me at savagearts.co.uk. I’d set up the website myself.
There was never an email from Tommy, copied to a load of villains, reading, The blag’s going down at 11.15 p.m., Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, EC1. Be there or be square… TK. As if.
Of course as well as the computer, I had bugged pretty much every room in the Kelly house by now and had got used to the idea that almost everything I said or did was also being listened to by someone. It was weird how I’d become accustomed to this. I had free rein to carry on with whatever was necessary to work for Tommy, but this must have made frustrating listening as well. Tommy never said anything incriminating. Sure, he would talk to me about paintings, which were his passion, but otherwise he never spoke about anything apart from food, cars, the dogs or his family. With the exception of Jason.
Tommy had never spoken to me about the fight, or mentioned Jason to me again. In fact Jason Kelly seemed to have made himself pretty scarce for the last few months. I didn’t know what he was up to, and I didn’t like to ask.
Every now and then I’d wake up in a sweat of paranoia, worried that Tommy might have uncovered a tracking device or that Cheryl had found a bug in the Hoover, but it hadn’t happened so far. Up to a point, I don’t think Tommy was particularly worried or suspicious about that stuff. He was so discreet at home; he never said anything that could nail him.
He was apparently untouchable.
Tommy had travelled to Croatia ahead of me, flying to Dubrovnik with British Airways. He went to pick up the boat and make some connections, he said.
I’d followed a couple of days later with EasyJet to Split. The early-morning flight was pretty much a holiday charter and I had been told to travel as an art student, so I’d dressed in tatty, skinny jeans and some old trainers. I wore a faded lumberjack shirt and felt a bit scuzzy. I didn’t fancy the Kurt Cobain look: I’d got used to dressing a lot sharper. I took a portfolio of life drawings and flat canvasses with me. To the untrained eye, it all looked like a pile of shit. In a cardboard tube I had a Francis Bacon rolled up inside another, abstract painting: to the untrained eye, that looked like a pile of shit too. When I went to the desk, no one took a second look at any of it. I checked it all in with my holdall.
I had a momentary panic at Split airport when my bag came out of baggage reclaim by itself, but the portfolio and the tube appeared on the carousel soon after and I walked straight through customs without anyone batting an eyelid. Outside the airport I picked up a people carrier that had been booked in advance and it took me the few miles to the harbour at Trogir.
The town itself looked like it was straight out of a Disney movie, with castles and buildings with flags flying from little turrets. The harbour was across a cobbled bridge, part of an island right in the centre of Trogir. It was rammed with charter yachts and motor cruisers, their crews gearing up for the summer season.
It wasn’t hard to spot Tommy’s boat, a Sunseeker Predator 92. A ninety-two-foot arrow of white fibreglass, steel and teak. It really was an awesome machine, tied up to a berth of its own at the end of the pontoon. I spotted a couple of Croatian crew tidying up the ropes and polishing the metalwork on deck.
“Mr Kelly here?” I asked. “I’m Eddie Savage.”
&nb
sp; They helped me climb on board the yacht. It had an afterdeck with a gangplank and a separate launch that was stowed in the body of the boat. I found Tommy sunbathing on the upper deck, smoking a cigar and drinking gin, out of view of the people who cruised the pontoons, gawping at the boats. There was some serious money in the harbour.
Tommy welcomed me aboard and introduced me to the Croatian blokes who were crewing for him. There was room for four crew and eight guests on the boat, he said. Saul Wynter was with us, down below, taking a nap. Tommy also had a couple of hard men who were looking after him: he pointed down to the foredeck where they were sunbathing. One was black, wearing baggy Hawaiian surfing shorts, the other olive-skinned, in Speedos, his body covered all over with thick, black hair.
“Johnny and Stav will be looking after us,” he told me.
“No Dave or Donnie?” I asked.
“Dave will be joining. Donnie’s not much of a sailor.” He laughed. “Drink?”
FIFTY
After lunch we motored north out of Trogir and headed up the coast. The crew knew what they were doing, and once we were out to sea they opened up the motor and the Predator raised its nose. We carved through the crystal water, ploughing a great wake of white froth. I sat up on deck behind the wheel. Darko, the skipper, let me take the controls for a bit and I felt a million dollars. Which is probably what a tank of fuel cost to run the beast.
Being on the water took me back to that one and only family holiday on the Isle of Wight, and I thought how distant it now seemed. I remembered how stupidly excited I’d been on that holiday, puttering around Ventnor Bay in a dinghy with an outboard motor. My memory of the colours had faded and, up to a point, so had my memories of Steve. I didn’t want to bring him back to mind right now. To do so would have reminded me why I was really there on Tommy Kelly’s yacht, and as it was I was enjoying myself.
It was a real buzz for me, watching the Dalmatian coast zip by mile after mile as we outran the sailing boats and fishermen that pottered along closer to the shore. A few miles further on, Darko took the wheel again and we turned in towards the coast and into the mouth of a river that went inland.
As we slowed down and headed on up the river, Tommy and Saul joined us on deck, fresh from their nap. Tommy introduced me to the muscle: the hairy one was Stavros Georgiou, and the black guy they all called Johnny Reggae. They were a scary pair, sitting with their shirts off, cracking endless cans of Export lager and smoking fags, but they were friendly enough to me. The boss’s bitch.
Johnny got out his iPod and hooked it up to the boat’s sound system. I soon realized where he got his name as we cruised up the river. He played a ska version of “Guns of Navarone”, which thumped out across the water. Johnny danced around the deck, making a choom-chicka boom, chicka-chicka, choom-chicka rhythm with his mouth in time to the music and grinning from ear to ear.
Even Tommy got into the groove, tapping his bare feet and laughing with Saul and the crew. He put his arm around my shoulder like a matey father who’s had a couple. And for the first time I put my arm around his. We kicked our feet out in a nutty dance and everyone clapped. Tommy laughed like a drain, and when the track stopped he ruffled my hair, coughing, getting his breath back.
“Shame Sophie’s not here to see this, isn’t it?” he said. I nodded, grinning. “Mind you, sometimes the girls spoil the fun.” He waggled his hand in front of his mouth in a drinking gesture, which Stavros took as a cue, cracking open a lager and handing it to Tommy. It was like we were all on a jolly summer lads’ holiday together.
Tommy pointed out some caves carved into the cliffs on either side of the river at water level. “U-boat outposts,” he said. We were in deep water, he explained, and the river had been an important hideaway for the German navy in the Second World War. The deep, dark holes in the rock suddenly looked more sinister in the afternoon sun. “Mad to think that fifteen years ago the natives were still chopping each other up in these hills. It’s always been a war zone.”
Tommy liked to know the history of places and, I supposed, his place in the big scheme of things. I hadn’t realized that the Croatians had been fighting the neighbouring Serbs until so recently and suddenly I felt like I was a long way from home, remote and out of reach.
Somewhere where anything might happen.
We crossed a vast, inland lake and chugged into the harbour at Skradin a couple of hours later. The place was picture-postcard perfect, with houses perched up a hill, not so different from the place we’d just left, except that the harbour was small, with a dozen or so sailing boats moored up.
Anchored in the bay was a vast, silver motor yacht with tinted windows. It looked a good third bigger than ours, which must have made it about a 120-footer.
“Looks like Bashi’s tub,” Tommy said, examining it through a pair of binoculars. “We’re in the right place, at least.”
We showered while the crew launched the tender, and we – Tommy, Saul and I – motored ashore. Saul made a call on his BlackBerry and we headed for a bar along the quayside. The place was full, mostly Italians and Russians. You could tell the difference, and not just by the language. The Italians swanned around looking relaxed in expensive sunglasses and Gucci shoes. The Russians, though they clearly had money, looked as if they had just bought everything yesterday and had left the coat hangers in their clothes.
It was easy to find the party we were looking for: a table of serious-looking men glugging litres of beer and talking loudly on mobiles. As we approached the table, the man at the centre of the group stood up and smiled, flashing gold teeth.
“Tomasovitch!” he shouted and grabbed Tommy in a hug, kissing him on both cheeks. He was no taller than Tommy, but wide, with a large, shaved head. I thought he looked like a baked potato: brown, pockmarked and a bit flabby. Tommy looked momentarily flustered but introduced me and Saul.
“Saul, Eddie,” he said. “Alexei Bashmakov.”
“Eddie? Your son?” The Potato shook my hand and patted me on the shoulder.
“My assistant,” Tommy corrected. “Jason’s taking care of business while I’m abroad.”
I caught Saul Wynter’s eye and he looked away.
We had a couple of beers, Karlovačko. The Russians insisted on Tuborg. While Tommy and Bashmakov chatted about this and that, Saul and I nodded, smiled and clinked glasses with his mates. Mostly they kept talking on their phones and lighting up Marlboros.
“Alexei’s kindly invited us for a glass of champagne on his yacht,” Tommy said after a while. “Eddie, I need you to go back on board and pick up the artwork. And don’t drop it in the drink.” He laughed and the Russians laughed too.
I walked along the quayside to where the tender had been tied up, past a few smart little clothes shops selling striped sailing shirts and flip-flops. There was another large Russian yacht tied up at the mooring. Girls in bikinis were laughing drunkenly on the deck, and fat men stood on the quayside watching, wishing they were invited.
Opposite the boat, separated by a wide, cobbled path, was another café. People sat at tables outside, enjoying the view, watching the world go by. Sitting alone at one table was a sexy, dark-haired girl drinking coffee and smoking. She wore big, black sunglasses and a baggy white shirt over tiny shorts. I could have sworn she caught my eye from behind the shades. I looked at her for a moment, then I was sure. Anna.
I took a step forwards but she shook her head. I stopped. She stubbed out her cigarette and left money on the table. I pretended to join the men watching the yacht while she stood up and left the café. She turned up the next street of gift shops and bars, and I followed a few seconds later. I saw her stop at a newsagent’s. There were postcards on a browser outside and European newspapers on a stand. She rifled through the postcards as if she was looking for something to send to her mum. I stopped and looked at the papers, trying to find something in English.
“What are you doing here?” I asked quietly.
“Same as you,” she said. “‘Working.
” I swear there was a hint of irony in her voice. “We need to talk. Meet me here tomorrow morning, if you can get away. Before twelve.”
“I don’t know what we’ll be doing,” I said.
“If you can’t make it, I’ll leave a card here for you, in this rack.” She didn’t look at me, but from the corner of my eye I saw her point at the third stack of cards down, in the middle of the stand. “Make an excuse. A present for Sophie, anything.”
She picked out a card, a picture of a local waterfall, and went inside to pay for it. I waited for her, but she didn’t look at me when she came out. She just continued to walk up the street. I watched her long, brown legs for a moment, and then realized that the man from the shop was doing the same.
I turned and walked in the opposite direction, back to the boat, shaken.
FIFTY-ONE
By the time Darko had taken me across from our boat on the motor launch, the champagne was in full flow on Bashmakov’s yacht. Its lights shimmered on the still water and it was sparkling, not so much like a Christmas tree but more like a floating nightclub.
There were three decks, and the uniformed steward, who spoke no English, ushered me through the boat.
The lower deck was dark and full of girls and heavy-looking Russian blokes either lounging on banquettes or shuffling around to Euro disco music. They were all drinking and didn’t look at me. The steward led me up a shiny, steel staircase to the upper saloon.
The atmosphere was more rarefied up top. It was deceptively large and I wondered how they managed to create such a space inside a boat. If I hadn’t known better, I would have guessed we were in a posh bar in some international hotel. The floor was polished wood, as were all the fittings, and everything else was either gleaming chrome or cream leather.