by J Ryan
He sounds like he’s bought my story. But he’s also made up one of his own. A security scare. What a great way of keeping people right where they are. Madame and the rest of the staff in this whole office block believe him, too. I can’t resist testing Monsieur’s knack for lying. ‘The police will have the number of that car with the hit man in it that got snapped by the speed camera, Monsieur. So, are they onto him? Have they caught him yet?’
‘That is not the kind of information that the police would give to anyone, Joe.’
He’s right, of course. I feel a stab of anger. ‘What about the Bentley? Have they been round to take a look at it?’
Monsieur looks at me steadily. ‘The attempt on your life is a matter that I am handling personally, Joe. I know that I can be far more effective in dealing with it than the police.’
I stare at this man who I used to admire so much, and whose words I have no reason on earth to believe anymore. And I struggle with the idea that, somehow, I still want to trust him. Like I trusted him when we were tearing round that test track. I wish I could ask him about Dad. But Survival Brain Department says that could be a Really Bad Idea.
‘So I… lie low for a bit, until you can send me out again, Monsieur? Is that the way it plays?’
‘That’s the way it plays, Joe. No clubbing for now.’ Still he sounds Oscar-winning worried. Angry beyond words, I make my way back up to my flat and pace up and down.
Then, a thought strikes me. It’s way past midnight, but Monsieur, Claire and probably Madame de L’Étang are still here, so the alarms can’t have been set. This is my chance to do some night time reconnoitring. I check that my phone has plenty of battery to power the torch, stuff some cushions under the duvet in case someone checks up on me, switch off all the lights on my flat and creep down the stairs. Only the emergency lights are on here, with their dim green glow. As I get to the room with the chandeliers, a beam of light shines across the hall carpet from the door that’s slightly ajar. Two men are talking in there. I can hear the quiet, iron-cold tones of Monsieur and Big Head’s rasping voice. But they’re talking in French. And if Monsieur isn’t French, he’s certainly an A* linguist. Shaken, I try to make out some of the words. Big Head is muttering ‘Tu sais bien que la choix n’est pas la tienne.’
Monsieur calmly replies, ‘Non plus. C’est fini, Alfredo.’
‘Espèce d’imbécile! Je peux faire ce que je veux, autrement tu sais bien ce qui arrivera…’
‘Ton empire est foutu, c’est tout.’
Big Head’s reply gets louder, and someone bangs the door shut with a force that makes me sprint down the next flight of stairs like a startled rabbit. In the empty reception area, I pause to get my breath and work out what I’ve heard. Monsieur was saying that something of Big Head’s is finished, and Big Head wasn’t taking too kindly to the idea. I’ll have to think about it later. Right now I want to find out what else is in that underground car park apart from cars.
As I head down the stairs to the sous-sol, the air gets cooler. The silver XKR is still there but there’s no sign of the yellow Lambo. Was that what it was behind me on the chase from London? The Lambo would certainly have the speed to catch the Bentley. Switching on my phone torch, I find the stairs to the cave below the sous-sol.
The air is as damp and cold as ever down here, with a smell of old wood and ancient stone. And there’s the Bentley, gleaming softly in the torchlight. It’s been cleaned up, but the bullet hole’s still there. Remembering my first ever visit to this cave with Monsieur, I shine the torch over the rows of wine barrels that are nearly as tall as I am. Beyond the barrels, the racks of wine begin; there must be thousands of expensive bottles stored here, many of them coming in at the eye-watering cost of that 1995 Chateau Petrus. Monsieur said the temperature and atmosphere were ideal for storing fine wines. But what else are these dark, secret caverns ideal for storing?
I shine the torch beneath the wine racks. Nothing suspicious there. So I go back to the barrels, tap the first one with my torch and memorize the low thud it makes. The next one sounds the same as the first, and so do the rest. So either all the barrels are stuffed with cocaine, or all of them are full of wine, as wine barrels and cocaine barrels couldn’t possibly sound the same.
Suddenly, another torch beam splits the darkness. Quickly, I switch mine off and slide behind the barrels. There’s no mistaking this visitor, with that wheezing breath. I watch, knowing what the price of my curiosity could be, as Big Head crosses to the wall at the end of the cave. There’s a rumbling, like a stone sliding aside, and he reaches inside some kind of hole in the wall. Before he even takes it out, I know that it’s going to be one of those boxes that I found in the Bentley boot on that horrible night. A few minutes later, six boxes are stowed in the boot. Locking the car, he makes for the exit.
I creep out from behind the barrels and rack my brains to try and make sense of what I’ve seen and heard tonight. OK, Point One – I’m certain now that Monsieur really is French; he just speaks incredibly good English with barely a trace of an accent. But Point Two is far harder: if he’s making all these pots of money selling fine wines, why on earth would he want to run drugs? And then there was that argument. Monsieur seemed to be defying Big Head, but Big Head was saying that Monsieur had no choice. If only I could talk to Becks; I know she’d figure it out in a flash.
I wait five minutes before tiptoeing back up the stairs to the sous-sol and then upwards towards my flat, holding my breath in case the alarms have been set and all hell’s going to break loose. As I pass the room with the chandeliers, the light’s still on. Suddenly I have such a strong urge to tell Monsieur everything, and get back to the trust we had in each other in the beginning. But Big Head could be behind that door. I go quietly on up to my flat. It’s twenty past three in the morning. I set the alarm for seven thirty. Because I have one more plan ready to roll.
At nine in the morning, freshly showered, and stuffed with two bacon butties and a pint of coffee, I knock at the door of Madame’s office. She looks tired, like she’s been there all night, but her working hours are not top of my agenda. ‘I do understand why I can’t phone out of here, Madame. But I’m desperate to know about my Gran. She was taken into hospital two days ago to have a heart operation. And I would so like to know how she is.’
Madame frowns. ‘I’m sure that your family can look out for her without you running the risk of making a telephone call, Joe. No one is accepting or making calls at the moment.’
I take a deep breath, and lie again. I am so good at lying now, I should get a certificate for it. What a shame they don’t do it at GCSE. ‘Madame, my grandmother lives in France. I just wanted to phone the hospital and ask after her.’
This puts Madame into deep thought. ‘I will have to ask Monsieur le Directeur if this is possible, Joe. But I would be very surprised if he agrees.’
She calls up Monsieur, talking so quietly that I can’t hear her, then puts the phone down, looking at me hard. ‘For humanitarian reasons, Monsieur le Directeur says you may make this call. But it must be for no more than one minute.’
She hands me the phone. She can’t see the keypad. So she can’t see that I’m dialling the full international code for Britain, not France. To her, it looks like the right number of digits. It is. But I’m dialling Becks’ landline. Praying that she’ll be there, that she can read my mind. Because this is my last chance.
The phone rings, and the clock’s ticking. Sixty, fifty-nine, fifty-eight… Someone picks up, I hear the click that says Monsieur is listening in, and I babble, calling up all my GCSE French, ‘Je voudrais parler avec le médecin qui soigne ma grandmère, s’il vous plait. Je m’appelle Joseph, je suis son grandfils. C’est très urgent.’
There’s an intake of breath on the end of the line. It’s Becks’ breath, I’m sure it is. ‘C’est très urgent, s’il vous plait.’ Please let her recogn
ize my voice!
Becks could blaze a career in Hollywood. She puts on an official kind of voice, and says with a brilliant French accent, ‘Et bien, Monsieur, et le nom de votre grandmère?’
‘Elle s’appelle Annette, Mademoiselle.’ The name of Steve’s French girlfriend should convince Becks that it’s me calling, not some crazy hoaxer.
I look at Madame’s face, staring at me hard across her desk, and it’s a blank. Now I know she can’t speak French. But can Becks and I outsmart Monsieur le Directeur? All bets are still on. Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight…
Becks is trying to work out a code to reply to my message. ‘Vous voudriez savoir si tout va bien avec votre grandmère, Monsieur?’
‘Oui Mademoiselle, c’est très important.’
‘Je peux vous informer que tout va bien avec votre grandmère, Monsieur.’ Then she says, ‘Est-ce que vous avez un message pour votre grandmère, Monsieur?’
Eighteen, seventeen, sixteen… What message, what cry for help, can I send Becks without giving the game away, before Monsieur susses us and cuts me off? I’m racking my brains, when Commander Julius Grayling’s familiar voice whispers in my mind. ‘Il faut prier, Mademoiselle. On a besoin de prier.’ Becks knows I’m not asking for prayers for my imaginary French grandmother. She knows that I’m the one who needs them.
Five, four, three… ‘Merci Mademoiselle, c’est tout. Aurevoir.’ Before Madame can take the phone away from me, I put it down.
Madame says, like her teeth are clamped together, ‘I had no idea that you could speak French so well, Joe. And how is your grandmother? Is she doing well after the operation?’
‘They say my Gran’s OK. But she’s eighty-two, so…’
The phone rings. It won’t have taken Monsieur any time at all to trace the number I dialled, and find out that it wasn’t a French hospital. That it wasn’t France at all.
Madame listens, nods and says ‘Of course. Yes, straightaway.’ It has to be Monsieur. He must be pretty annoyed now, and not for humanitarian reasons.
Madame puts the phone down, and looks up at me with her dark beady eyes. ‘It appears that we have a trip for you after all, Joe. You will be down in the carpark with the Bentley in five minutes. There is a consignment that needs urgent delivery.’
As I button the jacket of my chauffeur’s uniform, I know that this is the last time I’ll ever do it. Three minutes later, I’m in the cave. Someone’s standing in the shadows near the Bentley. But there’s no glittering silver hair. Instead, a torch shines right into my eyes. ‘Get in the car, Joe.’
I don’t move. Big Head’s sixty cigars-a-day voice says again, ‘Get in the car.’
‘I have a question to ask Monsieur.’
‘You don’ ask questions, Joe. Get in the car.’
I still don’t move. ‘Why did Monsieur give me this job?’
Big Head likes this. He chuckles chestily before replying, with a directness that convinces me this is my last trip, ‘You mess up his plans, Joe. The woman who is ours, you hand to the men in suits. You give them information. So, we bring you here. Easy. How you fall for that ad, don’ you? Fast car, beautiful girls, good money. All you wan’, isn’t it, Joe?’
‘You’re just a bunch of dirty drug runners!’
‘You too, Joe. Part of the firm now. Get in.’
I’ve had it being pushed around by Big Head. ‘You’ve no idea how much information the police already have about you, do you? For all you know, this trip could be your biggest ever mistake.’
That rattles his cage. ‘Shut up! You go to Birmingham. Drop the goods, come back with a passenger. You don’ talk to her. You don’ call any of your friends in suits. You understanding me, Joe? Because you better be understanding me.’ He takes another rasping breath. ‘Or something happens to your family…’
And I was feeling so clever.
Big Head says, ‘Take a look.’ His voice hardens. ‘Not holiday photos.’ He holds up his phone. He watches me, enjoying himself, as I look at the tiny screen. I can see my house. The camera pans across the windows, the front door, and I can see Mum’s Citroën on the driveway. The lens moves slowly round the inside of another car, and onto the front passenger seat. Lying there as casually as a handbag is a black 9 mm revolver.
Big Head snaps shut the phone. ‘Address is on the sat nav. You been there before. Get in, Joe.’
Feeling numb, I do what he says.
‘You’re not there in ninety minutes, your family has visitors. And we call the police. We tell them there’s a Bentley, two kilos of cocaine in the boot, on the way to a drop.’
Big Head’s mouth is close to my ear, and I can smell his stinking breath again. ‘You call anyone, we see you an’ we hear you. You wan’ see your people again, Joe, you don’ mess up.’
The sun blasts straight into my eyes, as I drive out of the cave for the last time. I don’t need the sat nav to tell me who I’m collecting. I remember DI Wellington: ‘she’s attracted so much police attention, she’ll be no more use now to whoever’s employing her.’
I take quick glances around me as I head up the M5. The Bentley’s stuffed with tiny cameras and microphones. There’s one behind the rear view mirror, and others concealed in the interior lights. They were always there; I just didn’t see them. No reason to suspect anything when you’re in heaven.
There must be more cameras in the boot. Monsieur knew the moment I wrenched open that wooden box that I’d recognized Big Head.
Now Big Head’s sending me on my final drop. And his plan is neither me nor Leah Wilks is ever going to get to that courtroom. One way is, we’ll be shot by whoever put the bullet into the Bentley – maybe Big Head himself.
The other way is, we have blue lights flashing, and I get arrested and locked up for a long time, for driving hundreds of kilos of Class A all over the UK. Just like Jamie.
On balance, I think that’s better than being gunned down. Unless Big Head tells the police, in his public-spirited, anonymous tip-off, that we’re armed, and my passenger is a crack shot with a Magnum. That way, we also end up dead.
I know Becks will have got onto DI Wellington. But what can he do when he doesn’t know where I am? And I have no way of telling him, with those Big Brother mics and cameras. If I even try I’ll just put my family in more danger.
I remember one of my English lessons where Mr Russell, the only teacher I really rated, asked me to give an example of Being Between A Rock And A Hard Place. I thought I did quite well at the time. I said: ‘There’s a gig with the Red Hot Chillies I’ve been given a ticket to, then my best mate invites me to his 16th on the same night, and there’s going to be free food, and gorgeous girls.’
Right now, I’d give that answer a U. The A* answer is: ‘You’re a known drug runner, you have a boot full of cocaine, and you can get shot by a drugs gang or you can get shot by the police. Which way do you want it?’
I wonder what Commander Julius Grayling would do.
Chapter 11
End Game
Silently, Precious glides to a halt outside the Birmingham house where Leah Wilks has gone into hiding. It’s a fine place to make the last delivery of my glittering career as a drug runner. If anything, it looks slightly tackier than when I drove Big Head up here a couple of days ago. A bin bag lolls on the pavement, spewing empty baked bean cans and cider bottles from a rip in the side. Next to the battered front door a cracked window pane is propped up against the wall. An old Ford Sierra is parked outside, its rear window smashed; shards of glass sparkling in the road. No sign of any kids puffing on fags this time.
I get one of the boxes out of the boot and lock the Bentley. When I turn back to the house, Leah Wilks is standing in the doorway. She looks about as friendly as she did at our first meeting. ‘I can’t believe Alfredo Bertolini said it would be you, shitface.’
&nb
sp; She must mean Big Head. ‘He also said we’re not to talk.’ I jump, as a man suddenly appears behind her in the dark hallway. His sallow face has a week’s growth of beard. The baggy jeans are scarred with burn marks. Small, bloodshot eyes squint at me as he pushes past her, taking in my uniform. ‘They said they’d send a driver, not a blasted cop!’
I hold out the box. ‘Cops don’t do door-to-door.’
‘Oh, we’ve got a clever one, ‘ave we?’ He grabs it from me.
‘The next delivery’s running late.’ I turn, but Leah Wilks isn’t there. Then I see her, standing by the Bentley. She actually wants to go on this journey. What the hell has Big Head told her?
I press the remote to unlock the doors. She gets inside and sits staring straight in front of her. The man glares at her contemptuously. ‘Stupid cow.’ He goes back inside with the box, kicking the door shut behind him.
I dart nervous glances sideways as Precious floats quietly through the streets. Wilks is ominously quiet. Just behind us, a truck gives a blast like a ship’s fog horn. She never twitches. I wonder how on earth I’m going to get through to her without igniting that deadly violence. But before I can even try, I’ve got to do something about the eyes and ears that are picking up my every move. I drive slowly for a couple of miles, pull into a side street and stop.
‘What’s the game?’
‘There’s something wrong with the gearbox. I can’t go any faster than 20. I’ll have to take a look at the fuses.’
‘You better not try anything…’
‘If I don’t fix this, we’re not going to Bristol.’ I get out, and reach into the footwell for the fuse box lid. There must be fifty or more fuses, each with a coded label. I had to replace a bulb once and it took half an hour with the handbook before I finally found BLN, for Brake Light Nearside. So where’s the code that will let me knock out those mics and cameras? Sweat trickles down my face. I take off the stupid chauffeur’s cap and slip it inside the car. Slow movements. Nothing that’ll wind her up.