by Adam Baron
‘Five grand,’ I said. ‘There are three of them.’ He pulled them all out and set them on the arm of the sofa. Then his hand went in another time and he was holding a blue folder. Everyone’s eyes followed it. He looked at it with contempt, as though he was amused. Then he opened it decisively and flicked through the pictures that were in it. I’d had them blown up to A4. He tried to hide his shock as he went through them quickly. Then he shook his head.
‘What do these show? They show nothing.’
‘They show you going into a bookies,’ I said. ‘Then a cafe and a supermarket. And a casino. With a bag that gets heavier each time. You don’t normally do collections on your own, do you? I was told that. Always in pairs. The last picture shows you at a safe-deposit place. I bet it’s not one you usually use, if you use one at all. It’s in Mayfair, Mrs Ameli, Johnson Security. Heard of it?’
I could tell she hadn’t. She had stepped forward and was taking the photographs from her nephew. He looked pale, sick. He started to protest his innocence, telling her it was bullshit.
‘I was told he was doing it by a friend of mine who knows about such things,’ I explained, as the old woman looked at the pictures in her hand. ‘Striking out on his own. They “let” him win at the casino and at the bookies. The shops and cafes just pay him extra. But I knew you wouldn’t believe me until I could prove it. No one likes paying him extra but they do it because they’re afraid of him. They think he’s going to be next after you, that’s the impression he gives. That’s why they don’t complain to you, because of what he’d do if you didn’t believe them, or if he got control anyway. He’s been playing his own game all over town and he’s done it again with Nicky. He’s the only one who knew where the money was. He was the only one who went up with Nicky into his flat. He went up with Nicky, didn’t he?’ I turned to look at the big sombre face to my left. He was breathing through his nose, a steady intake getting slowly quicker. I left him and looked at his boss again. She’d looked at the pictures and was starting again at the beginning. ‘Ask them, they won’t deny it. And I reckon that if you go to Johnson Security there you’ll find the money you want, and some. If you don’t, come back to us. But you will. So, don’t talk to me about fair, Mrs Ameli. Talk to him. Because if this is a game you call fair, we’re not playing any more.’
Christopher Ameli was studying his aunt’s face as she looked at the photographs in her hand. When he could tell that yes, she believed it, he came for me. He didn’t get very far. His cousin grabbed the back of his hair and stopped him. He pushed him onto the three men all getting up from the far sofa. Ameli struggled with them and screamed at me but they soon shut him up. When she’d finished looking at the pictures in her hand Mrs Ameli folded them in half and turned to Nicky and me. She picked up the rolls of bills still lying on the arm of the sofa and stuffed them back in the postman’s bag. She handed it to Nicky and then turned to the man standing next to her.
‘Get them out of here,’ she said.
Chapter Thirty
Nicky couldn’t believe it was that easy. We’d stopped round the corner from the place, Nicky leaning against the wall of a bank, the relief beginning to flood into him. He was limp as a rag doll.
‘What if they go to his security box and the money isn’t there?’ he said to me.
‘It will be. I saw him going in the place. He looked like he went there a lot, by the way the owner dealt with him. There’ll be more than a couple of hundred grand if you ask me. Enough to satisfy them. Anyway, we’ll know in a day or two. If you want my guess you won’t be hearing from Mrs Ameli again.’
Nicky held his face in his hands and then laughed. ‘Unless she wants me to wash another bundle for her.’
‘To which your response will be?’
‘Hey, if the money’s good…’
‘Don’t,’ I said, pointing my finger at him. ‘Not funny. Don’t fucking even!’
We stood for a while longer as Nicky got himself together. Then Nicky began to look uncomfortable. As I made to move off he stopped me.
‘I’m going to tell him,’ Nicky said.
‘What?’
‘Draper. I’m going to tell him about the evidence, the glass. I have a number for him.’ I stood up straight, my hands on my hips. ‘I knew you found him. I spoke to him yesterday. I told him that you wouldn’t have sold him out.’
‘I would have, but I didn’t.’
‘I said you must have been followed.’
‘I was.’
‘Well, I’m going to tell him. I have to. He’s a friend. Like you did all this for me.’
‘I understand.’
‘Do you?’
‘If you know he didn’t kill that girl. What do you think he’ll do?’
‘I don’t know. I just promised I’d call him if I heard anything. I wanted to tell you first.’
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Just do it from a payphone. And disguise your voice, use a handkerchief or something.’
‘I will.’
‘Right then.’
Nicky and I stood looking at each other. He looked hollow. I turned to go.
‘Billy,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
‘I’ve been weak. This whole thing. I hate to think…’
‘What?’
‘I don’t know. I just…I’m sorry.’
‘I know you are, Nicky. I know.’
* * *
I figured the tube was faster than a cab so I jogged to Oxford Circus where I followed signs for the Central Line westbound. I had to be quick, if Nicky was already calling Draper. I used a cardphone on the platform to tell Coombes I was on my way and she said she wouldn’t wait more than half an hour. I said she wouldn’t need to. When the train roared out of the tunnel I stepped forward then sat on it for twenty minutes, tapping my feet, going through it. I hoped Nicky just called, that he stayed away. After six stops I pushed the doors apart and hiked up the escalators.
Coombes had said she’d be in an unmarked white van opposite the flats and when I got to the place there was only one van there. I gave a couple of taps on the side of it. Then I walked round the back. The back doors swung open and Coombes’ face appeared. She held the door for me and I took a quick look over my shoulder before stepping up inside.
They were four of them in the van, Coombes and three men, two of whom were unknown to me. One was in headphones, testing some listening equipment at the far end while another was reloading a camera. The van smelled of coffee and piss, and I looked round for the bottle they’d been using, so as not to go anywhere near it. The guys had obviously not made concessions to the fact of Coombes’ presence and why should they? If they had to go they had to go. I wondered if Coombes used it too, or if she had her own. I didn’t think I wanted to know. As I stepped inside Coombes made room for me.
‘At last!’ she said. ‘Right then. You ready?’
‘Absolutely. Got the rear door covered?’
‘Sure have. Couple of men spent all day pretending to be gardeners, now just lurking in the shadows. And we’re not the only unit out front either. See that pimp mobile?’
Coombes shuffled aside further to let me look through the small surveillance hatch in the side of the vehicle, which on the outside appeared as a panel of smoked plastic. Across the street I could see a long white stretch limo lounging just outside the front of the six-storey building we were parked opposite, all its windows black.
‘Cool, huh? Who’d believe that that thing was full of coppers, eh?’
‘Your budget must have gone up since my day,’ I said.
Coombes asked me to go through my theory with her once again and I did. I didn’t take long, she’d had the full version. Coombes nodded a couple of times and when I finished she told me that yes, just as she’d thought when I’d run it by her yesterday over the phone, it was bullshit. It didn’t matter, though, she said, when I started to explain it again, because even if it was she still got to nab Draper – if he was up there. That was all she ca
red about. I said whatever and asked her if she’d brought along the shard of glass we’d found at McKenna’s. She reached in her bag and handed it to me, telling me not to take it out of its evidence bag. I looked at her like, I don’t need to be told that and she looked back with I know that but I still have to tell you. Coombes had described the piece to me in detail over the phone but I still wanted to look at it myself.
‘You can’t believe what I had to go through to check that out,’ she said. ‘The forensics bods thought I was joking. If I lose that I am absolutely fucked.’
I turned the shard round in my hand, and nodded. ‘It was worth it,’ I said, as I handed it back to her.
The surveillance officer in the headphones moved towards us and the young officer Coombes had appeared with at my flat told me to lift my shirt up. He took a small pack and a series of wires from his colleague and helped attach the wire to me. He didn’t look too pleased about it, probably wishing he was the one going in. He certainly wasn’t very cheerful, but maybe it was because his already spawn-like acne had taken a turn for the worse. He looked like an extra dying from something nasty in an early episode of Doctor Who.
‘You sure this is right, ma’am? I mean, I know he used to be an officer but now what is he? There must be a rule against this.’
‘There’s probably a whole book of them somewhere.’
‘Then surely—’
‘Just shut your mouth and get that wire on him. It’s the perfect public/private partnership. Your Mr Blair would absolutely love it. You’re not even charging us for your services are you, Mr Rucker?’
‘It’s on me.’
‘Well there you go. Talk about cost effective. Right. You ready?’
I pulled my shirt down and closed my coat.
‘Can we have a level test, please?’
‘Sure. How is this? Okay? Okay?’
‘Loud and clear,’ the man in the headphones said.
Coombes’ eyes were bolted open like a speed freak’s. She loved this, she was clearly an adrenalin junky. I tried not to let her hyped state affect me. I turned the handle and pushed the door, enjoying the cool rush of fresh air. As I did so I could hear Coombes’ wired voice priming the rest of her team, over her handset. I stepped down from the van. Again from Coombes’ handset I could hear her team responding. ‘Thank God! About bloody time!’ I stopped for a second and took a breath. I shut the doors of the van quickly and put my hands in my pockets. I could no longer hear any voices but suddenly I could feel them all around me, watching, waiting, I could feel the tension in the air.
I made myself stand still for a second and told myself to chill out. It was a mistake, I should have just got on with it. Doubt seeped into me. I suddenly wondered what the hell I was going to do if the hunch that had germinated inside me three days ago was wrong. The hunch that had stretched and grown ever since, however I’d tried initially to ignore it, then to stamp it out, to dig at it, to poison it with doubts. What if Coombes was right, what if it was bullshit? As I stood at the back of the van, waiting to play my hand, I found myself agreeing with her: it couldn’t be true, it just couldn’t. And if it wasn’t how would I react? I knew the answer. I’d feel very, very stupid, but that feeling would be nothing compared to the other emotion I’d know. It would be nothing at all compared to the relief.
I’d stepped out of the van onto a small street between the King’s Road and the Fulham Road. The air was thick and damp. I gave a short tap on the back door and pulled my hands out of my pockets. Then I crossed the street towards a long row of handsome red-brick mansion blocks, stretching up and down the road in both directions, the kind that used to be townhouses. They were clean and uniform, well lit, with white cornices and window ledges mostly lined with boxes that in the summer would have been brimming full of pinks and geraniums. Now they were mostly empty. I let a cab pull past and I walked over, not being able to stop myself looking up towards five. I remembered the last time I’d been there, how I’d done the same thing. A struggling winter sun had sat on the window like a broken yoke. Now there was a light on, a small square of dull orange pressing through the blind.
I crossed over quickly, not wanting to be spotted. I had Draper’s face in my mind. I didn’t want him clocking me. I didn’t want him making a break for it. If he tried that there was no way out. He’d be caught. That would be it for him, especially now the police had his print. No doubt. They’d catch him and they’d charge him and he would go away for a long, long time. I had the feeling I’d had once before, only now it was stronger. Draper only had one hope. Even if he didn’t know it, and I didn’t like it, that hope was me. I shook my still-painful head. It was much easier to work for people you liked. So much easier. I didn’t like the way Draper thought. I didn’t like the way he behaved. I didn’t even like his silky fucking haircut and for some reason I also had something against his razor rash. But I had to help him, just as I’d had to help Alison, even if, by doing so, I was kicking up the worst kind of shit. Because they had chosen me. You can’t decide who chooses you.
Coombes had arranged for the heavy wooden entry door with its pretty stained glass to be on the latch so I didn’t have to wait for a drunk woman to open it for me or pretend to have locked myself out taking the rubbish down. I pushed the handle. The hall light was on. I was in a neat and old-fashioned foyer, reminiscent of a small private hotel, with a delicate walnut table to my left and a series of wooden mailboxes screwed to the wall. There were mirrors on both sides and ahead of me I could see an old single lift with a wood-panelled door. I slid it open and then eased back some polished metal caging. I rode the lift up to the fourth floor where it stopped with a loud ping. I stepped out into a narrow darkened corridor and then walked along a thick, paisley carpet until I’d found the fire escape. I shut the door quietly and hopped up two flights to five.
I took a long deep breath and made myself go through it one last time. No, there was no way round it. None at all. I walked up to the corridor and past the lift. I put my ear to the door of flat twelve, holding my coat so that it wouldn’t rustle. It was the second time in two days that I’d done this, hoping to hear signs of Jack Draper. This time I could hear movement but no voices. Feet padded back and forth and I thought I could hear the snap of some latches, like those on a suitcase. I nodded. I kept my ear to the door as I knocked, briskly.
In an instant, the movement stopped. Still, no voices. Nothing. I knocked again, a sing-song kind of put-you-at-ease knock, a non-threatening, hey-how-are-you? knock. There was a movement. I stepped back as I heard footsteps approaching the door.
‘Who is it?’
‘It’s me.’
‘Who?’
‘It’s me. It’s Billy Rucker.’
Silence. More. Then, ‘Billy.’ Very flat. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Open up and I’ll tell you.’
‘Just a minute. I’ll… Just a minute. I’ll be there in a sec. Just a minute.’
The footsteps retreated and I heard more. Then they came towards me again and the latch turned.
Jack Draper wasn’t holding any threatening objects in his hand this time. But he did look nervous. He stared down at his feet, giving me a chance to look at him. It was a surprise. His hair had been cut, clippered short to a number three. It suited him, so maybe something beneficial was going to come out of all this. Unlike his hair, his beard had continued to grow, now actually quite suiting him too, as well as being a pretty effective disguise along with the crop. He could pass for someone else at a pinch. As he had in Nicky’s uncle’s warehouse, he looked pale, scared, but it was more intense now, even more desperate, as if he’d just been told some very bad news. Again, I nodded to myself.
Draper shook his head wearily. He sort of laughed. ‘I should have known you’d find me. Nicky said he hadn’t told you but I still should have known. You did it before.’
‘It was harder that time, but I managed it. And you thought I’d betrayed you.’
‘I kn
ow. I’m sorry. You can see why, though, can’t you, the people outside? I only realized that you’d probably been followed later on. If you had told the Bill, it would have been them coming through the door, not you, wouldn’t it?’
‘Exactly.’
‘So I’m sorry I clobbered you. Christ.’
‘It’s okay,’ I said. ‘It doesn’t hurt as much as it looks like it should.’
‘So,’ Jack said. ‘Tell me. Was it the police? Had they followed you?’
‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘It was people working for Vishnan Korai.’
‘Korai?’
‘He was after me. He wanted to tell me to get off his back.’
‘Because?’
‘Because I’d been looking into him. I’d thought maybe he’d had Alison killed as a way of bribing you to sign your contract.’
‘Jesus. And did he? Is that what happened? Korai? So he was sending me those pictures. He never gave any hint…’
I looked over my shoulder. I could hear the lift starting its descent to the ground floor, from four. Someone must have called it.
‘Why don’t I come inside?’ I said.
The room I stepped into was a small one, with dormer windows covered by taut white roller blinds. It had probably been the maid’s quarters originally or else the nursery. The walls were woodchip painted duck-egg blue, while a thick green rug stretched almost to the edges of some light, sanded floorboards, probably the original pine. A portable TV set, off, sat carelessly on the floor and a clothes rail stood underneath the window, quite a few of the wire hangers on it empty. To my right, a modern, Japanese-looking sofa lined the near wall. Beyond it was a tiny, over-bright kitchenette lit by a line of small halogen bulbs fixed to the ceiling. At the back of it was a single door, which was closed, but which I knew opened into a tiny bathroom. My eyes took all this in very quickly before turning to my left, to the bed.
To Shulpa, who was sitting on it.