‘He doesn’t live here any more. He’s long gone,’ she said. ‘Who are you?’
The phone rang behind her, but Dawn didn’t want to walk away and leave the front door ajar.
‘Maybe that’s him now,’ Nick sneered.
‘No, I haven’t heard hide or hair from Bernard in almost a year. He took all his things and left without a word. Who are you?’
‘Where’s he gone to?’
‘Didn’t say. He just left a note saying he had problems and that was it.’
‘Yeah, that sounds like Bernie. That’s the kind of shit-arse thing he’d do, leave a note and fuck off.’
‘So, who are you?’
‘I’m his brother. We’re all his brothers, all four of us.’
‘Look – Nick, is it? Bernard jumped ship nearly a year ago. Even a bloodhound couldn’t find a sniff of him around this house. Why’s it taken you so long to turn up here?’
‘We were giving Her Majesty pleasure, as I’m sure our dear brother told you, and just to rub our noses in it the cancerous bastards wouldn’t let us all out on the same day. My dear brothers had to wait for me to join them before we came to pay our respects to Bernard together, as a family.’
‘I really can’t help you.’
‘You see, the thing is, Dawn, he called our father a few weeks ago, said he was doing well and he’s offered to pay us a little of the money back that he owes us. He told our dad he was living over this way but didn’t want to say where exactly. So where would he be now?’
‘I’ve told you, I don’t know.’
Nick reached into his jacket pocket and handed Dawn a small card with a mobile phone number written on it.
‘Now, be a good girl,’ he said, ‘and when he rings you tell him to ring me, Nicholas, on that number. Tell him we just want to chat.’
‘He won’t ring. I’ve got another guy in my life.’
‘Yes, we saw him leave this morning.’
Dawn felt an icy shiver of fear. They’d been watching the house.
The expression of genial condescension on Nicky Nelson’s face morphed into an angry rictus grin. When he spoke his voice was heavy with controlled aggression.
‘Oh, and Dawn – it is Dawn, isn’t it? If you tell him and he doesn’t ring, tell him we’ll be back to see you. OK, beautiful? You can remember that, can’t you, darlin’?’
Dawn said nothing; she was frozen in fear. The three men turned and walked back to their car.
‘Nice little body,’ smirked David Nelson.
‘Yeah, really quite fuckable,’ Nicky opined loudly, oafishly grabbing his crotch.
Dawn slammed the door to the sound of their laughter and slammed the chain across. Harry, must ring Harry, she thought. She dashed to the phone and hit 1471. ‘The caller withheld his number’ came the automated reply. She didn’t have his mobile number – he never let her have it in case she rang while he was doing business and jeopardised his cover and her own safety. Dawn pressed her back against the wall and slid to the floor. She tried to blink the hallway into focus, but could see little through the haze of fear that her flood of tears did nothing to allay.
Harry woke up at 8.53am, feeling empty. He flicked on the hotel telly. Ri:se was on, Channel 4’s piss-poor substitute for The Big Breakfast. What was the colon for in Ri:se? Producing shit. When they started a feature on Victoria Beckham – the dachshund with tits, Harry called her – he zapped over to BBC1. But their Breakfast show was even worse, the snooze button on the alarm clock of morning TV. He flicked to ITV. Harry hadn’t watched GMTV since they’d got shot of Greavsie, and nothing he was seeing now was likely to change that.
Reluctantly he hauled himself out of bed and headed for the bath tub. Either his diet was making him lethargic or Chichester itself was sucking the life-force out of him. Maybe it was trying to make everyone within its city centre as lacklustre as it was. Twenty minutes later, feeling refreshed, he took delivery of his room-service bacon and eggs and started to flick through the Sun. He hated it when the words ‘Richard Littlejohn is on holiday’ appeared on page eleven, because there was fuck-all else to read in there. In the background some gobby tart with a Manchester accent was mouthing off about diets to Lorraine Kelly. Harry’s ears pricked up when she started to diss Atkins: ‘Your breath STINKS and you don’t get enough fibre so you’re CONSTIPATED!’ – tell me about it, Harry groaned – ‘It can also lead to CANCER of the colon and prostrate. You’re filling your body with saturated FATS, which are linked conclusively to HEART disease. You need vitamin supplements to compensate for the LACK of fruit and veg. Anyone on Atkins should be told that his diet is a health TIME BOMB …’ – she paused for comic effect – ‘But at least you’ll get buried in a size-five SHROUD …’
Hold on a mo, thought Harry. I know you. That’s Rachel! Rachel Freeman, the irritating know-it-all he’d trained with all those years ago. What was she doing on TV? ‘Some worrying facts there,’ twittered Lorraine Kelly. ‘Thank you health guru Rachel Morley …’ Morley? She must have married. So some poor bastard out there was walking round with a giant thumbprint on the back of his skull. Unless … she couldn’t be undercover, could she? Posing as a dietician to bust some serial-killing WeightWatcher rep? Harry laughed to himself as he switched over, making a mental note to find out as soon as this poxy job was over. Trust Rachel to be anti-Atkins. If Harry was for something, you knew full well she’d be against it. He wouldn’t want it any other way.
At 10.30am Harry stood inside the entrance of Chichester railway station speed-reading the rest of the morning’s papers and cursing the fact that not one single daily reflected the way he felt any more. Occasionally the Mail did, but that was so fucking sanctimonious … Outside a cab driver dozed in his car, waiting for his regular passenger on the Brighton train. There was no sign of Frank for fifteen minutes and then his clapped-out shit-heap of a diesel Sierra turned up, trailing clouds of blue-grey smoke. He beeped his horn, but Harry had already spotted him. He was hard to miss.
There was a pile of papers on Frank’s passenger seat, which Harry went to move.
‘You’ll get a spring up yer j-j-jacksy if you don’t sit on them,’ Frank advised.
Harry smiled weakly. This job just kept getting better …
The Sierra set off with a judder. The engine sounded like it had caught Frank’s stammer. As they turned into the main road, the old sea dog let rip an ear-splitting fart.
‘S-s-sorry, boy,’ he said, laughing.
Harry went to wind down the window but the winder had been broken off.
‘Th-that’s why I’m sorry, son.’
Now Frank was crying with laughter.
‘Fuck me, Frank, did a rat crawl up your arse and die? You’ve gotta leave that mackerel alone.’
Frank thought this was so funny he had to pull over before he could drive again. Harry used the opportunity to sling open the door and let some fresh air in.
‘So, who’s this fella we’re going to meet?’
‘George. Lives in South-South-Southsea.’
Harry bit his lip. The fewer questions he asked the easier this journey was going to be.
‘He’s a Sc-Sc-Scottish chap. Lovely wife, but no kids. You know why?’
‘No, why?’
‘He suffers from premature e-jock-ulation.’
Harry laughed politely. ‘Where we meeting him?’
‘A café.’
The café was old and dingy. The plates and mugs looked like leftovers from Whisky Galore! The food, in Frank’s words, was ‘not so much cordon bleu as cordoned off’.
Then George arrived, tripping over the doorstep and stumbling into the caff narrowly missing the ‘Waitress Time Forgot’, who was carrying over their mugs of tea. The Jock had ruddy cheeks and bloodshot eyes. A proper drinker’s face. He gave the waitress a wink, clasped an arm around Frank’s shoulder and belched charmlessly. Harry caught the strong whiff of last night’s Bell’s on his breath. Strap up, he’s still pissed, he thought. Am
I being mugged up here or what? There was no way this was a serious bit of work.
‘Harry, this is George,’ said Frank without a stutter. ‘’Scuse me, I need a lash.’
Harry turned to the waitress. ‘Full English and a coffee for George Clooney here please, sweetheart.’
George grinned stupidly. ‘Hello Harry,’ he said, slurring the words slightly. ‘I’m George.’
‘Yeah, Frank told me, remember? You were here.’
‘So, well, I’m sorry, I’m still a little hung over from the party last night.’
Harry looked at him squarely. He was in two minds as to whether he should just get up and walk out. There was no way this prat was involved with a firm of quality villains. Who could trust such a pisshead?
‘You should have said,’ Harry replied finally. ‘We could have met you last night and then we’d all have been shit-faced this morning.’
Frank lumbered back, doing up his fly buttons.
‘I can’t st-stop pissing these days,’ he said. ‘F-f-five times I was up in the night. And even when I go it’s all stop-start. I think I’ve finished, then I do me zip up and have to go again. I was back and forth to the urinal three or four times before I’d finished. Prostrate problems, see.’
‘Blimey, Frank, do you know what that means?’ said Harry. ‘You piss exactly like you speak.’
‘You’re a wicked swine, Harry,’ said George.
‘These London boys make me laugh.’ Frank smiled. ‘Now, George, me and H-H-Harry, we can being those diamonds back. Does that South African st-st-still need someone?’
‘I don’t know,’ George replied.
Harry waited for him to say something else but he didn’t. He just sat there looking dumb.
‘So how would you get hold of him, mate?’ Harry asked impatiently.
‘When I see him or ring him.’
‘What’s his name and number?’
George reached into the pocket of his stained checked jacket and pulled out a handful of dirty Kleenex tissues. ‘Not in there,’ he mumbled. The next pocket contained more tissues, a button and a Ladbrokes pen, which rolled off the table onto the floor. ‘Where the fuck is it?’ he asked under his breath. Finally he checked his inside pocket and produced a small, tatty black diary. George fumbled through the pages. ‘Here ’tis.’ He handed it to Harry.
‘Fuck me, George, were you ever a doctor? I can’t read this.’
‘Bottom of the page, look.’
‘What’s his name?’
George pointed at the book.
‘Where?’
‘That’s it. Van – like, you know, van, like a van.’
‘Like a Dutch name, van?’
George shrugged. ‘Suppose so. Hey, if you’re sailing over, I’ll come with you.’
‘Nah, don’t think so,’ said Harry, writing down the number. ‘We’d get done smuggling booze into France if we took you.’
‘What do you think, son?’ asked Frank
‘We’ll talk about it on the way back. Come on, drink up.’
Harry threw six pound coins on the table. ‘Keep the change, luv,’ he said.
Harry got Frank to drop him off in Chichester, promising to contact him later. He went straight into a phone box and rang the mobile. It went straight to answerphone, a female voice. The dozy twat had probably written the number down wrong, but Harry left his name and mobile number anyway. As he walked toward Chichester police station, his mobile rang.
‘Yeah?’
‘You rang my number, I believe.’ It was a man with a South African accent.
‘Is that Van?’
‘That’s right. Who are you?’
‘I’m a mate of George and Frank.’
‘George?’
‘Yeah, drunken Jock out of Southsea.’
‘Oh, George, yes, George. What do you want?’
‘I’m skint, we’ve got a boat and he said you might have an earner for us.’
Van paused. ‘What else did our friend tell you?’
‘Nothing. Just that it might be worth our while making contact.’
‘Where is your boat?’
‘Chichester marina.’
‘It’s a trip across the water.’
‘That much we gathered.’
‘You want to meet and talk?’
‘When are you over?’
‘Over where?’
‘England.’
‘I’m in England.’
‘Sorry, pal, George said you were in France.’
‘No, what needs collecting is in France.’
‘Where are you?’
‘At this moment, outside McDonald’s in Portsmouth.’
‘Want me to jump on a train? I’ll be about an hour.’
‘Call me when you get here.’
Harry ran back to the call box and rang DI Taylor to bring him up to speed.
Taylor seemed delighted. ‘Where are you meeting him?’
‘I’ve got to ring him when I get to Portsmouth railway station, said I’d be an hour.’
‘Slow it up a bit and we’ll get a photographer there with a bag camera so he won’t show out. What do you think, Harry?’
‘Nil out of ten two hours ago, three out of ten at the moment.’
* * * * *
Ninety minutes later, Harry reached Portsmouth station and put a call in.
‘Get to Gun Wharf Quays,’ Van instructed. ‘Everyone knows it. There’s a Ted Baker shop. I’ll be outside in a camouflage jacket.’
‘OK, but move about in case I can’t find you.’
‘Funny guy. Don’t be long.’
Harry rang Taylor to update him.
‘No problem,’ said the DI. ‘I’ve cobbled together a small surveillance team at Portsmouth nick. I’m briefing them on the hoof.’
Harry became concerned. ‘Guv’nor, tell them not to show out,’ he said. ‘Tell them not to come in close. And don’t get jumpy if they lose us. Better to lose us than blow the op.’
‘I understand.’
From Van’s voice, Harry had conjured a picture of a tall, bald hardman in his fifties. He was wrong in almost every department. Van was slim, about five-foot-four, with a mop of wavy brown hair. Only the age was about right. They shook hands and sat on a bench.
‘So, what’s it about?’ asked Harry. ‘How much is in it?’
‘A friend of mine is in France,’ Van answered slowly. ‘He goes there once or twice a month. He has a package for me, some diamonds, and I need to bring them over.’
‘So why doesn’t he bring them?’
‘It would be very uncomfortable for him. He committed a misdemeanour here some years ago and it would not be prudent for him to come. I cannot go home to Cape Town for various political reasons so France is the nearest possible place.’
‘How much is in it for us?’
‘A total of five thousand pounds.’
Harry whistled, Van continued: ‘One thousand pounds when you leave and four on your return.’
‘How soon can we do this?’
‘How soon can you sail?’
Harry hesitated. Now he needed f-f-flipping Frank. ‘I’ll talk to my oppo,’ he said. ‘It’s his yacht, a Contessa 32.’
‘But this week?’
‘Next few days. I’ll know tonight. Where in France?’
‘I’ll tell you tonight.’
‘OK. But – well, I’m not trying to do meself out of some dough because that’ll come in proper handy right now, but why can’t you just go over on the ferry yourself, collect them and tape ’em to your body?’
‘It’s not as simple as that.’
‘Why?’
Van clammed up.
‘This stinks, mate,’ Harry said, accusingly. ‘Something’s not right. You’d better put all your cards on the table.’
‘Do you want the job or not?’
‘Yes, but not if you’re setting us up for something. Where in France are we going, for a starter?’
‘St Malo.�
�
‘To collect a package of diamonds?’
Van stared at him blankly.
‘It’s not diamonds, is it,’ said Harry.
‘It doesn’t matter what it is. It’s a valuable package.’
‘It fucking matters to me and Frank, pal. Now, give it to me straight, is it drugs?’
‘Yes, drugs. Marijuana.’
‘And when were we going to be told this?’
‘When you got there.’
‘How much?’
‘To begin with, twenty kilos.’
‘Don’t take me for a prick. I puff meself. You’re not giving us five large to bring in just twenty K.’
‘There’s something else with it.’
Harry feigned anger. ‘What? Fucking level with me now or I walk.’
‘A kilo of something else.’
‘What?’
‘Powder.’
‘Coke?’
Van paused. ‘Yes, cocaine. And if this is successful, more trips, more money.’
‘Why by boat, why not in a motor or a lorry?’
‘Quite simply, my friend, because I do not have anyone who owns a lorry.’
‘My cousin does,’ Harry said, thinking on his feet. ‘He delivers furniture to France and Spain all the time, y’know, moving people’s household goods out there when they retire and settle abroad. He brings back all sorts. That’s gotta be the easier way.’
‘How can I trust him?’
‘’Cos I’ll go with him.’
‘How can I trust you?’
‘’Cos I need the dough.’
‘You fuck with me or these people and you will have a big problem.’
‘Well, you come with us or you go with him then.’
‘Harry, Harry, that is why I’m paying you, so I don’t take the risk. My risk is the people at this end who I sell to.’
‘OK, look, I know my cousin is going to Spain or France on Thursday. Do you want me to sort out a meet? I’ll go with and if it’s a result this time then every time he goes over he can collect for you. He’s been doing the run for about five years now, so he’s known to the Customs as a straight guy.’
‘What about your partner with the yacht?’
‘Fuck him. I’d rather go Napoleon Solo. I’ll tell him what you were offering was double bollocks, that it was all a joke that misfired ’cos George was lagging.’
Two Faced (Harry Tyler Book 2) Page 14