by James Deegan
‘Then get them on the next flight out of here to Moscow. Like, this afternoon. Tonight at the latest. We have to work on the basis that the police may be looking for them right now. Unlikely, sure, but do you want to risk the rest of your life in prison on that chance? Once they’re in Moscow, they’re gone and they won’t be coming back to give evidence against you, me or anyone else. If the Met try to extradite them, you can have a word with Mr Putin, right?’
Konstantin nodded.
Turned to the two men, and barked something in Russian.
They looked startled.
One shouted a question back, and got a mouthful from Oleg.
They hurried off to a Volvo which was parked near the main house, got in and drove away.
‘Where’s the van?’
‘Behind the garages,’ said Oleg.
‘Show me,’ said Carr.
They walked around the building.
‘Right,’ said Carr, looking at the blue Transit. ‘This needs to be burned, then crushed. You must know someone in scrap metal? Someone discreet?’
Oleg nodded.
‘Get it done today,’ said Carr. ‘Get someone reliable and loyal to drive it there and oversee the whole thing.’
Covering his hand with his sleeve, he opened the vehicle’s passenger door.
‘See that?’ he said, pointing to the inside of the frame. ‘That’s the VIN plate. Unique to the vehicle. It needs to come off and disappear before it gets crushed.’
‘Okay,’ said Oleg.
Carr popped the bonnet.
Pointed to the offside wheel arch. ‘It’s there, too,’ he said. ‘Make sure that gets removed with an angle grinder.’
‘Okay.’
‘I’m serious.’
‘I know. I will make sure they remove it.’
‘The engine number is here.’ Carr pointed to the centre of the engine block. ‘Same with that.’
‘Okay,’ said Oleg.
‘Before it leaves here, do a thorough decontamination – nothing in the glove box, no papers, no receipts lying around. Give the obvious surfaces a wipe down, too.’
‘Of course.’
‘One last thing. Tell your guy to remove the licence plates once he gets to the yard. And he brings them back here, and he hands them to you in person.’
‘I will tell him.’
‘Then you burn those plates.’
‘Okay.’
‘Then he fucks off to Russia as well.’
‘Okay.’
‘Make sure he does all this. Don’t let him get lazy.’
‘I swear, Johnny.’
There was an uncomfortable silence for a moment or two.
Carr broke it by saying, ‘So, am I fired or what?’
Konstantin Avilov patted him on the arm.
‘Never, John. I told you before, you saved my life. Me and Oleg, we are your brothers.’
He fished in his pocket.
Pulled out a set of car keys.
‘I ask Oleg to bring you here today for two reasons,’ he said. ‘First, I wanted you to hear what Dima had to say. That is over. We never speak of those two mertvets again, and we will never hear from them again, either. In future, I take your advice much more seriously.’
He handed over the keys. ‘Second reason, I bought you a new toy,’ he said.
Carr took the keys and pressed the fob.
The door to a garage three or four down opened noiselessly.
Inside was a black Porsche Cayenne Turbo S.
‘Paperwork inside, John,’ said Avilov. ‘Also another little gift.’
‘Cheque for fifty grand, Johnny,’ said Oleg, out of the corner of his mouth.
Avilov said something to him in Russian, mock-angry.
Oleg chuckled. ‘Boss is cross with me – wanted it to be surprise,’ he said, with a smile.
‘Just a bonus, John,’ said Avilov. ‘Also, twenty per cent pay rise from now.’
Carr looked at the Porsche, and then back at the Russians. ‘I would say no need, boss,’ he said, with a grin. ‘But I’m Scottish, so cheers.’
‘Now go, Johnny,’ said Oleg. ‘Before you see something you don’t want to see.’
53.
AT SOME POINT during the day, Dessie Callaghan had realised that his plan to kill Mick Parry and make it look like a robbery wasn’t going to work.
The bastard never left the vehicle except to deliver parcels to homes or businesses, and there were always people around.
So at about 3pm Dessie jacked it in and drove over to St Helens, where he plotted up in a café on the other side of town from Parry’s house, for a bite to eat and to think about a new strategy.
Eventually, and reluctantly, he came to the conclusion that the only option he had was to park near the house and hope to follow him if he went out. He didn’t like it, at all, but at least it was the middle of February, so it would be dark; as long as he sat out of any street lights, chances were he could go unnoticed.
And indeed he did, which is how – to Dessie’s delight – he found himself watching Mick Parry leave home at 9pm that evening, heading off for a quick jar at his local.
Sending up a quick prayer of thanks for British squaddies and their never-ending thirst for alcohol, Callaghan pulled his tweed cap down tight on his head, ran the scarf around his face, and let himself out of the Mondeo.
He gave Parry a good twenty yards, and kept light on his feet as he tailed him ten minutes up the road to a boozer in Mill Lane called The Wheatsheaf.
He debated following the ex-Para bastard inside, just for shits and giggles, but decided against – the place was bound to have CCTV, and while the scarf held up in the cold night air he would have to remove it inside.
Instead, he doubled back and moved his car into Gerards Lane, a long, straightish road – just a cut-through, no housing, he was happy to see – down which Parry would surely walk home.
Driving as slowly as he could without drawing attention to himself, he checked carefully for any cameras.
There were none, that he could see, so he did a three-pointer and parked up beneath a long line of trees, next to a low stone wall.
Perfect: he was in near pitch-black, but his quarry would be illuminated by a streetlight further up, near a railway bridge.
He turned off the motor and his lights, and listened to the engine tick its heat away in the silence.
He opened the glove box and took out a pair of soft leather gloves.
Put them on, reached under the seat for the matt black knife, and placed it on the passenger seat.
It was only then that he realised the strange synchronicity: he was here in Gerards Lane to avenge the death, among others, of a lad called Gerard.
Had to mean someone up there was watching out for him, right?
He smiled at that, and began drumming lightly on the steering wheel.
In, out and away.
This bastard would never know what had hit him.
So Dessie spent the next hour and a half huddled low in his seat, daydreaming, watching the odd car drive by, and humming to himself, alternating between rebel songs and old SLF and Undertones tunes from his early teens.
Then, at a quarter to eleven, his man came round the corner into the otherwise deserted street.
Parry had been under strict instructions from his wife not to turn up in the same state as he had the previous night, and she had meant it; ex-Para or no, he was not going to argue the toss.
She’d only allowed him to go out because it was darts night, so he’d slowly nursed a mere three pints and had left the pub not long after the match was over.
That meant that he was pretty much sober, and that his adrenalin levels were already slightly raised.
His route took him straight past the Mondeo, but he didn’t notice it until he was nearly upon it.
He saw the driver’s door open, and a man step out, but he didn’t pay much attention to the guy until he got right up close and realised that the bloke was looking straight at h
im.
Then he paid attention.
Mondeo Man was about his height, and stocky, and a good bit younger, and he looked handy, under the coat and the scarf: the street was lonely, and dark, and, instinctively, Parry balled his fists inside his jacket pockets.
As he drew close, to Mick Parry’s surprise, the man spoke to him.
‘Evening, Mick,’ he said.
What’s that accent? thought Parry. Sounds familiar.
‘Alright, mate,’ he said. ‘How’s it goin’?’
Still thinking, Do I know you? The voice… I know the voice.
‘Sure, it’s going grand, big man,’ said Mondeo Man, now standing directly in front of Parry, blocking his way.
Parry thinking, This is a bit weird. I must know the bloke but…
And then the man pulled his hand out of his pocket and punched Mick Parry in the chest.
At least, Parry thought it was a punch.
‘That’s for Ciaran O’Brien and the Casey brothers,’ said the man, though Parry never heard it – or, if he did, it didn’t register.
‘What the fuck…?’ he started to say, but then the man punched him again, this time in the neck, and Parry felt the strength ebb from his legs.
He stumbled forward, and as he did so he swung a haymaker right.
In his youth, Parry had been the 3 Para light-heavyweight champion, and had boxed for the Army. Some had suggested, quietly, that he ought to leave the forces and have a crack at the pro game, but he loved soldiering and beer too much for that. He’d had a decent chin and a reasonable defence, but his method had been based squarely on attack, and on the dynamite bombs he’d thrown to blast his opponents out of the ring.
Even in his dying moments, fat and unfit, he still packed a hell of a punch.
His fist smashed Dessie Callaghan flush in the face, re-breaking his broken nose, loosening two front teeth, and knocking him spark out.
The momentum of throwing and receiving the punch sent both men sprawling over the low stone wall and into the thick of the undergrowth on the other side.
A few moments later, Callaghan sat up, covered in dirt and twigs, cursing.
He was slightly befuddled at first, but his head quickly cleared.
He fumbled for his phone and turned on its torch.
Next to him, a scarlet bloodstain seeping across his chest, was Mick Parry.
His eyes were open.
He looked surprised.
He looked dead, is what he looked.
Callaghan tried to get up and promptly fell down again, like a baby giraffe in an ice rink.
He tried again, and this time he made it to an upright position.
He put his hand up to his nose and winced.
‘Ouch, ye fucker,’ he said to himself.
He found the knife and slotted it into its sheath. Then, blinking and pulling on the low branches, he hauled himself out of the trees and over the wall, and stumbled the few yards to his car.
He scrabbled with the door and collapsed inside, and somehow he managed to start the engine and drive away.
Any watching police officer would have pulled him over immediately as drunk, but there were no cops about.
So, cursing at the stabbing, electric-shock sensation in his head, Dessie Callaghan got the hell out of St Helens.
54.
MICK PARRY’S WIFE finally gave up and went to bed at midnight.
To say she was not best pleased was an understatement.
To say she was not entirely surprised, ditto.
Sharon Parry had been married to Mick since just after he’d passed P Company, so she was more than used to him promising to be home on time and then coming in late, three sheets to the wind.
Four or five sheets, sometimes.
Then he’d spend the next hour or so either hunting for food and eating it in front of bad telly, with the volume near maximum, or lying next to her in bed, telling her how much he loved her, and giving her great, big, slobbery kisses.
Before falling asleep draped across her like a dead weight.
Snoring like a warthog.
She wouldn’t change much about the big, daft, old bastard, but this…
She sighed. However you cut it, it spelled a bad night’s sleep, and she had a particularly big day ahead of her tomorrow.
Lots going on at work, and then a trip to the wedding dress shop for a fitting with Michaela, their youngest.
Only a couple of months until the wedding, and then she and Mick would be on their own.
Free, at last! They’d been saving for a holiday to Florida, and she literally could not wait.
She smiled, and then she frowned again.
Love him though she did, he was late, and she’d warned him not to be, and she had explained why not.
She wrote a note, in capital letters, and left it on the stairs: ‘YOU CAN SLEEP ON THE SETTEE TONIGHT MICHAEL PARRY x’
Then she turned in.
In the morning, she came downstairs and found the note where she’d left it.
The sofa was undisturbed, and there was no sign of her bear-like husband, groaning, over a cup of tea.
‘Have you seen your dad?’ she said to Michaela, who was eating cornflakes in front of the TV.
‘No, why?’
‘No reason. He must have stayed round at Dave’s. Probably couldn’t face me. I told him not to be late.’
‘Oh, aye, I saw the note,’ said Michaela, with a chuckle. ‘I feel sorry for Dave’s wife.’
Sharon looked out of the window, fighting an uneasy feeling.
But then Mick was Mick.
More than once in their married life he’d not come back from a night out, calling her apologetically from some mate’s house in some town miles away with no idea how he’d got there.
He’d slowed down a lot these days, but anything was still possible.
Then again…
‘I bet he’s got a lift,’ she said.
He sometimes cadged a lift into work with one of the other lads – especially if he’d had a skinful.
What with the drink-drive laws, and that.
She called his mobile, but it was switched off.
She called his mate Dave, got no answer, and left a message.
Then she tried to put the nagging worry out of her mind and get ready for work.
55.
AT FOUR O’CLOCK that afternoon, a five-year-old boy walked slowly and carefully along the stone wall in Gerards Lane in St Helens, holding his mum’s hand to stop himself falling over into the undergrowth on the other side.
The boy’s mum was pushing a buggy carrying his little sister with her free hand. She was tired of dawdling, and she was just about to get the boy down from the wall so that they could speed up, when he suddenly stopped.
She turned to look at him.
‘Come on, Ahmed,’ she said, with a snap that she instantly regretted. ‘Your dad’ll be home for his tea in a bit.’
But he didn’t move. He just pointed into the bushes below, and said, ‘There’s a man.’
‘You what?’
‘There’s a man,’ he said, pointing. ‘In there.’
‘What do you mean?’ said his mum, turning the buggy and walking back to him. ‘There’s no man in there.’
Then she looked over the low wall, and had to put her hand over her mouth to stop herself screaming.
Within five minutes the police were there; within a further fifteen minutes, a doctor had been called to certify death, the road closed, the scene cordoned off, and officers were being drafted in from all over the force area to start house-to-house enquiries.
The body was identified as that of a local man called Michael Parry shortly before six o’clock – at about the same time as blood samples recovered from Parry’s right fist had arrived in a lab for analysis.
By 8pm, the blood had been confirmed as belonging to one Desmond Michael Callaghan.
Forty-four years of age, said the Police National Computer.
; Last entered address – Mica Drive, Belfast.
Juvenile convictions for shoplifting, assault, resisting arrest.
Adult convictions for grievous bodily harm and the manslaughter of an RUC constable.
Suspected member of the PIRA’s Belfast Brigade.
The officer reading the information stopped at that and read it again.
Then he picked up a phone.
56.
BY THE TIME his name popped up, Dessie Callaghan was a couple of hundred miles away on the Essex–Hertfordshire border – lost, hungry, tired, and pissed off at the incessant throbbing in the front of his face.
At least he knew the Mondeo was safe.
Sure, a national alert would have been put out if they’d had the make or the plate, and he’d passed several cop cars en route without any of them turning a hair.
Even so, he’d cut across country to get south, keeping off the motorways and A roads to avoid the ANPR system, and driving slow to avoid triggering any speed cameras. He wanted to make it as hard as possible for anyone to pick a pattern, even if it meant a journey of three or four hours had taken twice that.
He’d also taken the SIM card and battery out of his mobile, though he was itching to stick them back in and call the fat four-eyed bastard back home who’d got him into all this trouble. When he got back – if he got back, he didn’t like to tempt fate – that cocky wee bastard was going to meet up with Dessie and his baseball bat, and it wasn’t going to be pleasant.
Well, not for the fat four-eyed bastard, anyway.
Currently, it was dark, and drizzling, and he was heading along an overgrown lane in the arse end of Hertfordshire somewhere near Bishop’s Stortford.
Thanks to that bastard Parry and that lucky punch, he’d had no sort of sleep the previous night – he’d pulled over in a layby and maybe got half an hour, split into ten minute bursts – and he was gagging for a bed.
Then a sign: ‘Stansted 1’, and a little aeroplane motif.
Stansted Airport.
Airports had hotels.
And airport hotels had a lot of transient trade.
Transient trade meant anonymity.
He turned right, and a few minutes later he was driving into the terminal area.
But as he did so, it occurred to him that airports were also crawling with peelers.