Find My Way Home

by Mark Timlin

  ‘Sorry, mate, but I insist.’

  He slumped back in his seat. ‘What do you want?’ he almost sobbed.

  ‘Remember you told me he was always wanting to know when a big coke deal was going down so that him and his gang could hijack it?’

  Norbert just nodded, the skin on the uninjured side of his face white against the lividity of the wound.

  ‘Right,’ I said. ‘You got a number for him?’

  He started to shake his head, but I think it hurt him too much, and with tears in his eyes he said, ‘I’ve got his portable.’

  I took out my mobile phone and wrote the address of the storage place on the back of a beer mat. ‘Give him a bell, Norbert,’ I said. ‘Tell him there’s a big, no, a massive deal going down there tomorrow morning at three-thirty precisely. That’ll get you back on his good side.’

  ‘Is there?’

  ‘Well something’s going down, and I want him and his boys there.’

  ‘Jesus, I’ll get killed,’ said Norbert.

  ‘But later, Norbert,’ I said. ‘Or maybe never if it all works out. Of course the alternative is for me to kill you now.’ And I showed him the butt of the Browning.

  Nervous Norbert made the call just like I told him to, even though it took him several tries to get through, his fingers were trembling so much. Eventually he made the connection and got Crazy Larry on the line. He sounded sincere enough as he laid out the story, and only a couple of times did he have to insist that he was telling the truth. By the time he turned off the phone his whole body was shaking and the good side of his face was slick with perspiration.

  ‘Good work, Norbert,’ I said, counting out a oner from my dwindling cash supply. ‘I’d make yourself scarce if I were you. And don’t think about calling Larry back. It’d be bad for your health. At least right now you’ve got one good eye.’

  And with that I left, and went back to find Nancy.

  She was still sitting where I’d left her. ‘You took your time,’ she said. ‘I was about to give up, and I’m just about drowning in bad coffee.’

  ‘He was hard to find,’ I said. ‘But I got him in the end.’

  ‘Who the hell is he, anyway?’ she asked.

  ‘Just a mate,’ I said.

  ‘What now, then?’ she asked as we left the café.

  ‘Now we go down to Croydon. I don’t trust Bell and Jackson further than I can throw them. I just want to keep an eye on the place until rendezvous time.’

  ‘And when’s that?’ she asked.

  ‘Three-thirty tomorrow morning.’

  ‘But that’s hours yet,’ she protested.

  ‘Then you’d better go to the loo now and get rid of some of that coffee,’ I said.

  On the way from Peckham to Croydon I made a couple of calls. First of all I got Graham Jackson on the line at Denmark Hill. ‘Everything Mellow-D, Graham?’ I asked when he picked up the phone.

  ‘Man, but you’re walking a thin line,’ he replied.

  ‘What? Between love and hate?’ I asked.

  He didn’t get the allegory. Not a big sixties soul fan our Graham, I surmised.

  ‘What the fuck you on about?’ was all he said.

  ‘Forget it,’ I replied. ‘We still on for tonight?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘You spoken to Brother Bell?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Happy man, is he?’

  ‘Don’t take the piss, son, or it’ll be the worse for you.’

  ‘Can you hear my teeth chattering, Gray?’

  ‘Don’t get over-confident.’

  ‘With mugs like you around how could I be anything else? See you later, pal.’

  And I cut him off. Then I tried Fulham nick. Bell was at his desk. ‘You think you’re a clever bastard, don’t you, Sharman?’ he said when I told him who it was.

  ‘Just trying to turn a shilling, Phil,’ I replied.

  ‘My shilling.’

  ‘But hardly honest, Phil. That’s the thing. Now you haven’t gone all clever on me and moved anything, have you?’

  I figured that fifteen million in notes was going to be hard to find a home for at such short notice. You could hardly chuck it into the hatchback and drive it round until you found a friendly bank or building society.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then it’s fair shares all round. Come on, Philip, there’s plenty for everyone.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  And then I knew he planned to kill me.

  Chance would be a fine thing, I thought, and I touched the pistol in my pocket for good luck.

  ‘I’m not greedy, Philip. I promise.’

  In fact I really didn’t want any of it.

  ‘You’d better not be.’

  These geezers loved to make threats.

  ‘It’s the truth. All I want is a bit of a result for me, Robber and Nancy, and everything will be copacetic.’

  ‘I believe you.’

  ‘Good. Now can we get into this place OK?’

  ‘You can with my say-so. There’s an old boy in the gatehouse at night. I’ll tell him I’m expecting you.’

  ‘Don’t use my name,’ I said.

  ‘I’m not stupid,’ he replied. ‘And don’t use mine. Down there I’m known as Mr Bridger. Graham is Mr Talbot. Got it?’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘I’ll tell the security bloke your name’s Ford.’

  ‘Ford.’

  ‘Like the car.’

  ‘Whatever you say. So I’ll see you later.’

  ‘We’ll be there.’

  ‘I’m counting on you.’

  And then I cut him off too. And if he believed that I believed what he said, then he must’ve thought I’d believe anything.

  We got to the Purley Way about five and cruised down until I saw the storage firm on our right. Bang opposite was a side street with a pub on the corner. ‘Pull in there,’ I said. ‘Let’s get a drink.’

  Nancy parked up and we went into the boozer, which was small and old-fashioned, but had a table by the window where you could see the building across the street. I bought a couple of drinks and we sat. ‘What now?’ she said.

  ‘We wait.’

  ‘Until three-thirty tomorrow morning?’

  ‘That’s the plan, Nancy,’ I said, looking over at the high razor-wire-topped fence that surrounded the place, interrupted only by a wooden barrier that was operated from inside a small glass gatehouse. There was a sign on the fence that said: CUSTOMER PARKING AT REAR.

  ‘On second thoughts,’ I said, ‘perhaps we should go in.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘Now. Take a shufti. Pretend we need to rent some space.’

  ‘Both of us?’

  ‘Sure. It looks better if there’s a woman there, but let me do the talking.’

  ‘You’ve got it all worked out, haven’t you, Nick?’

  ‘I try.’

  But all the same I wondered what would happen if Bell and Jackson just called my bluff and didn’t turn up at the designated time. I’d look pretty stupid sitting in Croydon with my thumb up my arse while they were in some all-night drinker laughing their socks off.

  ‘At least it’ll pass some time,’ said Nancy.

  ‘You’re right. Come on.’

  We drank up and returned to the car. Nancy did a U-turn and we went back on to Purley Way, up to the roundabout and back, and turned into the entrance of Firmin’s Security Inc. There was a security bloke inside the gatehouse, but all he did was press a button and the barrier lifted.

  Nancy drove through and followed the signs that led to the parking area. Once there we left the car again and went through a glass door marked RECEPTION.

  Behind a big desk was a bimbo in a blue uniform with hair like candy floss and big blue eyes made even bigger with the same shade of mascara that Margaret Thatcher used to wear. The name tag on her left breast read Ursula. I wondered what the other one was called.

  ‘Good afternoon, sir, madam,’ she said. ‘Can I b
e of any assistance?’

  ‘I hope so,’ I said. ‘My wife and I are going abroad for a while and want to store some of our stuff, and we were wondering what the form was.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, smiling, ‘our boast is that we can store anything from a matchbox to a jumbo jet, and our rates are highly competitive.’

  ‘Do you get a lot of call to store jumbo jets?’ I asked.

  She smiled again. ‘No. But we could if pressed. What sort of volume are we talking about here?’

  ‘The contents of a small house. It’s difficult . . .’ I hesitated.

  ‘Well, Mr . . . ?’ said Ursula.

  ‘Norris. Stephen Norris,’ I said.

  ‘Mr Norris. What we’d do then is send round one of our assessors. He or she would work out the unit space, then we’d bring round one of our containers, pack up your stuff for you in boxes, load it on board, bring it back here, remove the container from the lorry and store it in the warehouse. You have twenty-four-hour-a-day access, your own key or keys to the container, fully comprehensive insurance, and we charge by the month or part thereof.’

  ‘And it’s secure?’

  ‘We like to think so. Would you care to inspect our facilities?’

  That’s just what I’d hoped she’d suggest.

  ‘Please,’ I said.

  ‘One moment.’ She picked up a phone and dialled. After a second, she said, ‘Michael. Would you come through, please?’

  She put down the phone and said to me, ‘He’ll be right with you. When would you want to store your possessions?’

  ‘In about a month’s time,’ I replied.

  ‘No problem.’

  We were interrupted when a man came through the door behind her. He too wore a blue uniform, but as far as I could make out no mascara. His name tag said Michael.

  ‘Michael,’ said Ursula. ‘This is Mr and Mrs Norris. They’re thinking of storing their household contents with us for a while. They’d like a quick tour.’

  ‘No problem,’ said the man to her. Then to us, ‘If you’ll just step this way.’

  ‘And on your way out if I may take some details?’ said Ursula.

  ‘Of course,’ I said, and Nancy and I followed Michael through the door he’d used to come in.

  That led into a carpeted foyer with more glass doors on both sides and a plain wooden one to the front of us. ‘To your left and right,’ said Michael, ‘are the entrances to our safety deposit box vaults. But it sounds like you’ll be needing a container. Is that right?’

  I nodded, and he pushed the plain door that led into the warehouse proper. It was big inside, huge, in fact, and probably could take a 747 at a pinch. The place was full of oblong metal boxes ranging in size from something that would fit on the back of a pick-up truck to ones that would need an articulated lorry to carry them. They were neatly stacked up, one on top of each other, half a dozen or more deep as far as the eye could see, except where two huge doors that looked out on to the main road were rolled up into the ceiling to allow lorries to enter to load and unload.

  ‘How do you get to the top ones?’ I asked.

  Michael pointed upwards. The whole roof was lined with cranes on gantries. ‘Easy,’ he said. ‘We can have any container on the floor within three minutes.’

  ‘Very efficient,’ I said.

  ‘We think so. Is there anything else you’d like to see?’

  ‘No. Except what happens if we need something in the middle of the night?’

  ‘No problem. We only have a skeleton staff between seven p.m. and seven a.m., but everything here is so automated that one man could run the whole place. You just turn up any time, twenty-four hours a day, three hundred and sixty-five days a year, and you can get to your property. However, if you should want to move a container out during the night or on public holidays we do ask for at least twenty-four hours’ notice.’

  ‘Fair enough,’ I said.

  He led us back to the reception area where I gave Ursula a fake address and telephone number which she wrote down on a booking form.

  ‘We’ll let you know within a few days,’ I said.

  ‘That’ll be fine,’ she replied, giving me a glossy brochure and price list. ‘I hope we can facilitate you here.’

  ‘I’m sure you can,’ I said, smiled, took Nancy’s arm, went back to the car and she drove us out on to the Purley Way again.

  ‘Where to?’ she asked.

  ‘Back to the boozer,’ I replied. ‘I fancy a real drink and something to eat.’

  She parked the car round the back of the pub and we went in and I ordered more drinks. As the evening wore on I saw Ursula, Michael and the rest of the day shift come out of Firmin’s and drive or walk off, and the night people go inside. There weren’t many, about four as far as I could make out. A couple of security men we’d seen over there earlier came over for a drink but didn’t pay us any attention. According to a blackboard mounted on the wall, there was a choice of delicious bar snacks available behind the counter, and Nancy and I sampled a couple. They tasted like cardboard. Delicious bar cardboard, but cardboard nevertheless.

  Around ten I went out to the gents, checked that it was empty and called Lambretta from my mobile on his land line. He answered himself. ‘Are you screwin’ around?’ was the first thing he said.

  ‘What me? No chance, Tone. Just taking care of business.’

  ‘So where’s this money?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s safe. Everything’s arranged for tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘In a pub.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘Don’t worry, son, I won’t let you down. I’ll call after closing time. That’ll give you plenty of time to get where you’re going. Just be ready.’

  ‘I’ve been ready all sodding day.’

  ‘I’ve been ready all my sodding life,’ I replied and shut him down.

  I went back to Nancy and she’d ordered another round. Good job, I thought, as the liquor burned its way down to my belly. Tonight I’m going to need all the courage I can find.

  They slung us out around eleven-thirty and we went back to the car and moved it round so that we could see the entrance to the storage facility, but deep in the shadows so as not to be obvious. All was quiet, but I figured that wouldn’t last long. We’d bought cigarettes and rolled the windows down and sat there as the big harvest moon moved round the sky and three-thirty got closer.

  I got out of the car at ten to one on the pretext of stretching my legs and called Lambretta again. ‘Show time,’ I said and told him the full details of time and place. ‘And don’t go steaming in like loonies. Give us a chance to get to the cash. Step softly, Tone. This is the one chance we get. There’s only four staff on at night. Three in the main building, one in the gatehouse out front. So you don’t need to be too heavy-handed. Be cool.’

  ‘I’ll do what needs to be done,’ was his terse reply.

  ‘I’m counting on it,’ I said, and broke the connection.

  The last two hours of our wait crept by painfully slowly. Nancy and I had exhausted all topics of conversation, the radio stations seemed to be broadcasting nothing but citizens whingeing on talk shows, and the seats in her car were thin and uncomfortable. I passed the time mentally ticking off all the ways my plan, if you could justify it by calling it a plan, could go wrong. More ways than it could go right to be honest. But that was the way things were usually with my plans – and why change the habits of a lifetime?

  But finally the hands on my watch crept past three and I rubbed the weariness out of my eyes and started to look with more interest at the cars that sped down the Purley Way.

  I noticed two at least that slowed as they passed the front gate, then turned at the lights without indicating. Lambretta, I figured, and I hoped he and his people had the sense not to steam in with guns blazing.

  Then, at three-thirty precisely, a dark saloon pulled into the entrance of Firmin’s and the gate guard came out, bent to speak
to the driver, made a note on the clipboard he carried, returned to the gatehouse and raised the barrier.

  ‘Is that them?’ asked Nancy.

  ‘There’s only one way to find out,’ I said. ‘Leave the car here.’

  We got out of the motor and crossed the wide expanse of sodium-light-splashed, deserted main road, and went up to the gatehouse ourselves.

  The guard gave us a cross-eyed look as we approached his cage, but I smiled my most charming smile and said, ‘We’re expected. My name’s Ford. We’re due to meet a Mr Bridger at three-thirty. Was that him?’

  ‘That’s right, sir,’ said the guard. ‘He told me he was expecting you. Don’t you have a car?’

  ‘We got a lift,’ I replied. ‘Mr Bridger will drop us off later.’

  ‘Just go up to the main entrance,’ said the guard. ‘There’ll be someone to let you in there. Go to the big glass doors.’

  ‘Cheers,’ I said, and together Nancy and I walked up the drive to the hulk of the warehouse that loomed in front of us, brightly lit by spotlights set in the ground in front of it.

  The main entrance was at the front of the building and there was another uniformed guard waiting just inside. That afternoon of course we’d gone into the back from the car park, and as the man in the blue uniform unlocked the doors and let us in I tried to get my bearings.

  There was a staircase running up from the centre of the foyer with a door on either side. The one on the left was marked RECEPTION, the one on the right VAULTS, so I assumed that if we went through the left-hand door we would come into the other foyer we’d passed through earlier with Michael, and that in its turn would take us into the main warehouse.

  ‘We’re looking for Mr Bridger,’ I said to the second guard. ‘Name’s Ford.’

  ‘He’s just arrived, sir,’ replied the man. ‘He’s inside the main storage area.’

  I’d been right about the geography of the place, and the guard led us through to the warehouse where Bell and Jackson were waiting.

  ‘Hello, Mr Bridger, Mr Talbot,’ I said. ‘How good of you to come at such short notice.’

  The guard gave me a queer look and said, ‘Will that be all?’ to Bell.