On Borrowed Time

by Solomon Carter

  Six

  It wasn’t any good pretending he could get the situation out of his mind. And it wasn’t any good trying to accept the old mantra that Eva knew best, because these days, she plainly didn’t. Jess had made a couple of suggestions that she was drinking too much, and maybe he’d known she’d always had that tendency but the girl was no alcoholic…Was she? Dan parked that thought. That was for later. Whatever Eva was, Dan saw a woman who was stretched to the limit, emotionally, physically, psychologically. Now that was something Dan could relate to. And while it was great that they had something in common again, it wasn’t so great right now. She was highly strung, and the proof was there for all to see. She’d gotten in deep on the wrong side, and now she was lost at sea, while the wrong side were ready to wipe her out.

  He’d left her in South Bank against his own feelings, like he had done many times before, because the stubborn woman refused his help. She had said she needed time to clear her head after all the noise about Russians and security service operations. He didn’t like the brush off any more than the next man, but she’d done it to him so many times that Dan decided to play the cool cucumber. As soon as he got back on the train, fuming at Eva, he realised he’d made a mistake. But it took until evening until he was petrified. He slept fitfully back at his seafront garret, showered early and got the first train to London.

  She’d already left the hotel when he arrived. Next came some guesswork, and good old detective work. He got to Holloway Road knowing about Boneyard Lane and Fitzpatrick House. Then he made his way steadily along, eyeballing suspects as he went. He got close to Boneyard Lane then tried to think like a girl. More specifically, he tried to think like Eva. She would want to use a restroom. If she’d left very early she had probably not eaten either so there was a chance she would eat, refresh and make a toilet trip before she took on the old man. He looked around. There was a greasy spoon which looked like the grease was used to tint the window. There was a convenience store - great it if you wanted to eat a pakora for breakfast. Most of the other joints were either mini-marts, newsagents, off-licences, betting shops or dry cleaners. Then there was Winky right across the street. They had to be kidding! Winky? Maybe Wimpy didn’t want to give these people a franchise, which was a pretty damning verdict in itself. From the style of the logo, Wimpy had grounds to sue. Bingo. Winky’s was the pretty much the only show in town. Dan didn’t wait for the pedestrian crossing. Instead he dodged the cars and ran across the street.

  Inside Winky’s he saw a guy with a middle-eastern, acne-scarred complexion. The guy tilted his head and gave Dan a smile. Dan thought he saw a wink forming, but didn’t want to see that happen. He intercepted with a sharp greeting. “Morning. Can I use your toilet, please?”

  Wink and smile were killed an in instant.

  “You see the sign?” said Winky, pointing to the neon starburst card with black scrawl on it. Toiletts For Paying Custamers Only. It was almost spelt correctly. Almost was a big thing in this global city.

  “How’s your coffee?”

  “Black or white!”

  “I’ll take a cup of tea.” He paid a pound coin while the guy made the tea. Winky pointed back to the toilet door, Dan nodded. He could have asked about Eva, but the question was likely to elicit a lie for many varied reasons, so Dan guessed his own investigation was best. He walked into the dim back part of the restaurant, and saw a flimsy looking door. It looked made from brown painted balsa wood. He would have to be careful not to rip the damn thing from its hinges. He pushed gently, and walked into the space behind. One male toilet, one female toilet. He held his breath and listened to the silence. The female toilet was occupied. He waited quietly, then he realised whoever was in there was also waiting. Was it Eva? Probably. He didn’t have much time if he was wrong. He moved back into the dim plastic restaurant to wait for her. Surely, she wouldn’t be long now. He waited another ten seconds, and didn’t hear a sound. Maybe he was wrong. There was only one way to find out. Dan began to turn back to look. When he had turned an inch, he felt someone behind him. A split second had him turning more to check who it was. It was then that the cold feeling gripped his gut. He stopped turning, then stepped around and twisted to make himself a harder target. He wanted to see who was pointing the gun. His first guess was the assassin had decided to include him. When he’d finished twisting, Dan’s own gun was in his hand by his side, hidden in the fold of his raincoat. He looked at the woman hidden in the toilet doorway, her face swathed in shadow, her eyes sparkling. He saw the Sig-Sauer pistol in her hands. Eva Roberts was pointing a gun straight at him.

  “I knew it,” he said. “I knew it.”

  Eva slowly dropped the gun. “You bastard. I almost pulled the trigger.”

  “Yes, almost. But I’m glad you didn’t. You might need everyone one of those little bullets yet.”

  Dan laughed, but Eva stayed quiet. She stepped out of the toilet and slid the little gun into her handbag. She smoothed her suit and swished her hair to reset her state of mind.

  “You okay, lady?” It was Winky. Both of them were packing guns, but they were hidden on the other side, out of sight from the front of house.

  “Fine thanks. He’s just an old friend.”

  “How romantic,” said Winky. Thankfully he didn’t add a wink, or Dan may have been inclined to pistol whip him.

  “Why are you here, Dan? I’m going to see Gillespie now. That’s someone you really don’t want to see.”

  “Oh. How do you know? I think I miss the old couch-face. Maybe that’s why I’m here.”

  “I am going there now.”

  “You’re in a hurry? Why? You got an appointment?” He knew she didn’t.

  “No. It’s just that I psyched myself up and I was ready, but now here you are and I’m back to square one.”

  “Square one? Hardly. Square one was being out here by yourself. I’m here as your partner, Eva. I’m back to help you. I can’t see this go down without helping you.”

  “Here’s your tea, mister. If he upsets you, I will throw him out for you, okay, Miss. Don’t worry.” It turns out Winky had some balls. Now that was a word combination Dan didn’t expect this morning. Dan smiled to himself and shook his head. Damn my sense of humour. Of course, Winky would think Dan was laughing at him, but there was no way around that, because in reality he was.

  Dan picked his polystyrene cup of tea from the counter after sliding the gun back into his coat pocket. He sipped the boiling hot stuff and it almost peeled the roof off his mouth and surface off his tongue.

  “We can’t go yet. This tea is still incendiary.”

  “I can wait five. Let’s sit back here. That guy is too nosey.”

  Eva sat down in a plastic bucket seat and Dan sat down opposite her.

  “Winky? He just wanted to show you what a real man is, that’s all.”

  “Winky’s not my type.”

  “You’d get all the fries you could eat.”

  “I eat fries once a week, tops. I thought you went home yesterday, Dan.”

  “I did. But I couldn’t stop thinking about you and this whole deal. These people are out to kill you. You can’t face that kind of heat by yourself. Nor should you face Gillespie alone. That’s the lion’s den and you want to walk straight into it, all by yourself?”

  “I told you I’d handle it, Dan. I appreciate the thought… but this is my problem. I think you already know… there’s a very real chance that I’m not getting out of this alive. I don’t need to worry about you getting hurt as well, do I?”

  Dan shook his head. “Don’t think like that. I want to make you safe.”

  “I know you care, Dan. Thank you. But don’t make this difficult.”

  “Difficult is just the start, Eva. I’m here for you and you can’t get rid of me. Not until you’re home safe and all of this is over.”

  “I don’t need you and your conspiracies all around me when I’m doing my level best to stay alive. Do you understand? I can’t have any o
f your Russian, Georgian, Ukrainian, Estonian or Chechen dissidents popping up to tell me how I’ve been tagged by the KGB in their new target of the month competition. That is not helping me, Dan that is harming me.”

  “They’re not the KGB anymore. And the Estonians are relatively safe. They’re in NATO now. The Chechens are radicalised mostly, either for Mother Russia and the Kremlin or Islamists who are fiercely against it. But yes, I know Russians, Georgians and Ukrainians. Some of the people I know are even still alive.”

  “I’m impressed by all that, of course. But in today’s context, right here in the heart of Holloway, I am about to face Brian Gillespie, right now I could not give a rat’s backside. I need my head straight, Dan.”

  “Eva, you’re missing the point.”

  “What point?”

  “Georgey was not saying it’s the Ruskies. He was saying this was a government style hit. A cheap contract would not stretch to so many attempts or variations in the approach. That’s all. It was something to help us work out who the attacker might be.”

  “I need a microscope view of my enemy, Dan. I don’t need the Hubble Telescope.”

  “Damn, you are prickly.”

  “Now why would that be? Oh, I remember, it’s because someone is trying to kill me. Damn. How inconsiderate.”

  “I am a fighter; I’ve always been a fighter. That’s what I was built for and it’s my main function in life. Whether you like that or not, you use that or you waste it, that’s up to you. But I am not about to stand aside while you happily run to your death. Now do you understand me?”

  She looked at him with open lips as if she was going to speak. She hesitated, then spoke in a controlled and clear voice “Thank you. I know you mean well. But let’s get one thing straight before we get any deeper into trouble today. If you help me today, it doesn’t mean anything has changed between us. There’s a lot of water under the bridge now, and when we parted in Southchurch Park it may have been for the best. For both of us.”

  She was talking crap and Dan knew it. He saw the lie in her eyes. Being apart? That was temporary, he saw that now. How could they ever be apart? He knew she was pushing him away because of the risks involved and he didn’t want to play that game ever again.

  “Eva, you make being a hero a hundred times harder than it’s supposed to be.”

  “That’s because I don’t need heroes. Come on, Dan. Let’s get this done.”

  Eva stood and Dan followed. He left his incendiary tea steaming by itself in the foam cup.

  On the way out, Dan turned to the café owner and gave him a theatrical wink. Winky didn’t respond. He didn’t even smile.

  Dan walked out into the hectic bustle of Holloway Road at Eva’s side. She had rejected him and his help. He’d been there before. She’d put up a wall in front of any rekindled romance. Yes, she liked to spite herself. But whatever she did to him, he was going to cut her the slack she needed for now. Beautiful Eva was confused, empty, burnt out and ready to make all the wrong moves. He was with her for as long as it took, to make sure she didn’t get killed, and because he wanted to get close to the powers who were pulling the levers behind this. Dan was sure Georgey’s theory was closer to the truth than Eva wanted to believe. Whoever they were, they were going down. But Dan as they headed off in the direction of Gillespie’s latest residence, was hesitant. The question marks were beginning to close in. There were far too many of them. A few feet along the Holloway Road, in the middle of the hurly-burly, Dan stopped walking altogether.

  Seven

  Eva turned around, exasperated, knowing full well Dan had stopped in the middle of the damn street like a petulant child. The only thing in her mind was staying alive, and as counter-intuitive as it seemed, going to visit Brian Gillespie was the only way she knew of to facilitate that. Now Dan was at it again. Eva threw her hands up, looked back and then strode right up to him. Her theatrics could have attracted attention, but what of it? Dan was the one causing all the drama.

  “What now, Dan? What is your gut telling you? Come on?”

  “My gut isn’t telling me anything, Eva. But my head is telling me we don’t know what the hell we’re doing. Come on, admit it. You’re going to run in there and say what? And what do you know about this woman, the gangster woman who Gillespie is supposedly shacked up with? What do you know about the deal with this place – this Fitzpatrick House? Come on Eva, I know you’re strung out right now. And that’s totally justified. But you know this stuff. We can’t approach somewhere like this without knowing what we are getting into.”

  Eva shook her head. Dan was half right and it was good to have her old partner around to give some reminders. She hadn’t done any recon. She hadn’t done any research on Joleen Riley, or Boneyard Lane, or her crew, but what the hell could she do about that now? She had no time - that was the whole point. People were trying to kill her on a daily basis. All of this was against the clock. What did it matter if she took a few risks when any decision she took was already a matter of life or death.

  “So are you out? Is that it?”

  “Of course I’m not out. I love the seat of your pants approach, I had that trademarked, you know that, but please, slow down. You can afford to wait another five minutes and think this through.”

  “Do I have five minutes? Do you know that for sure?”

  “No. The Martians could land and zap you first, but I think we might be safe.”

  “And what do you intend to do in the next five minutes?”

  “Make love.” He didn’t bat an eyelid. Neither did Eva. She was waiting for the truth. “No. I’m going to call, guess who?”

  “Some Eastern Europeans?”

  “Absolutely. Want to know why?”

  “Because you’ve got an addiction. A Soviet fetish or something.”

  “Close. It’s because they know people who know people. I like that about them. We need intel and these people can get it.”

  “Okay. Five minutes. I just hope they don’t come back with anything ridiculous, because frankly, I don’t need to be anymore intimidated right now.”

  Dan nodded. But no promises were made. He dialled Georgiev. He was as good a place to start as any.

  “Georgey boy! Guess who?”

  Eva left Dan in the open strolling around talking on his mobile phone. To get out of sight, Eva walked into a newsagent and browsed the magazines. She didn’t even like magazines.

  “Okay.” Dan arrived in the newsagent entrance a couple of minutes later. “We’re good to go.”

  They strolled another quarter mile and turned right off the Holloway Road. When they hooked the next right they would be on Boneyard Lane, a seedy backroad of London’s yesteryear.

  “Joleen Riley. She is a mid-range common or garden London gangster. She was married to Ted Riley, the original gang lead, but he died off fifteen years back from a heart-attack or poisoning depending who you believe. They were into cars, then property. They were big into the timeshare scam of the eighties and nineties, but Joleen was the one who got the business involved with drugs. As far as she was concerned drugs were simpler than all the complicated business crap her old man was used to. I suppose she was right about that. She is no a pacifist either. She uses street hoods and gangs to do her bidding and run the drugs for her. That’s the scope of it. She’s probably got a good few million behind her, but in today’s market that’s not megabucks. And if she’s doing drug dealing she’ll have expensive risks and liabilities thinning that money out. People to pay and probably coppers to pay off. That kind of thing.”

  “Which explains why she might have been keen to get in bed with someone like Gillespie – someone with resources and who seems to be on the up.”

  “Maybe. But it could be more complicated than selling out for a quick bit of bedtime action with the man. Do you believe the kiss photo was a fake, Eva?”

  “I believe it was a fake, yes. Like I said, it gave me cause to believe in Maggie. Maybe she thought she needed that piece of v
isual evidence to clinch my support. She was spot on too. I was hesitant until then.”

  “Then it doesn’t matter whether Gillespie and Riley are bed partners or not.”

  “Not to me. All that matters to me is that if they are in charge of this hit – either of them – one of them, I can persuade them to call it off.”

  “That’s a big ask from a man we’ve crossed more times than the Dartford Bridge.”

  “But I’m going to ask anyway. Did you get anything useful from your Russians?”

  “Fitzpatrick House. It’s a small residential block with shops beneath. Behind the building there is a residence for Riley and her people and she has a kind of penthouse arrangement on the top of the building. Gillespie could be in either of them.”

  “Your people know too much.”

  “The Eastern Europeans – the ex-Russians have had to be resourceful here just to survive. Sometimes that involves mixing with crime. Sometimes the line blurs. After recent events I thought you of all people would know that.” Eva winced and put that thought away. They had arrived on Boneyard Lane.

  Boneyard would have been busy once, with upholsterers and clothiers, indoor markets, and all kinds of trades, but today the grand old shop buildings of the mid twentieth century had fallen into dereliction and decay. At the beginning of the twentieth century an abattoir that had been there for nearly forty years was closed and the modern buildings began to encroach. Like the broken grandeur of Holloway Station, the local architecture looked like a once pretty smile, which now had teeth missing and had yellowed from time. At least Fitzpatrick House looked passable, but compared to what some crime lords called home, it was clean and functional at best. Boneyard Lane was like a relic, the foundations of a previous era, layered underneath the current wild offering of the Holloway Road.