Cog in the Machine

by Nigel Shinner

  Probably should, he thought, dunking a Digestive.

  Doesn’t seem to.

  They wound up their conversation. It was one they’d had before during a prison visit, Bob retelling the tale of two of Bristol’s most dangerous criminals, and how they ended up dead in a disused airfield deep in the West Wales countryside. “Both of them - shot dead by a hitman, or so the story goes.”

  “I always knew the Kinsella brothers would come to a sticky end.” Dom had planned to visit the site upon his release from prison; a sort of murder tour of his own making.

  “We could all see it coming.” Bob nodded, an ‘I-told-so’ expression across his face.

  “I suppose I’d better be off,” said Dom, glancing at his watch.

  “What time is it?” Bob asked, clearing away the empty mugs.

  “Ten to nine.”

  “Oh… erm…Yeah, you’ll have to go. I have a documentary to watch at nine.”

  “Oh, Ok,” Dom replied, squinting at the old man’s statement. It seemed odd. Misplaced.

  “I’ll see you tomorrow, maybe?”

  “Maybe, Bob.” Dom left.

  The evening sky was a pale pink, the sun only just having crept below the skyline. Dom pondered on Bob’s behaviour, but put it down to the man’s age. Dom wasn’t actually sure how old Bob was, but he must be old enough for it to be a factor.

  He popped the lock on the BMW, racing to the end of the road as soon as the engine was fired up.

  *

  The Tall Man waited for the visitor to go before leaving his car. He watched the vehicle turn at the bottom of the road before crossing the road.

  He walked up the drive, knowing there was no need to knock. The man he was here to see was already standing on the front step.

  “Had you been waiting long?” Bob asked.

  “Not long. I know you have a life. It’s not a problem.”

  “Ok. Good.”

  “Do you have something for me?”

  “Come inside.”

  The Tall Man did as he was asked, ducking under the doorframe.

  No sooner had he stepped over the threshold, than Bob placed a wad of notes in the Tall Man’s hand.

  “It’s all there. You can count it if you like.”

  Placing the wad into a jeans pocket, the Tall Man said, “I don’t need to count it. I trust you.”

  The Tall Man handed over a bag.

  “Is it the same as last time?” he asked.

  “Of course - same stuff, same price, same quantity. You keep a third.”

  Bob nodded.

  The Tall Man left.

  After closing the door to the Tall Man, Bob took the bag to the kitchen and tucked it on top of one of the wall units - easy to reach but not easy to stumble across.

  The bag contained one hundred one-gram bags of cocaine. With a current street value of thirty pound per gram, he stood to make a thousand pounds for selling the lot.

  Happy that the deal was done, he grabbed the mugs on the counter and placed them in the sink. Bob wondered what Dom would make of him selling cocaine. Not much, he thought. He knew that Dom was also up to no good. There may well have been a girl in his life, but Dom was only that cock-sure of himself when he was neck deep in someone else’s illicit plans.

  Chapter 35

  The dawn was a mesh of grey-purple clouds punctured by a bright yellow sun, the long shadows shortening with each passing minute as the sun took prominence over the diminishing clouds. The city slowly woke to another promising weekend.

  Dom wasn’t woken by the dawn. Dom had been awake for most of the night, unable to sleep with his mind a jumble of expectation and concern. He had thought of nothing but his hands welded to the steering wheel of a high-performance car, hitting imaginary apexes, overtaking phantom vehicles, pretending to perfectly alternate from throttle to brakes and back to throttle. Race day had arrived.

  The clock had barely crept past 6am and he’d already boiled the kettle four times. Tea and toast had replaced sleep. If there was ever a time that he needed to bring his ‘A’ game, today was it. His subconscious mind had other ideas. A maelstrom of self-doubt, interspersed with glowing overconfidence, had caused insomnia, casting a shadow over what could only be described, in criminal terms at least, as a promotion.

  Dom took a big swig on a mug of over-sweetened, lukewarm tea, to wash down the soggy, cold, toasted bread. He would be picked up at 7.30 and driven to the race track, which was about an hour’s drive away, to attend the race briefing at nine. The green light wasn’t until midday, and while there were still six hours to kill before he climbed into the driver’s seat, Dom was concerned that he would run out of time, as though he were dreaming the day away somehow.

  There was a rumble from the kitchen counter. His phone screen was illuminated with Richards’ name and number.

  “Hello?”

  “Morning,” Richards’ normally gruff voice sounded almost inhuman at this ungodly time of day. “I’m just checking you’re awake.”

  “I am.” Dom wasn’t convinced himself. He didn’t expect Richards to be either.

  “I’ll be the judge of that when I see you. Get yourself ready, we won’t be long.” The call was ended.

  Dom put his phone back on the counter, took the last swig of now cold tea and headed for the bathroom. Maybe a shower would work miracles.

  *

  Nothing miraculous happened in the shower. Another cup of tea and an anxious wait was interrupted by a knock at the basement apartment door.

  “Hop in the front seat with me so we can talk on the way.” Richards wasn’t in the mood for greetings today.

  Dom obeyed.

  The trip out of Bristol was typical for a Saturday morning - too many people trying to squeeze a path onto the congested road systems. The minibus had the other drivers, to whom Dom was introduced, and the pit-crew, to whom he was not. Dom recognised three of the men.

  One of the drivers was a young guy called Callum. He worked at Mach Tech. Dom remembered him from his first day at the site. Callum had been sporting a dirty hi-vis vest, a black eye and a broken nose. At the time, Richards had explained that Callum was often mouthing off to all the wrong people, saying all the wrong things. Seeing him among the criminal organisation’s crème-del-la-crème seemed a contradiction. The guy was an immature, cock-sure accident waiting to happen, but apparently he could drive. Dom would have to wait and see.

  The other two guys Dom knew worked in the workshop at Mach Tech. He couldn’t remember their names. Both were trained mechanics. Both were experienced pit-crew operators. And both were large brooding creatures who looked as though they could be nightclub bouncers on their downtime. It turned out, they were.

  As the minibus hit the open motorway, Richards started to talk.

  “I know we’ve been over the plan already but just to get it straight in your head, we’ll go over it once more.”

  Dom wasn’t sure if Richards had faith in his drivers’ ability or memory at all. With a criminal plan, as opposed to a commercial plan, the risks were greater, but then so were the rewards. The risks were to life, limb and liberty, but the payoff would be so huge that those possibilities were worth the gamble.

  “I race first,” Dom started. “At around 6pm, I leave the venue, go to the services, pick up my ride, drive to Southampton Docks, make the delivery, get back to the venue, catch some sleep and finish the race off. How’s that sound?”

  “Bang on, apart from the sleeping bit,” Richards answered, his eyes fixed upon the road ahead.

  “Am I not allowed to sleep?”

  “Of course you are.” Richards turned toward Dom with a grin across his lips. “I just didn’t include it in my version of the plan.”

  “After my lack of sleep last night, it’s been added to my version of the plan,” Dom said.

  “Sleep as much as you like, just don’t sleep through the plan.” While the comment was made in jest, Richards had a way of making even the most benign statemen
t seem as though it had been delivered with knuckledusters on.

  There wasn’t a suitable reply. Whatever the outcome of the day, Dom was fully aware that he was stepping up within his criminal fraternity. Today would either make or break him. He knew his talent could deliver, but he also knew that there would be outside elements pushing their own agenda and hoping for his failure. No plan this big, this ambitious, could come without hitches or opposition. How many, or how much, was yet to be seen.

  Chapter 36

  A race briefing was as dull as it sounded. In the briefing room, ninety-nine drivers were listening intently to the chief race steward’s instructions, while one was teetering on the brink of unconsciousness. Dom almost fell asleep during the one-hour discussion about the rules of the race. Green flag, yellow flag, red flag, black flag, chequered flag – they all had their own meanings. Very little of the information had sunk into Dom’s consciousness. His main concern was with whether he could keep his eyes open on the track.

  After the briefing, all drivers were allowed to walk the track to get a feel for the bends, the rises and the falls. It was recommended but not compulsory. Dom had taken the walk with a large coffee in one hand and the layout of the track in the other. While he understood its purpose, Dom knew that walking the track and driving the track, jostling with other vehicles, were completely different ball games. He would be focused on staying at the front of the pack, ahead of his competition. But his competition looked very prepared.

  Most of the drivers were of a similar age to him, with a few who could be as much as a decade older, although there were a handful of younger, fitter, sharp-eyed and focused individuals who seemed like they had been training their whole life for this moment. Dom was impressed, and a little intimidated.

  “Are you nervous?” Richards asked, looking down at the driver with the trembling hands.

  “Not at all,” he lied, “I’ve had just a bit too much coffee.”

  “If you want to stay sharp for the race we can sort you out with some other stimulants.” Richards pulled a small press-sealed bag with white powder from his jacket pocket. “If that’s what you need?”

  Dom shook his head and raised a hand to doubly decline the offer of a Class ‘A’ narcotics.

  “Good,” said Richards, walking away to talk to one of the other drivers.

  That driver didn’t have to think for a second and took the bag.

  As he was sipping down the last of what could have been his sixth coffee, Dom was approached by Callum.

  “We’re not supposed to have music playing in the car, but Dick sometimes plays a tune to... you know… get you going, through the headset in the helmet. Pick a track and I’ll download it to the team tablet.”

  “Ok.” Dom contemplated the importance of having a something upbeat, or something powerful.

  “I can get you anything you want – dance, metal, rock, anything.” Callum was poised to search, tablet in hand.

  “Clubbed to Death by Rob D.”

  “Hmmm, old-skool,” said the teenager as he tapped the track name into the search bar.

  “Would you prefer some Justin Bieber?” Dom asked.

  “Hell no! I like Metallica.”

  “Bit old for you?”

  “Nah man, old metal is cool as fuck… there you go. I’ve got your track for the track.” Callum laughed at his own joke and wandered off.

  Dom couldn’t help but notice traces of white powder on the thin wispy hair the young man had adorning his top lip. He wondered if anyone in the pit, other than himself, wasn’t using some form of illegal stimulant.

  The thirty-minute announcement for the start of the race crackled through a speaker toward the back of the team service area. Dom forced himself to have a pee and headed for the toilet. He knew that in the next three and half hours the only place he would be able to pee was behind the wheel. It was a tough gig but at least he would be the first to christen the car. He wasn’t looking forward to his second stint in the race because by then there would be twenty-one hours of race stench and a piss-stained Recaro seat waiting for him.

  And they said motor sports were glamorous.

  Chapter 37

  The pub game was a dying trade. Food offers, cheap drink deals, sporting events – if a pub didn’t latch onto something to draw the crowds from the competition, it would be game over. Most of the pubs that the Boss had used as a youth had closed down, changed hands, been converted into coffee shops or reclassified as another business.

  Patiently waiting in a ‘new’ pub, a pint of Guinness settling on the low table in front of him, the Boss gazed at his phone, willing it to ring.

  While he welcomed good news as much as the next person, he welcomed the misfortune of others with significantly more glee. Even his long dead mother had called him a ‘vicious little bastard’ from the age of seven. If there was a choice to be popular or to be feared in school, he would have chosen feared every day of the week and twice on a Sunday. Nearly forty years had passed since those early schoolyard days and all he had learned in that time was he was right. Nothing had changed, except he was now a ‘vicious big bastard’ with a handful of leg-breakers to do his bidding so he wouldn’t need to get his hands dirty. Assuming it was a day when he didn’t want to get his hands dirty.

  He took a swig from his glass and surveyed the pub; too many people with fake smiles for his liking. Whether the smiles were actually fake or not didn’t really matter; in his eyes, everybody was fake. There was no truth left in the world.

  The society in which he dwelled was inhabited by liars, cheats and criminals, each creating personas of confidence and skill. The often badly-constructed façade was not enough to satisfy the Boss’s requirements from his subordinates.

  He liked Wade and Gibbo for this very reason. The pair never tried to be anything more than they were – a couple of vicious bastards just like their boss.

  The barmaid walked over to the adjacent table, collecting abandoned glasses and wiping down the surface with a damp cloth. She cast a smile toward the Boss – a fake one as the Boss would expect.

  He smiled his own brand of fake smile back.

  The girl must have been in her early twenties, with a short compact body. Her breasts were barely contained within the branded black shirt she wore; the buttons must have been reinforced. It was the same below the waist. Black skinny jeans stretched to the max by a rounded, firm backside and substantial thighs. Her hair was a mishmash of colours, white blonde as a base with streaks of blue, pink and purple swept across her forehead. The sides of her head were shaved to reveal a small tribal tattoo behind her ear. In the old days, the Boss would have been harassing her into submission for a date, and not taking no for an answer. In this day and age, there were drugs to help get you a yes. Or at least an unconscious, which was the same thing.

  For a moment, he was lost in a fantasy of forcing his penis between the barmaid’s sizable buttocks and taking her anal virginity, assuming she still had it, when his phone rang.

  “Talk to me.”

  “Our boy is making the drop tonight. He’s at a race now but he’s taking the money to the docks overnight.”

  “Excellent!” The Boss drained his glass.

  “What’s the next step?” asked the voice at the end of the phone.

  “We need to get the leverage before he gets there.”

  “Ok. Are you making that call?”

  “Yes.” The phone was hung up without a goodbye.

  Phone still in hand, he tapped ‘Wade’ in his contacts while heading back to the bar.

  The call was answered immediately.

  The Boss leaned against the bar to speak his demands. “You need to make the pick-up, just as we discussed.”

  “Understood. How clean to you want it to be?”

  “I don’t give a fuck! As long as they’re alive enough to talk, that’ll do for me.”

  “Ok.” Wade rang off.

  The Boss tucked his phone away and turned to the bar.<
br />
  “What would you like?” the barmaid asked.

  “There’s lots of things I’d like but I’ll take a pint of Guinness first,” he said with a sneer.

  If his plan came to fruition, he could buy the pub, and the barmaid. But he never paid for women. Like with everything he desired, he just took them.

  Simpler. More efficient. More him.

  Chapter 38

  If anyone on the day of his release had told Dominic Carver where he’d be within two months of leaving prison, he would have laughed in their face. The expectation for the majority of ex-cons with a conviction like Dom’s was a return to their old ways. To fall back in with the same kind of people and exist in the criminal world.

  While all that was true to form, it was not quite the standard of criminality he’d been involved in before. He was being afforded opportunities he’d never dreamed of, even back in his pre-prison days. It was like being pre-approved for platinum-level crime.

  In his own mind, he’d thought he’d be working some menial job while rubbing shoulders with those who could connect him to the bigger fish from the lawless pond. Dom hadn’t expected to be working for a criminal gang with the kind of clout he was experiencing.

  He’d never had the imagination to expect he’d be sitting behind the wheel of a race-prepared BMW on the starting grid for a twenty-four hour race. If this was the dream, he was living it.

  “How you feeling, kid?” The radio crackled within the confines of the motorsport helmet. Richards’ voice was buoyant.

  “Eager to get going,” Dom replied.

  “Less than five minutes to go. Keep your head, give us a good start and we should be fine.”

  “Got it!”

  “How does the car feel?” Richards was talking about the warm-up lap, where all the cars swerve and apply brakes to put some heat into the tyres and the brake discs.

  “Feels ok. The seat’s a bit too firm but I’ll have to live with it,” Dom joked.

  “Get us to the head of the pack and I’ll buy you a cushion.”