The Dealer and the Dead

by Gerald Seymour

  Was Gillot in place and selling at that time? Ma’am questioned.

  ‘According to our records he was taken on to the staff of an old-time dealer, Solly Lieberman, in 1984. Lieberman died in Russia in 1990, and we understand that the business and goodwill were passed to Gillot without cost. He has been on his own since then. If he was in Croatia in 1991 it would have been one of his early ventures as an independent, at only twenty-eight.’

  Would she, Ma’am requested, paint a picture?

  ‘Well, I’ve never met him, so this is all third hand. Very clever, and verges on cunning. I’m not talking intellectual, academic. At heart, he’s a salesman – that’s his driving force. Doing deals, pushing the limits, winning through – all those matter to him. He would be cautious, suspicious, and expect us to be targeting him. Formidable, I’d say. Something else. Self-sufficient. Lives on the Isle of Portland and I have no perception of social life there, but he will stay clear of commitments, involvements, and will most certainly not want it spread about that he sells tanks, hand grenades or landmines. If it were known, he would be a pariah in the community so he’d make certain it wasn’t. But I’d expect him to be charming – sort of goes with the territory. But the business is loathsome.’

  Ma’am looked at her, a stiletto glance, then launched: ‘We don’t often have the luxury of choosing who we consider worth protecting and who we don’t. Anyone, be they a convicted and released paedophile or a drugs-trafficker who has reneged on a deal with his supplier, is entitled to an efficient service. We will be mindful in this case, as in every case, of the “duty of care” owed to Mr Gillot, and his human rights as laid down by statute. We are not here to approve or disapprove of his commercial activities. We are here to prevent the very considerable crime of murder being committed and him becoming a target for a murderer.’

  Didn’t they know what was required of them? Roscoe and his boss did. Firearms would know it, chapter and verse. Surveillance lived inside the restrictions imposed by the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act and the hoops to be jumped through before his people could do covert or intrusive surveillance on a suspect. The young woman, Penny something, had frowned at the mention of ‘duty of care’ owed to the Tango and had grimaced at ‘human rights’. Roscoe thought she’d done well, and might just have been the only one at the table who, given a blank map of the European coastlines, had a fair idea of where Croatia figured on it. He remembered.

  They broke, and more coffee was brought in.

  Roscoe offered the young woman a biscuit from the plate. ‘Not myself this morning. God, you told me last night … The Beatles, Penny – you’re Penny Laing. I thought you did well, and that Ma’am was impressed.’

  ‘Are you patronising me?’

  He blinked. ‘Don’t think so, not intended.’

  ‘Seemed in here that no one had much of a clue what happened south of Bognor and the Channel.’

  ‘Right, fine. Anyway, have a nice day. Remember to send me a postcard next time you get south of Bognor.’

  ‘Actually, I’m hoping I’ll get a long way south. I’ll be suggesting to my team leader that we go out to Croatia, find out what Gillot was at – because it’ll be sanctions-busting and a criminal offence. Then there’s a good chance of us putting together a case, charging him.’

  ‘Well, let’s hope nothing inconvenient gets in the way, like him being shot first. Just a thought – don’t arms-traffickers have links with the spooks? Is that a stereotype? Aren’t they arm in arm, sort of big-brotherly protection for the trafficker, and deciding where the business is done?’

  The answer was almost spat: ‘They may indeed be in bed and sweaty, but it won’t help him. They cut lesser mortals adrift, make a better job than Pilate at washing off responsibility. We go after them because we know the law is the law, and isn’t chucked out of the window for the spies’ convenience.’

  Roscoe blinked again, but harder. She was a bloody crusader. God protect him from crusaders and those who made the world a better place and … He was so tired, and he had the drive in front of him. He slipped away.

  ‘You’ll not take me wrong, Robbie.’

  ‘I’m hearing you, Granddad, hearing what you say.’

  It was a conversation they had not had before. He had always admired his grandfather and liked him. He knew him better – trusted him more – than he did his father.

  ‘You’ll not take offence?’

  ‘Do I ever?’

  They walked along Albion Street, past the terrace of shops, fast-food outlets, the launderette and the betting shop. Across the other side was the library – no lie, Robbie Cairns had not been inside it for more than ten years – and up the road from it was the Norwegian church and the seamen’s mission. The only time he’d been inside a church in the last twelve years was for the funeral of his uncle Albert, shipped home for the last time from HMP Pentonville following a coronary. They walked on the street because the chance of being covered by an audio bug was minimal. They talked – the unrepentant veteran thief and his grandson who was a killer for hire – from the side of their mouths so that if the cameras were on them there would be nothing for the lip-reader to learn. Never before had Granddad Cairns talked to him like this, and done it awkward.

  ‘What I’m saying, Robbie … it’s for Lenny Grewcock, a big man … as big as any we know.’

  ‘Are you telling me not to cock it up?’

  ‘Well, you know …’

  He saw his grandfather squirm. Granddad Cairns didn’t approve – as Robbie knew – of violence. He went pale at the sight of blood and had nearly fainted only a few weeks back when a bus, going along Lower Road – at the end of Albion Street – had hit a cat. Robbie didn’t expect advice about the work he took on once the payment had been agreed. He had no worries about spilled blood and didn’t welcome what was close to interference, but it was his grandfather … He had never ‘cocked it up’ and he bridled. ‘You look after your side, and I’ll do mine.’

  ‘I just wanted to say that—’

  ‘Say it once more, Granddad, then don’t say it again.’

  ‘Because of who it’s for … Lenny Grewcock. A good friend and a bloody awful enemy. Please, just tell me it’ll be your best effort.’

  ‘When wasn’t it?’

  His grandfather shrugged and lines cut the tired old face. Robbie always produced ‘a best effort’: it was why he was wanted and hired. The fee to be paid was ten thousand sterling and there would be extras on top. He had a name and a location, but nothing more. Robbie didn’t know why this man had been marked out. A teacher at the school in Rotherhithe had once read a story to them and quietened the whole class with it. A guy called Billy Bones had been given – by a blind old beggar – a black spot, which meant he was condemned. All the class had liked that story, boys and girls, and it had the hope of treasure in it, but Robbie had enjoyed best the part where the sheet of paper with a black spot was put into Billy Bones’s hand and he had known he was marked for death. He didn’t know what Harvey Gillot had done that had put the paper with the spot into his hand. Didn’t matter whether he knew or not. Ten thousand pounds was on the table, with extras.

  ‘When’ll you go?’

  ‘When I’m ready, Granddad.’

  ‘You do understand?’

  ‘Could you let it go, Granddad? Could you wrap it?’ Now there was an edge in his voice and he saw the old man shrink from him. It was almost as if his grandfather was afraid of him. Robbie slipped an arm loosely on the old man’s shoulders, squeezed and felt no flesh. Then he had turned and was gone. Didn’t know where to go: Leanne was having her hair done, Vern was down at the arches where the little lock-up garages were and vehicles had their identity changed, and Barbie was on in-house training in the store. He wandered up Swan Street, drifted until he came to the river and found a bench close to a statue of a man and a boy, something to do with ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ but he didn’t know who they were or what they’d done, and he had a view of London B
ridge. He liked it … sort of reassuring, and he had that feeling of being where he belonged, on his own ground. Truth was, Robbie was restless, near to pissed off, because his grandfather had gone so far as to suggest that he might cock it up. He never had, never would.

  The price for the man who would kill, Josip said, was ten thousand euros. He shifted clumsily from foot to foot. Tomislav’s opinion was encouraging but of little importance set against Mladen’s decision. The word of the village’s leader had greater significance than any other man or woman’s.

  Mladen sniffed. ‘Ten thousand euros for the man we hire. Why do you tell me we must raise twenty thousand?’

  They were on the veranda of the café in the heart of the village, near to the half-rebuilt church. Down the road, Josip could see that Tomislav sat alone on his porch, his dog on his lap. He could hear the drone of Petar’s tractor from the field behind the church. Beyond Tomislav there was a splutter as Andrija started the motor of a petrol-driven mower. Everyone knew that Andrija’s wife had nearly broken his finger when she had prised it out of the grenade’s ring.

  Josip said that a man in London would take a cut of their money for finding the one who would shoot … and the man in London had been contacted by another in Hamburg. The Hamburg connection was from Poland, had originated in Greece, and the link to Athens was from Serbs who had come to Ilok, but future arrangements and payments would be through Zagreb for convenience and secrecy. All of them, Josip told Mladen, required payment for the introductions they had made. Mladen had little affection for Josip, who had not stayed and fought. He knew that he himself could not have found a man to carry out a contract.

  ‘How do we raise twenty thousand euros?’

  Josip said that the veterans could take loans from the bank. ‘They would give us loans to pay for it?’

  Josip said that the veterans had the best pensions so loans would be available.

  Mladen turned away, scraping his chair on the boards. He could not now back off. He would not dare to face the Widow, Maria, Andrija’s wife, and tell them that too much money was wanted. He had the largest pension, with the best disability supplement, and would pay the most. Neither could he have told his son, Simun, that the price of revenge was too great.

  ‘Get me more coffee.’

  He would not have admitted to any form of entrapment in the past. Later, perhaps in an hour, Petar would return to his yard with his tractor and would walk down to the café. Tomislav would come, listen and not contribute, and Andrija’s mower would fall silent and he would be there.

  His coffee was brought. Mladen said at what time he was prepared to go to Vukovar, and Josip left him. He and his comrades talked of the skirmishes when the village’s defences had held, but they had never spoken of the last hours, when the line had been holed. Then, those who had the strength took to the rotted corn and attempted to crawl through the enemy to Nustar. He was now, in his fiftieth year, a big man with a bulging gut that many of the village women considered magnificent, and a shock of silver hair. He could exert authority through his physique and with the ability of his eyes to pierce an opponent’s resolve. The story of his son’s survival was legendary in the village.

  With the snow of winter still on the ground, the baby had been conceived. His wife’s belly had been huge when the road into the village had been cut and she had refused – as many did – to use the Cornfield Road. The baby, Simun, was born in the crypt under the church. The mother needed medical intervention, could not have it. Neither could she have drugs to kill infection: there were none. Mladen’s wife had been buried in the night, few there because the Cetniks had probed the lines. They had charged twice and been driven back.

  On the last evening, when it was obvious to all that the village would be overrun at dawn, Mladen had gone down the steps under the church. He had taken Simun from the makeshift cradle and swaddled him against the cold. He had wrapped the bundle in a camouflage tunic and had made a carry-cot with ropes and canvas. None would go with him into the corn: the baby would cry and the Cetniks would find them. He had gone alone.

  The inner security door opened and a youngish man came into the room. He held out a hand. ‘Mr Gillot, thank you for coming. I’m DS Roscoe, Mark Roscoe. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.’

  He had been waiting ten minutes, almost eleven, and Roscoe would have known it because it was almost eleven minutes since the desk had telephoned to announce his arrival. At least he wasn’t asked if he’d been comfortable: the leatherette of the bench was holed and had no cushion, the flooring was scuffed, the sun burned against the outer window and the graffiti on the walls had been scrubbed unsuccessfully. Not the entrance that would be used by county councillors coming to visit senior officers, or chums from Rotary, but where those on bail clocked in. Harvey Gillot was confused.

  ‘If you could please follow me, Mr Gillot.’

  They went down a corridor. Gillot had had little to do with police stations, dealt with the military at bases and the ministry, but had never supplied the police forces with gear. Neither had he been investigated nor entered a station to lodge a complaint. There was a bustle in the offices with open doors off the corridor but he sensed that people eyed him as if word of his visit was already abroad. He had dressed, as if for a business meeting, in a suit, quiet and severe, with a soft blue shirt and a conservative blue-base tie. He had brushed his hair carefully in the car. He reckoned Roscoe ten years younger than himself, same height but two and a half stone lighter and without flab. Hair not done, jacket creased, and the shirt had the look of second-day use. The tie did not co-ordinate with the jacket, the shirt or the face, and was loosened at the neck. Gillot hadn’t slept badly, had been on the other side of the bed from his wife, but the sergeant might have slept on the floor or not slept at all. They went into an interview room.

  Did he want tea or coffee? He shook his head. Water? Declined.

  The chair offered him had metal tubing and a canvas seat. Between them was a table and on it a folder and a couple of biros. The window was barred and the ceiling light had mesh over it.

  Gillot smiled gently. ‘So that there are no misunderstandings, the timing of this meeting is at your convenience, not mine.’

  ‘And I’m grateful, Mr Gillot, for your co-operation. I hope the inconvenience is not too great – but there are things best not said on the phone. Just some things to get straight first …’ A sheet of paper was taken from the file. It looked, upside-down to Gillot, like a form of the type filled in for membership of a golf club or an insurance policy. ‘You are Harvey Gillot, of Lulworth View, Portland?’ He nodded. He entered the information in a scrawl of biro. And, yes, his wife was Josie and Fiona was his daughter. His date of birth was written in, and its place.

  The young man looked up. ‘Your blood group? Do you know it, Mr Gillot?’

  The biro was poised. He thought the question was designed to shock him. He didn’t gulp, hid it.

  It was a cheap old trick, but it usually gained the target’s attention. Roscoe reckoned it was class of Gillot not to react: no wet tongue slid over dry lips, and the eyes didn’t drop.

  ‘My blood group is AB positive.’

  ‘Thank you.’ He tried a smile, didn’t do it well. ‘You’re an arms trader by occupation, Mr Gillot?’

  ‘I do buy and sell. Is there a problem with that?’

  ‘Not as far as I’m concerned. As long as everything’s legal. Right, getting to the point. Have you worked in Croatia?’

  He was a good detective. Superiors told Mark Roscoe he was quality. If he hadn’t been, he would never have made it to the Flying Squad and then to the covert crowd he was with. He recognised that the question he posed had set the mind of Harvey Gillot spinning, flywheel speed. A flicker of eyelids, a short intake of breath, a little tightening of the shoulders. If he had taken to boxing he would have called it a good left jab – not a hook but a jab that had landed. ‘I’ve never sold weapons, munitions, to a Croatian client. May I ask the
relevance of that question?’

  ‘Not done business there, correct? But been there?’

  Another pause, fractional. ‘I was there briefly, but it was a long time ago. Nineteen years. Don’t ask me details. Tell you what, Mr Roscoe, can you say where you were in November 1991 and be exact?’ The charm flashed. The sort of smile that would have sold a mobile phone that wasn’t needed, a new carpet or car – maybe an artillery howitzer.

  ‘No way. I have a memory like a sieve. I was thirteen and worrying, no doubt, about blackheads.’ He chuckled. ‘So, we have this right. You were in Croatia around November 1991, but didn’t do business there. You were not an arms dealer trading with the Croats when the existence of the new state was under threat. Is that a fair summary?’

  ‘May I ask again, Mr Roscoe, what is the relevance?’

  Not arrogant, not bullshitting him. Roscoe read the caution in the question. ‘With your answers, and of course I accept them, I have a confusion.’

  ‘A “confusion”?’

  Roscoe took a deep breath, but when he spoke it was without theatre. ‘You’re an arms dealer, Mr Gillot, but you haven’t worked in Croatia and haven’t done business there. We get information from many sources. What I’m currently holding is information from the Security Service, but they are – in this case – merely the messenger. We assume the information, I suppose I should call it intelligence, originated from Vauxhall Bridge Cross. If I were to hazard a guess, I’d expect you to know all about them.’

  A tightening of the jaw muscles, a narrowing of the eyes, and the tongue was on the lips, going right to left, but composure didn’t slip. Roscoe assumed that an arms dealer would be to VBX what a chis was to him: a packet of fags – use them, finish them, throw away the packet.