A Good Year for the Roses (1988)

by Timlin, Mark

  ‘Not quite everything. He never mentioned you. I wonder why that was?’

  ‘Because he wanted to team up with me. He wanted Bright out of the way, and for us to form a consortium. He knew my contacts are the best.’

  ‘That's not what he said to me. He told me that your mob were on the way out. George was panicking and he'd pick up the business easily.’

  ‘He was lying, he thought you'd get rid of George for him. But he needed me. Admittedly Bright is the weak sister, but I had the Arab's number. I took him out just when I needed to. His blackmailing game with Patsy Bright was making too many waves'.

  ‘So you just killed them, just like that?’

  He shrugged.

  ‘By the way,’ I said. ‘Who's idea was it to send the letter to George? The one that said Patsy would be home soon.’

  ‘I let it be known that it would be a good idea. The Arab got Patsy to write it.’

  ‘So here we are,’ I said. ‘We've come to the big crunch.’

  ‘It doesn't have to be. I've got no troops left now. You've seen to that. But you could come good. Together we could carry on the trade, pick up where Bright and I left off. Jesus you'd be a millionaire inside three months. You could handle sales and I'd look after security.’

  I couldn't believe what he was saying.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ I asked incredulously. ‘Don't you know what the body count is this week? Eight, John. Eight people have died. Do you expect to just erase that from the records with no questions asked?’

  ‘I can handle it with a little help,’ he replied coolly.

  ‘How high up does this thing go then?’ I questioned. ‘You're talking almost government level here.’

  ‘It goes high, Nick, very high.’

  I remembered the tall man at the cemetery. The Arab, as John called him, or David as he'd called himself, and what he'd told me about powerful men with strange tastes. Obviously John was moving in exalted circles these days.

  ‘So answer me just one more question,’ I said, although by then I was heartily sick of talking. My throat was dry and it hurt to swallow and my left shoulder hurt like hell.

  ‘Why did George kick me off the case, if he wanted Patsy back so badly?’

  ‘Because I told him that, if by some miracle you did find her, I'd kill the pair of you.’

  ‘You're a real sweetheart John, do you know that?’

  He gave me that kind of look, usually reserved for something you've found sticking to the sole of your shoe, but said nothing.

  ‘I bet Fox isn't involved,’ I continued.

  ‘That bastard,’ said John. ‘He's so straight, he can hardly turn corners.’

  ‘Well, thank God someone still is.’

  I knew then to whom to take my story if I could get out of this.

  ‘Straight,’ John said. ‘What do you know about being straight?’ It was you that got me into this in the first place.’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you. I saw how easily you'd got the coke away from the station lock-up. I gave it a try and sold some heroin. It was simple.’

  ‘A nice little bit of private enterprise for you,’ I said.

  ‘Too true, and now you can have a slice of it.’

  ‘No thanks. It's too rich for my blood.’

  ‘You have no choice.’

  ‘I always have a choice.’

  ‘Not this time Nick. If you don't want in with me, I'll kill you.’

  I climbed slowly to my feet. I wanted John Reid to think I was in even worse shape than I looked.

  ‘Not so fast,’ John said threateningly.

  ‘Relax, John,’ I retorted, ‘you've talked me into it. I accept your offer. How can I refuse? Just get me somewhere I can get cleaned up and have my arm looked at. I feel like hell.’

  I could sense from the look in his eyes that he didn't trust me completely. But at least his gun was no longer pointing directly at me.

  I pretended to stagger and put my hands on the desk for support. Under my fingers I felt the bag of cocaine that George had split open. Slowly and carefully I gripped the slick plastic. I looked John straight in the eyes.

  ‘Well, are we going?’ I asked.

  The barrel of his gun moved even further from me. It was my one and only chance.

  I flipped the bag of cocaine at his head.

  Everything went into a kind of slow motion.

  I remember clearly watching the plastic bag arching through the air. A thin mist of powder flew from the cut in the side. I saw John's left hand rise slowly to his head level as he tried to deflect the missile from his face.

  He was too late. The packet hit him on the forehead and burst open. A cloud of dust exploded around his head, it must have filled his eyes and blinded him immediately, but he still managed to swing the barrel of his pistol back in my direction. He clawed at his eyes with his free hand to clear his vision.

  As soon as I had thrown the bag, I went for my revolver. I pushed the material of my jacket back and felt my hand smack onto the rubber grip of my Colt.

  I knew then, that if the metal of the gun snagged in the baggy cloth, I was going to die. There was one heart stopping moment when something caught, then the .38 was free.

  I pulled back the hammer with my thumb as I brought the gun round to aim at John. Meanwhile, the business end of his pistol was looming closer to me. I could see the bore-hole of the automatic as it swung in my direction. It seemed to be as big as the Blackwall Tunnel as it moved. I watched as I sluggishly brought my gun up to arms’ length and pulled the trigger.

  Immediately everything jumped back to normal speed.

  The first shot took John Reid in the chest on his right hand side. The impact of the bullet smashed him back against the door of the office, slamming it shut.

  He fired his pistol. The bullet went wide and gouged a lump of plaster from the wall behind me.

  I kept the Cobra at arm's length, but changed my aim slightly. Before I fired again, I saw John open his eyes wide and realised that he could see clearly again. His face contorted into a look that held hatred, mixed with fear, and something else that I could only construe as love in equal quantities.

  He opened his mouth to speak, and said just two words:

  ‘Nicky, don't.’

  I didn't want to hear anything further from him. Not then, not ever.

  I squeezed the trigger of my gun again and aimed at his heart. I kept firing, trying to keep a tight cluster of hits, just like I'd been taught on the firing range. I pulled the trigger until all six chambers of the Colt contained only empty cartridge cases.

  I fucking loved it.

  John Reid was only kept standing by the force of the bullets slamming into his chest.

  As I fired I could feel tiny bubbles of sweat on my trigger finger mixing with the droplets of oil from the mechanism of the gun forming a sticky suds that seemed to bind my skin to the metal.

  The explosions from the firing cracked in my head until I thought that my eardrums would rupture.

  I felt like I was on an acid flashback. I was actually tripping out on death. I knew in the small, sane part of my mind that it must stop soon or I would go completely mad.

  When the gun was empty, and no more bullets entered John's body, he slowly slipped down the door on which he was leaning into a sitting position. He left a long, thick, red smear of blood on the paintwork. I dropped my gun to the floor and then fell back into George's seat, cradling my head with my arms onto the desk in front of me.

  ‘No more. Please God let there be no more,’ I said aloud.

  I had terrrible visions of non-stop streams of people coming through the office door to be killed by me, like some kind of horrific hydra. But the killing ground was finally silent.

  I sat in the same position for quite a while, slowly pulling myself together.

  I knew I had to get hold of Fox. He was the one last straw I had to cling to. With George Bright in his custody, I knew that the truth would
, at last be allowed to emerge.

  I reached for the telephone which was half buried under the packets of drugs. With a sweep of my good arm, I cleared a space on the desk sending a small fortune in cocaine onto the floor as I did so. I looked at the soda scattered across the carpet and pondered that once upon a time I would literally have killed to possess a fraction of it. It was ironic. Now that I had killed, I had no desire at all for the drug.

  I wondered how many people who knew me in the old days would actually believe that, surrounded by all that coke, my strongest craving was to smoke a cigarette. A regular, low tar king size cigarette. I looked at John's packet in front of me. He wouldn't be needing them now, I reached for it, took one out and poked it into my mouth. I picked up his lighter and lit it. I inhaled deeply, it tasted wonderful. Then I remembered George's brandy. I opened the desk drawer and took out the half filled bottle. I managed to unscrew the top with my good hand. I took the bottle and placing it against my lips, swallowed a mouthful. The cool heat of the liquid seared my throat. Placing the bottle on the desk, I went over to the open safe and stared at all the cash stacked neatly in it. I picked up one brick of notes. The denominations were fifties. Each package contained five thousand pounds.

  I looked over at George slumped on the floor. His breathing was regular and he was snoring slightly. Then I looked at John Reid, lying dead against the door.

  I remembered George's promise to pay for the repairs to my car, and a bit on top for myself. A bit, I thought, the conniving shit owed me more than mere money could buy.

  Every death I'd participated in had destroyed a part of my soul, and every lie I'd believed had lessened my capacity to recognise the truth. I picked up another packet of currency, hefted the two in my hand, and put one in each of my inside jacket pockets. What the hell, I thought, the law would probably confiscate them, but nothing ventured, as my old mum used to say.

  I felt no twinge of conscience as I hid the money away. I delved further into the safe. Right at the back, behind the stacks of cash was a cardboard envelope box about 10” x 12” and maybe six inches deep. It was heavy and I lifted it out and onto the cold metal top of the safe. I lifted off the top and struck pure gold. The box was full of photographs and papers. The photographs, some in colour, some in black and white were sexually explicit. They had been taken in several locations, all indoors. Some were shot in bedrooms, others in living rooms. The photos were taken at strange angles and I guessed that the cameras had been hidden. The participants were either very young or middle aged to elderly. Some of the children looked to be only six or seven, although it was hard to tell. It was all pretty sickening, but the older men were evidently enjoying themselves. It was disgusting sleaze, made even worse by the ordinariness of the backgrounds. Old men fucking young girls and boys in every position imaginable and some too weird to contemplate. The photos slipped between my fingers like shiny corners of hell. The only reason I kept looking was that I recognised the identities of some of the elderly subjects. I'd seen a few of the faces before the TV or in newspaper photographs. Now I saw them again frozen in filth. Taking their pleasure with little children. After a while, I found I couldn't take any more. I closed the box and placed it by the door. With the evidence I was holding, I was in the position to operate a little blackmail scam myself. After what I'd done I needed all the help I could get.

  I went back to the desk and sat for the last time in the executive chair. I reached for the brandy again, and had another long drink. Reality was fading fast. The memory of the horrors of the last few days were beginning to blur at the edges. Whether it was the liquor or the loss of blood from my wound, I didn't know.

  I remembered my promise to Teresa. Things had worked out for me, at least so far.

  She'd read about me in the Sunday papers, and know that very soon I'd keep our five o'clock appointment.

  Then I stopped smiling.

  I could only hope that with all the laws I'd broken recently I'd be able to keep any appointment in the next ten years, apart from those with my brief.

  I had to sharpen up my act. I could imagine how I looked right then. Covered in blood, drinking brandy in that sordid little office, that stank of gunpowder and blood, with two big time drug smugglers lying on the floor. One dead and the other unconscious, surrounded by money, drugs and guns.

  What could I do? That's show business.

  It was going to be a long night.

  Finally, I reached for the ‘phone and dialled three nines.

  This edition published in 2011 by Southdown Books,

  An OLDCASTLE Company

  P.O.Box 394, Harpenden, Herts, AL5 1XJ

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  © Mark Timlin, 1989

  The right of Mark Timlin to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of the publishers.

  Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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