She was staring at his shorts.
‘And this is to do with Dougie’s crazy scheme how exactly?’ Was she serious? What, was she checking him for a wire? Christ, he’d seen that in enough crime shows, but did she really think he –
‘Oh no, this has got nothing to do with Dougie at all.’
‘No?’
‘This isn’t him asking. It’s me.’
What was it she’d said before? ‘And you’re telling me this because . . . ?’
Again with that arched right eyebrow. Her left shoe went next. She propped up two pillows against the bedhead and leant back against them.
‘Whenever you’re ready,’ she said.
Should he just tell her to piss off? To get out? To . . . stop slowly unbuttoning her shirt . . . the way she was doing now? Yeah, of course. The last thing he needed was to get tangled up with this one any more than he already was. For one thing, she was a killer. Or at least according to The Saint. And if even that big lump of steak was scared of her, then Frankie sure as hell should be too. And who knows what part she’d had in that poor fucker’s fate in the basement? And, for another, she worked for Dougie. And, for a third, she was with him that way too. Or, at least, she hadn’t denied it, meaning something was certainly going on.
So, yeah. Definitely a no. Only . . . only he couldn’t quite get the word out, could he? Especially not now she was easing off her skirt, still watching him with that raised eyebrow and that twinkle in her eyes.
‘Well?’ she said.
Sod it. He pulled his T-shirt off over his head.
‘Not bad,’ she said.
Her eyes settled on his shorts again.
‘I should warn you,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nothing on under these.’
‘Good,’ she said, smiling. ‘That should speed things up considerably. Now enough prevaricating.’ Done in the same tone she’d said inclement. ‘Just get them off.’
*
It was dark by the time they’d finished. Frankie’s phone must have rung five or six times in the intervening time and his doorbell twice too. Probably Slim or Xandra wondering where the hell he was. For once, he didn’t care. Whatever it was, they could handle it. He was done in. In a good way. Something he’d not felt in a long while.
Viollet was lying with her head on his chest, smoking a cigarette. Oddly, he’d not even been tempted to cadge one off her. There was nothing he really felt he needed right now.
‘So, do you think you would have come here if he hadn’t told you to?’ he asked, running his hand through her hair. He still couldn’t quite believe it. That she was here. That they’d just done what they had.
‘Into the building, or your bed?’
‘To me . . .’
‘Oh, I think so. Even if I hadn’t had to come here to check out the cellar, I think I might have found a way. Why? Do you think you’d have invited me yourself?’
‘Well, that would have been a . . . bold move, wouldn’t you say?’
‘What, am I that intimidating?’
He groaned. Happily. She still had him gripped in her hand.
‘No, I don’t mean it like that,’ he said.
‘Then what?’
‘I mean because of him.’
‘Dougie?’
‘The boss’s girl is generally considered to be off limits. Hazardous to the health.’
‘I’m nobody’s girl.’
‘No, I can believe that. But you are still with him, aren’t you?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Too complicated to get into now? With me?’
She reached over and stubbed out her cigarette on the ashtray he’d put out for her on the bedside table. Her skin looked golden in the glow of the street lamps filtering in through the blinds.
‘Well?’ he asked, as she lay back down and slid her arm around him.
‘You really want to get into this? Now? Why I’m with him?’
He stared down at her naked body. ‘Now does seem like an appropriate time.’
‘OK, er . . . because he’s got an enormous cock?’ she said.
‘I’m serious.’
‘Fine.’ She rolled her eyes. He was still getting used to seeing them all the time. ‘Because he’s got a great sense of humour?’ She smiled, something he still couldn’t get used to seeing at all. ‘And an enormous cock.’
‘Because he is an enormous cock, more like,’ Frankie said.
‘He’s not so bad, when you get to know him.’
‘We’ll see . . .’ Frankie had always tried to look on the bright side. That’s what his mum had always taught him. No matter what. But, Christ, whenever he thought of Dougie, all he saw was dark. Because, forget all his posh clothes and posh words – he was just as nasty a wanker as his dad had ever been. Maybe even worse.
‘So what about us?’ he asked. Hadn’t meant to. But here it was. Out there. And right away, he could see it was the wrong thing to have said.
‘There is no us,’ she told him, no longer smiling.
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘So what’s this?’ he tried, trailing his fingers down her arm that was hooked around his neck.
‘My arm.’
‘And this?’ He kissed her softly on the shoulder.
‘My shoulder.’
‘And this?’ He started to move his head down lower, but she pushed him away.
‘This . . . all of this,’ she said, ‘this was a one-off. Past tense.’ She rolled away from him and sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Call it curiosity,’ she said.
‘Curiosity?’
‘Curiosity satisfied.’ She stood up and picked up her knickers from the floor.
‘And now?’
‘Now I go back to my boss. Our boss,’ she said, continuing to dress.
‘And it’s that easy for you, is it? To compartmentalize like that. Pleasure in this box. Business in that.’
‘It’s what works best. For everyone,’ she said.
And maybe she was right. Because this couldn’t work, could it? It would only lead to trouble for them both. And yet . . . there was something about her, even now, standing with her back to him, pulling on her shoes, about to walk back out of his life. What would happen if he asked her to stay? If he told her he wanted to see her again? But when she turned he saw that the moment had already gone. This, what had happened here, had gone. It was over. That steeliness was back in her eyes. No more pleasure. Just business now.
‘Maybe you’ve got a point,’ he said, standing up.
Her eyes dropped from his face to his waist. ‘And maybe you do too . . .’
A trace of a smile there, and he couldn’t help smiling back. ‘Yeah, well you seem to have this effect on me. Had,’ he said, pulling on his shorts. ‘Because that’s what this is now, right? Past tense?’
‘Yes. And probably best not to mention this to anyone either. As in ever. For both of our sakes.’
She didn’t have to say it, but he knew she was thinking it too. That warehouse basement. Get caught messing with Dougie, and that’s where they’d both end up.
‘Aye,’ he said. ‘Amen to that.’
11
With the tournament’s opening night now less than a week away, Frankie spent the next five days running around London like a blue-arsed fly. From having felt well organized for the last few months, all his careful, careful planning and preparation for the tournament now seemed suddenly horribly half-baked.
At least he’d already written the speech he was going to give before the opening matches, thanking all the sponsors and the powers that be. He’d been practising it in his free time so much that already he was now practically saying it in his sleep. He’d also written so many lists and left them lying around the place – the bar, the tables, the stairs, the ruddy bog – that Xandra had even written ‘Write more lists!’ on one of them.
Thank God, though, that he at least had help from people like her. That’s what he kept telling himself as the week wore on
: he wasn’t alone. Andy Topper and Kind Regards were dealing with the bulk of the business side of things, leaving Frankie to concentrate on the logistics. And he’d at least done a good job delegating what he could here.
Jack had got the James Boys Gym nicely primed, with its rings temporarily shipped out, in time for Festive Al delivering the four competition tables round there on Wednesday afternoon. Meanwhile, back at the Ambassador, as well as helping Slim and Frankie get it as near to looking like a topflight sporting venue as it was ever going to, Xandra was bossing the conversion of her downstairs flat into a Green Room for the players to hang out in between frames, and had temporarily moved in upstairs into the spare room bunk beds with her girlfriend, Maxine, who thought this was the funniest thing in the world.
But throughout all this was the heist itself, hanging over Frankie like the Sword of bleedin’ Damocles, threatening at any second to drop down and spear him right through his noggin like a ruddy kebab.
He still didn’t even know when the actual robbery was taking place, though the Sensation exhibition itself opened in just over a week, so it would have to be some time before then, right?
He’d done what he could to prepare. The basement, in other words. He’d outsourced the work, and the builders had arrived Monday to get stuck in, much to the annoyance of Xandra, who was still labouring under the illusion that the only thing going to be stored down there was plonk. But with Dougie picking up the tab, cost wasn’t an issue and speed was. Frankie had needed the whole job done before the tournament kicked off, so he’d paid through the nose for it. By Thursday afternoon, it had all been fitted up to the specs Viollet had stipulated. A good job too. Who knew, if Dougie ever did decide to shift these art pieces on, then Frankie might even get into wine investment and storage for real.
Come Thursday, eight o’clock, and he’d just checked on the dehumidifiers and temperature down there, before locking the basement’s new and practically bombproof door. He’d had a hell of a day. Apart from cajoling the builders into getting done on time, he’d been overseeing the removal of the club’s tatty tables, the delivery of the competition tables, and the erection of the blocks of tiered seating for the audience. Oh, and he’d squeezed in an interview that The Topster had set up with the Evening Standard, to boot.
Well knackered, he was, and planning on an early one and a takeaway pizza, Hawaiian, with extra pineapple on top. Only then the bar phone rang, and it was Viollet, with another set of instructions on where to meet The Saint for his latest ride. Without so much as a bleedin’ hello either, like last Friday night had never happened at all.
The ride in the back of The Saint’s cab passed in a blur. The big man up front tried making conversation, but Frankie wasn’t in the mood. The Saint gave up after a while, and banged on more Streisand. Somewhere in the middle of her singing ‘You Don’t Bring Me Flowers’, Frankie fell asleep, and when he woke up they weren’t even in London at all. The countryside. He shivered, watching the dark silhouettes of the trees flow by. He hated it out here. Away from the sirens, the car alarms and the smog. Quiet, it was. Too quiet. This was how horror films always started, with journeys like this.
Another twenty minutes of winding lanes and piss all else and The Saint pulled up into a pub car park. ‘The Bat & Ball’, the sign said. Well, thank heavens for small mercies. At least it wasn’t The Slaughtered Lamb.
‘Welcome to Berkshire. You look right knackered,’ said The Saint, getting out. ‘Well pasty. You should get yourself a holiday sorted. And soon too. Seriously, yeah?’ He stared hard at Frankie for a second or two. ‘Somewhere nice and far away?’
‘Er, right.’
Frankie followed The Saint up to the pub door. No music, no laughter coming from inside. But look on the bright side, at least there was little chance of bumping into Tommy Riley or any of his squad this far out of W1.
‘Oh no, not you, Wee Willie Winkie,’ said The Saint, looking back at Frankie as he reached the front door. ‘This is where I’m going to have myself a few nice warm pints of Good Old Boy and quietly frighten the locals, before I head back into town.’
Frankie wondered what his chances were of getting a real cab around here. Somewhere between zero and none.
The Saint pointed a fat finger into the dark fields at the back of the pub. ‘You go thataway.’
‘But . . .’
‘Thataway, scrote.’ Growling a phlegmy laugh, The Saint stooped and squeezed his bulk in through the pub door and heaved it shut behind him.
Thataway. Whichaway? Frankie walked cautiously in the direction he’d been pointed. But there was nothing. Not even a sodding farm track. Just black hedges and a starlit sky. Something cried out in the bushes. Some kind of sodding bird. Or at least he hoped. But then he noticed a gap in the hedge. A gate.
Heading for it, he spotted some dim lights shining at the back of the field beyond. He made towards them, readying himself to scarper at any second. Because you could run into anything in a field like this, couldn’t you? A pig. A horse. Even a bull.
A caravan. That’s what the lights were, he saw as he got close. Nice too. All silver and shiny. What you might call a bit of luxury kit. Four little windows all giving off a nice warm yellow light. Meaning somebody had to be at home. He took a deep breath before he knocked on the door. The Saint had mentioned driving himself back into town, but hadn’t said shit about Frankie, had he? Meaning what? Maybe Frankie wasn’t going back at all? He heard music as he got closer. That Foo Fighters shit that Xandra was into. Felt kind of out of place out here.
He rapped his knuckles hard on the caravan door. Whatever this was, time to just get it done with, and then get home.
No reply.
‘Knock, knock,’ he called out.
‘Who’s there?’
‘Frankie.’
‘Frankie who?’
Frankie recognized the voice right away. Rivet. Well, thank God for that. Far better him than that evil barechested fucker from the warehouse basement, that was for sure.
‘Frankie goes to fucking Hollywood. Who do you bloody think?’ he said, pushing the door open and stepping inside.
‘So, how’s it hanging, bro?’ Rivet asked, grinning up at him from the little bench he’d been lounging on.
‘Yeah, good, man. Good.’ Frankie looked around. Lots of wood and hippy curtains and cushions. Well spacious too. ‘A nice little place you’ve got here,’ he said. ‘For a minute there, I thought you’d set up a burger van.’
‘Good one.’ Mini-Billy Idol hit him with a high five, which Frankie promptly missed making full contact with.
‘Sorry, mate,’ he said, shaking his hands instead, ‘I’m bollocks at that shit.’
‘You hungry?’ Rivet asked.
‘Now you mention it.’ Frankie’s nostrils twitched. He could smell cooking: chilli. Right on cue, Lola stuck her head round the corner from what he guessed must be the galley, with a ladle in her hand, and flashed him an awkward little smile. ‘Smells good,’ he said. ‘Count me in.’
‘Rivet made it,’ she said, ‘but I’m just spicing it up.’
Rivet fixed Frankie a Diet Coke and then Bram came through from one of the rooms out back. He acknowledged Frankie’s existence with a nod, before slumping down at the table at the end of the living area. Rivet and Lola then served up food and the four of them chowed down. Frankie couldn’t help noticing, on the window ledge behind them, piles of what looked like the photos and architectural plans he’d seen them studying when he’d first met them down in David Lean’s old pad.
‘So, if you don’t mind me asking,’ Frankie said, ‘why the hell are we meeting out here in the sticks?’
‘The what?’ said Lola.
‘The middle of butt fuck nowhere,’ Frankie explained.
‘Oh, because this is where we’re staying.’
‘For real?’
‘Hell, yeah, for real. Why not?’ Rivet asked.
‘Because it’s . . . I don’t know,’ Frankie said. �
� . . . While I get it, yeah, that it’s nicely, er, salubrious, it’s not exactly convenient for where we’re going to be operating, is it?’
‘Salubrious. Cool word. Hey, Bram,’ Rivet said, ‘you got any idea how to sign it?’
Bram signed something quickly back, which Rivet copied. ‘Neat,’ he said.
Then Bram signed something more complicated.
‘He says that’s the whole point. To be as far away from the city and all its distractions while we’re planning. To purify our clarity of thought.’
How very zen. ‘Fair enough,’ Frankie said, not wanting to rock the boat – or caravan, anyhow. Aside from needing this lot to be right on the top of their game, if this heist was to go off as planned, he quite liked them. As individuals, that was. Not in the wider sense, in that they were working for Dougie. But, all that aside, they were OK. Even Bram seemed all right today.
‘So where’s Luke?’ he asked.
‘Huh?’
‘Luuk,’ he said. He meant the guy with the jeweller’s eyepiece, who’d been studying the plans in the basement of that warehouse on Narrow Street.
‘Oh, right . . . er, well, that’s kind of another reason we’ve moved out here,’ Rivet said. ‘We ran into a little trouble back in town.’
‘Or he did,’ Lola added.
‘With the authorities,’ Rivet said.
‘You mean we’ve been compromised?’ Frankie felt his blood run cold.
‘Well, hey, I don’t know about you, Frankie, but I was compromised’ – he used his fingers to put this last word in quotes – ‘way back when I was a teenager.’
‘I don’t mean that. I mean this.’ Frankie nodded at the photos and plans.
‘Luuk . . . he drinks,’ Lola said.
Bram signed.
‘Way too much,’ Lola translated.
‘And the long and the short?’ Rivet sighed. ‘He got himself arrested fighting in some bar. And that’s when the authorities discovered he didn’t have a, well, valid passport.’
‘And had broken his parole,’ Lola said.
‘In the Netherlands.’
Frankie gawped, but then something hit him. ‘But, in that case, we can’t go on, can we?’ he said, jumping at the chance. ‘With any of this. We’ll have to cancel it. Because now that he’s been arrested, this whole robbery’s bloody scuppered, isn’t it? Because what if he talks?’
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