‘Good move. So, where’s it taking place?’
‘Good question. I haven’t got a clue.’
‘Well, if it’s too far, don’t forget to charge him for petrol.’
Which was Joe all over. He’d call himself careful; everyone else preferred the word tight. I laughed and hung up.
Thursday, seventeen days ago
Iversson
There were three of us in the car. Me in the front passenger seat, Eric driving, and Tony in the back. You always feel a bit nervous when the people you’re dealing with are unknown and likely to be unpredictable, but at least I had reliable back-up.
Like everyone we used, they were ex-military. Eric was an old associate of mine, a big beefy bloke in his early fifties. He was a Taffy who’d done fifteen years in the Welsh Borderers, and he’d been an occasional employee of ours since day one. You didn’t mess about with Eric. Not only did he have a face like Frankenstein’s monster, he had the body, too, with fists like sledge-hammers. He was a calm bloke, not easily given to temper, and a real old-fashioned gentleman with the ladies, but if you fucked him about, you paid a high price. Once, a few years back, he’d been doing some debt-collecting work for a couple of Albanians. When he’d turned up at the flat where he was going to pick up the money, he’d been greeted by the debtor and two of his mates, all armed with pickaxe handles. According to reliable accounts, the three of them launched a full-frontal assault, weapons flailing. It was a big mistake. Eric hit the debtor so hard, the bloke’s head flew back and knocked out one of the others. The third swung his pickaxe handle at Eric’s head, only to have Eric grab it with one hand and break his jaw with the other, like something out of a Bruce Lee film. Enter the Welsh dragon, and all that. The whole thing took about four seconds, and immediately became local legend.
Tony was just as useful, but a lot different. Late twenties, good-looking in a public-schoolish way, he was an ex-marine who’d also worked with us on and off since the early days. He was only a little guy, no more than five nine and skinny, but he was one of the fittest, fastest people I’d ever met. I liked him, too. He had what you might call a dry wit, and he delivered his lines with all the urgency of Roger Moore’s James Bond, like he might fall asleep before the end of the sentence. But there was something about him, something in the way he carried himself, that told anyone who was interested that, for all his laid-back attitude, he was not to be messed with. He was reputed to have shot an IRA gunman in Belfast in the early nineties before the first ceasefire, finishing him off when he could have taken him alive. It was something he neither confirmed nor denied, but you could believe that he’d done it. He was that sort of bloke.
I gave them a brief rundown of my meeting with Fowler, and what I’d found out since, which wasn’t a lot, to be honest. Joe and I had both asked around to see if anyone knew anything about Roy Fowler and the Arcadia, but the only person who had any information at all was Charlie White, another ex-soldier who did occasional doorwork for clubs north of the river, and all he could tell me was that he’d heard it had a drug problem.
‘Surprise fucking surprise,’ said Eric. ‘They’ve all got a drugs problem. So, do you think there’s going to be trouble?’ He didn’t sound like the prospect bothered him too much.
I gave him one of the most confident looks I could muster. ‘Not when they see us, there won’t be.’
‘Famous last words,’ said Tony, in that enigmatic way of his. But then, he’d never been the sort to look on the bright side.
We were picking up Fowler from a pub in Farringdon Street, not far from the Underground station. It was a busy late summer evening and darkness was beginning to settle on the lively streets of Clerkenwell as they filled up with revellers. Traffic was still bad even at this time, and I jumped out of the car fifty yards short of the pick-up point, leaving it idling in a typical urban snarl-up.
The place was crowded with students and the younger end of the office-worker crowd so Fowler, with his bad-news fake tan and middle-aged side parting, stood out like a sore thumb. He was sat at a poky little table in the corner, just in front of the Ladies, nursing a Red Bull and looking like someone had just caught him fucking an under-age girl. He was nervous – nervous and shifty – and even from some distance away I could make out the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
As I walked towards him through a gaggle of scantily clad young ladies with loud voices, I saw he had two briefcases on his lap, one of which hopefully contained six grand in readies. You’d have thought the other contained a bomb, given the expression on his face.
‘Mr Fowler. Are you ready?’
Fowler saw me for the first time and cracked a relieved smile. ‘As ready as I’ll ever be. Come on then, let’s go.’ He got to his feet unsteadily, trying to hold both briefcases in one hand. It didn’t work and he dropped one. Quick as a flash, he bent down and picked it up. ‘This one’s yours,’ he said, passing it to me in a way that was almost designed to attract attention. I took it as casually as possible, and, with him following, turned and walked back outside.
The car pulled up just as we stepped onto the pavement and I ushered Fowler into the back with Tony before jumping in the front.
‘Do me a favour, Mr Fowler,’ I said. ‘Don’t draw attention to us by handing me a briefcase in the middle of a pub. You could have given it to me back in the office.’
‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight,’ he said, clutching the other case close to his chest.
‘Is everything all right?’
‘Yeah, no problem. I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.’ He wiped the sweat off his brow with a grubby-looking handkerchief as Eric did a three-point turn in the limited space available and headed back the way we’d come.
‘There’s no need to worry,’ I told him. ‘You’re in safe company.’
I introduced him to the other two. Eric just grunted an acknowledgement. He wasn’t one to get over-friendly with punters, particularly when they were greasy-looking nightclub owners. Tony gave Fowler one of his half-smiles and put out a hand which was shaken just a little bit too vigorously.
The offices of Tiger Solutions were a set of rooms above a tatty-looking mobile phone shop near Highbury Corner. Eric pulled the car up in the bus lane directly outside and he and Tony waited while Fowler and I went upstairs to count the six grand.
‘Have you got the gun?’ he asked me as I put the money in the safe. It was all there, in fifties and twenties.
I looked at him closely. He was watching me, moving his weight from foot to foot, a man with far too much on his mind. ‘Yeah, I’ve got it,’ I said, making no move to show it to him.
‘I want to see it. I want to see that you’ve got it.’ His voice was almost a whine, like some spoilt kid.
This bastard was beginning to give me a bad feeling. Still, anything to shut him up. I reached under the back of my jacket and pulled the Glock 17 from the waistband of my jeans. I held it out in the palm of my hand for him to see, thinking to myself that it really was a fine piece of craftsmanship, and light as a feather, too. Say what you like about the Germans, but they do do all the important things right. Cars, football teams, porn (if you forgive the haircuts) and firearms.
He stepped over and looked cautiously down at it, as if he half-expected it to jump up and bite him. ‘It does work, doesn’t it?’
‘Do you know something I don’t?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, why are you so interested in whether it works or not? Do you think I’m going to have to fire it or something, because if you do, then I’m not sure I want to be coming along with you. My life and the lives of the other two men down there are worth a lot more than six grand. Do you know what I mean?’
‘I wouldn’t be going along myself if I thought anything was going to happen, but just in case something does, I want to be certain that we’ve got some sort of back-up.’
‘It works,’ I said, ‘but if I have to use it, I’ll be one unhappy man. And
if I’m unhappy, so will you be. I promise you that.’
I opened the door, then waited while he went out, before switching off the lights and following him.
* * *
‘Left here,’ said Fowler.
Eric turned the wheel and the car pulled into the entrance of a deserted-looking business park surrounded by high mesh fencing. An unmanned barrier blocked our path.
‘Pull up to the keypad and punch in the code. It’s C234.’
Eric didn’t say anything but did as he was told, and the barrier went up. The car moved inside, and carried on down to a T-junction. The single-storey building up ahead had a neon red sign identifying it as Canley Electronics.
‘Stay here for a moment,’ said Fowler, and jumped out of the car before any of us had a chance to ask him where he was going. As we watched, he crossed the road and walked up to a short, tatty-looking hedge in front of Canley Electronics. He stopped and made a great show of looking left and then right, then bent down and pushed the briefcase underneath the hedge so that it was out of sight.
‘What’s he doing?’ demanded Eric. ‘I thought you said they were meant to be the deeds to his club.’
I shrugged. ‘That’s what I thought.’
Eric shook his head, looking troubled for the first time. ‘I’m not sure about this, Max. This just doesn’t look right. What with all this meeting up in the back end of nowhere…’
‘Perhaps he’s just being careful,’ said Tony, calm as always. ‘Maybe he wants to see that they’ve got the money first.’
‘Maybe,’ I mused, not feeling too convinced either. ‘We’ve just got to keep our wits about us, that’s all. Obviously these blokes are dodgier than we thought.’
‘Christ, I’m getting too old for this shit. I’m a granddad, for fuck’s sake.’
‘The key to warding off old age is mental and physical exertion,’ said Tony. ‘My granddad did nothing but watch telly when he retired, and he went completely senile in five years. Ended up thinking that he was going out with Carol Vorderman, poor sod.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I quite like her.’
‘He used to send her flowers and everything. My mum and dad had to put him away in a home in the end. Lack of stimulation, that’s what they said it was. Think on that one, Eric. There’s a moral in there somewhere.’
‘Fuck off,’ said Eric, giving him a dirty look. Not that there was any real malice in it. He and Tony knew each other pretty well and, as far as I knew, they got on, too. That was one of the other reasons they’d been mine and Joe’s first two choices for this job.
The conversation stilled as Fowler returned to the car and got back in. ‘OK, turn left and keep going until the end of the road.’
‘Tell me something, Mr Fowler,’ I said, as the Range Rover swung left and moved slowly through the business park, crawling over the frequent speed bumps. ‘How come you chose a venue like this? There must be getting on for two million buildings in this city. Surely one of them’s got to be better than round here.’
‘We want some privacy, that’s all.’
‘Christ almighty,’ growled Eric. ‘If you’d wanted privacy you could have come round my gaff. This is fucking ridiculous.’
‘We’re nearly there,’ said Fowler irritably. He sat back in his seat and sighed, wiping his brow for the hundredth time that night. He looked about as comfortable as a case of piles.
Tony asked him if he was OK.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.’ He didn’t sound it.
‘If things look like they’re going to get a bit tasty, we’ll just pull out,’ said Tony, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and offering Fowler one. The clubowner accepted and thanked him as he lit it. ‘All part of the service,’ said Tony, leaning forward and dangling the pack between me and Eric. Eric took one. I told him I’d given up.
‘Oh yeah? How long’s that been, then?’
‘Too fucking long.’
We came to another T-junction and Fowler told Eric to turn right. We were coming to the other end of the estate now and, beyond the buildings stretched out in front of us, I could make out the fence, and what looked like wasteground behind. It was eerily silent here, a lonely oasis in the middle of the city. The sort of place where the killers in kids’ nightmares lurk.
‘I think it’s here, up ahead,’ said Fowler.
Looming up on our right-hand side, about fifty yards in front and partially obscured by trees, was a large whitebrick warehouse, bigger than the buildings on either side of it. It was set back a few yards from the road behind a forecourt where there was room to park at least a dozen cars, and its delivery doors were open. The forecourt was empty but a light appeared to be on inside, the only light I’d seen in a building on the whole estate.
I felt the hairs prickle on the back of my neck like it was being stroked by a poltergeist. Something was wrong with this whole thing. Very wrong. I pushed back in my seat, feeling the comforting closeness of the Glock rubbing against the small of my back, confident that if I had to use it then at least I knew it would fire.
‘This is it, the one with the light on. That’s where we’re meeting.’
‘What time’s it set for again?’ I asked.
‘Ten thirty.’
I looked at my watch. Ten past. ‘Better early than late, I suppose.’
Eric slowed the car and turned into the forecourt, watching for any signs of activity.
But there were none. No movement, no voices, no nothing. The place was as deserted as a cemetery.
Eric brought the Range Rover to a halt outside the delivery doors.
‘Well, someone’s been here tonight,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t look like they’re here now,’ said Eric, peering inside.
There was a growing tension in the car. You could almost smell it.
‘You definitely got the time right?’ I said.
‘Course I did,’ snapped Fowler, who looked the most nervous of any of us by a long chalk. ‘It’s still early, remember?’ He leant forward in his seat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. His left leg was shaking uncontrollably and, for some reason, I found myself enjoying his discomfort.
‘Maybe we should drive in there and take a look around,’ said Tony, also leaning forward. ‘What do you think, Max? We could take up positions so we’re ready when they get here.’
It seemed as good an idea as any. ‘Yeah, let’s do that. It can’t do any harm.’ Which was a statement I was to remember for the rest of my days.
Eric touched the accelerator and we drove in through the gap in the doors.
The place was about twenty yards deep by ten yards wide, and empty aside from a row of ancient-looking oil drums which stood a few feet in front of a door in the far right-hand corner. Above the door was a long balcony that stretched the width of the room and overlooked the front of the car. A number of unmarked boxes were positioned along it, some of them stacked two or three high. I looked up at them for any sign of activity, but everything was still. As still as the grave, as my grandma used to say before she was lowered into her own.
The Range Rover stopped in the middle of the floor. Eric put it into neutral and pulled up the handbrake. He too looked up at the boxes. ‘Perfect place for an ambush,’ he said quietly, almost to himself. ‘Saw something like this back in Ulster.’
‘Look, this is just a fucking meeting,’ said Fowler impatiently. ‘Nothing more. All right?’
‘It was while we were based out of Londonderry. The RUC got a call from some woman, said she’d been raped out by this disused old factory. This was in the old days, way back at the beginning of the seventies, before they’d got wise to the way the provos worked. The Officials were still around then and they tended to play it more by the book. Anyway, they despatched a car with three RUC men in it to pick her up, and an ambulance as well. Just in case. She’d made the call from a phone box outside the factory gates, but when the car got there, they saw her wandering
about inside the grounds, you know, all distraught and that.’
The car fell silent. All you could hear was Fowler’s heavy breathing in the back.
‘So they drove in through the gates and went down to pick her up. She saw them, started crying hysterically, and ran off into the building, like she couldn’t come to terms with getting near any men so soon after what’d happened. The RUC car stopped in front of it and the coppers, all blokes, went to get out. None of them drew their guns, they didn’t want to unnerve her, and I don’t think the poor bastards ever suspected a thing.
‘They never even got their feet on the ground. A couple of provo gunmen stuck their Armalites out of the windows on the second floor, right above the car, and started shooting on fully automatic. The driver was killed outright.’
‘What about the one in the front seat passenger side?’ I asked.
‘If I remember rightly, he died later in hospital.’
‘Great. That’s a real fucking help, that is.’
‘Fucking hell, Eric,’ snorted Tony. ‘Make us all feel better, why don’t you?’
‘I wouldn’t worry too much, Tone. Or you,’ Eric added, meaning Fowler. ‘The one in the back survived. Got hit in the neck but the bullet passed straight through. Didn’t touch a single one of his main cables. Far as I know the bloke’s still alive.’
‘Stop joking around, and keep your wits about you,’ hissed Fowler. ‘That’s what I’m paying you for.’
Eric’s face clouded over. He didn’t like taking shit from anyone, even paying customers. ‘You know, Max, I’m beginning to think this job’s worth a lot more than what I’m getting for it.’
‘Life’s an underpaid occupation, Eric,’ I told him. ‘Everyone knows that.’ I looked at my watch again. 10.14. ‘I’m going to take a look around.’
Fowler leant forward abruptly. ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, Mr Iversson. It’s best we stick together and wait for them to come.’
‘I won’t go far. I just want to check things out.’
Die Twice Page 32