by Peter Cocks
“Did you really think you could walk straight past us with fifty thousand pounds’ worth of class A in your bag, you silly boy?” The first officer leant on the table, his face close to mine. I winced at his words and his sour breath.
“I didn’t know it was in my bag,” I insisted. “The guy I was travelling with must have planted it.”
“Which guy?” asked the first officer. “I see no guy. Where’s the guy? All I see is someone with a key of pure cocaine in his luggage.”
“He’s called Gav Taylor, he’s ex-army. He planted it on me.”
The third officer, who hadn’t spoken until now, stood up. He appeared to be senior to the other two.
“OK,” he said calmly. “The sooner you stop all this ‘planted’ business, the better we will get on.”
“It’s the truth…” I protested, but he held up a hand to silence me.
“Now, I’m sure a young man like yourself hasn’t purchased a whole kilo on his own. Not for your personal use, is it?” He smiled like someone suffering from bad indigestion. “So perhaps you’d best start by telling us who you work for?”
“I don’t work for anyone,” I said. “I was just taking some time out, doing up boats for a bit of money.”
“Whose boats?”
“Just charter firms, private individuals,” I said.
“Smugglers?” he asked. I thought not, but perhaps I was being stupid. “So, let’s try again. Who do you work for?”
I began to panic. I clenched my fists, digging my fingernails into my sweating palms, trying to keep a grip physically and mentally. They asked me the same questions over and over again, trying to catch me out, playing good cop, bad cop. They jumped on any slight hesitation or deviation in my answers. They were good at it, making my brain spin until I would have admitted to almost anything. My legs began to shake and I felt sweat trickle down my back as I realized that they didn’t believe a word of my story – and that the weight of evidence wrapped up on the table in front of me was enough to send me down.
“So, who is it you work for?” the senior officer asked for the hundredth time. I pressed the heels of my hands into my closed eyes, willing myself away from this nightmare. Then a thought crossed my mind. I had worked for someone. Someone who could be my lifeline. My only way out of this stitch-up.
There was a pause.
“I’m travelling under a false passport,” I said finally. The first two officers smiled at one another. Now they were getting somewhere. “My name isn’t Daniel Reeves.” I pushed the passport across to them. “I work for a man called Tony Morris.”
“What kind of villain is he?” the officer asked.
“He’s not – he’s involved in intelligence.”
The senior man looked sceptical while his fellow officers smirked at my unlikely tale.
“If you give me my phone, I’ll find you his number.”
The senior officer shrugged and nodded to his colleague, who slid my phone across the desk. I went into where my secure numbers were kept. I found Tony’s number at the top of the list and handed the phone to the senior officer.
“Please call him,” I said. “Tell him Eddie Savage is back.”
II
Tercio de Varas
Tercio de varas (“third of lances”). This is the first stage of the bullfight, in which the bull enters the ring and is tested by the matador and banderilleros. The matador uses this phase to observe the bull’s behaviour: how it charges and its ferocity.
FOURTEEN
I sat in the small, bleak cell somewhere behind the scenes in Manchester Airport.
Fear was still gnawing away at my insides. What if they hadn’t been able to find Tony or, for intelligence reasons, he’d had to deny my existence? Then I would be really stuffed.
I’d been held there for twenty-four hours so far. I’d been interviewed thoroughly by the customs men and then by the police inspector from the drug squad, who had called by to make me go through everything yet again. I told them nothing beyond the fact that I was a victim of some kind of stitch-up, that my travelling companion had probably used me as a dumb drug mule. I even refused a solicitor: I didn’t want to say anything until they had contacted Tony. Apart from anything else, I was frightened of saying a word about my undercover work. Most of what I knew was strictly classified and I didn’t want to spill the beans to some customs official, the local plod or a lawyer until I knew exactly what my position was; what I could and couldn’t say, and whether what I did or didn’t say could get me locked up for a long time. I’d already told them I had a false identity: anything more would have sounded like a fairy story.
Naturally, I hardly slept. The narrow bunk was hard and covered in sweaty plastic and the cell light was left on all night. I lay awake, staring at the grey walls, thinking what a complete idiot I’d been getting mixed up with Gav Taylor in the first place. I couldn’t believe that, after all I’d been through, I’d been taken in by a crippled squaddie who could hardly write his own name. The angrier I became, the harder it was to get off to sleep. I began to contemplate the cell I’d been in for the best part of a day and it already felt like a month. I wondered about Tommy Kelly and how, after his life of luxury, he could adjust to the idea of spending twenty years or more locked up like this. I almost felt a pang of pity for him.
My emotions were still very mixed. I knew, deep inside, that part of me did regret bringing him down. Regretted all the grief it had caused, not only to Tommy Kelly and his family, but to myself. I’d probably had all the information and means to help him escape. And if he had escaped, I might have gone with him. And been with Sophie. My unlikely fantasy continued along these lines: I saw myself hiding away somewhere lawless in a sun-drenched villa, backed by Tommy Kelly’s blood money. I saw me and Sophie – we’d probably have got married – living a life on the run. It was an outlaw romance.
A pipe dream.
I knew it could never have happened, but I still longed for her. At the time I had found it hard to forgive her acceptance of her old man’s way of life, but that was his fault. He’d ruined it for us.
I brought to mind Sophie’s smell, the feel of her hair, her lips against mine. I had never felt so much for anyone before, and nothing could change that: no one else would ever match up; no one came close. Unwelcome desire began to gurgle deep in my gut, rapidly quenched by the plastic mattress stuck to my legs and the harsh light overhead.
In the morning I was brought a lukewarm cup of tea from a machine and a congealed bacon roll, but I wolfed them down. I had a stand-up wash in cold water at the steel basin in the corner. Then a good couple of hours’ more waiting. I didn’t know what time it was as my watch had been taken away with everything else.
I heard voices outside the cell. The keys jangled, the door opened and in stepped Tony Morris.
“Hello, old son.”
If he was pleased to see me, he hardly showed it. His mouth was set in a grim line, like I was about to be hanged. But there was a welcome warmth in his eyes as he shook my hand.
“What a pickle,” he said. Then he suddenly pulled me into a bear hug, and like a baby I burst into tears.
He sat me down on my bed and passed me a big white handkerchief. He chatted uncomfortably about his train ride up north while I recovered myself. Said he’d been up since the crack of a sparrow’s fart to bail me out again, pretending he was put out about it.
“So,” he said. “Start from the beginning.”
I told him about my group for PTSD, lying around listening to whale song, how it hadn’t suited me and I’d ended up drinking in a pub with Corporal Gav Taylor. Then I went on to explain how Gav had asked me to go to Spain with him after a few weeks and I’d jumped at the chance.
“What did you think was going on down there?” Tony asked.
“Honestly, Tony, I really thought it was just odd jobs on boats, days in the sun, a bit of nightlife. The flight was cheap. I was going nuts in Stoke.”
Tony nodded. “Wel
l, we know about your Private Taylor,” he said. “If he got a medal, it was for doing the high jump. He was reported AWOL twice in Iraq and got blown up running away in Afghanistan.”
“Not exactly a war hero then?”
“Not exactly. Three of his mates were burnt to death in an armoured vehicle. He should have been in it, but he was caught elsewhere, flogging moody fags and bootleg porn DVDs. A regular entrepreneur. We’re looking into it, but we’re getting reports of British soldiers doing deals with the Afghans and bringing back heroin in empty coffins.”
“You think Gav was up to that?”
Tony shrugged. “Wouldn’t put it past him.”
“He said he had dysentery,” I remembered.
“It seems he would say anything to get away from the action. If anything was kicking off, then Private Taylor was registering himself sick or unfit for service, or running in the opposite direction. And it was while running the other way that he stepped on a bomb. They tried to chuck him out in the end, but he cried foul and claimed PTSD so he’d get full benefits.”
From what I knew of Gav Taylor, it all made sense.
“One thing I will say, kid,” Tony observed, “is that you do have an instinctive nose for trouble. Of all the places you could have gone, the south of Spain is like a war zone at the moment. A bloodbath. And you were slap bang in the middle of it.”
“I didn’t see much evidence of it,” I said. Sure, I’d seen a few drug deals in nightclubs, seen bouncers slap a few Herberts, but nothing worse than you’d get anywhere in South London.
“It’s going on, believe me,” Tony said. “In the backstreets and up in the hills, gang-on-gang warfare, trying to control the trade. The kind of trade your mate seems to have involved you in. That’s if you’re telling me the truth, Eddie?”
His use of my code name pulled me up short.
“Of course I am, Tony,” I pleaded. If Tony thought I might be lying, there was a big possibility I might not actually get out of this. My feeling of panic returned. “I wouldn’t lie to you. Haven’t you pulled Gav Taylor in? Then you’ll know I’m telling you the truth.”
“I don’t think we’re going to, mate. I’ve put someone on him. It will be more interesting to see what he does next, where he goes, who he meets. You know the form.”
“So what about me?” I asked.
Tony looked at me squarely. “It’s a bit tricky,” he admitted. “The last people you want to mess with are HM Revenue and Customs. They have more power than all of us put together; if they want to make it stick, they’ll make it stick.”
“Can you get me out of here?” I asked. My voice came out quiet, meek. I tried hard not to sound like a whining kid.
Tony whistled between his teeth, stared at the floor. “I’m doing what I can. But I warn you, there’ll have to be some kind of trade-off.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean there will be a deal, a bit of quid pro quo. There always is.”
“I’m innocent, Tony,” I said. I tried to keep my voice steady. “But if you can get me out, I’ll agree to anything you ask.”
“I’ll do what I can, mate. It’ll take a bit of fancy footwork, but seeing as it’s you, I’ll do my best.”
Tony stood up and squeezed my shoulder and, without looking back, shut my cell door behind him.
FIFTEEN
There was no one around the pool at Casa Pampas when Donnie arrived for the second time. No crumpet in sight, just a load of blokes – fully dressed in shorts, flip-flops and gaudy shirts – mooching about the house, talking in whispers. It was like a funeral.
It was a funeral.
Billy Gorman, one of the hardest nuts in the firm, had copped it in Marbella a couple of nights before. He’d died in hospital the following day when they couldn’t find enough brain left to make him function.
Donnie had not gone to hospital. He’d taken a bullet in his left shoulder, but if he’d gone to A&E with a gunshot wound he’d have been in police custody within hours. So he’d had to make do with a retired, alcoholic GP on the Kelly payroll who extracted the bullet from his shoulder in Donnie’s apartment. The old boy’s hands had been shaking as he delved into Donnie’s flesh, pulling out the slug with a pair of tweezers. Donnie had nearly fainted with the pain, but fortified by a shared bottle of brandy and a couple of novacaine jabs, he pulled through and was advised to take a few days’ bed rest.
Two days was too much time out in the current climate, so Donnie had driven up into the hills this morning to report back in, his arm stiff and his shoulder throbbing.
Donnie felt paranoid as he joined the cohorts of hit men and heavies: they seemed to be looking at him as if he was the one who should be dead; Billy Gorman was the better man and he, Donnie Mulvaney, was past his prime. He’d done the job, but it wasn’t a clean kill. He’d been seen.
“How’s the shoulder, Don?” Terry Gadd asked as he greeted him.
“I’ll live,” Donnie said. Gadd looked at him as if he suspected that he wouldn’t for much longer.
“Patsy wants us in the lounge,” he croaked.
Donnie followed Gadd and the others through to a vast, modern room that looked out through sliding windows over the rocky valley.
Where Tommy Kelly would have had modern art and antique furniture, Patsy’s taste leaned more towards smoked-glass coffee tables, white leather furniture and realistic pictures of white horses galloping through surf. Donnie spotted a big pair of Muhammad Ali’s satin boxer shorts, signed and framed.
Patsy shook each of their hands as they entered the room. He shook Donnie’s but failed to make eye contact.
“Morning, gents,” Patsy said. “I know we’re all gutted about Billy, but we’ve only just started and we have to carry on. Billy Gorman would have wanted that. He was one of the best and we’ll miss him. That’s all I’m going to say.” There was a murmur of phlegmy-voiced agreement and Patsy turned to the map on the largest table. He’d stuck black spots at various points along the coast. “Billy aside, it was a pretty good result, gentlemen. We wiped out a dozen of the bottom feeders in one fell swoop, and have done damage to all the new kids in town: the Romanians, Albanians, Lithuanians and even some of the Russian chancers. Although we have to play careful with the big Russian boys, it’s in our interest to keep it sweet with one or two of their key players. We already have an agreement over who does what and where, and we need to keep those channels open for business.”
“How we going to do that, Pats?” Stav Georgiou asked dimly.
“We’re going to be very specific, Stavros, dear boy,” Patsy patronized. “We’re going to stick with the towns and territories we’ve identified and pick the small fry off in ones and twos. Then the bigger ones will be drawn in to try and sort it out.”
“What protection have we got?” Stav asked.
“We need to keep light on our toes,” Terry Gadd put in. “We’ll keep changing teams. If you were in Estepona this week, you’ll be assigned another town next time, unfamiliar. And we’ll change partnerships, disguises, whatever it takes. “
“Exactly,” Patsy agreed. “But we’re going to let the dust settle for a few days. It’s like we’ve kicked a wasp’s nest with a hobnail boot. The place is buzzing with angry Eastern Europeans looking for someone to sting. They’ll probably start by taking it out on each other, so hopefully they’ll do some of the job for us.”
Stav Georgiou laughed. “Roobanians, Almanians, whatever. They’ll fuckin’ shoot each other for us, innit?”
The others looked at Stav and smiled indulgently. Never the brightest bulb in the firm, he was cottoning on.
“And the Spanish filth are already turning a blind one to this week’s row,” Patsy said. “As far as they’re concerned, we’re doing them a favour cleaning up the Costa, so they’re deliberately being a little slow with their enquiries. Besides, they owe us: we’ve been paying them for the best part of twenty years and there’s hardly a village in the hills where the mayor hasn’
t been chosen and funded by us. So if there’s anyone lively hiding up in the pueblos, they’ll dob ’em in. The Spanish know where they are, working with us. They know the Costa del Sol belongs to the Brits.”
There were pats on the back and grim chuckles, and the mood in the room improved. Terry Gadd placed a wad of photos on the table.
“These are some of our main targets,” he said.
He spread them out with his hand: surveillance shots of moustachioed men in bars and on beaches; Eastern Europeans looking from car windows unawares. He pointed to one, a dark man with a moustache and slicked-back hair.
“This one in particular,” Gadd said. “He’s supposed to be the Serbian big cheese. Radish, he’s called. Nasty piece of work.”
The men caught each other’s eyes, all thinking much the same: that “nasty piece of work” was rich coming from Terry Gadd.
“Have a look, memorize them. We’ll give you copies,” Gadd continued. “Keep your nuts down and your eyes peeled and when the wasps’ nest has died down, let’s have another bash. We’ll be in touch.”
“Everyone happy?” Patsy asked, not expecting an answer. “Now let’s have a drink.”
Donnie wasn’t happy. His shoulder was throbbing, giving him gip. He had three swift vodka and tonics, so as not to be rude, took a stack of photos and made his excuses.
Forty minutes later he was outside Valerie’s block. He hadn’t seen her for days. He mopped the sweat from his face with a sleeve and got out of the car feeling light-headed.
He pressed in the entry code, walked slowly up to the second floor and pressed the buzzer outside Valerie’s apartment. The chain rattled and Juana opened the door. She looked at him warily.
“Hola, Vic. Qué tal?” she said.
“Is your mum in?” Donnie asked hoarsely.
“I don’t think she…” Juana began.
Valerie’s voice could be heard from inside, asking who it was, and seconds later she was at the door, wiping her hands on the apron around her waist. Her face was fixed, unsmiling.