Body Blow

by Peter Cocks

  Have you checked merch?

  I hadn’t, of course. We’d been busted as soon as we’d got the crates on board.

  As if to answer his question, one of Baylis’s men came on deck, looking for Ian. “Excuse me, sir,” he said. “Something’s not quite right here.”

  He spoke in a low voice, close to Baylis’s ear. I saw the smug expression on my ex-case officer’s face change to one of complete disbelief.

  “So what the hell do you think it is?” Baylis asked.

  “We haven’t got the equipment out here to run proper tests, but my best guess is that we’ve just intercepted a large shipment of talcum powder.”

  FIFTY

  The drumming grew louder and the mournful sound of bugle and trumpets accompanied our return into Benalmádena port. The fireworks continued to crackle overhead while Baylis looked like thunder. He made urgent calls on his phone, out of earshot.

  One thing had been calculated correctly: this would have been the perfect night to slip in to port unnoticed. There was no one around, nobody saw us as we crept, shamefaced, back ashore.

  I couldn’t believe what had just happened. Who had been stitched up by whom? I found it hard to believe that anyone would try and turn over Patsy Kelly on a deal on that scale. It would have caused a third world war, and might still. Whichever way you looked at it, some shit was going to hit the fan.

  And I hoped none of it would end up on me.

  Nonetheless, I felt a little smug that my advice to Baylis had been vindicated, but it wasn’t really the moment to say told you so.

  As soon as we got ashore, Baylis hit the ground running. Adie and the Spanish seamen were released. Baylis already had enough egg on his face not to try and make stick a charge of smuggling talcum powder. I followed him up the pontoons as he continued to talk into his mobile. He was telling his plain-clothes operatives to head for the square now, to get ready to take Bodega Jubarry on his command. Then he turned to me.

  “I’m going to send you in first to case the joint,” he said. “You know the ins and outs and can give us the all-clear.”

  We wove through the back alleys, all the little short cuts I had become familiar with, until we came to the alley that ran along the back of Jubarry’s. It was dark, lit by the occasional flash from the sky. Two plain-clothes men rolled up behind Baylis.

  “Go!” he said in a stage whisper.

  I ran past the wheelie bins and turned towards the rear entrance. Something was wrong.

  The door was open. Not with Carlos or one of the part-timers smoking by it, but wide open, swinging on its hinges. I took a couple of steps further forwards. The lights were on, but there wasn’t the usual hiss and clatter of a busy Saturday night. I sidled up to the door and looked through the gap at the hinges. There was no one there. I stuck my head around the door. Definitely empty. But then something worse: the door to the cellar was also open. There was no way I was going in to investigate.

  I ran back along the alley where Baylis was waiting eagerly.

  “I don’t like it,” I told him. “The cellar door’s already open.”

  Baylis considered a moment. “We’re going in,” he said. The two plain-clothes officers followed him, running quietly, guns drawn and ready. I was unarmed and followed behind. They barged into the kitchen, pistols held out at arm’s length. One of the men flung the cellar door back and threw himself against the wall. Silence. Tentatively, he began to edge his way down the steps, followed by the second man and Baylis.

  I was waiting for gunshots, smoke or a grenade, but there was nothing.

  I heard Baylis swear, and began to creep down the stairs after him. I heard him curse again as I emerged into the dull underground light. The plain-clothes guys stood, guns dangling at their sides. Baylis looked at me accusingly.

  The cellar was completely empty.

  “What do you know about this?” he hissed. I was speechless. The place had been secured and bolted with reinforced locks ever since Gav Taylor had helped himself. Terry Gadd had overseen it personally.

  It was not looking good for Ian Baylis. Two major busts gone wrong in one night. Whoever had trusted him with this mission would not be pleased with him.

  Whoever had trusted him with this mission would not be pleased with me, either. Neither would Terry Gadd nor Patsy Kelly. In fact no one would be thrilled: the difference being that Gadd would probably kill me.

  “I’ve done my end of the job, Nimrod,” I said. “Ysobel promised me out once I’d delivered.”

  Baylis looked white with rage, his thin lips, normally pale, almost non-existent.

  “You must be joking,” he spat. “You have delivered nothing, you idiot. You’ve been stitched up, again, and in doing so you’ve made me look completely incompetent. Now get back out there and find out what’s gone wrong.”

  “Out where?” I asked.

  “Back to Kelly, Gadd, whoever.”

  “They’ll kill me,” I protested.

  “Blame it on Dragomir Radic,” he said.

  We went back up into the kitchen. The door to the restaurant and bar had been blocked off. Planks of wood had been wedged against it and nailed in to prevent it from being opened from the bar side. Together with Baylis’s men, I levered off the planks and reopened the door. The bar was empty too but looked as if a bomb had hit it. There were still people on the streets outside, but whatever had gone on here had clearly driven away the customers. I heard the sound of sobbing behind the bar and found Valerie, Juana’s mother, curled up on the floor crying. I knelt down to speak to her, but when she looked up and saw who it was, she flew into a rage. She stood up and lashed out at me, digging sharp fingernails into my arms, slapping my face.

  “What have you done to her?” she screamed.

  “Where is she?” I asked. “Where’s Juana?”

  “They took her!” she shouted. “They will kill her, I know. It is your fault.” She went to slap me again and I caught her hand.

  “Who was in the kitchen?” I asked. “Who broke in?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “It was before. They locked the door and told us anyone who went in the kitchen would be shot. They took Carlos.” Baylis and his men looked at one another.

  “Let’s go,” he said. Then he looked at me. “You stay in town, get on it. Find out what you can, talk to bouncers, anyone who might have an inkling, any clue about what’s happened here.”

  Baylis left and I remained alone with Valerie, who was still sobbing. I persuaded her that she must go home, that I would go looking for Juana and wouldn’t stop until I found her.

  I took two hundred euros from the till and gave them to her. A few million quid’s worth had disappeared from the cellar, but the till was still full. I put Valerie into a cab outside and promised to phone, then I went back inside to lock up.

  It felt strange as I looked around the empty bar. I realized, once again, how much my life had changed since I’d been here. Barry and Julie’s reign already felt like ancient history. I walked through into the empty kitchen. The hinges would have to be replaced. I went to lock the back door, the scene of many stolen kisses with Juana, who I’d now failed to protect. Then back into the kitchen where I had fought Gav Taylor for my life, and killed him.

  I stood staring at the wall. I felt shell-shocked and confused. I didn’t know how much trouble I was in or with whom. What was certain was that I was in deep shit all round. I poured a vodka and knocked it back in short order. Then another. The burning liquid down the back of my throat shocked me back into reality and galvanized me into moving. I locked the front and went out across the square. I didn’t know where to start looking for Juana. I’d tried her phone, of course, but it was going to voicemail.

  I’d reached the edge of the park when I heard the sound of breaking glass.

  I turned and saw the shattered plate-glass window of Jubarry’s in the distance. Inside, flames licked up the wall. I ran back across the square, but in that short time, wicker chairs and
plastic tablecloths were going up and a vortex of heat blew out through the hole in the glass. It must have been a petrol bomb, thrown through the window. I looked around but could see no one. Whoever had done it must have waited for me to leave.

  A few late stragglers started to come out of nearby bars and from the park and surrounding flats, gathering in front of the fire.

  I was just about to pull out my phone and call the fire brigade when a car skidded round the corner into the square. It stopped right in front of me, a familiar white Porsche Cayenne. A Kelly henchman I knew as Stav Georgiou got out and grabbed me by the arm.

  “Get in,” he said.

  “What about the fire…?” I wrestled against his meaty hand, looked in through the passenger door.

  “Get in, you minge,” Terry Gadd wheezed angrily. “You got a lot of questions to answer.”

  I got in.

  FIFTY-ONE

  It wasn’t a comfortable ride.

  Terry Gadd threw the Cayenne round the bends at breakneck speed as we headed up into the hills.

  Headed, I imagined, on a one-way ticket.

  “Where’s Juana?” I asked. Stav Georgiou punched me in the ear.

  “Stow it!” Gadd said.

  I did. My legs were shaking with fear and I tried to stay calm by imagining myself somewhere nice. I imagined the beach, with Juana; our afternoons in the sun together, lying on the sand with waves lapping at our feet. I thought about other people I’d loved and was unlikely to see again.

  My life had been short but eventful, I decided. And now I had someone else’s life on my conscience, so maybe there was some rough justice involved. I’d packed more into the past eighteen months than most people did in a lifetime. Perhaps that’s what happens when you live in the fast lane; you just burn it all up quicker.

  The Cayenne slowed down. It was dark, but I could see from the headlights that we were high up in the hills above Casa Pampas, where big, prickly pear cactuses lined the road and fleshy aloe plants towered above like giant asparagus. We pulled off the road down a short dirt track and into an area of waste ground.

  Gadd stopped the car and Stav Georgiou threw me out of the door, where I fell onto the dusty earth. Then he followed me out and dragged me by the collar around to the front of the car. Across the wasteland a second car switched on its lights, blinding me. I was now caught between the crossed beams of the two cars. Spotlit – like a rabbit in the headlights.

  “Kneel!” Terry Gadd shouted.

  I knelt, facing the bonnet of the Cayenne. My hands were trembling like leaves, so I held them together in front of me, almost like I was praying.

  Which I was.

  I heard Gadd cock an automatic pistol behind me and I felt my mouth go dry. “You’ve got one fuckin’ chance to tell me what went wrong.”

  “I don’t know, Terry, honestly.” My dry tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth and I could barely get my words out. “I did everything I was told. Turned up at the RV. We met the Moroccan boat, got the stuff and then we were busted by British customs and the Guardia.”

  “You texted me that the pickup was successful.”

  “It was, we just hadn’t checked it yet.”

  Gadd walked round to stand in front of me. He swung his arm and backhanded me hard across the face. I felt a ring tear the flesh of my cheek.

  “Bullshit,” he spat. “They were there like clockwork. Tell me who you tipped off.” This time he slapped me with a forehand stroke, his heavy palm stinging my face and knocking me sideways. He pulled me upright again.

  “I didn’t tip anyone off,” I pleaded. “I don’t know anyone.”

  “Who did you give the keys to the cellar to? You get them copied?”

  “I didn’t have any keys. You took them away after you changed the locks, remember?”

  Gadd walked away for a moment, across to the other car. He stood in the headlights and I heard him speak to whoever was in the car.

  “You heard him,” he said. “He says he had nothing to do with it. It’s up to you, but I don’t like it. I want to bin him.”

  I heard low voices in discussion, then the crunch of feet as he came back up behind me. I felt the barrel of his pistol, cold and hard against the bone behind my ear. My heart was banging so hard in my chest I thought it might burst and release me from this moment. “Do you want to change your story?” Gadd whispered.

  I shook my head.

  “Well?” he asked. I shook my head again. “Nothing else you have to tell me before I blow your skull apart and spread your brains across the dirt for the birds to eat?”

  I felt a sob rise in my chest. Tried to go elsewhere in my mind: beach, blue sky, New Cross, Stoke, anywhere but here. I heard a click as he took the safety catch off.

  Through the fog of panic, I had a sudden thought.

  “Just one thing,” I said. My voice cracked and I breathed deeply, trying to steady it. “The big bloke. Calls himself Vic but it’s not his real name. I think he’s called Donnie Mulvaney. He might be the weak link. He gets drunk in that bar all the time and boasts to anyone who’ll listen. He says he’s connected with everyone – the Kellys, all the London crime firms, the Brink’s-Mat, everything.”

  “So what?”

  “He showed me a photo he had of a Serbian called Dragomir Radic. I just thought it might be connected.”

  There was a pause.

  “Nothing I didn’t already know,” Gadd growled. “Not enough to get you off the hook, kid.”

  I heard the car behind me start up its engine. Felt the pressure of the pistol against my skull. Then a terrible bang and a flash of orange flame.

  And then black.

  FIFTY-TWO

  When I came round I was sprawled across the back seat of the Cayenne. My Levi’s were damp, my face was throbbing and my ears were ringing.

  “He’s alive,” I heard Stav Georgiou say sarcastically from the front. His voice sounded muffled, as if he was talking though cotton wool. He let out a low chuckle. “What a faggot, fainting like a girl.”

  I said nothing but tentatively put a hand up to my head. My face was swollen and I could hear nothing through my right ear. I felt my skull; it all seemed intact. I half expected to find a hole like the one I’d seen in the head of the guy in Flanagan’s car park.

  So I’d fainted.

  I lay back and watched the sky through the rear window of the car, my muddled mind trying to work out who must have taken the charlie from the cellar. It was a clear, black night, twinkling with stars, and I was alive. Not safe, by any means. But not dead. I thought about Juana, wondered where she was. Wondered who she was with, who had taken her. Whether she was still alive.

  We arrived at Casa Pampas and Stav got out to unlock the gates.

  “Still with us, sugarplums?” Gadd asked. “You wanna grow some.”

  “I thought you were going to kill me,” I said.

  “If it was down to me, I probably would have, but Patsy’s superstitious, he wouldn’t let me. He wanted me to test you out. He thinks you’re on the level, that you’re some kind of lucky charm for him. He protects you – because he thinks you protect him.”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say to this.

  “But I’m superstitious too,” Gadd went on. “And I think you’re a right Jonah. Nothing’s gone right since Pat got you in the firm. I’ve never liked the look of you, as you know.”

  “Cheers,” I said.

  Terry Gadd turned in his seat, reached into the back and punched me, smack in the nose. Like a parent whacking an unruly child. It hurt, and I tasted blood. Before I could turn away, he punched me again, harder.

  “Don’t be cheeky, you bitch,” he spat. “You’re on last knockings as far as I’m concerned. I would as soon slice you up as look at you; gouge your eyes out with a spoon, then cut off your ears and make you eat them. And then I might think about disembowelling you and leaving you to bleed to death.”

  “Sorry.” Apologizing seemed the sensible thing to
do.

  “No more lip,” he said. “Last chance. Now get out the car and do as you’re told.”

  I stumbled out of the car and up the steps towards the house.

  The lights were on throughout, but low. From the outside, the place seemed to glow red, and I could see flashes from TV screens in some of the windows. I looked across to the town where the odd stray firework still shot into the black sky, then faded, like the end of a battle. I had completely lost track of time, but I guessed it must have been four or five in the morning.

  There were a lot of men assembled at Casa Pampas. Some – bald, bulky and tanned – were faces I recognized. Others – identikit versions, bald, bulky and pale – were new arrivals. Patsy had been bringing over reinforcements as his paranoia grew, like imperial bodyguards around a fading Roman emperor; all South London and Essex boys away on a busman’s holiday. Some were sitting around, drinking and watching porn on a widescreen TV, while others snoozed or smoked. All of them gave off an atmosphere of surly malevolence, even the sleeping ones.

  Patsy was sitting on the white leather sofa in the lounge, staring into space. He looked strained and lined. His hair was flattened and dark against his head and he looked as if he hadn’t slept in a long time. Terry Gadd pushed me into the room.

  “Here he is,” he said.

  Patsy looked up at me. Ignored my bloody nose. “What went wrong?” he asked flatly.

  I spoke fast. “Like I told Terry, I really don’t know. Honestly, I just followed instructions to the boat and they were on us as soon as we transferred the boxes. Someone knew where the pickup was, and also that I wasn’t at Jubarry’s. You know I kept an eye on things.”

  Patsy looked across at Gadd. “What a cock-up.” He slapped his hand against his forehead for what was clearly not the first time that night.

  “Apparently Mulvaney has been in spouting about this and that,” Gadd told him.

  “About what?” Patsy demanded.

  “About Tommy, Brink’s … about this Serbian.”