by Lee Martin
‘No,’ screamed Kate as the driver got out of the van, a huge, bald-headed man in T-shirt and jeans. Niki jumped out of the hatchback, stood in the middle of the road and pulled the trigger of the machine pistol which punched thirty rounds straight through the engine block and windscreen. The driver stood open mouthed and looked at the wreck of his transport, as water, oil and petrol ran into the road in a steaming torrent. Niki ran up to him and jabbed the hot barrel of her gun into his ear. ‘Reckon I’ve got one more bullet for you,’ she hissed, as he almost fainted and a big brown patch appeared at the back of his trousers. She slammed him hard in the head with the gun, then ran back to the hatchback, leapt in, chucked the Uzi to Poppy in the back seat and roared off. ‘Well, that one works for sure. God, but that felt good,’ she said.
‘Jesus Niki,’ said Sadie. ‘That could’ve screwed us well and truly. What would’ve happened if another car had come past?’
‘I’d have shot the engine out. Simple.’
‘You can’t shoot the whole world.’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Niki with a manic grin. ‘Long as there’s enough ammunition.’
‘Are we going to have trouble with you?’ asked Sadie, not amused.
‘I’ll try to do better in future,’ said Niki. ‘But no promises.’
‘Do you think he got our number?’ asked Kate.
‘I doubt it,’ replied Niki. ‘He was too busy shitting his pants. But maybe we’d better get another car just in case.’
‘What about your prints?’ asked Sadie. ‘They’re all over the cartridge cases you left lying in the road, aren’t they?’
‘Never had my prints taken’ replied Niki. ‘What sort of a girl do you think I am? Now let’s get some new transport?’
33
And that’s exactly what she did. Not far down the road was a branch railway station with a pay and display car park rammed with commuter’s cars. She pulled up outside, shooed the other girls out of the hatchback, drove in, parked, and joined them almost immediately in a ten-year-old Ford Granada. ‘It’s not much,’ she said. ‘But it’s got a full tank.’
‘All aboard the Skylark,’ said Poppy as they got inside, just as a police car with blues flashing and sirens screaming roared past in the direction they’d come from, but didn’t as much as slow down.
‘That was quick,’ said Kate. ‘Just as well we got rid of that other motor.’
‘Should’ve nicked his phone,’ said Niki. ‘Right then. Where to from here? And what the bloody hell is the Skylark?’
Nobody bothered to explain.
They got to the forest and Sadie showed them the burnt tree where she’d practised her shooting. The Granada wouldn’t make the rough track that she’d used in her four wheel drive, so they abandoned it. With Niki carrying the rucksack they went into the woods which once again were deserted, without so much as a man walking his dog. ‘Told you,’ said Sadie. ‘Not a soul about.’
‘Lucky for them,’ said Niki. ‘Otherwise I might have been forced to kill them.’
‘You’re a happy little soul, Niki, you know that?’ said Kate.
Niki deigned not to reply.
They fired off the rounds they’d brought with them, and even Kate took an interest as her bullets chopped lumps out of the dead tree. ‘See,’ said Niki. ‘I knew you could do it.’
‘I still don’t know if we can carry this off,’ said Kate as they drove back to where Sadie had left her car in the lay-by, this time collecting the spent cartridge cases, passing the scene of Niki’s shootout, where the white van had been shoved off the road and was covered in police tape, the road next to it stained with oil, petrol and antifreeze.
‘Served the fucker right,’ said Niki. ‘He won’t be picking on women drivers for a bit,’ and they all laughed hysterically, but through fear rather than hilarity.
‘It’s the timing that worries me,’ said Sadie, suddenly serious. ‘For all we know they might be doing the job today.’
‘Not Joe,’ said Poppy. ‘He’s off playing golf. Should’ve seen the state of him this morning in his plus fours. Fucking twat. He looked just like Ainsley, that dopey cook off the telly.’
‘And Robbo always gets amorous when something’s going off,’ said Kate. ‘Which he isn’t, thank God.’
‘Not getting any nookie, love?’ said Sadie. ‘Join the club.’
‘Only the boyfriend,’ Poppy piped up. ‘Still having it off with Her Majesty’s constabulary Kate?’
Kate blushed scarlet. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘Leave it out.’
‘But we’ve got to know,’ said Sadie. ‘I mean it. All this is a waste of time if they do the job without us knowing.’
‘We could just take the money after,’ said Kate. ‘One by one.’
‘No,’ said Niki. ‘We do them all at the same time and get lost. We need the cash all in one place. Right?’
‘Right,’ said Sadie. ‘So you lot need to keep your eyes and ears open. Right?’
The other three nodded agreement as Niki pulled up next to Sadie’s SUV. They loaded it up, left the Granada and went back to Sadie’s place.
‘Now remember girls,’ she said before they left. ‘Eyes and ears open. We need to know every detail.’
And with that, they parted.
34
Kate, Poppy and Niki got their spy hats on. It was a risky business. Niki went through her small house from top to bottom. She checked out the room that Connie called his office, although he was rarely in it. All she turned up was a bunch of paid bills, and not much else. Connie kept things close to his chest, and she wasn’t surprised. As far as making small talk, that rarely happened any more, and she knew he’d smell a rat if she started on with the third degree, so she ended up admitting defeat. What she would have liked to do was borrow the Uzi, stick it in his ear like she’d done to the white van man, and get the truth out of him that way. She could hardly wait for a chance to get even with him. And she knew that only one of them would walk away alive.
Poppy came up against the same brick wall. Joseph was another closed-mouthed man, and when she met Niki for an afternoon of sex, she told her she was none the wiser.
In fact it was Kate who got the first inkling of the job, and it happened in the worst way.
One morning, a week or so later, as they were having breakfast and watching BBC 24 Robbo said, ‘I’ve got a meet this morning. Christ knows how long I’ll be.’
‘Something important?’ asked Kate.
‘None of your fucking business. Keep your nose out.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You will be. Now, have I got a clean shirt?’
‘On a hanger in your wardrobe.’
‘Good girl.’
‘Where are you going to be?’ Kate tried to sound as innocent as possible.
‘Brick Lane. Some poncy bar or other. Used to be good down there before all those wankers started hanging out. Dinner for a nicker. Now look at the fucking place.’
‘Who you meeting?’
‘Some geezer. In the building trade. Fucking Paki.’
And that was when Kate got the first sniff. ‘What do you want a builder for?’
‘I told you. None of your business.’ And he finished his toast, left the dishes for Kate to clear away and went upstairs to get dressed.
After he’d left, she put on an old Burberry mac, pushed her shock of red hair up under a baseball cap, left off her make up, and put on a pair of large lensed sunglasses. She caught her reflection as she left the house and laughed at herself, all dressed up like a spy from a bad movie, and caught the tube to Aldgate. A poncy bar, he’d said, and there were plenty of those to choose from. She wandered the Lane avoiding young Asians trying to get her to take an early lunch with offers of cheap food and booze, until she saw Robbo sitting in the window of a bar with a bottle of beer in his hand. He was alone. But not for long. She looked in the window of a sari shop opposite, using it as a mirror, when who should walk along the road, turn into the ba
r and greet her husband, but Ali S. Karim, dressed in a leather jacket and jeans with a couple of day’s growth of beard on his face.
Kate almost fainted as the pair shook hands and Ali fetched more beers from the bar.
Kate fled, head down, her mind in turmoil. What the fuck’s going on? she thought. What are those two doing together? And why?
There was only one thing for it. She called Ali on his mobile and got his voice mail. ‘You fucker,’ she said. ‘Phone me, as soon as you get this.’
‘This is rare,’ said Ali, when he phoned her later that day. ‘You letting me call you. Fancy a fuck?’
‘What are you doing meeting my husband?’ Kate demanded.
There was a long silence. ‘How do you know?’ he eventually asked. ‘Did he tell you?’
‘What? That he’s meeting my bit on the side… Do you think I’d be able to talk? I’d be in the fucking London having surgery on my broken jaw. Now what’s going on?’
‘Not on the phone?’
‘Where then?’
‘Up west. Out of the area. Tonight?’
‘No not tonight stupid. Tomorrow. That little pub where we met before in Beaufort Street. Remember?’
‘How could I forget? That was a beautiful afternoon.’
‘Don’t piss me about Ali. Don’t be a cunt all your life. Take a day off. Tomorrow. Opening time, and don’t be fucking late.’ And she killed the phone.
* * *
What had occurred was that, after Eddie’s trial, Ali went to his bosses and strongly suggested that the remainder of the gang should be treated as serious targets. He knew, and they knew that Robbo, Connie and Joseph had been the others in the mail van robbery, and it angered him to see them sticking two fingers up at the law because of lack of proof. His bosses agreed, and gave Ali carte blanche to bring them in. It was just what he wanted, so he plugged himself into the villain grapevine that still operated in London. It was a loose network fuelled by public phone boxes, and meetings in tatty boozers and deserted car parks. Its language was a mixture of modern street and old rhyming slang. No mobiles. The air had ears. Ali slid down into the underworld and kept his eyes and ears open. His cover was that of an Asian fixer who’d fallen out with his cohorts up north and had to relocate to London in a hurry with more or less what he had on his back. He was skint and needed an earner fast. He almost lived in his car for weeks, hanging out with anyone who looked bent enough to be in the know about what was happening, and getting as many knock backs as usable information. A lot of the gangsters were old-school East End, and didn’t want to deal with some bolshy Paki bloke. But he persevered, and took the shit without fighting back, until one afternoon in a dodgy pub in Rotherhithe he heard about a face who needed some heavy earth moving equipment for a bit of lucrative work. Ali butted in that he could get anything in that line from a mate in Birmingham, delivered fast, no questions asked, as long as the fee was right. Ali told the publican that he had worked building sites and on the M62 road widening scheme, and was a top driver.
He heard nothing for a few days, until on a further trip to the pub the boss told him that someone wanted a meet. ‘You’d better’ve been straight with me mate,’ the publican warned. ‘This bloke takes no prisoners.’
‘Who is he?’ asked Ali.
The publican looked up and down the almost deserted room and whispered. ‘His name’s Robbo. That’s all you need to know. I’m going to bell him now, and he’ll ring back on my private line. Keep it short, and no fucking names.’
The publican vanished into the back. A few minutes later Ali heard a phone ring, and the bloke stuck his head through the door and motioned for Ali to join him. He had his hand over the receiver. ‘Here you go,’ he said. ‘And make it quick.’
Ali took the phone and said, ‘Yeah?’
‘You the Paki?’ said a gruff voice.
‘That’s right.’
‘Brick Lane tomorrow morning, eleven. Soul Bar. Know it?’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘Be there.’
‘How will I know you?’
‘I’ll wear a fucking carnation and carry the Financial Times,’ said the voice. ‘It’ll be quiet. Use your fucking initiative.’ And the line went dead.
Ali went back through to the bar. ‘OK?’ asked the publican.
‘No problem.’
‘Make mine a double. And remember me if there’s any bunce about.’
‘Oh, I’ll remember you,’ said Ali, dropping a twenty on the bar. ‘Don’t worry about that.’ And he left the pub, wondering how to talk his bosses into sanctioning obtaining a hundred grand’s worth of heavy plant machinery.
* * *
The meeting went off as arranged. Robbo arrived early, and sat with a bottle of beer at a table by the window. As he’d prophesied, at that time of day the place was almost empty, with just a couple at a table by the kitchen, and the occasional worker popping in for a take out beverage.
Ali was nervous as he walked down Brick Lane, and didn’t recognise the figure standing opposite staring into the window of a sari shop. But she recognised him.
He went into the restaurant and of course he recognised Robbo straight away, but managed to look a little lost as he looked round. Robbo stared straight at him and Ali went across to the table. ‘Robbo?’ he asked almost hesitantly.
‘You the Paki?’
Ali swallowed his resentment at the remark and instead nodded. ‘That’s me.’
‘Name?’ demanded Robbo.
‘Ali,’ said Ali. He’d figured he might as well tell the truth as he’d probably be called Ali anyway, even if his name was Prince Charles. Fucking cockneys, thought they were so funny.
‘OK Ali,’ said Robbo. ‘Get the beers in.’
Ali did as he was told and returned with two bottles of Cobra. ‘Thought you lot didn’t drink,’ said Robbo.
‘Some of us do.’ Ali remembered back to his first meeting with Kate, when she’d asked the same thing. It gave him a thrill to look into Robbo’s face and know that he’d fucked his wife.
‘Well thank Christ for that.’
Although he’d studied photos and seen Robbo from a distance at the Bailey, close up Ali saw how dangerous the man was. How did Kate put up with it? he thought. Robbo’s face was as expressive as a skull, the skin drawn tight across the bones, his body had a hardness that was obvious even fully dressed, and his knuckles were white with old scars.
‘You know what I want?’ said Robbo after a moment.
‘Heavy plant.’
‘And you can get it?’
‘For a price. Bulldozers are extra.’
‘No fucking jokes,’ said Robbo with menace in his voice. ‘This is fucking serious. I need two JCB mechanical shovels.’
‘Easy,’ said Ali and prayed that it would be. ‘When?’
‘Soon.’
‘How soon?’
‘Too many fucking questions.’
‘Sorry.’
‘And you can drive them. Teach someone else?’ asked Robbo.
‘No problem.’
‘How much then?’
‘Are they coming back?’
‘I said no jokes.’
‘I’m serious too.’
‘No chance. They’ll be burned.’
‘Then I’d say ten grand the pair. Up front.’
‘I won’t argue.’
‘What’s the job?’
‘Need to know son, and you don’t. Not yet. I don’t know you. My mates don’t know you. Nobody knows you. You just turn up out of the blue. I’d say that looks a bit suss. You need checking out before we get all friendly. And you look like you’ve been living in a tree.’
‘Temporary difficulties.’
‘Then get a fucking wash, and stick around that boozer. I’ll be in touch.’ And with that he left his beer and walked out.
Ali sat back with a satisfied look on his face. Result. At least, so far.
35
The pub was empty when Kate arrived t
he next day, and it had that smell pubs do at that time of day. A mixture of stale beer, stale cigarettes and disinfectant. A barman stood looking bored behind the counter, but cheered up when she walked in and ordered a fruit juice. Ali got there a few minutes later, and the barman pulled a face when he greeted Kate with a kiss. She didn’t respond, just took her drink to a table by the door as Ali asked for a pint of lager.
‘Cheers,’ he said when he had sat down opposite her and lit a cigarette.
‘Don’t fucking give me cheers,’ she replied. ‘What was all that about?’
‘What?’
‘You know what. Don’t fuck about. You and Robbo, having a cosy chat. Thick as thieves.’
Ali smiled at that and sipped his drink.
‘Why?’ she demanded. ‘I’m losing my patience here.’
‘I can’t tell you Kate.’
‘Was it about me?’
Ali laughed. ‘No,’ he replied. ‘Not about you. Not everything’s about you love.’
‘What then?’
‘I told you Kate, I can’t say.’
‘Does he know who you are?’
‘What, a copper or your boyfriend?’
‘Either. Both. Just tell me.’
He shrugged.
‘So I assume neither. If he knew you were a copper, he’d rather kill you than drink with you socially. If he knew you were my boyfriend, he’d kill me, or both of us. So it must be business.’
‘That makes sense.’
‘Are you on the bung with him?’
Ali smiled. ‘No. Not on the bung.’
‘So what?’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘I could make it more complicated. I could tell him who you are?’
‘And that you know me, and that you were spying on him. I take it you weren’t down there buying bagels for lunch.’
Kate was silent.
‘So why were you spying on him? Did you think he’d got a bird on the side? I didn’t think you cared.’