Cold Kill

by David Lawrence

  ‘People come, people go,’ Oscar advised. ‘I have business decisions to make: this is one of them. No more iffy shipments for a while. I’ve put a stop on illegals already. Too many are getting lifted and it’s a worry; if immigration start going back along the chain, sooner or later they find me. I’m taking a rest. Talk to me again in six months.’

  ‘No, Oscar, you’re not listening. I don’t have the time. Apart from the money invested in you, there’s the way things work, the routes, the channels. Changing all that – it’s not an option. I’ve got clients who want delivery now. I need you to green-light those shipments. I’m losing business, losing money, losing face. It can’t go on.’ Billy was smiling, even though he’d said it all before.

  They were drinking Scotch. Oscar signalled for another round, and they sat in silence while the barman poured. Oscar signed a tab for the drinks; he said, ‘That’s all there is to it, Billy. I’m out.’

  ‘I can’t allow it.’

  Oscar gave a chuckle, indulgent, dismissive. ‘Find another shipper. They’re ten a penny. Rust-buckets are putting in at British ports every day and offloading drugs and whores and illegals and guns. Same with trucking companies. Put the word about. You’ll have offers coming out of your arse.’

  Billy lifted his glass. He was gripping it so tightly that the whisky trembled along its surface. He said, ‘I’m asking you, Oscar. Help me out.’

  ‘No can do. End of story.’

  The blonde was in sight at a roulette table and looking excited, as if the numbers were falling for her. She was betting birthdays, lucky numbers and the countdown to Christmas with a side bet on black. Billy said, ‘She seems lively. Friend of your wife’s?’

  Oscar laughed. ‘Don’t go there, Billy. Think of the things I know about you. I might even have a tape, you know?’

  ‘A what?’

  ‘A tape. We had a meeting at my house, remember that?’ Oscar smiled. ‘I used to be in the insurance business.’

  Billy dropped his head and stared at the moulding on the bar-rail. He was holding on but only just. It wouldn’t be clever to kill Oscar Gribbin right here and now, but it would be one hell of a fucking pleasure.

  Oscar said, ‘Hey, Billy, let’s not part on bad terms, yeah? It’s a great scam, but I have to get out while I’m ahead. I take the risk, I carry the merchandise. You buy, you ship, you sell on, fuck it, you don’t even see the stuff.’

  Billy put his drink down. He said, ‘I can see how you feel.’ He put out a hand and they shook.

  The blonde waved her arms and bounced with glee as her number came up – days to Christmas, lucky seven.

  Billy got into his car and took some deep breaths. A tape. A fucking tape. Gribbin was almost straight, that was the problem. He liked a little on the side, but the roots didn’t go deep. It wasn’t a way of life, that was the fucking problem. He was a dabbler, an amateur, he was someone who made tapes.

  Bloss came on the phone straight away. Billy said, ‘I talked to him. He’s not open to suggestions.’

  ‘Find a new shipper,’ Bloss said. ‘Just cut him out of it.’

  ‘He’s cut himself out. That’s the point. That’s why he has to go. He said no to me. Said no – to me. I got a whole operation up and running, now he’s pulling the pin. Fuck that. Here’s something else: here’s the kicker. He’s got a tape of me.’

  ‘What do you mean, a tape?’

  ‘A tape. A fucking video. Us talking, him and me – talking business.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘You think I want to second-guess him on this?’

  There was a silence, then Bloss said, ‘Okay, Billy.’

  ‘Good.’ There was a pause, then Billy said, ‘What are we talking here?’

  Bloss named a sum. Billy named another. They went to and fro for a while, as they had expected to, and met more or less in the middle.

  ‘Make it soon, okay? His wife’s away on a winter holiday.’

  ‘I need some time, Billy. I need to get some background, you know – habits, when he’s usually in, when he’s usually out, where he goes.’

  ‘It’s okay, you can short-cut all that; there’s someone ready to help.’ Billy gave Bloss a mobile number. ‘Just call. You’ll know his schedule, you’ll know when he’s back home. You can pop up and see him. Just ring the bell.’

  57

  It wasn’t drugs or whores or illegals – it was guns.

  Billy Souza had made good connections in the Balkans, in the Czech Republic, in Russia. He also had growing market input from Australia, South Africa, Israel and Switzerland. Albania has a population of three and a half million people and four million guns; Billy made quite a few trips to Albania. All the ex-Soviet bloc countries had rich pickings: one big arms bazaar selling ex-military weapons, each with its own low-level price tag.

  Generally speaking, guns were an optional extra for the people smuggling drugs and girls, but Billy had decided to specialize. It had started as a sideline to Jumping Jacks because he’d had a reason to be at the buyer’s end of the market, but then he’d seen the potential. Every hard man in London wanted a shooter. Every crew member, every lowlife, every robber, every dealer, every pimp. No gun, no class. No gun, your arse. The revenue from weapons almost equalled the take from the casino, and, after the overheads had been covered, it was gross profit: no tax.

  Billy had picked his shippers with care, or thought he had. Two truck companies and Oscar Gribbin, who was a perfect choice because, in addition to illegals, he shipped metal and metal goods. With the National Criminal Intelligence Service, Customs and Excise, Interpol and the National Firearms Tracing Service all on the case, that kind of camouflage was a good idea.

  Oscar had been right to say that the guns never came near Billy. They were pre-sold long before they ever reached the UK. JD and a couple of managers organized the next stage of the journey, when the weapons were moved from London, Liverpool or Hull to wholesalers in seven cities. From those locations, the guns went to smaller outlets: the armourers.

  The office of Leon Bloss’s armourer of choice was a table in the Wheatsheaf, or at least that was where you made your first contact. Slipper Wilkie had five mobile phones, each for a specific purpose. Certain clients had one number and one only. The divisions had to do with different aspects of his business, though his fifth was an eyes-and-ears phone and rang only if there was trouble. The pub was central, neutral, and there was a racket of muzak and fruit-machine-tunes that meant only those at the table could hear what was being said. Wilkie spent twelve hours a day working, eight on the phone. He was having a ‘yes-no-okay’ exchange with someone when Bloss sat down at his table with two glasses of Scotch.

  Wilkie was stylish. He had expensive blond streaks and a lamp-tan, looked late thirties, obviously kept himself in shape. His clothes were casual but pricey. He finished his call, put another on hold, then turned to Bloss. ‘Is it going to be used?’

  An unused gun could be returned. Maybe you wanted to frighten someone or show class. Maybe it was for a robbery and no one would get clever or brave. Return the gun and you’d get half your deposit back. A gun that had been fired was a different proposition. There would be a forensic trace. If you were going to use the gun, you had to pay for the gun.

  Bloss shrugged and said nothing. Wilkie took that to mean used. He said, ‘Any preferences?’

  ‘Glock forty-five or something similar. H & K; Beretta nine mill...’ Bloss added, ‘Spare clip with it.’ It was unnecessary, but, when it came to his work, Bloss was a cautious man.

  Wilkie nodded and named a price; Bloss nodded back. Wilkie said, ‘Where do you want to pick up?’

  ‘Walk through Holland Park tomorrow afternoon at four,’ Bloss said. ‘Come up from Ken High Street.’

  ‘It’s out of my way.’

  ‘It’s good for me.’

  ‘Anywhere away from cameras is good. Plenty of places.’

  ‘Holland Park,’ Bloss said.

  Wilkie shrug
ged. Another of his phones rang and he lifted it, but waited for Bloss to leave.

  Out on the street there was was cutting edge to the wind, but it came with a mish-mash of burger fat and exhaust gas and puke. Bloss thought it might be nice to get away for Christmas. In fact he thought it might be essential.

  58

  Mike Sorley’s programme of self-doctoring was going pretty well. It involved a twice-hourly cigarette linked to an hourly shot of whisky and it had certainly brought a glow to his cheeks. The regime allowed for paracetamol on the side.

  Stella had picked up her breakfast coffee from Starbucks and gone straight to his office. She was talking to him about replacement officers, fitting the details of her request in between his coughing fits. He had got his coffee from the squad-room dispenser and considered it to be the only real long-term threat to his health.

  He said, ‘I’ve got this fucking flu on the run.’

  ‘It certainly sounds that way,’ Stella agreed. Sorley laughed and coughed, coughed and laughed. Stella waited for him to recover. She touched her hair, feeling for the missing lock; it had almost become a nervous tic. In the shower, washing the shampoo from her hair, she’d been certain, but now she wasn’t so sure. The lock that Delaney had snipped was an obvious absence – high to the crown of her head. The other was lower and seemed slight, and that was when she could find it at all. Her hair was layered; there were other ragged ends. Maybe it was a form of wishful thinking: Follow me, you bastard, I’ll nail you.

  When Sorley got his breath back, she said, ‘I need some money, Boss.’

  ‘I thought you had a look on your face.’

  ‘An inducement. Unofficial.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Five grand?’

  Sorley lit his nine thirty cigarette. The nine o’clock had petered out in the ashtray. He said, ‘Try a grand. Go higher if someone looks like biting.’

  ‘I want the word to spread. A grand won’t get it far.’

  ‘Okay. Say it’s five and if someone makes an offer, give them a grand on account.’

  ‘And let them whistle for the rest.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘It doesn’t help my reputation – for the next time.’

  ‘It doesn’t help mine when I’m standing in front of the commissioner, cap in hand.’

  ‘Okay,’ Stella said. Then, ‘It’s not all I need.’

  Sorley grimaced. ‘Oh, good.’

  ‘Silano’s in for Greegan and Marilyn Hayes is covering for DC Chapman, but now Pete Harriman’s on sick leave and I need more bodies on the street. Someone knows who Mister Mystery is. We need to keep asking questions, keep talking to our sources.’

  ‘He’s out there,’ Sorley told her.

  ‘He is. Which is why we need to be out there too.’

  Sorley looked at her and shook his head. ‘What?’

  ‘I’m agreeing with you.’

  ‘About what?’

  Stella thought back along the conversation, looking for the fracture in logic but unable to find it. She said, ‘Are you delirious or am I tired? Who are we talking about?’

  ‘DC Harriman,’ Sorley said and gestured towards the squad room. ‘He’s out there.’

  The dressing had been removed and the scar was a barbed-wire tracery that went from just under the earlobe to halfway along his jawline. Stella took him out into the corridor and they stood by the drinks dispenser, like all office conspirators.

  ‘Where were you when I came in?’

  ‘In the car park,’ Harriman said. ‘I saw you arrive.’

  ‘In the car park –?’

  ‘Talking to Marilyn.’

  ‘Of course. Have you been cleared?’

  ‘Totally.’

  ‘By the doctors?’

  ‘By DI Sorley.’

  ‘If you’re on sick-leave, I can replace you and get someone who’s fit.’

  ‘I’m fit.’

  ‘Yeah? You look like a Frankenstein offcut.’

  ‘I didn’t say beautiful, I said fit.’

  ‘What did Marilyn say?’

  ‘She thinks it looks distinguished.’

  ‘Well, it distinguishes you from guys who haven’t taken a beer glass in the face, that’s for sure.’ Harriman laughed, then fell silent. Stella said, ‘Why the car park?’

  ‘She’s talking about leaving her husband.’

  ‘Of course she is, you fuckwit.’

  ‘Do you think she means it?’

  ‘Does she say she’ll leave him before Christmas or afterwards?’

  ‘Before.’

  ‘She means it.’

  Harriman sighed. ‘I thought so.’

  Stella said, ‘Organize a door-to-door on Harefield. As many uniforms as Notting Hill can spare. Issue mugshots of Kimber. Let’s see if anyone at his old address wants to earn a Christmas bonus.’

  ‘Someone always knows,’ Harriman said, the murder-squad truism.

  ‘You’re right,’ Stella said. ‘Mister Mystery knows.’

  Mister Mystery walked through Holland Park, starting from the Kensington High Street side. The last light showed as a thin lilac glow in the western sky and people were leaving before the gates closed at dusk.

  He remembered when he’d done this before, walking the park, finding a place to hide, a place on Valerie Blake’s jogging route, feeling the weight of the hammer in his pocket and the weight of his heart banging his ribs. He thought of Robert Kimber, also waiting for Valerie, waiting to follow her. He thought of the way life had somehow arranged to bring them all together at just the right time.

  Slipper Wilkie was sitting on a bench close to where the path went into woodland. Bloss sat down with him and they waited for a couple of strollers to get clear. The gun was in a small document case along with the spare clip, all packed in bubble-wrap. It was a Glock ·45. Wilkie passed it over, took an envelope in return, then walked away.

  Bloss called Billy Souza on his mobile. He said, ‘The girl will be with him, yes?’

  ‘She’ll be there. She’s your way in.’

  ‘It’s important. She’s needed… the way I’m going to set things up.’

  ‘For sure,’ Souza told him. ‘You ask, I deliver. Make sure you do the same.’

  ‘She won’t take a walk. She knows she has to be there with him?’

  ‘Jesus Christ!’ Billy’s voice took on an edge. ‘What did I just say? She’s been told. She’ll be there.’

  Billy Souza put the phone down. Bloss sat on, watching the dusk settle. It was his favourite time of day.

  59

  He made a call to the number Billy Souza had given him and the blonde picked up. She called him Maria and said she couldn’t talk just then. Half an hour later, she called back and said, ‘We’re at the Belvedere and he’s just asked for the bill. Give it half an hour.’

  ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Ring the bell.’

  ‘You’re expecting a friend, are you?’

  ‘We’re expecting a man with some very high-grade Charlie.’

  ‘This would be your contact, not his ...’

  ‘Of course. He’s not expecting to know you.’

  After leaving the park, Bloss had gone to a pub on Kensington Church Street and had a few whiskies. The place was crammed with people who were on their way to parties or were between parties or had started out for a party but decided to go no further. They were shoulder to shoulder and face to face and back to back, yelling to be heard over the music. Bloss had a stool by the wooden window-shelf that ran the whole perimeter of the pub. The reflections of faces in the windows seemed to mingle with the faces that passed in the street.

  He didn’t mind making the hit, and the fee he and Souza had agreed on was good money, but it was too much action in too short a time. He’d make a plane reservation to a warm place. Anywhere that was somewhere else.

  He drank off the last of his last whisky, shouldered a small rucksack that contained all he needed for the night’s task, then pushed
through the crowd and started up towards Notting Hill Gate.

  Oscar Gribbin looked up smiling when Bloss walked in behind the blonde, but his smile faded fast when he saw the gun. He looked from Bloss to the blonde and back again. He said, ‘You fucking slag.’ Then, to Bloss, ‘Name your price.’

  Bloss was dressed for business – industrial overalls zipped to the chin, a woollen beanie, cotton gloves, rubber overshoes. He said, ‘It’s not like that.’

  It was a big room in a big house, lots of pale wood and leather, plasma screen, style-supplement paintings, a free-standing, three-foot-square plain glass aquarium on glass stilts right in the middle. It was a feature. Luminous fish cruised amid forests of weed.

  Oscar knew what they meant: the overalls, the rubber shoes. He said, ‘Is it Billy Souza? Tell him I’ll bring the stuff in for him. Tell him we’re back in business.’

  ‘See,’ Bloss said. ‘It’s easy if you try.’

  ‘Tell him no problem.’

  ‘Tell him yourself,’ Bloss said, and smiled encouragingly. Then, ‘Where’s the tape?’

  Oscar looked towards the plasma screen and a steel-fronted cupboard below it. Bloss nodded and Oscar hurried across to get the tape. He put it down on a glass and steel table. Everything shiny and transparent.

  ‘Play it,’ Bloss told him.

  It was genuine. Oscar and Billy, Billy and Oscar. Talk of guns and dates and offshore transfers. Oscar ejected it and slipped it back into its cover, eager to do the right thing. He handed it to Bloss, who sapped him with the Glock, putting him down hard on a dove-grey leather sofa.

  Oscar said, ‘What?’ but the word came from a long way off and his eyes had slipped out of focus.

  Bloss’s rucksack had contained the overalls; he’d changed before going in. It also held some other, basic equipment: duct tape, plastic handcuffs, a lock-knife, a hammer. When Oscar was cuffed and gagged, Bloss turned to the blonde. He said, ‘This is going to look like a burglary, like I had to make him tell me where the stuff is. Maybe you should leave.’