Then, all too quickly, I was at the graveside and right then I made my decision. I dropped to my knees.
‘That’s it,’ he said and he sounded relieved, like he’d been spared a burdensome task, although I could barely hear him above the din the wind was making. I looked up at the branches of the trees in front of me and tried to think only of them. I watched as they swayed and swirled helplessly, buffeted by the wind. I felt the first spot of rain on my face, then I thought of Sarah and, for the first time since I was a little boy, I prayed.
I heard the dull snick as he cocked his gun. ‘Soon be over,’ he told me and I held my breath. I noticed there was a large, heavy shovel to one side of the grave but it was too far away for me to make a grab at it. The rain started in earnest and I felt large heavy drops hit my hands and face.
The trees were being tossed violently now, the wind rising, but even I heard Conroy move. I turned and realised he had spun round to the side, suddenly alert. Then I heard what he had been listening to; footsteps. Conroy had his arm raised, gun pointing to one side and out into the darkness, back the way we had come. He was aiming at something, hesitating like he was trying to pick out a clear target in the darkness. There was a shot and it took me a moment to realise it hadn’t come from Conroy’s gun. I only really understood what had happened when Conroy took the bullet in his chest and was thrown backwards, landing flat on his back, his gun bouncing away from him in the long grass. He gasped, and tried to get to his feet, but he couldn’t manage it. Instead he fell back and his head rolled from side to side, his eyes widening as he struggled to stay alive. I stared into the blackness so I could see where the shot had come from, but there was nothing. I couldn’t see anything and I couldn’t hear anything now either, because the wind was still violently swirling the branches and the rain was falling hard, but then I saw the darkness change, and a shape began to form in front of me. The man was holding a gun out in front of him. Palmer.
He didn’t even look at me, just advanced slowly on Conroy, never taking his eyes off the man he had shot, holding his gun out straight, keeping it pointed at the assassin. Palmer waited till he drew close enough for Conroy to see him clearly. He was still desperately trying to pull himself upright, but it was no use. Palmer noticed the gun in the grass and the tension seemed to ease in him, though he kept his own weapon trained on Conroy. He stole a quick glance over at me and saw the hole in the ground, then he looked back at Conroy, who was wincing and gasping.
‘Stupid bastard,’ he told Conroy, ‘you’re going in that hole now.’
I could tell from Conroy’s eyes that he understood Palmer’s words. Palmer took a step forward and put two more rounds in him, just to make sure.
43
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Palmer didn’t say a word to me. He just put his gun away, took everything out of Conroy’s pockets, then dragged his body to the edge of the hole and rolled it in. He picked up the shovel in his gloved hands and started to throw soil on top of the body, moving incredibly quickly.
I collapsed on the wet grass and lay there with my eyes open, staring up at the sky as the rain continued to fall. I didn’t have any energy left. I lost all sense of time and all I could hear was Palmer grunting slightly in exertion as he shovelled all of that earth on top of Jack Conroy. I turned my head and watched him as he walked into the trees, pulled away some branches and bits of bushes and used them to cover the freshly-filled grave. Hopefully no one would ever walk down here but, if they did, this rudimentary camouflage might be enough to keep their eyes away.
I forced myself to sit up as he walked back over to me. He picked up Conroy’s gun, unscrewed the suppressor and stowed both items in the outside jacket pocket of his leather coat. Then he hauled me to my feet and shoved me back down the path. I didn’t understand how he knew to come here. ‘How…?’ I asked him.
‘Not now,’ he said, and instead of an explanation all I got was a shove in the back which propelled me down the rutted lane. My head hurt and my ears were ringing but I was alive.
Palmer put Conroy’s keys in the glove compartment of the hire car and called one of our people so they could collect and return it to the rental company. Palmer drove me back into the city. It was a while before I could speak.
Eventually I managed. ‘How did you find me?’
‘I chipped your car.’
At this point I would normally have pulled him up for not obeying my wishes, but I knew that if Palmer had listened to me I would have been the one lying in a grave in the woods instead of Conroy. So all I said was, ‘I don’t understand. He didn’t take my car.’
‘I chipped his car too,’ and he glanced over at me. ‘I didn’t trust him, after Conroy came to see you and volunteered the information that he’d been asked to kill you,’ he shrugged, ‘well, I just didn’t trust him.’
So it was Palmer’s instincts, his innate distrust of his fellow human beings that had kept me alive. If I’d had a less cynical right-hand man I’d be a goner. ‘I still don’t get it,’ I said, ‘it wasn’t his usual car. It was a rental.’
Palmer exhaled like he really could do without this right now, but I needed an explanation, even if that involved pissing off the man who had just saved me; a man who was probably preoccupied by the fact that he had just killed another man, left his body in the woods and wanted to get the hell away from the place before anyone else showed up. ‘I chipped your car,’ he explained, ‘because it’s my job to keep you alive, and your refusal to cooperate with that compromised me professionally.’
‘Fair enough,’ I conceded.
‘I chipped Conroy’s car because I didn’t trust him, and I asked Robbie to keep an eye on his movements. When his car didn’t move for two days and it wasn’t at his house, I checked out the location and it turned out it was parked outside a rental company. Now, since he drove his own car down there, there was clearly nothing wrong with it mechanically, so I figured he was using the rental car for a job, so I went down to his house one night, watched him arrive in the rental car, waited till he had gone to bed and I chipped that too.’
Most people I know are too scared of Conroy to walk within a mile of his front door but Palmer messed with the guy’s car, as cool as you like. Unbelievable.
‘I told Robbie and his guys to check on it every half hour. Another few days went by, presumably while chummy waited for his opportunity to get near you, then I got a call from Robbie. The chip on the rental car showed it was ten feet from your motor and the location was your supposedly secure apartment. We need to get that looked into, by the way. Conroy got in there way too easily, which means someone else can.’ That was a cheering thought. ‘As soon as I got the call from Robbie I pegged it round there, but you were on the move again before I could reach you. Robbie kept tracking you and I caught up as fast as I could, but there wasn’t much in it.’
‘Christ, you’re not joking.’
‘I would have been quieter,’ he explained, as if a point of professional pride was at stake, ‘but I had to be quick.’
‘I didn’t hear you.’
‘No, but he did. Lucky I got my shot off first.’
That word again – lucky.
‘Palmer?’
‘What?’
‘Thank you.’
Palmer shrugged, ‘It’s what you pay me for.’
‘I know,’ I said, ‘but even so.’
I closed my eyes then and slumped back in my seat. I kept them shut until we were back in the city once more.
The next morning I called Kinane. ‘I’ve made a decision,’ I told him.
Everyone was there, and I made sure they all saw Kinane. I kept him with me as I went from table to table, shaking hands and shouting in ears above the din of the crowd’s chatter. There was a palpable sense of excitement among the gilded folk of Tyneside’s business community; the men in their penguin suits, sweating in their bow ties and cummerbunds, beneath the arc lights that shone down on us all, lighting up the boxing r
ing which dominated the centre of the room. They were out in force to celebrate the opening of our new five-star, six-storey Quayside hotel and witness the bloodshed from our exhibition match. It was mostly men, but here and there the monotony of black and white was broken by a flash of beige, green, even scarlet from evening dresses worn by chubby wives or expensive mistresses.
As I shook hands, I introduced Kinane. ‘This is Joe!’ I shouted above the din and he played the part, grasping hands, almost crushing them in greeting, and I bawled over the din, variously describing him as: ‘the brains behind our fighter’, ‘the coach’, ‘the man in the corner’, ‘the guy who makes it all happen in the ring’. ‘It’s all down to Joe!’ and they noticed him alright. Who’s going to forget a guy who looks the way Kinane does? All those flabby, dinner-jacketed captains of industry felt inadequate when they stood in front of him. Even some of the women were impressed by his bulk, eyeing him up and down. We took our time getting to our seats and by then Kinane had been patted on the back by half of Tyneside’s movers and shakers.
Despite my claims that Kinane was ‘the man in the corner’, he left that job to ‘Big Auty’, the silver-haired trainer who walked out in front of our fighter, and Joe and I headed to our table. There was a master of ceremonies in the middle of the ring and he was using a microphone to loudly announce the arrival of our man. Kinane gave me a questioning look and I told him, ‘Not yet’.
My phone bleeped then, another text from Simone. ‘Am I likely to see you later?’ I wasn’t deliberately ignoring her but I had been understandably preoccupied lately and, now that I was back on more normal terms with Sarah, I felt like I didn’t need an arrangement with someone as complicated as Simone any more. It would have been easier if she didn’t still insist on working down at the parlour. It seemed she wasn’t prepared to accept my help. I slipped my phone back in my pocket without answering her, but made a note to call her in the morning.
I waited until the challenger, a tattooed meat-head from Lewisham, was booed into the ring, and the two fighters went toe to toe, but still I didn’t give Kinane his signal. Then the fighters returned to their corners and the braying from the audience reached its peak, the lights were dimmed and a blonde glamour model climbed into the ring. The male section, which made up the majority of the crowd, went wild for her. The volume of the whistling, shouting, braying and cheering rose. I waited till she reached the centre of the ring and, as she stood straight to raise her sign with the words ‘Round One’ written on it, I gave Kinane the nod. He slid from his chair, as discreetly as a man his size could, and left. I had ensured our table was in a corner and there was very little light above us. Kinane only had to walk a few feet before disappearing behind a curtain and he was gone. I was prepared to bet that no one in the room noticed. Not while they were busy speculating on the cup size of our bikini-clad lovely as she strode confidently around the ring, holding her sign high, reminding everybody that bloodshed was imminent.
There was a conference room that backed onto the main event room, and Kinane used it to get out of the building unobserved. The lights were out, but he used the light from the streetlamps that shone through the curtains to guide him as he crossed the open, carpeted floor purposefully. He reached the fire door and pushed down on the heavy metal bar, triggering its release. No alarm sounded. It had been disabled in advance and would be reactivated later that evening, on his return. Investigating officers would be able to report that nobody had triggered the alarm that evening and, if they enquired, they would be helpfully presented with last night’s CCTV footage, edited by Palmer’s watchers to include today’s date. The hotel reception was busy that night. Blake had ensured there were four members of staff manning reception and an equal number of glamorous PR girls in the foyer, to meet and greet guests for the fight. That was at least eight people who could testify they did not see a man of Kinane’s memorable bulk leave the event, via the front door. Blake ensured there were witnesses at every other exit; the kitchen was full of chefs, the restaurant packed with diners and, in the underground car park, valets had been employed to assist VIP guests – as well as help Kinane with his alibi.
The only matter left to chance was the fight itself. It was crucial for Kinane that it went the distance. He required enough time to leave the fight, do what needed to be done and return to witness its end. His alibi would be destroyed if the bout ended in a first round knock-out. Phil ‘The Warrior’ Watson’s opponent that night had been carefully chosen, handpicked from a small selection of fighters able to put up a good enough show, but with the kind of punching power that was never likely to trouble a future British and Commonwealth Champion. Watson was fiercely loyal to Kinane and his backer David Blake and, since they weren’t ordering him to lose the fight, only delay its inevitable outcome until the final round, Kinane knew Watson would do what was asked of him. He would dance around his opponent, land a selection of underpowered punches, scoring points in the process, without knocking him through the ropes, and make it look as if he was struggling to finish the man.
Local newspapers might report that the championship contender had underachieved that night, but nobody would get bent out of shape over it, particularly in an exhibition match. Kinane had led Watson to believe it was merely a question of money, and he had nodded like he understood. Watson presumed thousands had been wagered on a tenth round knock-out and assured Kinane that this would be delivered.
Kinane pushed the fire door a little harder, eased it open, stepped through and pulled it almost closed behind him, careful not to shut it entirely. Instead, he dragged a wheelie bin so that it now blocked the door and prevented it from swinging wide open. From a distance it would appear locked, but all he had to do was remove the bin and it would swing open again, enabling him to silently re-enter the building.
Behind Kinane an engine started, and a van drew slowly towards him down the side street and parked by the kerb. His son Chris was at the wheel and Kevin was sitting next to him. Kinane drew back the side door and climbed in, then closed it behind him. He took the bag his third son Peter passed him and unzipped it. He sat on the floor of the van and began to remove his dinner jacket and tie, which went into another bag, keeping it clean for later. Kinane pulled on a set of oversized overalls, then he gave the word to move. The van pulled away from the kerb.
*
Braddock eased the big Mercedes out of the garage and set off on his usual route. It was raining hard now and the roads were slick with it, the street lights reflecting back off shining pavements. He was driving too fast for the conditions, but it wouldn’t have crossed his mind to slow down. Instead, he pressed on towards the city.
Braddock was pissed off. The day had not been a success. He had started to realise that some of his crew were probably too stupid even to make money dealing drugs on the Sunnydale estate and he was perturbed by David Blake’s reaction to their little robbery. He had expected Blake to come straight down there and have it out with him, but it seemed the guy didn’t even have the balls for that, sending messages instead and skirting round the issue. It would soon be time to explain to Blake that he no longer held any influence over Sunnydale. It was Braddock’s territory now and if he could just sort out a regular supply of H from those guys in Liverpool he’d been talking to, then he would be up and running on his own in weeks. Still, he hadn’t expected it was going to be this easy.
Soon Braddock would have exactly what he wanted; complete control. Despite this, his future seemed uncertain now, and he was beginning to wonder who he could really trust in his crew. It left Braddock feeling uneasy. He knew he had been on edge – he had given Suzy a backhander when perhaps he shouldn’t have. True, she had unwisely ignored his command to get him and a couple of the guys some beers but, it had to be admitted, she was a bit out of it on some of that Dutch skunk he’d given her. Demanding for a third time ‘get…us…a…fucking…beer…Suzy!’ he’d lost his rag and clipped her one right across the chops. She recoiled like she’d b
een shot, then scampered straight over to the fridge, dug out three beers, pulled the tops off the bottles, handed them over to the lads and silently crept out of the flat with tears in her eyes.
She hadn’t been seen for a couple of hours. It was the first time he’d cuffed her one and, from her reaction, it was probably the first time she’d been hit by any bloke, but she would have to learn. Suzy got free board and lodging from Braddock and as much dope as she could handle. All he expected her to do in return was screw him and fetch him a beer. Surely that wasn’t too much to ask? A man like Braddock couldn’t be seen walking over to the fridge to fetch beers for guys who worked for him. It sent out the wrong signal. It sent out a worse signal if the girl he was with didn’t do what she was told when she was told.
It looked like she’d actually walked through the Sunnydale estate and away down the road, silly bitch. People would know that Suzy was the latest in a fairly long line of Braddock’s girls so they wouldn’t touch her, but it wasn’t the best neighbourhood for a lass to be walking through on her own. These posh girls could be bloody stupid and he made a note to take up with something a little rougher next time; something that wouldn’t question him, or ignore him, or take exception to a slap when she was clearly bang out of order. Suzy would be back, he was sure of that. She liked a bad boy too much and, realistically, where was she going to go with no job, no money and a one-fifty-a-day coke habit?
The Damage (David Blake 2) Page 28