“How are they?” I said. “The kids?”
“Shook up, but they’ll survive,” said McGovern. He pulled out a kitchen chair and sat, weary and more drawn than I’d ever seen him. “They been asking for Victoria. I told ’em she had to leave in a hurry.” I wondered how many previous employees of McGovern had had to “leave in a hurry.”
“He told me I was working for the Turk,” I said. “Richard, I mean. I think he was planning to pin all of it on me. Kill your family, then me, and tell everyone he’d caught me in the act. Make it look like Trafalgar Square was me setting you up as well.”
“That must have been the Turk’s idea too,” said Steve. “Richard was never the brightest bulb in the box.”
“How long had he been working for you?” I said.
“Seven years, on and off,” said McGovern. “Two inside after a job went wrong. Done his bird, never talked, never complained…I trusted him.” He looked at Steve. “If he’s been working for the Turk all along, that explains a lot.”
“A lot of what?” I said.
McGovern answered me but ignored my question. “Terry’s taking the kids and their mum away to a safe house, a place nobody knows about but me and him. To keep them out of harm’s way till this is over.” His pale eyes drilled into me as if he was trying to figure out my angle, like he couldn’t understand why I’d risked my life to save his children. “Thanks for what you did tonight. And in the square. I owe you.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, and not just from politeness—I didn’t want the Guvnor owing me anything. “I just want to go home.”
“You sure about that?” said McGovern. “When the Turk finds out it was you who stopped Richard, you’ll be better off in here than out there.”
“So don’t tell him,” I said. Just then a thought occurred to me, but I didn’t voice it. If McGovern was willing to consider letting me walk away, I wasn’t going to distract him.
“If I’d let you go last time you asked, my kids would be dead.” McGovern grinned like a wolf. “So let me think about it.” He turned to Terry and sighed. “Search him,” he said.
Terry stepped forward, grabbed the back of my chair, dragged it back and tipped me out of it so I had to stand.
“What the hell—?” I said. Terry’s meaty paws slapped me down: one trouser leg, then the other, and finally he took a good handful of my backside and crotch. “You think I’ve been stealing the spoons or something?” I asked McGovern.
“If Richard was talking to the Turk, he must have had a second phone,” said McGovern. “Have you seen it?”
“Oh yeah,” I said. “Just before he slashed my chest open he ordered a pizza with extra mushrooms.”
“We found his smartphone,” said McGovern. “Nothing on that. So he must have used a burner.”
“If he did, I don’t have it,” I said. “Shall I drop my pants? You can check up my ass.”
McGovern looked like he was considering it. “Leave it,” he said to Terry finally. “Go turn his room over.” He stood up.
“This needs stitches,” I said, pointing to the badly bandaged slash on my chest. “I have to go to the emergency room.”
“No you don’t,” said the Guvnor. “One of the lads is good with a needle and thread. He’ll sort you out. Steve, get Chris onto that.”
Steve nodded, and without another glance at me, McGovern headed off up the corridor.
“Chris?” I said to Steve. “He a nurse or something?”
“Na,” said Steve, taking the seat his father had vacated. “His dad was a vet.”
“Great,” I said. “He can sort out my fleas while he’s at it.”
“I wanted to say sorry,” said Steve. “For everything earlier.” That shut me up. Steve was staring at the table in embarrassment, clearly unaccustomed to apologizing. Then he seemed to realize that was rude, and with an effort he lifted his head and looked me in the eye. “For smacking you about that time, and all the accusations, and waving that gun about…I’ve been a total jerk. You saved the kids, and my dad, and I appreciate it. It was me who shoulda been there, both times, and I wasn’t, and I feel so awful about it, and took it out on you…. Anyway, thanks, sorry.”
“Forget about it,” I said, and this time I meant it. Maybe he wasn’t as big a prat as I’d thought. It must have been hard growing up the shadow of a dad like McGovern, constantly having to prove yourself vicious enough to be worthy of the family name.
“My dad’s grateful too,” Steve went on. “More than he let on. It’s just, things aren’t going our way. If that had gone down tonight…What a fucking savage the Turk is, attacking children.”
I wondered if he could hear what he was saying. Not two days ago McGovern had been demanding information on Pirbal’s family, and it wasn’t because he planned to send them a bouquet. Amobi had told me once how the Guvnor had had enemies and even former friends maimed and raped and blinded—for him there were no innocent bystanders, and no act was too atrocious. That was what had won him his reputation, and had made him untouchable, until now.
Now he had an opponent ruthless enough to play by the same rules, and smart enough to strike first.
“Your dad said Richard’s working for Pirbal explained a lot,” I said. “What was that about?”
Steve glanced at the door to check if anyone there might overhear. “His name’s not Pirbal,” he said at last. “Everything we thought we had on him was wrong. We don’t know who he is, who’s working with him, nothing.”
“What about your contact at the Border Agency?”
“He’s been nicked,” said Steve. He dug a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket, flipped it open and muttered a curse—it was empty. He crushed the box in his hand, kicked his chair back and went wandering round the kitchen, looking for the bin concealed behind one of the dozens of identical exquisite hand-painted cabinets.
“That’s one hell of a coincidence,” I said.
“Two of our contacts in the Met have been busted,” went on Steve. “Another one’s suspended from duty. Our people hit a warehouse he was supposed to have been using—turned out to be an abandoned chicken shed, nothing there. Meanwhile, a truckload of merchandise we were bringing in from Austria got hijacked and burned, driver got his legs broken.” He finally pulled at the right handle and a rubbish bin slid silently out from under the counter. He tossed the empty cig packet in and slammed the door shut again with his knee. “And Gary died,” he said. “My dad and him knew each other since they were kids.”
Gary? Sunburned Gary, who’d been shot in Trafalgar Square? I’d liked him. He’d been helpful and polite and considerate, for a thug.
“I thought he was recovering,” I said.
“He was,” said Steve. “He’s not anymore.”
“If that was the Turk’s lot, how the hell did they get to him? There were cops outside his door.”
Steve shrugged. “You can say it.”
“What?”
“I told you so. You tried to warn us. This Turk is the worst thing to come out of Europe since the frigging Common Market. He turned Richard, shopped our contacts, fed us useless intel. We’ve been fighting in the dark. But now that Richard’s been thwarted—thanks to you—all that’s going to change.”
The thought that had bugged me earlier while I’d spoken to the Guvnor came back to me, and this time I voiced it. “If the Turk got to Richard, how do you know he hasn’t got to anyone else?”
“We don’t,” admitted Steve. “From now on we’re taking nothing for granted.”
“What’s your dad going to do?”
Steve pulled his nose. “Let’s just say we have foreign associates who are very keen to protect their investment. Between them and us, we’re going to send this towelhead back to Crapistan or wherever in two-gram plastic bags. Apart from that—sorry, kid. After tonight, it’s strictly need-to-know.”
Fine by me, I thought. I didn’t need to hear details, and I didn’t want to. I wasn’t running any more erran
ds for the Turk or trying to gather intelligence for Amobi, and I wasn’t going to risk my neck for the Guvnor again. When Steve had mentioned “associates,” I’d guessed he was talking about the Russians, but I said nothing. Sometimes it’s safer to be taken for stupid; I wished I’d remembered that earlier.
“Steve,” I said. “Ask your dad to let me go. I must have done my bit by now. I’m not going to talk to the Turk or the cops. There’s nothing useful I could tell them even if I wanted to.”
Steve studied me and sucked his teeth. “All right,” he said finally. “I’ll see what I can do.”
He strolled out, leaving me alone in the kitchen. I waited a beat, listening to his footsteps fade, then quickly reached under the table, retrieved Richard’s phone and stuffed it down the crotch of my jeans—I wasn’t likely to get frisked again.
When I’d led the Guvnor’s guards to Victoria’s body, still sprawled across Richard’s bed, they’d been too disgusted and upset to notice the cheap flip phone lying on the bedside chest of drawers. But I’d seen it, and immediately knew it must be Richard’s burner, and I’d slipped it into my pocket unnoticed. I’d guessed the Guvnor would tell his people to find it, so when Cherry had left me alone with the first-aid kit I’d stuck it to the underside of the table with surgical tape. It was my insurance policy: if they didn’t let me go, I’d call Amobi to bust me out of there, and if they did…they owed me a phone anyway, since the barmaid at the Horsemonger had trashed my old one.
I had a good idea who’d answer if I pressed redial, but I wasn’t going to do that—I never wanted to talk to the Turk again. I wasn’t even going to switch the phone on until I had to; then I’d make one call and drop it down a drain somewhere.
Steve returned. “My dad says yes,” he said, jerking his chin at me. “Go.”
—
“So how did this happen?” asked the emergency room nurse. He was a bit old for a nurse—fifty-something—with a scruffy graying beard and an Ulster accent like my father’s.
“DIY,” I said. “I was mending a broken window, dropped a piece of glass.”
“At this time of night?” The nurse peered at me over his rimless glasses. “Looks more like a knife cut to me.” I didn’t answer, and he didn’t ask again, but turned to the white metal trolley beside him. “I’ll give you something for the pain,” he said. “Otherwise this will sting a bit. A lot, actually.”
“I’m fine,” I said. “Just get on and do it.”
—
It was five by the time I left the ER and emerged onto the empty street, under an inky blue sky slowly being bleached by the dawn. It had been a long night, but the air was still as hot and motionless and clammy as it had been the day before, and the day ahead promised to be yet another scorcher.
Unknown to the cops at the safe house, Zoe had taken her mobile phone with her into protective custody. For safety’s sake, she kept it switched off, but she’d promised to switch on at six each morning for fifteen minutes so I could contact her if I had to. And now I had to. I punched her mobile number into the keypad of Richard’s burner. I told myself I was calling to let her know I was all right, but deep down I knew that was just an excuse; I wanted to hear her again, however briefly, to remind myself why I’d been going through all this. As the connection clicked through and the ringing tone warbled, I could already imagine her voice in my ear, husky and half asleep. I heard an electronic bleep—she’d picked up.
“Zoe? It’s me, it’s Finn,” I said.
“Hey, Finn,” said a male voice. My mouth went dry and my pulse pounded in my ears.
“We need to meet,” said the Turk.
five
The instructions the Turk gave me were straightforward enough: walk south for five minutes, wait by a certain bus stop outside a burger joint, and give my phone to the guy who turned up to meet me. At this time on a Sunday morning the streets were still half asleep; a few partied-out revelers were shuffling home past traders setting up their stalls for a street market, and the only traffic was a clutch of cyclists in lurid shirts and shades taking advantage of the empty roads to bomb through red lights without even slowing.
I found the burger joint, and through its tinted windows I watched the staff getting ready to open up. A kid my age in a dirt-colored nylon uniform was wiping down tables with pink disinfectant and a rancid gray dishcloth. He had a long sweaty day ahead, I knew, in a boiling kitchen, flogging greasy junk food to ungrateful punters—and for a moment I envied him. Then I remembered Andy, that fake-tanned skid mark I used to work for at Max Snax, and I realized I’d rather be back in Trafalgar Square getting shot at.
In the window’s reflection I saw a white van pull up at the curb behind me. The driver hadn’t been dumb enough to park on the bus stop itself and risk being photographed by twenty-four-hour traffic cameras. It was Dean, I saw now, at the wheel, and when he smirked at me his nicotine-yellow grin seemed more crooked than ever. I smirked back, looking hard at his wonky teeth so he’d know what I was thinking—I did that. He didn’t get out, but merely held out his hand through the driver window. I tossed the phone to him.
“In the back,” he said, as he stripped the handset down.
It was a run-of-the-mill white Ford van, a few years old, the sort a plumber or decorator might use. I glimpsed the ghost of signwriting under the patchy paint job, but I didn’t stop to try and read it: I hauled open the rear door and clambered in. The rear compartment was separated from the front by a plywood board and the floor was bare metal, dented and stained, with nowhere to sit and nothing to hang on to. When Dean abruptly pulled away from the curb, I slid backwards and slammed into the door I had just shut, but luckily both doors held and I didn’t tumble out into the road, as Dean had clearly been hoping I would.
Another mystery tour. The rear windows had been whited out with emulsion at some point, but even though the paint was scratched through in some places, I didn’t bother trying to peer out and track our route; I just leaned up against the steel wall, spread my legs to brace myself against the van’s movement, and tried to figure out what to do next.
Was the Turk looking for vengeance? Because I’d saved the Guvnor from the sniper, and the Guvnor’s kids from Richard? I knew how the Turk repaid anyone foolish enough to oppose him or betray him or just disappoint him, and I wondered if I should have run instead of meekly climbing into this van, but that had never really been an option. If the Turk had Zoe’s phone, he had Zoe too, and if she was still alive, there was a chance we might survive this. Might.
Twenty minutes later the van pulled to the left and stopped, its engine running. I heard a chain rattle and the deep screech of a huge metal roller door being hauled open, and suddenly we were off again, bumping up a short ramp and into a vast building, judging by how the roar of the van’s engine echoed. The ride was smooth and steady—no more potholes: we were in some sort of factory or warehouse with a concrete floor. When the van drew to a halt and the doors were pulled open, I saw a huge barn of a place, with steel pillars supporting a high sloping roof of wrinkled tin, and bare walls lined with wheeled metal hoppers piled high with pulverized metal and plastic. Suspended from the roof gantry were sodium lights the size of dustbins, bathing everything below in cold white.
As I climbed out I noticed the man holding the van door open: I hadn’t seen Kemal close up in a while, but his mustache was still long and bushy and streaked with gray, and his huge muscular hands still glittered with studded rings, worn less for show than for the impression they made when he punched you in the face. His eyes were black and unblinking and cold; when last we’d met I’d split his bald scalp and tried to break his knee, but he looked at me with no emotion, the way a cat’s owner might inspect a flea before cracking it with a thumbnail. He nodded to indicate the way I had to go.
Dean had parked the van with its nose pointing towards a massive metal cube raised on steel stilts, with a conveyor belt running underneath. I thought it was another waste container until I saw how, a
t the top of the cube, the four walls splayed outwards to make a square vertical funnel. Along one side of that funnel ran a metal walkway, and I felt Kemal’s hand in the small of my back shoving me, almost gently, towards the metal staircase that led up to it. I was suddenly reminded of an old engraving I’d seen, of the public gallows that once stood at Marble Arch; of the thousands of ghouls who gathered to stuff their faces with mutton pies and watch men and women being dragged to the scaffold, draped with nooses and dropped through a trap to dance and twitch. I cursed myself inwardly for coming so obligingly to this place, but there was nothing I could do about it now. I wasn’t going to face death sniveling, and if it did come to that, maybe I could take a few of these bastards with me. I grabbed the handrail and took the steps two at a time, aware of Kemal’s heavy tread stomping steadily up behind.
As I’d expected, the Turk was waiting on the walkway, in a cream linen suit and a crisp white shirt that was open at the neck. No bling, no gold teeth, no oversized designer watch; he didn’t need to advertise his status. He had his arms folded, and in the crook of his right elbow lay a young cat with ginger and white fur. The Turk was tickling it behind one ear, for all the world like some cheesy Bond villain, but from what I could see the cat wasn’t happy with its role; it looked desperate to spring from his arms but could see nowhere to go. On one side was a sheer drop to a concrete floor, and on the other the metal funnel gaped, leading downwards, I could see now, to four massive interlocking camshafts of hard, dull steel. This was an industrial grinder, I realized—the sort that could reduce an engine block to shreds of tinfoil in the blink of an eye.
“I wanted to show you something,” said the Turk, without ceremony. I didn’t see him make a signal, but somewhere below a piercing bell rang out, and with a grinding metal roar the machinery underneath us shuddered into life. The four metal camshafts started to spin, each in the opposite direction to its neighbor; raised spurs on the massive metal discs swept towards and past each other, steadily and implacably. Not so fast that they blurred: this machine was all about power, not speed. The Turk glanced down into the massive metal maw and grinned, and with one swift, fluid movement he grabbed the cat by the fur at its neck and tossed it into the funnel.
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