by Echo Freer
BOREHAM’S BANK, ST JAMES’S SQ. SW1
Oh dear God! She was aware that she’d stopped breathing. The alarm bells in her head were sounding the red alert. The pieces were falling into place and a horrible picture was beginning to emerge: the dodgy geezers who ran the Terra Firma, Spinks going to hijack the blag, Chubby the named driver, Nick the Bubble supplying the hardware! Try as she might to think of a legitimate explanation, the appalling reality was beginning to reveal itself like toxic waste appearing through a mushroom cloud of deceit.
Quickly she folded up the drawing and opened up the last one. Again, it was of the basement of the bank but this time showing the electrical circuits and alarm systems. Her worst fears were confirmed: her brothers were planning a robbery and it was at none other than the bank where she was working.
Eight
All these years Mercedes had thought that Harry Spinks and his dirty dealings had been the cause of her father’s death: she’d assumed that he had somehow tried to extort money from the family firm and the stress had caused her dad’s heart attack. At least, she’d prided herself, her family were honest upstanding citizens and weren’t villains like the Spinks, who deserved all they got. But here, staring her in the face, was incontrovertible evidence to the contrary. This was just too awful.
And who else was privy to what appeared to be the underworld’s worst-kept secret? She bit her lip nervously. Harry Spinks obviously knew, but what about his daughter? Was that what her mysterious comment the previous week had been about when she’d said that Mercedes’ brothers wished Harry Spinks would go down? It was all starting to make horrible sense. And Uncle Horace’s long absences - not, as Mercedes had gullibly thought, off making money on the oil fields of Kuwait but more than likely stirring porridge at Her Majesty’s pleasure. Now she came to think of it, she’d overheard her own father threatening to send someone down for a long stretch, just before he’d died.
A wave of fury enveloped her! How could they? She knew that, as far as school was concerned, she wasn’t exactly Ms Goody-two-shoes herself but at least she only stretched the rules a bit and even when they got distorted totally out of shape, like running the sweepstakes, it was all in a good cause. But bank robbery! You weren’t talking petty misdemeanours here; this was hard-core criminal activity! And at her bank too! Her bank! She felt ridiculously protective all of a sudden. Hadn’t her brothers thought about her in all this? Had no one thought to mention the fact - oh by the way, sis, that work experience placement of yours is going to be done over! Although, if she really thought about it, no one had actually asked her where her placement was; she could’ve been behind the counter in their local NatWest for all they knew. Sitting round the breakfast table, having cosy family chats over the cornflakes had never been high on the Bent list of priorities.
The more she thought about it, the more angry she felt. This had all sorts of connotations. If they got caught (which must be at least an evens chance), Mercedes herself couldn’t help but be implicated. The Old Bill were sure to think that she’d got her placement there deliberately so that she could have access to inside information. And what about Zak? He’d be under suspicion too. What a nightmare! She’d have to stop seeing him. She’d have to leave the bank (although, despite her sudden burst of indignation at the thought of the robbery, that might definitely be a plus).
But the prospect of not seeing Zak again was the worst thing. Even if she met him coincidentally in the High Street she’d either have to avoid him forever or try to explain about her sudden departure. Everything was suddenly so complicated. It was going to require some serious brain pumping if she was going to find a way through this, and the first thing she needed to do was to cover her tracks and restore Frankie’s office to the state it had been in before she went in there. She folded up the circuit plan, placed it at the back of the folder and put the folder back on the desk covering the edge of Paige’s security blanket. Then she went to the kitchen, took one of the cloths from under the sink and wiped every surface she’d touched - just in case.
She shut the door just as the house phone rang.
‘You all right, Merce?’ It was Nanny Bent, back from Spain the previous day, and she sounded concerned.
‘Fine,’ Mercedes replied, trying to steady the nervousness in her voice.
‘Only you don’t sound yourself, darlin’.’
‘No, I’m fine, really. Paige was quite difficult to get off to sleep and I’m a bit tired after work, that’s all.’
‘Only some boy’s been round ’ere asking after you.’
Some boy? Mercedes thought her heart would burst out of her rib cage it was beating so hard. ‘What boy?’
‘Let me get my glasses, darlin’.’ There was a pause that seemed like a year while Nanny Molly scrabbled through her bag. ‘Nice lad, ’e was. Left ’is new phone number. Said ’is old phone got half inched. ’Ere we are. Let’s have a look - Zak. That’s it. I knew it was something a bit different. ’E wanted to know where you was babysitting...’
‘You didn’t tell him, did you?’ Mercedes cut in. She knew that Zak lived in the same road as her brother, the last thing she wanted was for him to turn up and recognise Frankie’s house as that of the club owner.
‘Course not, darlin’. What d’you think I’m like? ’E gave me his number, though. Do you want me to give it to you?’
There was a huge part of Mercedes that wanted his number as much as David Beckham wanted to play football and yet this couldn’t be a worse time. ‘Put it by the phone will you, Nan, and I’ll get it when I get home.’
‘You ain’t half sounding out of sorts, love. Tell you what, I’ll call meself a minicab and come round there, then you can come home and I’ll stay and look after the nippers. How’s that sound?’
It sounded like bliss. ‘Thanks Nan, I could do with an early night.’
Once back home, Mercedes put Zak’s new number straight into her phone and sent him a text message:
Meet me @ Starbucks @ 8.15 2moro mornin.
Now, she just had the knotty little problem of the robbery to sort out.
‘I ain’t going back there!’ Harley Spinks threw her tennis racquet across the floodlit tennis court in the garden of her house in Chigwell, then kicked the ball in the same direction.
Her father removed his glasses and wiped his forehead wearily. ‘Swede ’art, swede ’art...’ His heavy London accent made the term ‘sweetheart’ sound more like Scandinavian painting-by-root-vegetable. ‘I thought you wanted to do your work experience at the tennis club.’
‘Well I don’t!’
In any other circumstance, Harry Spinks was as hard as coffin nails but, around his only child, he became as malleable as Semtex. ‘Darlin’ - you only done one day. You gotta give these things a chance.’
‘Well I ain’t gonna!’ She stared at her father, challenging him to disagree. ‘I spent all poxy morning watching fat old biddies with bingo arms flirting with Sergio and then ’e expects me to go round picking up their balls. And then I was all afternoon in some poxy school running round picking up more balls for snotty nosed little brats.’ She sent another tennis ball flying against the wire netting that surrounded the court. ‘I ain’t goin’ back, Dad, and that’s that!’
‘Razor!’ Harry sighed and called his dog over. ‘Fetch, boy!’ he said, pointing to the tennis balls.
Razor was another of Harry’s weak spots. When, five years earlier, one of his enforcers had reported that a pub landlord was unable to come up with his ‘insurance’ payment that week but had offered Harry the pick of the litter from his prize Rottweiler in lieu, Harry had agreed. The then ten-year-old Harley had been wanting a pet for some time and this seemed too good an opportunity to miss; fulfilling his daughter’s wishes and providing himself with a guard dog at the same time. What no one realised, however, was that the landlord’s pedigree bitch, Roxy,
had had an illicit rendezvous with Pierre the standard poodle from next door. As Razor grew it became increasingly obvious that the only features he’d inherited from Roxy had been her tan coat - and even that had been reduced to a peachy-beige when crossed with Pierre’s curly white fur. But, like the Emperor’s new clothes, no one ever mentioned the fact. Ever since Eric ‘Hardman’ Watson, now known as Eric ‘Harmless’ Watson, had referred to Razor as ‘that strawberry blond teddy bear ’, the word on the street was that Razor was a Rottweiler - or else!
‘Fetch it, go on! Fetch, boy!’ Razor disappeared in the opposite direction and Harry walked over and picked up the two balls. ‘You want me to talk to Sergio and get him to cancel ’is other clients? What do you want me to do about it, swede ’art? Just tell me.’
‘I want a proper job.’
‘You got a proper job, darlin’.’
‘No - I’ve got the sort of job that morons do to earn pocket money. I want a job where I can wear proper clothes and work with proper people who don’t have either flappy underarms or snivelling noses.’
Harry walked over to the electric ball-feeder machine and dropped the two tennis balls into the metal basket at the back. ‘You gotta help me out here, darlin’. Tell me what you want and I’ll sort it, OK?’
‘I want a job like that Bent cow’s got. She gets to go up West and everything.’
Harry Spinks stiffened at the mention of the name Bent. ‘ ’Ow long you two been mates then?’
Harley almost choked on the gum she was chewing. ‘She ain’t no flamin’ mate of mine!’ Her father seemed relieved. ‘I said I wanted a job like hers: I didn’t say I wanted to work with her.’ She cocked her head on one side and adopted a look that was as near to wistful as she could manage. ‘Cynthia says she’s seen ’er on the Tube all tarted up like one of them computers what works in the city.’
‘Commuters, swede ’art. The word’s commuters.’
Harley put her trainer against the wire mesh of the tennis feeder and kicked it over, sending fifty balls rolling across the asphalt. ‘I want you to sort me out a decent job not give me flamin’ English lessons.’
Harry bent down and began picking up the balls. ‘No need to get upset, swede ’art. Just tell me where she’s working and I’ll sort it.’
‘I told you - I don’t want to be where she is. She’s in some bank or other; Bashem’s or Bonham’s or something. I don’t want to do nothing like that.’
Harry straightened up. ‘You don’t mean Boreham’s?’
‘Something like that but I’ve just said...’
‘Hold on, darlin’, hold on.’ Harry’s mind was in overdrive. So the Bent brothers were making this a family affair, were they? Obviously putting their little blister in there to get information. And from what he’d heard she’d got more brain cells than her two brothers put together - not that that was saying much. They were hardly the dynamic duo. In fact, since Big Al had died, Harry thought he could say, with some degree of confidence, that the Bents had never really challenged him for supremacy in East London. It’d been a good move, coming over the river. He’d never looked back. His empire ran the length of the District Line from Aldgate to East Ham and he had a finger in just about every pub, club, gym and snooker hall along the way.
Although he had to admit he was not well pleased that the Bents had gone into his manor and got their grubby little mitts on the Terra Firma. He was not pleased at all. That was a nice showcase that attracted punters from the literati and glitterati across London. Of course Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber went around lording it because they thought it gave them some sort of credibility amongst the toffs and boffs. As if! No, they should’ve stuck to their own patch.
After all, look how good he’d been to them. He could put his hand on his offshore bank balance and say in all honesty (well, when Harry said honesty he was meaning it to be taken in its broadest sense), that he’d been very respectful after Big Al had died. He’d dropped his bid to take over his old adversary’s territory along the Central Line and had more or less allowed his boys a free rein. After all, Harry’s dad, Gaffer Spinks, was old enough to remember the old days when gang warfare had all but ruined the profession. No one won in the end. So, Harry had been magnanimous towards the Bents; live and let live was his motto - within reason obviously; with maybe a little bit of maiming - just to keep people on their toes. Harry liked to think of it as his contribution to charity work.
But the Bent boys had overstepped the mark when they took over the Terra Firma. So, Harry had decided, as soon as he’d got the information on the Boreham’s blag; no more Mr Nice-guy Spinks! In fact, he’d convinced himself, they deserved to get stitched up. They’d brought it on themselves - practically begging to be done over, they were. In fact, it would have been a crime to ignore their pleas.
Now, though, he was unsettled. The girl put a different complexion on things. Although, he mused, maybe they’d got a point. The Gaffer had trained Harry up as soon as he was into long trousers so why shouldn’t the Bents bring their little sister in on the job? Harry looked across the tennis court to where his own daughter was glowering at him with a face like a volcano on the point of eruption. He knew he was a bit overprotective with her sometimes, so maybe it would do her good to start working for the firm.
He smiled, fondly. ‘Tell you what, darlin’, ’ow d’you fancy learning the ropes with your old dad?’
‘Work with you?’ Harley looked as though she would be sick any moment.
‘No, no, no. Not, strictly speaking, with me.’ Even Harry could see that that might stretch his paternal instincts to the limit. ‘With Rita. Up at the office in Wardour Street.’
His daughter paused, suspiciously. ‘Doing what?’
‘Personnel management.’ Harley looked more interested.
‘Rita’s my right-hand woman; gives the lads their work, keeps tabs on things, goes round and does spot checks - that sort of thing. You could get an overview of the business.’
There was a short silence while she weighed up the situation. ‘Do I get to wear proper business clothes?’
‘Course you do, swede ’art. I’ll get Rita to take you out tomorrow and buy you whatever you want.’
‘And do I get to go on the Tube? I don’t want you driving me up there.’
‘Course, darlin’.’
‘But I want you to drive me to Snaresbrook station. I don’t want to go from here. The cow might not see me, if I go from here.’
‘No problem, princess.’ Harry put his arm round his daughter’s shoulders and they walked back towards the house together.
‘And,’ Harley said, ‘I don’t want to have tennis lessons any more.’
‘You don’t have to, my angel.’
‘And I want Sergio sacked from the club. He had no right to treat me that way.’
Harry sighed, heavily. ‘Course ’e didn’t, my precious.’
But even Harry had to admit that sacking seemed a bit steep. He’d have a word with Sergio tomorrow and just ask him to keep a low profile for a few weeks. If past form was anything to go on, Harley would change her mind in about a week’s time. Meanwhile, he’d let her settle in with Rita for a couple of days and then work on building a friendship between her and the Bent girl: see what information she could wheedle out of her about the blag.
Frankie cupped his brandy glass and swilled the contents round with mesmerising menace. Cheryl, Kelly and Kev’s girlfriend, Leonie, had left the room but Frankie still seemed irritated by their distant laughter as it drifted through from the kitchen. The four men; himself, Chubby, Tone and Kev, stared at the crumb-strewn table and what remained of Tone’s thirtieth birthday cake.
Without taking his eyes from the circling liquid Frankie spoke. ‘You put us in a very dodgy situation today, bruv. Very dodgy.’
‘It was an emergency, Frankie
, honest.’
Silence pervaded the dinner table. It was as though, when the women had left, the detonator had been pressed and the other three men were simply waiting for the explosion.
‘A new building inspector’d turned up and Gary didn’t know...’ Chubby continued.
‘Whose name is on the deeds, Chub?’ Frankie interrupted quietly.
‘James Squires,’ his brother answered meekly.
‘And who is James Squires?’
‘ ’E don’t exist except on paper.’
‘And why is that, bruv?’
‘So ’e can’t be traced.’
Frankie took a slug of the spirit and placed his glass on the table. He looked round the faces and nodded slowly. ‘So far, so good. Now, who’s doing the conversion work for our non-existent Mr James Squires?’
‘ABC Limited, bruv.’
Frankie nodded again. ‘I know you wasn’t exactly Einstein at school, Chubs, but just humour me on this and try to remember what ABC stands for.’
Chubby sighed. ‘Anonymous Building Contractors.’
‘And that would be because?’
‘Because we don’t want anything what could link Bent Enterprises with the blag.’
‘So,’ Frankie took another swig of his brandy, ‘maybe you could explain to me and the lads why, when we’re bustin’ a gut to keep our ’eads down, you go swanning in there like Father flippin’ Christmas, handing them evidence like spending time in the clink was the next best thing to a weekend at the Ritz?’