The Stretch (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  Lucero put the security chain on and opened the door. The woman stood there, looking at him as if waiting for him to speak. Lucero stared back at her. He could see his own reflection in the lenses of her sunglasses, She groped in her handbag, and took out a half-dollar bill which she thrust at him. Lucero took it and closed the door.

  He went over to his dressing table and picked up his wallet. He pulled out his Mastercard. Behind it was a piece of paper, folded several times. It was half a dollar bill. He unfolded it and placed it on the dressing table, next to the piece that the woman had given him. They matched. Lucero checked the serial numbers twice to be absolutely sure, then he picked up the holdall, opened the door and gave it to the woman. She walked away without a word and Lucero closed the door. He checked his watch. There were another four hours before his flight. Time for a drink. One of the reasons he used the hotel was because room service had bottled Spanish beer. He hated English beer.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Sam slid into the back of the Lexus and took off her headscarf and sunglasses. McKinley twisted around in his seat. ‘How did it go, Mrs Greene?’

  Sam forced a smile. Her hands were trembling. ‘I thought I was going to pass out,’ she said. ‘God, I was so scared, and all I was doing was collecting a bag.’ She let out a long sigh. ‘But I did it! I bloody well did it!’

  She opened the holdall and took out the GPS computer. ‘How does this thing work, Andy?’

  McKinley started the car and headed out of the hotel car park. ‘Satellites,’ he said.

  Sam took the computer out of its plastic case and looked at it, bemused.

  ‘It can tell its position to within a few feet anywhere in the world. If you lock in co-ordinates, you can find your way back to the exact same spot.’

  ‘New technology,’ said Sam, impressed. ‘Probably Japanese, yeah?’

  ‘American, I think. American military.’

  ‘So the good old US of A is helping drug barons keep tabs on their gear, huh? Funny old world, innit?’

  She lit a cigarette as McKinley drove to where she’d arranged to meet Reg Salmon. Salmon was an old friend of Terry’s and Sam had met him socially more than a dozen times over the past five or six years. It had been a shock to discover from the Filofax that Salmon was more than just a drinking buddy of Terry’s, that he was also a key player in the cannabis importation business. He was in his early fifties, an East End boy made good who lived in a large detached house in Hampshire and who loved country pursuits – hunting, shooting and fishing – and even kept a couple of peregrine falcons which he’d reared from chicks. Sam had never asked her husband where Salmon’s money had come from, and it was only after Terry’s conviction that she realised how naive she’d been. She’d always known that Terry and his friends sailed close to the wind, but that was to be expected considering the nature of some of his businesses – nightclubs, boxing promotion, property development. But she’d always assumed that while they might have bent the odd law, they weren’t actually criminals. Now the veil had been lifted from her eyes and she realised what a fool she’d been.

  McKinley brought the car to a halt. They’d stopped on a road that ran between two fields, the one on the right growing potatoes, the one to her left given over to pasture. Parked in front of them was a green Range Rover, speckled with red mud. ‘Do you want me to come with you, Mrs Greene?’ asked McKinley.

  ‘No, it’s all right, Andy. I won’t be long. I just wish I’d brought my wellies.’

  Sam got out of the Lexus and walked along the road to a wooden gate, the only way in through a barbed wire fence. A rutted path led to a line of trees and she walked down it carrying the holdall, weaving to avoid the many muddy puddles along its length. As she came closer to the line of trees she saw the river where Salmon had said he’d be fishing, and after a couple of minutes she spotted him, sitting on a large wicker basket with a rod in his hands, staring at a luminous orange float bobbing in the water. He was wearing an old Barbour jacket and a tweed cap, his trademark small cigar clamped between his lips. He stood up and waved as he saw Sam approaching.

  ‘Sam, great to see you,’ he said. He took the cigar out of his mouth and kissed her on the cheek.

  ‘Hello, Reg. This is a turn-up for the books, isn’t it?’

  Salmon had the grace to look shamefaced. He shrugged and put the cigar back between his lips. Sam held out the holdall and he took it. He knelt down and opened the holdall and slid out the GPS. He switched it on, checked that it was working, and nodded up at Sam. ‘Terry always gave me . . .’

  Before he could finish, Sam held out an envelope. Salmon grinned and straightened up. He weighed the envelope in his hands but didn’t bother counting the cash it contained. ‘Thanks, Sam. You gonna be there on the night?’

  ‘Wouldn’t miss it for the world, Reg.’ She turned to go, then stopped. ‘How many times have you and Terry done this?’

  ‘A few.’

  ‘Ever go wrong?’

  Salmon put the holdall into the wicker basket. ‘You can reckon on about one in four going pear-shaped,’ he said, ‘but the problems are usually at the Spanish end. Getting ripped off by suppliers, or the Spanish cops boarding the boat before it gets into international waters. Once the stuffs at the bottom of the sea, all we’ve got to do is pick it up. It’s gonna be fine, Sam. Don’t worry.’

  ‘Cheers, Reg.’

  ‘How’s Terry getting on?’

  Sam grimaced. ‘Seems to be okay.’

  ‘He’s gonna appeal, yeah?’

  ‘Sort of.’

  ‘Bloody liberty, the whole thing. Terry’s not a killer.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I never thought of him as a drugs baron, either. See ya, Reg. Be lucky.’

  Sam walked back along the path to the Lexus. McKinley got out and opened the door for her. Sam smiled her thanks and checked her watch as she got into the car. ‘We’re going to have to get a move on, Andy. I’ve got to be at the prison by two.’

  ‘We’ll make it, Mrs Greene,’ said McKinley, getting into the front seat and driving off.

  ‘Seatbelt, Andy,’ said Sam, lighting a cigarette.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  McKinley pulled up outside the prison. Sam took a deep breath. She hated going inside, hated the smell, the noise, the people. ‘I don’t know how long I’ll be, Andy.’

  ‘Take all the time you want, Mrs Greene,’ said McKinley. ‘Give Mr Greene my regards.’

  Sam got out of the Lexus and walked to the small metal door at the side of the large doors that allowed access to vehicles. She had to show the letter authorising her visit, and her passport as identification, and sign against her name on a list attached to a clipboard. She was given a small plastic badge with ‘Visitor’ on it to attach to her jacket.

  She was shown into a waiting room where twenty or so people, mainly women, were sitting on orange plastic chairs. Sam didn’t sit down. She reached into her bag for her pack of cigarettes, but then saw a large ‘No Smoking’ sign and a picture of a cigarette with a thick red line through it just in case she couldn’t read English.

  Another ten people wandered into the waiting room over the next twenty minutes, then they were taken as a group across a courtyard to the visiting room. A sniffer dog, a small black and white Collie with a hyperactive tail, ran back and forth between the visitors. The dog jumped up against a large black woman and started barking furiously at her bag. Two prison officers took an arm each and virtually frogmarched her away despite her protests. The dog followed, yelping happily.

  Before they were admitted to the block containing the visiting area, their names were checked against another list and their belongings were searched by two female officers wearing rubber gloves. Sam waited patiently, though she desperately craved a cigarette.

  When she reached the head of the queue, a bored prison officer asked her for her letter, then looked for her name on his list. He shook his head and tapped his pen against his thin lips.

  ‘Don’t see you
on my list, Mrs Grey.’

  ‘It’s Greene,’ said Sam. ‘Like the colour. With an e.’

  ‘Grey’s a colour.’

  He looked at her blankly and Sam couldn’t tell whether he was being deliberately obtuse, or just stupid. Bearing in mind the prison officers she’d met on previous visits, she was quite prepared to believe the latter. ‘I know grey’s a colour, but my name is Greene,’ she said patiently.

  He handed the letter back to her. ‘You’re not on my list.’

  ‘Well, I was on the list at the main entrance.’

  ‘They have a different list.’

  Sam waved the letter under his nose. ‘What about this? It’s written on prison letterhead, right? It says I have permission to visit, right? With today’s date on it, right?’

  The prison officer stared at her with total disinterest. ‘You’re not on my list,’ he repeated.

  A few of the visitors behind Sam started shouting for them to hurry up. Another uniformed prison officer walked over, his shoes squeaking as if they were new. He had a weasely face and was a good four inches shorter than his colleague.

  ‘What seems to be the problem, Mr Bradshaw?’ he asked.

  ‘This woman’s not on my list, Mr Riggs.’

  Riggs took the clipboard and ran his finger down it. ‘He’s right.’

  ‘How do you know he’s right?’ hissed Sam. ‘You don’t even know who I am.’

  Riggs looked at her through narrowed eyes. ‘You don’t do yourself justice, Mrs Greene. Your husband’s quite the celebrity here.’

  ‘So that’s what this is about, is it? Getting back at Terry by giving me a hard time?’

  Riggs smiled, showing uneven teeth. ‘Come on now, Mrs Greene, we’d hardly be as petty as that, would we?’ He showed her the clipboard. ‘You can see for yourself.’

  ‘I don’t care what your list says. I’ve got a letter confirming today’s visit and I’m damn well going to see my husband.’

  There were more catcalls from behind her but Sam barely heard them, all her attention focused on the man who was denying her access to her husband.

  ‘I could amend the list, of course,’ said Riggs, barely managing to suppress a grin, ‘but there’s a procedure to go through first.’

  ‘A procedure?’

  He nodded over at a woman prison officer standing by a door marked ‘Examination Room’ and shrugged. ‘Drugs are a big problem inside the prison system. Well, of course, you’d know that, being married to a drugs baron.’

  ‘You have got to be joking.’

  The smile vanished from Riggs’ face. ‘It’s up to you, Mrs Greene. No search, no amended list, no visit.’

  Sam swallowed. She wanted to scream at the man, to slap his self-satisfied face, but she knew that there was no way of fighting the system and winning. She forced herself to smile. ‘Sure, why not,’ she said.

  Riggs took her over to the examination room door and the woman prison officer took her inside. There was an examination table covered with a sheet of white paper, a small sink with a wastepaper bin underneath it and a medicine cabinet. On the back of the door was a poster warning of the dangers of Aids.

  The woman prison officer used a wooden spatula to check the inside of Sam’s mouth. ‘Stick out your tongue, please.’ Sam did as she was asked. The woman checked around Sam’s tongue and then nodded. ‘Okay, now take off your clothes.’

  ‘I suppose you get some kick out of this,’ said Sam as she took off her jacket.

  The woman prison officer snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. ‘Oh yes, this is exactly what I told my careers officer I wanted to do with my life.’

  ‘Do I look like I’d been carrying drugs inside my . . . inside myself?’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe who brings what in here, love. Just take off your skirt and pants, lie back and think of England. I won’t be doing anything your gynaecologist hasn’t done a hundred times before.’

  Sam sensed that the woman wasn’t part of the plan to make her life difficult, she was just doing what Riggs had told her to do. She took off her skirt and pants and climbed up on to the table and spread her legs. The woman prison officer inserted a gloved finger between Sam’s legs and probed around.

  ‘If you’re looking for my g-spot, it’s about another inch in,’ said Sam.

  The woman police officer chuckled. ‘You’ve no idea how many times I’ve heard that one,’ she said. She withdrew her finger.

  ‘Are we done?’

  ‘Just one more check.’

  Sam tensed as she realised what the woman meant. ‘Oh no. Come on.’

  ‘I’m just following the rules, love. Believe me, I get no more pleasure out of this than you do. Close your eyes, it’ll be over before you know it.’

  Sam gritted her teeth and the woman inserted a finger inside her rectum, probed once, and then slid it out.

  ‘All done,’ she said. ‘There’s paper towels by the sink.’

  ‘Thanks,’ said Sam, fighting back tears of embarrassment and rage. ‘Thanks a million.’

  Terry was sitting at the same corner table he’d been at the last time she visited. He stood up as he saw her walking across the visiting room. ‘Hello, love,’ he said and tried to give her a kiss on the cheek.

  Sam pushed him away and sat down, crossing her legs away from him.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  Sam glowered at him. ‘They fucking strip searched me, Terry.’

  ‘Oh God. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Pushed and probed me like I was a piece of meat. What’s going on?’

  Terry reached over and took her hand. ‘Are you okay?’

  Sam pulled her hand away. She didn’t want Terry touching her. She didn’t want anyone touching her, ever again. ‘No. I’m not okay. I’m so far from okay that you’d need a fucking map to find it from where I am.’

  To her left was an old couple, the man in his seventies in ill-fitting prison denims and a red vest that was several times too big for him. He had lined parchment skin and deep-set eyes that made his head look more like a gleaming skull. His wife was probably in her mid-sixties, about twice his size, plump and matronly, wearing a big woollen coat and a hat with a huge brown plastic handbag that she clutched in her lap with both hands. Sam could see that her fingernails were bitten to the quick. They sat in silence, occasionally looking at each other and smiling. Sam wondered if that was what lay ahead of her and her husband. Years of visits until there was nothing left to say, just a shared silence and single beds. She shivered.

  ‘Are you cold?’ asked Terry.

  Sam shook her head.

  Terry leaned forward, the concern clear on his face. ‘There’s a guy in here got it in for me, love. Guy called Riggs.’

  ‘Chief Prison Officer? Yeah, he was there. Said my name wasn’t on the list. Bastard.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Will you stop saying “sorry”, Terry, it doesn’t make me feel any better.’ She looked around the visiting room. At the far end a prisoner barely out of his teens was sobbing while his girlfriend or wife sat back in her chair, arms crossed defensively, a frown on her face. Children were running around and playing, while prison officers walked up and down, eyes forever on the move, looking for contraband. ‘Christ, I wish I was a million miles away from here.’

  ‘You and me both, love.’

  Riggs walked into the room and sat at a table by the door, glaring at Terry. Terry smiled broadly and gave him a small wave. ‘I’ll fucking have you when I get out of here,’ he said under his breath, still smiling.

  Sam turned to see who he was looking at. When she saw that it was Riggs, she turned and scowled at Terry. ‘Will you stop winning friends and influencing people? It’s no wonder they’re giving you a hard time.’

  Terry raised his hands in surrender and settled back in his plastic chair.

  ‘And don’t say “sorry” again, Terry. All right?’

  ‘All right.’

  They sat in silence for a while, t
hen Terry leaned forward. ‘Everything’s fixed up, yeah?’

  Sam gave Terry a long, hard look. ‘You’re a bastard, Terry Greene.’

  ‘Love . . .’

  ‘Don’t “love” me. Getting me to do your dirty work.’ She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. ‘The stuff was dropped off as arranged. I picked up the GPS gizmo from the hotel and gave it to Reg Salmon. I’m meeting Kay and the rest tomorrow.’

  ‘Be careful with them, yeah? You’ve got to show them who’s boss.’

  ‘But I’m not their boss, Terry. I’m a wife and mother, not a bloody gang leader.’

  ‘You mustn’t show weakness, love. They’ll turn on you.’

  Sam sighed and nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll be okay.’ She put a hand up to her forehead. ‘I can’t believe you’ve got me doing this for you.’

  ‘Who else could I trust?’

  ‘I’m not doing the counterfeit thing, Terry. I’ll do this for you, but that’s it.’ Terry tried to hold her hand but she pulled it away. ‘I mean it.’

  ‘I know you do.’ He put his hands on the table and interlinked his fingers. ‘Andy McKinley’s taking care of you, yeah?’

  Sam nodded. ‘He’s a good guy.’

  ‘Yeah. He’s solid. None too bright, though.’

  ‘Kay said that. Andy’s not stupid, Terry. If anyone’s stupid, it’s me.’

  Terry smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Has Laura been to see you?’

  ‘Not yet. I sent a request form. Takes time.’

  A small boy fell at Sam’s feet and she bent down and picked him up. He twisted out of her grip and ran back to his mother, crying.

  ‘Remember how Laura was always trying to run before she could walk?’ said Terry. ‘Always falling over. But never cried. Tough kid.’

  ‘Toughness isn’t always a virtue, Terry.’

  Sam watched as the mother picked up the boy and cradled him against her, whispering into his ear as her prisoner husband looked on anxiously. She turned back to look at Terry. ‘Did you do it, Terry?’

  Terry held her look. Then he slowly shook his head. His eyes never left hers. ‘No,’ he said. ‘No, love, I didn’t.’