‘What are you saying, Micky?’
‘They’re dragging their feet. The builders. The utility companies. The Spanish bureaucrats.’
‘So no cashflow?’
‘If I said there’s light at the end of the tunnel, I’d be lying, Sam. But we’re thinking about changing the design, making them top-end apartments. Marbella is attracting the high-rollers again, we could make a killing.’
‘When?’
Fox shrugged carelessly. ‘Mañana,’ he said in a bad imitation of a Spanish accent. ‘Terry been asking about his investment?’
‘Doesn’t sound like much of an investment to me.’
‘It’ll come good eventually, Sam. But you can tell Terry I could put something else his way, if he’s interested.’
‘That’s nice of you, Micky, but Terry’s set on retiring.’
Fox laughed. ‘Terry Greene settling for a pipe and slippers?’
‘I’m serious, Micky,’ said Sam. ‘He means it.’
Fox stopped laughing, not wanting to offend Sam. ‘What are you drinking, Sam?’
‘Something cold and non-alcoholic,’ she said.
‘Orange juice? They grow ‘em down the road. They were hanging on trees this morning.’
‘Sounds great, Micky. Thanks.’
Fox shouted over at Pablo, who was swimming lengths in a slow, relaxed breaststroke. Pablo waved and swam to the side.
‘The cars are ready, yeah?’ said Sam.
‘Will be by tonight,’ said Fox.
‘I want a look-see, okay?’
‘Sure, Sam. Wouldn’t have expected otherwise.’
Pablo padded over, carrying a tray on which was balanced a jug of iced orange juice and a glass. He put the tray down on a table next to Sam’s lounger. Sam and Micky said nothing as Pablo poured orange juice into the glass.
‘What are you doing out here, Micky?’ asked Sam as Pablo walked back to the pool. ‘I don’t see this being your scene.’
‘Pablo, you mean? He’s a bit gauche but he’s got a lovely arse.’
‘I meant the Costa del Crime. I assume there’s Pablos all over the world.’ She gestured at the villa. ‘Don’t get me wrong, this is nice, but it’s not London, is it?’
Fox gulped his champagne, then wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. ‘Something rotten in the state of Denmark,’ he said.
Sam frowned.
‘That cannabis bust,’ explained Fox. ‘Someone grassed. I couldn’t take the risk of staying. Not until we know who the rotten apple is. Fact is, Sam, I’m surprised you’re hanging around there. You never know when the other foot’s gonna fall, do you? Tell Terry to watch his back as well, yeah?’
Sam shrugged. ‘I figured if they were going to pull us in, they’d have done it already.’ She sipped her orange juice.
Fox leaned over conspiratorially. ‘I meant what I said about putting something Terry’s way,’ he said. ‘There’s a Russian guy here who can get us gear from Afghanistan. Good stuff.’
Sam put her glass back on the table. ‘Heroin?’ she said. ‘Give me a break, Micky. All I’m doing here is putting the finishing touches to Terry’s counterfeit thing.’
Fox sighed and loosened his robe. ‘It’s where the real money is, Sam,’ he said. ‘Tell Terry if he needs a sweet deal . . .’
Sam gave Fox a hard look and he shrugged and stopped talking.
‘Tell you what, Micky. Let me have a shower and a lie down, then you can take me to dinner, okay?’
‘Sure thing, Sam. What do you feel like?’
‘Oh, I don’t know, Micky. What about Spanish?’
∗ ∗ ∗
Micky Fox had the good grace not to mention heroin again during dinner. He took Sam to a seafood restaurant, high up on a peninsular overlooking the sea, where he was clearly a regular customer. The maître d’ greeted him like an old friend, and as they were escorted to their table Sam saw a photograph of Fox and several other London faces sitting at a table raising champagne glasses.
Sam let Fox order, and he chose lobsters and more champagne. Sam wondered why men always ate lobster when they wanted to impress. Warwick Locke had done the same when she’d gone to see him about Terry’s share of the model agency. There was something primeval about the way they pulled the crustacean apart, cracking the shell and sucking out the meat. Terry had never liked lobster. He always said that they were nothing more than big insects that happened to live in the sea, and that if they weren’t so expensive no one would ever eat them.
After the meal, and more handshakes and pats on the back from the maître d’, Fox drove them to a garage on the outskirts of the city. Inside, two Spanish mechanics were packing black plastic-covered packages into the wings of two large Mercedes saloons.
Fox picked up one of the brick-sized packages and took a small silver penknife from his jacket pocket. He cut a slit in the black plastic and handed the package to Sam. It was full of brand new fifty-pound notes. Sam pulled one out and gave the package back to Fox. She held the note up to a light. It looked perfect in every detail, including the silver foil strip and watermark. She whistled softly. ‘Bloody hell, Micky. These are good.’
‘The best,’ said Fox, tossing the package to one of the mechanics.
‘Thing is, I can’t work out why I had to fly over with a briefcase full of real money to pay off the drivers and the rest.’ She held up the counterfeit note. ‘Why didn’t we just give them these?’
Fox laughed. ‘Sam, they’re not going to go through all this for funny money. They want real readies.’
Sam smiled ruefully. ‘I obviously don’t have a criminal mind,’ she said. ‘Where did you get them?’
‘Russian guy.’ He smiled. ‘Not the heroin guy, don’t worry. This guy’s former KGB. He used to make counterfeits for the Russian government. Stole a bunch of plates when the wall came down. Now he’s freelance.’
‘And why take them to the UK? Why not just change them here?’
‘No one really checks notes in the UK. They might do what you just did, give them a quick squint, but they don’t really check them. Here it’s foreign currency, so they give them a good going over. And they’re good, but they’re still counterfeit.’ He walked over to one of the cars and peered over the shoulder of the man who was packing notes into the panels. ‘Besides, we don’t want to shit on our own doorstep, right?’
‘Your doorstep, Micky.’
‘For the time being, yeah.’ Fox gave the mechanic a thumbs-up and said something in Spanish. The man laughed and Fox patted him on the shoulder. ‘You’ll stay in the villa tonight, Sam?’ he asked.
‘Sure.’
‘We’ll try to keep the noise down,’ said Fox with a grin.
‘Don’t hold yourself back on my account, Micky,’ laughed Sam.
∗ ∗ ∗
Terry flicked through the channels of the large-screen TV, idly looking for something to watch. He’d just settled down to watch football on Sky Sport when he heard a key in the front door. He hit the mute button on the remote control then stood up and went over to the sitting-room door. He put his ear against it and frowned as he listened. He heard voices. Trisha, and a man’s voice.
‘She’ll be asleep but keep quiet, yeah?’ Trisha said. Then she giggled.
Terry eased open the door. Trisha was in the hallway, closing the front door. A teenage boy in a tight white T-shirt and military-style trousers was running his hands through Trisha’s long, blonde hair. Trisha locked the door and they headed for the stairs. They both jumped with fright when they saw Terry leaning in the doorway, his arms folded across his chest.
‘What the hell are you doing here?’ asked Trisha defiantly.
‘Babysitting,’ said Terry quietly.
‘Where’s Mum?’
‘Out running errands.’
‘It’s nearly midnight.’
Terry smiled. ‘Isn’t it just.’ He peered at Trisha’s eyes. The pupils were dilated and the whites were tinged with red. ‘Have you been
drinking?’ He walked towards her and she moved to get around him. Terry was too quick for her and he grabbed her by the shoulders.
‘I’m going to bed,’ she said.
‘What are you on, Trish?’
‘Nothing.’
‘It’s nothing,’ said the boy.
Terry looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. His skin was almost as soft and pink as Trisha’s, and it looked as if he didn’t have to shave more than once a week. He had grey eyes, and like Trisha the pupils were dilated and seemed to be having trouble focusing. He had a small gold earring in his left ear. Terry reached over, grabbed the earring and pulled it, hard. Blood spurted from the boy’s earlobe and he screamed.
‘Fucking hell!’ he shouted.
‘Ken!’ shouted Trisha.
Ken took his hand away from his ear and stared at the blood on it. ‘I’m bleeding!’ he said.
‘Better get off home, then,’ said Terry. ‘Let Mummy have a look at it.’ He tossed the earring at Ken’s face.
‘You can’t do that!’ yelled Trisha. ‘I’m not a baby!’
‘Then stop acting like one. Get up those stairs, now!’ Terry turned to Ken, who was holding his ear, the colour draining from his face. ‘Close the door on your way out, Ken. And don’t get blood on the rug.’
Terry followed Trisha up the stairs and bundled her into the bathroom.
‘You can’t do this to me!’ she said.
‘I’m your father.’
‘Only genetically,’ she said.
Terry pushed her into the shower cubicle fully clothed and turned on the cold tap. She started crying and bent double under the torrent of cold water. ‘This isn’t fair,’ she sobbed.
Terry closed the cubicle door and waited until Trisha was soaking wet, then he opened the door and handed her a towel. ‘Downstairs,’ he said. ‘I’ll make you hot chocolate.’
Terry went downstairs. Ken had gone. Terry went to the kitchen and boiled milk and made two mugs of hot chocolate. He was stirring them when Trisha appeared wearing a bathrobe.
‘You’ve no right to be here,’ she said.
‘The mortgage is in my name. And I pay the bills.’ He handed her one of the mugs and she took it, reluctantly. ‘Sit down, Trish.’
Trisha did as she was told, but she refused to look at her father. ‘Does Mum know you’re here?’
‘Yes, Mum knows I’m here.’ Terry sat down opposite her. ‘What is it, Trisha? Ecstasy? Dope? Speed? What did that little shit give you?’
‘No one calls it ecstasy any more. It’s E, and I had one tablet. It’s nothing.’
‘You’ve got school tomorrow.’
She lifted her head and looked at him. ‘So if it was Friday, it’d be okay?’ she sneered.
‘That’s not what I meant and you know it. How do you think your mum’d feel if she knew?’
‘How do you think she felt when the papers were calling you London’s biggest drugs dealer?’ she retorted angrily. ‘How do you think she felt about that? And what about when you were sent down? If anyone’s let this family down, it’s not me.’
Terry looked at his daughter for several seconds. She was staring at him with a mixture of anger and hatred, and he realised for the first time how much he’d hurt her. He wanted to reach over and hug her, to hold her and tell her that he was sorry, but he could see in her eyes that she was in no mood to be mollified. ‘I do what I do to keep this family together,’ he said.
Trisha’s face contorted with anger. ‘You left us, Dad! You didn’t keep us together, you broke us apart. What fucking planet are you living on?’
Terry pointed a finger at her. ‘Hey!’ he shouted.
‘Don’t tell me to mind my language!’ she yelled. ‘Don’t you dare tell me to mind my language!’
Terry said nothing. Trisha grabbed her mug with shaking hands and raised it to her lips. She sipped her hot chocolate slowly and gradually her hands stopped trembling. She put down her mug. There was a choco-latey moustache on her upper lip and Terry put out a hand to wipe it away. Trisha flinched and Terry took his hand back.
‘You’ve got chocolate,’ he said. ‘On your lip.’
She wiped it away with her hand. ‘Thanks.’
‘Is it okay? The chocolate?’
‘I guess. Mum makes it better. But this is okay. Thanks.’
Terry watched her take another sip of hot chocolate. ‘Why drugs, Trisha? Why do you need them?’
Trisha shrugged. ‘Why do you drink? Why does Mum smoke?’
‘That’s not the same.’
‘Says you.’
‘It’s not just me.’
‘Dad, you can count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who’ve died from ecstasy. Yet cigarettes kill hundreds of thousand every year. Cancer. Heart attacks. You don’t see them banned, do you? Thousands of road deaths caused by drunk drivers. But booze isn’t banned. How many times have you driven home drunk?’
‘I have people drive me, Trisha. I don’t drink and drive.’
Trisha looked away as if she didn’t want to argue with him.
‘I don’t understand what you get from ecstasy, though. Why do you need it?’
‘It makes me feel good, Dad. That’s all. You feel . . . different. More confident. Happier.’ She looked suddenly serious. ‘I’m not an addict, Dad.’
‘I know. I know you’re not.’
‘And I can handle it. It’s not a hard drug.’
Terry could feel that he was losing the argument.
‘Anyway, it’s a bit like the pot calling the kettle black, isn’t it?’ she said. ‘Considering.’
‘Considering what?’
‘Considering how you earn your money.’
Terry stood up. ‘Bed,’ he said.
Trisha grinned in triumph. ‘You don’t have an answer to that, do you?’
‘I don’t want an argument, Trisha,’ said Terry.
‘No, you don’t want to lose an argument,’ said Trisha. ‘There’s a difference.’
Terry walked out of the kitchen and back into the sitting room. He sat down in front of the television and turned up the volume.
∗ ∗ ∗
Sam arrived at Heathrow just after midday. Andy McKinley was waiting to meet her. He took her bag and walked with her to the multi-storey car park. ‘Terry says he’s sorry he can’t be here to meet you himself, Mrs Greene,’ said McKinley. ‘Said he had some business to take care of.’
‘Like what?’ asked Sam.
McKinley shrugged but didn’t answer.
‘Hear no evil, see no evil?’ teased Sam.
‘He honestly didn’t say, Mrs Greene.’
‘But if he had said, would you have told me?’
McKinley looked uncomfortable. ‘That’s not a fair question to ask me,’ he said.
‘And that’s you being evasive, as usual,’ said Sam.
McKinley screwed up his face as if he were in pain, and Sam linked her arm through his.
‘I’m only teasing you, Andy. I’m sorry. I’m sure my dear darling husband is behaving himself.’
McKinley looked across at her and Sam burst out laughing at the look of incredulity on his face. ‘Teasing again,’ said Sam. ‘Sorry.’
∗ ∗ ∗
Kim Fletcher swung the cricket bat along the shelf, and dozens of bottles of white wine crashed to the floor. ‘You just haven’t got the message, have you?’ he shouted. He swung the bat again and smashed a display of magnums of champagne.
The owner of the off-licence pleaded with Fletcher to stop. He was an Indian in his late forties, his black hair flecked with grey, his moustache almost white, and he bore a passing resemblance to a young Omar Sharif. Fletcher had remarked on the resemblance, and had just asked the man if he was related to the filmstar, when Roger Pike and Johnny Russell had grabbed his arms and Fletcher had started to demolish the shop.
Steve Ryser popped the tab on a can of strong cider and helped himself to a packet of crisps. He was slotting a ha
ndful of cheese and onion into his mouth when Terry strode in, his feet crunching on broken glass.
‘This isn’t a fucking picnic, Steve,’ warned Terry.
‘Sorry, boss,’ said Ryser, spraying crisp crumbs as he spoke. He brushed pieces of crisps out of his beard.
‘Terry, please, there’s no need for this,’ said the Indian. ‘My heart. I was only in hospital last year. Any stress and the doctor said it could kill me.’
‘Don’t fucking talk to me about stress,’ said Terry, stepping to the side to avoid a pool of creme de menthe.
Fletcher opened a chilled display case and started dropping bottles of wine on to the floor. The Indian winced as each one smashed.
‘For God’s sake, Terry,’ he whined. ‘What am I supposed to do?’
Terry walked over to the man. The Indian struggled to get away but Pike and Russell held him firm. ‘You’re supposed to buy your booze from me, like we agreed.’
‘But the Kosovans . . .’ began the Indian.
Terry cut him short with a warning look. ‘Fuck the Kosovans.’
‘Terry . . .’
Terry raised a hand and the Indian fell silent. ‘Don’t Terry me,’ he said through gritted teeth. ‘I’m fed up with being Terryed. Just do as you’re told.’
‘But . . .’
Before the Indian could continue, Terry grabbed him by the throat and pushed him back. Pike and Russell kept hold of the Indian’s arms so that he was sprea-deagled against a rack of wine bottles. ‘I don’t want to hear any buts,’ hissed Terry. ‘I don’t want to hear you say “but” and I don’t want to hear you say “Terry”. Okay?’
‘But Terry.’
Pike and Russell grimaced. Terry grabbed a bottle of red wine and the Indian cowered and closed his eyes, whimpering like a scared dog. Terry was just about to bring it crashing down on the Indian’s head when he noticed the label. ‘This okay, yeah?’
The Indian opened his eyes fearfully. ‘What?’
‘This wine. Is it okay?’
The Indian swallowed nervously. ‘Yeah. It’s a fruity red. Full bodied. Blackberry aftertaste.’
Terry pursed his lips as he studied the label. He nodded. ‘It’d go with lamb, yeah?’
The Stretch (Stephen Leather Thrillers) Page 23