by James Craig
Turning to Balthazar, Gerry said. ‘I need to take this. Are we done here?’
‘Er, yes.’ Not used to being summarily dismissed in such a fashion, Balthazar hesitated in his seat.
‘Good, good.’ Gerry waved him away as the conference phone began to ring. ‘We can talk later. Let me know if there are any developments . . . positive developments.’ Reaching across the table, Gerry pulled the phone towards him and hit the receive button. ‘Hold on a sec, Delia.’ He watched Balthazar belatedly lift his ass from the chair, gather up his papers and slink away. ‘Okay, put them through. And don’t forget the coffee.’
‘Yes, Mr Durkan. Putting you through now.’
Balthazar had left a broken pencil on the table. Grabbing it, Gerry tossed it in the direction of the bin, punching his fist in the air when it bounced on the rim and fell inside.
‘Gerry.’
Gerry? Why couldn’t they call him Mr Durkan, like everybody else? Was that such a big thing to ask? ‘Yeah, I’m here. Did everything go okay?’
‘Did you not see the news?’
‘No.’ Flipping open a compartment on the top of the desk, he picked out a TV remote and began flicking through a succession of news channels on the 55-inch plasma screen at the far end of the room. By the looks of things, it was shaping up to be a very boring news day: flooding in the provinces; the Archbishop of Canterbury moaning about the evils of capitalism; pro-democracy protests somewhere or other. The sort of stuff that failed to excite even the most hardened news junkie.
Finally alighting on one of the business channels, Gerry hit the ‘mute’ button. On the screen, a dour blonde previewed the US employment figures, which would come later in the day. They were forecast to be mediocre, at best. ‘Looks like you didn’t make it on to CNBC,’ he observed drily.
‘CNBC?’
‘Never mind.’ Delia reappeared with a mug bearing the legend SHOOT TO KILL, along with a small plate containing four Jaffa Cakes. Gerry mouthed ‘Thank you,’ stuffing one of the cakes into his mouth while he waited for her to leave. Chewing quickly, he swallowed before speaking again into the phone. ‘So, did it all go according to plan?’
‘More or less.’
More or less? ‘What does—’ Stopping himself, Gerry realized that he didn’t want to know. Changing tack, he asked, ‘Are you guys ready to go?’
‘Good and ready,’ came the firm response.
‘Fine.’ Gerry took a sip of his coffee and winced with pleasure. Acutely bitter and scalding hot, it was just the way he liked it. Delia might be a bit of a dipso, but she knew how to make a decent cup of coffee which, after all, was 90 per cent of the job. ‘The timetable remains unchanged. You have everything you need?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good. Let me know when it’s done.’
‘Will do.’
‘We have to move quickly.’
‘We will. We are very comfortable with the timetable.’
A seed of doubt began to sprout in his mind. ‘Are you sure you’ve got everything nailed down?’
‘Don’t worry about us, Gerry. We’re all very focused.’
‘Mm.’ He chewed his bottom lip, running through in his mind the various different ways in which they could fuck this up or, worse, screw him over.
Not very Zen.
He exhaled. To hell with it, it was too late to worry about all that now.
A low chuckle came out of the telephone speaker, as if the man on the other end of the line was reading his thoughts. ‘Nervous?’
‘Me? Hardly.’
‘No, I suppose not. The great Gerry Durkan. Never lost it, eh? Still got the old skill sets.’
I bloody hope so, Gerry thought. ‘Yeah.’
‘Don’t you wish you were coming with us tonight?’
Yeah. ‘We’ve all got our jobs to do.’
‘That’s right. Quite the team we are. And to think, forty years ago we would have been trying to kill each other.’
Were you even born then? ‘Times change.’
‘Yes, they do. It’s all the same game though.’
‘That it is.’
‘Good to get the old blood racing.’
‘Just stay focused.’
‘We will.’
‘Okay. Good luck.’ Gerry ended the call with a stab of his finger. Plan B was finally swinging into action. To his surprise, he felt a shiver of excitement, the like of which he hadn’t experienced for decades. There was a jolt in his chest as if he’d just done a line of speed. ‘That cheeky bastard is right,’ he said to himself. ‘This is going to be fun.’
SEVEN
‘Hey, they’ve announced the release date for the new Grand Theft Auto. That’s a result!’
‘Good to know.’
‘Haven’t you played GTA? It’s fucking brilliant.’
‘Games are for kids.’ Ryan Fortune tossed his mobile into the plastic bag on the table. Like everything else in the bag, the phone and its sim card would be destroyed and dumped in a drain, en route to the job.
‘Don’t be so boring.’
‘Andy, we’ve just popped three people for real. Why would I want to shoot people in a game?’
‘It’s just not as much fun in real life,’ Carson reflected, ‘as it is in the game.’
‘You should know,’ said Fortune glumly.
‘I’m gonna pre-order it.’
‘That might not be so easy,’ Fortune said quietly, ‘where you’re going.’
‘What do you mean?’ Carson looked up from his copy of T3, genuinely confused. ‘You can get GTA in Greece, I would have thought.’ He dropped his head back into the magazine. ‘If not, I’ll get it on Amazon.’
‘For fuck’s sake,’ Fortune said, exasperated. ‘You are gonna have to lie low for ever, sunshine. At the very least, for the next few years. In the meantime, the villa in Crete is out.’
‘But that’s where Becky’s taken the kids.’
‘And they should be getting a visit from the local plod, right about now. Use your loaf, son. That’s the first place they’ll look for you.’ He watched impassively as the penny slowly dropped. ‘It’s off-limits.’
‘So what’s the plan then?’
‘Watch this space.’
‘I don’t want that damn cop coming after me.’
‘Hunter? Don’t worry about him.’ Fortune’s face hardened. ‘He’s got a family, kids. He won’t put them at risk just to nail you.’
‘He did last time.’
‘This time will be different.’
‘I bloody hope so,’ Carson muttered. ‘The stupid bastard just couldn’t leave things alone. If he’d looked the other way, we could have deleted that video properly and none of this crap would have ever happened. Instead, he walked straight into my bloody house and snapped on the handcuffs, right in front of the bloody kids. Marched me out into the street and pushed me into the van, watched by all the sodding neighbours.’ He seemed genuinely shaken by the experience. ‘The git got a big kick out of the whole thing.’
‘He was a man on a mission,’ Fortune agreed. ‘But that mission’s been terminated. Don’t worry about that.’
Carson tossed the magazine on the floor. ‘I’d like to put a round right between his eyes.’
‘Not a good idea.’ Fortune picked up the mag and dropped it in the plastic bag. ‘Look at what happened last time. Put it behind you. For now, we’ve just got to do the job, get the fuck out of Dodge City and then keep a low profile.’
‘What about Hunter’s family?’
‘What about them? Once we’re free and clear, they’ll be cut loose.’
Carson made a face. ‘Sounds like a half-arsed plan to me.’
‘This is about making some money, Andy. Not about you getting some payback for your hurt feelings.’
‘It’s not about that.’
‘No? Then what is it about?’
‘Hunter’s a wanker. He needs to be taught a lesson.’
‘He’s already had his lesson.’
Fortune gestured towards the door. ‘If you don’t like it, you can walk out of here.’
Carson looked at the door, as if thinking it through.
‘I won’t stop you. Your face will have been on every TV news bulletin by now. It’s odds-on you’ll get recognized before you reach the end of the road. I reckon they’ll have you back in jail in time for tea.’
An idea popped into Carson’s head. ‘If that happens, I could give you up.’
‘Yes,’ Fortune nodded, ‘you could. But in that case you’ll be dead before breakfast.’
‘Okay, okay.’ Carson held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘So, on reflection, your plan does have its attractions.’
‘Yes, it does.’ Fortune smiled thinly. ‘Get yourself together. We’ll have to get going soon.’
‘We’ve got almost twelve hours yet,’ Carson yawned. ‘Plenty of time.’ He rose to his feet. ‘Who was that you were rabbiting on to on the phone?’
‘That’s the bloke who’s paying our wages.’
‘Yeah, but who is it?’
‘Need to know, Andy, old son.’ Fortune tapped his temple. ‘Need to know.’
Fortune walked over to the window. He was already beginning to regret his decision to spring Andy Carson from the Military Corrective Training Centre. After a few months inside, the guy’s brain seemed to have gone to mush. It was too late to do anything about it now though. After the job, however, was another matter altogether. Outside, it had started to drizzle in the early morning gloom. He watched as Adrian Colinson dropped the last of their gear in the back of the SUV.
‘I want to know,’ Carson insisted.
‘Yeah, but you don’t need to know.’
Carson followed his comrade over to the window. ‘How can you expect me to trust this guy if I don’t know who he is?’
‘He sanctioned me and Ade getting you out of the nick, didn’t he?’
‘Hardly the Great Escape,’ Carson huffed.
‘No, maybe not. But it should be more than enough to put him in your good books. You could have totally buggered this whole mission. More than nine months of work down the drain. Not to mention the rest of your natural in jail.’
‘Even if they’d found me guilty – and that’s a big “if” – I wouldn’t have got life.’
You would now. ‘You fucked up, big time.’
‘How was I to know they’d find that bloody video?’ Carson retorted.
‘No, but they did, didn’t they? So we’re heading down to D-Day and not only are you banged up but you are fucking public enemy number one.’ Fortune ran a hand over his recent buzz-cut. ‘Maybe I should have left you there. I could have got Steve Thomson to come on board. Or maybe that big bastard we hung out with in Malta that time, John Harverson.’
‘Ha!’ Carson gave him a playful punch on the arm. ‘They’re not in my league and you know it. Anyway, they’re past their sell-by date. The last I heard, Tommo was busy getting stoned on a beach in Thailand. And Jock Harverson was re-training as a sports teacher.’
‘Bloody hell!’ Despite himself, Fortune let out a cackle. ‘I know who got the better deal there.’
‘Tell me about it,’ Carson agreed. ‘But neither of them are still in the game.’
‘Unlike you.’
‘Unlike me. You need me to pull this off.’
‘Yes, I do. So get your fucking game-face on. And I don’t mean your computer-game face.’
‘What the hell is going on here?’ Standing in the entrance of Charing Cross police station, Carlyle stared at the empty space where the front desk used to be. It had been replaced by a pile of rubble, with a few papers scattered about on the floor. A collection of wires hung from a hole in the ceiling, awaiting attachment to the security camera which sat in its box by the door that led into the station proper. To his right stood a noticeboard on which a sheet of A4 paper had been pinned, informing members of the public that the station would not be receiving their complaints for the next week. Anyone with a pressing concern was invited to call 999 or schlep over to the Holborn station on not-so-nearby Lamb’s Conduit Street.
‘’Scuse me, guv.’
‘Sorry.’ Jumping out of the way, the inspector looked on as a group of four workmen wheeled in a prefabricated cubicle on a small trailer. The thing looked like a smaller version of one of the theatre ticket booths in Leicester Square. On the glass window was a large sticker that proclaimed: CLERKENWELL GLAZING SERVICES, Ballistic Bullet-Resistant Glass.
There’s optimism for you. As far as he could recall, no one had ever tried to pull a gun on the duty sergeant. There had been the one time when Dennis Buscombe had been assaulted by a mentally disturbed woman, armed with a baguette from Tesco’s, but that was about as dangerous as it got. It wasn’t exactly Fort Apache; this was twenty-first-century Covent Garden, not the South Bronx, circa 1975.
Bringing the trailer to a halt, the men began carefully levering the box into the space where the desk had been.
‘Welcome to the future.’
Carlyle turned to find Sergeant Alison Roche standing by his shoulder. Her face was free of make-up and her red hair was pulled back into a ponytail. She looked extremely tired. In her hand was the kind of outsized coffee cup that could only have come from Starbucks. Momentarily mesmerized, Carlyle had to fight to suppress a familiar Pavlovian response. Upping her campaign to reduce his weekly coffee intake, his wife was trying to restrict him to a couple of Flat Whites at the weekend. They were in week two of Helen’s latest programme; the inspector knew he would succumb sooner or later but, in the meantime, having temptation thrust in his face hardly helped.
‘They’re finally putting in the facilities upgrade at last.’
‘Looks like it,’ Carlyle agreed, none the wiser.
She gave him a nudge. ‘You didn’t read the email, did you?’
‘No, of course not.’ For the inspector, it was a badge of honour that he deleted all management emails unread as a matter of principle.
‘There’s going to be a set of turnstiles as well, to stop just anyone wandering in. We’ll need a swipe card to get into the rest of the building.’
‘Jolly good.’ Carlyle wondered how long it would be before he lost his card. Maybe he could blag multiple copies from HR, or whoever happened to be the card monitor. ‘I didn’t realize we had been at risk all these years.’
‘Health and Safety wasn’t such a big issue then.’
‘Mm. What happens if someone gets caught in the turnstile? That could be very nasty indeed.’
‘I’m sure appropriate turnstile training will be made available to all members of staff,’ Roche grinned.
Carlyle sucked in a breath. ‘What a total waste of money.’
One of the workmen bent forward, giving them both a view of his arse crack. Roche wrinkled her nose in disgust. ‘If it’s in the budget, it’s in the budget. The reality is we are just playing catchup. Haven’t you seen this stuff in the other stations?’
Carlyle thought about it for a moment. The only other station he could remember being in recently was Savile Row. He vaguely recalled seeing a set-up along the lines Roche had described. ‘I suppose so.’
Roche waved her cup in the direction of the workmen. ‘Charing Cross has – had – the last traditional front desk in the whole of London. The only reason they kept it so long was for the tourists.’
‘A bit like the last few Routemasters on the 38 route?’
‘Exactly,’ Roche said cheerily, pleased that, for once, her boss was able to keep up. ‘They obviously saw us as the Dixon of Dock Green Experience.’
‘Ha!’ Carlyle was impressed that his sergeant had heard of Dixon of Dock Green. He was also genuinely chuffed that she had returned to Charing Cross, to work with him, after an extended spell on other duties.
‘The desk itself was a bit of a collector’s item. I think they’re going to sell it on eBay.’
‘I liked it where it was.’ Carlyle had never considered himself a sentimentalist bu
t the feeling of dismay, mixed with irritation, was palpable.
Roche pointed at the booth with her cup.
‘Everyone else got one of these years ago. There was one in Mile End even before I started there.’
‘It’s rough in the East End,’ Carlyle observed. ‘But do we really need bulletproof glass?’
‘We can’t put any of our contractors at risk. Apart from anything else, Minerva would sue the Met’s arse off.’
Minerva? The name vaguely rang a bell.
‘Minerva Support Services,’ Roche continued, ‘has held the “customer engagement contract” with the Met for the last few years. As of next week, when a punter walks through our doors, they will take a number and wait for a Minerva operative, dressed suspiciously like a police officer, to see them.’
‘Listen to them complain, you mean, and then tell them, in not so many words, to bog off?’
‘You’ve got it.’ Roche lifted the cup to her lips.
‘So what happens if they’ve got a genuine problem?’
‘Good question. As far as I can tell, the company’s Key Performance Indicators are to do with waiting times, forms filled and boxes ticked. Actually dealing with problems? That’s something else entirely.’
‘It’s a long way from solving crimes and protecting victims.’ Carlyle knew he was sounding hopelessly old-school. The reality, however, was that there wasn’t much he could do to change things, so what was the point in getting worked up about it?
‘It’s just the way things have been going for a long time now, with more to come,’ Roche said.
‘What else can they outsource?’
‘Lots. The Met’s looking to hand over another five hundred million pounds worth of work to private companies, to take care of things like finance, custody healthcare, and catering.’
Catering? Now she had his attention. Carlyle gestured towards the stairs leading down to the basement. ‘They’re not going to mess with the canteen, are they?’
‘’Fraid so. The dinner ladies have already been told that they could end up being put on “no hours” contracts. They’d effectively be turned into casual workers, not knowing at the start of any week how much work they’re going to get.’