The Damage (David Blake 2) (21 page)

Gladwell, Amrein, Braddock and the Turk. Four of them, and they were only the most obvious candidates. I hadn’t even included members of my own crew, not to mention the crime families in every other city in the country. How many people had I blocked or frustrated with my business dealings, how many had I insulted, snubbed or annoyed along the way? If I wrote a list of people who wanted me dead it would probably have filled more than a page.

‘I don’t know what you want me to do,’ she told me, ‘I don’t know what’s expected of me.’

‘Nothing’s expected of you.’ I was looking straight ahead, both hands on the steering-wheel to make sure we didn’t ram the back of the tourist bus that was hobbling slowly along in front of us.

‘Then why bring me along?’

‘It’s your presence he’s expecting. I told you he’s an important man. That’s why I am going out to the airport to meet him and why I have asked you to come with me.’

‘But I don’t speak any Japanese.’

‘Nor do I,’ I reminded her, as I finally found a gap to pull out and overtake the bus.

‘And I don’t know any of the customs. They’ve got all of these rituals, haven’t they, all that bowing and handing over business cards like they’re family heirlooms.’

‘He isn’t expecting any of that, I promise.’

‘And tea,’ she was stressing out now, ‘they make such a pigging nonsense over a cup of tea. They have a whole ceremony for it, all that kneeling and bowing. We just have PG Tips sent over from home. He’s not going to be happy with a pyramid bag is he?’

‘Don’t worry about any of that. I’ve got housekeeping on stand-by. Please just relax and smile at him when he arrives. That’s all I ask. I don’t ask you to do much but I need you to do this for me.’

‘Okay,’ she said, ‘you’re right, you don’t. I’m sorry, I’ll try to chill out.’

We made the airport in time for the arrival of the private jet that had been chartered for the occasion. Sarah couldn’t relax, so fretful was she about screwing up my big meeting with Mr Hakaihamo of Dogobari International. She was wearing a dress, and looked older because of it. Apart from bikinis she usually just wore shorts and T-shirts.

The plane took an age between landing and hooking up to the arrivals gate, but eventually the light went on above the door to indicate all was ready. I was watching Sarah out of the corner of my eye. She was staring at the gate intently, waiting for the first glimpse of Mister Hakaihamo.

There was a hissing sound, then a pop, as the hydraulics on the door engaged and it swung open. There was no sign of Mister Hakaihamo. Instead, a young woman was standing there with a huge grin on her face. She beamed at Sarah. Sarah’s eyes went wide, ‘Wha- ?’ was all she could manage.

‘Don’t just stand there, you lazy cow,’ shrieked Joanne, ‘give us a hug, then help me with me bags!’

Sarah turned to me and I said ‘Surprise’, smiling at the look of utter shock on her face.

Before she could respond Joanne chipped in again, ‘Come on, you lot,’ and another eight people filed out of the door.

‘Oh my God,’ Sarah’s hands went up to her face.

It had been fairly easy tracking all of Sarah’s friends down. Not a difficult job for a man of Sharp’s talents. They had all jumped at the chance of a couple of weeks’ free holiday in Thailand, particularly when they found out I was flying them over on a private jet. There were a lot of hugs and screaming, tears and excitement. Kiet our housekeeper arrived then. He handed me the bag I’d entrusted him with. ‘I’m going back on the return flight, but you are in safe hands.’ I introduced them to Kiet, ‘Drivers are waiting to take you to the house. While you are staying with Sarah, please treat it like your own home.’

‘Oh God, I can’t believe this,’ said Sarah. ‘I can’t believe you’re all here,’ then a frown creased her forehead, ‘but what about the Japanese bloke?’ she asked me, ‘there is no Japanese bloke, is there?’

I kissed her then. ‘You know, for such a beautiful and intelligent young woman you can be quite thick sometimes.’

‘Thank you,’ she said, mock annoyed, but I’d not seen her looking this happy in ages, ‘and thank you for
this
.’ And she hugged me. ‘I love you,’ she told me.

‘I love you too,’ I said, and I meant it.

.......................

I
came back into the country quietly, using a different identity and rented a hire car. The Police would know I was back soon enough, but I wasn’t going to make a song and dance about being here. Not when they were so pissed off at me.

My first task was to meet Palmer at the offices we rented for Robbie and his watchers. We’d set them up to look like an IT help-desk team and the small group of four guys had computers, monitors and TV screens around them so they could keep track of the whole city. It was the screens that Palmer was keen to show me.

‘Give him a demo, Robbie.’

‘Okay, name me a place in the city.’

‘Bigg Market,’ I said and Robbie tapped something into his keyboard, his fingers becoming a blur. The screen we were watching changed, and there was a bird’s eye view of the Bigg Market as seen through a CCTV camera mounted on a roof somewhere.

‘Name a street somewhere,’ urged Robbie.

‘Stowell Street,’ I said, and his fingers darted over the keyboard again. Up popped an image of Rosie’s Bar and the Newcastle Arms pub.

‘That’s bloody amazing. I can’t quite believe what I’m seeing,’ I said, delightedly. ‘Robbie, have you hacked the CCTV network for the entire city?’

‘Erm..yes…I h..h..have,’ he stammered.

‘Good lad,’ I said.

Palmer smiled with the satisfaction of someone who has seen his protégé achieve the status of genius. I just shook my head in wonderment. ‘I’m stunned. We can keep our eye on everything now.’

‘And no one w..w..will know because all we are d..d..doing is tapping in and tapping out. It’s untraceable,’ Robbie assured me.

‘I’ve got something else that might interest you,’ Palmer said, beckoning me into an empty office and holding something tiny between his thumb and forefinger. It was no bigger than the SIM card from a mobile phone, and looked like it was made of plastic and metal, but it was so small I could barely make it out.

‘What is it?’

‘A tracking device,’ he told me, ‘you can hide it in someone’s car, or attach it to the outside, then you can monitor them remotely from here,’ he nodded at the screens. ‘You’ll know where their vehicle is twenty-four-seven.’

‘Sounds useful.’

‘It is. I think we should chip everyone’s car. In our firm, I mean.’

‘Everybody’s?’

‘Well, we don’t know who to trust right now. This could be our only way of finding out.’

‘They’re not going to like it.’

‘They won’t know, and even if they do work it out, fuck ‘em. We’ve got too much at stake here to piss around. Someone is trying to kill you. This could be the best chance we have of finding out who.’

I hesitated, but not for long. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘but Palmer, don’t chip my car.’

He gave me a pained look. ‘It would be easier for us if you’d let me.’

‘I don’t want you knowing where I am, all of the time,’ I told him, ‘that’s not negotiable.’

We were walking around the perimeter of the square in front of the cathedral, ambling along like a couple of work colleagues out for a lunchtime stroll in the autumn sunshine. Behind us, Amrein’s bodyguard and Palmer kept a discreet distance, keeping an eye on us and, no doubt, each other.

Meeting Amrein in Durham City seemed a sensible idea. I wasn’t persona non grata with the local plod there and we could lose ourselves amongst fresh-faced students and gaggles of foreign tourists craning their necks backwards so they could photograph the cathedral.

‘I don’t know what you are telling me,’ I said.

Amrein side-stepped a couple of students who were walking along arm-in-arm with big grins on their faces, then he spoke. ‘I’m afraid there is nothing.’

‘There must be something.’

He seemed surprised at my certainty. ‘May I ask why? Do you have some knowledge you would like to share with me? It would certainly make our investigations easier.’

‘Human nature,’ I told him, ‘because he’s a politician, because they are all bent as nine bob notes, every last one of them. Ron Haydon has been one for nearly thirty years, so he has to have something hidden away that we can use. I know it.’

‘I assure you, he hasn’t,’ Amrein explained calmly, ‘I have had two journalists investigating him full-time since we got your call and they haven’t found a thing.’

‘Two’ I asked, ‘full-time?’

‘Yes,’ he told me.

I stopped walking and he came to a halt. ‘Amrein, if you want me to think you are taking my problem seriously, you should have
twenty-two
journalists on it permanently. Do that and I might start to actually believe you are on my side – and not just hoping I’ll be locked away for life so you can replace me with someone you’d prefer.’

‘I assure you…’

‘Assurances are like excuses, they mean nothing. Get me what I need on Haydon or I’ll start to wonder why I pay you.’ He looked worried then. ‘Don’t worry, Amrein, I won’t kill you. I’ll just stop sending you the Drop, and that amounts to the same thing.’

‘I’ll redouble my efforts, of course,’ he told me quickly, before adding, ‘are we done?’

‘We’re done,’ I said and he walked off, followed by his bodyguard.

‘What was that all about?’ asked Palmer, as we watched them walk across the square, dwarfed by the massive presence of the ancient cathedral.

‘Just business,’ I told him. I didn’t want Palmer to know that I had just threatened a man whose organisation made the Mafia look like a street gang.

.......................

W
e’d barely ordered our food, and the sommelier had just finished pouring the wine, when she asked me, ‘So, what do you want to talk to me about?’

‘Straight down to business? No small talk?’

‘I’m used to that these days,’ she said mirthlessly.

‘You’ve not even given me time to compliment you on your appearance.’ She looked good. She was wearing a black trouser suit that neatly contrasted the pseudo-cocktail dress look we encouraged at the massage parlour. I could see our reflections in the huge mirrors on the restaurant’s walls. We looked natural together, smart, prosperous. Nobody in the room could have guessed how we both made our living.

‘Perhaps I prefer it that way. I’ve had compliments before.’

‘I’m sure you have.’

‘And they didn’t mean much when it came down to it.’

‘Okay, you want the truth? You intrigue me.’

‘I’m not that intriguing.’

‘I think you are. Nobody can understand why you work down there.’

‘At the massage parlour?’ She was challenging me to say it out loud, seeing if she could embarrass me in public.

‘Yes, at the massage parlour.’

‘Because I am so much better than that?’

‘Yes.’

‘What about the other girls who work there? Aren’t they too good for the job? Am I better than them?’

‘I don’t know about that, but I do know that you could walk out of there today and find something better in a heartbeat. They would all do that too if they could, and they wouldn’t look back’

‘But they can’t.’

‘No.’

‘Why?’ she challenged me, ‘because you won’t let them leave?’

‘God no, we never stop anyone from leaving. Is that what you think? That we keep girls working there against their will?’

‘I don’t know,’ she frowned, ‘I’ve never tried to leave. It’s just something one of the girls said, that she kept trying to leave but she couldn’t. Not ever. She was resigned to it, she seemed sad.’

‘I suppose she meant she needed the money. Most of the girls have debts or mortgages, or something that stops them from giving it up. There are other jobs but they don’t pay as well. I’m not saying it’s nice work, you know that better than I do, but the girls choose to be there. I mean they might feel they have no choice but they can quit and do something else any time they like.’

‘I see,’ she said.

‘
I understand
them
. It’s you that’s got me intrigued.’

‘Why?’

‘Like I said, you have options. A woman that looks like you, sounds like you, it’s obvious.’

‘What is? How do I sound?’

‘Educated, refined.’

‘Refined?’ She did a cute thing with her eyes, dipping her head and raising her eyebrows at the same time and looking up at me. ‘I haven’t heard that word since I was a girl. My mother was always telling me to sit like a lady, don’t slouch, be refined, such an old-fashioned word.’

‘The fact that your mother even used it proves my point. You’ve not got the usual background.’

‘What else do you think you know about me?’