The Hit List (15 page)

He started a desultory affair with a woman who lived on the floor beneath him. He met her when he knocked on her door one Saturday morning to apologise for the noise he was about to make with an electric floor-sander that he had hired. That evening they went out for a meal at a Turkish restaurant in Highbury Grove. Her name, she told him, was Lauren Vail, and she was a nurse attached to the Royal Free Hospital in Hampstead. She loved the work but the money was terrible, and she'd been considering going private - maybe in one of the Gulf States.

He told her in his turn that he worked in the security industry, that the work was dull but regular, and that he was saving up to buy a small business. What sort of small business this would be, he hadn't yet decided.

After the meal, in the course of which she drank two glasses of white wine and he drank a bottle and a half, they returned to Mafeking Terrace. She showed him round her flat - a tour lasting less than a minute - and left him asleep in her bed the next morning.

He took to staying with her two or three times a week. They got on well, but it soon became clear to Slater that she wanted more than a drinking

144

Chris Ryan

companion and occasional sex-partner.

One evening she came back from work to tell him

|, that she had signed on with an agency providing

nursing personnel to hospitals in Oman and Abu

I> Dhabi. As she spoke to him she scanned his face for any

sign that this news saddened him, waited hopefully for

him to ask her to stay.

He said nothing. Remained expressionless. 'It's not going to happen between us, is it Neil?' she said regretfully.

I 'We have more than a lot of people have,' he told | her, turning to the window. 'We've never treated each other badly.'

'That's not enough, though, is it? I can't get anywhere near you, really. Not the real you. I probably | won't ever know what 'What?'

She took a deep breath. There was nothing to lose f now. 'What's "Greenfly", Neil?'

His face blanked, turned to stone. 'Where did you Ihear that word?'

'You talk in your sleep, Neil. Especially . . .' 'Especially?'

'Especially on the bad nights. Neil, you sit up in bed id shout. I had to tell Ray and Dave next door it was TV - some late-night cop show.' She hesitated. I'm not trying to force my way into your life, I romise you, I'm just trying to help. Can't you . . . can't you let me do that?' He smiled at her. Placed his arm round her shoulder.

145

The Hit List

'Forget it, Lauren. It's nothing. Nothing I can talk about, anyway.'

She shook off his arm. 'I'm not a child, Neil. I know you're

'You know I'm what?'

She stared wretchedly at him. 'I know you move in a pretty weird world.'

'None of it means anything, Lauren. Forget about it. Live your life. Move on.'

'You're a real one-man no-go area, aren't you?' she said angrily. 'No wonder you're stuck up there by yourself in that sad little flat.'

'I was going to suggest we went out for a bite to eat.'

'I'm not hungry,' she told him curtly, and closed the door.

For the most part, Slater was indifferent to the clients that he guarded. He performed his job efficiently and asked no questions about the source of their wealth. Wealth, in fact, was the only thing that Minerva's clients had in common, and Slater was aware that for much of the time his presence was purely cosmetic. In the world of fifteen-minute junk celebrity there was considerable cachet in the suggestion that you were under physical threat.

Howard Berendt was different. Howard Berendt employed Minerva bodyguards because he genuinely believed his life to be under threat, and because he could no longer trust the slags -- the underworld gorillas - that he would normally have relied on.

146

Chris Ryan

Berendt was an Essex property dealer who had diversified into lap-dancing clubs. His ambition was carrying him westward, and the leery sweep of his empire now extended almost to the Tottenham Court Road. Berendt's rise, however, had irritated a lot of people. He had trodden on corns. He had angered people whose anger had been known to manifest itself in acts of extreme violence.

Duckworth was well aware of Berendt's low popularity quotient in the criminal underworld, and charged for his bodyguards accordingly. For a week on the job with Berendt an operative could hope to take home the best part of 2000 pounds pence

To Slater, this sounded like excellent money. His landlord had decided to sell the property in Mafeking Terrace, and had offered Slater first refusal on the top floor flat. It galled Slater to know that he himself was responsible for the flat's 'pristine condition', as it was described in the agent's details -- but he had decided nevertheless to try and raise the deposit. He accepted a week's work guarding Howard Berendt without hesitation.

The first few days were intense. Berendt, a squat, powerful-looking figure with the boiled skin and discoloured eyes of the heavy spirits-drinker, travelled from business location to business location in a mid seventies Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud -- a vehicle he described as a 'classic fuck-off motor' - distributed tips 1 with vulgar lavishness wherever he went, and generally and forcefully announced his presence. Anyone

147

The Hit List

wanting to whack him, thought Slater, just had to follow the cigar wrappers.

In fact, to his surprise, and for all the man's loudness, Slater found that he did not dislike the Essex entrepreneur. There was a red-blooded vigour about him that had long departed most of the clients of Minerva Close Protection. He told a good joke too.

In the days before running to fat and falling prey to habitual sweating, Berendt had been a paratrooper. He was impressed by Slater - he'd once thought of trying Regimental selection himself -- and although he did not know quite as much about the subject as he thought he did, he lost no opportunity to discuss esoteric weaponry with the ex-SAS soldier. The day's work often ended in a pub with Berendt and his cronies, and on these occasions Slater took care never to drink anything stronger than bitter lemon. Berendt's girlfriend Kat, formerly a dancer with the Royal Ballet and now a star performer at one of his lap-dancing clubs, often turned up to join them before taking a cab on to work.

On the final evening of the contract, Slater detected a strange atmosphere among the group gathered in the Porcupine, one of Berendt's haunts in Old Street. It was eight thirty, Kat had departed half an hour earlier, and there was an air of anticipation, of nervousness, and of stifled amusement.

Slater felt the uncomfortable sensation of being the only person present not in on the joke. He would have liked to be able to leave, to get back home and go out

148

Chris Ryan

I'for a drink or three, but his contract stipulated that he Ifemain until eleven o'clock every evening. There were | two and a half hours to go.

'Why don't we drive back to the flat and get some ; take-away?' Berendt suggested, and there was more I back-slapping, more sniggers. 'Got a treat for you, I mate,' he said to Slater. 'Oh yes indeedy!'

Berendt lived in a large, well-fortified flat off the I'Edgware Road. Half of the group drove there in I Berendt's Rolls-Royce, the others followed in the 'cherry-red Jaguar owned by Berendt's accountant, 'Ossie Oswald. In the flat, whose heavy modern |; furniture and bar was covered in more beige calfskin than can ever have been assembled outside an abattoir, the group made itself at home. They were an 1 unattractive-looking bunch with the same drinkers' i faces and run-to-seed bodies as Berendt himself. | Between the six of them, Slater calculated, they were > probably wearing the best part of a pound of gold I jewellery.

Declining all offers of drinks, Slater positioned , himself by the front door. Judging by the increasingly 'hysterical mood in Berendt's lounge he was in for a bumpy ride. He suddenly felt very hungry; he hoped 'i all the talk of a take-away meant that a decent curry was on its way.

'Ossie, take a couple of the boys and sort us out,' announced Berendt cheerfully. 'Don, give us a fucking bevvy, mate. Some of that single malt. And give one to Neil, too. Can't ignore the poor bloody infantry.'

149

The Hit List

To buy himself fifteen minutes of peace, Slater accepted the drink. Borrowing an entrance key, he made a quick tour of the approaches to the flat, made himself think like a possible assassin. If he was going to whack someone like Berendt, he thought, this wouldn't be a bad time to do it. Lots of noise, lots of laughs, people coming and going. He'd just rock up to the front door - maybe get a woman to press the bell and wave at the security camera -- burst in with a silenced weapon, find Berendt, waste him, and get back on his bike and vanish into the traffic. Well, maybe it wouldn't be precisely the way he'd do it but it was a possible scenario.

Re-entering the flat, he eyed the Islay malt in its crystal tumbler. He hadn't meant to touch it - had meant to pour it down the crapper, in fact -- but he couldn't resist a quick slug. For a moment he stood there, tasting the smoky complexity of the malt, feeling the strong clean alcohol course through his veins.

'Liquid fucking gold, isn't it?' smiled Berendt. 'I got a half-dozen cases in before Christmas.'

'It's very good,' agreed Slater. He frowned. 'Mr Berendt, you'll remember what I told you about not opening the door to anyone you don't know. Well, that includes women who claim they have messages for you. It's just a thought, but there have been a couple of cases this year of entry to premises being gained by women who then let heavies in after them.'

'A sort of "Trojan whores" scenario,' said Berendt, and laughed uproariously. 'That's not bad, is it? Trojan

150

Chris Ryan

whores? I must tell the lads.' He swung heavily away. From the lounge came laughter, then an amplified grunting and the wet slap of flesh. Someone had found the porn collection.

Ossie Oswald's face swum into view on the entry phone monitor. Although he had departed with one man, a casino manager named Ray Gedge, there now appeared to be five of them. 'Mr Berendt, I think you've got visitors,' said Slater, sticking his head into the lounge where, on the TV screen, a tattooed woman was being vigorously penetrated by several men in Wolverhampton Wanderers football shirts. 'Would you just OK them before we let them up?'

'Relax, Neil,' said Berendt, glancing at the entryphone monitor. 'It's just Ossie with the takeaways. Including yours.'

He re-admitted Gedge and Oswald. Following them were three girls. Their clothes were threadbare, their faces and limbs were marbled with the cold - all three were wearing miniskirts -- and they smelt of the streets.

Oh, bloody hell, thought Slater. No. Please, no! They were children. Average age what? Fifteen? The girls, visibly nervous, were led through into the Wounge, where they looked furtively around them. A \ small cheer and a whistle went up as they entered. A I large whisky and a fifty-pound note was handed to leach of them. I can't be part of this, thought Slater. I ijust bloody well can't.

151

The Hit List

'So take your pick, Neil,' said Berendt. 'Go on, son. You can do anything you want. No one here's going to tell.'

There was laughter. The assembled faces looked up at him, flushed, wreathed in smiles, boozily conspiratorial. The three girls huddled in silence.

Ray Gedge stood up. 'Go on, mate. Which is it to be?' One by one he wrenched the girls' tops up. They shrank from him but remained there with their breasts exposed, not yet fully afraid. Smackheads, thought Slater.

'I don't want any part of this,' he told Berendt. 'These are kids.'

'Choose one,' said Berendt patiently. 'And take her to the first bedroom on the right.' He eyed the girls. 'You can do anything you want,' he whispered. 'And I mean anything. No one's going to come looking for this lot.'

Slater shook his head. 'I can't guard you from a locked bedroom.'

Berendt rolled his eyes. 'Neil, I want you to stand down, OK? Full pay, obviously, but you're relieved of all duties for half an hour. How's that?'

Slater decided to pretend to go along with the game. He'd lock himself in the room with one of the girls for half an hour and they'd sit the whole thing out together. To object to a client's behaviour, or even to imply disapproval of a client's behaviour, was to kiss goodbye to a career in bodyguarding. Berendt was a high-paying client, Slater told himself, and saving

152

Chris Ryan

underage runaways from a life of prostitution was hardly part of his brief. Still, he could give one of the girls a break.

Taking the smallest and most pinched-looking by the hand, he led her to the bedroom Berendt had indicated. Ragged laughter followed him as he closed the door. Till yer boots, son!' he heard Berendt shout after him.

'What d'yer want, mate, a gob or a fuck?' the girl asked, mechanically reaching for his belt-buckle. She ' had a Liverpool accent and a dark bruise on her left cheekbone.

'What's your name?' he asked her.

'Bethany.'

He didn't bother to ask her age. A quick scan of the room showed him what he'd half-guessed would be there: the framed mirror attached to the wall. If you knew what you were looking for - a particular kind of glassy opacity -- one-way mirrors were easy to spot. Most customs halls used them, as did the police in custody suites adapted for identity parades.

Slater gave no sign of having recognised the one i way mirror but mentally he shook his head in disbelief. How stupid did Berendt think he was? The idea, obviously, was that they give him a couple of minutes with Bethany and then move into the next-door bedroom for the show. Maybe even video the whole performance.

Basically, he guessed, it was a machismo thing. A ' get-out-your-dick exercise. In terms of toughness and

153

The Hit List

military expertise Berendt felt that Slater had the edge on him, and the fact that Slater was Berendt's employee didn't change that fact. To see Slater - or better, film him -- having sex with an underage prostitute would go a long way in Berendt's mind to redressing that imbalance.