10
As you might imagine, there are many thoughts swirling round Young’s head. The first is always the paranoid instinct. Is this a set-up? Is Hutton trying to lure another Jamieson man round to the flat so that he can double his money? It would make sense. An ambitious gunman might try his luck. Make it a double celebration for Shug. No way of finding out. Probably not a set-up anyway. Most gunmen are more cautious than that. Most good ones, anyway.
He’s angry with Frank now. How the hell do you get jumped by an overgrown scrotum like Tommy Scott? A man of Frank’s standards. His first job back since he had his hip replaced. Maybe he’s gone over the hill. Maybe he rushed back, insisting he was ready. Young’s angry, but Peter Jamieson won’t accept losing Frank. He’s always seen Frank as some sort of kindly uncle. Looked after him. Sent him to the villa in Spain to help him recuperate from the operation. The gnarled old veteran with more talent than anyone, who helped Peter establish his organization. Frank gave them credibility when Jamieson was just another pretender, and Young his unproven right-hand man. People know Peter and Frank are close. They can’t lose Frank. It would be terrible PR.
Call Jamieson. You have one hour. If you’re going to do this, then you can’t waste a second. Is an hour enough? Not under normal circumstances. This could just be sending someone else to fail. Throwing away a second gunman to try to rescue an already-doomed first one.
‘Peter, you awake?’ Calling Jamieson on his regular phone, while trying to find his damned car keys.
‘Uh, yeah’ is the uncertain response.
‘Listen to me, we have a problem. You listening? It’s Frank. That little prick Scott jumped him on his way to the job. They’ve got Frank in Scott’s flat. They called in Shaun Hutton to do the job on him. We have one hour before Shaun gets there. What do you want to do?’
Sometimes you see a man like Jamieson, messing around with horse racing and marathon snooker sessions, and you doubt his ability. He can give the impression he’s too laid-back, doesn’t take his work seriously. Not a leader. Then a moment like this arrives.
Without a second’s thought Jamieson’s talking. ‘I’ll call Calum MacLean. You get to the club with a gun for him; he won’t have one of his own. I’ll get Kenny as well. He can drive Calum to the flat; Calum and Frank can come back in Frank’s car. I’m on my way to the club as well; I’ll see you there. Let’s be quick about this.’
Jamieson’s hung up. Not a moment of indecision. In a way it almost doesn’t matter if his decision is right or wrong; by being quick he’s giving them a chance. It’s a hellish risk, though. Putting Calum at huge risk to save Frank. Maybe losing them both. Calum’s good. He can handle the unpredictable better than anyone – the Davidson incident proved that. Young doesn’t doubt his ability to do the job, just the value of making him do it. All this risk to protect Frank, and for what? How much can they rely on the old man after an incident like this?
Out of the house and into his car. It’s turned into a cold night. Windscreen’s frosted. Pulling away with the heater at full blast. Young has to move fast, but not so fast that a speed-camera picks him up. Moving around at all at this hour of the night can make you stand out. Everything about this job is wrong. Everything. Glancing at the clock on the dashboard: twenty-eight minutes past one. They maybe have fifty-five minutes left to beat Hutton to the flat. That’s if Hutton takes the full hour, which he can’t guarantee. Young’s not going to beat himself up about Hutton. If he’d kept him closer, given him more work and more money, then Hutton might have been willing to back out altogether. Then they could handle this their way. Their pace. That’s still a maybe. A freelancer doesn’t want a reputation as a guy who stabs his employers in the back. Then again, Hutton might not want to be a freelancer. He might be looking for employment with an established organization. Backup to an established gunman. If Young had offered him that over the phone tonight . . . No, don’t dwell on it. Maybes kill progress. You can’t plan for something like this. You can’t keep everyone close. There isn’t room. If Shug had hired anyone else to be his gunman, they wouldn’t even have this hour.
On the road to pick up a gun. There’s a few places you can go, if you know the right people. Gunmen typically use dealers they know and trust. Young doesn’t have those connections. He’s never fired a gun in his life, but he knows where a few are stored. He knows, because he stored them. He’s the only person who does know. You can plan this much. He’s driving to a building that Jamieson owns, has owned for a few years. It now has a third-rate travel agent on the ground floor and two flats above. They leased it out, but Young still has a key. About a year ago Jamieson had one of his men pick up a bagful of handguns that were on the market. There were four, apparently clean. Young stored three of them for a rainy day. In the middle of the night he hid one behind panelling in a cupboard that was once a coal cellar, beneath the travel agency.
A part of the job he hates. Having to creep around. It’s not something he has any talent for. There are people who do it for a living, housebreakers. Very few pros left, these days. Most burglars are junkies. Young needs to get into the building, get the gun and get out without making a noise. He’s legally entitled to be here, he thinks, but someone in the flats could hear him, panic and call the cops. Then he’d have to explain what he’s doing here in the depths of the night. That’s a hard conversation to have with a cop, whilst holding a gun. There are two other guns hidden in better locations in the city, but this is the closest, and time matters more than convenience.
In the back door, pressing the code on the alarm box. Thing probably isn’t active anyway. The couple who run the travel agency are a pair of swindlers, and not good ones. They won’t be paying running costs for security. Along the corridor and down the bare concrete steps to the cupboard. Pitch-black. Feeling carefully, taking a step inside. He’s found the panel. It’s stiffer than he remembered. He’s pulling at it; it’s scraping against the brickwork at the side. Noise. Horrible noise. He’s reaching out a hand. A plastic bag with something bulky inside. That’s what he’s here for.
Moving faster now. Pulling the door quietly shut behind him, across the street and back into his car. Opening the bag, unwrapping the cloth, looking at the gun and a little cardboard box of ammo. Exactly as he left it. There’s a cold feeling tingling away in the pit of his stomach. What if it doesn’t work? What if you provide the gun that doesn’t work, and Calum dies because of it? Don’t think about that. Just get it to the club. The gun looks fine. Every gunman takes a risk with their weapon when they go on a job. It’s the nature of their work. Their risk to take. Your mistake, their punishment. He’s starting the car, pulling away from the side of the road. He’s taking a quick glance behind him as he goes, making sure none of the lights in the flats above the travel agency have come on. They haven’t.
He’s looking at the clock again as he’s pulling up outside the club. It’s one thirty-four. A quarter of their time has gone already. This could easily all be for nothing. Calum could turn up when it’s too late to save anyone. Or he could turn up and confront Hutton. That would be even worse. Calum’s sharp, though, he won’t get into a fight if he doesn’t have to. Nor will Hutton. He knows how to play this, too. Young’s out of the car, walking briskly along an alleyway to the side of the club, holding the bag tight to his side. There’s nobody about. They’ll replace the CCTV that the club has covering the area with repeat footage from another night. Every precaution taken.
Neither Jamieson nor Calum is at the club yet. Young’s unlocking the side door and ducking inside. Pitch-black again. Moving in a dark world – sort of thing gunmen are supposed to be very good at. Young does most of his work in the daylight. Making his way carefully along what should be an empty corridor, but you never know. The cleaners will have left less than an hour ago. Wet floors and a stink of detergent. He’s found his way to the bottom of the stairs and he’s making his way quickly up. Awkward stairs, each step shorter than you think it’ll be. A lot of people fall on them, but he knows them well enough. Through the snooker hall, along the corridor and into Jamieson’s office. He’s pulling the blackout blinds shut and switching on the little lamp on the desk. It’s not much light, but it’s enough. He’s put the bag on the table and he’s pulling the cloth out. It’s a long thin strip, and he’s not going to take any chances with it. He’ll burn it along with the plastic bag. He hasn’t touched the gun itself, and he won’t. He’s not putting his prints on it, given what it could be about to do.
Now he’s sitting on the couch, in his usual position. Two more minutes have ticked by on the clock since he got here. This is starting to look hopeless. What is Frank doing, right now? Maybe he’s already dead. If he tried to do something, tried to make a run for it, they’ll have shot him. It’s not impossible that he might find a way to escape unaided. If Scott’s armed, but they still need Hutton to do the job, then Scott obviously doesn’t have the bottle to pull a trigger. That might give Frank the opportunity to do something. It isn’t much to cling to. The odds are that Frank’s alive, but not for much longer. They should leave him there to die. Horrible to think, but true. Young hates being in the club at this hour. It’s the silence. He feels exposed. You can hide behind people. You can hide behind noise. The only protection now is the darkness, and he’s in the light. A car door. Someone arriving outside. Wouldn’t usually hear that. So exposed.