‘Bastards! Who were they? Do you think it was the same group that zapped Kev?’
‘Must be.’ I sat next to him. ‘Kev knew the three who killed him. Kelly confirmed that Luther worked with Kev. Then there’s the question of that phone call to “get the ball rolling”.’
‘You reckon it was Luther?’
I nodded. ‘Fuck knows where he fits into the picture, but my guess is he’s DEA, and also corrupt. It looks like some of the DEA are bent and working for drug money.’ I told him about the McGear killing and what I had found on the backup disk once de Sabatino had opened the GIFs.
Euan understood so far. ‘So it all has to do with PIRA running drugs into Europe? To keep the route open it needs back-handers, blackmail and threats. But what about McGear – did he say anything?’
‘Not a word. He knew he was going to die anyway.’
‘This guy de Sabatino? Does he have any copies of the int?’
I laughed. ‘You know I’m not going to tell you that. OPSEC, mate, OPSEC!’
‘Fair one,’ he shrugged. ‘Just being nosy.’
I carried on and explained what I had found in Kev’s house. Euan didn’t speak. He just sat there letting it all soak in. I felt suddenly exhausted, as if, by somehow passing on the baton to Euan, everything that had happened in the last ten days could at last catch up with me and take its toll.
I looked at him. He looked pretty drained himself.
‘I can see only one thing wrong with what you’re saying.’
‘What’s that, mate?’
‘Wouldn’t the Colombians have anticipated that a bomb would heighten security on the Rock, making it harder to get the drugs in?’
‘It was a warning. They were sending out a gypsy’s to anyone else who might not want to keep business going. I tell you, mate, this is far too big for me to be messing around with. I just want to get it to Simmonds and wash my hands of it.’
‘I’ll help any way I can.’ He opened a packet of Benson & Hedges; he’d obviously taken up the weed again. I stood up, out of the way.
‘I don’t want to get you directly involved. Kev, Pat, me, we’ve all been fucked over – but I’m going to need you to back me if things go wrong.’
‘You just have to name it.’
I could smell the sulphur from his match. He smiled as I started to wave the smoke from my face. He knew that I hated that. Even under extreme pressure some things never changed.
I said, ‘Tomorrow afternoon, you should receive copies of the files by FedEx. If anything happens to me or Simmonds, it’s basically down to you.’ By now we were in a cloud of smoke. Any minute now the alarm was going to go off.
‘No problems with that, mate,’ he said in his very slow, very calm, very calculating way. If you told Euan he’d won the National Lottery he’d say, ‘That’s nice,’ then go back to stacking his coins or folding his socks.
‘How many copies of the disk are there besides the ones you’re sending me?’
‘I’m not going to tell you, mate. Need-to-know!’
He smiled. He knew I was protecting him.
‘One more thing,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to take Kelly with me to the Simmonds meet. He wasn’t too pleased with me the last time we spoke. If this turns into a gang fuck I don’t want her caught in the crossfire. You’re the only person I can trust her with. It’s only going to be for one night, maybe two. Can you do that for me?’
I expected an immediate answer and I got one. ‘No problem.’ A smile crossed his face. He knew I’d let him talk freely with Kelly so they’d get to know each other.
‘Will you take her back to Brecon?’
‘Yeah. Have you told her I live in Wales?’
‘I’ve told her you live in a sheep pen.’
He threw the butt in the toilet because he knew I hated that smell, too.
I put both my hands on his shoulders. ‘This has been a fucking shit week, mate.’
‘Don’t worry about it. Let’s just go back in the room and finish off the brew. Then you just go and sort your shit out with Simmonds and get it over and done with.’
‘How was the burger?’
‘Fine. I saved Euan some fries.’
I sat on the bed next to her. ‘Listen, Kelly, me and Euan have been talking, and because I’ve got to do some stuff in London we reckon it’s a good idea if you go to the countryside with him and stay at his house. It’s only for one night, I’ll be back tomorrow. What do you think? Hey, you can even see the floor we laid. Remember I talked about it?’
She suspected she wasn’t being offered any option and her face said so.
I said, ‘I won’t be long and Euan’s house has sheep all around it.’
She looked down at her fingers and mumbled, ‘I want to stay with you.’
I said with mock surprise, ‘What, don’t you want to go? You’ll see all the sheep!’
She was embarrassed. She was too polite to say no in front of Euan.
I said, ‘It won’t be for long.’ Then, like a bastard, I closed the trap. ‘You like Euan, don’t you?’
She nodded, never losing eye contact with me in case she made it with Euan.
‘It’s just going to be for one night. I’ll be calling you anyway; I’ll be able to talk to you.’
She looked very unhappy about it. After all, I’d promised not to leave her again. I caught sight of my mobile and had an idea. ‘What if I give you my telephone; I’ll show you how to use it.’ I started playing with the buttons. ‘Here you are, you have a go. If I show you how to use it, you can put that under your pillow tonight, all right?’
I looked up at Euan, trying to bring him into it. ‘Because she’ll have her own bedroom, won’t she?’
‘That’s right, she’ll have her own bedroom, the one that overlooks the sheep pen.’
I said, ‘And I believe there’s a TV in her bedroom, isn’t there?’
‘Yes, there’s a TV in there,’ he nodded and agreed, probably wondering where he was going to get one from.
There was an acceptance; she wasn’t over the moon about it, but that was good enough. I switched on the phone, tapped in my PIN number and handed it over. ‘Just plug the charger into the wall when you get back and it’ll keep working, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Then put it underneath your pillow, so when it rings you’ll be sure to hear it. All right?’
‘Whatever.’ By now she understood that she definitely had no choice.
Euan said, ‘I’ll tell you what, we’d better get your teddies organized if we’re going to the country. What are their names? Have they ever been on a train before?’
She warmed to him. We went downstairs and got in a taxi to Paddington station.
38
We bought her ice creams, sweets, drinks, anything to keep her mind off what was happening. She was still deciding what comic to have as Euan looked at his watch and said, ‘Wheels turning soon, mate.’
I went with them along the platform and gave her a big hug at the carriage door. ‘I’ll ring you tonight, Kelly. I promise.’
As she climbed up, Jenny and Ricky were looking at me from the Virgin daysack on her back. ‘OK.’
The guard was walking the length of the train, closing the doors. Euan lowered the window so Kelly could wave.
‘Nick?’ She leaned towards me through the open window and beckoned as if she wanted to whisper something.
‘What?’ I put my face near hers.
‘This.’ She threw her arms around my neck, squeezed, and planted a big kiss on my cheek. I was so taken aback I just stood there.
The train started moving.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow,’ Euan called. ‘Don’t worry about us. We’ll be OK.’
As the train slowly disappeared from the platform I felt the same wrench as at the moment I’d seen Pat’s body being loaded into the ambulance, but this time I couldn’t work out why. After all, it was for the best and she was in safe hands. Forcing myself to see it as one more problem out of the way, I headed for the pay phones.
I got a very businesslike reply from Vauxhall: ‘Extension, please?’
‘2612.’
There was a pause, then a voice I recognized at once. ‘Hello, 2612.’
‘It’s Stone. I’ve got what you needed.’
‘Nick! Where are you?’
I put my finger in my ear as a departure was announced.
‘I’m in England.’ Not that he needed me to say that when he could hear that the Exeter train was leaving in 5 minutes.
‘Excellent.’
‘I’m pretty desperate to see you.’
‘Likewise. But I’m tied up here until the early hours.’ He paused to think. ‘Perhaps we can go for a walk and a talk. Let’s say four thirty tomorrow morning?’
‘Where?’
‘I’ll walk towards the station. I presume you’ll find me.’
‘I’ll do that.’
I put the phone down with a feeling that at long last the dice were rolling for me. Kelly was safe, Simmonds sounded amenable. With luck I was only hours from sorting out this mess.
Back at the hotel I ordered a hire car to go and pick up Kelly from Brecon after the meeting, and had something to eat. In my head I ran through exactly what I was going to say to Simmonds and the way I was going to say it. Without a doubt, I had in my possession precisely the sort of evidence Simmonds had asked for. It was a shame I didn’t have the videotape to back some of it up but, even so, the stuff I had was probably more than he could have hoped for. The worst-case scenario now was that I’d get the slate wiped clean and be let loose. At least I had a few quid to start a new life with.
I thought about Kelly. What would become of her? Where would she go? Would she have been affected by everything she’d seen and all that had happened to her and her family? I tried to cut away from that, telling myself that it would all get sorted out – somehow. Simmonds could help there. Perhaps he could orchestrate the reunion with her grandparents, or at least point me in the direction of the right kind of expert help.
I tried to get some sleep, but failed. At 3 a.m. I retrieved the hire car from an NCP car park and headed for Vauxhall Bridge.
I went a long way round, going all the way down the King’s Road to World’s End, then turning for the river and heading east again, mainly because I wanted to organize my thoughts one last time, but also because, to me, the drive along the deserted Embankment and past all the historic, floodlit bridges offered one of the most beautiful sights in the world. This particular night the lights seemed to shine a bit brighter and the bridges seemed more sharply in focus, and I found myself wishing Kelly was there to see it all with me.
I got to Vauxhall Bridge early. I drove east along the road that follows the river towards the next bridge, Lambeth. Nothing looked suspicious at the RV point on the drive-past. The petrol station on the opposite side of the road, about halfway towards Lambeth Bridge, had about four cars on the forecourt, groups of kids buying fuel and Mars bars and some early-morning office-cleaning vans filling up before their shift.
Further along the river, and on the other side, I could see the Palace of Westminster. I smiled to myself. If only the MPs really knew what the intelligence services got up to. According to the news on the radio, chances were that we’d have a new government soon. Not that I could vote for anyone. I hadn’t existed in real time as Stone, Stamford, Stevenson or anyone else for years.
I did a full circle of a roundabout and headed back on the same road towards Vauxhall for one more drive-past. I still had time to kill, so I stopped in the garage and bought a drink and a sandwich.
The RV point still looked fine. My plan was to pick up Simmonds, make distance and angles as we walked to my car, and go for a drive. That way I controlled the environment. I could protect myself as well as him.
I parked up about 400 metres west of the RV. While eating my sandwich I checked out my route back to the car. I got out and walked down the road, arriving at five minutes to four. There was still nothing to do but wait, so I window-shopped at the bike shop, resolving that I really would buy one as a gift to myself. No, more than a gift – a reward.
At 4.20 I moved into the shadows of the railway arches opposite the exit point that I knew Simmonds would use. There were one or two people wandering about, clubbers on their way home, or to another club. Their drunken laughs shattered the still morning air, then there was silence again.
I could tell it was him straightaway, leaning slightly forward as he bounced along on the balls of his feet. I watched him branch right from the exit and stand at the pedestrian crossing, intending to head for the metal footbridge over the five-way road junction to the railway station. I waited. There was no rush; I would let him come to me.
As he crossed the road I came out of the shadows at the bottom of the footbridge steps.
He smiled. ‘Nick, how are you?’ He kept walking, nodding left towards Lambeth Bridge. ‘Shall we walk?’ It wasn’t a question.
I nodded the opposite way, towards my car. ‘I’ve arranged a pick-up.’