Three pairs of eyes stared at her in puzzled shock. Caz smiled dryly.
“Or not. Which means, back to plan A. Who do you think killed Jimmy Carter?” She nodded at Ray.
“You got a phone book?” he asked and, in response to her quizzical glance, expanded: “It could have been anyone in that. Or a shitload of people not in it. Like Ali said, it was Jimmy Carter. I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t have wanted to kill him.”
I filled them in on the conversation that Ali and I had had.
“So, what? You think it’s one of this gang?” Dash asked.
“Well someone bumped off our man downstairs,” I explained, “and made away with what’s been described as a shitload of stones. Jimmy was looking for that person – it’s what he was harassing Ali about. What if he started sniffing around and discovered the double-crosser?”
“So we’re looking for an ex-crook with a vast fortune and no obvious source of wealth,” Caz answered. “Can’t be many of those around.”
“I know,” I said, then brightened up. “But we’re actually looking for one who also stayed local. If they pissed off to the Costa, they wouldn’t have been around for Jimmy to bother. Which means Jimmy would still be alive.”
Caz frowned and then nodded her agreement. “So how do we find them?” she asked. “I mean, who are they? Who was in the gang?”
“Billy the Brick, Charlie Chatham (aka ‘Charlie Chisel’), Jimmy Carter, Johnny Ho, ‘Tiny’ Tim Boyle and Al Halliwell,” Ray announced from his side of the table, gaining amazed looks from all of us.
“Google,” he waved his phone, “is your friend. ITV3 did a documentary a couple of years ago – Danny Dyers’ Dodgy Dudes.”
“A companion piece, one assumes, to Letitia Dean’s Murderous Molls,” Caz returned as Ray, unperturbed, continued.
“One of the episodes was completely about what was called the Old Kent Road Massive – the OKRM. It’s on YouTube,” he finished, tapping the screen on his phone as the smoky tones of Mr Dyer echoed around the – for once – silent kitchen, “There’s not an inch of London ain’t got a gang running it. But for a while in the nineties, there was one gang that ruled ‘em all south of the river. They ‘ad tasty geezers from Balham to Brixton brickin’ it. Then it all went wrong. This (dramatic pause) is the story of the Old Kent Road Massive.”
I glanced at Caz, who returned my glance, raised an eyebrow and, as one, we pulled our chairs closer to the tiny screen.
TWENTY-THREE
Charlie “Chisel” Chatham may well, at one time, have been part of a gang that ruled the rougher parts of South London, but some time in the past two decades he’d moved a little further out, and considerably further up in his fortunes.
A carpet of dead brown leaves crunched underfoot as Caz and I stood opposite his house, a large white-fronted Georgian mansion. On the drive, a scarlet vintage Ferrari sat next to a huge, tank-like four-by-four.
Caz shivered, pulling her coat tighter around her. “Can you hear that?”
From somewhere in the distance a mass of voices was singing Sweet Chariot.
“It’s the rugby ground,” I said. “Carrying on the wind.” Caz visibly relaxed.
“I thought, for a minute…” she murmured vaguely. “Well, you know, what with the spiritualist and so on…”
I shook my head. “You thought you were hearing a chorus of heavenly voices,” I finished for her and received a raised eyebrow in response.
“Are we going in?” she asked, gesturing across the road. I remained standing where I was.
“How are we playing this?” I asked and received, for my query, a shrug.
“Same as always, I suppose,” Caz said. “The way a swallow gets to Africa. We’re winging it.”
“I was afraid of that. So we’re going to walk up to the door of a notorious gangster, ask him if he murdered one of his partners twenty years ago and then enquire whether he’s been feeling a bit murder-y lately.”
“That’s about it,” Caz nodded, shivering again as a gust of wind wafted down the road.
“Well,” I said, “I suppose – if we are going to go – that we should do so soon.”
“Yes,” Caz agreed, “before hypothermia sets in.”
“Or we get arrested,” I said, and jerked my head across the road. “The upstairs curtains in the house next to our friend Chisel Charlie have twitched three times while we’ve been stood here. I reckon it won’t be long till the Neighbourhood Watch are on to the local rozzers. C’mon,” I set off, Caz behind me, “we might as well get it over with.”
The curtains in the house to the left of the one we were aiming for stopped twitching. Now, they were pulled firmly back and an elderly gentleman, his hair closely cropped, stood staring at us with an air of quiet aggression, as though he was saying, I know you, and I know what you’re here for.
We crossed the pavement and slid between the Ferrari, polished and gleaming even in the grey morning light, and the Range Rover, the sides and back crusted with dried mud, and made our way up a set of stairs to the front door, where I rang the doorbell.
“Whatever it is, we don’t want it,” said a young man’s voice. “Either that, or we’ve already got two.” I looked around, confused, then realised the voice had come from below me.
At the bottom of the stairs, having come from what I could now see was a basement entrance to the house, stood a creature from mythology.
Even from this elevated position, I could see that he was tall. His hair, cut short at the sides and back, was a mass of dark luxuriant curls on top, over a face that looked like it might have been carved from marble in antiquity, the head sat atop shoulders that were broad and muscular and – like all of him – deeply tanned.
The last I could tell because he was wearing nothing but a tight black singlet with a blue X on the chest, a pair of grey Lycra shorts so tight I could see his pulse, and a pair of fluorescent orange trainers.
Over his shoulder was a kitbag, also black, and he shifted this as we descended the steps towards him.
“Hi,” I said breezily, extending a hand, which he studiously ignored, his gaze remaining fixed on Caz’s face.
“We’re looking for Mr Chatham,” Caz said, equally breezy, and receiving in response a sneer, a raised eyebrow and a delicate pink tongue, which flicked out and licked briefly at his lower lip.
“Oh are we?” he mimicked. “Well, like I say, whatever it is, he won’t want it.”
“But I might want something from him,” Caz responded.
“Whatever you want from the old man,” the youth responded, shifting the weight of the kit bag once again, “I reckon I could let you have it. Twice as long – and twice as hard.”
“Yes,” Caz’s voice had dropped to something more sultry now, “I’ll bet you could. But all my friend and I want, right now, is a chat.”
The young man turned his back on us, waved the car key in his hand at the red Ferrari, and the vehicle clunked, the lights flashing wildly as the central locking disengaged.
“That’s a Mondial, isn’t it?” I asked, and received his interest.
“Damn straight,” he said. “You know this model?”
“It’s a classic,” I answered. “Made between – what? – eighty and ninety?”
“Ninety-three,” he corrected me, and I bowed to his superior knowledge.
“Cream leather or black?” I asked, aware, as I did so, that Caz was staring at me with raised eyebrows.
“Black,” he said, checking to make sure that Caz was still paying attention. “Tight and shiny.”
“Nice,” I nodded, as Caz sighed deeply, muttered something about kindergarten and stared pointedly across the roof of the car towards the street beyond. “You got the ABS too?” I queried
“Got the lot, mate. And less than five hundred on the clock.”
“Looks pristine,” I said, reaching out to touch the bonnet.
“It’s been garaged for years. No,” he swiped my hand roughly away
from the car, “the only thing that gets to touch this pussy magnet is polishing cloths and,” he stared pointedly at Caz, “pussy.”
“And pigeon shit,” she observed, nodding to an almost imperceptible dark dot on the roof.
The youth swore, opened the door, put his kit bag into the car, whipped a polishing cloth from the dashboard and, spitting on it, began to buff up the roof of the car.
“Fucking shit-rats,” he spat, casting a murderous glare skywards.
“So,” Caz asked once again, “is your dad home?”
“What d’you want?” he demanded, his true colours – now he’d been made to feel small by the mere presence of a speck of dirt – coming out.
“Well I wanted – with my friend here – to have that chat with him before we went all the way back home.”
The brat clambered into the car, the electric window wound its way down and he sneered at Caz again, having clearly decided that belittling her was more important than continuing his auto-bonding with me. “Well just so you know, he’s a lot less gentle than I am. Slag!”
And so saying, he turned the key in the ignition, the deep rumbling bass of the Ferrari engine kicking in and drowning out any verbal response Caz might make.
The window wound itself back up, he reversed out of the drive, straightened up on the road beyond and, holding a middle finger directly upwards, whooshed off in a squeal of tyres.
“What a charmer,” I said dryly.
“And since when,” she asked as we both turned back to the house, “have you been a – what do they call them? – carhead?”
“Petrolhead,” I corrected her, “and I’m not really, but my sister Val is. She could recite the specs of every high-performance car before she could do her twelve times table, and used to make me help her practice them. I guess something must have rubbed off. Shall we try this way?” I nodded at the basement door, which was down three small steps and lead to what would clearly, once upon a time, have been a tradesman’s entrance.
A single bell-press was embedded in the doorframe and I applied pressure to it, hearing an electronic tone coming from the other side of the door.
“What’d you forget now?” The door was opened by a bear of a man, his salt and pepper curls, barrel chest and the aquiline nose attesting to his parentage of the Ferrari Brat.
He stopped in the doorway, frowned, clenched his jaw and puffed out his chest further.
“What d’you want?”
“Mr Chatham?”
“Who’s asking?”
“Lady Caroline Holloway,” Caz beamed at him, stepped in front of me and held her hand out, “and this is Mr Bird.”
Chatham hesitated, squinted suspiciously and went to close the door. “Whatever it is,” he said, echoing the boy’s words, “I don’t want any.”
“Hatton Garden,” Caz said, quoting the dates and places we’d arrived at via Google the night before, “August tenth, 1996.”
He paused, an angry flush darkening his face. “The fuck you say?” he demanded.
“It was a Saturday,” Caz said. “But I’m sure you remember that.”
“Listen,” he hissed, moving to close the door, “I don’t know who the fuck you two are, or what you want, but you have thirty seconds to get off my property.”
“Or what?” I asked, as Caz stepped to one side.
“Perhaps he’ll call the police,” Caz said.
“Unlikely,” I answered her, watching as Chatham’s eyes squinted suspiciously, “cos if he does that, he’ll have to admit what he was doing that weekend.”
“We’re done here,” he said, moving to close the door.
“Seen Jimmy Carter lately?” I asked and, once again, the door paused.
“Carter? That fucking wastrel? What the fuck are you going on about?” He looked from one of us to the other, frowned and then opened wide the door, stepping to one side. “Ten minutes,” he said, as we stepped across the threshold.
The basement of the house showed no sign of its former utilitarian purpose. There was a large modern granite-topped island with a six-ring hob in the nearest corner of the room, a vast stainless-steel extractor fan over it.
On the far side of the room, an extension had turned the space into a comfortable family room, with vast leather sofas arranged in a semi-circle before a cinema-sized flat screen affixed to the wall.
Chatham gestured at three tall barstools and closed the door behind us. We climbed onto the stools, and he went to the other side of the island.
“Now,” he growled, “what are you going on about?”
I glanced at Caz, wondering, once again, where exactly to begin. “We know about the stones,” I said and watched as his face set impassively, only a flaring of the nostrils betraying his emotions.
“I dunno what you mean,” he deadpanned, though a nerve in his left jaw twitched suddenly.
“I think you do,” I answered, glancing around the space. “Nice place you got here. Roomy.” I slid off the stool and walked over to the collection of sofas. On the wall behind them was a series of framed prints and photos surrounding a larger black and white one of Chatham and the boy from outside.
“Your son?” I asked, gesturing at the shot.
“Alex,” he nodded, crossing the room and holding an arm out as though to usher me back to the stools. “Now, I’ve given you time, mate, only, you’ve not really used it very wisely. So, unless you can tell me exactly what you’re doing here, the door is that way.”
“We know about the job you did on those diamond merchants in Hatton Garden,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, “well I’m hearing words, but I have no sodding idea what any of them mean.”
“Okay,” I said and headed back to the island to resume my seat, “let’s get theoretical, okay? Suppose there was a gang of mates. Let’s call them – I don’t know – the Old Kent Road Massive.”
“Because a ‘gang of mates’ isn’t enough,” Caz murmured. “Everyone, nowadays, needs to think they’re in a Scorsese. I’m sorry,” she responded to my raised eyebrow, “do go on.”
“Well,” I resumed, nodding at Chatham, “this gang of mates. This gang of crooks—”
“Theoretical gang of crooks,” he said flatly, his interest clearly piqued.
“Theoretical,” I acceded, “decides to rob a jeweller in Hatton Garden. One that has a vault full of uncut, unpolished diamonds. Virtually untraceable.”
“Now that’s where you’re wrong,” Chatham said. “There’s a register of them – size, shape, carats, distinctive colouration etc. Every jeweller would log their stones that way precisely as a way of having something to show the rozzers if they were stolen.”
“Theoretically stolen,” I corrected him. “So, not untraceable, then?”
“Not easily traceable,” he said, “and not impossible to make them untraceable – polish, recut, set then unset them. But that takes time, money and contacts that the Old Kent Road Massive – in your story – wouldn’t have had.”
“And yet,” I said, someone pinched all the stones from under the noses of the gang. And here you are, sitting in a – by my guess – one-point-five-million-pound mansion. With a vintage Ferrari outside.”
Chatham threw his head back and a bellow of a laugh ripped from him. “You think I pinched the stones?” His shoulders jogged with mirth and tears sprang to his eyes. Then, as suddenly as the hysterics had begun, they ended.
He planted both hands palm down on the granite and stared across the hob at me, all good humour gone from his face. “Mate, that was worth the entry fee. But you’re done now.”
“Everyone thought Billy the Brick took ‘em and did a runner,” I said. “My guess is that the gang has spent the past twenty years waiting for Mr William Bryant to resurface so they could put him six feet under.”
“Except,” Caz joined in, “he was already six-ish feet under.”
Chatham frowned, his two huge dark brows pulling together. “Explain,” he said simply.
; “Check the papers,” I said, “or the BBC website.”
“Oh,” Caz brightened up, “did we make the BBC?”
“We did,” I said, sharing her pride at the achievement.
“Local or national?”
“Local,” I answered and watched as her excitement flickered.
“Ah well,” she said, “national next time.”
“We can only hope. See, the thing is, Charlie – may I call you Charlie?” Charlie said nothing, his frown now fighting with a look of bubbling outrage. “Charlie, I run a pub. In Southwark. And not long ago, someone found what was left of your mate – sorry, your theoretical mate – Billy Bryant.
“He’d been there since someone put a couple of bullets in him back in 1996. So he couldn’t have been the one to run off with the stones. And here, as I say, you are, sitting in a hugely expensive mansion.”
“Motherfucker,” Chatham snarled, but not at me. “Whichever of those bastards did this, I’ll tear them apart. Wait,” he snapped out of whatever vengeance-filled reverie he’d been in and refocussed on Caz and me, “you think I did it?”
I gestured around the room. “It’s a nice place. Didn’t come cheap.”
“Fuck me,” he tilted his head back and roared with laughter, this time so hard that the extractor fan above his head vibrated along with him.
“Ah, mate,” he said, when the laughter had died down and only a few chuckles remained, “I made all of this legitimately. But nice try. You ever need a job, you should get in touch with the Inland Revenue. They’ve been trying that shit on me for years.”
“Legit?” I looked around.
“My nickname,” Chatham said, “used to be Charlie Chisel.”
“What? Like…” I mimed sniffing a line of blow and the Greek opposite shook his head.
“No, you stupid fucker, like…” and he mimed picking up a hammer and chisel and smashing away at a chunk of marble.
“I’m demolition. If you want it taking down, then I’m the one you call. Or called. I got bought out by one of the big multinationals about seven, eight years ago. Business was good already, but they paid me enough to never need to work again.”
Death Of A Devil Page 14
