I glanced at Caz, who glanced back, purse-lipped. “We can check that, you know,” I said.
“I know,” he answered, staring angrily at me. “Wait, you thought I’d nicked the stones and then murdered Billy the Brick? Jesus,” he shook his head. “But what’s Jimmy Carter got to do with this?”
“Ah yes,” I vamped, glad to be back on solid ground. “Have you seen Mr Carter lately?”
“Mate, I ain’t seen any of that lot for,” he blew out his cheeks, “years.”
“Jimmy’s dead,” I said, watching his reaction, which was disappointingly bland.
“So?” he asked. “People die. ‘Specially people like Jimmy. He was never exactly the most stable of geezers, if you know what I mean.”
“Well he seems to have met someone even less stable,” Caz murmured.
“He drowned,” I said.
“Pissed?” Chatham asked, dragging a stool around and climbing into it. “Fell in?”
“Deliberately drowned, Charlie,” I answered. “Held under until he stopped breathing.”
His frown deepened. “Jimmy was the sort to piss people off, pick fights.”
“He told someone – someone we trust – that he was looking for the stones, or at least for the person who nicked them.”
“I don’t blame him,” Chatham said, forgetting that he’d previously denied all knowledge of the stones or the robbery. “They were worth a fortune.”
“Except, of course,” I explained, “if he found whoever had the stones, he found a murderer.”
“Cos whoever took them has to have offed The Brick,” Chatham said, realisation dawning.
“Exactly. So, Jimmy never came here?”
Charlie seemed, now, to be off in a distant place, and it took him a moment to come back from his reverie, replay my question and shake his head. “I’ve been away – it was Alex’s birthday. We went to St Lucia.” He shook his head again. “He’s eighteen – I bought him that bloody sports car. He wanted to go on some boozed-up party weekend to Ibiza with the lads from his club, but I wanted to spend a few days with him first. Time flies, you know? I realised that when my wife died. You don’t get back the lost days. So I made him come with me. We just got back a couple of days ago.”
“So any idea who Jimmy might have seen?”
He’d dropped, at the mention of his dead wife, back into the reverie and once again he had to consciously snap himself out of it.
“Hmmm? Oh… Fuck knows. Like I say, it’s been ages since I saw any of that lot.”
“Right. You said.” I thought for a moment. “Could you tell us about them?”
“In what way?”
“Well, we know next to nothing about the Old Kent Road Massive, but it looks like one of them killed Billy Bryant, and twenty years later did Jimmy Carter. If we knew who they were, we might at least have some idea of where we’re looking.”
“Fair point,” he nodded. “Mind standing up?”
We slid off the stools and he moved around the island to stand before us gesturing that we should raise our hands skywards before he patted each of us down.
Finally, satisfied that neither of us was wearing a wire, he nodded at the sofas across the room.
“Why don’t we sit down?” he said. “D’you guys want a drink?”
“How bizarre,” Caz replied, “I normally get the seat and the drink before I’m felt up. A brandy would be much appreciated. Daniel?”
I ordered a beer and, drinks served, seats taken, Chatham tilted his glass of Glen Fiddich to us and sipped from it.
“Fact is, folks, I got nothing to lose by talking to you. All of this was years ago, and I never did no murder. I was just the lift-and-shift man on a couple of jobs,” he said with a smirk that suggested he might not be telling the entire truth.
“So who was?” I asked him. “Who were the members of the Old Kent Road Massive? And where are they now?”
“Where are they now, indeed,” he mused, sipping again from his glass. “The leader – if you could call that rabble leadable – was Billy Bryant, he was the brains. He was known as Billy the Brick on account of he was a brickie.”
“How prosaic,” Caz murmured.
“Worked for his father-in-law, ‘Tight-arse-Gruber.’ ‘orrible bastard, he was.”
“Quite,” Caz purred, “but unless he was one of the Old Kent Road Massive, he’s somewhat out of scope, I’d suggest.”
“Fair point,” Chatham acceded. “So who else? Lemme see. There was me, obviously – lift and shift. Jimmy Carter, who you’ve met – muscle. A fucking psycho.”
“Johnny Ho was known as ‘Bang-Bang,’ cos it was his job to get hold of any weapons needed to ensure the job went off well. Tiny Tim Boyle was, besides being a fat fucker, in charge of fireworks – explosives,” he clarified.
“Sometimes you needed them to get into a safe, but the Hatton Garden job was a doddle, cos the jewellers had an automated state of the art internet-linked security system, and Billy had this mate – Gary the Ghost – who had some ‘in’ with the BT exchange who was supposed to be monitoring the alarm.
“So instead of blowing the safe, they literally switched off the alarm and the fucking thing swung open. I mean, there was more to it than that, obviously.”
“Obviously,” I said.
“Only in them days, we didn’t know anything about the internet or hacking or any of that shit, so basically it was described to me as ‘Pull the plug, open sesame.’” He swigged his scotch again, the reflective glaze coming back into his eyes. “Mind you, it was a bit of a tight squeeze getting through the tunnel into the vault, so it’s just as well they didn’t need that fat fuck and his dynamite. He was the size of a house, old Tim, and he was always on a diet. One of them diets where you eat every fucking thing you can get your hands on.”
“So tell me a little bit more about the job,” I prompted, as much because I wanted to know as because I wanted to move on from the gourmand preferences of Tiny Tim Boyle.
“Billy saw the jewellers first. He was doing a job for Gruber. Some sort of shop refit two doors down from the place. He realised he could get in via the cellars, but it would’ve been Tiny Tim who had to blow the safe without making it sound like we had the last night of the fucking proms going on under the street. Then Billy found out about the security set-up. Made it an even sweeter proposition.”
“How’d he find out about the security system?” I asked, and Chatham chuckled dryly.
“Inside man. Sort of,” he said. “Al Halliwell had a cousin who had this bird what worked in the shop. She was flapping her gums at some kid’s christening or something and, next thing we know, Tiny Tim is coming along to blow through the wall to the building, but not to get into the safe.”
“So who was Al Halliwell to you all?” I asked.
“Driver,” Charlie said. “Though, to be honest, he was as mental as Jimmy, so could have been put on violence. But for some reason, Billy always wanted Al kept away from the action, safely in the front seat of a fast motor.”
“And Jimmy hasn’t been round here lately?”
“Jimmy?” Chatham shook his head. “Nah, mate. I told you, he could have been camped out on the drive for the past fortnight and I wouldn’t have known.”
“I suspect your neighbours would have noticed him,” I said and another chuckle was issued.
“You seen the major, then?” be asked. “Yeah, Neighbourhood Watch. Nosy old bastard, but you need that type these days. World is full of fucking crooks, innit.”
I glanced around the basement space, the back a wall of glass that allowed what was left of the day’s light to fill this warm, designed space and wondered how much of this was really coming from honest graft. “So what happened after the robbery?” I asked.
“Happened? Not sure what you mean.”
“You’ve got in,” I prompted, “you’ve got the stones, and you’ve got out. What happens next?”
“Oh,” he nodded, grasping the point. “Same as
always,” he said. “You split up. Including Al Halliwell, there was five people – Billy, Jimmy, Johnny Al and me – in or close to the vault of the jewellers.”
“What about this – what’s his name? – Gary the Ghost?” I asked, and Chatham shook his head.
“Hardly ever dealt with him,” he said. “He was someone Billy brought in, mostly for this one. My sense was that he was a con man. His job was to get the power off from some switching station in fuck-knows-where.”
“Okay,” I nodded, “so, five people. Why split up?”
“Five people,” Chatham corrected me, “and a shitload of snide rocks. You ever seen The Massive?” he asked. “Five huge sweaty blokes all squeezed into a Ford Fiesta?”
“Sounds like your idea of heaven,” Caz murmured to me, draining her brandy.
“We’d have stuck out like a sore thumb,” he said. “Even if nobody knew what we’d been doing, they’d remember us. And a few days later, when the news of a robbery gets out, they’d be going ‘Oi, remember them five big blokes what was hanging around that day? I wonder if we should call the filth up about that.’ And the next thing you know, you’re being lifted from your bed at ungodly o’clock. Nah,” he shook his head, “first rule – split up.
“Second rule – split the gang and then split the cash. Or the stones, in this case. But you never split it till you’re all together.”
I was confused, and said so.
Chatham exhaled deeply, like I was some annoying, slightly backwards child he’d been lumbered with. “One of you has all the money. Soon as you’re away from the scene, the five of you split and go in totally opposite directions. You criss-cross the city, take cabs, cars, buses, tubes. Make sure you’re not being followed. And you are all, really, heading back to a pre-arranged place – hours, maybe even days after the job’s done. At which point, you get to see how much you’ve got, and you do the split. Then, you all vanish into the night, and don’t so much as speak to each other until long after the air’s cleared.
“We arranged to get together two days later to split. Billy took the stones and that was the last we ever saw of him. Or them.”
“So where was the split supposed to be?” I asked, already suspecting I knew the answer.
“Some shitty boozer in Southwark,” Chatham said. “I always thought something was wrong. Billy was a two-timing bastard at the best of times and he wasn’t averse to a bit of rough stuff neither, if he thought he was being crossed. But he was loyal. To us, at least. Always felt a bit odd that he’d just do a runner on us.”
“And did none of you look for him?” Caz asked.
Chatham puffed out his cheeks, running a hand through his thick hair.
“Mate, we tore the fucking place apart looking for him. Nobody – not even his missus – ever heard from him again. Thing was, we couldn’t make too much noise – or mess – in the search, cos you see the pigs had no fucking idea who had done the job, and making a racket about one missing villain might have attracted attention to us and – more importantly – to our whereabouts on the day in question.”
“So who do you still keep in touch with?” I asked.
“None of ‘em,” he shook his head. “Lost touch, see, with all the old crowd. Ain’t got time for all that these days. Still see Billy’s missus from time to time. Well her dad’s in the same business I was, really. He puts ‘em up. I knock ‘em down. He’s still a mean old fucker, mind.”
TWENTY-FOUR
I kissed Nick’s cheek and picked up my shoulder bag.
“Wasp?” he grunted, shifting under the duvet, the eye that wasn’t pressed into the pillow half-opening as he squirmed towards consciousness.
I stood staring down at him, this beautiful man in the half-light cast from the open bathroom door behind me.
“I’m gonna go,” I whispered, wondering, like that nun in The Sound of Music (twice as long as, and fewer jokes than, the entire Second World War, by the way) just what I’d done in a past life to deserve this much joy in this. “It’s late.”
“’S early,” he grunted, propping himself up on his elbow and squinting at the bedside clock, which displayed three o’clock. “Stay,” he reached out a hand to me, and I smiled, shaking my head.
“I’ve stuff to do tomorrow morning,” I said, “and it’s better if I’m home when people start arriving. Otherwise they’ll start asking questions.”
“You’re no fun anymore,” he grinned, yanking me towards him and planting a smacker on my lips.
My determination flickered. “Yeah,” I laughed gently, “well you’re too much fun. And I have work to do.”
He sat back, flicked on the bedside light and stared into my eyes. “You are being careful, aren’t you, Danny? This body thing and now Jimmy Carter. It’s heavy shit. This looks like gangland stuff.”
I stroked his cheek. “I’m being careful,” I said, leaning in to plant a smacker on him. “I always bring Caz with me, so any funny stuff and I can set her on the offender.”
“Ah, the famous finishing school Rottweiler,” he smiled. “See you tomorrow night?”
I thought for a moment, mentally running through some ideas in my head. “Probably,” I nodded.
“Probably? You going off me already?”
“Yes,” I said, then, realising the potential misunderstanding, corrected myself, “I mean, yes to seeing you. And no to going off you. I’ve got some stuff on, so hopefully tomorrow night. Can I let you know later?”
He tilted his head – a gentle curling of the lips making him look, in the soft, angled light, like a cherub; a cherub with five o’clock shadow – and regarded me in silence for a moment. “I still love you,” he said, and my heart cracked from the sudden surge of joy.
“Me too,” I said, becoming all brusque efficiency; standing up and patting him gently on the shoulder like a best mate. “Now go back to sleep. I’ll call you.”
And, as he switched out his bedside light and burrowed himself back into the duvet, I picked up my rucksack and, switching out the bathroom light, left the hotel room.
The dingy hallway was empty; the one faulty bulb at the end of the corridor flickering as always, and the lift arrived with a bing that sounded – in the stillness of three in the morning – like a dinner gong being dropped down a flight of stairs.
I stepped in and, through the descent and my crossing of the lobby, my heart was still playing the sort of string-filled mush that used to soundtrack stupid melodramas in black and white.
He’d said, ‘I love you,’ and since those words had come forth from Nick, he’d kept on saying them. And I loved him, but those two facts – sitting together so tenderly – also frightened me.
Just frightened, not terrified, though I was fairly sure that if it went on for much longer I’d start to be terrified, start to expect the break – when it came – to be even harder.
These thoughts were still going through my mind when the revolving door deposited me on the street and the car pulled, brakes screeching, to a halt in front of me.
The passenger window was down and, by bending slightly, I could see that the driver – the same one who’d taken me to Chopper before – was sitting in his peaked cap and shiny suit, staring impassively ahead.
“Get in,” he said, his voice carrying in the still and silent morning air. “He wants to see you. Now.”
I stood shocked on the pavement. A fine but persistent drizzle began to fall, the sort that soaks you in seconds, and still I stood, dripping and gaping at the car before me.
“How?” I managed to ask from my stupor.
“No one’s got any secrets from Chopper,” he answered. “You getting in? Only, you’re getting wetter the longer you stand there.”
I staggered over to the car, opened the rear door and dropped myself into the seat. The driver checked me out in the rear-view mirror, his eyes locking with mine for a second before he changed gear and, the central locking clicking in with a threatening THUNK, we moved down the empty and now soak
ed street.
We didn’t make eye contact again, nor did he answer any of my questions as we drove through the West End, an eerie place at this time of the morning, the rain – sheeting now – turning the view from the car – of shopfronts still lit up, traffic lights and occasional headlights of other vehicles using the road – into a dark Monet; all streaked light and impressionistic shapes.
I peered out the window and frowned. We weren’t heading to the pound shop.
“Where are we going?” I asked and, when no answer was forthcoming, I tried again. “Look, I don’t know what’s going on here, but it’s got to be a simple misunderstanding. I mean, you’ve picked me up before. Chopper probably just wants to talk to me about The Marq or something.”
Yeah, right, I thought. At three o’clock in the morning.
And then I was angry. “Does Chopper ever actually come to visit people,” I asked the back of the goon’s head, “or does he always expect you to go fetch them?”
“That’s Mr Falzone to you,” he snapped back, without either taking his eyes off the road or addressing my question.
Outside the car, the familiar landmarks whizzed by. We crossed Piccadilly, the glaring lights still flaming away; advertising products nobody could really need to a square devoid of consumers. The tiny figure of Eros, dwarfed by the greed and the hammering rain, still balancing on one leg and trying to fire his arrows of love up Piccadilly, through which we now drove.
Somewhere off Marble Arch we turned right, drove down a street which seemed, for being so close to the glitz of the streets we’d just left, grimier and the car pulled up outside what looked like a nightclub, the front in darkness but the red velvet rope still pulled across the doorway, hovering over a somewhat bedraggled red carpet.
The rear door of the car was suddenly opened by another suited goon, this one – despite the fact that it was three thirty in the morning, pitch dark and pissing down with rain – having augmented his shaven head, sharkskin suit and standard-issue earpiece with a pair of aviator sunglasses.
Death Of A Devil Page 15
