The Vault

by Mark Dawson

  Smiler had vouched for Fa­bian, but it was once bit­ten and twice shy as far as Jimmy was con­cerned, and he had done a little re­search of his own. The old man was in his sev­en­ties and one of the most in­flu­en­tial fig­ures in the un­der­world. The le­gend was that Fa­bian had in­veigled him­self into the Cos­tello fam­ily, a syn­dic­ate that had held sway over Lon­don dur­ing the war, and then taken them over from the in­side through a mix­ture of de­cep­tion and force. Fa­bian was old school and had main­tained his po­s­i­tion for four dec­ades. To main­tain his po­s­i­tion all this time, with the un­der­world be­com­ing a more dan­ger­ous place each passing year, was im­press­ive. Jimmy had re­solved early on not to un­der­es­tim­ate him.

  And now he found him­self doubt­ing the good sense of work­ing with him, des­pite the suc­cess­ful job that they had just pulled off. His in­tu­ition had told him to be care­ful, and he had ig­nored it.

  The song came to an end. Jimmy switched off the ig­ni­tion, with­drew the keys and dropped them into the in­side pocket of his leather jacket. He opened the car door and stepped out.

  14

  Signs out­side the club ad­vert­ised a New Year’s Eve party and Jimmy could hear the muffled bass of the new Jive Bunny song. Jimmy was well past the time of life when go­ing to a nightclub was an at­tract­ive pro­pos­i­tion, and the pro­spect of go­ing into this one to­night—he knew it would be filled with drunks, and evid­ence sug­ges­ted that the mu­sic would be aw­ful—was not one that filled him with en­thu­si­asm. He cursed Smiler again and prom­ised him­self that he would stay only as long as was ne­ces­sary be­fore he went back home.

  The nightclub was as busy as Jimmy had feared it would be. The place was a dive: the in­terior had just been re­freshed, and now it looked like a Duran Duran video shot in Pablo Esco­bar’s bed­room. The de­cor was a mix­ture of reds and blacks with gold bro­cade. There were ar­ti­fi­cial plants in china pots that were sup­posed to look like some­thing out of the Ming dyn­asty. There was a grand pi­ano in one corner be­hind a vel­vet rope. Jimmy looked around and shook his head: it felt like a party in a Chinese res­taur­ant. The dance floor was packed. He saw men in shell suits, stone-washed jeans and white train­ers eye­ing up girls in mini-skirts, leg warm­ers and fin­ger­less gloves. He saw three lads smoking dope in the corner and saw two drunken girls help­ing their even more drunken friend back on to her heels after she tripped down the steps to the dance floor.

  “Ex­cuse me,” Jimmy said, hop­ping out of the way just in time as a young wo­man vomited her In­dian takeaway all over the mono­grammed car­pet.

  Jimmy reached the door that led to the of­fice on the floor above. There was a boun­cer bar­ring the way.

  “All right, mate,” Jimmy said.

  “What you want?”

  “I’m here to see Mr Fa­bian.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Jimmy Walker. He’s ex­pect­ing me.”

  “He’s in the of­fice,” the man said. “Up you go.”

  Jimmy climbed the stairs to the land­ing. There was a plain wooden door; he knocked on it and heard a voice from in­side telling him to come in. He opened the door and went through.

  It was a me­dium-sized room with a table and five chairs, a wa­ter cooler and a tele­vi­sion rest­ing on an old cre­denza. The neon sign that ad­vert­ised the club was out­side the win­dow and it pulsed on and off, cast­ing al­tern­at­ing flick­ers of red and blue into the room. There were two people sit­ting at the table: Smiler and Ed­ward Fa­bian. There were three glasses and a bottle of Scotch on the table, to­gether with the boxes of dia­monds from the raid. One of the boxes was open, the stones in­side glit­ter­ing in the pulses of light.

  The men looked up at him as he came in­side.

  “Even­ing,” Jimmy said, shut­ting the door be­hind him.

  “Hello, Jimmy,” Fa­bian said. Smiler nod­ded his ac­know­ledge­ment. “Take a seat.”

  Jimmy sat down. “What’s up?”

  “Thanks for com­ing,” Fa­bian said. “I ap­pre­ci­ate it’s late, but this is im­port­ant.”

  Fa­bian took the top off the bottle, stood up and poured out two meas­ures of Scotch.

  “How was the job?”

  Jimmy looked at Smiler. “You haven’t told him?”

  “I wanted you both to be here,” Fa­bian said.

  “It went well. In and out, just like we planned.”

  “The safe?”

  “I cut it open. No prob­lem.” He nod­ded down to the open box. “You’re happy with the stones?”

  “Very happy,” Fa­bian said.

  “Good,” he said. “I’m glad.”

  “Smiler said you were good and he was right.”

  “So why did you want to see us to­night? I thought we were meet­ing to­mor­row for the cut-up?”

  “There’s someone I want you to meet,” the old man said.

  Fa­bian went to the door. Jimmy had a blast of ap­pre­hen­sion and pushed his own chair away from the table. Fa­bian opened the door and stepped to the side. Four men were stand­ing on the land­ing: cheap suits, scuffed shoes, bad hair. The first man came in­side and, as the three be­hind him shuffled for­ward, Jimmy heard the sound of feet on the stairs.

  “Even­ing, gents,” the man said.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Smiler said.

  “I’m De­tect­ive In­spector Kennedy. Fly­ing Squad.”

  Smiler got up so fast that his chair fell back against the wall. “What the fuck?”

  “You’re both un­der ar­rest for rob­bery.”

  “You what?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Bol­locks to that,” Smiler pro­tested. “We ain’t done noth­ing.”

  Kennedy came in­side and Fa­bian took the op­por­tun­ity to step out onto the land­ing. The po­lice­man went to the cre­denza, turned the TV around and care­fully pulled away a wire that had been fastened to the back of the case. He held it up for them all to see: the top of the wire ended in a small mi­cro­phone.

  “We’ve got you all on tape, lads. We can have a listen back at the sta­tion. You’re com­ing down­stairs.” He poin­ted at Jimmy. “You first, son.”

  Jimmy looked around the room. Smiler was open-mouthed, just slowly real­ising what was hap­pen­ing to them. Ed­ward Fa­bian, stal­wart of the Lon­don un­der­world, was selling them out. Here they were, caught with their pants down and thou­sands of pounds of stolen dia­monds on the table. Jimmy ig­nored him and looked for the exits. There was no other door, and the only other pos­sible way out was the win­dow. He thought about it, then dis­missed it; they were on the first floor and the Old Bill would have men down there in the event that any­one man­aged to get by the blokes on the stairs, not that that was very likely.

  Kennedy stepped aside to let the other men come in­side. The next of­ficer to come through the door was big, built like a prop for­ward and, as he stepped from the gloom of the land­ing and into the light of the of­fice, Jimmy saw that he was car­ry­ing a rub­ber cosh.

  “Leave it out,” Jimmy said.

  “Turn around. Hands be­hind your back.”

  Jimmy did as he was told.

  The big po­lice­man took out a pair of cuffs. “You don’t have to say any­thing un­less you wish to do so but it may harm your de­fence if you don’t men­tion, when ques­tioned, some­thing you—”

  Smiler surged at him, drilling him with a right hand and shov­ing him back against the wall.

  All hell broke loose.

  Jimmy grabbed the bottle of Scotch from the table, took a half-turn and made for the door. Kennedy tried to block him, but Jimmy crashed the bottle down on his head. It had a heavy base and it didn’t smash; in­stead, Kennedy dropped to the floor, spark out. There were four more men out­side and an­other on the stairs. They were all over six feet and heavy with it.

  They were taller than Jim
my and they out­weighed him. But Jimmy was as hard as nails, not afraid to fight dirty, and des­per­ate.

  He swung the bottle at the nearest man, but the of­ficer got his arms up in time and de­flec­ted the blow. Jimmy drove his knee into the man’s gut and, as he in­stinct­ively dropped his guard, back­han­ded the bottle over his head. This time the bottle smashed, li­quid and glass and blood mix­ing over the man’s scalp.

  A second man grabbed Jimmy around the neck and tried to drag him down to the floor. Jimmy grabbed the man’s fin­gers and pulled back, two of them snap­ping like twigs as his grasp was broken. Jimmy grabbed the man’s jacket with both hands and but­ted him in the face. The man howled as his nose was broken, blood pour­ing from his nos­trils.

  Jimmy dropped the of­ficer as he felt Smiler be­hind him. He lowered his shoulder and charged into the re­main­ing men at the top of the stairs, try­ing to force them apart so that he could make his way to the exit. He didn’t get far; he felt a crack on the back of his head and then a star­burst of pain. His legs went weak, he fell to his knees and, as a second blow ca­reened off his skull, he fell back to see the big of­ficer with the cosh stand­ing over him.

  The man raised the cosh above his head and swung it, for the third time, at Jimmy’s head. Jimmy ate the car­pet and felt an­other blow as the lights in the room dimmed and then faded away.

  15

  The new year dawned bright and clear, and Mack­in­tosh de­cided that he would be­gin it with a gentle walk through the park near his home in St John’s Wood. The streets around the park were quiet, with just a hand­ful of chil­dren out and about. He paused to watch a couple of bright-eyed boys try­ing out brand-new bi­cycles and, as he broached the park, a father and his daugh­ter fly­ing a kite over­head.

  The air was crisp and he felt in­vig­or­ated as he re­turned to his house. He looked at his watch; it was eight, and he was due to take a break­fast meet­ing in an hour. He went in­side to col­lect his leather satchel, then went back out and flagged down a black cab on Wel­ling­ton Road.

  “Where to, guv?”

  “The Athenæum, please. White­hall.”

  “Right you are.”

  He felt a buzz of ap­pre­hen­sion as they pulled out into the light traffic. The meet­ing had the po­ten­tial to be a portent­ous one. He needed it to go the way he wanted; he had spent the last week think­ing about Élodie and about how he was go­ing to avenge her. He thought about PI­CASSO, too, about where he might be and what might have happened to him, but it was really all about her.

  *

  Mack­in­tosh had pre­vi­ously la­boured un­der the il­lu­sion that the seat of Brit­ish power and in­flu­ence lay in White­hall, but now he knew bet­ter. The Palace of West­min­ster con­tained both houses of gov­ern­ment: the House of Com­mons and the House of Lords. Those au­gust in­sti­tu­tions were found on White­hall Road, along with the headquar­ters of the Civil Ser­vice, but he had swiftly been dis­ab­used of his mis­ap­pre­hen­sion after he joined the secret ser­vice. Power was dis­played in these theatres; the real power was wiel­ded in the private gen­tle­men’s clubs that were found nearby.

  The taxi stopped on Pall Mall. The home of the Athenæum was a grand build­ing with three im­pos­ing tiers and a por­tico sup­por­ted by a row of double Doric columns. A frieze had been in­cluded around the out­side of the build­ing that re­minded Mack­in­tosh of the El­gin Marbles. Mack­in­tosh had never been in­side the build­ing be­fore and felt mo­ment­ar­ily in­tim­id­ated as he gazed up at the wide double doors at the top of the steps. He clutched his satchel and as­cen­ded, nod­ding his thanks to the mem­ber of staff who dir­ec­ted him through to a wait­ing room.

  An­other im­macu­lately dressed staff mem­ber told Mack­in­tosh to take a seat in a stud­ded leather arm­chair be­fore a roar­ing fire. He put the satchel down be­side him, ad­just­ing the thick folder that pro­truded from the top. He had worn his best tweed suit and had paired it with newly shined brogues. His old school tie ac­com­pan­ied a crisp, white shirt. He looked smart but, as eld­erly male mem­bers of the no­bil­ity were shown into the din­ing room for their break­fast, he still felt like an in­truder.

  An eld­erly waiter in full top­coat and tails beckoned Mack­in­tosh to fol­low him. He got up and fol­lowed the old man into what ap­peared to be a small lib­rary. There were books stacked to the ceil­ing on every wall. A fire burned down in the grate, and two arm­chairs had been set fa­cing the fire. In between the chairs res­ted a table with a de­canter and two small glasses. The waiter filled both glasses, gave a subtle bow and left the room, clos­ing the door be­hind him.

  One of the chairs was oc­cu­pied. The man, dressed in a three-piece suit, did not ac­know­ledge his pres­ence; in­stead, he picked up one of the glasses, mur­mured, “Good health,” and then took a del­ic­ate sip. “Happy New Year.”

  Mack­in­tosh stayed where he was. He wasn’t sure what he was ex­pec­ted to do.

  “What’s the mat­ter?” the man in the chair said. “Too early for you? It’s bloody freez­ing out­side.”

  “It is.”

  “It’s sherry—a good bottle, too. It’s fest­ive. Get it down your neck and sit down.”

  Mack­in­tosh took the glass and sipped the sherry. He took off his jacket and sat down in the empty chair. The man fa­cing him in the other chair was Vivian Bloom, and he was le­gendary within the in­tel­li­gence es­tab­lish­ment. Bloom was in his early forties, al­though he could eas­ily have been mis­taken for much older than that. His suit might have been ex­pens­ive once, but now it was show­ing the signs of wear and tear; the waist­coat was miss­ing a but­ton, the el­bows and knees looked as if the fab­ric was start­ing to thin, and there was a stain on the jacket that had been re­moved with only par­tial suc­cess. His hair was thin­ning at the sides, with a tuft in the centre of his crown, just above his fore­head, that looked as if it had been glued there. He had a long fore­head, un­trimmed eye­brows and a lan­guidly ex­press­ive face that looked par­tic­u­larly apt for sar­casm. Bloom had worked for MI6, al­though his role had be­come more and more neb­u­lous as time had passed. He had be­come a link between gov­ern­ment and the in­tel­li­gence ser­vices, and had, over time, ac­crued sig­ni­fic­ant power and in­flu­ence. That was the reason Mack­in­tosh had lob­bied for this meet­ing. Bloom had the power to give him what he wanted.

  “What do you think of the club?” Bloom asked.

  “Very grand,” he said.

  “Did you see the frieze out­side?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cost five per cent of what they spent on the whole bloody build­ing. The Sec­ret­ary of the Ad­mir­alty at the time was a man called Croker. He was one of the found­ing mem­bers and he in­sisted, said they had to do it. Other mem­bers said that it would be bet­ter to spend the money on an ice house to keep the place cool in sum­mer, but he wouldn’t hear of it. They made up a rhyme about him: ‘I’m John Wilson Croker, I do as I please; in­stead of an ice house, I give you—a frieze!’” Bloom chuckled, a grav­elly sound that rumbled up from his stom­ach. “I know,” he said. “Aw­ful joke. Apo­lo­gies.”

  Mack­in­tosh had never met with a senior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cial be­fore. Bloom was evid­ently ec­cent­ric and the ex­per­i­ence was un­nerv­ing.

  “How’s Ber­lin?”

  “Ter­rible, sir.”

  “Ready to go back?”

  “I am.”

  “You’ve re­covered from what happened?”

  “I have, thank you.”

  “You lost an agent?”

  “Yes, sir. Foulkes.”

  “And the French li­aison?”

  He felt a pulse of an­ger that Élodie was be­ing dis­missed so glibly. “Yes, sir.”

  “Fuck­ing Stasi. Still—we were get­ting busy on their patch. No doubt we would’ve done the same to them.”

  Mack­in­tosh swal�
�lowed, try­ing to nudge the con­ver­sa­tion along. “Thank you for meet­ing me, sir. I’m grate­ful for your time.”

  “Pleas­ure’s all mine. I’ve kept an eye on your ca­reer, Harry. Very im­press­ive. Time in Ul­ster, then an im­press­ive for­eign tour. Ber­lin’s the only real blot on the copy­book, isn’t it?”

  “Can I ask if you’ve had a chance to read my memo?”

  Bloom turned away from the fire and met Mack­in­tosh’s gaze. “Of course. Why do you think you’re here?”

  “Might I ask what you think?”

  “I think that it’s an in­ter­est­ing idea.”

  “Thank you. Can I—”

  “It’s an in­ter­est­ing idea and I’ll cer­tainly look at it for the fu­ture.”

  “But, sir, with re­spect, one of my agents was killed. Ber­lin Sta­tion is… well, there barely is a sta­tion any­more. It’s been hope­less for a long time… what happened just goes to show: the Stasi are laugh­ing at us. The new men I asked for—I need them, very badly.”

  “You need new men,” he said. “We can agree on that, and you’ll get them. But I’m not sure you need those men.”

  “Sir?”

  “Sol­diers, Harry? As­sas­sins? Really?”

  “We have to do some­thing. We can’t com­pete with them with what we have.”

  Bloom ex­haled. “I can see the merit. Times are hard at the mo­ment. The So­viet Union is be­gin­ning to crack, the Baltic states want to leave, and the Krem­lin is con­cerned, as well they should be. And the East Ger­man gov­ern­ment is des­per­ate. Given the dam­age that PI­CASSO could have done, it’s not sur­pris­ing they did what they did.”