by Jeff Gulvin
‘Don’t ask questions I can’t answer.’ Her mouth was tight, lips thin, eyes blue and stone cold in her face.
Gravitz sat back and rested a fisted hand on the table top. The hamburgers came and she put out her second cigarette. They ate in silence and afterwards he leaned towards her.
‘One question?’
‘What?’
‘How close are you to him?’
‘Close.’
‘I want to know how close.’
‘Fool. You know as much now as you really ever want to.’
He shook his head. ‘I want to know more.’
She stared at him then, a new darkness in her eyes. ‘Believe me, you don’t.’
He nodded, mouth twisted, and sat back. She started to get up. ‘I’m leaving now. I have to tell you, I didn’t want it done this way.’
‘What way?’
‘Meeting face to face.’
‘I’m new in town, honey. I needed to see a face.’
‘Did you?’
He nodded.
She leaned close to him then, fists resting on the table. ‘So now you’ve seen one. If anyone ever describes it—I’ll cut yours to pieces.’ She kissed him hard on the mouth and left.
Gravitz booked into a forty pounds a night travel lodge and watched English television. The soccer season was under way and he could not quite understand the passion of the Newcastle United fans. In the morning he got up and drove into Consett in the rental car. He parked in the town centre car park and walked the short distance to the real estate agents, Caspar & Gibbs. The receptionist was blonde and tanned and very pretty. Gravitz smiled at her and set his briefcase down on the floor.
‘My name’s Gravitz,’ he said. ‘I wrote you from the United States. I’ve come to lease Healey Hall Farm.’
Ibrahim Huella had a new driving licence. Colin Learning was a thirty-two-year-old black man who worked at McDonald’s in Coventry. For two months Huella had worked with him, making Big Macs with not enough mayonnaise. One afternoon during his break, Huella had stolen Learning’s driving licence from his jacket pocket, photocopied it in the office, returned it, and then written to the DVLA in Swansea claiming two things: firstly, that he had lost the licence and secondly, he had a change of address. Within seven days he had a new licence sent to the room he was renting just outside the city. Three weeks after that, he had left the room and rented a car in Colin Learning’s name, using a Bank of Scotland credit card. He drove the car to Northumberland where he delivered it in good order to the Avis depot. Then he caught the bus to Consett and phoned Healey Hall Farm. Gravitz drove out to pick him up in a car he had bought at an auction in Sunderland.
‘Ricky Gravitz,’ he said, as Huella got in the car.
‘Colin Learning.’
‘We’re going to be working together.’
Huella glanced sideways at him. ‘You sound excited.’
‘I am.’
Huella nodded and looked out of the window.
Gravitz had settled into the farm and had continued with the pretence he had used as his reason for renting it in the first place. He was in the north of England for a sixth-month sabbatical to finish his research on northern European mineral deposits for his Ph.D. from Harvard. Just another American trust-funder spending his family’s money. At least he was putting it to good use.
Huella only had a small case which he carried up to his room. He checked the lie of the stairs first, whether there were any windows halfway up and whether he could be seen from the landing. Satisfied, he moved to the second bedroom, noting the mess already made by the master.
‘Go in and close the curtains,’ he said.
‘Why? There’s nobody for miles around.’
‘Just do it, please.’
Gravitz went in, looked out of the window, which faced over fields and then moorland at the back, then he pulled the curtains across and only when they were fast did Huella enter the room. He scanned it quickly and nodded. Then he placed his bag on the bed.
‘Now,’ he said, turning back to Gravitz. ‘Show me the passageway.’
Gravitz frowned. ‘Passageway. What passageway?’
‘You mean you haven’t found it?’
‘Hey.’ Gravitz lifted a finger. ‘No need for that, man. We’re in this together.’
Huella’s eyes narrowed for a fraction of a second and then widened again. ‘This farmhouse is nearly six hundred years old,’ he said. ‘Six hundred years ago the English and the Scots were tearing one another’s throats out every other week. The man who built this house was called Elliott. Mr Elliott had a large family and he wanted to protect them. So he built a passage from the cellar to the outbuildings, which in those days were stables. The passage is still there. It’s why we chose this house.’ He took a step closer to him then. ‘With what we’re doing, we don’t want to be opening too many doors, now do we.’
The cellar door had a lock on it and Gravitz had no key. ‘I guess we weren’t meant to go in there,’ he said. Huella picked the lock in three minutes. The cellar was racked with wine, every bottle marked and labelled, some of them over thirty years old. The passage had been built to almost walking height and stretched about fifteen feet. At the far end were wooden steps which led up to a tight-fitting trap door in the floor of what would have been the stables. Some years previously they had been converted into three separate workshops, but all had adjoining doors. Huella went through to the last one and bent to the small metal bucket under the workbench. He lifted out a piece of oil cloth, slowly unwrapped it and held up a length of copper tube sealed at both ends.
Back inside the house, they ate some food and then Gravitz cleared away the dishes. Huella sat at the table and drank orange juice. He watched Gravitz for a moment, then snapped his fingers. ‘Let me see the letter.’
Gravitz went up to his room and came down again with a piece of paper. He unfolded it and handed it to Huella, who read it and smiled. It was a piece of Harvard University-headed paper, the Geological Sciences Department under Dr Irving P. Wright. It was ‘To whom it may concern’, and it explained that Richard Gravitz III was a Princeton honours graduate, writing his thesis for what promised to be an excellent Ph.D. on the geology of northern Europe. He was in England to do the final research and analysis on the strength of mineral deposits in the rocks of northern England and southern Scotland. In order to do this, he would need access to certain scientific equipment and also hydrochloric and nitric acids. As Mr Gravitz would not have access to any English laboratory conditions, he would be funding the provision of his own. The university would be most grateful for whatever assistance he could get in the UK.
Huella handed back the letter. ‘Perfect,’ he said. ‘Now, tomorrow you will go shopping.’
Tommy Cairns took the call on his cloned mobile telephone. As soon as he answered and heard the short silence, he knew who it was.
‘Did you know that certain interested parties have been looking at one of your number?’ she asked him.
For a moment Cairns was stunned. ‘No.’
‘Oxley.’
‘Police?’
‘Who else?’
‘You’re sure? I mean, how do you know?’
‘I just know. What’re you going to do about it?’
Cairns thought quickly. He was sitting at traffic lights in Peckham on his way home from work. He scanned the rear-view and door mirrors. ‘Just Charlie?’
‘So far. But he works with you and the others, doesn’t he.’
Again, Cairns was quiet.
‘Do you want out?’
He bit his lip. ‘How much more work is there?’
‘Two jobs. Both involve the hire or theft of a vehicle.’
Cairns thought about it. Oxley had stolen the cab, but Frank had been driving it. ‘What about Frank?’ he asked her.
‘What about him?’
‘Is anyone looking at him?’
‘Not that we know of. But you’ve been careless.’
�
��Oxley,’ he said. ‘Oxley’s been careless.’
‘Do you want out?’ she asked him again.
‘No.’ He said it very quickly, then bit his lip again.
‘All right. But you need to consider exactly what you’re going to do when you receive the instructions. They’ll be in the usual place.’
‘OK. Don’t worry about it. I’ll straighten things out.’
‘Make sure you do.’
Three days later, he waited for the postman in Crouch End. He saw him driving up the road in his van and he waited. At number 43, the postman jumped out of the van and walked up the steps. Cairns walked along the pavement behind him. ‘Anything for F, mate?’ he asked.
The postman shuffled the stack of mail in his hands. ‘Just this.’ He walked down the steps and handed Cairns a padded A4-size envelope. Cairns thanked him and went back to his car. Inside the envelope, there was another £3500 in cash and a typed sheet of paper. He read it carefully, then folded it into his pocket.
He had thought about phoning Oxley at home as soon as the woman had phoned him, but decided against it. Old Bill listened to phones, didn’t they. Aware of it all now, he had watched as Oxley arrived at the yard the morning after the phone call. Sitting in the Portakabin, he had a good view of the gates and the road beyond. Charlie arrived at eight o’clock. Cairns watched him get out of the van, then watched the road. A motorcycle courier drove slowly past.
Three other lads were drinking tea in the Portakabin when Oxley came in. Cairns spoke quietly to them. ‘Go get the van ready, lads.’
They looked at him. ‘All of us?’
‘Yes, fucking all of you.’
Oxley turned to go with them, but Cairns stopped him. ‘Not you, Charlie.’
When they were alone, Cairns leaned on the desk and folded his arms. ‘Old Bill’s clocked you,’ he said.
Oxley stared at him. ‘What you on about?’
‘They’re watching you.’
‘Who are?’
‘The police, you fucking wanker.’
Oxley jumped up to look out of the window.
‘Don’t be a prick. Take my word for it. I know.’
Oxley sat down again and stuck a cigarette between his lips.
‘I’ve had another phone call,’ Cairns told him. ‘They want us to do two more jobs, but the trouble is Old Bill’s looking at you.’
‘Why me?’
‘Can only be the cab.’
‘Kenny did the cab and Frank drove it.’
‘Yeah, but you drove Kenny.’ Cairns stroked his jaw. ‘Where’d you go that night?’
‘What night?’
‘When you nicked the cab, stupid.’
Oxley scratched the shaven hair on his scalp. ‘Hackney, wasn’t it.’
‘I know that—what did you do—pub, shops—what?’
‘Pub. We had a couple of pints on Victoria Park Road.’
‘Landlord clock you, did he?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Fucking skinheads in Hackney. You pair of twats. You’re gonna stand out a mile.’ He tugged at his hair. ‘Why d’you think I grow it like this?’
Oxley said nothing. He bit his already bitten-down nails and spat what he could on the floor. ‘What d’you want me to do?’
‘Nothing. Let me think about it for a while. But don’t start looking over your shoulder. Don’t do anything any different than you are now. I reckon, if they think you’ve clocked them, they’ll pull you.’
‘What can they nick me for?’
‘I don’t know, do I. Just don’t let them know you see ’em. If nothing happens, they’ll get bored and fuck off.’
That was a few days ago now and Cairns sat in his car with the cash and the typed sheet of paper. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and then he made a phone call.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Mr Ingram. Tommy Cairns.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing really. Just that we’re a bit slack right now, so I thought a bunch of the lads might make a start on the flat in Brighton.’
‘I wanted that done before the summer. I could’ve let it.’
‘We were busy then, weren’t we. We might as well get on with it now, though, make sure it don’t get no worse over the winter. You might get a long-term let.’
‘OK.’
‘It’ll mean the lads staying down there.’
‘Why? It’s hardly a long drive.’
‘In the flat, Mr Ingram.’
‘Oh, I see.’ Ingram sniffed. ‘All right, then.’
‘I’ll come and collect the keys.’ Cairns switched the phone off and then dialled another number.
‘It’s me—Tom. Listen, I need a driving licence. Don’t care whose, so long as he’s away and his old lady don’t know me.’
‘OK,’ the voice said in his ear. ‘How soon?’
‘Yesterday’d be good.’
Swann still could not shake the mood, as if a cloud of depression had settled on him. ‘What’s the matter, Daddy?’ Joanna asked him as he sat on the settee on Saturday morning. ‘You don’t seem to be very happy at the moment. Is it because me and Charley are naughty?’
Swann took her by the shoulders and held her in front of him, looking into her eyes.
‘Darling,’ he said. ‘You and Charley are the best-behaved children in the world, and even if you weren’t—Daddy’s moods wouldn’t be because of you.’
‘So what’s the matter, then?’ She put her hand on her hip and cocked her head to one side.
Swann looked at her and smiled. ‘Oh, I don’t know really.’
‘Is it Pia? I thought you loved Pia.’
‘I do.’
‘Is she coming over today?’
‘We’re going over to get her, then go and see Caroline and George and the horses.’
Joanna went to get ready and Swann went up to the roof and smoked a cigarette. He rested his foot against the parapet and leaned on his thigh. Rachael had left him partially because of this. Every now and then, just when he thought he was doing OK, something would happen, trigger a dream and then he would slip down the slope some more. He fought against it continually, brave face, snappy clothes, boosting the way he felt about himself. It was strange though this time—that photograph had started it, Ibrahim Huella, or whoever he really was, sending him the picture with a mock bullet hole in his head. Webb had laughed it off, as Webb was apt to do. But he couldn’t. It was not the threat that bothered him, but the deliberateness of the act; as if the sender knew his weakness, sought it out, then picked at it over again.
You should talk to someone, Rachael had told him time and time again. All you do is bury it. Then it resurfaces and everyone else suffers.
I’m not talking to some stranger.
Then get some fucking pills.
Which is what he had done for a while, but that only helped in the short term, so he stopped taking them. The climbing helped definitely. Maybe he needed to go again, this winter perhaps; Scotland, maybe tackle some snow and ice on his own.
‘Daddy, we’re ready.’ The girls’ voices lifted up to him in unison from downstairs. He threw the remains of the cigarette into the street below and went back inside. They were standing in the lounge side by side, with their overnight bags packed and ready before them.
Swann scooped them up in his arms and hugged them. ‘Come on, then,’ he said. ‘Let’s go and get Pia.’
Tommy Cairns stole the van and drove it to the yard in darkness. It was five days since he had sent Oxley, Bacon and the other boys down to Brighton to work on the seafront flat. At the yard, he unscrewed the licence plates and fixed the fresh set that Willis had given him. It was less risky than hiring a van, even with a new driving licence. If for some reason Frankie got pulled, the plates would check out with the type of van. He had been ultra careful, not knowing whether anyone was watching him or not. He had a beer or two, watched the faces in the pub and looked for people he didn’t recognize. When
he left, he took a long route to where he knew the van was parked and kept looking behind him. He had no real idea about any tried and tested antisurveillance techniques, but he did make sure he stopped regularly, doubled back before finally getting to the van and stealing it. It was easy: he hated doing it himself, but there was nobody else. He was actually better at having them away than Bacon, but he let Bacon think he was better so he could use him more often.
The glass was in the lock-up at the yard. They had moved it from Bacon’s garage weeks ago. Frank came down and together they loaded it into the van and secured it.
‘You know where you’re going?’ Tommy asked him.
‘Yeah. Supermarket in Crook.’
‘We got one more job after this, Frankie, and then we’re out. So listen, when you’re up there, stay out of the way.’
The following morning, Frank Cairns drove the van north, with the four sheets of toughened glass in the back. A mile before he got to Crook, he stopped at a newsagent’s to ask how many supermarkets there were and was directed to one close to the centre of town. He parked the van, slipped the keys up the exhaust pipe and went to find a pub. His instructions were to come back for it at two-thirty, when the keys would be back in the exhaust pipe.
Ricky Gravitz sat in his car and watched as Cairns walked away. He waited five more minutes and then got out, locked the door and wandered over to the van. The supermarket was busy but not heaving. He quickly checked round and bent for the keys in the muffler.
Huella was in the furthest workshop from the house when he heard the van arrive. He had the wooden trap door up and was just finishing with the foam he had taped round the rim, so that it would seal fully when closed. He tried it and it fitted, stiff, to lift, but the foam remained intact. He stood up and rolled the last of the foam tape into a loop and placed it under the workbench. Set up on top was a microscope, some Tanita weighing scales and two gas burners linked to twin bottles on the floor. He had a metal clamp with a bulbous, heat-resistant bottle hooked over one burner and a second, slimmer tube set next to it.
Gravitz turned the van in the farmyard and backed up to the workshop. When he got close, Huella opened the door and Gravitz stopped. Together they unbound the tapes that held the four sheets of glass in place and then lifted them into the workshop. From the cab, Gravitz collected the box of hinges and fastenings and placed them next to the glass. When he was finished, he went back out to the van. Huella closed the workshop door and watched him drive away. Now he stood in the silence, thinking of Jack Swann and George Webb and all of those other policemen he would soon have scurrying for their lives. He looked again at the glass, then sat down on a stool at the bench. There was nothing he could do until Gravitz got back. It would take both of them to build it.
