Layer Cake

by J. J. Connolly

  He gives me a dubious look and the pointy finger. ‘Fuckin hope you ain’t lying to me, pal.’

  ‘It’s actually turned in our favour cos Eddy wants to buy the shipment of pills.’

  ‘Did he have Jimmy shot, do you think?’

  ‘Possibly, but I think it’s quite a long list of candidates. I’m doin this bitta business then I’m takin a leaf outta your book and gettin outta town for a while.’

  ‘I think you owe me big-time for the inconvenience,’ says Cody.

  ‘If you say so. I can do it like that or I can put you into somethin that’ll set you up for a long fuckin time. You’d have a big enough chunk to start makin legit investments, money goes to money.’

  ‘How much we talkin?’

  ‘Between three hundred and fifty thou and four hundred thou. We’ll have some ex’s and we might need to bring in some specialists. That’s your department.’

  ‘It ain’t no hare-brained kamikaze mission, is it? Cos if it is I don’t wanna know,’ Cody says.

  No point worrying him, telling him about the Duke and Duchess Slasher.

  ‘Let’s go and have some lunch and talk about it.’

  ‘It’s on you, right?’ says Cody.

  ‘You didn’t bring me back no Brighton rock, very thoughtless that, Cody.’

  ‘Don’t take the piss. You ain’t forgiven yet.’

  In the restaurant I explain to Cody the coup. Clarkie and Terry went to Edmonton on Thursday with two sets of binoculars, plotted up, and tried to see if anything was going on at the lock-up, but it was all quiet on that front. Cos they had fuck-all better to do and Clarkie’s desperate to succeed, he left Terry keeping dog while he drove round and round in circles looking for big lemon motors with big muscle-bound bouncer-types inside. This is, according to Clarkie and his driving-school lessons from ex-old bill, exactly what the gathers from one of those top squads would do if they wanted to find a little team working in a certain area. After an hour, very tenacious boy, Clarkie, and a few false alarms tailing yard-dogs and almost getting plunged at traffic lights by over-paranoid twitchy local dealers, he’s come across a Merc G-Wagon jeep, white and gold, looking completely out of place in a side-turning offa Tottenham High Street a couple of miles from the Edmonton lock-up. He’s got outta the motor and had a little recce, a stroll past, and in the back there’s four boxes that look like the boxes refrigerators arrive in. Clarkie knows about numberplates as well, it’s a hobby, can tell yer where in the country the motor’s registered, like traffic plod, but on this occasion he didn’t need to cos the dealer’s name was on the plate as well. It fitted the profile. Across the street was a Merc sports rag-top, definitely not a North Tottenham motor, same thing, same dealer from outta town. Good front business, car dealership.

  A traffic warden comes past and tells Clarkie that if he don’t move his motor, meaning the jeep, in five minutes he’s gonna ticket it. Clarkie tells him he’s just going to get his hair cut, ‘ain’t havin it washed, mate, just cut, don’t need washin, washed it this morning’, and please give him a squeeze but the keen young African warden ain’t havin it. Mister Clark goes round the corner to make further enquiries and comes across a café, full, with steamed-up windows. He opens the door slightly, whistles with his thumb and first finger, shouts ‘Merc jeep gettin a ticket, anyone?’ and who comes running out past Mister Clark but gormless, lovesick Sidney, according to Clarkie’s very accurate description, with a ‘Cheers, mate,’ over his shoulder. Another guy comes out of the café but he’s strolling, no sweat, no panic, and gets into the Merc sports while Sidney gets in the jeep, starts it up and pulls out into the High Street.

  Clarkie jogs back to his motor and follows the jeep. It goes round the block and pulls up outside the café again as four guys are emerging from it. They’ve stayed to finish their nosebag while Sidney plays the martyr. One goes off and gets in the Merc and the other three get in the jeep with Siders. Six-handed, now, and it don’t take six big lumps like these to move four fridges. Now Clarkie knows he’s got a result if he keeps his cool. A white and gold Merc G wagon is nice and easy to follow, you can see it from about six or seven cars back. The jeep starts heading south, into town, while the Merc disappears in the other direction. Clarkie’s surprised cos he was absolutely certain they would head back outta town as well, hitting the motorway as soon as possible, but instead they head further in towards the centre of town. They hit a big main road so Clarkie don’t stick out cos everyone’s moving into town. If you see someone at three or four sets of traffic lights in a row it ain’t really suspicious. They come to Finsbury Park and turn off the main drag and into smaller tighter roads and Clarkie uses all his driving skill and expertise to keep outta range, poking the front of the motor round the corner just as the jeep turns the next one.

  Eventually they drive into a small entrance beside a railway bridge. Above the entrance there’s signs advertising bodywork, spraying, general car repairs, MOTs, wheel-balancing and engine-tuning. Between the arch doors and the garden fences backing on there’s lots of cars in various states of repair. Terry rings up to say that a Merc sports has pulled up outside the lock-up in Edmonton, two geezers have gone inside and come out again with a big weighty sports hold-all, ‘reckon it’s tools or dumb-bells, brov’, stuck the bag in the boot, that’s visibly dipped, looked all over the gaff and fucked off. They didn’t see him cos he’s plotted up three football pitches away but he can see them through his brand-new binoculars.

  Meanwhile, back in Finsbury Park, Sid and his three pals are out the Merc jeep and unloading the boxes into a railway arch. Clarkie gets Terry to come down from Edmonton, sit in the motor and keep the arches ready-eyed while he goes to get some grub and make some calls. I’m across town in the City of London, either in a box or in a deep excavation having my card marked by the geezer Cody calls ‘Eddy the Swell’, so I’m unavailable for comment. Between them they keep the place under observation day and night. The first night, Thursday, a kid on a pizza delivery bike brings a lorryload of grub. Last night, Saturday, he brings two pizzas, two Diet Cokes and cheesecake. Clarkie’s got him sweet, so the early vigilante has waned. This lot’s eating habits give them away every time. If they hadn’t have stopped for the mid-afternoon fry-up they would have been clean away from Edmonton and we’d be pissing in the wind trying to find them.

  After lunch we drive over to Finsbury Park to have a recce. Terry, who it seems I ain’t seen for ages, is sitting in another hired motor about twenty-five yards from the entrance reading the paper and listening to the football on the radio. We jump in.

  ‘Listen, Terry, the joint chiefs of staff have decided that we ain’t payin for those pills. They robbed ’em so we’re gonna rob ’em off them. How’s that sound?’

  ‘I’m up for it. You know we could go over there right now and take those cunts apart. There’s three of them in there.’

  ‘That’ll lead to a shitload of complications, Tel. Their heavy mob’ll come after us. We’ve gotta be a lot cuter. Cody, do you think it can be done?’

  ‘Two things worry me: are they tooled up in there? If they are, will they use ’em? That bitta road in front of those arches is only a glorified alley. Where’s their out, their escape?’

  ‘That’s three things, Cody. Can it be done?’ I ask.

  ‘Sure it can be done,’ he says, ‘but I ain’t fuckin goin in first.’

  We leave Terry keeping an eye on things in Finsbury Park, under protest, and drop Cody back in Camden. He reckons he needs to get himself a shopping list, get out and about, buy and hire, all the bits and pieces he needs for the work. He also needs to find some guys he’s worked with in the past and put them in the swindle, on wages, very good ones.

  ‘Morty says he’s over by the swans havin a cup of coffee. He says you’ll know where he means.’

  ‘Knightsbridge, by the Serpentine, let’s go.’

  There’s a cafeteria on the edge of the Serpentine in Hyde Park, a spit from Harrods and all the c
reamy shops on Sloane Street. Me and Morty like to have a serious shop-up in the locale and then go and get a proper cup of coffee in the café that’s been built from moulded concrete so the veranda hangs over the boating lake. The swans that Mort was talking about were the governors who ruled the roost in that little part of the world. A swan up-close is a large, frightening, volatile bird, especially if they’ve got a few kids in tow. Next down the pecking order come the geese, then the ducks, then the mundane grey pigeons and last the tricky little sparrows. Somedays it was peaceful to sit, drink coffee and fizzy water, gaze out across the water and do nish while the rest of the world grafted, observing the urban wildlife.

  By the time we get to the café by the water it’s three-thirty and Morty has been plotted up, shades on, for over an hour, but he seems chilled enough, sat outside with a couple of Gucci bags, watching people come and go. The punters are mainly tourists in this part of town, rich ones, well dressed and assured.

  ‘This guy, this German, he’s gotta go?’ asks Morty.

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He could fuck things up. Remember what Shanks said.’

  ‘What did Shanks say? I switch off a bit with Shanks to be honest.’

  ‘About these guys wanting one of us dead.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah. I remember now,’ says Mort, more interested in the rich tourists.

  ‘So you ain’t made the call yet,’ I ask.

  ‘If you say he’s gonna go, he’s gonna go. You seem to know what you’re doin lately.’ Morty fishes his mobile outta one coat pocket and a piece of paper outta the other, rings the number. ‘Good afternoon. How are ya, young man?’

  I know from experience that this call will go on for about twenty minutes. What needs to be said could be said in about twenty seconds but anyone listening, either now or at a court trial, wouldn’t, hopefully, get the gist. If the Other People played the tape in court, saying that this twenty-minute pow-wow about football was actually two parties negotiating the terms and conditions, whistling up a contract killer, the jury would think old bill’s whacked out, been getting too high on all the seizures. Morty could talk in gobble-dee-gook and codes the rest of his life. I get lost before kick-off.

  One time I was having this scene with this bird and I rung her one afternoon to ask her if it’s all right to pop over.

  ‘It’s okay but I’ve got the painters in,’ she says.

  ‘Well, that’s okay, they go home at what? Four or five? They gotta take their boots off sometime,’ I say.

  ‘No. Arsenal are at home,’ she says.

  ‘What the fuck have Arsenal got to do with anything?’

  ‘You can come over, but I’m flying the red flag.’

  ‘Are you all right love?’ I ask, concerned.

  ‘Yeah, but I’m on my period.’

  ‘Oh right. Why didn’t you say?’

  So I leave it to Morty.

  ‘We need someone who can hit a ball from outside the penalty area, Shanks . . . need to pay top wage to get anyone half decent . . . can’t entertain messers, they can get ya relegated . . . need to stop the rot, sharpish.’

  Mort’s been on the phone fifteen minutes, concentrating on every word. Suddenly he snaps the phone shut, gets up and start walking out the café. He gives a nod and a wink to Clarkie to get the Gucci bags and follow. We fall in behind. We let Morty walk on ahead for a bit. A swan has lost its bearings and is walking, slowly and awkwardly, not so agile outta water, are ya son, across the path in front of us as we come level with Morty.

  ‘Tomorrow, Shanks says tomorrow. Work out what time the first train outta Liverpool arrives in Euston and your man’ll be on it,’ he says.

  ‘Right,’ I shrug.

  ‘Shanks didn’t wanna go and see the geezer cos there’s football on the telly, lazy cunt. Says you’ll recognise the geezer, you’ve met him.’

  ‘I can’t think who that’ll be.’

  ‘Maybe wait till tomorrow and you’ll know. Slowly, slowly catchy monkey.’

  Clarkie curls a snout between his thumb and trigger finger and then lets fly, flicking it hard. Miraculously it hits the swan on the side of the head. The swan twitches and hisses like he can’t believe it more than anything, ain’t used to this disrespect, this hostility. Clarkie’s got his arms out, looking for a bitta praise, like he’s scored a goal or something. ‘See that, chaps, a direct fuckin hit.’

  ‘I bet you can’t do it again,’ says Morty. ‘Fifty quid says you can’t do it again.’

  Monday Bing Bong

  Bing bong: Announcing the arrival of a mercenary, paid assassin on the scheduled InterCity service departing Liverpool Lime Street at five forty-five, arriving at London Euston at eight-thirty.

  Bing bong: Announcing that this one’s a freebie, on the house, cos Big Trevor was a rotter to you on Tuesday night, dropping you at a petrol station in the middle of nowhere, and this neo-fascist crowd were responsible for noorsing up their puff deal.

  Bing bong: Announcing that the shooter will have a ski-bag with his tools in, looking like he’s off to catch the last of the snows on the pistes. He usually needs more time and information but it can be done and apparently I’ve met this geezer before.

  Off the train at eight-thirty, with all the early-bird-gets-the-worm businessmen, comes Trevor’s mute chauffeur, dressed like he’s on his way to Austria or Switzerland, with a big, long bag, five-foot long, bobble hat and black puffa jacket.

  ‘You better lose the hat, brov, you look like fuckin Noddy,’ I say as I shake his hand.

  He nods, removes the hat and we walk down to the hired motor I’ve got in the underground car-park. The ski-bag won’t fit in the boot, will only go in across the back seat. I drive outta Euston Station and head north towards Primrose Hill.

  ‘Far?’ asks Chatterbox Scouser.

  ‘No, not at all. I’m gonna show you the place I thought was good now. You can have a wander about, pick yer spot. We can disappear for a few hours, I’ll get the target up there for about one o’clock and you can be back on the rattler back to Liverpool at about half-past. How’s that sound?’

  He nods and gets a personal stereo outta the pocket of the puffa jacket, very fuckin sociable, but I suppose it’s preferable to stand-up comedy, the usual scousers routine, at nine in the morning. He puts the earphones in and pushes the play button. He’s looking out at the London streets like someone’s waving a lolly-stick with shit on it under his nose. Probably listening to one of those thumbs-up, you-gotta-laugh-ain’t-ya, scally bands who think they’re the Beatles.

  ‘Bon jour, savva?’ he says.

  ‘What’s that, brov?’ I say, startled.

  ‘Madams, miss-yours, mays on fong.’

  I turn and he’s listening intently.

  ‘Char mar pell Jean-Paul, ja swee Angliese.’

  He’s fuckin only learning French on the old speak-and-repeat tapes.

  ‘Char mar pell Jean-Paul, char swee Angliese,’ he says again with the beck, scouse accent, tearing the arse outta all the Cs. I tap him on the arm and point at his ears.

  ‘French,’ I say, nodding.

  He nods, distracted, humouring me. I tap him on the arm again.

  ‘Learnin French,’ I say, making my mouth big so he can lip-read. ‘Very good, tray be ann.’

  He nods and looks out the window but I tap his arm again.

  ‘Europeans,’ I say, pointing at him and me, backwards and forwards.

  He rolls his eyes.

  ‘It must be great,’ I say, ‘to be able to say fuck all in two languages, you mute cunt.’

  He nods.

  I park up round the back, away from the main road, where it’s nice and quiet. Primrose Hill is a park, about the size of about twenty-five football pitches, that rises up into one peak with a splendid, panoramic view across London, rain or shine. Someone standing at the viewing platform, or sitting on one of the benches conveniently placed on the pinnacle, would be at best silhouetted against the sky
and at worst wide open, free from any protection. They’d make an ideal target for someone with a telescopic sight and hunting rifle. The shot could come from any vantage point surrounding the peak. Me and the shooter go for a little walk around. He’s nodding seriously the whole time. He asks which direction the target will be coming from but I don’t know for sure. From the main road, I think. He nods.

  ‘You got a picture of the target?’

  ‘No I haven’t, but I’ll know this guy. I’ve got binoculars in the motor. I’ll give you a signal, we’ll be three hundred yards away. Listen, this guy is responsible for Trevor los–’

  He’s shaking his head, turning away, waving his hands like Al Jolson, he don’t wanna know what the target’s done or hasn’t done.

  ‘Does it make a difference shootin up-hill?’

  He shakes his head, rolls his eyes, like it was a rank amateur’s question. He produces a telescopic sight from outta the puffa and starts eyeing-up, walking at the same time, staying close to the brick and wooden perimeter fence, looking over his shoulder to check the windows that look out onto the park.

  ‘Here,’ he says at last, pointing at the floor. He turns, starts walking briskly back to the motor so he’s waiting when I get there. We get in and I go to start up.

  ‘Maybe leave the motor here. Will we get this space again? This is good for the out but you desperately don’t wanna be gettin any tickets. When we move from here to the spot I said, okay, the rifle goes in two, so you’ll have half and I’ll have half. It only takes a second to put it together, get gloved up then sling ’em. Okay? Good. Now you gotta get your man here. That’s the hard bit. I would like to be on the five-past two back or failing that the five-past three. After we do the business, walk back here. Remember that, walk, don’t fuckin run, whatever you do. For about five minutes after, nobody’s gonna have a scooby-doo what’s goin on, it’ll be pure confusion, so stay relaxed and don’t bring any attention on yourself or me. You drop me at Baker Street station and I’ll take care of myself from there, okay?’

  I understand now. This geezer only talks business. He puts his earphones back in and presses play. I get out the motor and ring Klaus’s number.