When I did wake up one day to find just one cozzer on his own, sitting next to my bed reading the Guardian, I was a bit surprised cos usually old bill are pack animals and they are, according to their working practices, meant to work in pairs, but this one was, you could tell, a cut above your usual gather. He’s got graduate written all over him. He’s young, about the same age as me, middle-class, wearing a navy Barbour. He don’t really look like old bill. I bet he didn’t spend a lotta time on foot patrol. This geezer is a product of the Met’s elite fast-track promotion policy, outta university with the degree, a couple of years on the beat, just so the foot soldiers don’t get the hump, and then nudged upstairs, into one of the creamy sexy outfits who go up against professional criminals. Always remember, only very stupid people think the police are stupid.
He puts his paper down and gets straight to the point. Don’t you say anything, just listen. We’ve thought about maybe trying to get you to turn informer but you don’t really fit the profile. We could blackmail you, we could use coercion, but after the recent attempt to murder you I wouldn’t fancy your chances of bringing in anything worthwhile anyway. Very amateur dramatic, he was. He had a certain clipped delivery, dry and passionate at the same time.
‘We are engaged in a war,’ he says like we’re in an old black-and-white movie. ‘The same way you are,’ he goes on. ‘All is fair in love and war, but for you the war is over, you’re going into retirement, believe me, we’re serious about this. If you don’t accept this and resume your pernicious trade we’ll fit you up, as your fraternity would term it. We’ll provide the correct evidence, coach a scattering of witnesses from our pool, have the chaps in our squad queuing down the Bailey to give evidence. You’ll do twenty years. Think I’m kidding? Call my bluff. My governor will get you a life sentence if you want it. Do you want it or do you get outta here when you’re able, tidy up your legit affairs and go away and remain inactive? And remember, we’ll be watching. Now, I’m going to ask you a straight question, okay? Am I talking to a man in retirement? Just nod your head if you agree.’
My head hurts like fuck but I can see I’m the one getting a bargain so I move it slowly up and down enough for him to get his answer.
‘Good,’ he says, ‘and this conversation never happened. That’s part of the deal.’
He gets up, folds his paper and leaves.
So did 1.1 left London. But one time I got in touch with Tammy from a hotel in Lisbon. She says: girls like dangerous guys but you’re seriously fuckin life-threatening. How many girls do you know end up covered in blood, chief prosecution witness in an attempted murder trial on their first date? I think I’m gonna give it a miss, mate. All the best, I wish you well.
Sidney got ten years, even with me on the missing list, cos the old bill had two dozen witnesses. Make all the difference, witnesses. He pleaded guilty.
I ended up here cos I ran outta places to go. Bought a little bar. Sometimes people from London come over to see me. Morty brings the news and gossip from home. The law don’t leave him alone because of the Freddie Hurst thing, know he did it, just can’t prove it. Target criminal, but he lives well outta the three tom-shops he owns in prime locales. Mister Clark Junior took over much of the business that we had going on and it transpires that the geezer who did the business with Jimmy Price would’ve dealt with young Clarkie if only he’d known. The Clark family work tight around the youngest member of the family and that apparently is the only way to work back in London now cos prices have tumbled but everyone still wants to earn top dollar. People have to go armed to drop off an ounce. Costs about a grand these days, but people think it’s worth their while to turn ya over. Guys have their bitta personal taken offa them at gun-point.
Just to make things interesting, MI6, who ain’t got no reds under the beds to chase anymore, no cold warfare in Moscow or Berlin, are after all the top firms, families and outfits. Drug trafficking ain’t the lucrative giggle it once was. Morty reckons it was one of these ex-spies who come and give me my ultimatum in hospital. Old Man Clark had his suspicions about Jimmy’s little sideline, or so he says now the whispers’ve got back to him. Everyone, villains and cozzers alike, are in the dark about who did the hows-your-father on him. The South East Regional Crime Squad was disbanded due to widespread rumours of corruption. Every time the USA has a bitta grief with any Middle Eastern country they wheel out a head and shoulders picture of the systems analyst from Portland, Oregon, and I have to duck cos it’s still getting blamed on Muslim fundamentalists.
Terry, who was working tight with Clarkie, got shot dead after an altercation at a T-junction. After some verbal between him and another driver, he got out to sort it but two game black dudes – Yardies? wassa fuckin Yardie? – opened up, emptied their pieces into him, twenty-six rounds. Thankfully he was gonski before he hit the floor, gone to join all the other dead heroes. Nobody, not the law or the Clarks, could find these geezers, so nobody could work out if it was business or personal. Old-school London villains, black and white, yellow and Turk, are bubbling up the new chaps from Jamaica, then complaining that the law ain’t doing nothing about it. It’s a different game nowadays, it’s all about financial resources. Gene spends a lot of time in Ireland, catching up with his daughters. He’s squirrelled away a great deal of readies over the years, so he lives well.
A guy told me once that you never stop learning. This is true, but I never stop forgetting either. I always wanted to get in and get out before I was thirty, have my wedge neatly tucked away, out of harm’s way, but I’ve got a metal plate in my head, fun and games at airports, and people have to tell me their names four or five times before I remember. Sometimes I’d start to miss the bollock-tingling excitement of making ten grand for an afternoon’s work, so I bought myself a huge red parrot, called him Jimmy. He talks too fuckin much as well. I taught Jimmy the Parrot a few of Jimmy the Don’s choice sayings – ‘You’re lookin at a twelve, son,’ and ‘Why have a dog and call him Fuck Off?’ – just to keep the mind from wandering backwards.
My name?
If I told you that you’d be as clever as me.
Layer Cake Page 37
