by Timlin, Mark
Dev whacked Mark on the shoulder through the open window, before dragging the gates of the yard open. Mark reversed through, then engaged first gear and steered the car towards the main road. In the rearview mirror, he saw Dev give him a wave before he pulled the gates shut again. Mark gave him a thumbs up through the open window, turned on to the Norwood Road and headed west. The car responded well and Mark set the heater to warm and switched on the radio. He found a music station and worked his way along the South Circular until he saw the familiar signs for the M4 and the west. The traffic was heavy heading out of town, not helped by the wet roads, and the clouds were the colour of old bruises as he finally crossed the river at Kew and took the shortcut through to the A4 under the Chiswick Flyover that dripped water down from its cracked concrete. He drove the Ford up the ramp and joined the traffic flow before the road became motorway, two lanes expanded to three and Mark could put his foot down. Not too much, as he didn’t want to get stopped by a traffic patrol, but just enough to clear the Cosworth’s throat and feel what it could do.
He listened carefully as the car’s revs mounted and the needle on the speedo swung up to the ton. Everything seemed to be working OK as Dev had promised, and after a few miles Mark slipped the car into the slow lane, keeping an eye out for anyone with undue interest in him. He’d been watching the road in the rearview mirror since he’d left Dev’s garage and didn’t think he was being followed. But there was something about his uncle’s attitude that worried him. He came off the motorway at junction five, went round the roundabout twice then rejoined and pushed on to the services just past the Basingstoke turnoff. He stopped for a coffee, taking the bag of cash with him. You can never be too careful, thought Mark, looking out for hardfaced men of one side of the law or other. All he saw were reps, truck drivers, mums, dads and kids at the fag end of their Christmas holidays, selling, working, shopping or just having fun. All the normal things he’d never really done in his life. Mark realised then how alienated he’d become from regular people.
As the hands of his watch moved slowly towards the time of the rendezvous, he went back to the car where he stuffed the money bag between the front and rear seats, then drove back on to the motorway, came off at the next junction, went round and headed back in the direction of London before taking the A33 exit and driving down towards Basingstoke itself, as he’d been told to do. Within a few minutes he spotted the Little Chef on the right hand side of the road and stopped just past it in a layby with a view of the car park. It contained half a dozen cars and vans, but so far no silver Mercedes truck. The building was single storied, the tarmac area outside a little too big for the job since the motorway services had opened just a few miles away, and the front was protected by a white picket fence. Beyond this were flower beds, probably vibrantly coloured during the summer, but now just muddy patches with a few bits of green poking through yesterday’s snow.
At ten to one, Mark did a swift U-turn and slid the Ford into the restaurant’s car park, drove to the end under a leafless, dripping tree, stopped the engine and sat. The radio burbled in the background and just as the one o’clock news came on, the truck he was waiting for came off the road, circled the car park and drew up next to Mark’s car, all but hiding it from observation from the Little Chef’s big picture window. There were two people in the cab who briefly spoke before the righthand door opened and a tall, thin man in a parka, jeans and baseball cap got out. Mark slid down the passenger window of the Cosworth and the chilly breeze ruffled his hair as it finally began to snow. The man stepped towards the Ford, hunkered down and said through the window: ‘You got something for me?’
Mark nodded, and the man opened the door and got inside. He smelled strongly of foreign cigarettes and spearmint. ‘Show,’ he said. He had a faint trace of an accent that Mark couldn’t place.
‘Where’s the stuff?’ asked Mark.
‘Don’t worry about that.’
‘But I do.’
Mark hated this sort of thing. Everyone involved trying to show how hard they were. How macho. It was always the same, nothing changed.
The man sensed his discomfort, got it confused with aggression and said: ‘Be calm. It’s in the back of the truck.’
Mark sighed. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘I was told you could be trusted.’
‘I should think so,’ said the man, the incongruity of his hurt innocence not lost on Mark who leaned back and hauled out the money bag. ‘Check it,’ he said.
The man put the bag on his knee and opened it. He looked at the money all gathered up in thousand pound bundles and smiled. ‘Your side is trustworthy too,’ he said. ‘No problems ever.’
‘Good,’ said Mark.
‘I’ll count this inside,’ said the man.
‘Fair enough.’ Mark actually didn’t care any more. If they were going to take him out, so be it. But he checked the gun inside its holster nevertheless as they got out of the car and walked towards the truck, just casually like he was scratching an itch. The foreign man was facing away from him, and between him and the driver, so Mark was sure neither of them noticed.
The man pulled open a sliding door on the side of the van and climbed inside. Mark followed. The interior was warm and luxuriously furnished, with two revolving leather captain’s chairs, carpet, a sofa bed and built-in cabinets. Very nice, thought Mark, a real home from home. The man flicked on a light switch and indicated that Mark should sit. When he had, he slid the door shut and sat down himself.
‘This is what you want,’ he said, shoving a metal briefcase towards Mark, who hauled it on to his lap and slipped the locks. Inside were the usual kilo packets, neatly wrapped in clear film and sealed with tape.
‘Check any one,’ the man said, pulling bundles of cash out of the bag. ‘Be my guest.’
Mark was no chemist but he knew dope. He picked a packet at random, split the film with his thumbnail and took a taste. His tongue and gums numbed up nicely and he shuddered as he tasted the metallic bite of good cocaine. ‘Yeah,’ he said, sucking the residue from his lips and swallowing again. ‘Seems all right. But then I’m just the courier. Any problems and I daresay you’ll hear from my principal.’
‘We’ve never heard from him yet,’ said the foreign man who was busy splitting the bricks of money and feeding them through a note-counting machine which he’d produced from one of the fitted cupboards. ‘At least, only to order more.’
‘That’s OK then,’ said Mark. ‘Got any tape for this?’
The man pulled a roll from his jacket, tossed it over and Mark resealed the packet and put it back in the case which closed with a click. ‘How long you going to be with that?’ He indicated the money.
‘A minute,’ said the man as the machine finished counting and satisfied, he put the cash back in the bag and zipped it shut. ‘All seems to be well.’
‘Then I’ll say ta ta,’ said Mark, and when the man frowned, he added, ‘Goodbye.’
‘Oh yes, goodbye,’ said the man, and they both stood and he stuck out his hand.
Mark shrugged and shook it.
The man turned and tugged the sliding door open again, and indicated Mark should lead the way. ‘After you,’ said Mark, and the foreign man pulled a face but didn’t speak and jumped out in the snow which was starting to come down heavily. Whilst they’d been in the back of the van the sky had darkened considerably and the lights around the car park had switched themselves on. Mark followed the man out of the truck and headed straight for his motor.
‘So far, so good,’ Mark said to himself, but he spoke too soon.
He reached the Ford’s driver’s door and opened it, seeing that the man had swung open the front passenger door of the Mercedes. In the far corner of the parking area Mark noticed a car start and its lights came on full beam. Then, in a split second that slowed like a piece of film stuck in the gate of a projector, he saw that no one had recently walked across the tarmac, which was already lightly covered with snow, towards it.
Something�
��s wrong, he thought.
Footprints. No footprints.
The car’s motor revved and it headed straight towards the Cosworth and the van. ‘Fuck,’ he shouted to no one in particular, throwing the case into the passenger well, falling into the driver’s seat, banging his knee painfully on something as he did so, and hitting the ignition key which was still in the lock. The engine caught at once and Mark slapped the gear lever into first and took off, the driver’s door still open. Then another car, headlights flaring, pulled in across the entrance to the carpark and Mark aimed the Ford at the empty flower bed as the swinging door hit the back of a parked Transit and slammed shut.
Yet another car started and headed in pursuit of him, but Mark whipped the stick into second, slammed his foot on the accelerator and rocketed past it, just clashing bumpers as they went. The Cosworth flew over the black earth and ripped through the fence as Mark pulled the steering wheel hard left and swung out on to the road in the direction of the motorway, leaving a long black mark on the tarmac and several angry drivers in his wake. He went through the gears fast and kept his foot hard down as the speedo ran up to seventy, then eighty, as he overtook everything in his way, lights on full beam and hand hard on the horn. All the other cars on the road had their lights on too, because of the weather, so it was difficult to make out who was chasing him and who just going about their normal business. The motorway signs got more frequent, flipping past like playing cards. When Mark reached the junction, he shoved the Cosworth through the roundabout and on to the slip road, cutting up a big sixteen wheeler who showed his anger with three blasts on his klaxon. Was it cops or was it bad guys? Mark kept wondering. Who the fuck were those people at the restaurant? Was it a bust or a stitchup?
By the time the car reached the end of the slip, Mark had pushed the speed up to one-twenty and still climbing. He blasted out on to the motorway, dodged between two slow-moving trucks and headed straight across to lane three. The rest of the traffic looked like it was standing still as he pulled back and forth into the middle lane to pass traffic travelling at the speed limit. The snow was getting heavier and the traffic, apart from the Cossie, was slowing. ‘Come on you fuckers,’ Mark yelled as he swerved through the cars. Then in his peripheral vision he saw blue lights flashing as a police jam sandwich joined in the fun just behind him. At this rate he was going to end up doing five miles per hour and getting jammed up as the traffic slowed before Chiswick again, and then the cops could box him in and it would be all over.
Mark bullied his way back into the fast lane again and slowed to a legal seventy, the cop car still following but unable or without the bottle, or maybe under orders not to force its way through the thickening traffic on Mark’s left. He was looking for a way out and suddenly it presented itself. Up ahead, but getting closer by the second, the central barrier was broken for maybe three car lengths, and instead of a waist-high hard metal barrier, all that kept the opposing traffic apart was a line of red and white plastic bollards, maybe two foot high, screwed into the ground. Mark downshifted, the Cosworth’s gears shrieking in protest, jammed the brakes on hard, saw the terrified face of the driver of the car following him as he braked too, probably sending a domino effect as far back as Swansea, and with a tug to the right and a clatter of plastic on the undercarriage, Mark was going the wrong way down the west-bound motorway.
Cars, trucks, cabs and lorries were heading his way and he left a skidding, brake-screaming carnage around him as he cut across the approaching traffic going up through the box again and found the hard shoulder, praying that no fucker had broken down and was being fixed by the AA or RAC, otherwise they were all going to be in for a big surprise.
He almost laughed out loud as he saw the effect he was having on the oncoming vehicles, and then like the answer to a prayer there in front of him was a slip road joining the motorway, which he took, bounced across the central reservation again, leaving what sounded like vital parts of the Ford clattering into the gutter as he joined the correct lane of traffic leaving the westbound M4.
Mark took the first turning, a road heading God knows where, the wipers slapping and the snow hitting the windscreen like chunks of paper tissue. And then, just ahead, he saw a bus pulling into a stop. Mark swerved round it and slowed slightly. Where’s the next bloody bus stop? he wondered. And, a mile or so further, he saw one. And right next to it it was a turning. He swung the Ford into it and a few yards down on the left was the entrance to a narrow lane. Mark pulled in, bare twigs scratching the side of the Cosworth, and braked to halt. He got out, forcing the door hard against the hedge, taking the briefcase with him, his brain speeding from the hit of coke and the excitement of the chase. Despite the dropping temperature his body was slick with sweat that felt like it was freezing on his skin. Who the fuck touched this motor? he thought, almost hopping from foot to foot with excitement and fear. Dev had a record as long as the Blackwall Tunnel, his prints were on file, and Mark didn’t want to leave any evidence of his involvement. He ran to the back of the car and opened the boot. Just like he remembered there was a can lying next to the spare wheel. Water or petrol? he wondered as he shook the can and opened it. He recoiled slightly from the fumes. Terrific, he thought, and splashed fuel on to the boot’s carpet then took the can back to the front of the car and threw the rest over the driver’s seat and into the front well of the Ford, heaving the can into the back.
Matches. Matches, he thought. Christ I’m not ready for this. He slammed open the glove compartment and inside was a half empty book from a restaurant in south London. ‘Thank you, God,’ he said aloud, lit a match, set fire to the rest and tossed the whole book on to the front seat. The last thing he saw as he closed the door was a blue flame dancing across the leather interior. He picked up the briefcase in his gloved hands and ran back to the main road just in time to hail the bus, an old green and white doubledecker that had seen better days. Its destination sign read ETON. Always wanted to go there, he thought as he asked the driver for the town centre, paid the fare and ran upstairs. There were just two passengers sitting in the front and he moved to the rear and collapsed into the back seat. He was still shaking as the bus gathered speed. He looked over his shoulder and over the tops of the hedges he saw an orange glow though the fast-gathering darkness and the falling snow. Then, above the noise of the ancient diesel he heard the sound of sirens and two police cars, blue lights flashing, breasted the hill behind them and gained fast on the bus.
‘Oh shit,’ he whispered and reached for the comfort of the butt of his pistol. But the two squad cars raced past and were soon lost to sight. Mark laughed out loud and as he took one last look behind he imagined he heard the explosion as the Ford’s petrol tank caught and in the distance the orange glow grew brighter.
Once at the Eton town terminus Mark followed the signs to the railway station, caught the next train back to Paddington, which luckily arrived just a few minutes after he’d bought his ticket, as he didn’t fancy sitting around in the waiting room. The train sluggishly wove its way through the outer, then inner suburbs, stopping at every station on the way and it was late afternoon before Mark caught a bus to south London.
When he got off at Tulse Hill he called the house on his mobile. ‘Christ, I thought you were dead,’ said John Jenner when he answered. ‘You’ve been on TV. Local news.’
‘Terrific,’ said Mark.
‘Where are you?’
‘Just walking up the road.’
Jenner met him at the gate carrying an umbrella to protect him from the snow. They went indoors and Mark hung his jacket over a chair as Jenner checked the bag. ‘Was it cops chasing me?’ asked Mark after he poured himself a large brandy.
Jenner nodded.
‘Did they get the other guys?’
‘Looks like it.’
‘Are they they gonna grass us up?’
‘They wouldn’t dare. Anyway they don’t even know who we are, same as I don’t know them. We just communicate by safe phone.’
‘Thank Christ for that.’
‘You did well. What happened to the motor?’
‘Burnt it out. Wasn’t that on the news too?’
‘No.’
‘You knew, didn’t you, Uncle?’
‘No.’
‘Yes you did.’
‘I thought something might happen, but I wasn’t sure.’
‘Well, thanks for sharing.’
‘I thought if I did you wouldn’t go.’
‘Too bloody right.’
Jenner smiled. ‘But you did it, Mark. You came good. I’m proud of you.’
‘If you ever do anything like that again, I’m off.’
‘I won’t, I promise.’
‘Jesus, Uncle, give us another drink will you. I’m spitting feathers here.’
ELEVEN
Sean Pierce heard about the aborted bust by the Thames Valley drug squad during his normal course of duties the next morning. It was just another war story as far as he was concerned. Some crazy crackhead in a souped up motor causing mayhem on the motorway. A burnt out Ford had been discovered, and the local force had captured a pair of foreign nationals carrying two hundred grand in used notes. The Ford’s driver had got away. Nothing new there, and nothing for him to worry about. Just another crime report amongst hundreds. A little more exciting than the average domestic dispute, that was all. At least interesting enough to get a mention on London Tonight, and would probably make headlines in the Eton Gazette or whatever the local paper down there was called, but that was it. Or at least he thought so.
At the same time as Sean was reading about his exploits, Mark woke up with a slight hangover, a little way up the road. He, John and Chas had sat up into the small hours discussing what had gone wrong with the exchange and its possible ramifications, at the same time drinking John Jenner’s bar dry.
‘If I catch whoever grassed us up, I’ll castrate the fucker,’ were the last words Mark remembered as John Jenner had made his unsteady way to bed around four o’clock.
