by Jeff Gulvin
Upstairs, he lifted the long-handled axe from where it lay under the bed. As he stood up, he caught sight of his reflection in the uncurtained window. He stood straighter; his hair was thin, but his belly was flat and he could still feel the strength in his arms. He heard the sound of his wife and daughter downstairs. They were cooking. His mother he had brought over earlier. Siege mentality. He knew he had to put a stop to it. He weighed the axe in his hand. The head was very sharp. The women busied themselves downstairs. Anna was easier now. She had washed her face and brushed her hair, and her Nan had held her on her knee like she used to.
Phillips opened the wardrobe door and switched on the light. Just something he had rigged up to make life a little easier. He was always doing odd jobs like that: this little comfort, that little comfort. Maybe it was a sign of his age. He smiled to himself and realised how much calmer he felt now he had come to a decision. From the shelf above the rail he took down an old, green bundle and unfurled it. His number was still sewn above the breast pocket and the stripes angled into the sleeve. Lifting it to his face, he closed his eyes and smelled the past etched into it. He wished now he had kept his beret. But when he had left the Army Mary had wanted the past to be just that. Time to look ahead, she had told him. So many old soldiers carry their past around them like an albatross. He did not know about that, but men, like women, sometimes needed the comfort of the past.
Stripping off his sweater, he put on the combat jacket. It reached almost to his thighs. Over it he buttoned his overcoat and slipped the axe under his arm. It was cold and strangely brutal against his side. He switched off the light and went back downstairs.
They were all still in the kitchen. He stuck his nose round the door. ‘I’m going out for a while,’ he said.
‘John.’ His wife called out to him. ‘Don’t be long. Dinner will be in an hour.’
It was colder tonight, the final echo of summer drawing away from the city. In a couple of months it would be Christmas. Getting into his car, he took off his overcoat and laid the axe across the back seat. He caught a glimpse of his face in the rearview mirror. His eyes looked old and weary, but they no longer looked so hunted.
The engine fired with the first twist of the key. He engaged the gears and drove off down the road. Tired old car, tired and worn like its owner. But tonight, with the past revisited, he knew it would not let him down. At the far end of the close, he headed around the park and pulled onto the main road.
They drank in the Bull’s Head on Tottenham Lane. He knew that from John. Maybe after tonight he would be able to get him out of prison and into a rehabilitation clinic. That had been his hope. He had not said as much to Mary yet, but that had been his hope.
He drove slowly along Tottenham Lane, the traffic clogging about him. Lights in his eyes, headlights and streetlamps and the chill that fell with the night. The Bull’s Head sign flapped in the wind that came from the north. He looked behind him to the back seat where the axe glinted in the street light. He passed the pub, saw their battered Ford Escort, with a black motorcycle standing alongside it. There was nowhere to park. He would have to walk with the axe under his jacket.
And now he could feel the adrenalin begin to pump. His backside was loose and he farted as he pulled the car into a parking space in front of a line of shops. Teenagers milled about the kebab house. He could smell the meat that was roasting.
Carefully, he locked the driver’s door, the axehead crooked under his armpit like a crutch. He flattened his arm against it to keep it in place. His jacket was just long enough to obscure the handle completely. He stood straighter and adjusted it under his bicep. The cold nibbled at him but still his hands were clammy. Fifty yards to the pub. Early yet, there would not be too many drinkers.
He stood outside, glancing once at their car, bumped up on the kerb. The outer pub door was open. Beyond it the glass panel of the swing door. Slowly, he unzipped his jacket and let the axe slide down his flank. He caught it beneath the head, hefted it and slid his fingers over the shaft. With his free hand he pushed open the door.
He had been right, few drinkers. Just an old man in one corner and the landlord polishing glasses. They were gathered at his end of the bar, two bikers and the little one with the blackened teeth. Cigarette smoke clouded between them. They seemed to be intent on some kind of card game. Phillips started towards them and hefted the axe to his shoulder. The landlord looked up and his mouth dropped open. Phillips was almost to them, fingers tight about the shaft now. The tallest biker looked up, flipping his long hair from his eyes.
Phillips crossed the last two paces between them, both his hands on the axe now. He swung it high and hard and then down and with a cry like a beast, buried it deep in the bar. Glasses smashed. Beer flew. Bad-teeth reeled where he sat. Phillips grabbed him by his collar and lifted him right off the stool. Every muscle alive now, as if all the years had gone and he was young and fit and strong. He held him so high, his legs dangled above the floor. ‘See that?’ He hissed at the axe, embedded into the bar. ‘If you ever come near me or my family again—I’ll come back and cut off your head.’
Fourteen
NINJA AND THE WASP drove towards the Neasden Bail Hostel. The Wasp stared moodily at the road. Ninja turned to look at him. ‘We’re doing the right thing yeah?’
‘We’re killers. We can do what the fuck we like.’
‘But Denny, man.’
‘What about him? No shithead’s going to phase me out of the game.’
Ninja twisted his mouth at the corners. ‘We don’t know that he is. I mean, do we? Maybe he is looking out for us. Drug Squad on the estate, yeah? Maybe we should just lie low.’
The Wasp looked at him. ‘You reckon?’
‘Shit, I don’t know. We don’t know what’s happening do we.’
‘Fuck it,’ Wasp said. ‘It’s Friday. We make the pick up, Ninja. That way we got his money. If he is giving us shit then we got something to bargain with.’
Ryan scratched his unshaven chin and sipped coffee. He looked at Vanner, then glanced out of the window of the flat once more. Across the car park, the bail hostel was quiet. He could see lights in the downstairs windows, but there was no movement. He looked at his watch and yawned. ‘What happened to the bleedin’ rota then, Guv’nor?’ Vanner chewed on a sandwich. ‘I’m here aren’t I.’ Ryan blew on his coffee. ‘You find out anything from the broker?’
Vanner swallowed his bread. ‘Nothing we didn’t know already. He gives Terry an edge. Sometimes he gets in before the kit goes to auction.’
‘Stuff still gets turned around in Holland though eh?’
Vanner nodded.
‘Maybe we ought to bust the yard, Guv. Take some of those trucks apart.’
‘We’d never get a warrant.’ Vanner shook his head. ‘Let Customs watch him, Slippery. See what he does when he’s across the water.’
Ryan lit a Camel. ‘You want one of these?’
Taste like horse shit.’
Ryan shrugged and stuffed the packet back in his pocket. ‘Where’s he making the squares?’ he said.
Vanner made a face. ‘We don’t know that he is do we?’
‘Somebody is.’ Ryan sucked on his cigarette. ‘Cready was over at the beginning of the summer.’
‘Who?’
‘Anton Cready. Before you joined us, Guv.’
‘Who’s Anton Cready?’
‘Acid man from the States. About fifty. Willie Nelson lookalike. Throwback to the Woodstock days.’ He flicked the end of the cigarette. ‘Customs clocked him flying in. Stayed about three weeks and went home again.’
‘Was he watched?’
‘As much as he could be. But he’s a smart cookie. Gave us the slip for a few days.’
‘So you’re thinking maybe Terry and Cready got together?’
‘Why not? Terry’s in the States a lot. Cready runs a bunch of psychedelic sixties shops. He’s done it before. Set up a supply line of crystal. Fly in once in a while to brew up a b
atch.’
‘Terry couldn’t do it himself?’
Ryan made a face. ‘I guess he could. But it’s bloody delicate. I’ve been on the Squad three years and I couldn’t do it. You’ve got to get the solutions just right. The timing and everything. Terry could get all the gear sorted, the trays and the mangle and that. But it takes an expert to mix it.’
‘So where is it made then?’ Vanner said, half to himself. ‘Dartford?’
‘Hell of a pong, Guv’nor. Alcohol’s as strong as it gets. Hangs about for ages after. Certainly get the attention of anyone working there.’
The Wasp turned the BMW onto Neasden Road. He could see the lights of the hostel up ahead.
‘What if somebody else is making the pickup?’ Ninja said.
‘Then we’ll find out who he is and skin him.’
They pulled round the corner beyond the hostel and turned into the car park. The Wasp craned his head over his seat. Then he looked at Ninja. ‘They won’t see the car. Bleep them.’ Ninja took the mobile phone from the dashboard.
Ryan was on his feet at the window. ‘Guv’nor.’
Vanner got up quickly and came over. Ryan pointed. ‘Grey BMW’ He lifted the binoculars to his eyes and spelled out the registration number. Vanner wrote it down. He glanced across the parked cars, as the back door to the hostel opened and a youth ran down the steps. He spoke into the radio. ‘You there, China?’
‘Already spotted, Guv’nor. We’re getting the pictures now.’
Ninja looked out of the window as the black-haired boy came alongside. He dropped to one knee and peered at them. ‘What’s happening?’
‘What d’you mean—what’s happening?’ The Wasp leered at him. ‘The money.’
The boy shook his head. ‘Not tonight, Wasp. We had word. Cancelled. We’ve been told to lay low for a while.’
‘Fuckin’ hell.’ The Wasp thumped the steering wheel. Then he looked ahead and saw two men watching him from a parked car. ‘Oh, Jesus.’ He pulled out onto the road.
Ninja stared out of his good eye at him. ‘I told you we shouldn’t have gone. You should’ve listened to your man, Wasp. He gets about.’
‘Shut up.’
Ninja folded his arms. ‘Sometimes you’re a real wanker. You know that.’
The Wasp drove on in silence, back towards the estate. ‘They’ll have the number,’ Ninja said.
‘So what? Won’t tell them anything. We were talking to a mate. Nothing wrong with that. Besides, I’ve never been nicked.’
‘I fuckin’ have.’
‘It’ll be cool. What’ve they got? Nothing.’
‘Ringo.’
‘We wore rubber gloves. Relax, Ninja.’
Ninja shook his head. ‘Relax. Fuck. Fuck relax, Wasp. Fuck it.’
He stood alone in the darkness. The silence of a cool head after the conversation with the hostel. He looked up at the stars through the window, prickling the spread of the night. Slowly he shook his head. The stupid ignorant fools.
He moved over to the desk and sipped from the bottle of water. He rubbed his eye with one hand and sat down in the chair. The payment books were alongside him and the Western Union slips. He looked at them, looked back at the screen. Ninja and The Wasp, like all violent men they had their sell-by date. He sat up straighter Not yet, though: one more job before he would discard them for being the fools that they were. But that job was still unquantifiable. He would need to humour them yet.
Monday morning and McCleod was with Vanner. He told him that there were seven more hostels in the area. At least one inmate in each had a pager watch. Vanner considered the information. Morrison’s Eagle Eye theory blown all to pieces.
Ryan came in with the pictures.
‘Any good?’ Vanner said.
‘Bloody good, Guv.’ Ryan was not smiling though. Vanner frowned at him. He shifted the papers from the desk and Ryan began to spread out the photographs. They were well taken. Blown up close-ups of the two youths in the car. One of them was black, one of them white. Both of them had dreadlocks.
Anne Barrington looked up from the phone call she was making. ‘Car’s registered to one Carlton Bishop, Guv. IC3. More commonly known as The Wasp.’
Vanner peered at the face in the photograph. ‘We know him?’
‘Sort of. Got in trouble at school. Expulsion etc. We’ve cautioned him once. But we’ve never actually nicked him.’
Vanner looked up at her. ‘So we haven’t got a print then.’
He looked closely at the picture of the white man. There was something odd about his features. Ryan was sitting with his back to the glass partition. ‘Only got one eye, Guv’nor,’ he said. ‘That’s what you don’t notice at first.’ Slowly Vanner lifted his head and for a moment they looked at one another.
‘I know him,’ Ryan said, cupping his cigarette between his fingers. ‘I nicked him when he was eleven. Well he claimed he was nine but I reckoned about eleven. He was dealing smack. Eight years ago.’
Vanner sat down opposite him.
‘We banged him up, locked him in a cell while we tried to find his mother. He went loco. Absolutely mental. Never seen a kid kick and scream and bite so much in all my life. Claustrophobic, big-time. Took three hairy-arsed coppers to stick him in the cell. Little bastard wrecked it. He had a gold sleeper in his ear. He was so fucking wired he tore it out. Ripped off his earlobe in the process.’ He got up and drew on his cigarette. ‘Look at his ear. You’ll see a bit is missing.’
‘What about his eye?’
‘Always had that. He’s a Gyppo. That’s why we couldn’t tell how old he was. No birth certificate. You’re all right if he’s Catholic. You might get a baptismal certificate. Not in his case though. Lost his eye in a fight, so his mother said. About six he had been. Some kid poked him with a stick. He’s got scars above and below it. Makes him very distinctive doesn’t it.’ He stopped talking, pulled on his cigarette and tapped it out in the metal of the bin. ‘His mother was dealing the smack. Using him as her front man. We couldn’t prove he was older than ten so we had to let him go. I always thought what a mean bastard he would be—if he ever grew up.’
‘What’s his name?’ Vanner said.
Ryan looked at him. ‘Ninja. The Gypsy.’
Vanner sat back, lifted his fists to his chin and looked again at the pictures. ‘Get Pierce,’ he said to nobody in particular. ‘Get his witness back in. I want him to look at these.’ Ryan went out to find Pierce. Vanner looked at Anne. ‘Do we know where they live?’
‘Don’t know about the Gypsy, Guv. But The Wasp lives on the Kirstall.’
Vanner bought coffee from the machine. Jimmy Crack came in with another man from the AIU. ‘Bull’s Head,’ Jimmy was saying. ‘Went right in and left the axe in the bar.’ Vanner sipped frothy, cheap coffee. ‘Guv,’ Jimmy said.
‘Jimmy. What’s happening?’
‘Nothing much. Saturday night was quiet.’
‘Terry?’
‘He showed. Pissed off with the new Tom on his arm.’
Vanner thought of Lisa Morgan. ‘What’s this about the Bull’s Head?’
‘Oh, that’s something different, Guv. I was up at St Anne’s on Saturday. Blokes there had nicked this ex-squaddie for burying an axe in the bar. Landlord’s doing him for criminal damage.’
‘Bull’s Head’s a smack house isn’t it?’
‘It is. Small-time though. Local boys watch it from time to time. Not a major priority.’
‘Anyone we know—the soldier?’
‘Phillips, I think his name was. Apparently some pushers have been terrorising his family, only he couldn’t prove it. Obviously lost it, Guv.’
Vanner frowned. ‘What outfit was he with?’
‘Your lot I think. 9 Para’ or something.’ Jimmy put change in the machine. ‘One thing though—might be interesting.’
‘What’s that?’
‘He’s a lecturer now. Teaches electronics in Kentish Town.’
Vanner went back downst
airs. Ryan was sitting on the corner of his desk. ‘Guv’nor, Morrison’s just been on the phone. He didn’t sound very happy.’
‘When does he ever sound happy?’
‘No. I mean seriously pissed off.’
‘What’s he got to be pissed off about? We’re getting somewhere aren’t we.’
Ryan looked at him. ‘Glendale & Watts, Guv. He asked me if I was aware that you knew Andrew Riley.’
Vanner closed the door and sat down. He took out his cigarettes and toyed with the box in his hand. He could feel Ryan looking at him.
‘He’s one of the directors isn’t he. Do you know him, Guv?’
Vanner did not reply.
‘You didn’t declare it then?’
Vanner shook his head. Ryan lifted one eyebrow and took the packet of cigarettes from his hand.
‘I haven’t seen him in eleven years, Sid.’
‘So, how do you know him?’
‘He’s the man who stole my wife.’
He parked his car near Alexandra Park and looked for the house. Phillips was a lecturer at the college where Mark Terry attended. Maybe he knew Mark’s father. On top of that Vanner wanted time to think before he faced Morrison over Riley.
He found number 57 and rang the doorbell. It was opened a crack, just the length of the chain and a tall, grey-haired man squinted at him.
‘Yes?’
‘John Phillips?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘Detective Inspector Vanner, Mr Phillips. Once upon a time it was Captain Vanner.’
Phillips poured coffee and Vanner lit a cigarette. ‘So you were with 3 Para, Sir?’
Vanner nodded. ‘A long time ago.’
‘I could’ve done with you. Really I could’ve—over the last few months.’
‘Your son?’
Phillips nodded. ‘Heroin addict. He’s only seventeen.’
‘You want to tell me what happened?’
