He whistled again. “That’s it? Fucking hell, Hutt – and they call me a loose cannon.”
“But you’re coming anyway?”
“I hate gangsters even more than I want promotion. Both would be better, so I’d rather not advertise myself. Normally I’d park outside the place, but I don’t want to risk a ticket in case I’m tracked down. Any ideas, because you’re paying?”
“We’ll use Quarry Hill. Keep going for the city centre and I’ll tell you when.”
“Right. And what do you want me to do when we get there – hang about and look pretty?”
“So long as you can look pretty and watch my back at the same time. They don’t have to know you’re a cop unless absolutely necessary.”
“You mean when it goes pear-shaped, you want me to bail you out the shit?”
“Yeah.”
I hoped it wasn’t going to get violent. Where I’d wanted a piece of Collier one-on-one there wasn’t any point with Bell. Men in his position were literally untouchable and laying a hand on him would mean a death sentence for me, which wouldn’t help Siân at all. Shortly before the A64 merged into the Inner Ring Road, I directed Lawson to the pitted parking lot atop Quarry Hill. I paid, Lawson displayed, and we set off across Playhouse Square.
“What’s the matter with your leg?” he asked as we descended the steps to St Peter’s Street.
“I twisted my ankle in the woods.”
He glared at me as we continued, but said nothing.
We crossed the road and pressed on into the open market, the rows of stalls empty. Then we turned right and threaded our way through the throngs of pedestrians heading to the bus station. A couple of minutes later the grand Edwardian façade of the Kirkgate Market came up on our right. We waited for a gap in the traffic and crossed Kirkgate onto the north side of Call Lane, an oasis of calm and quiet in the city desert.
A three-storey brick terrace sloped gently up to the Corn Exchange on either side of the road. Most of the buildings were in need of a fresh coat of paint, repair, or both, and some of the upper floor windows were boarded over. We walked past a Money Shop and Red Tattoo & Piercing before I led Lawson over to the south side. Leeds Army Surplus was sandwiched between Pagan Body Piercing and Blue Rinse, a hairdresser’s. The window was full of military clothing and equipment, including a selection of large knives, which didn’t bode well.
I double-checked my watch – five to six – and looked at Lawson. His forbidding expression hadn’t changed since we’d left the car, but he nodded once. I was surprised to find the gesture reassuring. I took a deep breath and rapped loudly on the glass door. It was dark inside the shop and I couldn’t see much except for racks of clothing. I waited thirty seconds, then rapped again.
A figure emerged from the gloom and wrenched open the door. He was slightly shorter than me, very heavily built, bald with a moustache. His skull, face, and neck were covered in spider web tattoos.
“Hutt for Mr Bell,” I said.
“Who’s he?” asked our host in a thick Mancunian accent.
“My lawyer.”
Spiderman smiled, showing chipped and stained teeth. “We were expecting a clever cunt. Inside.”
Lawson followed me in. A younger man, skinny, with unruly brown hair, was leaning against the counter. He sneered at us as he pushed himself off and walked to the stairs in the middle of the shop.
“Follow him,” said Spiderman.
I noted a cabinet with replica handguns as I negotiated my way through the store, having more bulk to manoeuvre than Skinny Boy. He grabbed the banister and bounced up the stairs. I followed more slowly, keeping clear of the backpacks, bergens, and gasmasks lining the wall. I heard Lawson and Spiderman behind me. There was no landing at the top of the stairs, just a large room with a desk in front of two small windows. It was as gloomy and dusty as the shop, with boxes stacked up against the walls. A big man with receding blond hair and a goatee was sitting at the desk, and an even bigger man with black hair was sitting on it. Skinny Boy moved off to the left, I walked into the centre of the room, and Lawson drew up on my right hand side.
“My name’s Hutt,” I said. “I’m here to see Mr Bell.”
Very casually, Goatee placed his right hand on the desktop, a semi-automatic pistol in his fist.
I tensed.
“Leave it out, you’re covered from three sides.”
I glanced over my left shoulder, saw a big blond man with another pistol standing in a doorway behind us – then my right, Spiderman had produced a third handgun.
“Search them,” Goatee said to Skinny Boy.
I had deliberately chosen a tight shirt that made it obvious I wasn’t concealing anything, and deliberately left my belt at home.
Skinny Boy approached me first. “Get them up.”
I raised my arms. He patted down my ribs and touched my waist quickly. I was relying on the fact that most men don’t like touching other men between their legs when searching, and it was a safe bet. Skinny Boy knelt down, slid his hands around to the outside of my hips, and then ran one hand down the side of each of my legs. He had a grope at each ankle to make sure I didn’t have a holster there, and moved on to Lawson. I dropped my hands back to my sides.
Lawson wasn’t so cooperative, and Skinny Boy lacked the strength to push his arms away from his ribs. He turned to Goatee, helpless.
“Don’t fuck around, get them up,” said Spiderman.
Lawson obliged very slowly and Skinny Boy repeated his sloppy performance. When he reached Lawson’s right pocket he pulled back as if he’d been stung. “The fuck’s that?”
“My key ring.”
“Fuck you, man.”
“Take it out,” said Goatee.
Skinny Boy removed a blackjack. It looked like a small, stitched, leather paddle, but it had a lump of lead at the end. They had been a favoured non-lethal option among police officers many years ago. Although blackjacks are an efficient tool of incapacitation, their successful use requires a high degree of accuracy and they’re illegal because soft skulls can crack under the impact.
I shook my head. “I didn’t know anyone still carried those.”
He shrugged his huge shoulders.
Skinny Boy handed the blackjack to Spiderman and continued patting Lawson down.
“Who are you?” asked Goatee.
“He’s my lawyer,” I cut in. “Where’s Mr Bell and where’s Collier?”
Skinny Boy finished with Lawson and moved over to the left, next to the black-haired giant, who was still perched on the desk. Goatee stood and walked towards us, the pistol next to his right hip. I noticed it was a Glock 19 compact model, the baby brother of the ubiquitous Glock 17 nine millimetre.
Not that it mattered much from where I was standing.
Goatee kept well out of arm’s reach. “I’m asking the questions, dickhead. Who the fuck are you? I smell bacon.”
“Let me do the introductions,” said Lawson. “You’re the organ-grinder. Your name is Jeffrey Hampton, Little Jeff to your chav friends, so-called because of the size of your cock. The gorilla over there is Jason Shield, and the blond orang-utan behind us is Etienne Smith, your two nancy-boys. I don’t know who these Manc cunts are.”
I was glad to see he’d grasped the essentials of my plan, avoiding confrontation where possible, and keeping the situation under control.
Hampton laughed. “You think you’re safe because you’re the filth. I like that!”
“Yes, I am the filth. My name’s Lawson and I busted your bid for the York smack market last Christmas. Ho, ho, fucking ho.” Lawson grinned back. He wasn’t even remotely scared.
Spiderman moved towards us, but Hampton held up his hand to stop him. “You won’t be laughing in a minute. Difficult when you’re dead.” He turned to me. “Hutt, yeah?” I nodded. “You look like an educated man, so let me tell you how it is. You’re both dead men walking. You were the moment you stepped inside my shop. I don’t care if you’re nobodies, pigs, or
members of fucking parliament. Mr Bell wants to know where his whore is. The pig dies quickly, but I can take all night with you if you like. The shop’s full of knives. I’ve got power tools in the back. Do I need to spell it out?”
Both my hands were still hanging in front of my groin. I used my right hand to scratch my testicles, as if I had a nervous itch. I was nervous, but I wasn’t itching.
“You can pass this on to Bell. Siân Matthews doesn’t belong to him any more. She’s with me, and any unfinished business he has with her, is with me. Do you understand?” I lifted my right hand to where my belt buckle would have been.
Hampton smiled, then nodded quickly.
In my peripheral vision I saw movement from the men behind us – shot my right hand down my trousers – grit my teeth – pulled out an L109A1 hand grenade. As it cleared my chinos, insulation tape flapping, I grabbed the metal ring with my left hand – twisted – drew it out. The pin fell to the floor. I held the grenade in front of my face, fingers clenched tight over the safety lever. “Stop!”
All three pistols were pointed at me.
“This is a high explosive grenade. If I let go, it will detonate. In a confined space like this, that means all seven of us will be reduced to a single mound of charred flesh with a few teeth thrown in. If you shoot me, I drop it. If you shoot him,” I indicated Lawson, “I drop it.” I extended my arm so they could all see.
Skinny Boy snarled and jumped forward.
I pulled my right arm back – he missed – and spun around on my heels to hit him with a left, catching him on his right temple.
He dropped, jumped to his feet, and charged.
Hampton shot him in the back of the skull.
An arc of blood sprayed across the room in front of Lawson and me. Lawson crouched slightly, ready for action, but didn’t move his feet.
Skinny Boy landed face first on the floor and moaned.
Hampton pointed the Glock and shot him again.
Skinny Boy’s head jerked, his moan changed pitch, and blood spread out from his head.
I stepped back. “That was probably a good idea in the circumstances. Take my message to Bell. I want to see him face to face so we can finish this.”
“You’re dead, you’re both fucking dead,” said Hampton.
Lawson chuckled. “You said that a minute ago, but who’s fucking laughing now? Me. And guess what? Tomorrow, I’m coming back here with a squad of detectives and we’re going to tear the place to pieces. When you’ve cleaned up that,” he pointed to Skinny Boy, “you need to get out of Dodge for a while. Fuck off to the Costa del Crime for the summer, because if I see you again, I’ll tug you for murder.”
Hampton started to raise the gun – I shook the grenade at him – he stopped.
“What’s going to happen next is that we’re going to turn around and walk out of here. I’m not worried about you shooting me in the back because I can see you want to live to a ripe old age. You better hope I don’t change my mind and lob this up from downstairs.” I stepped forward and picked up the pin before the expanding pool of blood reached it.
“I’ll have my cosh back,” said Lawson.
Spiderman threw it to him.
I turned, walked down the stairs, and heard Lawson follow. My heart was thumping a tattoo against my ribcage. My mouth was dry and tasted foul. I let Lawson push past me to open the door, and walked out into Call Lane with my fist in my pocket. Lawson slammed the door shut and I gave him the pin, fighting to keep my hands from shaking.
“Can you straighten that for me?”
He smoothed it out as we walked away. I glanced over my shoulder, but no one was following. Lawson handed the pin back without a word. I paused, slotted it back into place and eased my right hand from the safety leaver. It didn’t move. I put the grenade back in my trouser pocket as we turned the corner into Kirkgate.
I looked at Lawson – he was so quick I didn’t even see it coming.
The blow hit my jaw, lifted me off my feet, and smacked my skull against a shop window.
I blacked out.
CHAPTER NINE
“Get up. People are staring. Come on, Hutt, get up.”
I was lying on the pavement, my head hurting all over. I pushed myself up onto my arse and took hold of my jaw, massaging it while I checked all my teeth were in place with my tongue.
Lawson crouched next to me. “For fuck’s sake, we’ve got to get out of here.”
“It was decommissioned,” I mumbled. “A present from Maikel.”
He grabbed my arms and set me on my feet without any visible effort. Then he checked behind us and steered me down Kirkgate, towards the gothic tower of Leeds Parish Church.
“You’re even stronger than you look,” I muttered, still holding my jaw.
“Better than looking stronger than you are.”
I shrugged him off when we reached the church, but followed his lead into Church Lane, under the railway line, and across York Street into the bus station. Once we were amongst the crowd there, we both relaxed, and I let my jaw alone. Neither of us said anything until we were back in Lawson’s car.
“Are you coming back tomorrow?” I asked as he pulled out into Eastgate.
“Am I fuck. I’ve got proper work to do. I couldn’t care less about Hampton killing his own men. You going to report it? I didn’t think so.”
“Keep left and –”
“I know where I am.”
I reached back for my jacket, and shuffled into it. Then I took out my mobile and transferred the grenade from trouser to jacket pocket. The L109A1 was a mere two and a half inches in diameter, but effective to a twenty-metre radius, bursting into eighteen hundred razor sharp metal fragments. This particular L109A1 had a small nick on its surface, where it had been struck by an AK47 round while attached to Maikel. The grenade had not only failed to detonate, but also deflected the bullet from a path which would almost certainly have carved up his insides. He’d had it decommissioned as a souvenir and given it to me ‘for luck’. So far, so good.
“Looks fucking real to me,” Lawson grunted.
“It is, it’s just had the explosive and the detonator removed.”
“Whatever. What happens next?”
I switched on my phone. “I wait for Bell to call me.”
“You think he won’t kill you?”
“I can’t see him trying to kill me now he knows about you. I don’t think Hampton will be hanging around for too long either.”
Outward-bound traffic was heavy, and our progress slow, even with Lawson at the wheel. “I don’t have to explain myself to you – or anybody – but if you want my help next time, it’ll have to be in my official capacity. No more private jobs.”
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” I lied. “Hampton and his crew have met you, that’s enough. I think you made an impression.”
“So did you, but I hope you’re right. Claymore is too important to risk. This is it for me. Thanks to your help with Keogh, things are already looking rosy, but if they don’t give me my pips when we get our conviction, I’m off.”
Lawson didn’t even have a suspect he could arrest yet, let alone charge. Any conviction would be months – or years – in the future, and I wondered why he was talking like this. “Transfer?”
“No. If I don’t get what I want this time, I’ll quit.”
I was intrigued. “I thought you loved being a cop.”
“I do, but enough is enough. Ever since I was in probation they made use of the fact that I could handle myself. Every fucking Saturday night it was PC Lawson to the rescue when all hell broke loose in Manchester. Until I became a Specialist Firearms Officer, I spent every night shift in a public order van. The last New Year I worked, the GMP took three thousand emergency calls in six hours. What do you think happened when the counter-charges started coming in? Fuck all. I had to rely on the union to keep me from doing time. The governors got a kick out of setting Professional Standards on me, then sent me right back to wherever the sh
it was hitting the fan when I was cleared. They never paid me any more than the little girls straight out of public school and the little boys who really wanted to be social workers.”
I checked my phone and saw I had a message waiting.
Lawson shook his head. “I trained as an SFO and ended up being the first GMP cop to shoot someone in the line of duty. Fuck me if it wasn’t the same thing all over again. I’ve probably spent about a third of my career on suspension. Eventually, I went back to work and got a pat on the back from the mayor. When I wanted to become a detective they weren’t interested. I tried my luck with North Yorkshire instead and spent two years trying to get into CID. In the end, I told them that if they didn’t put me in a suit, I was going to hand my gun in anyway.”
“You finished?” I asked.
“You fucking asked, I told you. Want to make something of it?”
I rubbed my jaw. “No thanks, this is going to hurt for weeks.”
“Good.”
I would never have told Lawson, but I understood where he was coming from. Even though he wasn’t the sort of cop the police wanted any more, they wouldn’t hesitate to take advantage of his natural aggression, and then make an example of him afterwards. I’d seen something similar in the Military Police in my year at 160 Provost Company at Aldershot.
Lawson continued. “It took forever to get my stripes; I deserve to make it to inspector and if I don’t, I’m off. So Claymore is all or nothing. Clear?”
“Yeah.”
“And this doesn’t make us friends.”
On that note, I retrieved my message. “Jesus, I don’t believe it.”
“What?” Lawson snapped, his temper simmering amid the stationary rows of cars.
“That was Mac, he’s already found out where Cowan was in 2009. Army Training Regiment Bassingbourn, then Hohne last year.”
Lawson bared his teeth. “She just became a player. Where’s Bassingbourn?”
“In Cambridgeshire.”
“Which borders on Essex.”
“Yeah. I don’t think you realise who this woman is.”
“I don’t think you realise I don’t give a fuck. If she was in the wrong place at the wrong time, she goes on my list with Bavister and Vaughan. I couldn’t care less if she’s the Chief of the General Staff.”
Bloody Reckoning Page 8
