Top Hard

by Stephen Booth

  "There were two blokes, Stones."

  "What? Only two? You must have had more customers than that."

  "No, I mean... you know. Blokes. They were hanging around, asking questions like."

  "When was this, love?"

  "Earlier on. They went over towards Marky's stall."

  "Yeah?"

  I looked towards Marky Benn's pitch, but he was busy re-arranging his stock.

  "What did these two look like, Jean?"

  "One was big, balding. The other was younger. I didn't like the look of the young one at all, Stones. A nasty bit of work, if you ask me. I've seen 'em around before too. Last week they were hanging around. I thought you ought to know."

  "Ta, love. You've done the right thing."

  "Rawlings and Lee?" asked Slow Kid as we walked away.

  "Sounds like it."

  "You want to go looking for 'em?"

  "Not now. Not here."

  Halfway across the parking area, I stopped suddenly.

  "What's up now?" said Slow.

  "There, look. The dark blue saloon with the alloy wheels."

  "A German job, I reckon."

  "Not a German job. The German job. It's the same registration, I'm sure of it."

  "It's a good trick that, Stones, remembering registration numbers."

  "It comes naturally," I said, as I stepped closer to the car. Actually, I'd only remembered part of the number. But I was almost sure it was the same one - the blue car that I'd seen Rawlings and Lee in outside Peter Malik's, maybe the one that had followed us from the Dog and Ferret, and the one that had been hanging around Top Forest. I walked round the front and saw the dent in the nearside wing that had been hastily knocked out and touched up to stop it rusting. Somebody didn't have time to get it repaired properly after clattering it into the joy riders' Peugeot on the heath.

  "There's no alarm in it," I said, squinting through the window at the dashboard. "Can you lift it, Slow?"

  "How? I've got no tackle on me. We can't go putting the window in here. It's too public."

  "Isn't this an old model? You know, with the vacuum thingy in the lock?"

  "Actuator. Yeah, you're right."

  "Hold on, then."

  I'd spotted a group of young kids kicking a ball about on the grass near the toilets. They looked as though they'd been left to amuse themselves while their parents stocked up on dog chews and cushion covers.

  When I got closer to them, the ball rolled conveniently towards me. I picked it up, as if to throw it back to the kids. It was a nice intact rubber ball, about the size of a tennis ball, with plenty of spring in it.

  "Here, kids. I want to buy this off you."

  The lads stared at me like I was Ian Brady and Myra Hindley combined. This was Suspicion Corner - and no wonder. I'd have to make this a quick transaction, or I'd be lynched by a posse of angry mums and dads in a minute. A strange bloke chatting to someone else's kids? I felt as though I was taking the biggest risk of my life, bar none.

  "Whose ball is it?"

  "Mine."

  One kid put his hand out tentatively for the ball. I pulled a fiver from the back pocket roll and shoved it in his hand instead. That act alone was probably enough to get me permanently on the paedophile register and hounded out of town.

  "Buy yourselves a proper football. There's a stall over there."

  "Yeah!" said one of his mates, and the kid grabbed the note. They all ran off, leaving me safe with my rubber ball.

  "Here, Slow. You don't know what I put myself through for you."

  Slow Kid took out his knife. It was nice and sharp, and it sliced easily into the ball, opening a small hole. He shoved the knife in his pocket and approached the driver's door of the blue saloon. I leaned against the windscreen as if admiring the view, shielding him as best I could with my body. It didn't take more than a few seconds. Slow placed the ball over the lock and smacked down on it hard, so that it squashed flat. The hole pushed air into the lock, and the button inside clicked up. Slow Kid got in the car.

  "I don't suppose you've any pliers either," I said. "Do you want me to go and get some from that hardware stall?"

  "Nah. I can manage this bit."

  He'd hardly got the words out before the wires connected and the car's engine burst into life. Slow gave me a grin.

  "Okay, off you go. I'll see you at the workshop."

  The blue saloon pulled away across the grass towards the exit. I walked to my Impreza and followed him. I looked round, but could see no sign of Rawlings and Lee. Pity. I would have liked to see their faces when they found out their nice car had just been nicked.

  20

  "Come on, love, you can do this for me."

  "No."

  "Just one little favour."

  "No again. You've already had your one little favour for this century."

  My car smelled nice when Teri was in it. Eddie Craig was right about one thing - I do have a friend in the police, sort of. Sometimes I thought I could forget Teri was a cop and start chatting her up seriously again. But then I'd hear some faint noise, like the rattling of her handcuffs, or maybe some echo from the past, and I'd think better of it.

  "Teri, love -"

  "No."

  "This is mutual interest. It's a number you might be interested in as well."

  "Oh?"

  Notice that when women say 'no', they still carry on listening, just in case you say something more persuasive? Teri has that down to a fine art.

  "You remember a little surveillance operation that went wrong? A certain delivery? Wouldn't you like to trace the top bloke involved?"

  "Straight up, Stones?"

  "Would I lie?"

  "Yes."

  "Trust me, I've seen a doctor."

  Teri took another look round the garden centre car park. It looked innocent enough to reassure her. I could have told her about Trevor watching us at our last meeting, but that would have destroyed her illusions.

  "This is his car, the number you've got?"

  "His, or close."

  "Not good enough."

  "It's the best I can manage, love."

  "If I do this, will you pass on any other information you get hold of?"

  "Do you take me for a nark?"

  "Mutual interest, remember?"

  "I'll help you all I can in this case. But there's something I have to do for myself first."

  "Give me the number."

  "You're a darling. We must meet up again some time when you're out of uniform, so to speak."

  "You've got to be joking, McClure. I wouldn't touch you with my baton. Not any more."

  * * * *

  "There's not much in it," said Slow Kid. "But it's a nice motor. I can find a buyer for this, no problem."

  "Hold on, hold on. Let's have a look."

  The blue saloon was in Metal's workshop, and the two of them had already been through it by the time I got there. They're used to working fast.

  "Some crappy tapes, look. A couple of coats and hats - large ones."

  "No car phone," said Metal. "That's a pity."

  "They probably had a mobile with them."

  "Radio's all right, though. It's a Blaupunkt. CD deck too. You want me to whip that out, Stones?"

  "Later, later."

  "Handbook and service book in the door compartment," said Slow. "It's been serviced properly. A main dealer in Mansfield."

  "Yeah?"

  "Tax is up to date too."

  "These tyres are worth a fortune, Stones."

  "Leave them on, Metal."

  "Some road maps on the floor, and a few bottles of Budweiser on the back seat. And somebody left their shades on the dash."

  "Look at this engine," said Metal, yanking up the bonnet. "Clean as a whistle. Two-litre job, and only twenty thousand miles on the clock. We could turn that back a bit if you want, and it'll pass for practically new."

  "Is it a nicked motor, do you think?"

  "I reckon not," said Slow Kid. "N
o signs of it. Wires in the ignition are tidy. Plates haven't been changed, so far as I can see."

  "Let's hope so. What's in the glove compartment?"

  "It's locked, Stones."

  "Yeah? So?"

  "They're tough locks on these jobs. We didn't know if you wanted us to force it. It might bring down the value a bit, like."

  "Never mind that - get it open."

  Metal produced a slim jemmy and within a few seconds the glove compartment was hanging open. There was a dull glint of steel.

  "Well, look at that."

  "Bleedin' hell, this lot are serious, ain't they?"

  "Get rid of it, Slow," I said.

  "You mean...?"

  "No, I don't mean find a customer for it. Get rid of it. I don't want guns hanging around."

  Slow Kid handed the gun to Metal, who dropped it into a plastic carrier bag. "It's done, Stones."

  I poked about at the back of the glove compartment and pulled out a few bits of paper. Bassetlaw District Council car park tickets. A petrol receipt from an Elf station in Tuxford. It didn't add up to much.

  "Wipe it and dump it."

  "We not going to do business with it?" appealed Slow.

  "We could flog it to that bloke who sends 'em to the States," said Metal.

  "No. Leave it somewhere obvious. I'm going to tell the police where to find it."

  "Like shit!"

  "The cops?"

  "I'm using it to bargain, lads."

  "Oh, right."

  "Right, right."

  "Have you ever heard about using a sprat to catch a mackerel?"

  "Er, no."

  "No."

  "It's a fishing expression."

  "I know about floats and wagglers," said Slow Kid helpfully. "Our Derron's in the Meden Vale Angling Society. He took me down to the canal a couple of times to catch some roach."

  "Oh, for heaven's sake. Do you know about ground bait then?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, think of this car as a pound of nice juicy maggots."

  "Oh, right."

  "Hey, you can sell them buggers," said Metal.

  * * * *

  Teri came through with the stuff I needed later that day. The name meant nothing to me, but then people use so many names these days it's hard to keep track. The address tied in, though. It was one in one of those rich gits' villages out east towards the River Trent.

  This is the affluent part of Nottinghamshire. There's a whole money belt there, stretching from Newark, right round Tuxford and up towards Gainsborough. It's a big area, but it's also the most sparsely populated bit of the county.

  Few of these villages have council estates. There are farms and old manor houses, converted barns and vicarages, farmworkers' cottages that have been done up, and a few new ranch-style bungalows built for people who drive off to work in Sheffield or Nottingham in their Range Rovers and Fourtraks. They think they're the real country people now. They wear wellies at weekends and carry a walking stick when they take the labradors out for walkies. They support the hunt and maybe bag a few birds now and then. Otherwise nature stops at the double glazing. The real dirt and noise of the countryside is sent round to the tradesman's entrance.

  The sad thing is that these people live in an area where history practically bursts out of the ground. Take the Pilgrim Fathers, for instance. This is where they came from, the villages of North Nottinghamshire. It was here that the Separatist movement started that ended up with Ronald Reagan, where folk were so stubborn about refusing to grovel to the established church that they had to leave the country in the end.

  The Pilgrim Fathers are one of the biggest draws for American tourists and all those lovely dollars. But you'd never know it. You see Robin Hood everywhere in Nottinghamshire - the World of Robin Hood, the Tales of Robin Hood, Robin Hood's Larder, the Robin Hood Statue, the Oak Where Robin Hood Hid from the Nasty Sheriff's Men, and the Dead Patch of Grass Where Robin Hood Got Caught Short and Had a to Have a Quick Piss. Welcome to Robin Hood Country, God help us.

  But the Pilgrim Fathers? Somewhere in a dull museum room in Worksop you might find a wax dummy that looks a bit like William Brewster. And, er... well, that's about it, really. And Worksop's at least eight miles from where the real action was - Scrooby, Babworth, Austerfield. You know about those places, of course? No? What a surprise.

  Okay, so it's true the pub at Scrooby is called the Pilgrim Fathers. It was opened in 1771 for travellers on the Great North Road, and its name was the Saracen's Head until some enterprising landlord in the 1960s decided to cash in and change the name.

  Apart from that, your hordes of Brewster and Bradford descendants can steam through North Nottinghamshire without seeing a sign of their courageous forebears. The cameras stay unclicked and the dollars stay in their pockets as they disappear northwards into Doncaster looking vaguely puzzled. It's as if we're shy about our history, and we have to keep it hidden.

  We drove out through Ollerton and Tuxford, circled the Markham Moor roundabout and turned eastwards on the A57 towards Lincoln. Half way towards the River Trent at Dunham Bridge we found a little 'B' road and wound our way through corn fields and dense patches of woodland, with some low hills appearing to the north and west. These were real hills, too, not landscaped slag heaps. These were the Wheatley Hills, the rolling slopes where an army of Parliamentarian soldiers once camped to watch for attack from the direction of Yorkshire.

  To our right, we could see the monsters that local people call the 'cloud factories'. Power stations - three of them, the giants of Megawatt Valley. They dominate the landscape for miles on the western bank of the Trent here. They may not be picturesque, but they're the biggest customers for coal produced at Nottinghamshire's pits. For now anyway. All it would need would be for these power stations to switch from coal to gas, and the last pits would be gone. So the western parts of Nottinghamshire, the villages between Worksop and Mansfield, rely on the eastern side for their living, just like the peasants always relied on the gentry at the big house.

  Many of these rich gits' villages shelter behind hills and woodlands, so they can't actually see the power stations. West Laneton is definitely one of those rich gits' villages. And Old Manor Farm is a typical rich git's house.

  We came to wrought iron gates across the end of a drive, with two brick pillars and little stone creatures sitting on them - just like the garden ornaments over the porches on the Forest, except these were griffins rather than toads. The drive was beautifully swept gravel, without an oil stain or a kid's toy in sight, and the hedges were yew instead of privet, and neatly trimmed instead of straggling over the pavement.

  Come to think of it, there weren't any pavements anyway. The spaces between the road and the hedges were grassed over and planted with flower beds. Obviously nobody ever walked in this part of the world, except to get from the garage to the Range Rover. If you were a pedestrian, you must be some poor plebby oik from Worksop or somewhere, so it didn't matter if you got run over by the mobile library because you had to walk in the road.

  The front garden of this particular house looked like something out of Practical Gardening. Geoffrey Smith had been round and shown them how to create the perfect rockery and an interesting water feature that would be totally maintenance-free. It probably would be, too, since most of it was likely to be plastic.

  The house was older than the garden, if that doesn't sound ridiculous. According to the plaques on the brick pillars, the house was called Old Manor Farm. But this place hadn't seen a real farmer since Bernard Matthews was last on the telly. There was a double garage, so it must be a pretty low-class house for these parts - most of them have triple garages. There's one for hubby's four-wheel drive, one for the little lady's Volvo estate and probably one for the bleedin' nanny to park her second-hand Mini. When they get going, this lot can chuck out more air pollution than any one of those power stations.

  "Stay here and watch my back, Slow."

  "What you going to do?"
>
  "Just a bit of a recce."

  I left Slow in the Subaru and dodged across the road, wary of traffic coming round the bend from behind those big hedges. The gate opened easily - no electronic devices here, anyway. It seemed to take half an hour to walk up the drive, and by the time I reached the top I was breathing hard.

  I rang the bell, hoping that no one would answer. No one did. Perhaps it was my lucky day. While I waited, I weighed up the front door. Georgian style, but good wood, not those that they sell for tuppence at the DIY stores. The frame and lintels looked pretty solid. This property had gone up in the days when blokes knew how to build a house, before they started using papier maché bricks held together with chewing gum because it's cheaper.

  Getting no answer again after a second attempt, I walked round the side of the house, taking a quick peek through the front windows as I went.

  There was oak furniture, a bit dark for my taste. A grand piano and a big open fire that looked as though it was never used except for roasting chestnuts at Christmas. The paintings on the wall certainly hadn't come from Woolworth's and didn't show Spanish ladies or kids with runny eyes. In fact, one didn't show much at all - just a few splashes of colour. This was someone with more money than sense, then. Unfortunately, art isn't my field, so I didn't know whether one of those paintings was worth nicking while I was there.

  I found a side door that seemed to lead to a passage and into a kitchen. A fitted oak kitchen, of course. It must have had a cooker and a fridge and all that sort of thing, I suppose, but they weren't in any form that I recognised.

  Was this the home of some mate of Welsh Border's, I wondered. It could easily be some business contact of his, a well-heeled property developer or other low-life he'd got in deep with through the council. There's always the stink of corruption hanging around those town halls, if you ask me. And this place certainly smelled of something not right.

  A window in the garage was low enough for me to peer through. It was empty, but there was plenty of space for a couple of cars, and dark patches on the floor indicated that something normally stood there - presumably the German motor that was still in Metal Jacket's workshop. I ought to decide what to do with that very soon.

  At the back of the house were manicured lawns, mature trees - and an actual tennis court. It was all properly maintained and marked out, with the net still up and everything. It looked like something Tim Henman might have got disqualified from after bouncing a shot off the ball girl's head. So who called round here to play tennis? The neighbours, a few business chums, the teenage daughter's boyfriend in his flannels and straw boater? I found I was picturing the cast from a Noel Coward play, which always makes me feel nauseous.