I said nothing. Just listened. The invisible man in the room. There by virtue of being in the right place at the right time. I wasn’t part of the old man’s war council. What I had to say was of no real interest. I did not truly understand such matters. But I was worth keeping close. Long as my mouth remained shut.
The Ukranians gave Nairn a number. It changed every few days. The number arrived by text to Nairn’s phone whenever it was updated. It did not connect directly to Bako, but to one of his operatives. The man behind the man.
The number was due to change again in twenty-four hours.
It was the best route to Bako.
‘This is going to get worse before it gets better,’ the old man said. ‘I know I value my isolation these days. But you can’t hide away all your life like the bloody Elephant Man. Pretend you don’t exist. Sooner or later you have to come out into the sunshine. Let your enemies know, this is who I am.’ He smiled. ‘We’re going to expose this fucker. Hang him out the way they used to. Stick his bastard head on a fucking pike at the border and say, “No more!” Oh, aye, what those English pricks did to Willie Wallace will look like a fucking brush with Ken Dodd’s tickle stick.’ He looked at me as though realizing for the first time that I was in the room. ‘This isn’t for you, son. You proved that with Nairn. So I want you to go back to your wee police safe house. Wherever it is. Where you left my wife. I know you trust the people you left her with, but the fact is I don’t fucking know them.’ He stood up, walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder. Direct eye contact. ‘I’m not palming you off, son. I know you think its shite. That I don’t trust you. But you’re not the man for the work ahead. You protect people. That’s who you are. You do whatever you need to do that. You don’t have the motivation to go up against this Hungarian shiteball. So I’m asking you to do what you do best. Look out for the innocent. For my wife.’
Was it a crock of shit? Hard to tell with a man whose own internal motivations were constantly up for re-evaluation.
I couldn’t argue with him, though. There were things you could fake in the name of an assignment, and others that you couldn’t. Going against your personality, your own set of ethical and moral motivations was almost impossible. The best undercover officers had something of the criminal inside them already. They could allow themselves to betray standard ethical and moral behaviours in order to achieve their goals.
I couldn’t do that. There were lines I could not cross.
Lines that men like David Burns couldn’t even see.
FORTY-ONE
I gave the knock. Waited. They would identify me from the security footage. The man who answered the safe house door was young. Too young for me to remember him from the bad old days on the force. But he knew who I was. Guess I’d become station lore. A cautionary tale for hotheaded young uniforms. He insisted on patting me down in the front hall before allowing me further access. Taking no chances.
In the kitchen, two more plainclothes stared at each other over cards. Betting on pound coins. They probably wanted a beer or two, the chance to make some jokes, turn this dull assignment into something more memorable.
I found Mary in the back room watching television. A mid-afternoon chat show. The presenter was safely camp; utterly inoffensive. The kind of man who wouldn’t threaten or challenge you. Except perhaps with a cheeky double entendre or two where he could get away with it.
Mary looked up as I came in.
‘She’s not here.’
I didn’t understand.
‘The girl. Susan.’
‘I’m here to talk to you.’
‘Oh.’
I sat down next to her. The presenter read out reader’s letters. Showed off some of the daft things that people sent him including a knitted doll that was supposed to be a good likeness. Even I had to laugh at the lack of skill. But the audience’s laughter was gentle, perhaps because they all knew that their efforts would be just as bad. If not worse.
‘You’re not here,’ Mary said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Just thinking.’
‘About anything except her?’
‘What are you? An agony aunt?’
‘No. But I am a middle-aged woman whose husband is hardly in the house any more. It gives me pleasure to interfere in other people’s lives.’ Maybe she wanted to smile, but she suppressed it. Except around the eyes.
‘You know the truth about me?’
‘That you’re spying?’ She lost the hint of the smile. ‘Same as Ernie was? I know. My husband suspects it. But you’re just like Ernie, son. Heartbreaking, in its way. You’re a compassionate man. You want to see David for a criminal but can’t help seeing the whole man.’
‘He’s still done bad things.’
‘And maybe you’ll take him down. But what I mean is that we know what you’re here to do. It’s your job. But for him, it’s a game of chess, I think.’
I shook my head. Feeling foolish.
‘I don’t say anything to him. He doesn’t say anything to me. Maybe that’s why it works for us; the fact that we don’t talk about his other business. He knows I know. I know he knows. That’s enough. The same way that some couples have hobbies and interests the other one doesn’t understand.’
‘You have your painting, he has his kneecapping?’
She laughed. The first time I’d heard her laugh. It was gentle. A light piano riff. ‘You’re making fun of us.’
‘That obvious?’
‘Tell me this: if he didn’t do things that you disagreed with, would you like him?’
I thought about it for a while. The old man could be genuinely charming. There was a reason that the legitimate side of his interests had done so well. He was a man who made connections. He had the ability to make people genuinely like him. He could be ruthless, but then so could many otherwise legit people. He had a temper. I could relate to that. But one on one, he was charming. Had a spark in his eye that made you think of your grandfather. Seeing him with Nairn’s children had been an odd contrast to the way that he dealt with their father. Like he was two different people in one body.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In a way.’
‘Then you understand.’
‘No.’
She patted my knee. ‘You’re still young.’
We looked at the television again.
She said, ‘You avoided my question.’
‘I think I answered it.’
‘No, about her.’
Meaning Susan. The question she had asked should been simple to answer. But I couldn’t think of a simple thing to say.
‘It doesn’t do any good,’ I said, ‘running over the past.’
‘Because you’re scared of how you’ll look?’
‘Maybe. Look, things between me and her got complicated.’
‘And yet she came running when you asked.’
‘Like I said: complicated.’
Mary laughed. ‘I don’t know if it’s me or the world, but I can’t remember when love became complicated. Back when I was your age, what we did was admit we liked each other and then work through everything else.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
I shook my head. It couldn’t have been that simple for her. Not with a man like Burns. But then maybe me and Susan just needed to get over ourselves. Maybe Mary had a point.
I stood up. ‘You want coffee?’
‘Tea for me. Milk. Two sugars.’
I went to the kitchen. The young lad was in there leaning on the counter, checking his mobile. I said, ‘Signal’s bad out here.’
‘Wi-fi.’
‘Right.’
I hit the kettle.
There was a knock at the door. ‘Expecting someone?’
He shook his head. ‘Nah. But we get it every so often from the old duffer next door. Wanting to borrow salt or something. Bollocks every time. Reckon he’s just lonely. Doesn’t get out much. Hasn’t really twigged that it’s never the same person answers the door
.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll just tell him to piss off, eh?’
‘Or you could give him the salt.’
He looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Know who pays for the salt in this place? We have to account for every fucking grain.’
He left the room. I busied myself with the kettle. Pulled open cupboards searching for the sugar. They could charge me if they liked.
I heard the front door open. Waited for the mumble of conversation.
Dropped the sugar as the bullets flew. High velocity. Deep thrumming noise as they shattered the air out in the confined corridor.
I dropped.
There were yells. Screams.
Automatic weapons.
A year earlier, I had been at the heart of a hostage situation when an armed response unit burst through the door. The noise had had a brutal physicality that rattled through my bones.
This sounded worse. More violent. More random. More deadly. The Armed Response coppers had been careful about picking their targets. They’d been well trained. Organized. This bunch sounded trigger happy.
There were two exits from the kitchen. The second would take me around to the rear of the living room. The men with the guns would be heading straight for the front door if they took the main hall. I could cut round the back way, get to Mary before they did.
I kept low, crouched as I pushed through the door, made for cover behind the sofa. Mary was on the floor, hands over her head. She looked at me with wide eyes. I gestured for her to come with me. She didn’t move. I could see the tension threatening to burst out of her. She wanted to scream, but her self-preservation was too strong. Any noise would only bring the predators into the room.
I snapped. ‘Come on!’
The words got through to her. She scrabbled towards me. I held out my hand. She took it. We went out low towards the rear entrance.
Straight into a pair of dark jeans. Slowly, I stood up. Grabbed Mary’s hand, brought her up with me. The thug’s hair was thinning, forced down flat with what could have been chip-grease. He smiled. He was holding a rifle in his hands. The muzzle pointed down. No need for posture. His eyes told me everything I needed to know. He said, ‘The police are dead. You cannot run.’ Hint of a European accent. Hungarian? I couldn’t really tell. But his English was good. Probably naturalized. He had to be working for Bako. Explained the gear. The violence. The accent. The fact that Burns wouldn’t send someone to kill his own wife.
Would he?
It had always been a hypothetical question between me and Ernie after a few pints down the Phoenix: what would the old man do if his wife turned traitor? The old man had always given this big talk about how important family was and loyalty. Yet we knew he would happily kill anyone who dared cross him. Without compassion. Without exception.
So what about his wife? What would happen to her? Would he send the boys round?
It wasn’t outside the realms of possibility. For all his talk.
Maybe he did have some kind of condition. Or maybe he was just more in touch with his own violence than the rest of us. Or maybe he was just plain bad. The kind of evil fuck we all read about in the reports, the witness testimony. Maybe it was the violence that was the real Burns, where all the talk of loyalty, graft and family was the posturing.
So I had to hope these guys were working for Bako.
For Mary’s sake.
FORTY-TWO
They bundled us into the back of a car. Blindfolded. Directed by rough hands.
I wondered if we would look suspicious to other drivers. Would anyone notice that something was wrong? I hadn’t seen the car they threw us into. Maybe the windows were tinted. No one seemed to stop us along the way. Not noticing or not caring. We rolled along at what seemed like a normal pace. No sharp turns. No sudden or unexpected bursts of speed.
If I was a movie hero, a John McClane type, I might have made some dumb-ass move, try overpowering the guys with the guns. Maybe wound up rolling out a moving vehicle, holding Mary close to protect her at the car slammed into a wall at speed and burst into an improbably fireball.
All of this, of course while blindfolded. And, if I really was John McClane, shoeless as well.
But I was just an ordinary man in his late thirties. I’d taken my share of violence. And dished some out as well. The truth was, I made a move any of these bastards didn’t like, I’d end up dead. Either with a bullet or just with my neck snapped or throat sliced. The only moves I could make were to keep still and keep cooperative.
The drive took about twenty-five minutes. We were pulled out of the car and on to uneven ground. Forced to walk by men who pushed us around roughly. I nearly went down twice, my feet failing to gain purchase on broken paving slabs.
We were led into a place with bare floors. The rough hands forced us upstairs. I figured the building for residential in design, but currently unoccupied. I didn’t know where we were. Were we still within the city limits?
Finally we were shoved into a room that had been carpeted. Recently. I could see a little beneath the bottom of the blindfold. The carpet had that quality of being freshly laid. No stains, the fibres still strong.
Our blindfolds were ripped off. I blinked a few times. Brought the world back into focus. Got my bearings as best I could. Mary was next to me. Trying to remain stoic. She may have claimed that her greatest fear was that her husband would come home in a body bag; now she was every bit as frightened for her own life.
Did she know who Bako was? Did she know his reputation?
The room was laid out like an office. Big desk. Carpeted floors. Walls hung with prints of city scenes from around the globe. A laptop on the desk humming quietly away. Even a plant. They’d turned a shell of a building into a home away from home with all the unique personality of a Travel Lodge reception.
Behind the desk, a man sat bolt upright in a leather chair. His hands were on the desk, palms down. He had a peculiar expression as he looked at me and Mary Burns: a scientist scrutinizing the subjects of his latest experiment.
He was thin. His face was gaunt; a young Christopher Lee. His eyes were sunk back in his head, giving him a corpse-like appearance. I remembered an undertaker telling me once how after death, the eyes dipped deeper into the skull. How you had to force them up again for funerals to give the illusion of life.
This, then, was the Zombie.
Sharp suit, tie tight round his neck, shirt and jacket fitted impeccably. I imagined he had a row of identical suits all pressed and steamed and ready to go each morning. He probably changed clothes at least three times a day to ensure he always gave off the perfect impression. I’d met men like him before. Most of them in finance.
You finally meet the bogeyman and he looks like the manager of your local bank.
No one had ever seen Bako. As he disappeared into his own legend, so any traces he had left behind vanished as well. All anyone had ever seen were old, blurred photos. They could have been the man in front of me. But maybe not. All the same, this man spoke with the authority of the Zombie. And maybe my doubts came from my recent dealings with Nairn. When people lie to you enough times, you find it hard to believe that anyone is telling the truth.
Bako said, ‘You will not be harmed.’ Heavily accented. But his syntax and grammar were impeccable.
‘That’s reassuring.’
‘I was talking to Mrs Burns.’
I shut my mouth. But it was too late. He smiled. He’d got to me. My first mistake. Certainly wasn’t going to be my last.
‘You will not be harmed,’ he said again, ignoring me. ‘All your husband has to do is agree to work with us. That is all. We will share his operations, his income. He will have a good life. If he does what he is told.’
Mary said nothing.
Bako turned to look at me. Grinned. His teeth were dental-work white. ‘And you, my friend … I know who you are. What you are. You have been working against Burns, have you not? You are a police informant. He has been a fool not to kill you. Maybe he has sentime
ntal feelings?’
I hoped to God that Bako was as much of a fool as the old man.
‘But you are a man whose morality is flexible. I know you, Mr McNee. Have heard about you. You have killed. Broken the laws you once upheld. Perhaps there is hope for you. A place for you.’
He was messing with me. Say yes, and I was a traitor to my old boss. Say no and he would kill me.
As I weighed my options, the door opened. A woman entered. Tall, elegant, long, dark hair brushed straight down her back. In her mid-forties, maybe, but looking good on it. She wore little makeup but her skin was flawless. She walked to Bako, leaned down and whispered something in his ear. He nodded, and then dismissed her with a wave of his hand.
She looked at me as she walked out the room. Her eyes were cold. I thought of lizards, of a snake regarding a small animal as a potential snack.
Bako gestured to one of the three men who had brought us here. The man leaned close while Bako said something that I didn’t understand. The big man laughed.
He walked up to me and said, ‘Come.’
‘Where?’
‘To pub. For drink.’
Everyone in the room laughed. Except Mary.
And me.
FORTY-THREE
They threw me into an empty room. No furniture. Windows blocked out by dark material that had been stapled roughly to the frame.
They locked the door. Left me alone.
Old psychological trick. Gets you imagining worse might actually be coming. Softens you up for the main feature.
I took a deep breath. Still no idea where I was. I got to my feet. As I did so, my chest tightened. I took a deep breath. The sensation eased. I moved over to the window, prised my fingers beneath the cloth and pulled it back gently so I could see what was outside.
I got grey sky. A few branches. No sense of what floor I was on, how far it was to the ground.
And then the door opened. I let go of the material and it snapped back into place, eliminating that one sliver of the outside world.
‘Mr McNee.’ Bako. Flanked by the same thug who’d thrown me in here. ‘You are an interesting man.’
Cry Uncle Page 16
