by Mark Burnell
When he turned round and saw her, his conversation dried up. So did his good humour. He lowered the mobile and stared. Stephanie was aware of the protection moving into the room behind her.
‘Sorry, boss, but…’
Green silenced and then dismissed him with a flick of the hand. The door behind Stephanie closed. Green switched off his mobile and moved back behind his desk, apparently happier to have something solid between them. He flipped the lid on an onyx cigarette box and took out an Embassy Regal. Stephanie smiled; that had always amused her, even in the darkest moments. He lit it with the gold Cartier lighter that Dean West had given him as a small gesture of appreciation in the aftermath of the Gary Crowther incident; Green had organized the dumping of the body in Docklands.
Eventually, he recovered himself. ‘You’ve got a fucking nerve, ain’t you? Walking in here like that. Where you been the last couple of months?’
‘A long way from here but not far enough.’
‘What the fuck happened to you?’
‘Plenty.’
Green was used to seeing her in a state of desperation. Usually, when she came to the agency, she came to score drugs, accepting any insult or indignity, just so long as Green sold her relief through release.
‘Why’ve you come back?’
‘To see you, Barry.’
Now she saw he was unnerved. Surrounded by the comfort of familiarity, Green was a barrel-chested bully. Confronted by anything unexpected, he shrank. It was the tone of her voice and the way that she looked at him that were causing the damage.
He made a clumsy attempt at small-talk. ‘You look good, Steph. You’ve put on some weight.’
‘So have you.’
He ignored the jibe. ‘Suits you.’
‘You’re too kind,’ she replied, as flatly as she could, holding his gaze.
‘Looks like you’ve moved up in the world.’
‘Any move was going to be up from where I was.’
‘Been fucking the towel-heads on Park Lane, have you?’
She let the question go.
Green sat down and began to sound less anxious. ‘After you vanished, West went berserk. That wanker you pole-axed with that bottle of champers ended up in hospital. Plod was all over West like flies on shit, and he was all over the rest of us twice as bad. So if you’re here looking for favours, you can forget it. You owe us. You owe me. You owe me big time.’
‘I don’t owe you anything.’
‘Maybe you’d like to tell that to Deano?’
‘And maybe you’d like to be fingered as an accomplice in Gary Crowther’s unfortunate death? Or should I say murder?’
‘Give over, Steph. Why don’t you play a different record for a change?’
‘Because I don’t have anything to lose. Unlike you.’
Green frowned, his large black eyebrows meeting over his nose. He sucked on his cigarette. When his mobile rang, he ignored it.
‘So what do you want? Cash? I hope not. I’m fucking skint.’
‘I doubt that. But don’t wet your Calvin Kleins. I don’t want your money.’
Green’s smile was unconvincing. ‘Oh, I get it. You want medicine, right?’ She continued to stare at him. ‘What’s it gonna be?’
‘A gun.’
He assumed he’d misheard. ‘What?’
‘I want a gun.’
His jaw slackened. ‘What the fuck do you want a gun for?’
‘That’s none of your business.’
‘Bollocks it ain’t. I’m making it my bloody business.’
‘I’ve got money—your favourite kind: cash—so what do you care?’
‘What do you reckon? Suppose I sell you a gun and you take a pop at my good friend Deano? Understandable under the circumstances, I know, but what if the word gets out that I was the tosser who sold you the weapon? See what I’m getting at? I’d be as popular as a bacon sarnie at a bar mitzvah. Even if you whacked West—which I reckon’s no more than a fifty-fifty chance—I’d be next in line for the slab.’
‘It’s not West.’
‘And I have your word on that, do I?’
‘Yes.’
Green overplayed his exasperation. ‘The word of a washed-out whore? Excuse me, love, but you can kiss my fucking ring-piece.’
Stephanie’s inscrutability remained intact. ‘I’ll get a gun, one way or another. If not from you, then from someone else.’
‘Fine. Then piss off. I don’t care who you get it from as long as–’
‘But I’ll be sure to let it slip that you were the one who sold it to me. You can count on that.’
Green looked incredulous. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘I’m suggesting a trade.’
‘I could have my lad out there make you disappear–’ He clicked his fingers in front of his face. ‘–like that!’
‘Grow up, Barry. You don’t honestly think I’d walk in here after six weeks—after everything that happened in Brewer Street—without some kind of protection, do you?’
‘What protection?’
‘That’s for me to know.’
‘Bollocks. You’re bluffing.’
‘Then make me disappear.’
* * *
An hour later, as arranged, Stephanie was standing outside the Hippodrome when Green’s Shogun pulled into the kerb. The minder was driving. Green was sitting in the back and beckoned Stephanie. She climbed in beside him and the four-by-four pulled away.
‘Just drive around in circles and make sure you don’t get hauled up by Plod.’
Lying between them, on the back seat, was a plastic John Lewis bag. Green reached inside and pulled out a bundle of cloth which turned out to be an old sweatshirt. He unfolded it, revealing a gun.
‘Browning 9mm, army issue,’ he told Stephanie. ‘Do you know how to use it?’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Point it and pull the trigger?’
‘Don’t be a fucking comedian, Steph. I’m not in the mood.’ Green handled the gun, keeping it low, beneath the height of the windows. He showed her the clip and then slapped it home and pointed at the safety-catch. ‘You ease it off like this and then she’s ready to pop. I’m giving you one up the pipe, five in the clip, six in total. You need any more than that and you can get them yourself.’
‘I’ll only need one. Maybe two.’
‘Then that’s all you need to know. But I’ll give you a tip. Get as tight as you can to your target. These things are bollocks at any distance. If you’re wondering whether you’re close enough, you’re not. You’ve got to get in so it’s harder to miss than to hit.’
Green rubbed the gun with the sweatshirt before re-wrapping it in the material and returning it to the John Lewis bag. Then he cleaned the palms of his hands on his trousers and lit a fresh cigarette. He was nervous, Stephanie saw. That was why he was taking care of it personally.
She produced a roll of cash from her pocket. ‘How much?’
Green looked at the notes greedily and almost gave her a figure, but then reined himself in. ‘It’s on the house.’ Stephanie couldn’t believe what she was hearing and it must have showed because he added: ‘Use the cash to buy a one-way ticket to New Zealand when you’re done. After this, we’re through, you and me.’
‘With pleasure.’
‘And I want your word that you ain’t gonna take a pop at West.’
‘I didn’t think my word was good enough.’
‘Stop fucking around, Steph!’
She was almost able to take pleasure from his discomfort. ‘Okay. I promise. But when you next see him, you can tell him to stop wasting his time looking for me. I’m going to be out of touch. Permanently.’
‘Oh yeah? Gonna do us all a fucking favour and top yourself, are you?’
Stephanie shook her head sadly. ‘Didn’t anybody ever teach you that it isn’t grown up to swear?’
* * *
Stephanie was in her room at the King’s Court Hotel when she saw the news on TV. A journalist had
been found dead in his flat in Marylebone. Police described Keith Proctor’s injuries as ‘appalling’ and confirmed rumours that he had been shot several times. They urgently wanted to speak to a young woman who had been seen with the journalist in recent weeks. The physical description of her was unremarkable; white, medium height, medium build, blonde hair, mid-twenties. They also wanted to speak to a man who had been seen leaving Proctor’s block of flats several nights before. He was described as short and stocky, of Middle-Eastern extraction, with a beard.
A Middle-Eastern man. Not Bradfield then. The bomber, perhaps? But how could he have known about Proctor? Or was it another man and, if so, who?
* * *
All afternoon, Stephanie had considered how to handle this moment. In the end, she opted for the direct approach, simply because she could not think of any clever alternative.
She had found Gallagher & Sons without any difficulty, on the corner of Wilton Road and Longmoore Street. Inside, it was warm. There were small tables on a green carpet, wooden panelling to waist height and then mustard yellow paint to the ceiling. In appearance and position, Cyril Bradfield was just as Proctor had described him to her; he was sitting at the back, a mirror on the wall behind him, directly above his head, he was drinking Guinness. There were three pensioners arguing at a table, none of them listening, all talking. One of them was either half-witted or very drunk. Stephanie couldn’t decide which. Having glimpsed Bradfield, she left, confident that he had not noticed her.
His address, further along Longmoore Street, had been on one of Proctor’s priceless disks. She walked past the house, with its grimy façade of blackened brick and rotten window-frames, before turning right into Guildhouse Street, passing the rear of an office block to her left, housing, among others, the Civil Service Appeal Board and the Pensions Ombudsman. She paid attention to the security cameras covering the service area. She completed a circuit and re-entered Guildhouse Street from Warwick Way and then stopped at the junction with Longmoore Street. She kept moving to keep warm and to avoid suspicion, not that there was anybody around.
Forty-five minutes later, Bradfield appeared and the moment arrived.
She felt the weight of the Browning in her pocket. As Bradfield neared his front door, Stephanie emerged from Guildhouse Street. It was dark. Bradfield heard steps and turned his head. It’s just a young woman. He put his key in the door. As it creaked open, he heard: ‘Excuse me.’ He turned round. The young woman was standing at the foot of the three steps that rose from the pavement.
‘I’m lost. I’m trying to get to Victoria Station.’
‘Oh, it’s not far from here…’
Smiling sweetly, she climbed one step, then two. Her hand emerged from her coat pocket. She waited until he’d seen the gun, which she held close to her body, and then said, ‘We’re going inside.’
For a moment, Bradfield was too stunned to move at all and Stephanie didn’t know what to do. But then he nodded and led the way in. Stephanie kicked the door shut with her heel.
‘What do you want?’
They were in a narrow hall lit by a single bulb inside a dusty globe of frosted glass. Cyril Bradfield looked to be in his fifties. He was an inch shorter than Stephanie and shuffled when he moved. His silver hair was wiry and disobedient. Stephanie was drawn to the watery blue eyes beneath the furrowed brow.
‘Is it money? I’m afraid I don’t have much on me…’
He’s going to see through me. He’s going to realize that I’m a fraud, that I don’t have a clue.
The gun felt clumsy in Stephanie’s hand, as alien as the controls of a train or a conductor’s baton. Bradfield was unfastening the buttons of his overcoat.
‘It’s not money,’ she told him, aware of the tremble in her voice. ‘It’s work. Your work.’
This seemed to unsettle him more than the prospect of being robbed. He squinted at Stephanie and whispered, ‘Who are you?’
‘I need information about someone you did work for.’
Bradfield winced. ‘Confidentiality is crucial in my line of work. I can’t talk about those things.’
Stephanie waved the gun just enough to draw his attention to it. ‘I think you’ll find you can.’
He sighed, his brief flirtation with resistance over. He began to climb the stairs. Stephanie followed. The doors on the first-floor landing were closed. They rose to the attic in darkness until Bradfield found the switch on the wall. The entire space had been converted into a studio. There were two work-benches, a desk and stool in the farthest corner, and three machines that Stephanie couldn’t identify. Running the length of one side of the attic there was shelving, containing jars of ink, tins of solvent, paints—some prepared, some not—adhesives, knives, a multitude of different papers, photographic equipment, developing fluid, a vast array of pens, a franking machine, batches of plastic strips and thirty or forty labelled box-files.
‘This is my office.’
Absent-mindedly, Stephanie murmured, ‘I used to work in an attic, too.’
‘Doing what?’
‘I’ll be the one asking the questions.’ She looked for signs of security but saw none. ‘You made a document for somebody I’m looking for. A passport, possibly. It might have been Israeli.’
‘It wouldn’t have been the first.’
‘The man was referred to you by a third party. He probably came with a minder, maybe two.’
‘Who referred him?’
‘Ismail Qadiq.’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘Try again. An Egyptian. An importer of T-shirts, among other things.’
‘He might well have referred the man to me but I wouldn’t necessarily have met him. I have someone who acts as a go-between for me.’
‘Yes. I know. He smokes panatellas.’
Suddenly, Bradfield looked a little shaken. ‘Why do you want this man?’
Stephanie ignored the question and remembered another name from Proctor’s file. ‘There might have been other documents. An Algerian passport, perhaps, and a driving licence in the name of Mustafa Sela.’
Proctor had suspected that Sela might have been the name—or the alias—of the bomber of NE027. Stephanie thought she saw a flicker of recognition. Or a change of some sort.
‘How long ago?’ Bradfield asked.
‘More than six months, less than a year.’
Bradfield walked over to the box-files and selected one. He placed it upon one of the work-benches, opened it and started to go through the hundreds of items within: documents, receipts, photographs, scribbled notes.
Stephanie looked around the attic and said, ‘I’m surprised you work at home. I would’ve thought it might’ve been safer to keep your studio somewhere else.’
Bradfield shrugged. ‘Why bother? If anyone wants to find me—like you, for instance—how hard is it going to be to find my studio? Or if I’m in my studio, how hard is it going to be to discover where I live?’
‘That’s a very fatalistic attitude.’
‘That’s the way I choose to live.’
‘Is that why you don’t seem concerned by the fact that there’s an armed intruder in your house?’
His hands paused and he looked up. ‘No. That’s something different.’
‘What?’
Their eyes locked. ‘Let me give you a piece of advice,’ Bradfield said. ‘Don’t carry a gun unless you’re prepared to use it.’
He dropped his gaze and continued sorting, leaving Stephanie stranded. She felt humiliated. Had it really been so glaringly obvious? She stopped pointing the Browning at Bradfield, letting her arm fall to her side. But she still felt ridiculous holding the gun, so she slipped it back inside her coat pocket.
‘Anyway,’ Bradfield said, continuing their original conversation, as though the embarrassing exchange had never occurred, ‘I’m a poor sleeper. I do a lot of my work in the small hours so it’s convenient to work from home.’
Stephanie was still trying to cope with her sens
e of deflation. ‘You knew straight away?’
He nodded. ‘On the steps, outside.’
He was still sifting through the remaining contents of the box-file.
She walked over to him. ‘Then why are you doing this?’
He shrugged again. ‘Because I might be wrong about you. Because you know where I live. Or maybe because most of the people in my line of business are unattractive men, not attractive women.’
Three answers, none of them honest, of that she was sure. He smiled and Stephanie didn’t know whether to smile back or shoot him dead; she was, in equal measure, relieved and outraged. She wondered what the real reason was.
Bradfield said, ‘I remember that the man involved—the subject—did not recover the documents himself. Someone else did.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. It was the only time I saw him. But I know that they were destined for the man who organized everything. What did you say his name was?’
‘Ismail Qadiq.’
‘Who knows, maybe he was the one who collected them? It’s possible, don’t you think?’
Bradfield’s fingers stopped and then he plucked a photographic contact sheet from the box-file. He walked over to a light and held it close to the bulb.
‘Ah, yes,’ he purred. ‘Here he is.’
* * *
Bradfield emerged from his dark-room, which was little more than a light-sealed cupboard at one end of the attic. He handed the photograph to Stephanie. The head and shoulders shot was in black and white. It showed a man in his late twenties to mid-thirties with smooth, dark skin, black hair cropped short and a full but well-trimmed beard. His hooded eyes stared straight into the camera, straight into Stephanie, straight into the past. She felt a coldness in her chest.
‘This is Mustafa Sela?’ she whispered, not looking up.
‘No. That is the man who pretends to be Mustafa Sela. Who can say what his real name is?’
Now, Stephanie felt inclined to hoist her gaze. Cyril Bradfield was rolling a cigarette for himself. He had thick, gnarled fingers, grooved by years of accumulated cuts and scratches, hardened by solvents and adhesives, made crooked by age. But the dexterity was still in them. He rolled the cigarette in a moment, without ever looking at it, and it was perfect. No creases, no unfortunate tapering.
