The Drop

by Howard Linskey

  We’d bumped into my brother in the Bigg Market and I just thought fuck it, let’s have a beer. Now it was late and we were back in my flat, with three stubby glasses in front of us, looking at a half-empty bottle of scotch.

  ‘I hear you were in the Paras?’ asked Danny, ‘before you joined the Regiment.’ Like Palmer, my brother never called it the SAS, only the Regiment.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Palmer.

  ‘How come you left then?’

  ‘Danny,’ I warned him.

  ‘It’s alright,’ said Palmer, ‘I’m not touchy about it. I got RTU’d.’

  ‘Oh,’ said Danny.

  ‘Don’t you want to know why?’ asked Palmer. Danny shrugged, ‘course you do. Everybody always does.’ Danny shrugged again but this time the twinkly little smile was an admission. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you, since we’ve had a good drink up,’ he sipped his whisky. ‘It was nothing spectacular though, quite the reverse in fact.’

  ‘Go on then,’ said Danny, ‘tell us. I could use a laugh.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ I said, ‘is this how you army boys discuss each other’s hardships?’

  ‘Aye,’ said Palmer, ‘that’s about right.’ He took another sip of his drink and said, ‘it was the daftest thing. Like you said, I was in the Paras, made a hundred and twelve jumps, no bother at all, never a moment’s hesitation. Then one day, I was out on a routine top-up jump to keep my wings. I shuffled up to the front of the line no different to normal, but something strange happened.’

  ‘What?’ asked Danny.

  ‘I didn’t jump.’

  ‘You didn’t jump?’

  ‘I didn’t jump,’ he repeated patiently.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I wish I knew. To this day I can’t even explain it to myself. It wasn’t like I was suddenly terrified, just that I didn’t want to go out the door. Not then, not that day, at that point.’

  ‘What? You mean you had a premonition your chute wasn’t going to open or something?’ asked Danny, ‘you thought you were going to die?’

  ‘No, nothing so… dramatic. It was more like, out of the blue, after all those jumps, it suddenly seemed…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘A bloody stupid thing to be doing.’

  ‘Christ almighty,’ said Danny laughing, ‘what did they do to you?’

  ‘Made me sit down in the plane, everybody else went out. They landed the plane and I was returned to unit.’

  ‘Just like that?’ I asked. ‘Could they not have given you a second chance to go?’

  ‘Nope, that’s the rule, if you don’t jump,’ he said, ‘there are no second chances. That’s the army.’

  ‘So is that why you left?’ Danny asked, ‘because you were RTU’d?’

  ‘Well, yes and no.’

  Danny was laughing again, ‘go on,’ he urged, ‘what happened?’

  ‘It was a while after. I think by then I’d lost my love of the army and, well, me and the missus had split up and I think I was going a bit mad at that point. Then they gave me this shitty guard duty, driving round the perimeter one Friday night and, by this point, I just really didn’t want to be there so… ’

  ‘What did you do?’ asked Danny.

  ‘I drove the jeep into the mess.’

  ‘Through the door!’ laughed Danny, his eyes like saucers.

  ‘Through the plate glass, locked, double doors and right across the room,’ we were all laughing now, ‘I cleaned out a few tables, everybody was diving out of my way. They were having curry. I remember because I knocked over a massive pan of it, it went all over the floor.’

  ‘You sure that was the curry?’ I asked.

  ‘Aye,’ said Danny, killing himself laughing now, ‘a fucking jeep’s flying straight at you across the mess hall!’ and he put a hand under his arse and made a long wet farting noise, ‘me? I’d shit all over the floor and say “it’s just the curry, honest!”.’

  ‘I bet they gave you a right kicking when the jeep finally stopped,’ I said.

  ‘There were a few harsh words exchanged,’ he admitted, ‘then they chucked me in a cell and before I knew it, I was out of the army.’

  It didn’t surprise me that Palmer had done a little time. They reckon about ten per cent of the prison population is ex-forces. Of course, you don’t see that statistic on the recruitment posters.

  You always need a bit of luck. I don’t care who you are or how clever you think you might be, if you don’t get the breaks it won’t make any difference. Look at any sportsman, general, politician or rock star. They’ll all tell you it started because they got a break. The next morning we finally got ours.

  I was a bit hungover after my evening with Danny and Palmer, so I arrived at the gym late in the afternoon. I’d been varying my time since the attack, to make it harder for any one to pick up my routine. I’d seen this pasty, grey-haired bloke once before while I was down there. He was sitting on a lounger by the pool while I was doing my lengths. Then another time he was in the café when I came out and I noticed he’d chosen the one seat that looked directly onto the exit door of the men’s changing rooms. When I looked over he looked away.

  Now he was here again. I was on one of the benches in the changing room and, as soon as I saw him, I just knew he wasn’t legit. He studiously ignored me as he walked in and opened a locker, then started to undress for the pool. It was hard to explain why but it was a combination of instinct and common sense. When you walk into a public room, the first thing you do is clock who’s in there already. You quickly glance at them and they look back at you, to make sure you don’t represent a threat to them. It’s a primeval instinct, Desmond Morris-style behaviour. We can’t help ourselves then we quickly look away, so as not to challenge the other person. No one likes it if you look at them for too long. Hence the standard, it’s about to kick off phrase of ‘What you looking at?’

  The thing is, this guy didn’t do any of that. As soon as his tubby body rounded the corner, my eyes went to him automatically but he made sure he was looking the other way right from the off. I could have been a knife wielding hoody for all he knew but he just didn’t take me in and that wasn’t right. I’d varied my routine and this was the third time I’d clocked him. Because of that and the way he avoided looking at me, I just knew this bloke was there because of me. He was watching and he was waiting for an opportunity to set me up. He didn’t look like muscle but, if he had been wanting to take me out, it was all a bit too public in here anyway. I wasn’t daft like Jerry Lemon. I wasn’t about to go driving into darkened truck stops to offer them an easy target.

  I was ready before him, so I went to the pool but instead of going straight into the water I sat down on a lounger. He walked in a moment later, went by me and headed for the sauna. I’d wrapped my phone up in my towel and as grey-hair disappeared into the sauna I reached for it. It was one of many pay-as-you-go phones we used and rotated, so there was less danger of it being picked up by anyone listening. I spoke to Palmer. I had to be quick so I didn’t even try to talk in code.

  ‘I’m at the gym. I want you to get one of the lads down here pronto, use one of our spare swipe keys, get into the men’s changing rooms then turn over a locker for me. Number 468. Take everything, get his details. I want him checked then lifted.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said, ‘a wrong ‘un?’

  ‘Looks like it.’

  ‘I’ll sort it.’

  I clicked the phone shut, lay back in the lounger and waited.

  I gave it forty-five minutes, swimming a few lengths, during which time our fat friend waddled from sauna to steam room to pool, then, as soon as he waded into the Jacuzzi, I left and quickly dressed. Grey-hair was on his way back in to get changed just as I was leaving. I didn’t hang around to see the look on his face when he realised all we’d left him was the trunks he was standing up in.

  I moved my car so that I could see everything from a distance but he wouldn’t be able to spot me when he emerged. It took him ten minutes to work o
ut what his options were. Eventually he had no choice but to kick up a fuss with the girls on the front desk, who must have been bemused by the sight of a middle aged bloke, dripping all over the floor in front of them.

  Finally the big, glass doors at the front of the building slid apart and he emerged, dressed in a too tight, blue sweatshirt with the club’s logo on it and a pair of grey leggings they must have retrieved from lost property. They’d found him some manky tennis shoes as well and he was hobbling along in them. He looked over to where his car had been parked and swore at the empty bay. Even from this distance I could tell he was muttering and cursing as he sloped away. He walked towards the main gate, looking like he was going to head into town.

  There was a white Transit van with the council logo on it, parked just outside the main gate. I watched as he drew level with the four workers in bright orange high-visibility jackets who looked like they were just about to start digging up the road. He paid them no attention at all, until one of them stepped in his way and, before he could work out what was going on, another marched up behind him and zapped him with a Tazer. He let out a strangled gurgle as his legs gave way and they grabbed him before he hit the ground. A heartbeat later, he was in the back of the van with the doors locked behind him and they were driving away. Smooth as you like.

  I’d known having our own van with the council’s logo on it had been a good idea. Now I just hoped I’d given the right order. Hopefully Palmer just lifted someone who’d soon be telling us who he was working for and what was going on. Then we’d finally know who was behind the murders of Jerry Lemon and Geordie Cartwright. Either that or we were about to torture an innocent civilian on my say-so based on little more than a hunch. I tried not to think about that as I drove away.

  Palmer called in and I told him to take the guy to a lock-up we used, then get Finney over to scare the hell out of him. I didn’t think Bobby would mind sparing Finney if he thought it might lead to a breakthrough. I went back to the Cauldron and waited for Palmer to call me again.

  When he rang, I asked him if Finney was on it. ‘I’ve called him a few times but he’s not picking up,’ he told me, his voice unconcerned. This didn’t sound good to me. Finney was normally reliable when it came to that sort of thing.

  ‘Shit,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Palmer assured me, ‘you want the fear of God putting into this prick, right?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Then leave it to me.’

  I waited a couple of hours at the club. I ate a meal, trying not to think about the imaginative methods Palmer was going to employ on our grey-haired stranger to get him to talk. Did I have sympathy for him? No. He’d been following me around, noting my movements. He might even have been the guy who’d told Weasel-face I’d be at the match when he broke into my apartment and almost killed me.

  I’d long finished lunch when my mobile vibrated into life again. It was Palmer.

  ‘He’s copped for it,’ he told me calmly, though he sounded a little out of breath, ‘the whole story. You are going to want to hear this.’

  ‘Good,’ I said, ‘keep him there.’

  ‘Oh he’s not going anywhere,’ he assured me.

  ‘Did he give you a name?’ I asked impatiently, ‘did he tell you who?’

  ‘Yes he did,’ and Palmer proceeded to tell me the whole bloody tale. I didn’t say a word. I just listened. When he’d finished I thanked him and said, ‘there’s something else I need from you, well, from him.’

  ‘Name it.’

  ‘There’s someone on the inside. Somebody’s been handing our organisation to these bastards one bit of information at a time. They couldn’t have known so much just by following us around for a few weeks. Get me a name. Who’s their man on the inside?’

  ‘You’ve got it,’ he said

  I got straight to my feet, my heart thumping with a combination of anger, adrenalin and dread. I now knew what was going on. Our enemy finally had a face and a name. I had to get to Bobby quickly. Things were about to get rough.

  TWENTY-NINE

  ...................................................

  On my way out of the club I dialled Bobby’s mobile and it rang out. ‘Pick up the phone Bobby,’ I said aloud. I was walking quickly and I pressed the key for the Merc. It bleeped a couple of times to show it recognised me. I ended the call and tried to dial Finney before I reached the car. It rang eight times without any answer. I hung up and, as I did so, my phone rang.

  ‘Hello,’ I said.

  ‘It’s me,’ it was Sharp, ‘I’ve been making calls like you said and I think I’ve finally turned something up.’ Unsurprisingly, he seemed eager to please after our last meeting.

  ‘And?’

  ‘A big Russian bloke with a shaved head rented a farmhouse out in the sticks. It sleeps half a dozen people and you know, I thought, how many groups of big Russian blokes can there be on their holibobs in Tyneside.’

  ‘That’s them alright.’

  He gave me the address.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘while you’re on I need another address. It’ll be easier to find but you can’t give it to any one who’ll want to link it back to you later, so don’t use your police computer.’

  There was a pause while he digested my meaning. ‘Name?’ he asked. I told him.

  I was almost back to my car when I phoned Palmer again and gave him the address Sharp had supplied for the Russians.

  ‘You’re going to be working this weekend,’ I replied.

  ‘What’s the plan boss?’ he asked nonchalantly.

  ‘Wait till I have a word with Bobby,’ I told him.

  ‘Fair enough.’

  I hung up and opened the door of the car. I was about to climb in when two huge blokes suddenly appeared from nowhere. One blocked the door I was about to open and the other appeared from behind me. I hadn’t heard a thing and they were on me so fast I couldn’t even think about walking away. They were both big guys with shaven heads. They looked exactly like the guys who’d steamed into Benny the doorman. The same guys who’d murdered Jerry and George. I was trapped.

  I knew immediately that I was fucked. I’d been stupid and careless. I was so exhilarated that I’d landed grey hair, so full of my own clever-clogs instinct that I’d parked my car in a side street by the club. That was fine in daylight, but by the time I’d walked out again it was dark and there was no one around. I’d made it easy for them.

  The guy behind me pressed a gun into my side, ‘get in the car,’ he ordered me in heavily-accented English. He sounded Russian alright.

  Instinctively I looked about me for help or some way to escape but there was no one else around and I could hardly call out. It would have been the last sound I ever made, ‘don’t be stupid,’ he told me, ‘now get in before we hurt you. You drive.’

  So I got in. What option did I have?

  It was all I could do to start the car, my hands were shaking so bad. My mind was racing as I tried to work out what they wanted from me, where they were taking me and what they intended to do to me when we got there.

  If they planned to drive me to a remote spot and kill me like George Cartwright, I would rather at least try to get away now. Smashing the moving car into oncoming traffic or a lamp post at speed seemed about the only option left to me. I didn’t fancy my chances of hurting these two like that without seriously damaging myself in the process but I knew I might not come up with a better plan. It crossed my mind that if they’d wanted me dead, they could have easily killed me in the quiet side street. So, I was still alive and I told myself that was a good thing, as I edged the car away from the club and out into the traffic.

  ‘Don’t do anything crazy,’ the same guy told me, ‘ve vont to talk, that’s all.’

  All very reassuring except I’d used that line myself on people Bobby wanted a little word with - and some of them had ended up face down in the Tyne with their fingers missing. The Russian said they didn’t want to kill me but
his word meant nothing. There really are worse things than death.

  They drove me through the city and out the other side, telling me when to turn and, though they didn’t explain where we were going, it worried me they hadn’t bothered to blindfold me or shove me in the boot. I wondered why they weren’t concerned about me knowing where I was going. Maybe I wouldn’t be coming back.

  The place was another disused factory. It looked lifeless, like it hadn’t produced anything for months, another victim of the downturn.

  There was a Porsche Cayenne with blacked-out windows parked outside. They made me stop by a pair of big metal doors then pushed me out of the car. They took my phone and my wallet and shoved me forwards through those same doors, which clanged shut behind me. I was now in a large, windowless room, but the electricity was still connected and I blinked at the bright strip lights above me.

  There, in the middle of the room, stood a familiar figure. Tommy Gladwell, Arthur Gladwell’s oldest boy, was smiling at me, looking about as pleased with himself as it was possible to be. He had the other two big Russians with him. Palmer had managed to get the right story out of the bloke we’d lifted at the gym. Whatever my man from the SAS had done to him, it had worked. He had told Palmer everything and suddenly it all made sense to me; Weasel-face and the Glasgow connection, even Tommy’s black eye. It wasn’t tired old Arthur Gladwell, the king of his city, who’d been gunning for us. It was Tommy, his eldest lad, the prince-in-waiting who’d grown tired of the wait. He was a gangster without an empire, too impatient to stand by until his dad finally croaked. He needed his own city to run, so now he was taking ours.

  ‘What the fuck do you want?’ I asked him, though I knew the answer to that already. I was doing my best to sound hard even though I didn’t feel it. I would have given every penny I had to see Finney march through those big metal doors at that moment with a shotgun, with Bobby at his side. I wondered where they were and if they had any inkling of what was going on. Was there any chance they might get here before it was too late?