“Dress code: damp-proof — we’ll get kitted out from Stores on the Friday, before we leave work. You’re going to be the water baby.”
They spent less than an hour on the range. As Karl reminded him, time flies when you’re firing guns. Afterwards in the café, Thomas scanned the horizon for Teresa. Someone as organised as Karl would be sure to have arranged a meeting.
“Relax, Tommo. She’ll be here presently.”
He picked at the pastry crumbs on his plate. So they were doing Sir Peter’s private dirty work — and look where that got him last time.
Teresa made a play of waving as she came over, but she looked agitated. “Things have moved forward unexpectedly.”
Even Karl seemed a little put out.
“There was a disturbance at the target house last night. A neighbour called the police and an ambulance out, to a domestic. It seems Yorgi went ballistic — if you’ll forgive the phrase — when he came back and found the car was missing.”
Thomas felt like raising a hand, to remind them he was still there. “Who’s Yorgi?”
Karl and Teresa gave him the kind of look that made him wish he wasn’t. “Our likely Harwich shooter,” Teresa explained, glancing at Karl.
“He has a name,” Thomas said slowly, reciting his thought aloud.
“And a reputation to go with it,” Teresa replied.
Thomas kept quiet now while the grown-ups talked, picking up the odd snippet, here and there. Yorgi was evidently a big shot — again with the puns — and Teresa’s report suggested he had left the country after the incident.
He felt his mind start to drift — funny how things bobbed to the surface when you weren’t concentrating. Now that he thought about it, he’d never seen any photographs from the year Miranda spent in Bermuda. Well, okay, a few ‘here I am at the beach’ pics, but no proper work photos of any kind. His mood soured; he tried to tune back into the conversation, just to escape himself.
“So what do you think, Thomas? Could you speak to them?” Teresa had lowered her voice.
“I’m sorry?”
Teresa and Karl both eased forward towards him. Teresa was still in the big chair. “With Yorgi away, this is our best chance to make contact with the brother again and offer him a lifeline — think you’re up to it?”
Thomas could feel their eyes on him like sunlamps and sensed his face smouldering. “I can try.” Jesus, he wasn’t even convincing himself.
“Top man!” Karl patted him on the shoulder. “Right, come on then, Tommo; no time like the present.”
Teresa sat in the back of Karl’s car. The scent of oranges was starting to fade; now it was more Earl Grey tea than breathable vitamin C.
“So what do I say, exactly? I mean, what am I allowed to tell them?” It was the third time of asking — different ways, but the same question. Karl looked ready to pop a vein.
“For fuck’s sake, Tommo! We’ve been through this. They let a gunman use their car as a sniper’s post. And we’ve got the car now. There’s not a lot to say.”
Maybe Karl was right to be pissed off. When Thomas heard himself, he sounded like an amateur — well, he was an amateur.
Teresa played peacemaker. “All we’re trying to do is offer them protection — if they want it. Let them know that there’s help available. But don’t spook them.”
Karl hardly looked at Thomas for the rest of the journey. It reminded him of Ajit, back at school, when he’d been accusing Thomas of something, but wouldn’t come right out and say it.
As they parked up, Teresa handed Thomas a scrap of paper. “Tell them they can ring here at any time, if they need us.”
He nodded and gripped the note tightly, casting a last, quizzical look at Karl as he opened the car door.
* * *
Teresa waited until Thomas was at least five cars away. “What’s the problem, Karl?”
“I can’t put my finger on it. I mean, I trust him right enough. I’d stake my life on him not working for anyone else, but . . . well, there’s something about him. I don’t think we ever get to see the real Thomas Bladen, and that worries me. When it comes down to it, we don’t know his capabilities.”
“You’d not recommend recruiting him, then?”
“No, not yet. He’s more useful to us as an outsider.”
“How much have you told him?”
“The usual — only as much as we need him to know.”
107, 108, 109 . . . Thomas counted on, just like he used to do when he was a child. Useless figures that kept his mind occupied; stopped him from too much thinking. His sister Pat used to tease him about it.
“You’d spend your whole life counting, given half a chance!”
But that process of measuring and timing; that’s what had kept him sane when Dad went into his rages or when Mam had disappeared into the kitchen to dry her tears or to get the swelling on her face to go down. Numbers.
115, 116. He could see the house looming ahead. Surely Teresa could have told him exactly what to say, how to couch it all? He felt his stomach turning over. If he didn’t get himself together his first words would be: ‘Can I use your toilet?’ A fine spy he’d make! He laughed at himself and squeezed the little piece of paper ever more tightly.
His legs dragged as he walked up the short drive, the sweat congealing against his skin. He remembered the time he’d first brought Miranda back to his digs in Leeds. How they’d both been too nervous to discuss how far they wanted to go. And how he’d ached for her. It wasn’t just the rush of hormones and Thunderbird wine, but a need to connect with her, to anchor her to him so that she’d never leave Leeds, or him. Yeah, nice one, Thomas. Now he was at the front door with a gut ache and a hard-on. Brilliant.
He pressed the bell, realising that he’d missed a chance to copy Teresa’s magic phone number for himself. He heard voices approaching — a man and a woman — and hoped to God that was sweat running down the back of his legs.
The door slowly opened. “Can I help you?” she said, even though her voice suggested the opposite. It was the same ice blonde that Karl had described. Refined, with a hint of yummy mummy — to use Karl’s apt description.
“Can I come in? It’s about Yorgi, sort of.”
She stared at him for a moment and tilted her head back, directing a stream of something Eastern European behind her. Best guess, she’d figured that he wasn’t Masterspy, but maybe that gave him a slight edge. The husband squeezed in beside his wife; the door didn’t open any further.
“There’s no one called Yorgi here — you have the wrong house.”
Yeah, so the Eurospeak was a happy coincidence? He pressed his hands together and touched his lips then immediately felt foolish. He looked like his mother, back when she used to pray at home. An idea came to him. Not divine inspiration — more like desperation. He was never going to see these people again, right, so what harm was the truth?
He reached into his wallet and prised away his driving licence. Behind the ID card was a cut-down photograph, of him and Miranda. Typical adolescent photo-booth stuff; she had her arms around his neck, practically clinging to him. And he had a smile like he’d just found a fifty-pound note. The fact that she’d just grabbed his groin before the flash probably helped.
“This is Miranda. I know it’s hard to protect the people we care about.”
The couple studied the photograph for a long time; in the end he got so nervous they might snatch it indoors and lock him out that he asked for it back. His pulse was still racing as he tucked it carefully back into his wallet.
The door arced open. “What do you want, Mr . . . ?”
“Bladen. Thomas Bladen.” Yeah, he’d thought about bullshitting them like Karl had insisted, but they just seemed like two scared people who had been dealt a crappy hand.
They sat on the sofa opposite him, their son at their feet. The man did the talking “You and Miranda have children, Tomas?”
“What? No,” he shook his head to emphasise the point, hoping
it would also cool his face off. “Look, I’m just here to offer assistance.”
“Are you with the police?” the yummy mummy reached down, hoisting her son to her lap.
He shook his head again. “Look, any chance of a drink and can I . . .” he stood up and the sudden relief on his bladder made him exhale loudly.
She pointed him upstairs.
He heard the rattling of glasses as he closed the door behind him. Karl would probably have searched the bedroom; Karl wasn’t there though. He checked the bathroom mirror. What a state! ‘Are you the police?’ That was a joke. Not unless CID stood for something completely different.
It seemed to be the longest piss of his life, as if his body was ridding itself of his fear. He flushed, did all the usual stuff and filched around in the wastepaper bin. Bingo — loo roll holder. He split the cardboard tube and copied out Teresa’s helpline number. Then he peered at himself again in the mirror and splashed more water on his face.
Downstairs, a glass was waiting for him. He turned it around and the little boy cooed as he watched the light dancing, fascinated. Smiles all round.
“Supposing my husband and I needed help — what would you want in return?”
“Me? Nothing. I’m here as a messenger,” he unfolded the piece of paper and passed it over.
The drink reminded him of the chocolate liqueurs they used to have at Christmas, in Pickering. Just the right side of sickly sweet. The couple studied Teresa’s piece of paper for a long time. Or maybe they just didn’t want to make eye contact, with him or each other. Yeah, they were rats in a trap all right: poor bastards.
“Look,” he took pity on them, “Yorgi might be mixed up in some trouble, but you seem like good people.” Okay, nought out of ten for subtlety, but it conveyed the gist.
The man cleared his throat. “Tomas, do you have brothers and sisters?”
“Yeah, a sister — Pat; she’s a couple of years younger than me.” What was he doing — why not draw them a bloody picture? He took another sip of alcoholic goo. The more he thought about it, they were all being used.
“Yorgi is my brother — my . . . half-brother; my name is Petrov and I am the younger in the family. When we were growing up, Yorgi was always the leader. He made the rules and I followed him. I learned very young not to challenge him.”
Thomas said nothing. He noted the wall clock above the crucifix and decided to give himself five more minutes, tops. The wife stared at him as if she could pierce the façade and see into his soul. He fidgeted in the chair.
“How much trouble are we in, Mr Bladen?”
Now he felt like they were playing him. All he had to fall back on was the truth. “The authorities know about the incident.” He watched their faces fall. “The victim survived though and you may have been unwilling accomplices.” Unwilling? Jesus. He’d as good as accused them of complicity. What a prat. He rubbed at his forehead and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry; that came out wrong. What I meant was that so far there is no direct evidence against you.”
Petrov raised a defiant hand. “He told us to face forward and to drive, said if anything happened we’d lose our son. We didn’t know what he was planning.”
Thomas looked from face to face. Chances were, they knew.
“Tomas, what would you have done?”
He said nothing, tried to hold their gaze.
Petrov patted his son. “I have always done what I could for Yorgi, but for many years we were apart. Then a year or so ago, he tracked me down . . .”
Thomas sat up: interesting choice of words.
“. . . He leads a different life. Mixes in circles I would be afraid to. You understand?” Petrov reached for his wife’s hand. Only now, as she turned towards him, did Thomas notice the reddening down one side of the face and the way Petrov shifted his weight away from one side of his ribs. “Alexandra and Lukas are my family. I must put them first. Will the people at this number understand that the way you do?”
He couldn’t answer, didn’t feel anything but shame. He couldn’t pretend that he didn’t care. And caring meant doing something. “Here,” he wrote out a mobile number on the newspaper by his feet and ripped it off. “This is my number. Just in case.”
His hand wavered and his stomach churned with raw emotion. “I have to go now,” he stood up carefully as if his balance might be off; in a sense it was.
Alexandra lifted little Lukas aside and saw him to the door. Thomas followed her gaze to the crucifix. He blushed, caught in the act. “Bless you, Thomas Bladen,” she kissed him on the cheek and then closed the door behind him.
It didn’t feel cold outside, but a couple of tears gathered in his eye. He flicked them away casually, as if they were nothing. And as each step took him further from the house, he felt a growing sense of exhilaration.
He got back into the car and Karl started up the engine without a word. He ventured nothing and withstood their scrutiny; decided he’d sit this one out. Karl lasted until they’d cleared the Thames.
“How did it go?”
He took a breath and kept things simple. “They seemed pleased to have a contact number; I think they’ll be in touch.”
Teresa tapped Karl on the shoulder. “Anywhere around here is fine.” Karl nodded and checked his mirror, pulling in along Queen Victoria Street.
Thomas watched them, saw the way Karl looked at her and how she avoided him. No goodbyes, not even a thank you. If he had to guess, there’d been words in the car while he’d been delivering a lifeline. But did that mean . . . nah, couldn’t be. Surely Karl was smarter than that?
He watched with Karl as Teresa disappeared up the cut through to St Paul’s. They sat for a while, the grumbling engine and indicator clicks marking off the seconds. Finally, Karl tore his gaze away from the side street. “Fancy a drink?”
“Sounds like a plan,” Thomas parodied him.
Karl didn’t react. He gazed out the windscreen, dull eyes watching the crowd in vain. Thomas could almost feel his longing.
“Yeah, a pub would be great,” he emphasised, spurring Karl into activity. Jeez, what a pair of fuck-ups they were. Karl had fallen for Teresa, and Thomas, in his day, had all but set up house with Christine Gerrard. Women and power — it was like mixing your drinks: no good would ever come of it.
In a pub in Stratford they found a quiet table; Karl sat facing the door as usual. Thomas did the honours and got half a pint for himself and a pint of shandy for Karl, along with crisps; last of the big spenders.
Karl took a sip and smacked his lips theatrically. “Tell you what, Tommo. I’ll do another little magic trick. Are you ready?”
He felt dread creeping through him.
“You gave them your own number, didn’t you?”
Thomas coughed into his drink and kept his head down.
“It’s okay, Tommo, I understand. It’s an obvious rookie mistake — you felt sorry for them, right? I’d have done the same, at the beginning. I won’t mention it to Teresa, but I need you to let me know if they ever do contact you. Deal?”
He wondered what else Karl had deduced about him.
Karl leaned back and stretched; he seemed to have cheered up no end. “You see, Tommo, we’re not so different, you and I.”
Chapter 20
Miranda had arrived early. Every night on the phone since Sunday, she’d been trying to talk Thomas out of this mysterious weekend job, the one he still hadn’t explained. Maybe face-to-face she stood a chance of getting through to him.
She sat in the car, two streets away, flicking through a professional catering magazine that she’d already littered with notes and doodles. Thomas figured in a good few of those scribbles, not that he’d have known. She was the princess — naturally — and Thomas the face in the corner, sometimes just a pair of eyes, watching from a distance. Blimey, how accurate had that turned out to be!
More flicking, to a feature: a stylish eatery in Berkshire. She nearly drooled over the décor and the fancy name: panache. Thomas h
ad suggested she call her club Miranda’s — a talent for the obvious. But Caliban’s was her private joke. At school, she’d loved The Tempest, ever since she’d caught her name in it, and had weathered the piss-taking of the other girls. The boys of course were more malleable — not for nothing did Miranda translate as ‘the admired one.’ Rough times, though.
She doodled some more. Whatever Thomas was mixed up in, it would be a stroll in the park compared to a gaggle of spiteful, hormone-addled bitches. Addled — she smiled at that; one of Thomas’s words that had crept into her vocabulary. She fingered her neck-chain, following it round to her name, shaped in gold, and tapped it distractedly. Yeah, the only time that name had lost a little of its sheen was when her mum had told her about a chain-smoking casino croupier — the one she'd been named after.
This was bloody silly. She had emergency keys to the flat — new keys at that — just as he had to hers. But ever since the heavies had busted in while he was away, Thomas had cranked up his paranoia a notch or four and passed it on. “Sod it,” she stuffed the magazine in the glove compartment; she’d take a walk past — what harm could it do?
* * *
Thomas found a parking space at the end of the street. He waited a minute, checking front and back; nothing much was happening. He reached for the sports bag on the passenger seat, containing a waterproof bodysuit, a torch so bright it could almost illuminate Karl’s cryptic messages, a length of rope and a pair of walkie-talkies. He checked again — all quiet on the Western Front. Time to move.
He clocked the figure in the distance almost as soon as he closed the car door, watching as the loner crossed the street towards his flat then stopped still. He hugged the bag close and picked up the pace, moving from car to car, crouching low. Closer, and he could make out a woman in a long coat; she had her back to him and her hair was either short or tucked under a beret. She looked like she was auditioning for a French Resistance tribute act.
He used the trees for cover; good solid forest trees that some planner had approved decades before and which now bulged up tarmac and pavement in the struggle for existence. That’s it, keep looking away from me; stay like that. He cantered across the road and snaked behind a delivery van; the woman still hadn’t moved.
STANDPOINT a gripping thriller full of suspense Page 15
