STANDPOINT a gripping thriller full of suspense

by DEREK THOMPSON

  He needed help to ease his arm out of the wet suit. Even the night air hurt. He stood flinching, eyes closed as Karl carefully touched around the wound. Karl murmured to himself and reached back into his car.

  “This will hurt.”

  Thomas coughed back laughter. “No need to treat me with kid gloves.”

  Karl shrugged and poured out something that smelt like meths. Thomas braced himself, fist drawn tight to stifle any reaction. When the cloth touched his arm he thought it had caught fire. “Fuck!” he shrieked, both at the pain and the way the tears ran from his eyes.

  “Hey Tommo, no points for bravery here — you did the courageous bit earlier.” Karl finished dressing the wound and handed him a small bottle. “Take one of these every couple of hours while the pain is bad. Only one, mind; these are not your usual headache tablets!”

  They stood grinning together, like boys who’d just completed a dare. “Are you sure you still want to play this game? Come on then, let’s go finish the job.” Karl opened the passenger door and helped him in, still dripping water and slime.

  Thomas nodded, unable to speak, blowing huffing breaths as he edged into the car seat. His arm felt like someone had crushed it in a vice; Karl assured him it would feel worse the next day. Some comfort.

  “Shouldn’t we have checked their car?”

  “No point, Tommo. Odds on, it’s stolen. Three cheers for Robert and Lizzie, eh?”

  Thomas squeezed his eyelids. Maybe delirium was setting in; Karl was making no sense whatsoever.

  “In the glove compartment.”

  Thomas reached forward with difficulty. Inside were two handguns.

  “Robert and Lizzie — the Brownings!” Karl milked his ‘ta-da’ moment.

  Thomas laughed breathlessly and slumped back. Even with the heat on full, his legs were getting numb from the damp. He tried pushing the waders down his legs, but his left arm shrieked in protest.

  “Take it easy. I’ll keep the heat full blast and get us there quick as I can. But I’ll not break any speed limits. Imagine trying to explain two guns in the glove box and a wet man beside me trying to get his trousers off.”

  Thomas smiled and rolled his head away. He felt like he was sinking into the chair. Delayed shock, come down; call it what you will, he needed to sleep.

  “You get some shut-eye; we’ve a way to go yet.”

  He closed his eyes. It seemed as if Karl was talking and then the radio struck up with ‘You’ve got a friend.’ Then blackness.

  * * *

  Thomas felt the car rocking from side to side. Scratch that; it was Karl, applying the gentle art of persuasion.

  “Time to wake up.”

  He opened his eyes; it looked like they were in a concrete wonderland and Karl was the tour guide.

  “We’re in an underground car park — I won’t be long. I’ll stick your bag on the backseat. You did bring a change of clothes like I told you?” Good ol’ Karl — he thought of everything.

  Thomas blinked in the muted neon glow; his eyes ached. First things first, he reached for Uncle Karl’s all-purpose painkillers. Then he wriggled his way out of the car and squelched a few steps. His nervous cough echoed into the distance; he seemed to be alone. He did a quick scan around for CCTV then dried himself off with the bath towel one-handed and got changed with as few sudden movements as possible. There was no mobile signal and the time on the clock meant they were probably in London.

  He gathered his wits and headed into the shadows for a piss. Nothing seemed real, the world rendered pleasantly numb. As he stumbled back to the car, he saw holes in the driver’s door; they looked like bullet holes. He yawned, managed to clamber into the back seat and lay there in the shadows.

  Memory and pain collided in his brain. At the lake, in the worst of his panic, he’d feared that Karl was actually firing at him. He giggled in the dark, overwhelmed by everything but unable to stop thinking. He mustn’t forget that Karl had probably saved his life tonight. He sniffed back the emotion. Of course, Karl had put him in danger in the first place, but no one was perfect.

  Next thing he knew, something squeaked — maybe a door — and somewhere in the gloom, someone started whistling ‘I Shot the Sheriff.’ As Thomas sat up, Karl waved, like he was just back from the shops. He held up a couple of packets and passed them through the open passenger door.

  “Jesus, this car smells like a marsh! Our leader’s very pleased with our performance tonight — he sent us these with his compliments.”

  “Hush money?” Thomas took the oblong envelopes and weighed them with his good arm.

  “Danger money, more like! So how’s the walking wounded?”

  Thomas grimaced and waved a hand tentatively. He had so many unanswered questions he could scarcely count them. “So what did we risk life and limb for, exactly?”

  Karl put a lot of irritation into one sigh. “I didn’t ask; I don’t need to know. Now be a good boy and open my envelope.”

  Thomas clamped the envelope between his knees and tore at the paper. He ran a thumb through a run of £50s and £20s. “I make it at least a couple of grand, maybe three.”

  “Which means, Tommo, that whatever we fished out of the wet was worth more than five grand to Sir Peter Carroll.”

  “And the sniper?” Thomas lifted his arm a couple of inches.

  “He was probably just a hired hand, warning us off till somebody else turned up.”

  “He?” Thomas tilted as far as the seatbelt would allow.

  “In my limited experience, Tommo, women don’t miss. Come on now, enough with the philosophising. Let’s go find ourselves a drink.

  * * *

  If the pub’s name wasn’t enough of a clue, then the military crests and insignia on every spare inch of wall were a dead giveaway. The landlord had greying ginger hair and a ruddy complexion. Thomas took him for a former sergeant major, still crimson from years of shouting; somehow he couldn’t see a former officer working this hard after demob to earn a living.

  “Mr McNeill!” the landlord all but saluted. “Always a pleasure!”

  Thomas hung back; no one paid him any attention. Karl crossed to the bar, leaving him in the centre of the saloon, like a deodorant commercial.

  “A shandy for me and a whisky for my associate.”

  Thomas felt unreasonably disappointed; not comrade or oppo, just associate. He listened with envy as Karl fell into easy conversation with Mein Host. No point standing around — might as well be comfortable. He grabbed an empty table with a view of the bar. The tabletop reeked of polish, but he couldn’t see any evidence of it; even the beer-mats had formed an unhealthy attachment to the veneer.

  Karl took his time coming over. Maybe it was tough leaving his army pals behind. Once or twice he looked in Thomas’s direction and then carried on with his conversation. No matter — the extra time gave Thomas time to clear his head.

  “Your very good and continued health, Tommo.”

  He managed a smile, lifting the whisky up to the light, and breathed in deeply through his nostrils. Even good whisky couldn’t stop his stomach churning at the thought of cold, gushing water closing over his head.

  “I know how you’re feeling, Thomas,” Karl lowered his voice. “There’s not a man or woman here who hasn’t been where you were, hasn’t asked themselves at some point: Is this the end?” Karl leaned forward and produced a packet of crisps from his pocket. “The thing is, this is what we do.”

  There was no answer to that, but still the need to say something. “How scared were you then, when it was all kicking off?”

  “Are you kidding me? I was like a brick factory on overtime. I get a sweat just thinking about it — if I hadn’t brought Robert and Lizzie out for the night . . .” Karl broke off and did his customary plague-of-locusts routine on the crisps. “Look Tommo, I know it’s a lot to deal with, first op and all.”

  “I don’t know if I’m really cut out for this.” It sounded so much clearer, out loud.

&n
bsp; Karl put the crisps down and straightened his back against the chair. “Well, only you can make that choice. But meantime, the packages will still come and go, Bob Peterson will still have lied to you about being at Harwich and Sir Peter Carroll will still be playing tin soldiers with the rest of us. Come on, aren’t you still the teensiest bit curious to know what the fuck is really going on?”

  Thomas managed a grin and sank the remainder of his whisky. Karl had a point. But so had the bullet that had almost gone through his arm.

  * * *

  Thomas closed the front door and bolted it. He felt like never opening it again. He sat in the dark, hugged tight against the cushion, reliving the paddle from hell. It wasn’t long before he reached for the phone.

  “Ajit, you awake? It’s Thomas.”

  “Hiya mate, ’ow’s it going? Let me just take this downstairs — Geena’s asleep.”

  Thomas pulled the phone close and lifted his feet on to the sofa. Only Ajit and Miranda could keep a meaningful conversation going for longer than twenty minutes. He knew because he’d timed it. And right now he needed to talk.

  He chatted with Ajit for over an hour, about nothing in particular; the latest on Geena, the joys of Yorkshire policing and the glory days of Pickering; anything and nothing to keep his thoughts at bay. “By the way,” he added as things wound to a close, “I still have your Blake’s 7 annual somewhere. I saw it when I was last having a clear out.” This, Ajit would know, was boys’ code for ‘I’m still thinking about you,’ and it sufficed.

  Last thing before bed, Thomas counted out his money from Sir Peter. Three grand, tax-free — nice work if you could get it. Or not.

  Despite the previous day’s excesses, Thomas woke early on Sunday morning; a fireworks-in-the-brain, no prisoners, wide-awake start to the day. His arm stung like a bastard and try as he might he couldn’t get his body to settle. The alarm clock glowed 6.45 defiantly. He popped one of Karl’s magic pills with a swig of cold tea and then got himself ready, using his left arm as little as possible. There was no pretence of putting a camera in his car; he knew exactly where he was going — across London to the well-appointed streets of Highgate. Time to start separating truth from fiction.

  The traffic was non-existent so early on a Sunday. He remembered driving out to Enfield once to photograph a pair of foxes; this wasn’t so different. When he got to Christine’s street, he parked up, engine running. Did he really want to do this? Was it any of his business who shared Christine’s bed these days? True, he reasoned with himself, but if he backed off now that would mean he had a problem with it. The words ‘painted’ and ‘corner’ formed a trio with the painkiller to cloud what little judgement remained.

  He pulled out and moved into second gear, rolling down the road at a steady ten mph, scanning both sides. There were several four-by-fours on the rugged streets of Highgate, though not the one he was looking for. Instead of relief, he felt a gnawing disappointment; it was there somewhere — he was sure of it. He dug out a street atlas and rested it on his knees, tracing a grid pattern, two streets away in every direction.

  And suddenly there it was, the bonnet stone cold. The same vehicle from Harwich, the one Peterson probably used for taking the wife and kids shopping. So now what? He got back in his car and stared into the distance. Too early to ring Christine and anyway, what would he say? ‘Hi, I happened to be in the area and I see you’re shagging your boss who’s married.’ Yeah, that’d be a vote winner come his next assessment.

  He thumped the steering wheel, sending shockwaves up his bad arm; it concentrated the mind wonderfully. He needn’t say or do anything for now — he’d leave it to Karl. Speed-dial number 4.

  “Morning mate, I couldn’t sleep.”

  Karl sounded like an advert for Grumpy Bastard magazine. “Well why don’t you get a bloody paper round? Do you know what time it is — what do you want?”

  “I’ve got some information on Bob Peterson — he spent the night at Christine’s flat; just thought you should know.” He rang off: mission accomplished.

  An hour later he was crashed out on the sofa, lullabied by the TV. He slept deep and heavy, waking by degrees as the mobile shrieked for attention. Not now, Karl, bugger off and leave me in peace. The mobile gave up then bleeped. He yawned and looked across at the clock. Blimey, it was evening — so much for Sunday. He rolled his neck from side to side and carefully hauled himself up to sitting. Still bleary eyed, he thumbed through to voicemail.

  “Tomas, it is Petrov. You must help us; come quickly. Yorgi has contacted us — I am very afraid.”

  Fuck. He scrambled off the sofa and grabbed the cash envelope, his mobile and his keys. On the way over, he pulled Petrov’s number from the mobile and stored it for speed dialling.

  He made good time into South London and called in his progress. Alexandra answered, calmer than her husband, but definitely freaked. He told her to get packed and be ready to move as soon as he got there. From the little sense she made, he gathered that Yorgi had phoned them out of the blue — pissed, high, or paranoid; possibly all three; ranting about a hospital and unfinished business with a traitor. And then he was coming for them.

  South of the river and every traffic light, every fuckwit incapable of doing thirty mph on a thirty road, all piled on the minutes and the pressure. No point calling Karl now, he was practically there.

  He beeped the horn three times as he pulled up. A curtain snatched back, then the family made a run for the car, dragging as many cases as was humanly possible. They didn’t look as though they planned on coming back. He popped the boot and revved up to encourage them, flicking his gaze between the windscreen and his mirrors. As he pushed into the car seat, primed for the off, the clamminess of his shirt squished against his back. He shivered and smiled; he was almost enjoying this.

  Petrov ushered his family in the back and climbed in beside them. He seemed to take a last remorseful look at the house then Thomas met his eyes in the mirror. Time to go. For all the fire in his blood, Thomas drove sensibly, keeping to the speed limit and watching all directions. Petrov and Alexandra said nothing; he preferred that.

  As they crossed London Bridge, the enormity of his actions began to sink in. He didn’t have a plan, beyond getting them away from there. He flicked on the radio for inspiration, but it was in short supply tonight. Jesus, another tailback. In a city that never sleeps, why did all the insomniacs have to drive? His passengers sat, trance-like, as he battled through the traffic. They hadn’t said a word, not even to ask where he was talking them; a question he was quietly asking himself.

  His first, impossible thought had been to head to Miranda’s parents. Without question they’d help him, but it would mean dragging them deeper into his murky world. That was the word for it: murky. His second choice was less inventive. Pick a hotel at random; any hotel would do, but the more upmarket the better — and room service was a necessity. It had to be somewhere Yorgi couldn’t trace them to. He settled on Paddington, only because he and Miranda had once spent a weekend there playing tourists. And besides, the station afforded a range of escape options if he really couldn’t protect them.

  The engine rumbled to a standstill. He glanced down at his mobile and thought about Karl. There was every reason to ring, and few not to. Petrov had called him though. He reckoned he could sort things out for the time being with less fuss. Behind him, Petrov’s family hardly made a sound, but their expectations massed around him like the roar of a West Ham crowd. He didn’t bother turning round. “I want you to stay in a hotel until I figure out the next step. You’ll need to remain in your room. Order whatever you need, but stay put.” He took out an even thousand and handed it to Petrov’s bewildered wife.

  “Why would you do this for us?”

  He swallowed; he didn’t really have an answer. Not without going into all the history with Ajit and . . . He stopped short. Maybe Ajit could provide police protection if he got them up to Yorkshire? The idea shattered before his eyes. Wake up;
this is more than you can handle. You need help; you need Karl.

  Alexandra paused from her whispered conversation and stared through the mirror. “How long must we hide there?”

  “I don’t know, probably just for a couple of days.” He shouldered the door and breathed in the rush of air. “Remember, don’t contact anyone except me.”

  They looked settled in the car. Tough. He emptied the boot and picked up a couple of bags, ready to start walking. “Let’s get on with it.”

  Chapter 22

  ‘Opportunities multiply as they are seized.’

  Sun Tzu, The Art of War

  Yorgi folded the book flat and closed his eyes. It was not enough merely to read wisdom; one had to imbibe and absorb it. He blinked against the harsh neon strip light and moved uneasily from the chair, holding the kitchen table to steady himself. His breath still tasted of vodka and his head bore the pitiless, unrelenting pressure of a hangover.

  In the corner of the room, a black bin-liner sat and waited, serenaded by two flies. He wrinkled his nose in disgust, but did not consider moving it. He took a pub glass out of the cupboard, wiped it with his hand and ran the tap, squeezing his eyes closed to bear the whine of the pipes. Then he reached to the broken tiled ledge behind the sink and took the last of the painkillers. The box said fast acting so he sat still for three minutes. Only now was he ready to face the front room.

  The table was upended — that much he did remember — but the extent of the devastation was a shock. He recalled speaking to Petrov; even the thought of his half-brother’s name was like taking a candle to a fuse. His head throbbed to the rhythm: Pet-rov, Pet-rov. He picked up an armchair and turned the cushion over to sit. There was little point; it was filthy, either side. Peasants might live like this; he would not. He nodded to himself and grunted approval. It was settled; he would increase his fees, work the girls harder. He sniffed hard by his shoulder — taking in the stench of sweat and vomit. It was a disgrace, he told himself, unconsciously resurrecting his father’s voice in his head — not Petrov’s lineage, but his real father.