London Large: Blood on the Streets

by Robson, Roy

  Ronnie snapped. He’d been turned over twice by the inmates; if he was going to go down he would go down fighting.

  ‘Go and fuck yourself.’

  ‘Ok son, the hard way it is.’

  51

  Five minutes passed. Ronnie was almost past caring but prepared himself for the worst, trying to psych himself up to go mental. He had nothing to lose now; he wasn’t going down without a fight. But things did not go according to plan; four tooled-up officers burst into his cell. He barely released a punch before the first truncheon crashed into his skull, and a split second later the end of the second thrust into his guts with the force of a battering ram.

  As Ronnie curled in pain another blow smashed into his head. He lost consciousness.

  He didn’t know how long it had been - maybe five minutes, maybe five hours - when he started to regain awareness of his surroundings.

  Bunk beds. He was in a different cell. He was on ‘A’ wing, completely at the mercy of the ruthless bastards who would break him now and kill him whenever they saw fit. He heard cruel laughter and banter outside his new cell.

  No more. Can’t take no more. Must end it now.

  He looked around for a way out. His shoelaces had been taken when he’d arrived but the bed above had a sheet. He sprang up, grabbed it and quickly ripped it into long pieces. He wanted to act quickly but his fingers and thumbs shook, made clumsy by the panic that had gripped him.

  Make speed not haste Ronnie, speed not haste.

  He focused hard. His dad had taught him every type of knot in the book as a young boy. He remembered the lessons. He knew what he was doing. He didn’t have time to consider the irony; the lessons his dad had given him so he could save lives were now being used to end his own.

  He tied two pieces of sheet together. Long enough now. He readied the noose.

  Ronnie moved the lone chair to the window, stood on it and tied the sheet securely to the bars. An odd sense of serenity came over him as he tightened the noose around his neck and kicked the chair away.

  But he’d made haste, not speed. He’d neglected to shut himself in. Alerted by the noise, a prisoner entered the cell, lifted his gasping body as if it was lighter than a scarecrow, undid the noose and tossed him onto the lower bunk.

  Ronnie lay there frightened to look, frightened to think. What lay in store for him now? Multiple rape, beatings, torture. What more arrows of outrageous fucking fortune would he have to suffer now, before he would be released from this world?

  He had learned that bravado and terror were uneasy bedfellows, as the derring-do of the suicide attempt collapsed into fear. He was utterly terrified as he lay on the bed, waiting for the dreadful fate he thought was about to be unleashed upon him. Fear had crawled inside his head, had burrowed its way into his subconscious and was now consuming every fibre of his being, like maggots devouring every single scrap of a piece of rotted fruit.

  Then the prisoner spoke.

  ‘Every prison is like separate kingdom. Has own rules, own kings, Ronnie.’

  Ronnie turned round, startled by the reassuring reference to his name, and looked into the eyes of his new cell mate, eyes that were as deep, dark and impenetrable as his own despair.

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘This wing now my kingdom. I protect you.’

  ‘Why. Who are you? Why would you protect me? Why was I moved here? What’s going on?’

  The prisoner vaulted to the top of his bunk, sat back and wrestled with a broadsheet newspaper.

  ‘My name is Basim. Basim Dragusha. Please to meet you, Ronnie. ’

  52

  John was feeling not at all confident as he entered the Queen’s Head pub in Waterloo. He’d heard from Podge, a small time crook and close friend, about some dodgy goings on in the area and had decided to take a look. John was a creature of habit and his days usually consisted of the same pubs, same bookies, same cafe. His confidence always plummeted when he was off his own manor. He needed his routines like a junkie needs a fix.

  This particular pub was situated opposite a small estate just off the main drag that led up to Waterloo Bridge. It wasn’t his type of pub. It was clean, modern and plush leather chairs adorned its spotless dark oak floors and crisp magnolia walls. Beer was a fiver a pint. It was a transient kind of place, designed to draw in commuters for a drink or two before they made their way back to suburban south west London from the Waterloo mainline. But it did have one advantage, which was the clean windows through which you could watch the outside world go by. And Confident John was here to watch.

  H had made it clear he wanted an extra, extra special effort to find the bastard who he’d seen fleeing along Berwick Street after the mayhem at the Russians’ club, and who had been getting hold of the wife of his best mate. He wanted Agapov found, double sharpish, if he was still alive. So John had risen to the occasion and decided to check out Podge’s lead.

  ‘I’m telling you John, there’s definitely something happening on that estate around the back of Waterloo. My mate lives there and says a flat that’s been unoccupied for months is suddenly a hive of activity. Geezers with dark suits dropping in and out all hours of the day and night. He reckons they sound like Poles, or Russians or something.’

  He’d heard plenty of rumours and thought of giving H a call but didn’t want to send him all over London on a series of wild goose chases. So here he was, giving personal attention to the possibility that the bastard the big man was so desperate to track down might be here.

  He sauntered up to the bar in his best non-confident confident manner and smiled at the barmaid

  ‘Pint of lager please love.’

  He took his pint, found a seat and sat down with a copy of the Racing Post. He sat, unusually, in the middle of the bar because it had the best views of the outside world. Confident John was usually more of a quiet corner kind of bloke.

  He sipped his beer slowly, occasionally looking outside with as much nonchalance and disinterest as he could muster.

  He ordered another pint, and another. He wasn’t used to this surveillance lark. Time drifted by as slowly as the double-maths lessons at Scott Lidgett school had, when he was a boy. But he didn’t mind how long he sat there - if there was one commodity Confident John Viney had in spades it was time. Time to drink. Time to study the racing form. Time to watch the world go by.

  He’d arrived at 2 pm and it was now 7; London had passed from daylight to darkness.

  An SUV with tinted windows pulled up outside the flats he was watching. His heart rate accelerated. A mother with two crying kids in tow got the shopping out of the back and went into a flat a few doors down. John ordered another beer.

  A few more beers later it was close to closing time and he was ready to get a cab back to Bermondsey when a black Mercedes crawled up and came to a halt outside the pub. Four lumps in dark suits climbed out and looked about, checking out the landscape. He fought his compulsion to look at them directly but failed, and one of them clocked him staring. He became agitated and his breathing quickened.

  ‘Who do these fuckers think there’re looking at?’, he mumbled, as he quickly refocused on the racing form in his paper. He nervously looked on from the corner of his eye, as the men made their way over to the flats he had spent the whole day watching, and went inside.

  Number 72. Fuck me, I think Podge has nailed it.

  He downed his pint and walked out of the pub. His confidence was still in extremely short supply as he crossed the road and headed for the flat. He was shitting himself. He didn’t normally do things like this but he wanted to be certain. Just a peep through the windows, see what he could see. Just a quick look.

  He was halfway across the street, perspiring heavily, beer sweating through his pores, when the door opened. Panic set in. He couldn’t act or think. The messaging system inside his brain shut down, unable to process the situation. He was like a hedgehog curling into a ball to protect itself from the oncoming path of a 20-ton tipper lorry.

/>   A suit stepped out from the flat; the same one who had clocked him earlier. Their eyes met. John mustered every single bit of willpower he could find, commanded every sinew in his body to keep moving and act naturally. He wasn’t a brave man.

  Front it son, front it.

  He kept walking, head down, straining to look like everything was normal. Just another day at the pub. Hiding his fear behind a friendly smile, he strolled past the imposing figure of the shadowy sentinel. Without looking back he turned into the first stairwell he came to. A massive sigh of relief released the tension.

  He sprinted up to the first floor where, from the stairwell, he had a reasonable view of the flat in question. The sentinel went back into the flat.

  Who are these fuckers? Look like KGB men from a Hollywood movie.

  So what did he have? Four big fellas pull up in a Merc, go into a flat and make him feel nervous. He didn’t want to call H. He didn’t have enough.

  With uncharacteristic decisiveness John settled on a plan of action. Back of the flats, he thought, ground floor flats usually have small gardens. He made his way round.

  He found the gardens and considered scaling the six foot fence that surrounded them and seeing if he could take a look into the flat. At that point his decisiveness and courage deserted him.

  But he couldn’t let the big man down. Adjacent to the rear gardens was a small play area. A few swings, a roundabout, a slide. John tucked himself into the bushes that surrounded the play area and prepared for night watchman duties.

  53

  A proper Italian pizza restaurant in Dean Street. H arranged to meet Ronnie at nine; Ronnie was running late. H whiled away a few minutes, nursed a double scotch and reminisced. They had a lot of spots like this, sites of their adventures as young men. Boys, really.

  Late one wet autumn night in…what was it, 1977? - Ronnie would know – they’d wound up here after a long session; they’d needed to take some carbs on board to soak up all the beer. The meal was hearty, washed down with a couple of bottles of red and a few glasses of grappa.

  ‘What sort of money you holding, Ron?’, H said, picking his teeth and kicking back in his chair.

  ‘Nish mate. I gave what I had left to that bird in Crackers, for a cab. I ain’t got a tanner.’

  ‘We’ll have to do a runner then. I can’t cover this lot. We’ve done nearly thirty quid here’, said H.

  ‘I don’t know H…We’ve had a few tonight.’

  ‘Sort yourself out, you fucking tosspot. What are you, a man or a mouse? There’s only one way out of here tonight’, said H, watching the waiters closely out of the corner of his eye. ‘You first…on my count…one, two…’

  Ronnie was up, his chair flying backwards, before H got to three, swarming through the door like a tramp tanked up on paint thinner. Not the surest on his feet he’d ever looked. H was going to have to back him up. He leapt out of his chair and joined Ronnie on the pavement outside, straightening him up and pulling him forward.

  ‘Liven up Ron, let’s fucking do one.’

  And they were off, haring down Dean Street like there was no tomorrow.

  The blood was running high; they were moving fast and got separated. The pavement was wet underfoot. The curses of irate and beefy Italian waiters could be heard behind them - this shit came out of their wages.

  H kept going, gasping for breath, his ears pounding. Suddenly he heard ‘Fuck!’ and a cry of pain as Ronnie went down. H wheeled himself round and saw four men in white shirts closing in on his friend like a pack of hyenas.

  Ronnie was curled up, trying to protect his head and already well into the first phase of a proper kicking by the time H got back to him. He was moving at speed, behind a giant blue wheelie bin. He skittled two of the waiters over with it and then, while Ronnie struggled to his feet, launched himself at the other two, flailing, kicking and shouting.

  The two of them on the attack was too much for the older men to handle. Sixty seconds of old school south London street fighting and the waiters thought better of it; they retreated back along Dean Street, gesticulating wildly and uttering foul curses.

  Have that, you fucking mugs.

  H snapped out of it and found himself back in 2015.

  ‘Penny for ‘em H’, said Ronnie, looming large over the table.

  ‘I was just thinking about the time we did a runner out of here. You went down like a sack of shit that night, mate. I had to get you out of trouble, as usual. Remember?’.

  ‘ ‘course I do. Happy days’, said Ronnie, breaking into his first real smile in an age.

  ‘Happier than these, mate. Happier than these. Sit down son,’ H said with a sigh, ‘there’s something I’ve got to tell you. About Tara.’

  54

  Ronnie’s head was down, and H was having trouble getting him to lift it again. The Ruddock marriage had seen a few rocky passages, and Ronnie had suspected from time to time that Tara might have been at it with someone. But this? Sex club-owning Russian gangsters? Walking round town with her like they owned the place? Owned her?

  H had hit him the second worst hammer blow of his life. Not the big man’s fault. Had to be done. H had always done what had to be done.

  Ronnie sat still, his head down, saying nothing. He had never known such pain, such rage, such impotent confusion as he had in the short period since H had phoned him in New York. And now this. He was glued to the spot, outwardly calm, while volcanic turmoil raged inside him.

  H knew the signs. Better than anybody. ‘Fancy a livener, son? Drop of scotch?’, he ventured.

  Nothing.

  Fuck me, he’s lost it. He’s worse than I was in the park. What did Amisha call it?...Poor bastard.

  The long, horrible, pregnant pause stayed pregnant. H was starting to get the nasty sinking feeling he’d become too familiar with lately, like it wouldn’t be long before he’d lose control of his emotions, and then his actions. He glugged his scotch and ordered two more doubles. He’d take care of Ronnie’s if he didn’t want it.

  Ronnie raised his head; slowly, slowly. He was holding onto the sides of his chair; his face looked like a bag of wet cement. He fixed his eyes on H’s.

  ‘She was fucked up, H. Totally fucked up. I never told you about it…He nonced her. The old cunt nonced her, when she was a kid. He was interfering with her for years, on and off.’

  Boom! Another boneshaking hammer blow, another horrible, gut-churning wrench. H processed it quickly; he’d had plenty of practice lately, and it was not, after all, the most unlikely story he’d ever heard. He made as if to speak. Ronnie held up his hand to stop him, and spoke wearily, with infinite sadness.

  ‘Don’t say anything H. There’s no need to say anything…there’s nothing you can say.’

  Ronnie hung his head again and lapsed back into silence.

  H thought back to the funeral. Ronnie hadn’t talked to Old Shitbreath, hadn’t shaken his hand, hadn’t so much as looked in his direction. His instincts told him then that something was wrong - badly wrong.

  H let Ronnie be for ten minutes, then said ‘Listen, Ron, I want you to come and stay with us for a bit. I’ll take you back to ours now. Olivia’s about, she’ll look after you. She’ll tuck you in, you can get some kip. I’ve got to go out for a bit, so I’ll drop you off and see you a bit later, alright?’

  Sir Basil Fortescue-Fucking-Smythe - wrong ‘un. I always knew he was a fucking wrong ‘un.

  He’s going to pay for this.

  55

  Ninety minutes and three strong black coffees later, Ronnie having been safely deposited with Olivia, H pulled into Belgravia. He parked around the corner from his destination. He didn’t have a plan as such: if Sir Basil was at home he’d play it by ear. He’d calmed down enough on the drive up from Eltham to see that going hammer and tongs at the old buffer in his own drum would get nobody anywhere, practically speaking; if there was no one at home he’d spin the place and see what he could find.

  He snapped on a pair of glove
s, stuck his hands in his pockets and sauntered around to Sir Basil’s ground floor flat in a mansion block currently worth, he had read with interest, £18 million. No one about. He crept up the stairs. He held his breath as he pulled out his keys and jigglers and picked the lock. No burglar had much to teach him about making an entry - not even here, in what for years had been one of the burglary capitals of the Western world.

  Inside, the hallway was quiet; getting through Sir Basil’s door was a doddle. He was in.

  No sign of a safe, so first things first: nine times out of ten these old blokes think sticking things under the floor is the way to go. H paced up and down, testing for hollows; he found a sweet spot, rolled up the Persian rug and loosened a floorboard. Bingo! A metal box. He jiggled the lock and pulled out an A4 brown paper envelope.

  Here we go. God give me strength.

  Photos. Disgusting pictures of children – small boys mostly - being got at. Breathing deeply and clenching his teeth, he stuffed the envelope into the back of his trousers and stood still for a moment to collect his thoughts. He found himself praying that Sir Basil would return home, now, and discover him.

  If the old cunt comes in now I’ll rip his bollocks straight off and feed them to him.

  His eyes were accustomed now to the semi-darkness. He looked around, considering his options. A collection of framed photographs on a bookcase caught his attention. He sorted through them and one made his flesh start to crawl, a split second before he’d properly registered who was in it.

  It was a group photograph taken at a fancy dinner. A group of eight men sitting around a huge table heaving with caviar and lobster, wine and vodka. H scanned the picture with ferocious intensity. He recognized four of the faces: Old Shitbreath himself, Sir Peregrine Blunt, and another face he had come up against plenty of times in his thirty year career, human rights lawyer Oswald Carruthers QC, and fat know-all around town Lord Timothy Skyhill.