by James Green
Jimmy stopped and waited. He let George chew on what he had given him so far. George wasn’t in any hurry to comment so they sat in silence for a few minutes. Then George came to life.
‘Did you do it? Did you top Jarvis?’
‘No. I’d never heard of him till I got asked to go to Santander and talk to him. First thing I knew about him was that he was dead.’
‘What were you doing there? What was this Jarvis geezer to you?’
‘Never mind about that. It wasn’t anything to do with Harry’s racket. I was asked to talk to Jarvis about something to do with the Church.’
‘The Church? Your Church?’ Jimmy nodded. ‘What’s the fucking Church got to with this? I thought we were talking about wholesaling porn?’
‘I told you, it doesn’t matter what I was there for. It turned out to be a load of bollocks anyway. The problem is, while I’m there I bump into Harry and when I do I’m keeping a local detective inspector company and we’re asking about Jarvis. Harry jumps to the natural conclusion that his racket is in the frame. I’m somehow tied up with the local coppers and maybe I’m positioning myself to come on to him for a bung to keep me sweet about the whole thing. Whatever I’m doing I’m bad news.’
‘How else would he would figure you? You always took your bung to stay sweet.’
‘So he decides the best thing to do is have me topped. He’s got plenty of the right connections in that part of the world now so he can get someone to do the job at short notice. But the guy he sends misses and I’m still alive. Harry tries and again it’s a miss. Two pops at me and the bodies pilling up means now I really am pissed-off at Harry so I head off for London to do some digging about him and Henderson and their nice little earner. And that’s it, that’s the story I will tell to the law. Just Harry, Henderson, Jarvis and no one else. I came to the UK and made the connections between the three of them. I found out about the writer thing being a front and now I’m buggering off to Gibraltar to confirm they own a company called Iberian Property Holdings. When I’ve done that I’ll take everything I’ve got to the Spanish police so they can roll up Harry and Henderson. What do you think?’
George didn’t answer for a moment.
‘So did Harry kill Jarvis?’
‘George, for God’s sake just stick with what I’m giving you. Forget Jarvis. Harry didn’t want him dead, he wanted him alive and writing his bloody books.’
‘So who did kill Jarvis?’
‘How do I know? The man in the fucking moon. I told you, forget Jarvis.’
Reluctantly, George did as Jimmy asked.
‘OK, Harry and Henderson get rolled up. How does that go down well with the London end? It still sounds like you’re closing down their racket.’
‘Only temporarily. There’ll be nothing in what I tell the police to tie into any London end. If the police follow up my story all they’ll get is Leicester gaol, Henderson-Kenwright, Tate and Wiston, and Iberian Property Holdings in Gibraltar, and all of that gives them nobody except Harry and Henderson. Harry’ll be no loss, as things stand he’s not going to be much good to anybody with no one to write his books for him so maybe now is a good time for London to think of a new face to handle that end of the business anyway.’
George began to see where Jimmy was going.
‘So this end, London, and the production end wherever it is, get moth-balled while the coppers do the investigating and once Harry and Henderson are safely banged up the operation can get set up again somewhere else.’
‘Exactly. No real harm done, just temporarily closed for refurbishment and staff training. All very business-like, all very Canary Wharf.’
George almost managed a grin but his lip still wasn’t up to it.
‘I like it, Jimmy, it’s neat, believable even. OK, I’ll try to sell it for you. I don’t say I will, but I’ll try.’
‘Thanks. I’ll go to Gibraltar by train, that will give London long enough to get stuck in to covering their tracks and telling the production end to do the same. By the time I get what I want, hand it over and the Spanish police start talking to Harry and Henderson, London should be free and clear.
‘I understand.’
‘Just one more thing. None of this works if Harry gets a sniff of him being set up to take the fall. Him and Henderson have to be there to go down so the police think it’s all wrapped up.’
‘The people at this end are many things, Jimmy, but stupid isn’t one of them. Harry will drop if you do everything just like you say you will. What if he decides to talk?’
‘You know your mates here in London better than me. If Harry tried to talk could he put the finger on any of them? Could he have any of them put away?’
‘I doubt it.’
‘And if they knew he’d tried to grass them what would happen to him?’
‘I see what you mean. Well, I guess you’ve got it sorted. All I have to do now is get them to see it your way.’
The sky was light blue now and bright, the sun was up and the day had begun. Jimmy looked at his watch, it was a quarter to five.
‘Time to be on my way.’
‘One last thing, Jimmy.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why are you doing this? What’s in it for you? As far as I can see there’s no way any money comes to you, all you get is Harry and Henderson banged up. Why is that important?’
‘You could say I get my pay-off from someone else.’
‘Who?’
‘A friend, I’m doing it for a friend, George. Let’s leave it at that, shall we?’
George shrugged. It wasn’t his business one way or the other.
‘If you say so, sunshine.’ Jimmy reached over to the back seat, picked up his holdall and got out of the car. George lowered the window and leaned across. ‘Good luck, mate. You’re still going to need it.’
‘Thanks. By the way, George, clean yourself up before you go out in public. The state your face is in you’ll frighten the horses. See you.’
Jimmy walked away carrying his small holdall. George moved the rear view mirror. Jimmy was right, his face was a mess. He readjusted the mirror started the car and pulled away. His last view of Jimmy was him walking across the car park towards the glass and steel of Ebbsfleet International. George thought about his parting words, “See you”.
‘No you won’t, Jimmy lad. Not any more you won’t.’
Chapter Twenty-eight
Jimmy sat in the Eurostar looking at his reflection in the window as they passed under the Channel. Even if George went straight to the station, or into the town and found a public pay-phone to call his mates in London ,they couldn’t stop him now. Eurostar was the fastest way into central Paris, he’d be there just before nine local time. And they couldn’t get anybody local to be at the Gare du Nord to pick him up because all they could give any Paris talent would be a verbal description, useless to any watcher as the Eurostar disgorged. He was safe for the time being.
Above him on the rack was the new holdall he’d bought when he arrived in St Pancras from Leicester. He’d bought everything else there that he’d need to get him on his way and see him through the next few days. He’d stocked up on Euros and, as he always did these days, he’d had his passport with him. He’d been able to keep his little appointment with George, do the business, catch his train and get on his way. If he’d made the right move at the right time things should start going his way now. He was the one ahead of the game and they were the ones having to play catch-up.
The train suddenly emerged from the blackness of the tunnel into the light of a clear French morning. Jimmy adjusted his watch to French time. He knew nothing about the railway system in France or Spain but the way he looked at it was, how difficult could it be to get a train from Paris to Spain and then on to somewhere near Gibraltar? Thank God the EU had paper-free borders. Even if the Spanish police were looking for him they weren’t looking too hard. He still wasn’t in the fram
e for Suarez’s murder. Their problem was that they’d had him, questioned him, and chosen to kick him out. Then they’d found that he’d been shagging one of their own who’d suddenly got two bullets in her. He could see how they’d want to know what that was all about, but he could also see how they weren’t in a big hurry to go public on it. They’d look for him and up the pressure if they had to until they found him and when they did he had no doubt that the question would finally get asked: what exactly was your relationship with Inspector Seraphina Suarez? He only hoped he could come up with some sort of answer.
Jimmy looked out of the window and pushed Suarez and the Spanish police to one side and made his mind go back to the London end. Even if it was the way George said, and the people he was up against were the supermen of English crime, no outfit was powerful enough to find one bloke who was somewhere on a train or a plane or a coach in France or Spain. No he was clear, now it was up to George to sell them his deal.
Jimmy thought about what George had told him, all run out of flash offices in somewhere like Canary Wharf, tickets to the opera and the ballet. Things must really have changed, it wasn’t crime like he was taught it. But that had been long ago and things did change. It was people that stayed the same.
Jimmy tried to doze, it had been a long and tiring night and there was a lot of travelling to come. He closed his eyes, stretched out his legs and let his mind wander. It didn’t wander very far.
The problems would begin when he got to Gibraltar. From what he knew it was a bloody tiny place, not somewhere he could melt away into the crowds or blend in, not somewhere to try to hide and then pop out and do what he had to do. And even if he could, it wouldn’t help because all they had to do to nail him was have one man watching the door of whatever office he needed to visit. He settled further down and kept his eyes closed. Yesterday was already ancient history and it would be a long day, and there were more where that came from.
But his mind wouldn’t switch off.
How long would it take to get to the bottom of Spain? Probably two or three days, maybe more. It depended on how often he stopped. But that was to the good. It gave them time to do what he’d suggested. It also gave them time to think that he might change his mind; that he might give himself up to the Spanish police and pass on what he’d already got. Yes, things were, at last, running his way, but only just.
His mind wanted to begin again so he opened his eyes, turned and in the window, against the darkness of some trees, caught a brief glimpse of someone, a man old enough to know better. He looked away. He kept telling himself he was too old for all this, yet he kept on doing it. Why? He thought about it and the same answer came up as it always did. What else was there? There was no one he cared about now except his daughter and the grandchildren he had never seen, and they were on the other side of the world. She didn’t want to know him, she’d gone as far away from him as she could get. No, there was no one really. And he didn’t want anyone to care about him. Suarez had cared, but she’d been a glitch in the machinery, a hiccup, a one-off moment when he almost wanted to rejoin the human race. But most of all she’d been a mistake, for both of them. Look at what it did to her. The truth was he didn’t want to change. The truth was he didn’t want anything. Then he remembered Harry’s words when they had met at his villa.
You were right, Harry, I was a toxic bastard. I still am and it’s all I ever fucking will be.
Chapter Twenty-nine
Jimmy took a taxi from the Gare du Nord to the Gare Montparnasse, where he could catch a train and head to the Spanish border. He looked around and chose a café close by where he could sit for a while, have a big cup of coffee and a warm croissant for breakfast, and watch Paris go about its business in the morning sunshine. The coffee and croissant came and were as good as they looked and smelled. He felt revived after his journey. The sun was warm, not scorching like the Spanish sun, and he felt relaxed as Paris bustled about him. He hadn’t seen much of the city but somehow he liked the place. He put a hand into his pocket to get a handkerchief to wipe his mouth and felt something in his pocket. It was George’s phone. He had forgotten it was there. He took it out and switched it on. George had missed three calls. Jimmy checked. They were all from the same person, Rosa.
‘Shit.’
He called up the last voice message.
‘And where the fuck are you, George? I’ve called you twice already. Costello never turned up and I’m hanging around waiting to be told what to do. Do we stay here or come back or what? Fucking get back to me will you?’
Jimmy switched off the phone and put it away. Suddenly Paris wasn’t a pleasant place to sit and have breakfast, relax and feel warm. It was the wrong place. The right place was Santander, and bloody quick. He called the waiter and asked for the bill.
You clever bugger, George. What made you think you needed Jarvis to do the story-telling? You can tell the tale all right yourself, as a writer of pure bloody fiction you’re up there with the best of them. Respectable villains who go the ballet, with offices in Canary bloody Wharf, who could go anywhere and do anything. Bollocks, all pure bloody bollocks, but you knew I’d swallow it all. This whole thing wasn’t set up by any modern bloody master criminals, it was set up by a very old-fashioned villain working out of a Kilburn pub called the Hind. Jimmy almost laughed to himself at the fool he’d been.
And the best part was that I told you everything I’d found out, showed you how to mothball everything and let Harry take the fall so you could begin again when the dust settled. Well, done, George. Very clever. But you’re not home yet.
The waiter brought him the bill. Jimmy paid and left, heading for the station.
He needed to be in Santander, he needed the Spanish police to have what he’d got before George could cover his tracks. He didn’t give phoning more than a passing thought, who could he phone? This had to be done personally where he was known if he wanted to get any action in a hurry. What was the quickest way to get there? He went into the Gare de Montparnasse. It was a big, busy station and it took Jimmy a couple of minutes to locate the ticket windows. He saw them and went across. There was a queue at each one. He chose the shortest. After a few minutes he got to the window.
‘I want to go to Spain.’ The woman behind the window shrugged and said something in French which went right past Jimmy. ‘Do you speak English?’
She shook her head.
‘Non.’
He understood that. She looked along the line of ticket sellers. Then she said something else. It sounded like, sank. It meant nothing to Jimmy. She said something again, slowly. Gee-shay sank. It sounded a bit Oriental. Jimmy shook his head. She said the same word again a couple of times and held up five fingers then pointed to her left.
‘Five? What, window five?’
‘Oui.’ Then she said slowly, as if to a backward child. ‘Guichet cinque. English there.’
Jimmy understood.
‘Thanks.’ He left the window and joined the queue at window five. Eventually it was his turn. The man behind the glass was young. Jimmy hoped his English was good.
‘Do you speak English?’
‘Yes.’
‘I want to go to Spain.’
‘Don’t we all? Whereabouts in Spain?’
‘Santander, and I’m in a hurry. How long would it take by train?’
‘You would be best taking the TGV. The next one leaves at –’ He checked a screen. ‘– eleven twenty-five. You arrive in Irun at sixteen fifty-five.’ He looked back at Jimmy. ‘From Irun you would catch a Spanish train.’
‘So altogether how long?’
‘It would depend on the time from Irun to Santander. I don’t know whether there is a direct connection or not. For that information you would need to go to the International Enquiries desk.’
‘Make a guess.’ The young man gave a shrug and spread his hands, the universal Gallic gesture that said he wasn’t even going to try. Jimmy needed some idea of how long it would take. ‘It’s importa
nt, a police matter.’
That brought the young man back into things.
‘A police matter?’
‘I have been told a friend has been badly injured and the police need to talk to me. Like I said, I need to get to Santander the fastest way I can. Would it be quicker if I took a plane?’
