The Damage (David Blake 2)

by Howard Linskey

  ‘I hear you.’

  ‘Flatten the place. By nightfall tomorrow I don’t want to be able to see a trace of that building, do you understand?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I could hear the relief in his voice. Personally I didn’t give a shit about the grinning bastard. I reckoned he’d be at least half mad by now anyway, after all this time in that dark hole, but I needed Palmer back. I needed my main guy to be bright, alert and on my side again. I knew permitting him this small victory would change things for the better. Maybe he’d even sleep tonight.

  ‘Palmer, make sure that nothing comes crawling out of that rubble, you hear me?’

  He nodded slowly, ‘I’ll see to it,’ he assured me, ‘you won’t have to worry about a thing.’

  Me, not worrying about anything? That was almost funny.

  I spent the evening at Simone’s apartment or, more accurately, I spent it in her bed. Since that first evening together I’d not had much time to even speak to her on the phone. She seemed to understand that Danny’s well-being was the most important thing to me, so she kept her distance but I got text messages from her and occasional voice mails; short messages that seemed innocent enough and never alluded to the fact that we had slept together. After a few days I went back there and I’d been twice more since then. I didn’t see any harm in it. I don’t have a normal life and my stress levels are probably a hundred times higher than a regular guy’s, so why shouldn’t I allow myself this little diversion? I didn’t see us as a permanent item though. She was damaged goods, and not just because of her shifts down at the massage parlour. There were things going on in her head that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to fix.

  She dozed off next to me and I was just thinking about leaving when Sharp phoned me, ‘I’ve got something, it might not be much, but it’s something.’

  ‘Let’s hear it.’ I spoke quietly at first and left Simone’s bedroom so I didn’t wake her.

  ‘It comes from a low-level grass, a street dealer who pays a man, who pays a man, who pays Gladwell.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Alan Gladwell is going away for a few days. Out of the country. It’s business, apparently, but he’s not taking anyone with him,’ that struck me as more than a bit odd, a man of Alan Gladwell’s profile travelling abroad without protection. ‘I know this because he’s put his brother Malcolm in charge while he’s away.’

  ‘How do you know he’s not taking anyone else with him?’

  ‘I don’t, for sure, but I did some digging and it turns out he has been doing this regular lately, just goes off and doesn’t take his crew with him. Doesn’t even tell them what he’s up to but there’s a rumour he’s out east, negotiating with a new supplier about a shipment, and the word on the street is that it’s a big one, a very big one.’

  It seemed we weren’t the only organisation seeking alternative suppliers after the arrest of the Haan brothers.

  ‘He goes off without taking his own guys to watch his back?’ This sounded all wrong to me.

  ‘That’s how the story goes, and I didn’t buy it either, so I followed the guy.’

  ‘You followed Alan Gladwell?’ This was an even bigger surprise.

  ‘I know. I was fucking terrified. I didn’t want to do it but it’s like you said, if I can’t find anything on him, I’m a dead man anyway. I kept well back and I only hung on long enough to see where he went.’

  ‘And where did he go?’

  ‘That’s the strange bit. He got his driver to park over the road and made a big show of going into a Bookies, but he was only in there for a minute then he was out again. He glanced over at his car and, when he reckoned nobody was looking, he ducked into the place next door.’

  Sharp paused to let that sink in.

  ‘A knocking shop?’

  ‘Nope.’

  ‘Sharp, I know you are pleased with yourself but I haven’t got all day. Where did he go?’

  ‘A travel agents.’

  ‘A what? Why would he do that?’ If Alan Gladwell needed a flight booking there’d be a queue of people who’d want to sort it out for him.

  ‘I figured he didn’t want anyone to know where he was going, not even his right-hand men or his brothers, in case they worked out who he was talking to. You’ve had problems with leaks in the past, maybe he has too. Maybe he doesn’t trust anyone with this deal, if it really is so big?’

  ‘That’s a big risk,’ I said. ‘Go on.’

  ‘I waited till Gladwell came out, got back into his car and buggered off, then I took a gamble. I went right in there. I told the young lass behind the counter I was investigating a ring of stolen credit cards and could I look at the bookings she had taken in the past hour. There were only two and I assured her they were both legit. I didn’t want his booking to be cancelled.’

  ‘So where was he off to?’

  ‘That’s the bit you are going to be most interested in,’ he told me. ‘Thailand.’

  I took Gladwell’s flight details from Sharp, then I hung up and left Simone’s. I called Sarah and told her not to leave the compound under any circumstances, and for once she didn’t argue, then I spoke to Jagrit so he knew there was a threat. Jagrit assured me he would change the rotas and increase the guard on the compound. I got myself onto the first flight back to Bangkok. Then I phoned Pratin to arrange an emergency meeting there with my bent Thai detective. I didn’t like the idea of leaving Danny but I had no choice. Palmer and Kinane said they’d visit him and I was gambling I wouldn’t be away for long.

  I quickly packed a bag, then left. I knew if I moved now, I had a couple of days head start over Alan Gladwell – I was going to need them.

  37

  .......................

  I spent the flight from Heathrow to Bangkok thinking about Alan Gladwell and why he was flying out there. Either the story about the huge consignment from the new supplier from the East was true, or he had found out about my compound in Hua Hin. I couldn’t gamble that Gladwell’s trip to Thailand had nothing to do with me. I couldn’t afford to take any chances where Sarah was concerned, so I planned everything like we were on a war footing.

  I couldn’t see Gladwell coming out to the compound on his own, but who else would be good enough to trouble my Gurkhas? Perhaps he didn’t know about them, but if he’d found out about my place, surely he’d have had it watched – but wouldn’t my Gurkhas have spotted his surveillance? The same thoughts were going round and round in my head and none of them made any sense to me. I was relieved when Pratin met me at the airport.

  I supposed I could have had Alan Gladwell killed the moment his feet touched Thai soil, but that was a bad idea for a lot of reasons. British tourists being murdered in foreign countries always attracted the wrong kind of headlines, and the Thai authorities would come under pressure to investigate. Besides, if I killed another Gladwell, that would just leave two more brothers behind who’d want to become Top Boy and continue the war against me in Alan’s martyred name. I explained this to Pratin, but I wasn’t sure he took it all in. I gave him very clear instructions as to what I wanted from him but he just nodded a lot and left me to make some calls. Christ, I thought, I really hope he handles this one right. If he fucked this up we’d all be in the shit for sure.

  I couldn’t tail Gladwell all around Bangkok myself, so I left that job to Pratin, and hoped he was as good as he claimed to be. I told him to call me if he found anything we could use. Perhaps we could get a photograph of Gladwell having a cosy chat with one of the ‘Golden Triangle’s’ most notorious suppliers. That alone might be enough to severely piss off the authorities. I doubted Gladwell would be stupid enough to be seen talking to the big players in the market out here though. Thai justice is notoriously harsh on dealers, and conditions are appalling. You wouldn’t want to be banged up for life in a Thai prison, and when they say life here, they mean life.

  With Pratin briefed and on the case, I could get back to Hua Hin to see Sarah. Jagrit met me at the gate and put my mind at
rest. No one had been watching the compound. That would have been an impossibility, he told me, and I believed him. Sarah knew nothing of the threat against her. I walked into the house and she greeted me in a dishevelled state.

  ‘Are you alright?’ I asked, trying not to find her condition amusing.

  ‘No,’ she gulped the word, like it was an effort to get it out, ‘I’ve been chucking up all day.’

  ‘Nice image.’

  ‘It was Joanne’s idea.’

  ‘Thought as much,’ Joanne had stayed on long after the rest of Sarah’s friends had returned home.

  ‘It was our last night together so we did flaming Sambucas. Lots of them,’ and she winced at the memory.

  ‘That’ll do it every time.’

  ‘Sorry,’ her face was pale, and her hair was hanging down in a straggle that obscured one eye, ‘not much of a sight to come home to, is it?’

  ‘You look gorgeous, pet,’ and I wrapped my arms around her tightly.

  ‘Thank you for lying.’

  I laughed, ‘have you been caning it all the time I’ve been away?’

  ‘Pretty much.’

  ‘Good,’ I told her, ‘that was the idea.’ I drew her closer to me and kissed her on the forehead. ‘Did you have a good time?’

  ‘It was brilliant,’ she looked up at me, ‘thanks for sorting it.’

  I instantly put any idea I might have had of telling Sarah about Danny being shot to the back of my mind. Why bring her down from the first genuine happiness she’d experienced in months? I’d have to tell her eventually, of course, just not yet.

  ‘Well I only did it for selfish reasons,’ I told her. ‘I figured I needed the brownie points.’

  ‘Oh you did,’ she assured me, ‘but you earned quite a few while you were away only…’

  ‘Only what?’

  ‘You are going to have to wait for your reward,’ she gave me an apologetic look, ‘it’s just, I think I’m going to throw up again.’

  ‘Nice.’

  She broke from me without a word and walked quickly away. A moment later I heard the unmistakeable sound of retching coming from the downstairs bathroom.

  I turned on the TV so I could watch the football. There wasn’t anything I could do now until Pratin called.

  Pratin followed Gladwell all day, keeping his distance, and he was sure he had not been seen. He had tailed Gladwell while he checked into a four-star hotel and waited for him to shower, change his clothes, then emerge again on foot. He had followed the man as he sauntered past shops and markets and watched from across the road when he ate alone in a restaurant, waiting for his contact to show up. Blake had briefed him to watch out for someone joining Gladwell, particularly anyone known to be in the drug trade. Pratin assured Blake he knew every drug baron in the capital and all of their lieutenants. If they chose to join Gladwell at his dinner table, identifying them wouldn’t be a problem.

  But nobody showed. Gladwell finished his meal and paid the bill. Afterwards he walked on into the seedier side of the city, but he ignored the entreaties of the prostitutes, both male and female, when they approached him. Pratin followed him for an hour, waiting for Gladwell to do what western men always did in his city when they were killing time before a business meeting; buy someone and use them. But Gladwell ignored the dance bars and night clubs. He just kept walking. Eventually, when he was far from his hotel, he sat down at a table outside a quiet bar at the end of a dead-end street. It was small and squalid – not an obvious choice for a prosperous western male. This had to be the rendezvous point. Pratin selected his position carefully, watching from a seat set back from the window of a virtually empty restaurant, a discreet distance from Gladwell’s bar. He ordered a bowl of Tom Yum Goong soup and waited for Gladwell’s contact to show.

  Gladwell drank his beer and ordered a second bottle, looking like a man who was waiting for someone. Pratin was running the names of local crime barons through his head, wondering which one would have the balls to sell a huge shipment of heroin to a western gangster. He had to concede there were a few. A street kid wandered up to Gladwell’s table then and started to chatter away at him, begging for dollars no doubt. Pratin was annoyed by the young boy’s presence. He wanted the child to leave so he could get a clear view of Gladwell’s contact when he arrived.

  Then, something odd happened. Gladwell sat up in his chair, leaned closer to the boy as if to speak to him and smiled warmly. It wasn’t the sort of smile you normally wasted on a beggar. It was the kind of smile a man would usually save for a woman. Pratin immediately understood what that smile meant.

  I opened my eyes suddenly and realised I had dozed off while the match was still on. I sat up with a start to see Sarah standing there in the doorway. Her hair was still damp from the shower and she was wearing nothing but black lingerie.

  ‘Hello.’

  I was a bit groggy, ‘that the underwear I bought you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she walked over to me and took my hand. ‘I know I’ve been neglecting you and I’m sorry. Come upstairs with me,’ she said, leading the way.

  Later I cooked up some fish and we ate out on the terrace so we could watch the ocean. It felt like we were a proper couple again. I’d barely given Simone a thought since I’d flown out of the UK. She seemed part of a separate life that couldn’t touch us out here.

  ‘Did you ever go to Whitby when you were a kid?’ she asked me.

  ‘Whitby? Why do you ask?’

  ‘You cooked fish. It made me think of Whitby. Did you ever go?’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘I never really went anywhere when I was a kid.’

  ‘Dad used to take us there, for fish and chips. I mean it wasn’t exactly just down the road but he’d say, “who wants fish and chips for tea?” and when I’d say “me!” he’d get the Jag out and we’d drive to Whitby. I’d say to him “Dad it’s a very long way, don’t they sell fish and chips round here?” and he’d say, “not like these, pet. Whitby cod and chips are the best in the world and do you know when they taste their very best? When you pinch them off someone else’s plate, give us a chip!”’ She was smiling now. I hadn’t seen her do that much lately, but it gave me some mixed feelings, if I’m honest.

  A lot of Sarah’s conversations sounded the same and they usually started with the words ‘Dad used to’. It was a nail through my heart every time she said it, since I was the one who killed him. It made me feel sick inside that she missed him so much. The fact that she didn’t know it was me was the only saving grace out of a whole shitty situation.

  ‘You don’t talk much,’ she told me, ‘about the old days, when you were a kid, I mean.’

  ‘Not much to talk about, really,’ I told her. I didn’t add that I tried not to think about my childhood because it wasn’t that nice. ‘We got by. My mam did her best, you know.’

  ‘What was your dad like?’ she asked me.

  ‘Never knew him. He left, apparently, just before I was born, so if I had to make a guess, I’d say he was a wrong-un, wouldn’t you? It was no big deal,’ I told her, ‘you don’t miss what you never had, right?’ There was a time when I did think about my dad, a lot, but I was little then and didn’t know any better. I used to hope he’d run off and joined the army or he’d become a spy. One of my early memories was seeing that footage of the Iranian Embassy siege, those TV pictures of the SAS before they abseiled into the place and fucked up all of those terrorists, and I used to dream that one of them was my dad and, now that he’d rescued those hostages, they’d let him come home to me. Then he’d walk down the street in a shiny uniform with medals on it and he’d be carrying a new football for me. I get embarrassed thinking about it now. Soft lad.

  ‘It must have been hard for your mum.’

  ‘Yeah, it was, but she managed. Mums do, don’t they? They just get on with it.’

  She looked away then and I wondered if I’d been insensitive somehow. Had I reminded her about her own mother, who died years back and left her alone with the f
ather she became so close to, before I ruined everything?

  She forced a smile then. ‘I’ve just thought, we are the same, you and me, we’re both orphans.’

  She was probably right there, but who knew? My dad walked out on me more than thirty years ago – he could conceivably still be alive, somewhere, but was probably dead. I didn’t care either way.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘orphans are kids, and we are grown-ups. We can take care of each other.’ I sat down next to her and put my arm around her. She snuggled up close to me and rested her head against my chest. She took a bit of taking care of, did Sarah, but it wasn’t her fault. I knew that. I’m not entirely insensitive and I made myself a promise there and then that I would do whatever it took to keep Sarah safe from Alan Gladwell, or anyone else who tried to harm her. In fact there was nothing I wasn’t prepared to do for her. No matter how bad.

  Ten minutes later, Pratin called.

  38

  .......................

  Pratin watched from his car as the boy led the man towards the small dilapidated hotel. Gladwell was trying to look inconspicuous, walking slowly behind the boy with his hands in his pockets, like any tourist taking in the sights.

  As soon as he had seen that smile from Gladwell, Pratin had changed his plans. The foreigner wasn’t stupid nor was he about to get up from his table in front of everyone and follow the child. He simply spoke to the boy and carefully palmed him a little money as a down-payment, but not so discreetly that Pratin didn’t spot it, then he left and headed back to his hotel. Instead of tailing Gladwell, Pratin now followed the boy, caught up with him and paid generously for the information he needed. That was how Pratin knew the name of the hotel, the time they’d agreed, even the room number. He watched carefully as the boy opened the main door of the hotel and he gave them a few more minutes. He estimated how long it would take the boy to procure the key. Not long, since he’d done it many times before and the guy behind the counter was used to seeing him there. Gladwell would have to pay, of course. He’d be paying three times over; once for the room, once for the silence and complicity of the man behind the reception desk and once for the boy.