Family Business

by Mark Eklid

  ‘Yeah, yeah,’ he finally acknowledged, irritation in his tone.

  Graham pulled his phone from his jacket pocket, poised.

  Andreas craned to look out of the window towards the lorry park entrance.

  ‘He should be coming round that corner any ...minute ...now.’

  Seconds later, the front of a truck in red and yellow livery came into view and swung between the wide posts that marked the entrance. As it cleared the posts and drew forward, turning towards the far end of the large swathe of asphalt, away from where they were watching, a white van with the markings of a hire company turned in too and followed the lorry.

  ‘And I bet that’s our treacherous dog Arnold.’ Andreas virtually spat out the words, making no attempt to disguise the venom in them.

  ‘OK. I’m going to go outside and watch where they park up and call for the police. You stay here.’ Graham stood and moved quickly for the exit, keying the three nines into his keypad before he reached the door.

  It rang four times and was answered.

  ‘Police please.’

  He waited to be connected and stole a look towards where the two vehicles were pulling in at the furthest end of the parking area.

  ‘Yeah, I’m at the truck stop just off junction one of the M18 and I have very good reason to believe a large drug transaction is just about to take place. Drugs, that’s right. They are on a red and yellow truck owned by the Harry Johnson Global Logistics company and I can see it parking up now at the far end of the lorry park and I can see a white hire van with it which I believe is being driven by the person who is going to take the shipment away once it’s offloaded.

  ‘Sure. My name’s Graham Hasselhoff. Hasselhoff, that’s right. H, A, double S, E, L, H, O, double F. Yes, that’s it. I’m at the main diner part of the truck stop about 400 yards away. Yes, of course I’ll stay out of the way until you get here. How long do you think they will be? Good. Hang on just a sec...’

  A large shape in a suit bustled past Graham with a laptop bag over his shoulder. He was heading purposefully towards the far end of the lorry park.

  ‘Andreas! What the hell are you... Sorry, I’ve got to go. Please get here as soon as you can.’

  He hung up and sprinted towards the rotund figure, its arms swinging as it marched into the evening gloom to confront whatever lay ahead. Graham grabbed hold of an arm and swung in front of him, blocking his way.

  ‘Are you mad? The police are on their way. We said we’d let them handle this. We agreed, Andreas.’

  The younger man stared furiously ahead, fire in his eyes, hatred burning in his heart.

  ‘I have to talk to him. I have to make him look me in the face and tell me why he betrayed me – why he betrayed my mama and my pappa. I have to know.’

  He tried to sidestep his obstacle but the move was countered. Graham strained to hold him back.

  ‘Don’t do this, Andreas. We have to let the police take over, remember? It doesn’t matter why he did it. All that matters is that we stop him. You might scare them off. They might get away.’

  ‘Get out of my way!’ With a swipe of his powerful arm, Andreas broke free and strode away again; his rage unquenchable, his purpose irresistible.

  ‘Andreas!’ Graham was helpless. He watched the figure eat up the shortening distance between themselves and the red and yellow truck and panic filled his soul.

  What should I do?

  He should stay back. They should stay back. What the hell is he thinking?

  I can’t let him do this alone.

  Graham broke into a half-trot to catch up with the disappearing figure ahead of him.

  28

  They marched beyond the last of the parked trucks; Andreas, undaunted, still setting a furious pace and Graham, warily, two steps back. The parking area narrowed to the point of an elongated triangle and the tip of it was capped by loose gravel, which crunched under their footsteps. If the noise of their approach was noticed, it was not yet acknowledged. Maybe the motorway masked the sound.

  The Johnson’s truck was parked on their right, against the grain of the marked bays to ensure that whatever was being done on the other side of it was completely shielded from view, should anyone peer across from the main building.

  It was not until they were within 20 yards that the front of the white van became visible to them. Andreas did not slow at all until he caught sight of the slender man with his back to them at the back of the van.

  ‘How fucking dare you! You back-stabbing bastard! How fucking dare you!’ he boomed.

  The slender man was operating an automated tail lift, lowering a compact forklift from the back of the hire van, but he stopped the process and turned, startled, when he heard the voice.

  He was under-average short and wirily thin, his sallow face made to look momentarily longer by the shocked bemusement that overcame his expression as he recognised the source of the sudden rebuke. He was dressed all in black, grey hair peeking below a black beanie hat, giving him the look of a cat burglar who had ventured out of a long retirement.

  ‘Jesus, Andreas! What are you...’ he stammered.

  Andreas barely broke stride, charging towards the object of his indignation as if he was intent on tearing Ken’s frail frame apart.

  ‘After everything my family has done for you. This is how you repay us?’

  Graham was too far behind to stop him but a tall and muscular man emerged from the shadow of the trailer to bar his way. Andreas attempted to barge past, but there was no sweeping this obstacle aside.

  He was powerfully built beneath a close-fitting blue t-shirt and had black hair combed back. This had to be Turnbull. He held his arms wide to cover much of the space between trailer and van and hardly appeared to register the impact at all as the shorter, more rounded man in front of him bumped against the barrier of his body.

  ‘OK, let’s all just calm down here, shall we,’ he reasoned, like a nightclub bouncer trying to defuse a squabble.

  Andreas was not so easily placated. ‘Don’t fucking “calm down” me! I want to teach that duplicitous bastard what it means to betray my family.’

  Turnbull’s interception gave Graham time to catch up and he attempted to wrestle Andreas away from the confrontation. Finally, the younger man gave up his attempt to burst free and turned, holding his head in the frustration of his unfulfilled anger.

  Ken stayed safely behind the protection of his co-conspirator.

  ‘Look, I’m sorry, Andreas, I had no choice. You have to understand. I never meant to disrespect you or your family but I had to do this. Look, we can work this out. I can give you a cut...’

  The offer only served to fuel the smouldering embers of Andreas’s wrath.

  ‘I don’t want any of your filthy money,’ he raged as he jostled again towards Ken with renewed vigour, only this time to find his son, as well as the sturdy Turnbull, in his way. He quickly gave up the attempt and turned again, swinging a kick at the ground.

  ‘Why did you do this, Ken?’ asked Graham, his tone calm and reasonable. ‘This is just wrong. How could you get mixed up in this terrible business?’

  Ken was quaking, desperate. The weight of torment stooped his slight body even lower.

  ‘I lost money, lots of money. When all the cash ran out from the loan I took out against the house I had nowhere to go but to borrow from people who don’t take it well when you can’t pay them back. The people I owed found out where I worked and told me I had to work off the debt by smuggling drugs for them. There was nothing else I could do.’

  ‘But the risks you were taking. You must have realised it would catch up with you in the end.’

  ‘It was all going so well!’ he pleaded. ‘Using the Johnson’s line and one of the regular drivers was perfect. We were hiding in plain sight. Nobody suspected a thing. It was going so well until that bitch Rebecca got Chris sacked.’

  Andreas pointed a thick finger of his shaking hand accusingly. ‘Don’t blame her for this and don’
t blame me!’

  ‘Did you kill Chris Yates?’ asked Graham, surprising himself at how dispassionately he was able to put the question.

  ‘Of course I didn’t,’ protested Ken. ‘It was them,’ he said with a flicked nod of the head. ‘Chris was stupid. He threatened to go to the police and tell them all about me and the operation after he was sacked. He wanted to be paid off but these people aren’t to be messed with. He should have known that. Stupid. Such a waste.’

  His voice tailed off in regret and suddenly sparked again as he attempted to bargain directly with Graham.

  ‘But look, this doesn’t involve you two. You can just walk away now, turn a blind eye. What we’re doing here doesn’t have to cause you any trouble. Two more runs – three max – and I’ll have settled my debt to these people. I’ll leave the company and not say a word. You needn’t ever hear from me again.’

  Andreas released an anguished cry into the night, causing all three of them to stare at him as he circled, unable to vent the heat of the cauldron blazing within him.

  ‘You’re wrong, Ken,’ said Graham. ‘We’re in this up to our necks. What you are doing has upset some people who don’t like it that someone else is selling drugs on their patch and they hold me and Andreas responsible. They’ve threatened us that if we don’t bring an end to this straight away we...’ He turned and gestured towards the pacing figure behind him, then back to himself, ‘...are going to feel their retribution. They were the ones who carried out the arson attacks on the yard. Those were warnings – didn’t you think they could be connected with what you were doing? So you see we can’t just walk away. We are very much involved here. This is our lives at stake. That’s why this has to stop now. It’s over, Ken.’

  The man in black sagged, resting his hands on his knees to stop him bending pathetically double. He was overwhelmed and, as he watched, Graham felt for him. He had been dragged into a pit of suffering from which there was no release through the weakness of his own compulsions and the more he struggled to break free, the deeper he was dragged into its suffocating hold.

  ‘It’s not over.’ Turnbull’s steady voice stole their attention.

  Turnbull reached to where he had drawn back the curtain of the trailer and pulled out a metal bar, holding it menacingly.

  ‘Ken needs this. We both need this. We’ve both got debts to pay and you’re not going to stop us. I’m sorry it’s brought trouble down on your heads but that’s just tough. It seems to me that if you’re being held responsible, not us, then that’s your problem. We’ll carry on and find somewhere else to sell, find another way of bringing the merchandise into the country as well if we need to. As far as I can see, that problem’s solved.’

  Graham backed away, eyes on the metal bar in Turnbull’s hand. The callous simplicity of the argument left him dumbfounded.

  ‘How can you... This is your responsibility! You can’t just...’

  The sound of a vehicle, advancing at speed, from the direction of the diner made his heart leap. It must be the police. Just in time.

  Graham could not see round the truck to confirm his hopes but he looked towards Andreas, who was in a position to see it and was peering towards the sound as it rapidly closed on them. The sight of it did not appear to be giving him comfort.

  Seconds later, it was there. A large car. A black BMW. It wasn’t the police. Graham knew who it was.

  Barely had it skidded to a halt when a man with a thick dark beard bounded out from the rear door, a handgun raised. The driver was soon also out of the car. He too had a gun. Jason. Around the car, from the front passenger door, emerged a third man, also armed.

  Instinctively, Graham crouched low to the ground, arms in front of his face in a painfully inadequate attempt to protect himself, and he squeezed his eyes shut, as if expecting but unable to face the force of whatever was to happen next.

  Turnbull, stunned into stillness at first, rallied and charged towards the car, the bar raised above his head. It was a defensive, intuitive, foolish and fatal reaction. The man with the black beard saw it and fired, once. Turnbull was knocked off his feet by the impact of the bullet on his chest. He fell backwards, lifeless.

  Ken Arnold had watched the men jump out of the car and recognised the danger straight away. Too much exposure lately to too many men who had scant regard for the value of human life had opened his eyes. He saw no way this situation could end well for him and decided to run. He scampered beyond the cover of the van and towards the point of the parking area, lured by the potential salvation of a gap in the trees 30 yards away, but his days of making a quick getaway were long since behind him.

  Jason watched his laboured dash coldly. His lifted his arm, aimed and released a single shot. Ken tumbled and lay in a motionless tangled heap.

  The violent crack of the two shots hung in the air and reverberated in Graham’s ears as he cowered, not allowing himself to breathe, anticipating the force of a third shot ripping through his body.

  It did not come and slowly, timidly, he opened his eyes and lowered his arms.

  By the side of the trailer he could see the soles of Turnbull’s heavy boots and could tell that one of the shots, at least, had done its shattering worst.

  He looked to where he had last seen Andreas, dreading what he might find. Andreas had also thrown himself low to the ground but was raising himself to his knees, his arms above his head in supplication and terror in his widened eyes.

  Where was Ken? He was no longer at the rear of the van. Graham could not see him but then noticed the man from the passenger seat ambling towards a low shape, like a crumpled pile of black rags, 20 or so yards from them. The man kicked at the bundle and gave Jason a single nod to confirm that his aim had been true.

  Jason moved three slow paces closer to where Graham still crouched, the gun in his hand but now down by his side.

  ‘You didn’t call,’ he growled.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry.’ His body was trembling. In the blink of an eye, two lives had been taken and as he began to absorb the horror of that he felt sick to his core.

  ‘How did you...?’

  Jason surveyed the scene around him, assessing his handiwork.

  ‘Tracking device,’ he said. ‘In the phone.’

  They must have been following the movements of the pair of them in the Jaguar all day in just the same way as he and Andreas had tracked Turnbull on Trams.

  Jason looked at both of them in turn, disdainfully.

  ‘I knew you two were behind this.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand...’

  Jason silenced Andreas’s protest by spinning quickly and angling the gun towards him.

  ‘Shut the fuck up, you!’ he bellowed.

  Andreas bowed his head and said no more. Jason lowered the gun.

  ‘See now, the problem is because you didn’t do what we told you to do, you’ve left us with a mess to clean up.’

  The man with the thick black beard had wandered towards the trailer and was poking at the stacked pallets inside.

  ‘What are you going to do with them?’ asked Graham, fighting to stop himself shaking.

  Thick black beard walked back towards his associate and gave a shrug, as if to say it was not obvious what part of the shipment was the one they were interested in.

  ‘Not them,’ snarled Jason, his lip curling with bitter hatred. He pointed the gun at Graham.

  ‘You!’ he said, turning sharply to aim at Andreas. ‘And him!’

  ‘No, no, no! Please don’t do that!’ Andreas begged, curling his stout body into a ball.

  ‘And leave two witnesses free to pin all this on us? Do you think we’re thick or something?’

  He kept his arm at full stretch, the weapon pointed at the pitiful figure to his side. Graham stared, helplessly, and saw the glint in Jason’s narrowing eye. He was the executioner, relishing his moment of perverse control; the absolute power of life and death in his hands and the knowledge that there was nothing his victim coul
d do except wait until he chose to squeeze the trigger slowly beyond its point of no return. There was no scrap of compassion battling for control behind that eye. It was the eye of a man used to killing.

  ‘Wait! You can’t!’ Graham rose to his feet. Jason’s two accomplices raised their guns to cover whatever move he may be about to make but he remained still.

  ‘Don’t do it. We’re your family.’

  The sheer absurdity of the objection disturbed Jason enough to make him tilt his head towards where Graham now stood, five yards away, though his arm remained outstretched and poised. Andreas lifted his gaze from the ground, no longer simply waiting for the inescapable finality of his last conscious moment, and also looked over.

  ‘Your mother, Sarah, was my girlfriend when we were at uni together in Leeds and we only slept together once but ...well, we stopped seeing each other shortly after and that was my fault but I never knew she was, you know, until you snatched me from the car park yesterday and she told me what happened to her. I had no idea why she left uni so suddenly until then but she told me I was your father and so you can’t do this. I’m your father and Andreas is ...your half-brother.’

  ‘What?’ said Jason, incredulously.

  ‘What?’ said Andreas, equally incredulously.

  ‘We’re all made, partly at least, from the same genetic material. We have the same blood. We share the same ancestral lineage. We’re spurs off the same family line which can be traced back centuries and centuries through generations and generations and that means that we may be different people but, essentially, we are the same. We’re part of the same story.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ said Jason, scornfully. ‘This is bollocks.’

  He turned again to face Andreas and his finger tightened on the trigger.

  ‘No, it’s true! You ask your mother. She was Sarah Collins when I knew her and she was about a month younger than me, so her 57th birthday was in February. I took her to her first real gig, I bought her a book of Philip Larkin poetry and I got her into watching Coronation Street on the telly. She said her parents never allowed her to watch soap operas when she lived at home. She had a dog called Bruce, which stuck in my mind because I was a huge fan of Springsteen at the time, and has a scar on her forearm from falling off her bike when she was a little girl. She never used to wear short sleeves because she was so self-conscious about it.’