Insider (The Glass Family)

by Owen Mullen

  On the surface, Luke Glass was respectable: a modern villain trading in crimes that left his conscience clear and hands clean, happy to leave the street businesses for Ritchie to manage his own way without interference. Luke was smart and climbing to heights his brother could only have dreamed about. But that meant doing business with the likes of Jonas Small, and it was a shrewd move despite the fact Small could be added to the list of crazies Ritchie had spent too many years shielding from the consequences of their misjudgements. Luke could handle the bastard, though if getting involved with the unpredictable East End gang boss blew up in their faces… well, that was what George was for.

  He looked at his watch and dragged his shoes towards him across the carpet where they’d landed when he’d kicked them off. The pub would be jumping; he’d be fortunate to get a chair, probably forced to drink his customary two pints standing up. Once maybe, not now: he was too long in the tooth for that malarkey – if there were no seats, he’d go somewhere else.

  A mobile vibrated on the table; he lifted it and listened, his expression suddenly serious. Once or twice he nodded but didn’t stop putting on his shoes.

  His tone softened. ‘You aren’t hurt, are you, Ethel?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then take a deep breath and tell me exactly what happened. Was he on his own?’

  ‘Yes, and he had a gun.’

  Ritchie spoke slowly. ‘A bastard pulls a shooter out. Takes a bit of getting over. What did he say?’

  ‘He wasn’t after money.’

  ‘The exact words.’

  Ethel dredged her memory. ‘“I admire your bottle, Mrs, but save it. This is the wrong time to be a smart-arse. It isn’t appreciated. I’ll take whatever cash you’ve got but I’m not after money. So don’t fuck me about!”’

  ‘Then, what?’

  ‘Made me give him the stuff.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Two bags.’

  ‘Had you seen him before?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘And you haven’t called the police?’

  ‘I called you, like you told me to.’

  Ritchie sighed; he was getting too old for this. ‘Good girl, good girl. Now, here’s what I want you to do. Lock the cabin up and write down everything you can remember. Picture the details in your mind – height, accent, tattoos. Sit quietly and it’ll come to you. Sounds like an amateur chancing his luck. He’ll have made a mistake. They all do.’

  In the background he heard Winston speaking. ‘I was meeting my mates in the pub.’

  Ritchie hid his irritation. Ethel was more valuable than she realised – finding people who’d stick the job without dipping their mitts in the till wasn’t easy. Pity she was involved with a moron.

  ‘Tell Winston the pub will still be there when you’re finished. Bring what you’ve got to my office tomorrow. It’s above the King of Mesopotamia.’

  ‘I know where it is, Mr Ritchie.’

  ‘First thing, Ethel, 9 a.m.’ He added a reminder. ‘We keep this in-house. We sort it ourselves.’

  The mobile hadn’t left his hand when it rang again. Ritchie cursed. The manager in Lewisham launched into a tale that had suddenly become familiar. Ritchie felt outrage build inside him.

  Somebody was having them at it.

  ‘I’ll be there in twenty minutes.’

  Then, he made a call of his own. ‘Felix. Contact all our guys. I need them up and on their toes. Meet me at the bookies in Lewisham.’

  ‘What’s happened, George?’

  ‘We’ve been turned over. Two locations at the same time.’

  ‘What? Who? Who’d have the balls? It doesn’t make sense.’

  ‘Well, they’ve stepped in it big time. Tell the boys they’re on duty till I say they can stand down.’

  Felix tried to take it in. ‘Nobody’s dared lay a glove on us in years. Where’s Luke? Does he know?’

  ‘Keep Luke out of this until we understand what’s going on.’

  ‘Is it true we’re hooking up with Jonas Small?’

  ‘Ask him yourself when you see him.’

  Felix hesitated. ‘George… could it be him?’

  ‘No, Small wouldn’t play games; he’d come at us head-on, go for the heart. It’s somebody else.’

  ‘“Up and on their toes”.’ Ritchie repeated his phrase to the empty room. It sounded like a call to arms. In fact, it was nothing of the kind: he was reacting for the benefit of the troops, signalling in case some other chancers decided now was the right time to move on them. Unlikely. But so was what had happened. Whatever was going on didn’t feel like the start of a war. George Ritchie had survived a few of those and knew the difference. The rules of engagement never changed: hit your enemy hard and fast, inflict as much damage as possible and wait for the response. Tonight, only three shots had been fired. Nobody was hurt if you didn’t count the manager – even that was accidental.

  Some bastard wanted to get their attention. Well, they had it.

  The next move was theirs. But the insult – for that was what it was – wouldn’t go unanswered.

  Ritchie wouldn’t tell Luke all of it. He’d keep back a piece of information inadvertently let slip by one of the robbers in Lewisham. A name: Jazzer. Jazzer from Liverpool.

  He dialled a number and waited for his contact to answer. Ritchie said, ‘Eddie, long time. Got something for you if you’re interested. Right up your street, I’m thinking. Nothing complicated. Already have a name. Need a face to pin it on.’

  3

  LBC, Margaret Street, Central London

  Saturday 1.30 a.m.

  The VIP party swept from the limo through the paparazzi on the pavement outside the club. Shouts for the star to smile were ignored: Alondra Constanza Melosa Vasquez, better known as Vicky Messina, was in a particularly prickly mood. The third of five sell-out concerts at the O2 Arena hadn’t gone well. Problems with the sound in the middle of one of her many show-stopping numbers had embarrassed her and she was fuming. And when the boss wasn’t happy, everybody heard about it; tomorrow an engineer would be looking for a new job. The diva was a perfectionist, at least where other people were concerned. She’d fought her way up from humble beginnings in her native Puerto Rico and had sworn she wouldn’t take shit from anybody – a promise she was in no danger of breaking.

  A freelancer jumped in front to take a picture. Mark Douglas, Messina’s muscular Scottish minder, snatched the camera out of his hand, crushed it under his heel and shepherded his client inside.

  ‘Hey, that’s a Nikon!’

  Douglas called over his shoulder. ‘Sue me.’

  Nina Glass was sipping her Southern Comfort and Coke at the bar when the entourage arrived. Heads turned. Star fuckers, the lot of them.

  The reservation had been made and cancelled twice already. Not unusual. Since her brother, Luke, opened the club, Nina had got used to rubbing shoulders with famous people. Some were a pleasure. Others – like the millionaire upstart being shown to a booth by the manager – were in a club that had been named after them and they didn’t even know it.

  LBC – the Lucky Bastards Club – was the hottest spot in London. Pictures of Vicky Messina on the front pages of the tabloids stumbling into the street in the early hours of the morning were gold, more valuable than any amount of advertising. Nina was the face of the club. Meeting and greeting the punters, fake smile plastered on, hating every bloody minute of it. Luke had asked her to do it and said it would “only be for a few weeks”.

  That was six months ago.

  Over in her own corner of the family empire, the successful real-estate business she’d built, Nina came up against well-heeled tossers with more money than sense every day of the week. She didn’t need another dose of the same at night.

  Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full wasn’t her style.

  If Luke didn’t get somebody else and soon, no matter what he said, she was walking. He’d be left to do the arse-licking himself, instead of walt
zing in like the lord of the manor when it suited him. Finding a replacement for her would be anything but easy: it took confidence in who you were to pander to fragile egos and make them believe they were the top priority; the only priority. For all their success and ridiculous good looks, A-listers were delicate flowers, constantly in need of reassurance they were still number one.

  The singer would pout and complain and be a royal pain in the arse. But she’d spend.

  Plenty.

  Nina’s job was to make sure she got that chance.

  The briefcase contained two hundred thousand pounds in neat bundles, strapped together and tied with currency bands. Jonas Small took a last look at the banknotes, closed the lid and kissed the case lovingly. Behind him, he knew Luke Glass’s minders would be laughing. That was okay: Jonas liked a good laugh.

  ‘For luck. I’m sending my babies on their journey. It’s a rough old world.’

  The smirking minder took the case off him. ‘Whatever you say, Mr Small. Want me to sign anything?’

  Jonas Small’s expression hardened. ‘If I did, a scallywag like you wouldn’t be getting near it.’

  ‘I was only—’

  ‘Being a smart-arse is what you were only. Money isn’t a laughing matter. People worked their socks off for what’s in there and don’t forget it. My wife’s right, these days young guys think five thou isn’t a lot of cash. Well, try saving it up.’ Small walked them to the door, back to his cheery self.

  ‘You boys do what your mothers told you and don’t be talking to strangers, eh?’ He winked. ‘Drive carefully, lads.’

  The men got into the van, shaking their heads. Freddy, the driver, made a U-turn and headed back to the city. Over his shoulder he asked, ‘What’s the crazy bastard like tonight?’

  ‘Mean as a rattlesnake and daft as a fucking brush.’

  ‘So, the usual, then.’

  ‘Yeah, but don’t underestimate him or he’ll have your arm off.’

  Vicky Messina’s bodyguards set up a perimeter around her booth, their unsmiling faces encouraging admirers to keep their distance. The lights in the seating areas were designed to flatter, though it would take a lot more than clever backlighting to make some of these princesses look good falling out of the door at 4 a.m. on their Botoxed faces.

  Messina’s own security had every hotel and venue on the tour covered – eighty-three shows in twenty-one countries. A tall order. On the London leg, Mark Douglas and two guys from Celebrity Security were responsible for her safety beyond the bubble they’d created. Of course, there were exceptions: yesterday, against his advice, the singer insisted on jogging in Hyde Park, her slim figure in white shorts and T-shirt boxed between burly minders pushing people aside to clear a path, breaking a sixty-eight-year-old man’s arm in the process.

  Not how Douglas would’ve handled it. Predictably, the newspapers had had a field day with the pictures and the pensioner had been advised to sue.

  The rest of the time, the star kept to her bedroom in the Dorchester and there was little for Douglas and his men to do other than drink coffee and talk football. Late in the afternoon, she’d left by a side entrance in a blacked-out car for a sound check, returning to the hotel a couple of hours later for a light dinner and her ritual massage to loosen up before the show.

  At that point, everything was under control; everything was cool.

  After the concert the plan started to unravel. Word didn’t reach them until the last minute about Messina’s demands: the previous night, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Mayfair had been persuaded to open late for one over-indulged guest. Tonight, it was LBC’s turn to be blessed by her divine presence.

  Across the club the diva was making the most of her grand entrance. Nina smiled a cynical smile. The woman could sing. Big fucking deal! She hadn’t discovered a cure for cancer.

  Christ alone knew how much work she’d had done – boob jobs, eye jobs, rhinoplasty. Every damned thing under the sun. If life gave you lemons, a simple operation could give you melons. And for what? Thirty years down the line, she’d go to bed beautiful and wake up looking like a dummy rescued from a fire at Madame Tussauds. Nina studied her own face in the mirror behind the bar. Not the teenage rebel who’d been expelled twice from school, but not bad. Her skin was her best feature, smooth and unlined, though that wouldn’t last if she was here every bloody night. Too many drinks and not enough sleep would see to that. Luke’s promise about how long she’d be doing this came back. Resentment washed through her. She emptied her Southern Comfort, and snapped her fingers for a refill at the Latin guy juggling a cocktail shaker who thought he was Tom Cruise.

  Nina saw Mark Douglas coming towards her and felt her nipples stiffen against her silk blouse – whatever he wanted the answer was yes. Douglas flashed his ID and introduced himself. ‘Celebrity Security. I need to check the exits but the manager seems to have disappeared. Any idea where I can find him?’

  Nina sipped her drink and made him wait. ‘No.’

  ‘Can you okay it?’

  She tilted her head. ‘What’s in it for me?’

  Douglas played the game. ‘The satisfaction of helping a guy do his job. Did you have something else in mind… Nina?’

  Nina – he knew her name. And, no doubt, who she was.

  The rolling accent was a bonus – she hadn’t had a Scotsman. Nina crossed her legs slowly, giving him time to check them out. He was asking for permission; she’d give him a lot more than that.

  ‘Do you need someone to show you where everything is?’

  Her eyes met his, daring him to look away. He glanced over his shoulder through the dance-floor crowd to the prima donna sipping obscenely overpriced champagne in the booth. Nina savoured the tiny victory. One nil to her. Nice. Though not as nice as being totally dominated by a handsome man who knew his way around a woman’s body.

  Douglas said, ‘Thanks, I usually find what I’m after.’

  Nina peered at him over the rim of her drink. ‘I bet you do.’

  Freddy Bennet – Freddy The Mouth – was the low man on the totem pole; as an orphan shunted from one foster home to another, something he was well used to. He’d gone from an introverted kid to one that couldn’t shut up. Almost inevitably, he crossed the line and for eighteen months laid his confused young head on a bunk in Cookham Wood young offenders’ institution in Kent. From there, his criminal baptism travelled a predictable route leading to more of the same, this time in Feltham in Hounslow where he learned to drive, followed by two years for burglary and three for credit-card fraud. Freddy would be twenty-six on his next birthday and already his life was over. He was the best wheel man in London but, because he rabbited nineteen-to-the-dozen, nobody was keen to work with him. His constant diatribe rattled nerves that needed to be steady.

  The van passed the infamous Blind Beggar on Whitechapel Road; the pub was closed but a light was on inside. Its dark history was well known. Freddy shared it anyway, he couldn’t help himself; his talkaholism, the compulsive condition he lived with, wouldn’t let him.

  He said, ‘That’s where Ronnie Kray murdered George Cornell in 1966. Did him in front of witnesses, cool as you like.’

  ‘You should be a tour guide, Freddy.’

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Absolutely. You’re a natural.’

  Freddy was off and running. ‘Course, nobody would testify against him, would they? Against Ronnie Kray? No chance. Bullet went right through Cornell’s skull, so they say.’

  ‘Do they?’

  The sardonic response went over his head and he finished his thought. ‘Have to give it to him, old Ronnie had bottle.’

  The continuous prattle unnerved the men in the back. A ghost story to remind them the city was full of crazy bastards and always had been wasn’t needed; they reached for the cold reassurance in their pockets. This was the fourth time they’d ferried money across the city. A low-key operation few were aware of. So far, there hadn’t been a problem, though the risk was obvious.r />
  A rough voice contradicted Freddy’s version of the myth. ‘Ronnie Kray was a psycho. Bottle never came into it.’

  ‘Just sayin’ it was ballsy.’

  ‘Yeah, well, do us a favour. Don’t.’

  Freddy couldn’t leave it alone; seconds later, he was at it again. ‘They done him for it. Done him good and proper. Took three years but they got him. He died—’

  ‘Shut it. Or I’ll shut it for you.’

  This time, the message got through. ‘Sorry, lads. Can’t help it. Always worse when I’m nervous.’

  ‘Understood, Freddy. No problem. Now put a fucking sock in it.’

  The van turned right into a deserted Great Eastern Street and on until traffic lights on City Road stopped its progress. The engine idled, the acrid smell of diesel drifted on the air. Freddy tapped the wheel with his finger. ‘He was a homo, old Ronnie, did I mention that? Queer as a bottle of chips. And Reggie was bisexual. Had sex with each other to keep it a secret. God’s honest. Ronnie admitted as much to some geezer writing a book about them. Not many—’

  The bullet exploded the side window, ending the monologue, entered his heart, killing him instantly. The rear doors flew open. A rapid burst of fire from a semi-automatic carbine sprayed the inside, thudding into the minders, making them dance like drunken puppets; they were dead before they could draw their guns. One of the assassins manhandled Freddy’s lifeless body into the passenger seat, while the other two got into the back beside the slain guards. When the lights turned green, the van pulled away. Nobody saw. It wouldn’t have mattered if they had. In this part of town people were smart enough to keep their noses out of what didn’t concern them – no different from the night Ronnie Kray had walked into the Blind Beggar and shot George Cornell.