by Owen Mullen
Possibilities ran through his mind like ticker tape, so many wide boys more than capable of trying their luck. Except, nobody benefitted from a war. And it would be messy. So, why? The same question Luke Glass was asking himself. And when he couldn’t come up with an answer, he’d come to Hendon to take it out on him.
He hadn’t seemed scared, though maybe he was. His territory covered everything significant south of the river – worth millions. Perhaps that fact hadn’t escaped a rival yet to reveal themselves.
Not good news for any of them. The city had been relatively quiet of late. The last thing Oliver Stanford needed was a turf war – they’d already had one with Danny and Rollie Anderson. Everyone knew how that had turned out. In a word: ugly.
He’d wanted to tell Glass on Saturday. If he were here right now, he’d say it to his face.
‘Somebody other than me doesn’t like you.’
The dogs crowded his legs, wagging their tails, excited paws scratching the flagstone kitchen floor. Scotties were cute, his daughters loved them, though they wouldn’t deter an intruder, would they? Stanford wished he’d bought Dobermanns or Irish Wolfhounds. Yeah, a couple of Wolfhounds would’ve been better. Wolfhounds were huge – the largest dogs in the world – easy-going animals, calm, intelligent, helluva guard dogs. For a super in the Met to even have to consider protecting his family was a sign of the times. Glass hadn’t barged in shouting, making a scene in front of his guests. No, he’d held back, kept his distance, stayed in the shadows unnoticed. But the fact he’d come to his house in person all the way from south London said it all.
If that wasn’t a threat, what was?
Oliver opened the front door quietly and stepped into the early morning, with the Scotties pulling on their leads. Stanford tightened his grip, holding them back; he wouldn’t be hurried. For him, those initial seconds when cool air washed over him were the best. London was a shithole – he’d read that breathing in the city was the equivalent of smoking a hundred and sixty cigarettes a day. This was fresh. Clean. It had been a long time since Oliver Stanford had felt clean.
He didn’t notice the Audi at first. When he did he almost vomited – the beautiful machine was wrecked. A thug with a Stanley knife hadn’t been satisfied with one or two cuts; a spider’s web of scratches raked the sides from front to back, near the gate a wing mirror lay cracked and broken on the ground – no doubt the other one would be close by – the windscreen was shattered and SCUM was written in large yellow letters on the bonnet, the paint luminous in the breaking dawn and – to cap it all – the four tyres had been slashed.
Stanford didn’t look inside – he could imagine what he’d find.
He dragged the disappointed dogs through the front door, shut it behind him and stood with his back pressed against it, sweating and shaking with anger. Saturday’s conversation with Glass screamed in his head. Crossing the line with the gangster had been deliberate; he’d enjoyed doing it. A small victory. Payback for the cheeky bastard assuming he could waltz into his private life whenever it suited him.
But knowing he had the power to destroy the whole fucking lot of them wasn’t enough. He needed to be alive to do it. And Glass had given him a demonstration of how easy it was to get to an officer in the Met. Even a superintendent.
His immediate concern was for his wife: Elise couldn’t see this. It would freak her out. She wasn’t stupid. She’d put it together with Saturday’s uninvited guest and correctly conclude something was seriously wrong. Trying to convince her it was an act of mindless vandalism wouldn’t work. She’d never believe it.
Stanford dialled a number on his mobile with trembling fingers, the hatred he felt for Luke Glass fixed on his ashen face. The urge to tear the gangster’s head off was overwhelming until he remembered just who he was up against. His psycho brother hadn’t quit and gone to live in Spain. He was under the ground. Six feet under. Luke Glass had put him there.
The number rang out. He tried again, holding on. Eventually, a voice heavy with sleep coughed into the receiver, said, ‘Fuck off,’ and hung up.
Stanford dialled a third time. When it was answered, he hissed, ‘Hang up, Victor, and in twenty minutes, you’ll have two squad cars at your garage. Not the legit business in Willesden Green, the yard off Cricklewood Lane you don’t talk much about.’
Victor Russo was a sallow forty-five-year-old second-generation Italian. While his brothers and sister sold ice cream and fish and chips, he’d become a mechanic. Early on he realised he was never going to get rich fixing people’s engines and changed direction, establishing himself as the ‘go-to’ guy if a high-end value motor was what you fancied – any model, any series, any colour, stolen to order: Mercs, BMWs, Range Rovers. Even the odd Roller on occasion. And there was a waiting list for his services. Stanford could’ve busted him a dozen times over. Instead, he’d left him to operate.
Russo knew but asked anyway. ‘Who is this?’
Stanford ignored him. ‘Whatever you were planning, forget it and get your arse up to Hendon.’
‘To your house?’
‘To my house. Take away what’s left of my Audi and start putting it back together. My wife’s asleep. I want it gone before she gets up.’
‘But… Mr Stanford—’
‘And there’s broken glass all over the drive. Sweep it up and call me later with how much it’s going to cost.’
Stanford weighed the mobile in his hand, still rattled by the crude message. By itself, it meant nothing: in a week the Audi would be in the drive, good as new. But it wouldn’t come cheap – the repairs would run to bloody thousands.
How much it would cost to fix the car made him think of money. His money. On instinct he connected to the offshore bank that would bring his career to a juddering halt if its existence was discovered. The juicy number hitting his account every month hadn’t gone through.
Stanford swore under his breath. ‘You bastard.’
His second call was to his office at Scotland Yard, high above the Embankment. ‘Send a car for me, don’t feel like driving this morning. Not to the house. Hendon Central. The driver can pick me up at the old cinema. No trouble, the walk will do me good. Need some fresh air. Busy week coming up. A lot to think about, you know how it is.’
The smart thing would’ve been to call in sick. Oliver Stanford didn’t do sick; in all his years as a copper, he could count the times he’d missed work through illness on one hand. Today might’ve been the day to change that – he was agitated and unsettled, his mind not on the job. At nine forty-five, as he was heading for the door on his way to a strategy meeting on the top floor of the Curtis Green Building, his mobile rang. Stanford read the caller ID and almost let it go. Victor Russo would’ve done a quick assessment of the damaged Audi and be keen to get the go-ahead. Given a choice, he would’ve gone to his meeting and kept the mechanic in Willesden Green waiting. A reminder of how much this shit was going to cost wasn’t what he needed right now.
The superintendent laid the papers he was carrying on his desk and sat on the edge. ‘Is it done?’
Russo heard the anxiety in the policeman’s voice. ‘Relax, it’s taken care of.’
‘Elise didn’t see you?’
‘Not a chance. Your wife doesn’t even know we were there.’
Stanford breathed a sigh of relief. ‘So how much?’
‘No idea. Not yet. That isn’t why I’m calling.’
‘Then what?’
There was no easy way to break it. Russo said, ‘You didn’t look inside the car, did you?’
The hairs on the back of Stanford’s neck stood up; he sensed something bad coming.
‘No. Why? What’ve they done?’
Russo hesitated. ‘Whoever smashed up your Audi left a shoebox in the passenger seat.’
‘A shoebox?’
‘Yeah, that’s what I thought. Till I opened it.’
Oliver Stanford felt his chest tighten. He gripped the desk, dreading to ask but needing to know. ‘Wha
t… what was in it?’
The words fell from Russo’s lips like stones from between his fingers. ‘A bullet.’
Part III
17
Nina wasn’t a ‘morning person’ and never had been, only arriving early if there was a viewing arranged. Turning up at her office in time for lunch was common. Who was going to tell her off about her punctuality? She was the boss. Since Luke had her working the graveyard shift at the club, she’d been lucky to crawl into bed before three.
Not today. Luke would read the Riot Act for her no-show on Saturday and Sunday.
Well, too bad, brother; she’d warned him. If it had just been the club, okay, she could’ve handled fawning over celebrities, stroking their egos. But ‘special services’ wasn’t her thing. Nina wasn’t easily offended. Matching up monied tossers so they could paw beautiful young idiots and pay for the privilege was absolutely not for her, no matter how often Luke explained the benefits. It wasn’t her problem if he didn’t listen.
The stolen weekend had done her good; she was relaxed and refreshed. Not, as was so often the case, suffering the combined effects of sleep deprivation and a hangover. Sex, albeit not award-winning sex, and eight hours straight. No wonder she felt good.
But the sudden ducking out by the New York client still rankled. In her head, Nina had already added the commission to the very respectable total in her bank account. It felt as if somebody had dipped their hand in her bag and stolen her purse: a loss and a lack of respect. It was still the middle of the night in the States. Later, she’d call and give the arrogant, ignorant bastard an earful. Fucking Americans. They thought the world and everybody in it belonged to them.
On the drive in she couldn’t tell if she was being followed, guessed she probably was and wouldn’t be getting her freedom back any time soon.
Her office was on the fifth floor. The view was the reason she’d taken it, although it was nowhere near as great as the one from Butler’s Wharf. Impressive, nevertheless. Nina rolled the blinds up, opened the windows, and was sitting behind her desk with a cup of coffee as the first rays of the new morning lanced the skyline and bathed the city in golden light.
She opened her diary to check her schedule for the week ahead – two appointments, one on Wednesday, one the day after. Both confirmed. Plenty to be hopeful about.
On her computer, the usual slew of enquiries would be waiting for her response. People didn’t understand how much went into setting up a viewing, especially if the property was occupied. In London, many were bought for their investment potential rather than a place to stay. The very first deal she’d done was for a mid-terrace house in Fulham. At 2.5 million, modest by the standards of the capital. Glass Houses’ fees were 2.75 per cent. Nina had cleared sixty-eight thousand seven hundred and fifty pounds. Cool. Until she remembered it was her only sale in four months.
Glass Houses’ fees were higher now and their enquiry-conversion rate bore comparison with just about any agent in London. When Luke’s development came on-stream, they’d clean up. And this was just the beginning.
She sipped the coffee and opened the PC to find dozens of emails, some of them from time-wasters, woolly about budget and what they expected it to buy. She recognised an address. Nina read the message and almost dropped the cup in her hand. No reason was given, no explanation and no suggestion of an alternative date.
The soulless ‘Sorry’ at the end felt like a careless afterthought.
Her Wednesday appointment was cancelling on her.
When I woke up on Monday morning, my eyes felt gritty and there was a hollowness in the pit of my stomach that wasn’t down to Friday night: dead bodies piled in the back of a van; Jonas Small’s stolen money; the Bishop cousins’ pitiful attempt at coercion, and even Bridie O’Shea’s insidious rendition of an IRA classic in Kilburn were part of the business I was in. Something else scratched like chalk on a blackboard inside my brain: a woman who said she was my sister had burst into my life. My reaction, once I’d stopped laughing, should’ve been to show her the door. After her involvement with the Lewisham and Lambeth hits, she could consider herself lucky to be getting off with her good looks intact. But I hadn’t. And not because of a birth certificate that might or might not be real. Charley – if that was her name – had ignored George Ritchie’s disbelieving taunts and looked straight at me, meeting my gaze without flinching. The fuck-you arrogance, the lack of fear, were all too familiar. I’d seen them often enough in Danny and Nina not to recognise them.
I’d no memory of my mother. If Charley was my sister, she could answer questions that had haunted me, things I’d wondered about since I was a kid. Today or tomorrow my phone would ring. George Ritchie would be on the other end of the line confirming or rejecting her claim.
Maybe it was better not to know.
From his tone it was clear Oliver Stanford was still smarting from the reminder George Ritchie had delivered. Given a choice, he wouldn’t have come. Unfortunately for Ollie, that wasn’t how it worked. He hadn’t liked his nice car getting done. I couldn’t have cared less what Superintendent Stanford liked or disliked, so long as he did what I was paying him to do.
In sunny Hendon, he’d left off from barbequing sausages to bare his teeth at my uninvited appearance, marching me away from his well-heeled friends before I could embarrass him.
Big mistake.
He was waiting at Fulton Street, standing in the middle of the derelict factory’s concrete floor, hands on his hips, clearly unhappy about being dragged south of the river, and went the surly, unhelpful route, answering only what he was asked, offering no details.
I said, ‘Anything on the gang who turned my place over?’
‘Nothing. Your picture drew a blank.’
‘What’s the word on the street?’
‘There isn’t one.’
‘How hard have you tried?’
‘I’m an officer with the Met, not a fucking magician. It isn’t there.’
He was beginning to irritate me. His next statement told me some of what was really behind his attitude. ‘You stopped my money.’
‘So, it isn’t the car that’s upset you?’
‘That was out of order. Elise could’ve found it.’
‘What if she had?’
‘I don’t want her involved. She doesn’t know what I do and she doesn’t have to know.’
‘How very considerate of you, Oliver. Can’t have Elise in on how the bills get paid, delicate flower that she is. That would never do. She’s pretty bloody good at spending it though, isn’t she? No problems with that.’
Stanford was losing it. ‘Your business is with me. Nobody else.’
‘Then start doing what you’re supposed to be doing, looking out for my interests.’
He was breathing hard, his hands shaking. I’d never seen him so angry. ‘What about the money?’
I sighed. ‘You really are a greedy bastard, Stanford. I’ll pay you what you’re worth to me. At the moment, that’s fuck all. I asked you to check on Mark Douglas and you didn’t.’
The policeman was defiant. ‘Yes, I did. Of course, I did. He’s clean.’
I could’ve hit him for insulting my intelligence.
‘You aren’t serious?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Do you actually expect me to hire a fucking head of security for the whole bloody show… on that? And was I supposed to guess or were you ever going to tell me?’
He stammered, ‘D-Douglas is clean… he’s okay… he’s—’
I could’ve let him off the hook; he hadn’t earned it. ‘Not good enough. Not even close. Put a report together and get it to me today. Any more half-arsed fucking about and you’re out.’
Silence.
His voice changed; a sly smile played on his lips. ‘Not a good idea, Luke. In fact, a terrible idea… for both of us.’
My turn to lose it: ‘Are you threatening me, copper? Because if you are, you’re making the biggest mistake of your sorry li
fe. One of us will win and it won’t be you.’
Stanford backed off. But not all the way. ‘What happened to my car was too public. And it’s costing a fortune in repairs. Naturally, I’m pissed. Are you surprised? Not contacting you after the hits was wrong, I’ve admitted that. But coming to my home in broad daylight isn’t on. Let’s call it a draw and put it behind us. We need each other.’
No, we didn’t. He needed me. Or, more accurately, the cash landing in his offshore account every month.
‘Start earning your corn, Superintendent, or—’
All the pent-up hostility, years in the making, poured out of him. ‘Or what? You’ll kill me? Is that what this morning was about? Because, if it was—’
I said, ‘Go home, Stanford, you’re not well. Time to take the pension and let somebody else have a go before you give yourself a breakdown. I’ve no idea what you’re on about.’
He held out his trembling arm and opened his hand. ‘You bastard,’ he said. ‘You fucking bottom-feeding bastard. What if Elise had found the car and discovered your little surprise?’
Stanford’s sneer was as heartfelt as anything he’d done in his life. ‘It’s in the genes with you people, you can’t help yourselves.’
Sunlight glinting off the bullet in his palm reminded me of the filling in Jonas Small’s ugly mouth and I understood why the policeman was so upset.
Nice one, George.
Nina stood at her window, absently clicking the pen in her hand, nervously biting her lip. Across the river, the morning sun washed the gleaming white limestone of St Paul’s on Ludgate Hill in warm light as the city shucked the weekend off and got back into harness.
