A Dark Place to Die (33 page)

Maybe he'll start some serious art collecting. The cool stuff. When they've shifted the gear.

'Is it good?' says North. Link knows he's talking about the shipments. 'No damage in transit?'

Link shakes his head. 'It's gold, brother. Pure.' He taps his nose. 'We tried a few lines from each car and it was the best. No word of a lie, the fucking best.'

'Good,' says North. 'I want it to be good.'

Link drives the rest of the way in silence. He pulls in front of the lock-up and dabs his horn. Stefan slides the metal door up and closes it behind them when they're inside.

North shakes hands hurriedly with Stefan Meeks and walks across to the three cars, covered in their soft cotton tarps, keen to see the bounty for himself.

'Jimmy wanted us to get it shifted,' says Stefan. 'Before . . . well, before you arrived.'

'I bet he did,' murmurs North. He jerks his chin at the first car and Stefan lifts the tarp. Just as he did with Jimmy Gelagotis, Meeks opens the boot and pulls back the carpet cover to reveal the white bricks. North sees that one of them has been opened; the one Link tested. Meeks draws out a small box cutter and leans forward.

'Not that one,' says North. 'Take one from the bottom.'

Meeks nods. 'No sweat.' He lifts three bricks out and then three more from the second stack. At the bottom he slides the blade of his box cutter under a single brick and prises it out. North puts out a hand.

'Let me.'

Meeks gives North the brick. He flicks a quizzical glance at Link who replies with an imperceptible shake of the head for Meeks to remain quiet. However the mad Paddy wants to play it is fine with Tony.

North takes out a folding pocket knife and selects a blade. He slices into the brick and digs down into the centre of the white powder. Angling the knife he scoops out a lump the size of a small pea. He puts the blade to his nose and snorts.

'Pretty hot shit, eh man?' says Stefan, bobbing his head.

There's a short pause while North remains stationary.

'Is this some kind of joke?' he says. His soft brogue has slipped back to Belfast staccato. 'Some of your famous Aussie humour? All I heard on the plane was how much you fucks like playing practical jokes.'

Tony Link comes close. 'What the fuck do you mean, Declan? That stuff's pure as!'

'Pure as what? Fecking soap powder?' North holds the brick out to Link. After a second's hesitation he hands him the knife.

Link takes it and repeats the process North has undertaken.

'Fuck!' Tony Link glares at the brick as if it might explode.

'What?' says Meeks, his eyes wide. 'Don't fucking tell me.'

North rips the cotton tarp off the other two Jags and opens the boot of the middle one. He pulls the carpet cover off savagely and digs deep into the pile of white bricks. He rips one open with a finger nail and lifts a dab onto his little finger. He snorts it and immediately kicks the car.

'Fuck, fuck, fuck!'

North takes a sample from a brick on the top pile. It's grade A cocaine. He tries the brick next to it with the same result. In the passenger section of the third car, Tony Link is doing the same.

'Was it you?' says North, his glance darting between Link and Meeks. His eyes have taken on a dangerous green tinge. 'Did either of you two fuckers do this?'

'Fuck, no!'

'Don't be silly, Declan! Think about it. If we'd done this, do you think we'd have brought you here to find out?'

North tries to control his breathing. He places his hands together at the wrists and looks up at the corner of the garage. His eyes are fixed on the angle.

Tony and Stefan exchange quick glances.

After a minute, North unclasps his hands and looks at them. The anger has gone from his voice.

'No,' he says. 'No. I don't think you would have done something as stupid as that, Tony.'

He wanders a few paces towards the cars, his arms crossed in front of him. 'But some slimy fucker has stitched us up. The top layers are all coke. The rest is shit.'

He looks up at Meeks.

'Who knew about this, other than you, Tony and me?'

'A . . . a couple of the lads knew there was something.' Meeks is ashamed of his stumble, of how vulnerable he feels in front of North. 'But they haven't got the balls for this!'

'Or the organisation,' says Link. He turns to North. 'They're solid, Declan. Good fellers but not exactly what you'd call officer material.'

North acknowledges Link with a gesture. He paces up and down the concrete.

'Koopman,' he says, finally. He picks up his knife from the stack of white bricks and folds the blade. 'Fucking Koopman. I didn't see that coming.'

'Who is Koopman?' asks Meeks. 'He one of your lot?'

North doesn't reply. This has changed everything. His empire crumbles in an instant. The coke on the top layer is substantial – North calculates it might be as much as ten per cent of the total, and eighty kilos of cocaine is still a fuckload of drugs – but it isn't enough for King Dec. Christ, with eight hundred kilos a man could become a god. Instead, he's reduced to scrubbing around in the dirt with the rest of the grimy little fuckers. North has seen first-hand in Colombia what serious money means, what eight-hundred-kilo money means. It means buying a country, or a big enough part of it as makes no difference. It's insulation money, get-out-of-jail money, cartel money, King money, money that could be parlayed into an empire.
His
fucking money.

And someone has taken it. Why didn't he think about Koopman? His son is the cunt they barbequed on Crosby Beach. He and Kite and everyone else assumed that Koopman turned up as the Avenging Angel, or some such shit. But what if he was the one who sent White out there? What if Koopman has been leveraging this whole scheme, working Stevie White behind Gelagotis's back? It makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe Koopman and Stevie were going to let Gelagotis step up to The Russian, get the Scousers in on the new arrangement and then move on Gelagotis themselves?

It's a big stretch but the pieces fit together too neatly for Declan North's comfort. Koopman was Stevie White's father and the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.

Koopman has the connections in Liverpool to put a potential squeeze on the delivery.

Koopman is a fucking Australian now, which is where all the trouble has come from.

Every time it's Koopman, Koopman, Koopman.

'This is wrong,' says North. He stands close to Link and Meeks. 'We need to get this stuff out of here, get it sold, get it off our hands.' He looks at Link. 'Where were you going to take it?'

Link glances at Meeks. 'Stef's the mover.'

Meeks scratches the side of his face. 'It was going all over. Sydney, Melbourne, Brissy. You name it.'

'The biggest single buyer?' says North.

'Perth,' says Meeks. 'The bikies.'

North raises his eyebrows.

'They can handle eighty over there?'

'Shit, yeah,' says Meeks. 'Lazarus can shift that amount, no sweat. They were expecting fifty before . . . before, this.'

'That's the contact's name, Lazarus?'

Meeks nods. As he does so, North whips the knife he's unfolded in his pocket and jams the blade up through the underside of Meeks's jaw. It travels through his soft palate and cuts deep into his brain.

Tony Link reacts, but not quickly enough. At North's sudden movement he recoils instinctively and reaches into his jacket. North glimpses the black butt of a gun sticking up from a shoulder holster. He pulls the knife out of Meeks and slashes down across Link's arm. The blade slices into him above the elbow and Link grunts. Link swings an ineffectual left at North and staggers against one of the Jags. Blood splashes on the tarp. North moves closer as Link manages to get his left hand on his gun. But he's coming at it wrong, from the other side, and he fumbles. North headbutts him, breaking his nose, stabbing him almost
simultaneously in the belly. Backed up against the car, Link drops the gun and North rams his blade into Link's ear. Link screams and North stabs him again, this time driving the knife down into the man's exposed neck. Link drops to one knee and flaps ineffectually at North's wrist. North steps back as blood arcs from Link's neck and splashes against the side of the nearest car. The man falls twitching to the floor of the lock-up, his eyes wide and bubbling sounds coming from his blood-streaked mouth.

North moves out of range and waits for Link to die. Then, like a man negotiating rock pools, he steps closer and pulls the corpse away from the Jags using his collar, the man's blood leaving a fat red smear across the concrete.

Lying slumped against the rear wall of the lock-up, Stefan Meeks is still alive. Just. Taking care not to get any more blood on his clothing or shoes, North walks across to him and stabs him in the heart. Meeks clutches the air spastically and then lies still, his head against the wall, pushing his chin down onto his scarlet chest.

The lock-up is silent.

North takes a moment to control his breathing.

The instant North found out about the missing cocaine, Link and Meeks were dead men. He knows it's unlikely either of them had anything to do with the double-cross. If that was the case, they'd have little to gain from bringing him to the lock-up. His reasoning runs like this: if Meeks or Link, or both, took the cocaine, the next logical step was to kill North. He was the connection back to Liverpool, and North knows they would never have brought him in here if they weren't completely confident the cocaine was in its rightful place. And once North knew the best destination for the coke – Perth – and had a name – Lazarus – Meeks and Link simply became witnesses or, if you wanted to be
mercenary, men who would need paying. And with ninety per cent of his shipment missing, Declan North is in no mood to cut two miserable Aussies in. With eight hundred kilos to distribute, their contribution was vital and their cut bearable. With eighty, they were expendable.

Now all that's left is to clean up.

North rolls Link onto his back and finds the keys to the Lexus. He checks his own clothing for obvious signs of blood and moves to the door. He lifts the metal roller and looks outside. The lot is empty, baking in the heat of a Gold Coast morning. He walks quickly to Link's Lexus and drives it into the lock-up, closing the door behind him.

Next he strips the tarps from the Jags and balls them into a corner. Then he strips nude and places his clothes on the car furthest from the blood. He carefully lifts out the cocaine and checks every brick. Whoever replaced the coke used chalk, making the fakes easy to spot. The authentic bricks are shifted to one side of the lock-up, the fakes crumbled into the back seat of the middle Jag. Eventually, North has found all the cocaine in the first Jag. He wipes his brow and repeats the process with the other two cars. The whole thing takes him well over an hour.

Satisfied he has all the cocaine, he loads the genuine bricks into the unmarked Jag.

Then comes the awkward bit.

He walks across to Link and heaves him into a sitting position. He lifts Link's gun from his holster and places it in the Jag containing the cocaine. North returns to Link and lifts him from behind. With his arms under his armpits, North levers him into the middle of the three Jags. He puts Meeks in the back and breathes deeply. His body is coated in sweat and blood, chalk and cocaine residue; a
nightmare vision. He finds a litre bottle of mineral water in the Lexus. Using a section of untouched tarp, he cleans his face and hands. The rest can be covered until he has a chance to properly clean up back at the hotel.

Now North gets dressed. He replaces his clothes and checks himself in the wing mirror of the Lexus. He will pass.

North rips three long strips from another section of tarp. He opens the petrol tank of the Lexus and forces the strips inside. Once soaked, he puts a strip into the tank of two of the Jags and leaves one in Link's car. He opens the lock-up door and reverses the Jag containing the cocaine out into the sun. He goes back into the lock-up and closes the door one more time.

He produces a lighter and lights each of the rags. When they're flaming he opens the lock-up door and quickly closes it behind him. Unhurried, he gets into the Jag and pulls out of the lot and onto the road, pointing the car back towards Surfers. He waits patiently at a set of lights about fifty metres from the perimeter of the lock-up.

The first car explodes as the lights turn green. North presses the accelerator and his rear-view mirror fills with fire.

It takes him twenty minutes to get back to his hotel, the one organised by Tony Link. North checked in under a false name and, naturally, Link paid the tab. North parks the Jag on a side street, his mind rearing up at the unpalatable thought of leaving eighty kilos of coke parked in the middle of Surfers Paradise. But there's nothing else for it. He doesn't want the Jag caught on hotel CCTV.

North crosses the lobby and goes to his room. He showers thoroughly and changes into fresh clothes; board shorts and t-shirt. He puts sunglasses on his forehead and
thongs on his feet, turning himself from businessman to pale-skinned tourist.

He cleans the room, taking particular care to wipe surfaces he may have touched. Then he takes his suitcase to the lift down to the basement car park, avoiding the hotel lobby. He exits, walking, less than half an hour after coming back. He puts his suitcase in the thankfully unmolested Jag and drives to the back-up hotel, where he parks in the secure underground garage.

Job completed, North sits on the bed and looks at the slip of paper Link has given him, the vein pulsing in his temple.

Koopman is up to his neck in this.

57

It's over.

It stands to reason. With Kite dead, it's obvious to Koop that whoever killed him has moved a few rungs up the food chain and taken over whatever deal Stevie was involved with. It sounds very much like the same thing has happened in Australia, if what Keane told him about Gelagotis is accurate.

A feeding frenzy. Blood in the water.

Koop's seen it before in Liverpool at first hand. The money getting bigger, the temptations greater, and the young sharks circle, looking for their bite out of the carcass.