59 Minutes (8 page)

‘What did we take last year?’

No preamble. No small talk.

‘10.6 million clear.’

‘And this year?’

‘12’

‘Is that good?’

I thought it was fucking fantastic but it was clear
that he didn’t.

‘Much more and we start to step on toes that will
bring down a lot more heat. Most of our cash is in small amounts. That keeps
the major crime boys off our back.’

He smiled. Cold.

‘Nice strategy. I approve. I reckon twenty five
million tops in
Scotland
before we have to change the way we do things.’

Twenty five. Christ that would be hard work. The organisation
would have needed to double again to get close and that was a lot of organising
and recruiting.

‘Not your worry,’ he said. ‘How do
you fancy south of the river.’

For a second I was lost. South of
what river?

‘Giles is moving north and his number
two isn’t up to it. I don’t see anyone better for the job. That is if you fancy
it?’

I knew who Giles was. Giles Taylor and he ran south
London
. That
meant I had just been offered the second largest patch in the organisation next
to north
London
.

‘Think about it.’

With that he hit a buzzer, the suits reappeared and my
time was up.

On the way back to my hotel my head was spinning. This
was an altogether different scale. I knew
Glasgow
and I could get by with the rest of
Scotland
but
London
was
foreign territory and not without its share of heavy hitters. In
Glasgow
shooters were thin on the ground. In
London
they grew on trees.

This was a different game on a different ground.

In my hotel room I fell back on to my bed and let my
head wander. I suspected this was another offer I couldn’t refuse. Martin was
more than capable of running the operation in
Scotland
and, if I showed a
lack of ambition, or worse, a lack of gratitude, I would get short shrift.

I went for a walk but I knew my time in
Glasgow
was up
and when I got back to the hotel I made the call and said I was in.

I didn’t go back to
Glasgow
that weekend. In fact I
didn’t see
Glasgow
again for near on eighteen months.
London
was a
cold turkey job. There was no induction. Giles pissed off to the north and I
took his seat the day after my meeting at the council house.

I relied on Martin to mothball my homes back north and
keep things going. I had him ship me my clothes and a few bits and pieces. When
the package arrived I realised, not for the first time, that when it came down
to it, I really needed very little of my worldly goods to move on.

I was based in Blackheath in an apartment not far from
the grass. From day one I was Jock unless the person was face to face with me
when I was Sir. I had a learning curve that made going to the moon look easy. I
knew no-one, I knew little of what was going on and my reputation was worth
zip.

For a fortnight I tried to get up to speed and used
what charm I had to try to endear myself to the people I needed day to day.
This failed in a big way. They just took the piss. The final straw came as I
was unwinding over a pint in the local, three weeks to the day since I had
taken over.

Giorgio, my number two - he was the one that wasn’t up
to the main man’s job - a fourth generation Greek with a first generation
accent, was leaning on me for a bigger cut or he was for the off. He knew I
needed him and was striking while the iron was burning a hole in my shirt. He
wanted double what he currently got and since I had the same deal in
London
as in
Scotland
this
would come straight out of my pocket.

I listened and tried to reason with him but the more I
talked the more it sounded like a negotiation. At one point I got up and went
for a slash. The urinals were all occupied so I used a cubicle.

As I let go I heard a familiar voice enter and I
listened as Mike Ashby, Giorgio’s minder, gobbed off about how his pay was just
about to double.

I realised that Giorgio had already pocketed the
increase he was asking for. This was going nowhere good and I needed to act. I
pulled the chain and exited, nodding a hello to Mike who suddenly looked like
he wanted to be somewhere else. I walked up to Giorgio and said ‘Let’s take a
walk.’ He objected but I told him I needed some air to consider his position
and he stood up to follow me out.

It was a clear night and we walked
towards the heath talking nonsense but keeping the nonsense around Giorgio’s
demands and he followed like a lap dog.

We entered the heath and the street lights lost the
battle with the dark. Giorgio wanted to know where we were going but, before he
finished the question, I squared up to him and gave him my best
Glasgow
kiss –
a head butt to the forehead. He went down in a heap and I lashed out with my
foot and caught him in the face. Something broke and he screamed and tried to
get up. I lifted my foot and brought it down on his hand and crunched half a
dozen bones. He howled and, for good measure, I kicked him in the groin.

I bent down, grabbed his hair and pulled his head up.

‘You’re gone by tomorrow. I mean gone.’

How is the clock doing? Not long. I
need to speed up.

News of the incident with Giorgio spread like wildfire
and I was eyed with a combination of suspicion and respect.

Giorgio left
London
- although to this day I have no idea where he went.
I appointed a young lad called Spencer Cline as my number two. This managed to
piss off about half the team I worked with, as Spencer was a new recruit I had
employed on Martin’s recommendation. Spencer had worked with Martin in
London
for a
few years and I needed someone who was loyal to me and not the old school.

I dumped the nicely, nicely approach and went for the
cold heartless bastard approach. I found I was good at it and kicking backsides
was something I seemed to do well.

I re-organised the set up and appointed ten direct
reports, each with their own remit. We met every Monday at
10.00am
and Spencer
was charged with taking the notes. He encrypted them and sent them out on the
Tuesday. This was business and I had a target in my head – make south
London
number
one.

This took balls.
London
wasn’t like
Glasgow
. You could walk a quarter of a mile in
London
and be
on someone else’s patch. You could walk another ten yards and be in your grave.
This was truly Long Good Friday land and, with one mind on how it all finished
for Bob Hoskins, I had to get down and dirty.

I went after local gangs with a simple offer – join or
cease to be. This led to more pitched battles than was good for a man. We fought
where needed and some months we could be found knife in hand, gun in back
pocket for fifteen nights straight. We rattled cages in a big way and we didn’t
always win. But we won enough and a year after I joined we overhauled the north
as the biggest earner.

I didn’t stop there. In less than eighteen months I
was running out of steam south of the river. Most of the gangs that mattered
were either on our side or were gone. Gaining new income was proving tougher.
We set in motion some big jobs but these took time and were risky. So I turned
my attention to the
East End
.

Technically this was north of the river but Giles was
in no shape to tackle it. Unlike myself, Giles had taken a more laissez faire
approach to his new job. After all it was already the biggest so why bust your
nuts trying to grow it. As such he let a mean little fucker called Graham Stern
go unchecked and he was now in control of most everything east of India Dock.

Graham was half German on his dad’s side and couldn’t
have been more at home had he put on jackboots and a swastika. He was psychotic
and like most psychopaths clever with it. Killing was no issue to him, as he
didn’t value anyone but himself and his boyfriend - a circus acrobat called
Helmut that hung around him like a cheap necklace.

Being gay back then still wasn’t acceptable but Graham
had a wife for show and nobody messed with Graham and Helmut. If they did, they
didn’t do it twice.

He worked out of an old mill in Silvertown and lived
in the west end. He started work at six in the morning and was rarely home
before
midnight
. I could see the writing on the wall even if my
co-workers were blind. This boy was aiming for the top but neither Giles nor
the old man seemed bothered. So I decided to go head to head and take him out.

I remember the night we went in. Dark as a fat man’s
sphincter. The cloud cover was full and the moon new. The lighting in Silvertown
was poor. The lateness of the hour was accompanied by a mist that drifted off
the river and settled like a wet blanket on the roads.

There were twenty one of us. All armed and all fully
aware of what we were getting into.

The operation was simple. The same old story - cut off
the head of the monster and let the rest die. We concentrated everything on
getting into Graham’s office and hitting him hard.

At first things went well. The darkness was good cover
and the mist deadened any noise we made. The entrance to the industrial estate
was unguarded and Stern’s office light blazed like a beacon from the third
floor of the old mill. There were two guards at the entrance but they looked
bored and were swigging liberally from a hip flask. By the time we landed on
them they were too drunk to respond and we were in.

I hung back letting Spencer take point. We flooded up
the stairs and into the office and hit trouble.

Our scout had told us there were three or four in the
building but when we opened the door I counted five times that number. We had
the element of surprise but not for long and instead of a quick in and out we
ended up in a fire-fight while Stern fled.

I ordered Spencer and two others to follow me to chase
down Stern. We left the team to slug it out and flew down the stairs to the
sound of retreating gunfire. We caught the taillights of a BMW as it fishtailed
out of the complex. Running for our car we gave chase but, in the mist, it was
a hopeless cause and we lost them.

We cruised for an hour before heading back to Stern’s
office. The fire-fight was over and we had control but without Stern it was a
hollow victory. We leaned on his team but they were either too scared to talk
or didn’t know where he was. I needed to finish this and finish it with pace.

Spencer piped up and suggested we try his home. It was
a long shot but if he was going to go to ground he might try and fly by his
house first. It was worth a shot.

I knew where he lived and, leaving my crew to clean up,
we put metal to metal and screamed through a fog bound
London
.

Stern lived in a mews in the west end and by the time
we got there the fog was taking on the grey of dawn. We stopped at the end of
his road and I saw Stern’s car, engine running and door open, sitting at the
far end.

He emerged with a briefcase in one hand, a screaming
woman dragging her heels in the other. She was dressed for bed and it was clear
that the current Mrs Stern wasn’t a happy bunny. I signalled for the others to
follow me in.

I didn’t care if he got in the car as there was only
one way out and we had enough firepower to bring down a Panzer tank.

He saw us when we were two doors from
his house, leapt into the car and gunned the engine. Without closing the car
door he slammed the car into reverse, and aimed for the middle of the road.

Spencer pulled out his gun and let loose. The rear
window shattered, the car slewed to one side and smashed into the front door of
the house nearest to us. We waited for Stern to emerge but, apart from the
engine racing in neutral, and exhaust pouring into the night there was no other
action.

Spencer walked up to the car door with his gun beaded
on where Stern would exit. He reached the car and looked in. He turned round to
look at me and drew his hand across his throat. It was all I needed to know and
we left as Mrs Stern bore down on the car in hysterics.

The next morning I received a call from Giles. He was
verging on apoplectic as he screamed down the phone. I let him rant and then
hung up. Ten minutes later the boss phoned and asked what the hell was going
on. I told him what had happened and why. He asked me to wait by the phone.