Scaredy cat (13 page)

Use some of his own stock.

The money was all in twenties. He counted it without even looking down. He glanced around the pub which was starting to fill up with the afternoon football crowd, the lads with mullet haircuts and loafers, gathering for the last Saturday before the Christmas break. They would crowd around the big screen TV, drink themselves silly and watch the Sky coverage of the day's games, each of them putting away enough lager to pay twice over for a satellite dish at home. The money, as expected, was all there. Duddridge decided to have a celebratory drink. It had been a nice bit of business after all. A simple referral from someone he knew and a mug punter he could overcharge, one who had no idea he was paying over the odds. He pushed his way to the bar and ordered a Jack Daniels and Coke. He'd sold gear to all sorts over the years, but this one had been odd, no question about it. The bloke hadn't got a clue what it was he wanted for a start. It had all been written down for him, presumably by the bloke who'd referred him to Duddridge in the first place. He said he wanted it for protection of course, which was what they all said, trying to make out like they were just responding to the dangerous times they were living in, but just needing it quickly and not wanting to piss about with licenses and stuff. Right, and people only did smack to see what it was like, because they were writing a book about it. Thing was, with this bloke, Duddridge could almost have believed it. The fucking great idiot had looked scared to death. Most of his customers were a little nervous, but they weren't buying cornflakes, after all. The bloke who'd handed over the fistful of twenties, one of which Duddridge was now peeling off to pay for his drink, he looked like he was going to shit his pants at any moment.

Maybe he did just want it for protection, weirdo certainly didn't look like he could hurt anybody, or want to hurt anybody, at least. It always made Duddridge a little wary selling to people like that. You never knew when it might come back at you. The items he sold were completely untraceable - he had a reputation built on that - but you could never predict exactly what the people who bought them might do. A simple job was fine, they were his bread and butter. He saw himself as someone who sold quality tools to professionals. But there was no accounting for nutters.

Duddridge felt the mobile phone on his belt vibrate. Another customer. He downed his drink and began making his way through the crowd towards the doors. He pictured his last customer doing the same, just a few minutes earlier, moving awkwardly between the tables, clumsy cunt knocking over a drink, one hand flapping for the door handle, the other clutching on to his purchase for dear life. He always made a bit more dosh out of the amateurs, but he didn't really like doing business with them. You could never be certain what you were dealing with. It was always the unassuming punters, the funny-looking ones, the ones whose neighbours were always shocked and amazed.., who you saw on the news, their eyes like puddles of piss, shooting up a playground or walking calmly into McDonald's with an Uzi.

The thought reminded him. Uzis. He needed to talk to his contact in the States, see if he could get his hands on a few. 1999

He shut the door behind him, took off his jacket and slumped down behind his desk. From somewhere down the corridor he could hear raised voices, a door slamming. The temperature must have been well into the eighties; fans on all over the building, the place reeking of sweat and bad tempers. He stared out of the window, perfectly content. He had his own ways of coping with stress.

He reached into his jacket pocket, took out his wallet and removed a small, tattered, passport-size photo. Two young boys, on an afternoon much like this one, pulling faces in a photo-booth. Two boys he used to know, pissing about in Woolworths, more than fifteen years earlier. Now, he bore only the faintest physical resemblance to the smaller of the boys in the photo. Just the eyes, really. He was a world away. He was nearly thirty, and considering the somewhat bumpy start, had achieved a hell of a lot. Anybody would have to admit that. Life was good, he was still on the up, and in Caroline, he seemed to have found the perfect wife. She was someone suitable in every sense, the ideal person to have by his side. They'd met seven years before, during training, and clicked straight away. They found the same things funny, they each had their own interests, and in the five years they'd been married, he could barely remember a cross word. Yes, he felt good about sharing his life with Caroline. Sharing most of his life.

She never questioned the late nights, or the time away from home, or the occasional lack of interest in the bedroom. Perhaps she'd already convinced herself he was having an affair. If so, that was no bad thing. He was seeking excitement of course; it was what he'd always done, but he'd never have found what he needed in furtive liaisons, in the willing arms of some young tart or other. He needed a hit, a high, a buzz. He needed something far deeper and longer-lasting than he could find in simple adultery.

He wanted no part of anything consensual.

He'd always managed to get what he wanted, eventually, and this had been no different. It had become surprisingly easy actually. He was always careful - travelling widely, never repeating himself, taking no chances. Now, if he was being honest, he was becoming a little bored. He wondered if perhaps it went in cycles. Exactly ten years before, hadn't he become bored with who he was? He'd made the decision then to start again, to change everything, to become someone else. Now, he was happy with who he was, who he'd become, but what he was doing, for pleasure, had started to excite him less and less. It was a drug to which he was rapidly becoming inured, and it was not acceptable. It was something that needed to change. Happy with who he was...

There was a knock on the door and a colleague put his head round, pale-faced and sweating, to remind him he was needed elsewhere. He pulled his jacket from the back of the chair and slipped it on. He picked up his wallet from the desk and slid the small photo back inside.

He stared at the credit cards that carried his name. Not his real name, of course, but the name he'd been known by for more than ten years. His real name belonged to someone he'd last seen in a first-floor flat in Soho, a long time ago. If he was walking along the street now, and heard his old name, heard those two words being shouted at him, he'd know he was being shouted at by someone who didn't know him. Someone he'd been at school with...

He looked at his watch. Late for a meeting. His mind racing backwards and forwards in time. Remembering, imagining... Moments later, striding briskly away down the corridor, he reached for his wallet a second time. Smiling, he took out the photo again, and looked at the two young faces.

Fifteen years was a very long time.

EIGHT

Date: 16 December

Target: Fern

Age: 20-30

Pickup: Pub, club, wine bar etc.

Site: TBA

Method : Firearm (prefer not silenced)

Sunday. Thorne's first real day off in nearly a fortnight. Lunch with the old man had seemed like a reasonable idea at the time. A distraction, something to wash over him, a time-killer. Now, driving back down the M 1, he really wished he hadn't bothered. Aside from anything, he was starving. Of his parents, it had been his dad who'd done most of the cooking. Once upon a time, he'd enjoyed it, but his enthusiasm for that, along with everything else, had waned at the same rate as his fascination for pointless trivia and old jokes had rocketed. While Thorne had pushed a lump of overcooked chicken and a few pallid, underdone vegetables around his plate, his dad had waffled on at absurd length about everything and fuck all. He'd quizzed him about what he thought the five top-selling soap powders in the country were, and giggled through countless stories about men walking into pubs. In fact, he'd barely drawn breath for the entire time Thorne had been there, except for a few uncomfortable minutes when, in the middle of a story about nothing, his eyes had filled with tears, and he'd calmly got up from the table, walked through into the kitchen and closed the door. Thorne could do nothing but sit there, hating himself for thinking that he'd have been happier at a murder scene. The big Christmas discussion had never really materialised until Thorne was about to leave, and even then, it was just the usual tiresome dance, a frustrating bit of back and forth on the doorstep.

'So, dad.., are you coming, or what?'

'What d'you need to know now for? It's not for numbers is it?'

'It's only a week away and...'

'Nine days.'

'I just want to know what's happening.'

'I don't know.., it might be good to do something different.'

'Well it's up to you, but...'

'I might go to Eileen's...'

'Right. Have you asked her?'

'Name the last six Prime Ministers...'

'Dad...'

'Blair, Major, Thatcher.'

'Have you asked Eileen?'

'They're the easy ones. Callaghan...'

It was starting to get dark so Thorne flicked on the headlights. He let the Mondeo drift slowly across into the inside lane. The drive home was relaxing him, calming him down, and he was in no great hurry. He turned on the radio and tuned it in to Radio 5 Live. The second half of Ipswich versus Leicester City. Hardly a glamour fixture, but the commentary soon engaged him as he pushed on along the all but empty motorway towards north London. Moving: out of the semi countryside and into the unlovely and reassuring urban sprawl of Brent Cross, Swiss Cottage and Camden. Moving: from one old man's life going slowly down the tubes, to thoughts of four young women who would never even have that golden opportunity. Moving, towards the possibility of more...

Moving, away from an afternoon and towards an evening. They rolled apart from each other and lay there, sweating, exhausted, each of them trying to think of a good thing to say. Something that might help. Eventually, Holland came up with something, but Sophie was already turning over, ready for sleep. The sex had been good, better than good, but then it usually was after an argument. They'd spent the best part of the day fighting, then fucked away the rest of it, trying to pretend the fight had never happened. The row came at them with the slow, graceful horror of a lorry skidding on black ice. With the arse-end of a dull Sunday just around the corner, the boredom had slowly given way to irritation and finally, anger. It was an anger that had been there all the time of course, like a bad smell in a locked room, and, once it escaped, it got everywhere, and into everything. It followed them around the flat, as each of them took turns in chasing the other from room to room, swearing and screaming and pounding on walls. It was still there, all over both of them, two hours later, as they cried and squeezed each other until finally, the kissing began.

Then mouths devoured each other which, only moments before, had ranted and shouted, wounding with words. Some were used far more than others. Work, job, support, wanker, selfish, bitch, children, choice, Thorne...

Sophie's breathing quickly settled into a pattern that told Holland she was asleep, but he knew that he wasn't going to follow her quickly. There were far too many thoughts rattling around in his head. He wondered how much damage each of these weekly sessions was doing to them, and if the money they'd spent, the time and trouble they'd taken moving into a new flat, would end up being wasted. He wondered why, considering that "it was usually the other way round, he still fancied Sophie, but didn't much like her any more. Why, if he still fancied Sophie so much, had he spent most of the time they were making love thinking about Sarah McEvoy?

Jacqui had cooked lunch for seven without a word of thanks. Roast beef and the rest of it, for her husband, her mother and her sister's lot. As ever, by the time she'd finished, she wasn't actually hungry herself. Staring at her face in the dressing-table mirror, changing her mind for the second time about which shade of lipstick to go with, she decided that she'd grab something when she was out. Maybe some of the other girls might fancy a meal afterwards. If she ever bloody well got there...

It wasn't as if she'd expected any volunteers to help clear up, certainly not any of her own useless lot, but it would have been nice. Her sister, as ever, sat there on her fat behind not raising a finger, so by the time Jacqui had washed up and cleared away the mess her sister's horrible kids had made in the living room, she was really late. It wasn't the first time.

For heaven's sake, it was only every other Sunday. One night, once a fortnight, when her and a few of the girls could let their hair down and talk about how shit everything was at home, and then get back to it before half past ten. She'd tried to suggest that maybe, every other Sunday, her sister could have everybody round to her place. The idea had not gone down well, and that had pretty much been that...

Mim stood in her knickers, the iron in one hand, remote in the other, channel-surfing. She stopped briefly when she got to The Antiques Road show. She knew her mother would be watching it, assuming that she wasn't sulking after the row the two of them had just had, or storming around the house taking it out on her poor father. She carried on surfing, setting finally for a documentary about sharks, and went back to ironing her jeans. It had been a row she'd known was coming, ever since term had ended and she hadn't eagerly hopped aboard the first train home. Miriam, how could you choose to stay in that dingy bedsit rather than with your own parents in a comfortable house blah blah blah... ?

She'd tried assuring her mother that she would be home in time for Christmas, but once the tears had started, it had been a lost cause. It wasn't like she didn't want to go home, but quite a few of the people on her course had decided to stay on for a bit and it was a laugh, just dossing about with them, going to the pub every night. She pulled on her jeans and moved hangers back and forth along the clothes rail, looking for a shirt. It was quiz night in the pub and she wanted to get there early, make sure she was on a team with that new bloke in the first year with the nose-stud and the green eyes... Jacqui was ready and waiting on the doorstep by the time her husband had got back from running her mother home. He leaned across and opened the passenger door as she came hurrying down the path. This was their routine. She pulled the door shut, placed her handbag in her lap and the car moved away, beginning their conversationless, ten minute journey to the tube station.