Take the A-Train (21 page)

I woke Fiona early and she took a bath and we had breakfast, but neither of us had much of an appetite. She went and settled the bill and I stayed in the room and we left. Before we went I took a tab of speed. It was getting to be a habit. There was a man on reception then. He didn’t even bother to look at me. We drove back to Emerson Park. We were there by nine. There was no more sign of life at the Darks’ than there had been the previous evening. I looked at the houses on either side. The one on the right had a light on behind the bullseye glass in the front door and another behind the huge picture window to the left of the porch. ‘Give them a knock, sweetheart,’ I said. ‘Ask them if they know where the Darks are. Tell them you’re a friend of one of the daughters.’

‘What are the daughters’ names?’

‘I don’t know, busk it. Use your charm.’

She pulled the rearview mirror round and examined her face in it. ‘I don’t feel very charming,’ she said. ‘I look a mess.’

‘You look beautiful.’

‘Liar.’

‘I mean it.’

‘I believe you, thousands wouldn’t.’

She left the engine of the Sierra running so that I could keep the heater on, got out of the car and walked across to the house and rang the bell. It opened after a minute but I couldn’t see who answered it from where I was sitting. Fiona was talking and pointing at the Darks’ house, and after thirty seconds or so she went inside. She didn’t come out for fifteen minutes, and when she did she waved as if she’d been visiting old friends. She slithered down the drive and back to the car. ‘Well?’ I asked.

‘I had coffee and biscuits,’ she replied. ‘I sat in the kitchen with Kathy, she lives there, and had a nice chat.’

‘Good for you, and for Kathy. I hope it was fresh coffee. Where’s Dark?’

‘Visiting relatives. Kathy’s looking after the youngest daughter’s hamster.’

‘Very good. When will they be back?’

‘They won’t, not this side of Christmas. The whole family’s going to Marbella on Christmas Eve. They always go away for Christmas.’

‘Last year it was St Lucia,’ I said. ‘Marbella, eh? I think Kathy may have to adopt that hamster.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean Dark’s got the shits. When did they go, do you know?’

‘It was sudden, on Sunday.’

‘I bet it was! He knew I’d got away and had his address. They won’t be back.

‘We’re going at this from the wrong end,’ I said after a while.

‘How do you mean?’

‘I mean that if we want to find out where the coke’s being wholesaled, we need to start where it’s retailed.’

‘Where’s that?’

‘Back in town. I know a geezer who’ll put us right – or I’ll rip his head off.’

T
here are half a dozen pubs round Stockwell that I definitely wouldn’t recommend for a family outing. Hard pubs where strangers are not welcome. But they were the boozers where Malteser hung out, so that’s where we had to go. Malteser is a slippery little Brother with processed hair and little glasses and a craving for coke that was something to be near. I could have busted him any number of times when I was on the force, but he was only a user so I never bothered. I reckoned he owed me one for old times’ sake.

Fiona and I dumped the Sierra on a parking meter in a back street off Stockwell Road around noon. Before we got out of the car I put the baseball cap on again and pulled it right down over my face and turned the collar of the trench coat up until they almost met. ‘Listen, sweetheart,’ I said to her, ‘I’m well known round here, too well known, and I’m not popular. Also I’m wanted, and there’s a good few would be happy to turn me in, to either side. So I’m expecting you to watch my back.’

She tapped her handbag. ‘It’s all right, Sharman. I’m ready.’

‘Can you use that thing?’

‘Don’t be daft. My old man won at Bisley. I inherited his eye.’

I didn’t argue. It would have been pointless. We’d come too far together for that.

Malteser was sitting in the snug of the third German we tried. At least it said
SNUG
on the door in old-fashioned script. Inside it was anything but. It was a freezing room with a broken gas fire and worn lino on the floor. Malteser was sitting with two debutantes you wouldn’t take home to Mother’s unless Mother was on a six-week cruise and you had the place to yourself. The furniture in the bar consisted of two wooden-topped tables and half a dozen chairs, a couple of speakers hooked up to the juke box in the saloon bar and a pay telephone on the wall that was defaced with phone numbers and decorated with dozens of mini-cab firm cards fixed to the wall with drawing pins. Malteser and the two debs were alone at one table drinking Red Stripe out of cans.

I pulled out a couple of chairs from the other. Fiona sat on one, her handbag open on her lap. I asked her if she wanted a drink. She declined. I went to the bar and hollered, and an old dear who’d been nattering in the public came round the bar and poured me a large Jack Daniel’s.

I took it back to the table and sat down. The barrel of the shotgun stuck through the material of my coat like a giant erection. Deb number one checked it out. I checked her out. She was a big girl with nappy hair dyed crimson, half a ton of cheap slap on her boat race, black, skin-tight cycling vest and shorts with a yellow stripe up the side under a fox fur coat, an ankle chain with a gold cross attached and red plastic spike-heeled shoes. Real class.

I didn’t want the women around, just Malteser. ‘What do you say, man?’ I said.

‘Mellow-D.’

‘Get rid of your girlfriends, there’s a love.’

‘You talking about us?’ asks deb number two, who was wearing thigh-length boots with hot pants, a see-through white blouse with a black bra underneath, and a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles. She looked a bit like Janet Jackson on magic mushrooms. Old magic mushrooms.

I took a deep pull of my drink. ‘Has anyone ever told you you look like Janet Jackson?’

‘All the time,’ she simpered, and touched her bins with a handful of bitten-to-the-quick fingernails.

‘They’re lying. Now get out of here, both of you. Half the day gone already, and not a penny earned.’

‘Sez you,’ said deb number one.

I gave them a twenty each and they left. All that remained of them was the smell of too much cheap perfume.

‘I been hearing things about you, Nick,’ said Malteser when the door to the saloon had closed behind them.

‘Like what?’

‘Like you been a naughty boy, and consequently you been moving round.’

‘Yes, Malteser,’ I said. ‘I’m moving round, and it’s Mr Sharman to you. Always was, always will be.’

‘OK,
Mr Sharman
, what can I do for you?’

‘Cocaine,’ I said.

‘Yeah, man?’

‘What’s the score?’

He looked at Fiona. She looked him straight back in the eye. ‘What? You buying or selling?’

‘Neither, but say I was buying – is there any stuff about?’

‘Round here? Get real, man, there’s always stuff about.’

‘I’m talking about good stuff. Maybe very good stuff, cheap and not full of Ajax and shit. Maybe a recent addition to the market place.’

‘Could be.’

‘Tell me more.’

‘Why you want to know?’

‘My business, man.’

‘No, man, my business.’

‘No, man,
my
fucking business,’ I insisted.

‘You been on the mother’s little helper yourself, man?’ he asked.

‘I’ll mother’s little helper you, you cunt! I’m beginning to lose my patience. I’m wanted for murder, you know that? Two murders, three, who cares?’ I pulled the Winchester from under my coat and rested its barrel on the edge of the table, pointing at his stomach. That way it didn’t shake. ‘If I pull this trigger, maaan, they’ll be picking bits of you up three streets away. Now tell me the story and we’ll remain friends, and you’ll remain alive to party with those two babes tonight.’

‘OK, man, cool,’ he said, raising his hands in surrender. ‘I got a good dealer. New money, up market. Not long on the scene. Primo gear.’

‘What kind of place are they dealing from?’

‘A house.’

‘Security?’

‘Nish on the premises, but I hear they got some heavy friends.’

‘Amateurs,’ I said.

‘But getting rich at it.’

‘If they screw with me, they’re fucking rich history. Where?’

‘Just around the corner.’

‘Handy.’

‘We were going round there after we quenched our thirst, the girls and me.’

‘We’ll tag along.’

‘Not a good idea, man.’

‘Yeah, man,’ I said. ‘A real good idea.’ I tapped the shotgun on the wooden top. ‘Think about it.’

‘You could get me into serious trouble.’

‘You’re in that already, Malteser old buddy,’ I said. ‘And this is your chance to extricate yourself.’ I finished my drink and got up.

‘You mind if I make a call before we go?’ he asked.

I wondered if he was pulling my leg. ‘Sure,’ I said, and got up and grabbed the telephone and pulled it hard. It stuck and I pulled again. It came away with a screech and a cloud of plaster and screws and Rawlplugs and a tangle of wires which I yanked out of the wall. I tossed it in his lap. ‘There you go.’

The old dear who’d served me came running round to see what was happening. ‘I’ll have the police on you,’ she shouted.

I grabbed Malteser and dragged him out into the street. ‘Lead on, man,’ I said. ‘And be sensible.’

We walked back to the Sierra. It wasn’t far. Fiona drove, I sat in the back with Malteser who smoked nervously.

‘What you want these people for? You going to turn them over?’

‘We’re going to turn someone over,’ I said. ‘Be sure you’re not around when we do.’

He sat back in silence and smoked some more.

The dealer’s house was on the Brixton/Stockwell border, opposite a council estate. It was big, set slightly back off the road, three storeys, with a garage attached. A burglar alarm was mounted high and prominent above a first-floor window, with a blue light that would flash if the klaxon went off. A satellite dish was fixed to the front wall.

We cruised slowly by. There was a maroon Mercedes with full skirt option and maroon mags parked opposite, nose to nose with an AC Cobra. In front of the garage doors was a new BMW 7-series. Hardly council estate wheels. Unless there was a crack factory in the caretaker’s apartment.

‘Park round the corner,’ I said to Fiona. ‘Out of sight.’

She inched the Sierra round into a narrow street and parked.

I left Malteser in the back seat and got out of the car to talk to Fiona. ‘I’m going in with him,’ I said. ‘You stay here.’

‘I’m coming too.’

‘No,’ I said back. ‘One of two things is going to happen. Either, it’s a wipe and I’ll be back in five minutes. Or it’s a goer and someone will be along to collect me and take me to whoever’s behind all this. If it’s one, no problem. If it’s two, follow us, then when we’re wherever we’re going, ring this number and speak to this guy.’ I’d already written Endesleigh’s name and office telephone number on a piece of paper. ‘If he’s not there, tell whoever is that it’s a matter of life or death you get hold of him. Tell them it’s about me, that should give you some clout. I am wanted for murder after all. When you get Endesleigh, and no one else will do, tell him what’s up, and where I am, and that I’m in dire need of cavalry, quick. Got it?’

She nodded, but she wasn’t happy. I didn’t mention the third possibility, that I might get dead, real quick. But at least she’d be around to blow the whistle and see that I got a decent burial. ‘Nick, I’d rather come with you,’ she said. I think that was the first time she’d ever used my Christian name and I was touched.

‘There’s no one I’d rather have with me, you know that, but I need you out here. Park the car where you can see the house but they can’t see you, and stay awake.’

‘I will, darling.’

‘I know.’ And I kissed her.

‘Be careful,’ she said. ‘I love you.’

I kissed her again and hauled Malteser out of the car, kicking the snow from the gutter off my boots. ‘Let’s do it,’ I said to him.

We walked back round the corner. I held the scatter gun close to my body. We climbed the five white stone steps outside the front door and Malteser pushed the entry-phone button. A voice, it could have been male, female or anything in between, said something I didn’t catch.

‘Malteser,’ he said, and the lock buzzed and we pushed our way in. Bad mistake number one for the home team.

We stood in the hallway and I heard footsteps coming down from above. I looked up and the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, bar absolutely none, came clattering into sight on high, patent leather heels. She had so much black hair that I wondered how she kept her head erect against the weight. It billowed over her shoulders and down nearly to her waist. Her skin was as white as her hair was black and she showed plenty of it. Her black mini dress was cut low front and back. Her legs were bare.

‘Malteser,’ she said. She had a lovely voice, very posh.

‘Amanda,’ said Malteser. She kissed air two inches from each of his cheeks and held him back and looked at him.

‘My dear,’ she said. ‘I’m so pleased to see you.’

It was sickening.

‘Who’s your friend?’ asked Amanda, looking at me as if I were a zit that had appeared on her perfect skin overnight.

‘A friend,’ said Malteser.

‘Is he all right?’

He looked at me, standing there with three days’ growth of beard, dirty fingernails, speeded up to the eyeballs, dressed in a stupid hat and a filthy mac with a 12 gauge Winchester pump hidden beneath it, and said: ‘Of course.’

‘Just a regular junkie,’ I said.

‘You smell of drink,’ she said dismissively, and dismissed me.

‘Pardon me, I’m sure,’ I said.

I noticed Malteser hadn’t introduced us. No grasp of social niceties, see. ‘Is Alistair about?’ he asked.

Alistair! Jesus, I thought.

‘Upstairs with the gang,’ replied Amanda.

‘Not the Purple Gang, I hope?’ I said, bringing myself back into the conversation.

‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand,’ she said. She was fucking polite, I’ll say that for her, and fucking stupid for not searching me.