The Graft (57 page)

He clocked his reflection in every shop window he passed. Like Tammy, his appearance was more important to him than anything else. It was also his armour against the world just as it was hers.

He had a lot of money tied up in the blonde with the mirrored shades. Only she didn’t know that yet. When the time was right he would reel her in.

 
Tammy paid her bill, and followed in the man’s footsteps towards the harbour, for no other reason than she couldn’t be bothered to go back to her villa.

She walked over to Sinatra’s Bar. She loved it there, and even though it was quiet during the day, she could usually spot a face or two that she knew and could guarantee a chat if she felt like one. Sitting outside alone, she stared at the boats, enjoying the feel of the winter sun on her face. This was what she loved more than anything, the weather was gorgeous, but at times she did miss the scene from her bedroom window in Essex. Missed the cold, the feeling of being warm and safe inside, while the wind rattled and whistled outside the large house she was finally learning to love.

Laurie Metcalf emerged from the toilet as the waitress brought her a cold glass of Chablis.

Tammy sipped it daintily, then took a great swig. He smiled as he watched her. In a funny way the action drew her to him. He was the same; why have a sip when you could gulp, why have a line when you could have two?

He sat near to her and smiled, ordering himself a glass of red wine, and saying nonchalantly, ‘Do you come here often?’

They both laughed as she gave the correct Essex reply.

‘Only in the mating season.’

He looked her straight in the eye as he said seriously, ‘I thought you was following me.’

Tammy grinned then and he saw the want in her as she answered him with the correct amount of venom, ‘Do I look hard up.’

The quickness of the answer and the way she said it reminded him of exactly what he was dealing with. Instead of annoying him, it pleased him.

He laughed again loudly as he said seriously, ‘Not in them diamonds you don’t, darling.’

Tammy was enjoying herself for the first time in ages. He looked like he could give her a good run around the turf so this was doubly entertaining as far as she was concerned. She liked them with a sense of humour, especially if they could fire it back at themselves. She crossed her legs and her heavily jewelled Jimmy Choo sandals sparkled in the sunlight. They were evening shoes really, but Tammy loved them and her perfectly pedicured feet looked pretty in them. She had good legs and she knew it. She was gratified to see that this mystery man now knew it as well.

‘You look familiar, do I know you?’ Tammy cut to the chase: she was interested in this man, and she knew without a doubt that he was interested in her. If the way he had looked at her legs was anything to go by, she could be home in bed by eight - she allowed a bit of time to get something to eat, she was suddenly starving, and he didn’t know it yet but he was paying.

In more ways than one.

 
The two men had caused a stir on the plane. There was something about them that made them seem different. It was the feel of them, as if the air around them was charged. Even the air hostesses treated them differently. You could feel the violence of them, especially as they had both consumed large amounts of alcohol on the plane. Both were nervous, yet at the same time they were agreed on the course they were determined to take.

Walking out of the Malaga airport into the low winter sun they were met by a large man with a heavy belly, a blacked-out Range Rover and a carefully placed smile.

The bigger of the men called him sweetheart and the man cracked what was for him an obviously painful grin.

The Clarkes were not people you fucked about with - especially Billy and Colin. He had worked for them in a roundabout way on and off for years without ever seeing them face to face. His boss was also working for them. Through them all he had made a good life on the Costa and he was grateful, but he was also wary. It wasn’t often they came all this way to sort out business - that was what people like him were there for in the first place. In reality they should have trusted him to sort it all out.

At the end of the day, though, he had a wife and kids out here. These people paid his wages, but he was nervous, even though he had a decent living and a lot of respect. He also had a warrant out for his arrest in England but thanks to these two, he didn’t need to worry too much about that. Consequently he had to look good in their eyes and he had to deliver whatever they wanted.

He hoped they would get their business over with and go home; he would feel safer when they were miles away. He wasn’t stupid - he knew his boss out here sucked their cocks when they demanded it and that unsettled him, as it would any face on the run. You needed to feel you were untouchable.

Also, he liked old Tammy Leary. Thought she had got a bum deal in a lot of respects. After all that she had suffered with her old man, she now had to deal with the Clarkes. But that was the legacy her old man had left her. He only hoped she was able to cope with them.
He
was a hard case.
He
could take care of himself, have a row. But he wouldn’t want these two on his back for all the tea in China. So what was Tammy going to do with them?

Today, however, he was their guide, their driver and he was determined to make a good impression.

The Range Rover sped off quickly, with no thought for the other traffic.

The man was obviously used to driving in Spain.

 
Harry Benton was suffocating and he knew he was. The water was filling his nostrils and the burning was so painful and uncomfortable, yet he knew it was useless fighting his opponent. As he began to slip into unconsciousness his head was dragged out of the toilet bowl.

Nicholas Leary looked like a demon and his cronies looked at each other helplessly. He was out of control and not for the first time either.

‘You’re a grass, Benton, and no one grasses me, right?’

Harry was incapable of answering. He was too busy coughing up the water and urine that was filling his belly. He spewed it up all over the bathroom floor.

David Harman was keeping watch at the door and he felt his own stomach rebelling at the sounds. Like the others, he regretted getting involved in all this aggravation. It wasn’t funny any more, it wasn’t a lark now, it was all getting out of hand. His father was a barrister and he would skin him alive if he knew about this. But Nick dragged you into things somehow. This had all started as a laugh and now it was getting dangerous and none of them knew how to make it stop.

 
Tammy and Laurie were still dancing around each other at Sinatra’s Bar.

‘So, you know the same people as me then? How come you aren’t part of the crowd any more?’

Laurie smiled, and Tammy was reminded how good looking he was. He was a big man, though not heavy. He had thick blond hair, and even white teeth. She knew a set of porcelain chomps when she saw them and she admired the workmanship. They were perfect and expensive. A bit like her own. He had grey eyes, dark-grey penetrating eyes.

He was easy; easy in his skin, easy around people, and that alone attracted her. He was, to all intents and purposes, his own man. If she had her way, he would be her man, even if only for a few nights. She had an itch and she had a feeling in her bones that he could scratch it, without even breaking through the skin.

She liked him, he was her cup of tea. In fact, she was taking to him more by the second. She liked the way he stared at her before answering any of her questions. He was trying to make a good impression, and Tammy wanted to explain to him that she thought like a man, that she actually had no interest in him at this moment other than how good he was in the kip. Not for the first time, she envied men the fact they could see what they were getting sexually: women had their assets on display, and a decent pair of threepenny bits spoke volumes.

Women, however, had to wait and see what the result would be. More often than not, the results were disappointing, but you couldn’t tell the men that, bless them. They were very touchy about their loins. And she should know, she was an expert on them. Even the most up-front men, the biggest ladykillers, were worried about the size and shape of their tackle. When you finally got a shufti at it, you felt like laughing. But, of course, you couldn’t. The big I am was suddenly the big I
wish
.

And that’s why she liked the younger ones; they still made a decent
stab
at it, were just
glad
to be there, hadn’t got a paunch and to an age where the twenty-year-old beneath them looked suspiciously like their daughters. The older the man got, the more he worried about his performance. And so he should. There was nothing more off-putting than a quick twenty minutes and sixteen stone crushing your ribcage. Most men’s idea of coming was an arrangement to have Sunday dinner with their mothers.

‘What you thinking about?’

She grinned. ‘Never you mind, answer the question.’

Laurie sighed and decided on the truth. ‘I was banged up for a while.’

She nodded, she’d guessed as much. ‘Did you know my old man then?’

He nodded. ‘Who didn’t in our world?’

‘Well, aren’t you going to offer me your condolences?’

He shook his head. ‘Nah. If he was still here then I wouldn’t be talking to you like this would I?’

She grinned again. ’Actually, you probably would, I was never what you would call a
wilting
violet, know what I mean.’

Laurie Metcalf laughed out loud at her words. A real laugh, a proper man’s laugh and people turned towards them at the sound. He was enjoying himself, actually enjoying himself and it showed.

‘Come on, let me buy you another glass of wine, eh?’

She nodded. ‘Go for it.’

He motioned for a waiter as he said softly, ‘Oh, don’t worry, I intend to.’

Tammy was happy. She was in and, unknown to this good-looking darling before her, so was he. As he had motioned to the waiter he had leant back in the chair and she had had a quick look at his package.

She hoped to God he could give her a decent time of it. Christ himself knew she needed one. If only men knew what women really thought about them, they would never again see themselves as the ultimate lovers they thought they were. Women talked to one another, and a few wines unearthed the most mundane of sex lives. And unfortunately, most women had had enough of their old man within eighteen months. Fortunately for the men, the women had too much nous to announce that fact on to an unsuspecting public.

Men were lucky really, their women tried to save them from the truth.

 
‘Look at that fucking place, eh? Nick was a good builder there’s no denying that.’

The bigger man nodded.

Alan Dyson was a hard nut. He was a villain with good credentials and he felt he was past all this chauffeuring. But he was a face, he was on the run and he had to do what he was told. It galled him in some ways, showed him how far out of the game he actually was now. He also felt that Tammy had earned her piece of the action, especially if half of what he had heard was true. He had been a bank robber and an experienced creeper. He had skanked from some of the best houses in Europe. Now he advised people on how to keep people like him out. How times had changed.

The Range Rover was parked outside Tammy’s villa, and it was a sight to see. It was tucked away on its own, with only a smaller, less grand one beside it. That had been Rudde’s and, miracle of miracles, it had reverted back to Leary’s elder son on his death. That was Nick Leary all over, he had never actually given anything away, not really. But then Nick and Rudde had had a lot in common and it made sense for Leary to keep him close.

While Rudde’s villa was decent, Nick’s was over the top. Indoor and outdoor pools, even a cinema. It was out of this world and they looked at it with awe. Tammy was now there all on her Jack Jones and that was foremost in their minds. If Nick had thought for one second that she would be in there alone and with her name on the deeds, he would never have believed it. He would have made provision to see that she never got her expensively manicured hands on it. It would have been a trust for her boys, she would only ever have had the use of it until they came of age. She had never been meant to
own
it, surely? Nick was like most men of their ilk: he had always assumed he would have unloaded her before he pegged it.

Inside, the kitchen was state of the art, the marble in the bathrooms alone had come to over two hundred grand. This was part of Leary’s pension, and now it was left clean but neglected by a woman whose idea of cooking was a burger, and who only used her en suite and nowhere else. It was a crying shame.

‘How much is it worth do you think?’

Alan shrugged. ‘Fortunes. You should see inside it, man. No expense was spared, the cunt went mad when he was designing it. He was caked up with money and at the time this was the place to spend it.’

‘You been in there lately?’

He nodded once more. ‘I provided the alarms, didn’t I, for Siddy? Leary thought he was so clever getting an outside firm from Ireland. But they just sub-contracted it to me as always. I’d already sewn that all up by then. Even now, security is one of the biggest money-spinners in Europe, and I have the monopoly. Too many English out here now, boys. If you’re going to be robbed, nine times out of ten it will be by your own.’

He grinned. ‘It was me who recommended the company to him in the first place. He was back in the smoke when the work was done, you see. I had a moody round there a little while ago; we’ll walk straight in, she ain’t changed nothing. It was when Tammy was knocking about with that fucking Squeak. Right little fucker he was and all. Right lairy. Thought he was the dog’s knob.’

The men laughed.

‘She’s a fucking girl ain’t she. I heard she wore him out.’

The big man’s grin widened. ‘Tammy would knacker anyone. King Dong would have to ask her for seconds out! You’ve had some, or so I heard.’