The Hit List (16 page)

Slater felt a slow fuse of anger begin to burn.

'Pull your top down, Bethany,' he said quietly, moving the girl's hands away from his groin. 'I want you and your friends out of here.'

She stared at him. Suspicion clouded the thin features. 'Are you's going to fuck us or what?'

'Listen to me, Bethany--'

'Gi'us another twenty, you can go up me arse.'

There was a short but definite scream from the lounge. Bethany frowned, as if she dimly recognised the sound. Slowly she pulled her cheap spandex top down.

'Listen!' Slater told her, furious with himself for allowing the situation to develop this far. 'There's something I've got to look after. I want you to wait here, OK?'

There was another scream, followed by the sound of a hard slap.

Bethany nodded, but looked as if she was having trouble understanding his words. 'You'll say you fucked us, yeah? So they don't ask for the money back, like?'

'Don't worry about the money,' said Slater urgently. 'Just wait here, OK?'

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She looked at him blankly and nodded. There were six men in the lounge. One of the girls, naked, was bent over a heavy glass-topped table. From behind her Ray Gedge pounded into her, his trousers round his ankles. At intervals he wrenched her head up by the hair and slapped the side of her face. Her nose and her mouth were bleeding, and she was crying. Two other men, appreciative spectators of this scenario, stood at her side.

The other girl, also naked, was bent over Ossie Oswald's lap. Her hair was pulled taut between his fingers. As Slater walked into the room Berendt's partner Don Parry was unzipping his trousers behind her.

From the room's deepest armchair, a seven-inch I Macanudo cigar clamped between his lips, Howard |Berendt surveyed the revels.

Without saying a word Slater sauntered across the froom, collected a heavy onyx table-lighter from a Idisplay-case, walked over to Ray Gedge, hefted the Bighter briefly in his right hand, and swung it full force ito the hinge of the casino-manager's jaw. A look of stupefaction crossed Gedge's face as he to his knees. Amazed, he watched as several jjloody teeth fell from his mouth to the white carpet. Attempting to articulate his broken jaw a moment Wer, he fainted.

Leaving Gedge where he was, Slater crossed the 3om to Berendt, took the smoking cigar from his resisting fingers, and approached Ossie Oswald.

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Eyes widening in terror, Oswald pulled his rapidly deflating penis from the teenager's mouth, disentangled his fat fingers from her hair, and made desperate moves to fasten his trousers. In no apparent hurry, Slater kicked Oswald's knees from under him, and as the grovelling accountant attempted to right himself, ground the glowing coal of the cigar into the hairy junction of his buttocks.

Scrabbling at his anus, Oswald screamed and writhed. Don Parry, mutely shaking his head, raised both hands above his head in terrified surrender. Howard Berendt sat frozen in his armchair.

'Get dressed!'

The girls both appeared to be in shock.

'Get dressed!' Slater repeated, and slowly they began to gather their clothes from the carpet.

'Does Kat stay here?' Slater asked Berendt.

Berendt nodded.

'Go and get some clothes,' Slater ordered. 'I want jackets, trousers and sweaters - the best she's got. As for the rest of you rapists and conspirators-to-rape, I want cash on the table. We're going to have a collection for these children. Anyone disagree?'

He looked around the room. Gedge was still unconscious on the carpet. Oswald, tears running down his cheeks, was agonisedly pulling on his underpants. Don Parry was undergoing an attack of the shakes. No one disagreed.

Slater took a wallet and a handful of cash from each of the six men. One - an enthusiastic spectator of

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Gedge's sadism - hesitated for a moment before handing over his money.

'Give it to me,' said Slater quietly, weighing the heavy table lighter in his hand. 'Or I'll break your fucking jaw too.' The man nodded.

In the end there was over 600 pounds on the table. When the weeping, bloody-nosed girl had dressed herself, Slater dispatched Don Parry to clean her up in the bathroom and called Bethany to come out from the bedroom. The third girl, eyeing Oswald with loathing, took a swig of malt whisky, gargled, and spat the result on to the carpet.

When Berendt returned with an armful of Kat's clothing, Slater allotted each girl 200, pounds a cashmere sweater, a pair of leather trousers, and a coat.

'Range Rover car keys, please,' he demanded. Terrified, Oswald produced them from a pocket.

'This isn't a good idea, Slater,' said Berendt levelly, I the first vestiges of colour returning to his sallow I cheeks. 'You'll never work in London again, I can [promise you that. And what the fuck you hope to [accomplish for these little scrubbers is totally beyond line. The clothes and the money will go straight back to |some smack-dealing nigger and that'll be the end of it.' 'You know what I'd really like, Howard?' 'I expect you're going to tell me.' 'I'd really like to know what you're going to tell

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Easing the Range Rover into third gear, Slater turned into the Edgware Road. The girls - who must have seen a thing or two in their young lives, Slater reflected - were beginning to find their voices.

'This is class fuckin' gear,' said Maxine, the oldest of the three, running her hands down the front of her new thousand-pound shearling coat. Bethany, for her part, was counting and recounting her wad of cash. Chanelle was still dabbing at her bleeding cheek.

'You're sure?' said Bethany to Slater. 'You don't even want us to gob yer off?'

'The fuckin' mouth on her,' said Maxine.

They drove on. They had been picked up, Bethany had told Slater, at King's Cross station.

'I suppose you're gonna tell us the deal's off with the money and the clothes if we don't go back to our parents and that,' said Maxine.

'There's no deal,' said Slater. 'What do you want to do?'

The girls looked at each other.

'I've got a mobile,' said Slater. 'Anyone want to ring home?'

There was a long silence.

'Give us it,' said Bethany.

'Don't be so fuckin' simple!' shouted Maxine. 'You know who's going to be waiting for you, soon as we get to King's Cross? Lennie.'

'Lennie's your pimp?' asked Slater.

'He's my boyfriend,' said Maxine.

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'Lennie needn't be a problem,' said Slater quietly. 'I could have a word with Lennie.' 'He'd fuckin' kill yer.' 'I don't think so.'

'This is bollocks,' Maxine muttered. 'Stop the car. Stop the car!'

Slater braked. They were outside Madame Tussaud's in the Marylebone Road. Maxine threw open the Range Rover door and grabbed Chanelle's coat. 'Come on, Sha, leave yer face alone and get the fuck out. He's a fuckin' nutcase, this one.'

Wordlessly, Chanelle stumbled out of the car. * 'You're a fuckin' nutcase!' Maxine screamed, i slamming the door. ' Wanker!'

Bethany watched them go, and then climbed into I the front seat next to Slater. 'Where to?' asked Slater. Til have to stop at the station.' 'Why?'

'I have to give Lennie that money. Maxie'U tell him 'we got it and if I don't hand it over he'll really hurt ier.'

Slater pulled out from the kerb. 'Like I said, I could ave a word with Lennie.' 'Please,' said Bethany, urgency contracting her

>w features. 'He's got what I need.' 'How long have you been using?' 'Please,' repeated Bethany.

The blur of the London night swung past the loked-glass windows.

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Slater parked the Range Rover on a double yellow line in front of the station. Almost immediately he saw a black man in a leather coat pushing his way towards them.

'Thank you,' whispered Bethany. Leaning towards the driver's seat she touched her thin, papery lips briefly to his, then climbed from the car.

Slater watched her go. He left the Range Rover standing there with its headlights on, and tossed the keys down the nearest storm-drain. In the distance he saw Maxine and Chanelle climb out of a black cab, laughing.

Despair, or something very like it, washed over him. This was the bottom of the fucking barrel, and no mistake. How much lower could he go than acting as minder to a criminal? It seemed that he was about to find out - Berendt would make sure that Duckworth felt the full force of his displeasure.

Even if Duckworth believed his side of the story rather than Berendt's, Slater knew that he was finished as a bodyguard. You couldn't physically attack your clients just because you disapproved of their behaviour. He'd be blacklisted - there wouldn't be a security agency in London that would take him on.

Fuck them all, thought Slater. Fuck every last fucking one of them.

Turning away from the lights of the station he stalked off in search of a pub.

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SEVEN

I'Slater woke to dusty sunshine. Blinking, he looked | around him. He was on a camp bed, in a sleeping bag. |a steel desk and filing cabinet stood against the I opposite wall. An electric clock gave the time as 10am. It was the ringing of the telephone on the desk, fSlater realised, that had woken him. Was it for him? Shrugging himself out of the sleeping bag he reached 3r it. It was Eve.

'Neil. Good morning. How's the head?' 'Not too bad,' Slater told her, 'all things considered.' 'Good. I'll call for you in an hour. We're going swn to the country to meet the boss. If you're up to reakfast I recommend the Cabin Cafe in Neave ?assage, fifty yards down the road to the left.' 'At the risk of sounding very stupid indeed,' said iter, 'where the hell am I?'

'Nine Elms Lane, SW8. If you look out of the idow you'll see the fruit and vegetable market. The jront door key's on the desk in front of you, the fctterpad code is BASRA. See you in an hour. If you to the Cabin I recommend the bubble and squeak.' The phone went dead.

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It had been a long night. After dropping the girls at King's Cross station Slater had found himself in a pub in the Caledonian Road. The pub had filled up as the night wore on, and he had found himself drawn into the beery embrace of a local women's football team. By llpm, sadly, the Barnsbury Bantams had left, and Slater's ear was being bent by a party of carp fishermen from High Wycombe. At 11.30 the landlord had locked the doors, and it was at that point

- Slater was drinking Red Stripe with whisky chasers

- that time and events started to blur. What was certain was that shortly after midnight he had rung Eve's mobile and suggested that she might care to join the party.

She'd arrived forty minutes later, by which time the landlord had thrown everyone out. She found Slater sitting on the pavement, nursing a final can of Red Stripe.

'Is this how it's going to be?' she'd asked him drily. 'You only ring me at closing time on Friday nights?' She was wearing a midnight blue evening dress, and looked considerably more glamorous than he remembered her.

'I'm sorry,' he had said, struggling to his feet. 'I didn't mean to ..."

She shook her head. 'It was an official thing. I was leaving anyway.' She beckoned him to her car, an anonymous-looking BMW. 'So, what did you have in mind?'

He looked down at his crumpled trousers and

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|scuffed Ferragamo loafers, realised just how dishevelled jhe looked. 'Can I, um, tempt you to a drink of jtiomething?'

'I could go for a coffee. I'm driving tomorrow I'jnorning.'

They ended up at the Bar Italia in Soho. A boxing Ijnatch played on the TV screen. They ordered large ijespressos.

'So, is this just a social call, Neil?' Eve asked him, Isettling the folds of her skirt around her stool. 'Or . . .'

'You know why I'm calling you.'

She raised her eyebrows. 'Do I? Tell me.'

He told her. Told her that he couldn't kid himself ly longer, and that bodyguarding was - not to put too ine a point on it - a total load of shite. Told her that ivilian life was driving him out of his mind. Told her

it he wanted to be operational again.

'Is this the Special Brew talking?' she asked him.

'No. And it was Red Stripe, anyway. And a couple

"measures of Bell's. Let me tell you what happened i evening. Have you heard of a man named Howard

erendt?'

He told her the story. She enjoyed it, especially the |dea of Berendt looting Kat's wardrobe to dress the trio if underage prostitutes.

'But that apart,' she said soberly, 'it's all pretty epressing. You didn't honestly think you could

inge anything for them, did you?'

'I suppose not,' said Slater.

'And there isn't going to be any come-back, is

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there? You didn't damage any of the punters too seriously?'

'No. They'll have to wire Gedge's jaw and Oswald won't be sitting down for a couple of weeks but that's about the limit of it. Berendt might hire a couple of big lads to come looking for me, I suppose, but I can't say I'm exactly quaking.'

She nodded. 'And you're positive you want to join the department? You didn't seem very keen last time I met you.'

He shrugged. 'Andreas was right. I am what I am.'

She looked at him hard, and nodded. 'OK, here's what we do. You don't go home tonight; instead I take you to one of our safe houses. Tomorrow, if you're still interested, you meet Mr Ridley.'

'So where are we going, exactly, to meet this boss of yours?' he asked as they sailed down the M3 in Eve's BMW.

'Not too far,' she smiled. She was wearing jeans and a tweed jacket. A well-worn Barbour coat lay on the back seat. Slater lay back with his eyes closed and allowed the warm breeze to pour in through the sunroof.

'And Ridley isn't the boss, in fact, he's the ex-boss. He's retired from the service now. He practically invented the Cadre, though, and spent most of his career running it, so he ... he takes a continuing interest. It's just a courtesy thing, really, but we always introduce potential new people to him. He likes to run