The Ninth Step - John Milton #8 (John Milton Thrillers) (2 page)

THEY SPLIT UP and travelled back to Hereford separately. Hicks had parked his Range Rover a short walk away from Green Lanes. He put his equipment into the back and was underway as the sound of sirens could be heard from the grid of streets behind him. Hereford was one hundred and forty miles to the north-west of London, and the journey passed without incident. The M4 motorway was clear and he made excellent time, shaving fifteen minutes off the usual three-hour duration.

He was on the outskirts of the city, in sight of the illuminated spire of the cathedral, when he heard the first reports of the London shootings on the radio. The newsreader said that three men had been murdered in what the police were describing as an eruption of the violence between the Turkish and Eastern European gangs that ruled the heroin and cocaine trade in that part of north London. There was no suggestion that the police had anything useful to investigate, and Hicks was not concerned. He knew that they had been thorough in their planning, meticulous in the performance of the plan, and conscientious in the clean-up and exfiltration. The general had bestowed a sobriquet on the unit that had proven to be resilient. He called them the Feather Men, on account of their light touch during operations and the fact that they never left evidence that might later betray them.

The unit always met at the Cock of Tupsley. It was a pub to the north-west of Hereford, just off the A438 and a mile before the village of Lugwardine. It was a large white building surrounded by a broad asphalt parking area and a wide lawn. It was owned by a brewery, and, next to a sign that advertised special deals for those who booked their Christmas meals now, they had made a feature of a dray that was loaded with barrels bearing the brewer’s corporate logo. Hicks would not normally have chosen that kind of pub for a social event, but this was not social, and the proprietor was an old friend of the general from the Regiment who guaranteed them privacy and discretion in return for a very small shaving of their profits.

It was just before eleven, and there were two taxis parked next to the main entrance of the pub to collect customers who had enjoyed the hospitality too much to drive. Others headed for their cars and drove back to the city. Hicks parked next to Joseph Gillan’s Maserati, collected his equipment from the back, and walked around to the separate staff entrance at the back of the building. There was a flight of stairs immediately inside, and he ascended these to the first floor. There was a set of toilets up here, together with two function rooms. The unit had the exclusive use of the second of these rooms. It was the smaller of the two, with three six-person tables and chairs, a large fireplace, three armchairs and a window that looked down onto the children’s play area and the pub’s beer garden.

Gillan, Rafe Connolly and Sebastian Shepherd were already there, half-finished pints on the table before them. Their bulky equipment bags were on the floor next to the fireplace. Hicks placed his bag next to theirs.

“Any issues?” Connolly asked.

“None.”

“You see the police?”

“Heard them as I was driving away. I left it clean.”

“Sweet.”

“It was on the news,” Hicks said.

“When?”

“Five minutes ago. They’re saying it was gang related.”

“Suits us,” Gillan said.

“It was clean,” Shepherd reiterated. “They’ll be wasting their time.”

The others indicated their agreement. Hicks slumped down in one of the vacant armchairs. It had been a long day and he realised that he was tired.

“What was it like to lose your cherry?” Gillan asked.

“I
have
done that before,” Hicks said.

“In the Regiment, maybe. But not with us.”

“It was fine,” Hicks said. “The plan was good. You follow the plan, you don’t get problems. We followed the plan.”

“Listen to him,” Gillan said. “Sounds like a veteran already.”

“You want a beer?” Connolly asked.

Hicks was thirsty. “I’d love one.”

“Bar’s downstairs,” he responded with a grin. “Same again for us, too.”

“Come on,” Hicks protested feebly. “I’m done in.”

“New boy gets the drinks. Chop-chop.”

There was no point in putting up a fight. He was the newest member of the unit, and, because of that, he had come to expect a little ribbing. That had certainly been the case. The Americans he had worked with when he was in the Regiment had called it hazing. It was the same the world over. No sense in letting it bother him. He levered himself out of the chair, took his wallet out of his pocket and went downstairs.

GENERAL RICHARD HIGGINS had arrived by the time Hicks returned with the drinks. Higgins had been driven north by Alistair Woodward, and now they had taken two of the armchairs by the fire. Hicks closed the door with his foot and brought his tray of beers to the table. He had bought six pints and distributed them to the men. No one thanked him; instead, Shepherd suggested that he had forgotten the crisps and should go back to the bar to get them. Hicks told him to piss off and get them for himself. Shepherd glared at him, daring him to repeat the suggestion, before he fell back in his chair with a chuckle and told him he was just yanking his chain. Hicks shook his head and sat down with his drink. The men were all experienced soldiers and none of them was younger than forty, but there was still an undercurrent of juvenile humour that was occasionally exposed. The operation had been stressful, and Hicks knew that it would presage a night of boozing. He thought of his wife and kids, miles away in Cambridge, and wondered how quickly he would be able to excuse himself without drawing down more of their abuse for not getting involved.

He looked around at the others. They were all ex-SAS. An observer would perhaps have said it was obvious that they had been involved with the military at some point in their lives—they all had the same firm posture and shared the same banter—but there was nothing about their appearances that would have marked them as special forces men. Joseph Gillan was the largest of them, but even he could have made his way down the high street in Hereford without drawing attention to himself. The others were much as he was: they were of solid build, they wore their hair close to the scalp, they were clean shaven. There was nothing to suggest that they were killers; nothing to suggest that they had just returned from an expedition to murder five men; nothing to suggest that they had more blood on their hands than the blood they had spilled tonight.

The general allowed them to finish their drinks before he told them to be quiet and listen. The others all deferred to him. He had a closely cropped white beard, a lined face and pouches beneath his eyes. He had the coldest and most penetrating stare that Hicks had ever seen. It was as if, when he looked at you, he could see through the deceit and mistruths and divine the pure, unvarnished truth. It was those eyes that made conversation with him so unnerving.

“Well done,” Higgins said. “That was good. Quick and efficient. Did any of you have any concerns?”

They all shook their heads. Higgins nodded, seemingly satisfied. He was an exacting commanding officer, rarely praising his men, and just the suggestion of his satisfaction was valuable. “It was a good haul. Alistair?”

Woodward picked up his bag and deposited it on one of the tables. He unzipped it and pulled out thick bundles of bank notes. Hicks counted forty bundles and guessed that each bundle must have contained five hundred notes. There would be tens and twenties and fifties in each bundle. Even on a conservative estimate, there must have been a quarter of a million on the table.

“We’ll count it up and divide it tomorrow. I don’t need to tell you to be careful. Nothing extravagant. Put it wherever you put it to keep it safe.
Not
the bank. All clear?”

Hicks nodded with the others until he noticed that Higgins was looking at him. He flushed; the new boy was getting special attention again. “Don’t worry, sir,” he said. “I’m not an idiot.”

“I know you’re not. But a big payday like this needs to be handled with caution. The temptation is to go out and spray the money around. Isn’t that right, Shepherd?”

The men looked at Shepherd, their laughter intensifying with his discomfort. Hicks didn’t know any of them well enough to know what the general was talking about, but, from Shepherd’s expression, it was obvious that whatever it was, it wasn’t something that he liked to have brought back up. “Very funny,” he said.

Well, Hicks thought, a joke that
wasn’t
at his expense. He felt like he was making progress.

Gillan leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. “What’s next, sir?”

The general nodded his head to the bags of equipment. “Get the gear put away safely.”

“Yes, sir. And then?”

“There is another thing.” He turned his attention to Hicks. “What are you doing tomorrow?”

He had arranged to take his kids to the cinema, but he knew he couldn’t say that. “Nothing, sir.”

“I need you to drive me.”

“Where to?”

“Back down to London. There’s someone I need to speak to.”

HICKS STAYED for an hour before making his excuses and leaving. It was raining with a fine drizzle as he stepped outside, and he blipped the locks of his Range Rover and hurried across to shelter inside the cabin. He sat there for a moment, composing himself. He looked down at his hands. They were shaking. All that adrenaline, all that juice; now that it was gone, he was left with just the nerves that had been torturing him ever since he had agreed to take part.

He had done it now. He was involved.

He had spent the last two days searching for a way to extricate himself from taking part. But he had known that wasn’t possible. He had been involved in the planning, he knew all of the men now, and the suggestion that he wanted out would have met with a hostile response. The events of the last few hours just underlined his involvement; he had committed himself as soon as he had met Higgins and Woodward and taken their offer. He had resorted to the consolation that he had taken part because he was desperate for the money and had no other choice. He wasn’t driven by greed, like the others. It was fear that pushed him on. He tried to believe that that was true, and sometimes he did. But other times, he found it difficult to ignore the ache in his gut that told him that he had made a mistake, that he had bound his fate and the fate of his family to some of the most dangerous men that he had ever known.

And on those occasions, like now, there was no comfort at all.

“MY NAME IS JOHN AND I AM AN ALCOHOLIC.”

The meeting was held at St Leonard’s, a church on the outskirts of the city of London. The building was located next to the major junction with Shoreditch High Street and Hackney Road. Milton had learned during the first meeting that he attended there that it was the church with the “bells of Shoreditch” that was mentioned in the nursery rhyme “Oranges and Lemons”. It was built in grand Palladian style, with a steeple that soared high above the street and a four-columned, pedimented Tuscan portico, but the interior was shabby and in need of repair, something that seemed endemic to the venues that the fellowship used throughout the city. There were twenty other men and women in the large room, and they welcomed him with the usual, “Hello, John.”

Milton took a moment. He rarely spoke at meetings, much preferring to sit quietly at the back and just soak it all up. They were the most peaceful, meditative gatherings that he had ever found, and he got more than enough by just being here, listening to the stories of the other alcoholics who turned up every Tuesday, week after week. But he
did
want to speak today. One of the most important things about the meetings was that you should share your experience, and Milton was determined to overcome his natural reticence and speak.

“I feel like it’s been a good week,” he said. “I didn’t say anything last time, but I’ve been struggling more than usual the last month or so. I don’t know why. Just one of those times, I know we all have them, when it all seems to get on top of us. Drink, you know. So I did what I always do and read the Big Book and came to my usual meetings. I listened, and then I went home and made myself busy. And I think I’m coming out the other side.”

The woman next to Milton, a lawyer he knew as Marcy, turned her head and smiled. He had plenty in common with her and the others who were present, and those shared experiences made it easier to be frank. There were things he would never be able to speak freely about, of course. He would never be able to tell them why he felt so guilty, the burden of the more than hundred and fifty lives he had taken and the retinue of ghosts who stalked his dreams when he was at his weakest, tempting him with the sure knowledge that the easiest way to drown out their cries was to be found in the bottom of a glass. It meant that he sometimes felt like a fraud in the face of the searing honesty of the others who shared, but that was something that he had come to terms with in the years since he had started coming to the rooms. It was obvious that he was holding back. Everyone could see it. People urged him to be completely honest every now and again, but, by and large, there was understanding. No one pressed. No one judged.

“I was in Australia until a month ago, working, working so hard that I was able to forget the voices telling me to take a drink,” he went on. “It was good for a while, but then it stopped working. I was working on a sheep station. You can probably imagine what that was like. There’s a lot of drink around, blokes going out and drinking every night, and I started to feel tempted. You know how it is: just one drink, that’s all. I can handle it. What’s the harm? I know enough about myself now to know that’s the disease talking, so I left. There was a girl, too…” He paused, unwilling to go too much further down that line; he still thought of Matilda, and what he might have had with her if he had trusted himself enough to try. “I haven’t been back to London for any extended period of time for months. It’s where my problems started. I’ve been running from them. I thought about it, but I decided I was strong enough now. With the Book, with meetings, with other drunks to help me… I thought I could do it.”