The Outsiders (32 page)

He said, ‘How do I get back? Call a fucking taxi?’

Rafael said that whatever transport he needed would be found for him. He drove away, and recalled from childhood the story of Icarus, which he had told as a cautionary tale to his own children.

He lounged in a chair with the beer he had been given. ‘I’m sure you understand better than most, Mr Ivanov, that business can be contrary at the best of times . . .’

The man opposite him said little. Each time Tommy King finished a sentence, there was silence.

‘It can be good and you make a killing, or it can be bad and you have to shrug it off.’

The quiet pauses between what he said, then elaborating on it, emboldened him. He wore, that day, a pair of shiny patent shoes with only one bad scratch across the right toecap. If the
Santa Maria
had come in to Cádiz, and not had half a fucking navy round it, they’d have been straight in the bin. He had worn a casual shirt, ironed but clean, with last year’s designer jeans, bought this year on a good discount. His hair was not as he’d have wanted it and his shave had been superficial. But the beer calmed him, and the chair was comfortable, and Mr Ivanov seemed ready to hear him out.

‘I’m not comfortable at the moment. There are opportunities out there for me, and I’m optimistic, but right now I’m short. I put all I had into that boat . . . I don’t want any misunderstandings, Mr Ivanov, and I’m confident you’re a reasonable man and will see this as I see it. You made an investment. Things can go up or down. You with me?’

The silence unsettled him – made him babble.

‘You’d see that there’s a difference between an investment, what you did, and offering me a loan. You appreciate that?’

The Russian’s eyebrows rose briefly, but he said nothing. Sometimes they were alone in the room, and sometimes his goons flitted across the floor, their feet slithering, like snakes. Tommy King prided himself on insights into character, reckoned he read personality – not like his uncle, who was played out and living off the past. He thought Pavel Ivanov had gone soft on the good life, and his two minders. Had Tommy King been questioned by a skilled interrogator it would soon have become clear that he had little knowledge of what was required of a man in Perm, Ekaterinberg, Murmansk, Novosibirsk or St Petersburg to rise to the top of the heap. He would have assumed that there had been successful rip-off transactions and that Ivanov had bunked out with his money and chosen a good life. He had little knowledge of Serbians in exile – knew of their reputation as enforcers, but was short on the detail of what had been done in Croatian villages or where Muslims had lived in Bosnia-Herzegovina. This pair seemed little more than servants. One had escorted him respectfully into the villa, and the other had brought him the beer. He did not know that his fate had been decided.

‘It was an investment and I put the proposition to you in good faith. I suppose we shake hands and walk away, unless, of course, you know . . .’

He’d thought it through. He had plenty to offer: he was smart, had good street connections, could drive. He knew the dirt of the deal, and could – if nothing better were on offer – implicate this man. Not something that had to be said – too fucking obvious.

‘You see, Mr Ivanov, I’m not sure where the next meal and the next bed are coming from. There’s Mikey, but he lives in a rabbit hutch. I can’t do business from there, and I’m short of a float. There are mad Irish after me and I have to move off my patch. I need protection, Mr Ivanov, and some cash . . . short term.’

His fate was now confirmed. The eyes opposite him questioned.

‘I could do things for you, Mr Ivanov. Work for you. Anything you wanted done.’

His offer made Pavel Ivanov ponder. Tommy King heard the  feet on the move behind him, and ignored it. He sipped the beer. It was a fine room. For the first time since he had been led into it, he took an opportunity to look around. The paintings on the walls, framed in chrome and modern, looked good and the chair he was in was bloody comfortable. He thought Pavel Ivanov was weighing whether or not to take him, use him, and give him protection from those Irish bastards. Ivanov gave a little nod, and Tommy King smiled. He reckoned the deal was clinched. He didn’t hear the footsteps come nearer. He was hit – hard.

The blow caught him, from behind, on his right shoulder, near to the back of his neck. Might have been a cosh or a pistol butt – half paralysed him. He was pushed forward and the pain surged. A hand caught at his collar and he was dragged, then thrown on his face on the tiles. He tried to kick, but a weight settled on him, and he smelt garlic on someone’s breath. His legs were bound together at the ankles and the strap was tightened.

A misunderstanding?

A chance to cut a deal?

They came from the back of his mind, where he kept things best forgotten: stories of the Russians, their cruelty. He was going to scream. His arms were behind his back and another strap held them. He was trying to kick and swivel, without his arms to help him. He had the breath to scream and his mouth was wide. A pair of hands had his shirt and his hair and yanked him backwards. The other pair forced a gag of rolled cloth into his mouth, drew it tight below his ears and knotted it. More material was stuffed into his mouth, and he tried again to shout but couldn’t hear himself. He heard nothing. The Russian, Pavel Ivanov, stared down at him, impassive. He showed no contempt, no anger, no hate . . . and no mercy.

One Serb went outside, through the glass doors.

Tommy King followed him with his eyes, watched him go further into the garden, which was pretty with flowers, and dominated by the cliff at the far end. There were high shrubs and undergrowth against the stone. He heard an engine start up, cough, harden, then idle. The two men took hold of him, and dragged him by the feet.

He went by the Russian, Pavel Ivanov. No tilt of the head and no drop of the eyes . . . as if he did not exist. One man grasped the strapping on his legs and the other his trousers by the ankles – his belt wasn’t tight enough to anchor them at his waist. He pissed on the tiles, his face bumped on the step and his nose bled. They twisted him over. Maybe they didn’t want his piss on the floor and his blood on the patio. Then he was on the grass. He could have driven to the airport, dumped the car and got on a flight to – any fucking place. He had heard about Russians, forgotten it, remembered it now: they didn’t just dispose of people, they hurt them first. They took him towards the engine and he could see clear blue sky above him. Once he was able to turn his head and through the trees he caught a snatch of a roof with a dormer window.

The engine was louder and he started, again, to fight.

Posie squealed. Just once. Then he heard a muffled shout.

He went up the stairs, burst in.

She was back from the window and staring out. Sparky had hold of her and his fist was across her mouth. The other hand was under her arm and supported her, but tightly so she couldn’t move. Snapper had the camera up and used the view-finder, not the screen, as he whispered a commentary. Loy was at the table and wrote in the log. Jonno was stopped in his tracks by Loy’s wave, dismissive: stay back, don’t interfere.

Snapper said calmly, no emotion, ‘Target One, Ivanov, hasn’t appeared and I can’t see him from my angle near the window. The Serbs have the victim – I’m calling him V for Victor. The Serbs are Alex and Marko, those names based on what we’ve been told by an occupant of Villa Paraiso. It was Marko who came out and started the chipper. They’re taking Victor to the chipper, pulling him along the ground. You getting this, Loy?’

‘Getting it as you say it, Snapper.’

‘We’ve never seen anything like this, Loy.’

‘Never, Snapper. Too right.’

‘They have Victor pinioned at the ankles and upper arms. His wrists are tied and he’s gagged. He’s fighting for his life. One of them, I think it’s Marko, has let go of him and gone ahead. He’s fiddling with the chipper!

Every few seconds, as he talked, Snapper took pictures – he had the big lens on. Sparky’s grip on Posie was looser and she had turned away from the window. Now she buried her face in his shirt. He pushed himself in front of her, behind Loy and the table, and was wedged against the side of the bed.

Jonno saw that Victor was some ten yards from the machine. Marko was at the controls and turned up the power, then went round to hook a black plastic bin bag over the exit vent – as he would have if they were collecting dead foliage and branches to turn them into mulch.

Snapper went on, ‘I can’t see the make of it. Obvious that it’s petrol driven, probably fifteen-horsepower engine. I said he was fighting for his life, but there’s not much he can do. He’s trussed up like a turkey. He can move his head and his hip, not much else. God, he’s gone frantic. Isn’t going to do him much good, not where he’s going . . . Sorry, Loy, I think we’ll do without that.’

‘Yes, Snapper. Line through it.’

Jonno asked, ‘Can’t somebody do something?’

Loy looked at him as if he’d crapped on the carpet. Posie kept her face hidden. Sparky had his arms around her, his hands locked behind her head.

Snapper said, ‘What do you suggest we do that might save Victor’s life?’

‘Something – anything!’

‘If you don’t know, best say nothing. You all right, Loy?’

‘Fine, Snapper.’

‘Good boy. Right, Loy, picking it up. He’s fighting, he knows what’s happening. They don’t shoot him first, or knife him, or hit his head with a lump hammer. He’s going in live. He’s—’

‘I know him,’ Jonno gasped. ‘I’ve seen him coming out of a club on the promenade. A gunman came right in front of us. Aimed at him, but tripped. Had his back to us, but saw the target. It was him. He had a girl and drove off and—’

‘What did you do, Jonno? Something or nothing? They’re lifting him. Pavel Ivanov is at the garden door. He doesn’t help. Going in feet first, fuck me – watch my language, Loy. Poor bastard. He’s going in. They’re pushing him.’

Snapper held the camera in one hand and made the sign of the cross over his chest. Then he had the camera up again and might have gone on to automatic. Posie threw up on Sparky’s shirt. The tip of Loy’s pencil broke and holed the sheet of the log. Jonno clamped his eyes shut.

‘He’s gone. It’s killed him – they’re pushing him through. That is some machine and it’s handling him. I think I’ve heard of that, Loy, Russians using chippers. Didn’t a chap come and talk to us?’

‘And drills, Snapper. Not in the knees, like the Irish, but in the skull or the eyes. He said that.’

‘He’s going on through and into the bag. Jonno, you’ve had plenty to say since we pitched up. Now it’s my turn.’

Jonno nodded grimly.

Snapper said, ‘His head’s gone. All done and dusted. As I understand it, you said to Loy, who is an experienced and conscientious officer— What was it, Loy?’

Loy was primed, ‘He said, Don’t you have work to do? Does it get to be a habit, getting into people’s lives, putting in the log book who’s blown their nose, who’s screwing someone else’s girl?’

‘Thank you. While you were fucking about, Jonno, with that crap about the rights and welfare of your mother’s sort of uncle, we were dealing with major criminals. We look after fraud cases that run to millions, drugs investigations. We watch meetings where public servants are corrupted. We try not to use houses where there are children, and we never do houses with dogs. Children talk at school and dogs bark when we change shift. You, Jonno, are a bigger pain than the dogs or the children. What you saw was up the ladder of criminality. Likely it was about a turf war, or respect, or a debt going unpaid. We call that ‘‘blue on blue’’, which is criminal on criminal. It’s less important than hitting the target we’re looking for, getting the Spanish police swarming all over the bloody place and nicking a big man who makes this lot seem pygmies. What did you think I was going to do? Put my head out of the window and shout that I was a detective constable from Scotland Yard? I couldn’t have saved him but I have the evidence in my camera that will ensure the bad bastard is locked up in gaol until he’s a very old man. I’m here, young man – and Loy – because I can envisage a top unit of UDyCO hitting that villa, and them coming out cuffed. To accuse me of taking innocent people, Geoffrey and Frances Walsh, whom you’ve never met but whose interests you claim to represent, into the line of fire is slander. You should be ashamed. Now, do me a favour, and find somewhere else to park yourself.’

Jonno let the blows beat in his ears.

The dog was in the garden, and three big bags were full. Alex was now flushing the chipper with water.

Pages of the log were now filled with Loy’s writing, and Posie was keening quietly. She made no effort to come to him. Sparky opened the door. Jonno looked into his face and won nothing from his eyes, but his hands were trembling.

He went downstairs.

The welcoming convoy was seven hours late.

It was five hours since the Beechcraft had taken off.

There was a wooden hut by the landing strip. It had been locked with a secure padlock, but Grigoriy had levered the door open with an iron post. They had taken refuge inside and the wind had shrieked around them. The pilot and his son had allowed them, reluctantly, to use the aircraft’s radio to patch through a message to a mobile – now their position was on record and the pilot thrived on secrecy. The call ended and the pilot made his excuses. The Beechcraft had lifted off, trailing a storm of dust. The matter of importance was put off. Nothing they could do, any of them.