Trust (4 page)

When he spoke his voice was far more calm than I could have imagined possible.

“Putin,” he said. “Ask your little playmate to put his toy gun away, would you?”

And with that, he swung his door open, dislodging another shower of shattered glass, and forcing his big assailant to skip backwards out of the way.

§

Acting on autopilot, I climbed out, too, brushing fragments of glass off my leather jacket and jeans.

I looked across the roof of Dean’s BMW and saw three of them standing there.

Dean was by no means short – easily six foot, maybe a little more – but the guy with the gun had a good six inches on him. Close-cropped black hair and a long, skull-like face gave him an appearance that would have been intimidating in any circumstances, gun trained on you or not.

Standing at his side was another tall man, and now I saw why Dean had called him ‘Putin’. Tall, with thinning hair and a wide mouth over a shallow chin, he could have passed for the Russian leader.

“Good afternoon, Mr Bailey,” said this man, his English flawless but with a definite East European accent. “How unfortunate for you that a stone appears to have kicked up off the road and chipped your window.”

“Yeah, funny that,” said Dean.

“These things don’t tend to happen if you stick to your own territory,” Putin went on.

“My own territory? I fucking
live
on this street.”

The man shrugged. “Maybe you should reconsider that,” he said. “Borders move. We Russians know that better than anyone. You would be well advised to learn that lesson, too. Times change, Mr Bailey. Ask your father.”

I was frozen to the spot, watching this unfold before me. Now I managed to look left and then right. Cars passed by at the end of the street, but nobody was nearby – carefully avoiding this exchange, perhaps.

I couldn’t believe I was witnessing this. Out in broad daylight on a London street. Two thugs, at least one of them openly pointing a gun. I remembered the burnt-out pub – Dean had blamed the Eastern Europeans for that, too.

What had I walked into?

Dean glanced across the car at me, then, and said, “Cuppa? I’m treating you.”

Then he casually walked around the car, brushing past the silent Russian with the gun, pressing the button on his key-fob to lock the BMW.

Looking back from the front of the car, he said, “I’ll be seeing you tonight, Putin.”

Then he was at my side, taking my arm, hissing into my ear, “Walk like you own it, darling. Just walk like you fucking
own
it.”

§

I stood straight, held my head up high, and did my best to walk like I fucking owned it, whatever ‘it’ was.

I fought every temptation to look back, to see if the two Russian gangsters were following us.

“He had a gun!” I kept my voice low, as Dean had done. “He had a fucking
gun
, Dean.”

“Believe me, I noticed.”

He put a hand on my elbow, slowing me, steering me. We’d come to the front door of an ordinary-looking terraced house; as far as I could see, there was nothing to mark it out as special – as the home of someone whose East End crimelord credentials I was suddenly starting to take very seriously indeed.

He opened the door, guided me inside, pushed the door to behind him, and I collapsed into his arms.

“He had a
gun
...”

It took me a short time to pull myself together, to stop shaking and gibbering and repeating those words, and all that time he held me, arms strong around me. I realized I was aware of the rise and fall of his ribcage against me, of his aftershave, of his chin resting on the crown of my head as he stroked my hair with one hand and pressed between my shoulder-blades with the other.

That firm pressure on my spine, and the gentle stroking of the hair on the back of my head, did their thing.

My breathing slowed, and eventually my heart stopped trying to escape from my chest.

He moved the hand from the back of my head, and tipped my chin up so that I was looking at him.

His face was close, his breath hot.

His tongue darted across his lips and I thought he was going to...

He pulled away, stepped back, further into the building.

“You fancy that cuppa?” he said.

I nodded, mumbled a
thanks
. My mind raced – with what had happened in the street outside, with what had nearly happened here, just now.

Had I been waiting for him to kiss me? Had I been wanting it?

And then he’d pulled away, putting a halt on whatever might have been about to happen.

A proper gentleman, of all things.

I followed him along a dark passageway into a kitchen at the back. The interior of the house was crisp and modern, in complete contrast to the slightly shabby Victorian exterior. The kitchen was stainless steel and granite, concealed handles and smooth surfaces, everything in its place. It was either the kitchen of a remarkably tidy person, or someone who never did more than make the occasional cup of tea.

“It’s the adrenaline,” he said, matter-of-factly. “The fear, the fight or flight response, and then, immediately afterwards, your body’s flooded with adrenaline and endorphins and you just want to have sex like wild animals. Nature red in tooth and claw, and all that. You don’t really fancy me – your body just wants to reproduce because it’s been exposed to danger.”

I stared. He was being serious. “You’re right,” I told him. “I don’t fancy you. And I’m certainly not going to shag you just because some Neanderthal’s pointed a gun at me and I’m grateful you rescued my pretty little ass.”

He smiled that disarming smile, defusing the sudden tension, and said, “Sugar?”

I shook my head. And tried not to think too hard about how close I’d come to kissing him on the back of that mad adrenaline rush just now.

§

He left me nursing a cup of tea at the granite breakfast bar in the kitchen, while he went to make a call in another room, but I could still hear most of what he said.

“That bleeding Russian, yeah. The one who looks like Vladimir Putin. The Russian president. Whatever. Him and his tame monkey... Smashed the window, right. Glass everywhere. I think he might have been trying to make a point.”

The tea was milky and weak, almost white. I decided Dean Bailey wasn’t a man who used the kitchen much at all. He was too busy with other activities.

“No, I don’t want you to do that. We pick our fights, Lee, yeah? Sometimes you need to know when to walk away. So no, I don’t want you going after him right now, okay? I just need to make a call, get one of Ronnie’s goons to come round and see to my motor. Listen, boy: you still good for tonight? Yeah?”

I remembered his advice from just before his car window was smashed in with the butt of a pistol: maybe I should just go home now and forget about all this.

He came back in and smiled. “You still fancy me, or has the adrenaline rush calmed down now?”

I laughed. “No, you’re safe,” I said, then paused to take a drink of the tea-flavored milk. “Bad luck.”

He had the decency to look at least a little disappointed.

“So who
were
those guys?”

“You don’t want to know.” He sat opposite me, and reached for his own cup.

“Sure. So that’s why I just asked.”

“Russians, Latvians, Ukrainians, I’m not entirely sure.” Those dark eyes were fixed on me, reading me.

“They first started moving on London in the ’90s. The Soviet Union was breaking up, communism was collapsing, and all kinds of mobs were taking over in the Eastern Bloc and spilling out over here. There were lots of turf wars in the late ’90s. That’s when my old man got in a bit of bother. Locked away fifteen years ago, got a whole-life tariff, no hope of parole. My older brother, Owen, stepped up then, and then me and Lee joined in as we grew up.”

I did the sums, worked out he must have been around twelve or thirteen when this happened. Had a vision of him as a teen crimelord in his shades and a suit that was too big for him. The image was somewhere between comical and chilling – and bizarrely believable.

“No parole,” I mused out loud. Even the worst criminals usually had at least some hope of release. Dean’s father must have done something pretty bad.

Dean nodded. “You really don’t want to know. He got us a few years’ breathing space, but now the Russians are trying to muscle in again – as you just saw.” He raised his eyebrows then, and said, “Hey, I’m real sorry about that. They were right out of order.”

“No class.”

He knew I was teasing, using his words back at him, and he smiled.

“So you and your brothers – Owen and Lee? – do you still see your father?”

“When we can,” said Dean. “Or I do, anyway. Lee doesn’t really know him that well, he was young when the old man went away. And I don’t really know how close Owen is these days. I think he sees Dad as a reminder of where we could all end up, you know what I mean?”

“Does your dad still... keep involved?” Odd how just making conversation with someone like Dean Bailey involved such different subject matter to most people.

His eyes narrowed then, and he said, “Nah. The old man keeps his nose clean these days. Has his eye on a place in a cushty little open prison to see his years out. Doesn’t want anything to mess with that.”

I nodded, and drank some more tea. My heart was still thumping. Every time I flashed back to that moment when we were showered with glass, and a second or two later, looking out to see that pistol pointing into the car, I found my breath catching in my chest, my throat suddenly constricted as if I were being strangled.

With the initial adrenaline rush over, was this some kind of delayed panic kicking in?

I’d been staring into my cup and now I saw movement in my peripheral vision, his hand coming across, folding around one of mine.

“You okay?” he said softly.

I nodded.

Of course I was okay.

Or, at least, I wasn’t going to admit anything different to him.

He squeezed my hand, almost imperceptibly, then withdrew. I never would have thought he might do sensitive, too.

“So,” he said now, “what’s it to be? Are you going to follow my advice and take yourself away from all this, or am I stuck with you for the evening?”

I shook my head, undecided. I hadn’t thought that far ahead.

I should go, I knew that. Get away from here as fast as my little car could take me.

But right now, just sitting here was the best I could manage.

“You’re not going anywhere, are you, darling?” he said. Still that gentle, sensitive voice. He seemed sincere, but I couldn’t help wondering if he was just playing me like a fish on a line.

“Tell you what,” he said. “How about something to eat? No strings, just a chance to get over the shock a bit more and see what you want to do. Then afterwards you can either head on home, or come with me and meet the family. Prior commitment – can’t get out of it, I’m afraid. But don’t worry: I’ll look after you. Sound like a plan?”

I studied his features. He was doing sincere again.

He put his hands up defensively, and smiled. “It’s okay, I don’t bite!” Then he added, “I just want to be sure you’re okay. Nothing more than that. Trust me.”

I thought of my grandparents then, my gran, and shook my head. “Never trust a man who says ‘Trust me’.”

He couldn’t work Jess out.

At first it had been easy to assume she was some kind of plant. The flimsy cover story, the transparent – almost clumsy – digging for information, the timing.

But the more he got to know her, the less certain he became.

Putin had tested her credentials in a way Dean could not. There are few better tests of a person than a gun pointed in their face.

A pro will always respond in ways no-one else would. There are ways to react, ways to minimize the risks, ways to prepare yourself for whatever comes next.

Dean’s first response had been to protect Jess, but that had also disguised the fact that he was using that movement to prepare himself – his body coiled, ready to retaliate if he made the split-second judgment that fighting back was the right choice. With his back turned to the two assailants, his body was not only shielding Jess but he could easily have slipped a hand inside his jacket for his own Glock – a 17, the full-size cousin to the subcompact pistol the Russian was aiming.

But as he’d said to Lee on the phone, you have to pick your fights, you have to know when to hit back and when to walk away.

And in the midst of all that, he’d been very aware that Jess’s reaction was of a different order altogether: no focus, no assessment and judgment in those blue eyes, no tensing of the body ready to respond. She had cowered in her seat, frozen, not the faintest idea what to do.

And then afterwards, she’d been in a state of shock: close to panic as it all kicked in when they reached the house, shocked even later as she sat there not really drinking her mug of tea.

If she was a plant, she wasn’t one who’d had much experience of having a gun pointed at her.

But then... just as he’d started to lean towards believing her, she’d started with the questions.

Who were those men? Why were they threatening you? What about your old man? What about your brothers? Is your old man still pulling the strings from the comfort of his prison cell?

This whole naïve act... the questions... Was he losing the ability to judge people he’d always prided himself on? Was this just how a normal person off the street would react when confronted with his world? Or was it a really clever double bluff?

One thing he knew: the best lies are those closest to the truth. So he’d gone along with her routine, answered her straight, while keeping the detail to a minimum. His account of the Russians was nothing she couldn’t get from Google – or a police database.

And when she’d asked if his old man was still involved in the family business from behind bars it had been easy enough to give a simple ‘no’. For the most part that was true: once you’re inside long-term your horizons shift, and someone like Eddie Bailey Junior was more concerned with carving out his own empire inside the prison system, rather than running enterprises out in the wider world. The only time he’d ever really got involved again was when he’d brought Dean and Lee into the running of the business when he judged they were old enough.