Two Faced (Harry Tyler Book 2) (8 page)

‘Harry, you’ve got five minutes to call this number.’

He reeled off a Lancashire phone number. ‘It should be answered by Keith.’

Harry dialled the number. It rang unanswered. He rang again. Nothing. With a sigh of frustration, Harry hit redial and on the fifth ring the call was answered.

‘Yeah?’ said a gruff Northerner.

‘Keith there?’

‘Yeah.’

‘My name’s Harry, friend of the other fella.’

‘What’s your number.’

Harry recited the Swindon flop-house number.

‘Pay phone?’

‘Yeah.’

The line went dead. Eight minutes passed before the phone rang.

‘You know Preston?’ the same voice growled. ‘Outside the football ground there’s a football museum. Eight pm tomorrow night. Come alone.’

That was it. Harry rang Kumble from his mobile and passed on the details.

‘I’ll get a static camera in position to cover the meeting,’ Kumble said. ‘What about mobile surveillance?’

‘No, not first time, guv,’ Harry said. ‘If they get jumpy anything might frighten them off.’

‘You going taped up?’

‘Not the first time. I’m bound to get rubbed down.’

Harry busied himself around Swindon, picking up the local
Evening Advertiser
, a card from a minicab firm and other bits of headed paper which he scattered around his car – all to convince prying eyes that he was living in Wiltshire. The next morning he went through the bin outside ASDA’s to find a shopping receipt, which he casually tossed on to the front passenger well and left a Swindon RFC programme face down on the back seat. The final touch was a petrol receipt from a local garage as he topped up the Renault. That was dropped on the floor in front of the passenger seat. Everything about the car screamed Swindon now. All he was short of was Melinda Messenger with her tits out on the back seat. Wouldn’t that make her day?

Harry reached Preston at 5.55pm and drove to the North End for a quick reccy of the stadium and nearby railway station. He went on to a pub less than a mile away to kill some time. At 7.30pm he drove the short distance up the hill. Pulling up at the lights, he noticed a pair of white males to his left loitering outside the museum. He studied them carefully as he drove past and turned left into a housing estate, parking up near a school.

He strolled back to the museum casually. Only one of the men was still there when he arrived. He was tall, about six-four, and burly. He had his back to Harry and was staring into the window, so Harry stood away from him and watched the traffic. It was only 7.42pm. No one arrives early for a meet. Three minutes later the big man was joined by a much smaller guy dressed in a dark suit and yellow tie. He looked like Rigsby from
Rising Damp
, but even less cheerful. He was wiry, bald and slightly stooped, with a large, bulbous nose. They shook hands. The big man nodded his head towards Harry and the newcomer walked over to him.

‘You waiting for Keith?’ he asked in a gruff tripe-and-onions accent.

‘Yeah. I’m Harry.’

The small man smiled. ‘I’m Keith, Keith Ruddle. Sorry to hear about our friend’s bad news.’

‘Yeah. I didn’t know the Doris, though.’

‘You got a car?’

‘Yeah, round by the school.’

‘OK, I’ll jump in with you, we’ve got a bit of a drive to Fleetwood.’

‘Fine.’

They strolled back to Harry’s car. The small man had a thick layer of dandruff on the collar of his shabby suit, but hardly any hair to generate it. The dandruff must have been accumulating for months, Harry mused. Ruddle’s lip curled up at the left corner, the obvious result of a stroke, but it looked to Harry as if someone, God perhaps, had been fishing for worms and had hooked himself a big one.

‘You been to Fleetwood before?’

‘Once,’ Harry lied. ‘I pulled this bird in Swindon, leggy blonde, a real looker. I got her in my car, I had a Cougar at the time, and started kissing and groping it. And she says, “Harry, kiss me where it smells.” Four poxy hours it took me to drive to Fleetwood.’

Keith laughed.

‘There was a lot to do there, though. I got weighed twice.’

‘The old ones are the best, eh, Harry?’

‘The old ones are the only ones you’ll hear from me, mate.’

‘’Ear frum me, ma’e,’ Keith mimicked him badly. ‘I love that Cock-er-nee accent.’

They reached the Renault. Harry got in and opened the passenger door manually. He went to put his key in the ignition.

‘Don’t start her up yet, Harry. I’ve got to rub you down first.’

‘What the fuck for?’

‘Call me old-fashioned but I don’t know you from Adam and no matter who tells me you’re OK I won’t believe them till I’ve checked for meself.’

‘Fair dos, but if you’ve gotta search round me nuts don’t do it when there’s people walking past. I don’t want no one thinking I’m an iron.’

‘How do you know I’m not?’

‘You grab anything you shouldn’t, mate, and believe me you’ll be a poof with no teeth.’

Keith smirked and patted Harry down brusquely. ‘You’ll do,’ he said.

It was a half-hour drive to Fleetwood. Keith directed him to Carr Road and told him to park. It was a dark street. Keith stared intently into the wing mirror looking back up the road behind before telling Harry to get out of the car and follow him. They walked through several alleyways, Keith stopping frequently to check that no one was on their tail. Harry said nothing. Finally they stopped outside a back entrance gate. Again Keith just stood stared and listened for a couple of minutes before opening the gate and leading Harry through a small neat garden, then through the kitchen door and on into the living room.

‘Sit down, Harry,’ Keith said. Harry sat. Keith left the room. Harry absorbed as much information as he could – the colour of the curtains, the visible ornaments. He heard the phone being picked up outside in the hall and a short whispered conversation before the handset was replaced. Keith came back into the room carrying two large hold-alls, which he placed on the floor in front of Harry.

‘It’s OK, I’ve checked. No one followed us.’

He unzipped the bags, which were stuffed with new £20 and £10 notes.

‘Our friend says to let you have ten large of the scores and ten of the tenners. Is that right?’

Harry nodded. Keith grinned. ‘The scores are a fiver a piece on every thousand and the tenners are three quid on the thousand. When are you expecting to pay?’

‘You don’t want C.O.D?’

‘Not if Darren says to let you have them, no.’

‘OK, I’ll bring the cash up in a couple of days.’

Keith pulled out ten bundles from each bag and tossed them on the floor in front of Harry, whose poker face disguised his bemusement. He had never done business like this before. Keith left the room again returning with two carrier bags, which he handed to Harry before taking the hold-alls back out.

‘Lovely jobs, these Jekylls,’ called Harry.

‘You what?’

‘The snides, the Jekyll and Hydes, the Sexton Blakes.’

‘You fucking Cockneys. What do you call the scores in Lun-dun?’ – he stretched out the syllables with a mocking inflection – ‘I know the cock and hens are tens.’

‘Apples – apple cores. Or Georges. “What are the scores, George Daws” – from
Shooting Stars
.’

Keith grimaced. ‘Bloody Nora. C’mon, I’ll get you back to the car.’

He led Harry back through the garden via the maze of alleyways to the Renault, checking the road up and down before getting back in the passenger seat.

‘You know, I lived in London for a year once,’ Keith said. ‘I fucking hated it. I had these two Alsatians and I’d take them for a walk down to where all the old Cocker-knees played bowls. I made the dogs wait and crap on the green. I’d do it about six days before a game so the shit would really stink, then I used to go back and watch all the coffin-dodgers complaining …’

He paused.

Dick, thought Harry. ‘Nice one,’ he said.

‘Go straight ahead and stop at the top,’ Keith instructed.

When Harry pulled up at the T-junction, Harry said, ‘Right, this is where we part company. Turn left here and follow the road all the way to Blackpool then follow the signs for the motorway and sunny Swindon. Take this.’ He handed Harry a scrap of paper. ‘Ring this mobile number when you’re back up here and I’ll give you directions. Drive safely now.’ And with that he was out and gone.
It was a little after 2am when Harry reached Swindon. Anyone on his tail would have been lost by the time he’d passed the Pleasure Beach. But he was convinced he hadn’t been followed. Harry drove to the Moat House hotel on the outskirts and checked in. Common sense told him not to go back to the lodgings, as he had called Keith from that number. His eyes were sore from driving and he set the radio alarm for 10am. The moment Harry’s head hit the pillow he was sparko.

At 7.10am his mobile dragged him from his slumbers.

‘Yeah?’

‘Harry?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Can you talk?’

‘Yeah.’

‘It’s Mr Kumble.’

Harry sat up. Something wasn’t right.

‘Yeah?’ he said.

‘We’ve got a problem.’

‘Go on.’

‘Sorry, Harry, I’d rather tell you this to your face but that’s not possible. It’s Darren. He hid a knife when we stopped in a Little Chef in Hampshire. He’s cut his wrists in the unit. I’m sorry, Harry. He’s gone.’

‘No.’ Harry felt like he had been kicked in the stomach. ‘No, guv. You’re pulling my plonker. He can’t be …’

His left hand clawed the duvet.

‘Look, Harry, there’s obviously got to be an inquiry as to how he got a knife back in and why he wasn’t searched.’

Harry’s bottom lip quivered and a tear ran down his face.

‘Give me twenty minutes, boss, and ring me back.’

He hung up. Harry fell back onto the bed and looked up at the ceiling.

‘Darren,’ he said. ‘You stupid, stupid prick.’

At 7.45am Harry’s mobile rang again.

‘You talk?’ asked Kumble.

‘Yeah. I’ve got the parcel here, tens and twenties. Where do you wanna meet?’

‘Obviously not here. Can you find your way to Rugby police station? Ring my mobile when you’re nearby and I’ll have a vehicle come and bring you in. I’m really sorry about Darren, Harry. We’ve told his wife.’

Harry grimaced. The wife. Little Miss Loyalty was most likely the reason why the poor sap had topped himself. He still needed convincing that Blackman had been a wrong ’un. His last act before slitting his wrists had been to slot Harry into the counterfeiting firm.

The meeting at Rugby was a solemn affair. Harry handed his notes over to be signed and gave the two carrier bags stuffed with snide notes to the exhibits office. He looked blankly at Kumble.

‘Where do we go from here, boss?’

‘We take the bird in the hand. You have a meet with Keith tomorrow and we nick him for this lot, end of.’

‘How about I take the flash money to him plus a bit more and I order up some extra and we go for gold?’

‘You say he conducts anti-surveillance techniques at all time.’

‘Yeah, but get my motor tangoed up. I know we were about five streets east of Carr Road in Fleetwood. Sod’s law we’ll go back to the house. If he wants to go somewhere else, just get us stopped and nick him. One other thing, the curtains in the living room were long and red with thin white stripes down them, and there was a crystal vase with no flowers in it on the window ledge. The road outside has a street lamp slightly to the left of the window as you look out.’

‘Well noted.’ Kumble stroked his chin. The operation had to be crashed for obvious reasons; the Crown Prosecution no longer had a case and there was an inquiry underway into a death in police custody. The main witness against the counterfeiters was always going to be Darren Blackman. Kumble had no choice but to take Harry Tyler’s advice and go for what he could. But the danger to Harry had also been maximised because now Ruddle couldn’t talk to Blackman without the aid of a psychic. If he had any doubts about Harry they could no longer be soothed away with well-chosen words from someone he did trust.

‘I’m going upstairs,’ he said. ‘We’ll ask you to join us shortly.’

Harry nodded. Kumble needed to discuss their strategy with senior management. About an hour later, Harry was summoned to join them. He was ushered into a conference room. Seven grim-faced senior officers, uniformed and detective, sat around the briefing table.

Kumble spoke. ‘OK, Harry, we’ve got all the technical resources we need, all the necessary manpower and we’ve got one shot at getting as many of them as we can, and as much counterfeits as possible. What do you think we should aim for?’

Harry had already thought that through.

‘I’m expected to give them five and a half grand for the notes I’ve already had. I reckon I should go for another fifteen hundred quid’s worth of the cockles in the hope that we go back to the same gaff to collect it.’

A senior uniformed man spoke. ‘Why such a piddling amount, Harry?’

‘Well, boss, for one thing they won’t smell a rat and secondly all of the snides were in two hold-alls and they were packed with them. If we’re lucky he’ll pull ’em out the same bags as before and my guess is they’re kept in that house or nearby.’

‘When will you ring him?’ asked Kumble.

‘About noon tomorrow. Can we have the real cash in a bag and put some tracking kit in with it?’

Another voice from the table answered. ‘Not a problem. We’ve got a couple of bags already rigged up for kidnaps and the like.’

‘And you’re going to have to put some top discreet people on trying to ID the slaughter I went to with the curtains I’ve described to Mr Kumble. No muppets. Someone dressed as a postman or door-to-door census takers – the sort of shit that doesn’t show out.’

There were nods all round.

‘What about wearing an open-miked carrier, Harry?’ said a technical expert from the far end of the table. ‘That way we can hear and tape all the conversation and we’ll know when to put a hit and come and get you.’

‘Yeah, I think so. I’ve had one pat-down so I’m gonna be unlucky for a second.’