East of the City (13 page)

‘Which means,’ Bill said, ‘that maybe you know them.’

It wasn’t so much the words, more the tone. After a moment I said, ‘Is that some kind of a suggestion?’

‘It's a remark.’

‘If you want me to play courier for you, keep the remarks to yourself.’

He stepped back and raised both hands, making a joke of it. But it was still there in his eyes, what he’d been thinking. He wasn’t sure any more if I was just the innocent bystander in all this that I seemed. When I told him I wanted to speak to Allen, he led me back upstairs and left me with the surveillance man.

I called Allen at the office.

He asked straightaway if Bill had given me the T-bonds.

‘Just a sec, Allen.’ I wasn’t quite sure how to say this, he sounded so bloody gung-ho. ‘We can’t afford to have this go wrong, can we. It’s Sebastian’s life. I mean, look what they did to Pike.’ I faced the wall. ‘Allen, I’m not sure I can do this.’

There was a long silence.

‘Allen?’

‘I heard you.’

‘I really don’t-’

‘Now you hear me,’ he said. ‘You either do what Tyler tells you to do, or you can forget about stepping into Angela’s shoes down on the box. Is that clear?’

I was too stunned to answer.

‘You got us into the K and R business. And if you’ve got any sense of loyalty to the Group, you’ll do whatever you can to get us out of it. Right now that means helping Tyler.’ After a pause, he added, ‘Now I think we both know what’s at stake here, don’t we?’

I knew bloody well what was at stake. My hundred grand deposit on the penthouse, and the past thirteen years of my life. Everything I’d worked for since my bust-up with my old man. ‘Your call,’ he said. ‘If you don’t want to do it, Ian, that’s your call.’

Before I could reply he hung up. Swearing quietly I put down the phone.

I looked at the surveillance man and the surveillance gear. I was so far out of my depth it just didn’t matter.

Horse had a tattoo around his wrist, I saw it when he handed me his spare jumper. The tat was red and blue, a snake swallowing its own tail, and when he saw that I’d seen it he said, 'Big night in Hong Kong.’

I took off my jacket and tie. He told me to take off my shoes as well, and when I’d done that gave me a pair of black gym-shoes. I sat on a bunk, pulling the shoes on, lacing them up, while Bill and the others discussed me like I was their number one problem. Each of them seemed to have a different idea about what I needed to know, it wasn’t exactly reassuring. The word ‘hardware’ came up a lot, and they weren’t talking about computers.

When I started pulling on the jumper, Horse said, ‘Hang on.’ He went to the bag by the guns, dug around there a while, then brought back a navy-blue vest. At least that’s what I thought it was. But when he handed it to me, it was stiff and heavy. ‘Slip this on first,’ he said. He lifted his own jumper to show me he was wearing one just like it. ‘It’ll stop a knife. Bill reckons a bullet too, long range.’

A knife, I thought, appalled. A bullet.

He finished tying me into the thing then he went to join in the discussion with his mates while I sat alone on the bunk wiggling my toes in the gym shoes, trying not to listen. Take a punt, that’s what the old man used to tell me. I’d be up there on our stand calculating odds, whispering to Tubs, getting the book in order, and then I’d feel the old man at my elbow. Take a set against the four dog, he’d say. Bag the four dog. And I mightn’t want to, but it was his book, so I’d do that. And if the four dog got bumped and finished out of the money, he’d clap me on the shoulder and tell me that’s how bookmaking was done. But if the four dog won there’d be a payout queue behind our stand that was something to see, and then my old man would just shrug it off like it was nothing. Take a punt. Big bold Bob Collier.

All things considered, it wasn’t the best time to start proving that I was Bob Collier’s son.

‘Can you use a pistol?’

I looked over, they were all watching me.

‘No,’ said, my voice strangely husky.

They huddled again, I guess figuring out if there was anything at all they could do to help me. They must have thought I was useless, but they hid it pretty well. I stared at the floor, thinking of Sebastian now, Sebastian and my old man.

By the time I was twenty-one I knew that Dad was going nowhere. After a winning night he’d take whatever the book had won, bung a few score to Tubs, give some to Mum and me, and blow the rest on a spree. After a losing night he’d close his bag, go home and wait for the next meeting then repeat the whole thing over again. Financially he was just treading water, but that really didn’t matter to him. At the track he was someone, he loved the life. But it sure as hell mattered to me. I wanted so much more, and finally it was Sebastian, who offered me my one big chance to get out.

It was a Monday night at the Gallon, I’d just watched Sebastian pull out his little blue book and write some house insurance for Freddie Day. When Freddie left the table, I went over. I guess Sebastian knew me pretty well by then, or at least he knew I was ambitious and thwarted, kind of straining at the leash. After a few beers and some talk he made me an offer clean out of the blue. If I came up with ten grand he’d take me on in his office, show me the insurance-broking ropes, and after a few months he’d set me up in my own one-man agency. We’d split the profits fifty-fifty. It was a good deal all round, and for me probably the only chance I’d ever get to break away from the dogs. I could hardly believe it. Problem was, I didn’t have ten grand. And the only way I could get that kind of money was through the old man; but when I told him about Sebastian’s offer, he just didn’t want to know.

‘It’s unanimous, Ian.’

I looked up now, and across the basement. Bill gestured to the others. ‘You don’t get a gun,’ he told me. ‘If things get that serious, we’ll move in.’

I nodded, just letting things happen now. They went back to their discussion and I went back to my thoughts. 

Dad and me argued, we argued a lot. I was burning inside, desperate to get on with this other life I’d been offered. And finally the old man cracked. He didn’t just up and give me the ten grand, and I hadn’t really expected him to. What he did was agree not to blow his winnings. He said he’d try to build the float in his bag, if we got it up to fifteen grand I could have ten and do what I liked with it.

Night after night, meeting after meeting, I watched that float like a hawk. It grew by hundreds, then thousands, stalling occasionally, even falling back sometimes, but overall I think it surprised even Dad how fast it grew when he just left it alone. After five months it went through fourteen grand and I knew it was going to happen. That night we went to the Stow with a float of fourteen thousand seven hundred quid. The first two races, I set the book, we made six hundred quid and I was there. I’d get my ten grand, Sebastian would set me up in my own business, I couldn’t stop smiling. When I handed the bag over to Dad I was walking on air. And then for the next three hours I watched as big Bob Collier had the worst losing run of his life. First a few hundred, then a grand. Trying to recoup he took a set against the next favourite and suddenly he was three grand in the hole. He upped the ante. Lost again. And again. I went to the bar so’s I didn’t have to watch; but I couldn’t stay away. He started chasing his losses, trying to punt his way into the black. It crossed my mind that the losses were something more than accidental, but I didn’t really believe it. I almost wished I could have. What it was was an exhibition of everything I wanted to escape. The roller-coaster ride that flung you around for a bit then dumped you right back where you’d started, the ride my old man had been on all his life. By the end of the night the float was down to less than three grand, and the dream Sebastian had held out to me was gone. Dad didn’t even apologize.

‘Here, try this,’ Bill said. Radio gear now. He showed me how to use it. The little thing that looked like a Walkman, I slung from my belt. ‘Say something,’ he said.

When I did, the radio man gave me the thumbs-up.

Bill pointed to the coil of thin wire. ‘Try the earpiece.'

I put it in. Immediately a voice boomed through it, I tore it out and adjusted the volume. On the second try the radio man’s voice came over smooth and clear. I nodded to him, one hand to my ear. I gave him the thumbs-up and then I took out the earpiece. ‘This is for what?’ I said. ‘In case we get separated?’

They all glanced at each other; there were a few seconds of awkward silence. ‘You’re the courier,’ Bill said finally. ‘Chances are, Ian, some of the way at least, you’ll be on your own.’

Nobody looked at me now. The radio man took his set out to the van, and the card game started up again at the table. I didn’t move from the bunk, I sat there very quietly and stared straight ahead. This was all for Sebastian Ward, I had to keep reminding myself of that. Sebastian, the guy who hadn’t just dumped me when I couldn’t produce the ten grand. When I’d explained to Sebastian what had happened at the Stow, and that I was going to make the break from the dogs and my old man anyway, he’d understood that too. A few days later he’d called me to say a friend of his had a job going at Lloyd’s, just something junior, but an in. He said he could arrange an interview if I liked. Half an hour later I was down Jimmy the Greek’s, trying on a shiny new suit. Allen Mortlake interviewed me the next day, and the next week I was chief coffee boy on the 486 box.

When I came back home from my first day’s work at the office, and Dad realized this wasn’t just some half-cocked thing, that I’d really made the break, he went spare. Lots of swearing and slamming doors, big shouting from both of us. Twenty-one years of frustrated hopes erupting. He had plans, he said. If I’d only been patient, in a few years I could have taken over his stand. He just wouldn’t face it, by then his stand at the Stow was part of everything I wanted to escape. And now I’d made the leap. When the rage of our argument died away I heard Mum crying in the kitchen. Dad heard her too. We stood there staring at each other, listening to Mum, knowing that something between us had broken.

Finally Dad said, You’ll be moving out then.

In the morning, I said.

He gave me one last look. Then as he walked out the door he said over his shoulder, Be sure and say goodbye to your mother.

 My career, the chance at the penthouse, my whole damn life after the dogs, none of it would have happened without that first push from Sebastian Ward. And now he needed me. Stretching out on the bunk, I dropped my jacket over my face and closed my eyes. I hoped to God that I could do this. I hoped to God that I wouldn’t let him down.

I
t was pitch dark when I woke up, there was a sound of footsteps running overhead, and I didn’t know where I was. The footsteps got louder, I sat bolt upright. Someone hit the lights. A basement. The K and R team.

Then Bill charged down the stairs, shouting, ‘We’re on, boys. Grab your gear.’

Still dozy with sleep, I swung my legs out of the bunk. The others were up and moving, Bill put his hand on my shoulder.

‘Got the two-way? Got the bonds?’

I reached down to my belt and touched the set and the earphones, then the bonds in my pocket. He hauled me to my feet.

‘Right,’ he said, ‘get in the van.’

I stumbled across to the basement door, the one leading out back. Bill shoved me up the steps into the yard. It was night, the air was cold and damp. I was wide awake now. Horse was right behind me, he pushed past, opened the rear van door and almost lifted me in. Seconds later the others came piling after me, the van started up.

I said, ‘What’s happening? Is this it?'

Someone said, ‘Nippin’ out for pizza,’ and the others laughed, but then Bill climbed in telling us all to shut up. He slammed the door, reached up and banged his fist twice against the roof. The van moved off. I needed to take a leak.

There was a dull yellow light glowing over my head, and small green and red lights pulsing on the radio gear up front. Apart from the radio man, we all sat along the two bench-seats down either side. I was opposite Bill. He looked dead serious. ‘It’s a paperchase, Ian. They’ve given us a phone box to get to down in Greenwich.'

'Why?'

‘They want us there, we’re there. You feeling okay?'

I nodded.

'There’ll be a note in the box,’ he said. ‘They want you to pick it up. Read the note out to us on the two-way. I’ll tell you what to do.’

‘Who’ll be with me?'

‘They don’t want to see anyone else around the box. It's just you.’

My mouth went dry. Up front, the radio man was talking into his mike, one of those no-hands jobs attached to his head. It sounded like he was speaking to the police, but when I asked Bill he just shrugged and said, ‘The less you know the better.’

We bumped along for a while, no-one speaking, just the blurred chatter from the radio echoing round the van. I felt cold.

‘What did they say about Sebastian?'

Bill lifted his head, face blank.

‘I mean, if I can’t do what they ask in the note,’ I said, ‘what happens to him?'

‘Ian -’ Bill rubbed his forehead. ‘It’s too late to back out of this.’

The others were watching me. I stayed how I was, hunched forward, and looking at Bill.

I said, ‘What happens to Sebastian if anything goes wrong?'

His head rose slowly. He gestured round. ‘If we fuck up -’ Then he pointed at me . ‘Or you fuck up, they’ll kill him. This isn’t the time for doubts, Ian. Anything goes wrong now, Ward's dead. Are you with us?’

I stared straight ahead. I smelt smoke. Like a man in a dream I felt myself nodding. ‘Sure,’ I said.

They dropped me fifty yards from the phone box. It was a quiet street, the deli on the comet was closed, and the only light was coming from the phone box and the streetlamp just past it. Horse gave me a smile of encouragement as I went around the van and up onto the pavement. Almost immediately I heard Bill’s voice in my ear.

‘How’m I coming over, clear?’

I bent my head, speaking into the mike. I’d hooked the Walkman thing inside my jumper. ‘You’re coming over fine. Can you see anything?'