East of the City (8 page)

‘Don’t bring us out right on top of the bam,’ he warned me.

Leaning forward, I gave the driver directions. They were quiet in the back; we’d slowed to about thirty, Bill started to take an interest in where we were. We headed out of the village past the council houses; there were a lot more than I remembered.

‘How far?’ Bill said.

‘Couple of miles.’

‘When we’re down to half a mile, tell us.’

Back when we’d passed through the City I’d had doubts about what I was doing, but those doubts were a lot stronger now. The others were tense, I knew that, but somehow it didn’t make me feel any better. They were professionals and I was what? A mug?

‘Left,’ I said, ‘up this lane.’

We turned off the main road; we hadn’t seen any houses for a while. It was still a way yet but the next building I expected to see was Lower Park Barn. There was a ridge along the left shoulder of the lane, wooded, with a thick undergrowth. I saw Bill inspecting it. After a while I pointed to the right. Where the ground dipped, there was another stretch of woods. ‘Just past there.’

‘Near the wood?’

‘Other side,’ I said. ‘About half a mile.' The van slowed, then stopped. Bill asked me where the lane went and I told him. Straight on. I couldn’t remember if the barn was visible from the lane. I said, ‘There’s a track comes off it down to the barn.’

Bill had a few words with the driver, then he turned and flicked up the canvas flap. ‘The barn’s at two o’clock, far side of the woods, half a mile. You two, get out of here, make your way dowu under cover. Get yourselves close enough without being seen, then call in. Clear?’

There was a rumble of agreement from the back. The van door opened and closed, someone in the back said ‘right’, and we were away again. I glanced in the side mirror. Two men in jeans and heavy coats scrambled up into the woods on the left bank, you couldn’t see their guns, but each of them hugged an arm to his chest.

The whole operation seemed so matter of fact it made me feel naive, like I’d just got a glimpse of reality for the first time. Facing the front again, I said, ‘How many K and Rs have you guys done?’

Nobody answered. Bill kept his eyes fixed on the woods. The farm track appeared on our right, and about a quarter of a mile down you could see the half-collapsed roof of the barn. It was derelict.

The driver’s head swivelled as we passed the muddy track, then he turned to Bill. ‘Tyre tracks. Someone’s been down there.’

We went on up the lane; when the barn roof dropped out of sight we stopped. Bill gave more instructions and the other pair in the back got out and disappeared over the ridge on our right. Bill told the driver to find somewhere to turn.

I said, ‘Do you think Sebastian’s down there?’

Bill reached behind the seat and pulled out some electronic gear, and a pistol. ‘If he is, these are the dumbest kidnappers so far. Not impossible.’

We found a small lay-by further along. As we turned, Bill passed me a handset with a stubbed aerial; he explained how to use it. By the time he’d finished we were parked, facing back down the lane, engine idling.

‘We’ll drop you at the turn-off to the barn,’ he said.

Maybe I should have expected that, but I hadn’t. A slow rising wave of fear rippled up from my gut. Four of the hardest men I’d ever seen were on the job, and Bill was tipping me out there to join them? And with what? A glorified walkie-talkie?

‘Why?’ I said.

Bill grinned. ‘Because if you don’t get out there, you’ll have to stay with us. And we’re driving down to the barn. Fair enough?’

‘You’re just going to drive down there?’

He said yes, that was the general idea.

After five minutes the first pair of his men called in. They were in position, fifty yards west of the barn, and there was no sign of anyone. Another minute and the other pair called in, a hundred yards northeast of the bam. Again nothing.

Bill nodded to the driver; we moved off. As we trundled down the lane Bill told the others what he planned to do; he didn’t refer to me by name now, he called me the lookout. It felt like one of those bad dreams when you’ve been picked for England, you’re all set to take the field, and you suddenly realize you don’t know what game you're playing. At the turn-off, we stopped.

‘You’ll be alright,’ the driver told me. He seemed to have a better idea than Bill what I was thinking. ‘Nothin’s gonna happen till the money comes out.’

Bill reached across me and opened the door. ‘Keep out of sight. Any cars come along, get their plate numbers. If they turn down to the barn—’ he pointed to my handset — ‘let us know.'

It seemed like there had to be more to it, something else I should know, but when I hesitated he lifted his chin, indicating the open door. I got out and he closed the door quietly behind me. The van turned onto the muddy track; I stood there watching it head down to the barn, then Bill’s arm suddenly shot out the window, waving me back to the woods.

I leapt the ditch, dropped ankle-deep in mud, then trudged on up the ridge. Fifteen yards up there was an old hedge, some low bushes with a flat rock just behind. I sat down on the rock. You were pretty well hidden there, but you had a decent view up and down the lane. You were high enough to get a proper look at the barn too, but I couldn’t see the van, it was hidden by the dip. I wiggled my toes. My shoes were covered in mud, and soaking. A hundred and seventy-five quid up the spout. I took off my tie and shoved it in my coat pocket, then I checked my watch. Five to five.

The van appeared again, crawling along, almost at the barn now. It looked so exposed down there, exposed and vulnerable, I was suddenly grateful to Bill for turning me out when he did. Just short of the barn, the van stopped. There was some talk on the two-way, then I saw one man to the west and one man to the northeast of the barn, on their feet, moving in. I couldn’t see the other two. Bill got out of the van. I couldn’t hear anything, they were too far away, just moving figures in the distance, slightly unreal. But Bill seemed to be speaking, maybe calling into the barn. When nothing happened he went forward slowly. He sure had guts.

By the time he disappeared inside the barn, the other two were at the side-walls, aiming their guns through the windows. A few seconds later Bill’s voice came over the handset. ‘Relax. No-one here.’

He wasn’t talking to me but I breathed out, relieved. I hadn’t realized how tense I was. I stood and stretched my legs, bending to flick the mud off my pants, and that’s when I heard the car.

It came down the lane from the west, the way we’d come in, and immediately I crouched and picked up the handset. I shuffled closer to the hedge.

Keep calm, I thought. Check the plates. My heart was somewhere up near my throat.

The car appeared then, a green Porsche idling along at about twenty. It started slowing the moment I saw it. ‘Go on,’ I whispered. ‘Keep going.’ But somehow I just knew it wouldn’t. It was kind of inevitable the way it slowed and finally stopped at the muddy track.

I lifted the handset. ‘There’s a car.’

A moment later Bill snapped, ‘Where?’

Where? Here, I felt like shouting. Here, you crazy bastard, right where you left me. Instead I said, ‘It’s stopped at the turn-off`.’

Down the track I saw our van suddenly lurch forward, it veered right and disappeared behind the barn. Whoever was in the Porsche was too low to have seen anything; from there all they could see was the barn’s roof.

‘How many?’ Bill’s voice on the handset.

‘One.’ My throat was dry, I swallowed. ‘A green Porsche.’

‘Not the car. How many in it?’

‘I can’t see.’ The Porsche reversed a few feet, stopped, then swung hesitantly onto the track. ‘It’s coming your way.’

Its back tyres had just left the tarmac, then it stopped again. The seconds ticked by. It just sat there. The engine burbled, the only sound apart from my strangled breathing. And then the engine died. ‘Well, is it coming or not?’ Bill barked.

I snatched at the volume, now Bill raved at me in a whisper. ‘No,’ I said. ‘He’s turned off the engine; he’s just sitting there. I think there’s just one, the driver.’

The car door opened, I felt my heart thud against my ribs. A man got out, his back turned to me; he looked down the track. He was holding something. I thought it was a newspaper, but then he tried to unfold it and I realized it was a map.

‘He’s got a map,’ I whispered to the handset. ‘I think he’s lost.’ I’m not sure if I really thought he was lost; maybe I was just hoping. It didn’t matter anyway, because right then he turned and rested his map on the car roof and I saw his face. ‘Jesus Christ,’ I said.

He studied the map, then lifted his head, looking up the lane and down the track. I huddled over the handset.

I said, ‘It’s Max.’

‘I know, a map. I heard you the first time. Listen——’

‘Not a map. Max. The guy in the Porsche, it’s Max.’

There was a pause. ‘Max Ward?'

'Yeah,’ I said. Then I released the speak-button and the handset squealed like a pig. Max spun round and looked straight up the ridge. I held myself stock-still, eyes fixed on a leaf on the ground.

‘Tyler?’ Max said. I glanced up. Max was edging along the car, looking straight up to where I was hidden.

‘He’s seen me,’ I said to the handset. ‘I’m going down to see what he wants.’ I got to my feet and looked over the hedge just as I heard Bill cry, ‘Don’t!’

I froze. Max stared up at me. For a second I thought I’d made the most God-awful blunder, then Max dropped his head to one side. ‘Collier?’ His brow creased in bewilderment; he smiled uncertainly. ‘What the fuck,’ he said, ‘are you doing here?’

The van trundled up a minute later. Bill didn’t wait for it to stop; he jumped out and made a bee-line for Max.

‘Stay put,’ he shouted. ‘You call this staying put? He gave Max a sharp poke in the chest. ‘This isn’t play school, is it? You think this is frigging play school?'

The pair of them stood glaring at one another, two schoolyard bullies facing off. But Max wasn’t in Bill’s league, and he cracked. He started explaining why he’d come down, the same Just-Helping-Out story he’d practised on me while we were waiting for the van. But Bill wasn’t interested.

‘Go read your K and R policy. Your company’s ceded control of this, now it’s Mortlake’s responsibility. The Mortlake Group appointed me. You interfere and you void the whole thing. Mortlake won’t have to pay a penny and your old man’s out on his own. Am I getting through to you, Max?’ The possibility that what he’d done might void the K and R policy had taken the wind out of Max's sails. Bill swayed forward. ‘Is that clear?’

‘It’s clear, okay?’ Max gave me a lopsided grin, like saying, Can you believe this guy? Then he turned back to Bill. ‘What was in the barn?’

‘None of your business.’ Bill turned on his heel and stalked across to the van while Max stood there fuming. ‘Collier,’ Bill called back, ‘you coming?'

I went over and climbed in, the van eased around the Porsche, and we started down the lane.

The driver was smiling, there was laughter in the back too; I guess everyone was pretty relieved that the worst they’d had to deal with was Max.

Bill said to me, ‘When you used to come here with your old man, did Sebastian Ward ever come down too?’

Not with us, I said. But sure, he might have come down here.

‘And Max?’

I took a moment with that. ‘Same,’ I said at last. Bill didn’t say anything, so I steeled myself and asked, ‘What was down in the barn?’

Bill lifted his leg. I braced myself for another explosive disintegration of the dash, but it didn’t happen. All he did was rest his boot up there. He picked at the clods of mud with a pocketknife. Max’s Porsche sent up a spray of mud as it roared past us, slewing down the lane. Bill concentrated on the mud on his boots. ‘Absafuckinglutely nothin’,’ he said.

O
n the way back to London I tried calling Tubs at home, but the phone just kept ringing, Mrs Laszlo was turning a deaf ear. Then I tried the Gallon. The barman put Nev Logan on, and Nev said Tubs had left straight after me that morning and hadn’t been back. ‘Any message?’ he asked me. But I’d just wanted to warn Tubs that it seemed a whole lot more likely now that the arson at Sebastian’s place was tied up with the dogs; who else would have known about Brentwell? I suppose I wanted to I tell him to be careful, I was feeling a bit uneasy now about having gotten him involved at all. But I said to Nev, ‘No. No message.’

In the back of the van they were quiet, the rush of relief wearing off. The driver smoked. Bill and me sat silently, watching the road and thinking our thoughts.

‘Just say,’ Bill said, ‘Sebastian Ward kidnapped himself?' I looked at him. ‘Just say,’ he said.

‘Is this before or after he killed Pike and burnt down his own house?’

‘The place was insured.’

‘Get serious. Pike’s dead.’

Bill lifted a hand. ‘Go with me. The K and R policy’s good for five million. Think about it. What’s he really got to do to get the money? Disappear for a few days, send a few e-mails, race us round the country. When we’re good and worried, Mortlake coughs up, Sebastian comes stumbling out of a cellar somewhere.’

‘What’s put this in your head? Max?’

Bill didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to, I had to be right. Max showing up at Lower Park Bam like that had really set Bill thinking.

‘Max Ward,’ I said, ‘is a dope.'

The driver piped up, ‘That how come he’s in the Porsche and we’re in the van?’

I said to Bill, ‘Sebastian and Allen are friends. And Sebastian doesn’t need stunts like this to make money.’

We were on the Old Kent Road again, not far from the City but passing through a different world. Grog shops with metal grilles across their windows, and most of the shopfronts boarded up. When we stopped at some lights an old woman came out of a newsagent next to us. She put down her shopping and scratched at her instant lottery card. A loser. She dropped the scratchie, picked up her shopping and trudged off.

As we pulled away from the lights Bill said, ‘Is he really a dope or just a good actor?’

I opened my mouth, then hesitated. Bill saw that. He nodded to himself.