Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid (33 page)

‘What the hell was that?’ said Statham.

‘Not exactly sure, but I think there might have been a shot,’ said Jarvis, still massaging his damaged ears. ‘Gun with a silencer maybe.’

Out of the corner of his eye, Patterson was aware that Statham was looking at him, apparently waiting for a decision about what they should do next. He considered his options, but there seemed to be remarkably few. Their main reason for being here at all was to ensure the safety of the kidnapped MP, but it seemed more than likely they had already failed on that score. They could always burst into the flat and grab whoever was still alive in there, but at least one of them had a gun – perhaps they all did – so the risk to him and his men was not inconsiderable. Besides, what would be the point when he knew that the case would never come to trial?

His instructions had been unequivocal in that respect.
Whatever the outcome, not a single detail of the operation could ever be made public. A general election was looming, and the government’s standing in the opinion polls was already causing alarm bells to ring in the corridors of power. A recent string of scandals involving some of the higher ranking party members had been particularly damaging, so the last thing the PM wanted right now was another one. If the media got even the faintest whiff of what Quicke had been up to and why he’d been kidnapped, the consequences would be disastrous. Not only that, but if it became known that the government had agreed to pay the ransom, its frequently repeated mantra never to give in to terrorist demands or any other form of blackmail would be ridiculed as a sham of the highest order.

Oh bollocks, thought Patterson, realising that he was getting nowhere with his decision-making process, and he began instead to calculate the kind of pension he might be entitled to if he took early retirement. But his financial musings were short lived.

‘You’re not gonna believe this,’ said Coleman when he ended the call on his mobile phone.

‘Don’t piss about,’ Patterson snapped. ‘Just tell me what you’ve got.’

‘Well, assuming it’s the same Julian Bracewell, he actually died four years ago.’ He paused for a reaction, but all he got was a raised eyebrow and a look of impatience, so he cleared his throat and carried on. ‘Bit of a bad lad apparently. Head of some gang in South London. Armed robbery mostly. In fact, he was out on bail over a bank job when he snuffed it.’

‘Bail?’

‘Yeah,
I
thought that was a bit weird. Anyway, before he croaked – when he was being questioned, like – he tried to put someone else in the frame. Er…’ Coleman glanced at his notebook. ‘Name of Harry Vincent.’

Patterson felt as if his frontal lobe had been poked with a cattle prod. Harry Vincent. Of course. He knew he’d recognised him from somewhere when he’d seen him get out of the taxi but hadn’t been able to put a name to him until now. He hadn’t even twigged when Jarvis had said one of the men in the flat was called Harry. Patterson remembered him from his Flying Squad days before he’d joined MI5. Everyone knew what a nasty little bastard he was, but there’d never been enough solid evidence to pin anything on him. Even when they’d tried to manufacture the evidence, Vincent could afford to hire the most expensive lawyers in the country to make sure he wriggled away scot free every time. The last Patterson had heard was a couple of years or so ago when the police had finally been able to put together a case which was not only likely to stick but which would also have put him away for a very long time. Unfortunately, though, Vincent had been blown to pieces in a car explosion before they’d been able to run him to ground. At least, that was the story at the time.

‘So what do we do now?’

This time, it was Statham who cut short his deliberations. Patterson stared at him as if he was struggling to remember who he was.

‘Do?’ he said at last. ‘I’m really not sure what we
can
do.’

‘But if they’re starting to shoot people, shouldn’t we be—’

‘Look,’ said Patterson. ‘It seems a pretty safe bet that this MP we were supposed to keep alive has already shuffled off his mortal coil, and what’s more, there are two dead men in there who appear to be very much in the land of the living. No, we listen and wait and see what happens. With a bit of luck they might all end up killing each other and save us the bother.’

Statham opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a loud knocking on the door of the flat. Of the four men, only Jarvis did not turn instantly towards it. His eardrums having recovered sufficiently, the headphones were now back in place, and all he could hear were the sounds from the next door apartment.

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Harry pitched sideways when the bullet hit, and instinct made him throw out his hands to break his fall. One of them caught the top of the armchair, and he brought it crashing down on its back with the dead MP still attached.

‘Ah, don’t they make a lovely couple,’ said Bracewell, clearly enjoying the sight of Harry sprawled on the floor next to the upturned corpse and clutching at the still-smoking hole in his foot.

‘What the fuck d’you do that for?’ said Harry through teeth clamped shut from the pain.

‘Let’s just say I’m not at all keen on your attitude towards the gay community, old boy.’

MacFarland laughed. Harry’s complete lack of sympathy for the injury to his own foot made the scene especially comical. Harry screwed his head round to glare up at him, his face twisted into a fusion of agony and rage. Whatever happened from that moment on, MacFarland realised he was suddenly out of a job. What else did he have to lose?

‘Looks like you’ve really shot yirself in the foot this time,’ he said.

‘You’re a dead man, Scotchboy,’ Harry snarled as he dragged himself into a sitting position with his back against the side of the armchair, blood now running freely from the hole in his tan-coloured brogue.

‘Perhaps you should have stayed in Greece,’ said Bracewell. ‘In fact, I can’t for the life of me understand why this MP chappie was so important that you felt the need to come back at all.’

‘Thought your little bum-chum there would’ve told yer all about it,’ said Harry and grunted as he struggled to untie his blood-soaked shoelace.

‘Michael told me all I needed to know for my purposes of course, but not the… nitty-gritty, so to speak.’

‘What d’you care anyway?’

Bracewell shrugged. ‘Shall we say… professional curiosity?’

‘Well yer know what you can do with that, don’tcha?’ Harry said, finally releasing his shoe and tossing it weakly in Bracewell’s direction. ‘’Cept a fucking shirt lifter like you would probably enjoy it.’

‘Our wee deid MP here stitched ye up good and proper, didn’t he, Harry?’ said MacFarland. ‘And nobody messes wi’ the great Harry Vincent, do they, eh?’

‘Oh do tell, dear boy,’ said Bracewell.

MacFarland needed no further encouragement to add the insult of humiliation to his ex-employer’s physical injury and explained how Harry had bribed the MP about a year ago to ‘do him a wee favour’. As well as his less-than-legal enterprises, Harry also had his podgy little fingers in some rather more legitimate business pies and even had his own construction company. When he heard there was a major government contract in the offing, he’d decided to try and tip the balance his way, and that’s when he nobbled Gerald Quicke.

The MP had been on holiday in Greece when Harry met him by chance in one of his local watering holes. A fair few sherbets later, Quicke had started bragging how he could influence which way the decision went when it came to awarding the contract. What Harry didn’t know was that Quicke was so far down the greasy pole, he wouldn’t even have had a say in what brand of bog roll they used in the House of Commons toilets, never mind influencing who got what contract. But Harry was taken in by all the guy’s blether and decided that bunging him fifty grand would be a sound business investment.

Of course, when it was announced that some other company had got the job, Harry did his nut. And when it turned out that Quicke had done bugger all to fight Harry’s corner, the writing was already on the wall.

‘Ah, I see. A simple matter of revenge then,’ said Bracewell. ‘One can only assume that our recently departed dishonourable member had no idea who he was dealing with or what he might be capable of.’

‘Should’ve just ‘ad the little bastard wasted, but I wanted me money back, didn’t I? Plus an extra hundred k for seriously pissing me off.’

‘Punitive damages, eh?’

‘If you like,’ said Harry, who by now had removed his sock and was using it to try and stem the flow of blood.

‘Still, I suppose one could say you’ve had your cake and eaten it too,’ said Bracewell, nodding towards the body of the MP in the overturned armchair.

‘Yeah, all except for a fucking ‘ole in me foot and the twenty-five grand that bitch and ‘er boyfriend waltzed off with.’

‘Oh?’ said Bracewell, raising an eyebrow at Delia.

‘Bit of a long story,’ said Delia. ‘I’ll tell you later.’

‘But do I take it that the remainder of Mr Vincent’s ill-gotten gains is in safe keeping?’

‘Of course,’ said Delia with a smile, and he pointed to the briefcase he’d left just inside the door when they’d first entered the flat.

Bracewell beamed back at him and patted him softly on the cheek. ‘Well then, I do believe our business here is concluded. – Shall we?’

He ostentatiously held out his arm, crooked at the elbow, and Delia slipped his own arm through the gap. MacFarland couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Not the gay thing. He didn’t give a flying fart about all that stuff as long as nobody tried it on with him. No, it looked like they were just going to mince off into the sunset and that would be that. Surely Bracewell wasn’t going to leave Harry alive. That was the whole point, wasn’t it? And what were they planning to do with
him
?

The two men stopped when they reached the armchair, and Bracewell looked down at Harry’s contorted features. ‘Goodbye, old chap,’ he said. ‘I won’t say
au revoir
as I very much doubt I shall ever have the misfortune of seeing you again.’

Harry stared up at him with defiant loathing, but his expression switched abruptly to one of surprise when he saw his nemesis slip the still silenced gun into his pocket. ‘Whassup, Julian? Lost yer bottle?’

‘Not at all, dear boy. I simply decided that killing you wouldn’t be nearly as much fun as leaving you to be found next to the body of the profoundly dead Member for Wherever-on-the-Wold. Even if you somehow manage to squirm your way out of this one, I have every confidence that our mutual friends in the constabulary have a rather long list of reasons why you should spend the rest of your days as a guest of Her Majesty.’

Harry hawked and spat, but the distance was too great, and the gobbet of phlegm landed harmlessly on the floor. Bracewell tutted and was about to continue on his way out of the flat when Delia held him back.

‘You don’t think he’ll be able to get out of here before the police arrive, do you?’

‘Hmm,’ said Bracewell, scratching his chin and frowning. ‘Good point.’

The words were barely out of his mouth when he whipped the gun back out of his pocket and shot Harry through his other foot.

‘Fuuuuuuuuuccckkkk!’

Bracewell slowly unscrewed the silencer from his gun and squinted as he watched Harry writhing on the ground and clutching his newly wounded foot. ‘You know, Harry, despite your age and the fact that you could do with losing more than a few pounds around the tummy area, that tan of yours is going to make you awfully popular in the prison showers. Toodle pip, old boy.’

So saying, he set off towards the door with Delia at his side, and MacFarland fixed his eyes on the gun which Bracewell had not yet returned to his pocket. He’d often wondered what it felt like to be on the wrong end of a bullet, and it was well on the cards he was about to find out. Aye well, as long as it wasn’t the stomach. – Oh Jeez, no. Not in the stomach.

‘You okay, Mac?’

‘Uh?’ He’d caught sight of Delia stooping to pick up his briefcase on the edge of his vision, but his focus stayed pinned to Bracewell’s gun.

‘I said are you—’ Delia began again but broke off when he realised the reason for MacFarland’s distraction. ‘Julian.’

Bracewell must have clocked the reproachful tone in Delia’s voice because he instantly looked at his gun as if he was surprised to find it was still in his hand.

‘I say. Sorry, old boy,’ he said, thrusting the pistol back into his pocket. ‘You didn’t think I was going to— Oh dear, that really would have buggered our little
entente cordiale
, wouldn’t it?’

‘Listen, Mac,’ said Delia, placing a hand on MacFarland’s shoulder. ‘I wouldn’t hang around here if I were you. I’ll be giving the police a bell as soon as we’re clear.’

‘Dinnae worry, pal. I’m just gonna say ma goodbyes and I’m away,’ he said with an exaggerated wink.

Delia turned to go and then hesitated. ‘Give me a call,’ he said. ‘We might have something for you if you’re interested.’

‘Aye? – Well, cheers. I may just take ye up on that.’

As soon as Bracewell and Delia had gone, MacFarland strode over to where Harry was thrashing about on the floor and gave him a hefty kick in the nuts.