Shadow Box (18 page)

I knew that Tony had a good track record with his hunches.

“And I’m the sucker sent in to sniff about since Tony’s off-limits?”

“Correct. You were the man for the job anyway. We followed a lead; that’s all we can do. And on the way you’ve picked up some very good intel on the London IRA.”

“I guess there’s a link,” I said, grudgingly. “Tommy was financing them in a small way through The Harp, Bashmakov’s hooked up with them in some way. Like Tony always says, these things have a habit of linking up.”

“Sure,” Sharp said. “It’s a question of joining the dots. What about Bashmakov?”

“The bloke who got me out said his name was the magic word.”

“Did he say why?” Sharp glanced sideways at me.

“Not really. Why does everyone jump at the mention of his name?”

“He’s a new breed of villain,” Sharp said. “He works on a global scale – you’ve seen it yourself. One minute he’s floating off Croatia trading a few million in cocaine and the same again in stolen art. The next day, he’s probably got a helicopter into Afghanistan to do the same again with heroin.

“Tommy Kelly’s genius was to hide the skulduggery behind several business fronts. The other smart thing he did was to keep it friendly with the other factions, like the yardies and the triads … and the IRA. Tommy convinced them that working together against the law while respecting each other’s territories was to all their advantages. That’s how organized crime works, and that’s what made him so strong, but to be honest, Tommy’s operation looks like a village post office compared to Bashmakov’s multinational corporation.”

“But Tommy gets on with Bashi, as he calls him.”

“Well, he did initially, I think. Bashmakov fluffed Tommy up when he moved in on London. Don’t forget, the Russians didn’t really arrive here until six or seven years ago, and Bashmakov needed Tommy as a strong London connection to do business with. Like before, Tommy thought it better to cosy up to the Russian rather than make an enemy.”

“Like giving him gifts of fake pictures and stuff. So what’s changed?”

“With Tommy inside, he’s little use – or more importantly, little
threat
– to Bashmakov unless Tommy has something the Russian wants, in which case he just uses his muscle and cherry picks, taking over bits of Kelly business. Just takes it. There’s little Tommy can do about it.”

“Does Tommy know?”

“Of course he does. It’s driving him nuts. He’s hired the top law firm for his appeal. He’ll spend his last penny if it means he can get out and back in the saddle. It’s taken him all this time to realize that there are certain things he can’t control from inside and it’s making him mad as hell.”

“Like finding Sophie?”

Sharp nodded.

“What’s your hunch?”

“Anna’s working on it,” Sharp said. “But I think we’re going to have to spread our net a little wider.”

Donnie was in the garden, smoking a fag and driving Brandy the Bichon Frise mental with a rubber ball on a bit of elastic. He would bounce it hard on the path so the ball would rebound well out of reach of the small dog as she leapt into the air. On its downward trajectory, the ball was given extra momentum by the elastic and would hit the dog hard on the nose as she tried to catch it, making her yelp.

Donnie chuckled and repeated the action multiple times, laughing out loud when the ball caught the dog a corker. Finally he tired of the game and offered Brandy the ball from his hand. Instead of taking it, Brandy bit her tormentor’s finger and held on.

Dave returned just in time to find Donnie releasing the dog’s grip by kicking her.

“What you doing, Don? Don’t kick the fucking dog.”

“Sorry, Dave. It bit me.”

“She never bites, Don.”

“She did this time, Dave, hard.”

“Not as hard as my missus will bite you if she finds you’ve kicked Brandy.”

“Sorry, Dave.”

Donnie knew he had outstayed his welcome. The night before, tucked under his frilly duvet in the single bed, he had heard Dave and Pam rowing. Through the wall, Pam’s voice sounded hissy and Dave’s low rumble sounded conciliatory – promises to get him out as soon as, Donnie was sure.

“How’s the guvnor, Dave?” Donnie asked. Dave had just been to Belmarsh to see Tommy.

“Not in the best of moods. The appeal’s coming up soon. Them lawyers are shit hot, worth every penny. All Oxbridge and Cambridge, finest minds in the country, they’re all over it like the pox, covering every angle: bent coppers, paid witnesses, unreliable evidence, the lot.”

“So, isn’t he happy about that?”

“Yes, Don. But it’s taking too long. He thinks he’s been had about finding Sophie, there’s not been a peep. The longer he’s in there, the more chancers have a go at our biz. He thinks he’s being wound up so that he might give something away. When he’s really down, he thinks Sophie might already be brown bread.”

“No, Dave!” Donnie protested.

“Nothing from Cheryl, neither. You’d have thought, wouldn’t you? Just a note. In my view he was always too good to her, yet nothing was ever good
enough
for her, you know?”

“Perhaps she don’t want to send anything that would impli … get anyone into trouble?”

“I just think she didn’t like it when the shit hit the fandango. It interfered with her lifestyle. She’s been with TK nearly thirty years and had it easy the last ten: lunches and shopping and that.”

“D’you think so, Dave?” Donnie’s experience of relationships was limited to six months maximum.

“Women don’t like it when the biz goes tits-up, Don. They’re frightened they’ll lose the gaff, the Lexus and the tanning salon membership.” Dave leant forward confidentially, patted Donnie on the knee. “That’s why I always keep it sweet with Pammy. On the level.”

As far as Donnie had seen, Dave was terrified of the woman. All six foot three of him flinched when he heard the front door open. “Hello darling, you home? Cuppa tea?”

It wasn’t that Donnie disliked Pam, far from it. She had been very kind putting him up, feeding and watering him. She just sometimes gave Dave a look that would melt steel at fifty paces, her mouth tightening into lines like a washbag that had had its string pulled.

Donnie wondered at the power these women had over big, strong men.

“There’s something I want to talk about, Don.”

“I know, Dave,” Donnie sighed. “You want me out.”

“Well, I did promise Pam you wouldn’t be here longer than a week. But there’s a bit of business to do before we decide where you go, Don.”

“Oh?”

“Remember that hit you done up in St John’s Wood a while ago?”

“The Russian?”

“Correct. Well, it looks like the warning wasn’t taken. They’ve snatched up a bit more of our territory. Just like that, muscled in because they can. We’ve got foot soldiers out there who can take care of theirselves, but these Russkis are something else. They think we’ve had it our way too long. Tommy doesn’t want to start effing World War III, it’s not his way. He’s got some good eastern European allies, but he wants to give them a dry slap, let them know he’s not messing about.”

“How big a slap?”

“A large one. Well aimed. There’s this guy, Oleg Komorov. They call him OK.”

“OK, Dave?”

“Yeah. OK. He’s one of Alexei Bashmakov’s chief negotiators. He works out of the Russian Embassy in London, so he looks kosher but he’s as bent as a bottle of chips. A big dealer; Tommy reckons that Komorov is the one muscling in on our business.”

“OK.”

“Yeah, OK – Komorov. Working on Bashmakov’s behalf, like his front man, picking up our contacts, buying them off.”

“I thought Bashi and the guvnor were comrades-in-arms?”

“Course they was, until one sees the other one down and can pick up some action. There’s a vacuum, a power shift. Like what happened with Patsy in Spain. These boys don’t get on by opening doors and giving it the ‘After you, Cecil’, do they? They just pile in and grab it. Nature abhors a vacuum and this behaviour cannot be tolerated.”

Donnie could hear the echo of Tommy’s phrases in Dave’s.

“S’pose not, Dave.”

“Right, so here’s the deal. We know Komorov is meeting a Harp contact who has worked with us in the past. So Tommy wants you to be at that meeting. We’ll find out where it is…”

“You know I’m not a good negotiator, Dave – you’d be better.”

“Tommy doesn’t want you to negotiate, Don. He wants you to do what you’re best at. He wants to send Bashmakov a clear message by shooting Komorov. And whoever he’s doing business with. Make it loud and clear to Bashmakov and all concerned parties.”

“OK, Dave.”

“Exactly: OK, Don.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow.”

Dave cruised round the outer circle of Regent’s Park until they found a bay.

Late breakfast had been the full monty in one of the few remaining Italian greasy spoons in Camden. Where Camden had once been almost entirely peopled by Irish and Italians, now all the caffs, chippies and small businesses were run by Turks, Estonians and Poles.

Dave remarked on the fact as they walked around the park, past the giraffes and the elephant houses at London Zoo.

“It’s not racialist, Don,” Dave said. “It’s just they all have different habits, different ways of doing things. Like the difference between them giraffes and elephants.”

Donnie watched as a giraffe obligingly drifted past, several metres of neck visible above the fence.

“So which ones are we, Dave? Elephants or giraffes?”

“Neither, Don,” Dave said. “We’re the lions. The kings of the jungle. We have to show our teeth and claws.”

“What about the Russians?”

“Big bastard ugly brown bears,” Dave said. “Not proud and wily like us lions. No class. We’re the bulldog breed.”

“I thought we was the lions, Dave, make your mind up.”

Donnie was suddenly struck by the infantile turn of the conversation when the business of the day was to shoot a Russian in the face.

They had recced the restaurant, off Regent’s Park Road: The Lemon Tree, a well-established Greek, whitewashed with green blinds. It would be open in an hour or so. They walked across the bridge and sat by the canal, watching ducks drift by in the morning sun. Donnie smoked while Dave checked his BlackBerry. He read an email a couple of times and smiled to himself.

“Bit of good news, Don.”

“Dave?”

“The Savage kid’s back. I thought we’d lost him while you was indisposed – he went off piste.”

Donnie wasn’t overjoyed to hear this. Just meant another job he didn’t want to do.

“I’m too hot to keep an eye on him,” Donnie said. “Get Jimmy Gallagher back on it. I’m a wanted man. Bit risky.”

“I’ll be the judge of that, Don. I look after you, don’t I? No beat copper is going to feel your collar. Listen, let’s concentrate on the job in hand and tool you up.”

They got back in the car and slowly drove out of the park and across to Primrose Hill. Donnie admired the pretty, ice-cream-coloured houses that he guessed were worth a couple of million each.

Dave turned into a narrow mews off Regent’s Park Road that ended in a row of garages. He took two pistols, wrapped in a cloth, from the glove compartment. Donnie unfolded the cloth and examined them; they were sleek with freshly applied oil.

“Smith & Wesson 9 mm?” Donnie asked.

“Correct, Don.”

“Big boy for the job, innit? Silencer?”

“No silencer, Tommy doesn’t want a quiet job. He wants everyone to know about it. The 9 mm will make sure of a messy kill, Don.”

“Two guns?”

“Just in case one of them’s armed. I want a gun pointing at both heads at the same time. Bang, Don. Bang. We don’t want crossfire, we want a clean kill. There will be people in there, and we want them to see a good show; it’ll rattle everyone’s fucking bars. Bang, Don. Bang.” Dave held out two fingers of each hand to demonstrate.