The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1) (2 page)

Harry stopped. George wheezed up alongside him. “Come back, we can sort it.”

Harry shook his head. “No,” he said. “This is all bollocks, mate.”

Sonny joined them outside, all smiles. “OK, Harry,” he said. “If you were trying to fuck us you wouldn’t have gone. Let’s go back in and work it out.”

“OK,” Harry said hesitantly, “but I ain’t got all day. I’ve got to get the parcel over to the Mile End Road and people at the other end are waiting.”

In the distance, a police siren rang out. Wheezy George looked nervous. “Is that the Filth?” he asked anxiously.

Harry smiled. “Well, it’s going too fast to be a fucking ice cream van.”

Sonny laughed and patted Harry’s shoulder as the siren faded. “Make yourself useful,” he told George. “Go and get the van.”

“Where’s he off to?” asked Harry suspiciously.

“We came up in the motor,” Sonny explained. “The van’s about five minutes down the road.” He turned and they walked back into the pub. “Sorry, man. We’re both a bit jumpy. Thing is, H, I got off of shooting an Old Bill up in Wandsworth last year and I’m paranoid. It’s on me all the time.”

Harry smiled. “You wanna leave that Charlie alone, mate,” he said.

“Not me, mate,” Sonny protested. “Don’t touch that stuff. Just the odd spliff, me. That shit fucks yer head up.”

“It don’t do yer schnozz too many favours, either, judging by Danniella Westbrook’s ’ooter. Talk about paying through yer nose.”

“What about the money, Harry?”

“Soon as I’ve viewed the parcel, you count it and we go our separate ways,” Harry said decisively. “I’ll be back with your van about eight o’clock tonight and pick me motor up.

“Sweet,” said Sonny. “Me brother won’t be long.”

Harry laughed. “He’s about as much your brother as I am,” he said. “I mean, you and me could be twins compared to him and you.”

Sonny laughed, too. “Don’t we look like brothers, then?” he chuckled.

“Well,” said Harry, “you’ve both got your mother’s eyes.”

“Where’s your family out of, H?” Sonny asked.

“Brentwood mainly. You know Brentwood?”

“What, Essex, yeah?”

“Yeah. What about you two?”

“West London. Acton way.”

“You’re a long way from home.”

“Yeah, Georgie’s got a baby mother over here, place called Addington, not too far away. I was giving her sister one.”

“Was or are?”

“No, I was. On and off. But her old man’s out of the boob now and he’s one fuckin’ mean mother. He’s wrapped up with the Brixton and Peckham boys.”

Harry pursed his lips. “Bringing a lot of attention to ’emselves at the moment, all shooting each other. I thought that puff was supposed to make you all laid back and shit.”

“Laid back?” Sonny snorted. “If he knew I was giving his old lady one, I’d be laid out, mate, in a casket at Francis Wosname, Francis Chappell’s.”

Harry’s mobile rang. “Yeah?” he said, walking away from the table. “What? … Yeah … No, I’m in Basildon at the moment, seeing me sister. I’ll be back about eight tonight … Yeah … later.”

As he laid the phone on the table, Sonny’s smile exploded into a chuckle. “Basildon!” he sniggered.

“Listen,” said Harry. “I never tell anyone where I am. Well, unless they owe me money.” He grinned. “D’you remember when the Derby was on a Wednesday?”

“Yeah.”

“’Undred times better, wunnit? A proper event. Everyone skived off work for it. And the bollocks you’d ’ear people saying on the dog, y’know, ‘No I’m just driving down the M1, love. I’ll be home in five hours.’ Or ‘No, I’m still feeling sick, but thanks for ringing. I’ll be back at work as soon as me guts heal up’, and all you can hear in the background is ‘Put that fucking donkey back on Southend beach’ or ‘Come on! Come on!’ as if that makes the fucking things run any quicker.”

“You like the horses?”

“No, do I bollocks! Just a good day out on the piss.”

“I’ll ring George, see where he is.”

“No hurry. One thing, though …”

“Yeah?”

“Well, you mentioned shooting Old Bill.” Harry hesitated. “If there’s any tools about, I ain’t trading.”

Sonny shook his head vigorously. “No,” he said. “That’s when I’m going out to party or work, man. There’s some mad muvvas out there. I ain’t got nothing about me, anyway.”

“Same go for your brother?”

“There’s no tools about,” Sonny insisted.

A large white box van was pulling in outside. It parked in the far corner, away from prying eyes. George looked all about him before turning off the engine and calling Sonny on the mobile. “I’m in the car park.”

“Right,” said Sonny. “We’re coming out. Undo the padlock.”

Harry and Sonny left the pub together. Harry put his mobile in the inside pocket of his black combat jacket and carried the
Newham Recorder
in his right hand, rolled up like a cosh. They crossed to the van. George was at the back of the long vehicle. All three of them looked about, surveying far-off passers-by and pedestrians suspiciously. As Harry got to the rear, Sonny was slightly ahead of him, opening the doors. The entire length and breadth of the van was half-full with cardboard boxes.

“There,” beamed Sonny. “You gonna get the money?”

“Open a box,” Harry commanded. Sonny pulled at the flaps of the nearest one. It contained a computer screen in pristine condition.

“What about them at the back?” asked Harry. “Open a few of them up.”

Sonny and George clambered over the load to get to the end nearest the driver’s compartment. They started opening them, box after box full of goodies.

“OK, I’ll push the doors to and go and get the money,” Harry said. The two men started to close up the boxes as the doors shut and the light faded.

As Harry crossed the car park, he tossed the newspaper into a rubbish bin. He was suddenly aware of the eight or nine cars moving towards the car park and other cars already parked, disgorging men and women out on the road. Baseball caps were going on, dark blue ones with black and white chequered bands. A powerful motorbike roared into the forecourt, followed by a woman in a car with a baby-seat but no baby – the police surveillance team. Harry knew the time had come. His heart started to pound. He began to jog then sped into a run. He fumbled for his keys. He didn’t want to look back.

No sooner had he reached the Granada than the door was open and he was in. His pulse was racing. In the films this was where the engine doesn’t start. The Granny drew breath. Harry steadied himself and pulled out on to the road, a road that led to happiness, joy and civilisation. East London, la-la-la! Nothing in front. Nothing coming up fast behind. His pulse was still racing. He accelerated, but not enough to draw attention to himself, and that was it. He was gone. Away. Free.

The racing pulse gave way to uncontrollable laughter, then a burst of song:

“Hey ho, hey HO!

To Upton Park we GO!

With a bo’le an’ a brick an’ a walkin’ stick, Hey ho, hey ho, hey ho …”

Back in the van, the brothers were getting bored. H had been five or six minutes now. Where was he? “C’mon,” said Sonny. “Let’s go and collect that nice big earner.” George started giggling. Sonny chuckled too. 25K! It was like something out of the movies. By coincidence, they started laughing out loud about the same time as Harry did. As they pushed the doors open, Butch and Sundance got the real joke.

“ARMED POLICE! FREEZE!”

George’s eyeballs bobbled. How many Old Bill had shouted that? The entire Mexican army was out there. Was it ten, eleven, twelve … how many guns were pointing at them? And, Christ! Their dabs were all over thousands of pounds’ worth of stolen gear. How do you bullshit your way out of that?

“ARMED POLICE! ARMED POLICE!”

The National Crime Squad moved in.

It was one thing getting nicked with your hands on the parcel in the back of a van hired on a nicked licence, but did that big lump of a copper really have to slam poor podgy George’s head face down into a puddle?

Within seconds the plastic ’cuffs were on and the load was recovered. In the background, Sonny heard confirmation that “the third man” – Harry! – had got away after a manic chase through Addington.

“Good luck, H,” thought Sonny. “Good luck, mate …”

Ten minutes later, Harry pulled over into a lay-by and made a call on his mobile.

“Can you talk, guv?” he asked.

“Yes, I can,” came the reply.

“Result?”

“Absolutely. We got both the mugs, sweet as. Give us a couple of hours then see me at Sutton nick. I’ll sort your pocket book and expenses, OK? Nice job. Well done, Harry. I’ll have a large one waiting.”

F
or centuries people have stood at the rear of the Mayflower public house in Rotherhithe and watched the Thames roll by. The sun, the water, the sense of history … it’s mesmerising. Close your eyes and you can almost hear the raucous banter of dockers and stevedores from times past when the river was king. “Living ’istory,” Freddie the landlord calls his pub. “It dates back from when Millwall played in doublet and ’ose.” He’ll offer you a pint of Ann Boleyn bitter. “Very old and no ’ead,” he’ll say. And the first time you might even laugh.

Regular as clockwork, the tourist boats toddle down from Westminster Bridge on their way to Greenwich and the Dome. Even now, six months in to the new millennium, Freddie still claims it’s the world’s biggest wok, built to feed all the “Tiddlies” who live thereabouts. None of his jokes have tell-by dates.

Rotherhithe is a lot like the Thames; it keeps moving but nothing really changes. Historically, the cream of Britain’s blaggers, the FACES, the aristocracy of the armed robbery fraternity, have come out of Rotherhithe. But these men aren’t set in their ways like the old T&GWU dinosaurs who once ruled the docks. The faces adapted to the modern world – they packed away the sawn-offs and moved in to Es, whizz, puff and Charlie. Why get blown away by the Sweeney going across the pavement for ten grand’s worth of stolen Tom when you can get some soppy gopher to serve up grams of cocaine (cut to shit with
hay-fever
tabs)? The profits were fifty times bigger –
SWEET!
– and there were no armed response units lurking about waiting to administer a swift injection of lead poisoning for your trouble.

Keeping in front of the game was all that mattered, whatever side of the law you were on. It was the key to survival for men like Johnny “Too Handsome” Baker, a powerfully built, for-real gangster who was looking out from the Mayflower’s back patio, watching all the politely excited Japanese holidaymakers on their way to snap-snap-snap at Mandelson’s folly.

From the corner of his left eye, he clocked a tourist taking shot after shot of him. Johnny realised at once that he was Filth, but didn’t react. So fucking what? Just another pretty piccy for the Old Bill’s album. He smiled archly at his unknown admirer. The day he graduated to proper satellite surveillance was the day he’d made it, he thought. Not that Johnny had any intention of being involved in anything vaguely nickable by this time next year. He had minor legitimate businesses in place and his eye on e-commerce. Johnny had got the internet bug after he had started ordering his CDs from Amazon, and his puff from the Dam. His first venture was an e-florist delivery service,
BudsRus
.co.uk (he’d toyed briefly with stamen. busters) which was already enjoying a decent trade with two major West End record companies, Express Newspapers, and ITN.

They called him “Too Handsome” because he was. His old auntie Em had said it first on Johnny’s 14th birthday. “That boy is too ’andsome, ’e’ll break a lot of ’earts,” she’d said. She didn’t seem too worried about the necks or legs. The lager might have puffed him out over the years – Johnny was 37 – but he still turned heads more often than Linda Blair in
The Exorcist.
He was six-foot-two with light brown hair and a barrel chest. His eyes were so blue they made the Med seem murky. He dressed well, it was a Paul Smith whistle today, and boy did he have the gift of the gab. When he turned on the charm, Johnny made Danny Baker (no relation) seem shy and retiring.

To his associates he was Johnny Too, or JT. To anyone else he was Mr Baker.

Respect due.

A heavy presence loomed up behind him. His older brother, Joey, a big sprawling bear of a man, appeared with two pints of lager in his large, sinewy hands. Rival villains called Joey “Two Planks” but never to his face. What he lacked in brains he more than made up for in raw aggression and brute strength. Joey was 40, but just as crazy now as when he was 16. He’d always been pretty fucked up in the head. His criminal record had begun, not unusually, with a series of house-breakings. The “presents” he used to leave in his victims’ beds earned him his first visit to the trick cyclist after he was nicked. The shrink told him he would grow up a sexual deviant if he kept defecating in people’s beds, which goes to prove psychiatry isn’t always a con-trick. Early doors he was nicknamed Joey The Turd, but since he was 30 he had been known as Pyro Joe thanks to his unique way of disposing of a rival mini-cab firm – funny how so many car engines spontaneously combusted on August 9, 1980. And not a single complaint to the cops. Definitely a case for Mulder and Scully. When old man Colin Baker popped his clogs, Johnny Too took over the family business with Pyro Joe as his enforcer. The Baker empire included a backstreet casino, a thriving mini-cab firm, a bar in Marbella, an escort agency, various properties and three pubs, none of which were the Mayflower. The now-defunct cabaret club had been a long fraud.

Johnny had tried to excite his brother about Net activities just the once. It had been like trying to teach algebra to a garden gnome. In Cantonese. Joey was a different man – no frills, no foreign grub and definitely “no fuckin’ compooters”.

“He ain’t here,” Joey growled.

“I can see that, bruv.”

“I’ll go round, see his missus again, give her a fuckin’ slap.”

“No, he’ll turn up. It ain’t her fault, the skaggy slut.”

Joey frowned. “She said this was where he was drinking.”

Johnny put his arm round his brother’s massive shoulder. “Joe, mate, chill. I ain’t breaking me bollocks chasing that piece of shit for a few quid. He’ll get it when he deems to pay up. Kick the fuck out of him then. It’ll help his memory for next time.” That seemed to cheer Joey up. Johnny drained his pint. “C’mon.”

Constant police surveillance is a fact of life for top-quality villains like the Bakers. Johnny Too prided himself on being able to spot a wrong ’un. Most of the time he was right. As it happened, the BT engineers up to their eyes in spaghetti wire just down the road from the Mayflower were genuine. It was just unfortunate for them that they looked such a pair of hapless bastards.

“Feds?” said Joey.

“Maybe.”

“Wait here.”

“Leave it.”

“Bollocks.”

As John got to the V-reg Mercedes, Pyro Joe strolled over and crossed his arms, towering over the nearest engineer in his pit.

“All right, mate?” the BT man said, but just one look at this looming, wild-eyed bastard told him it wasn’t.

Joey unzipped his suit trousers, produced a fat cock and urinated into the hole. “No, it fucking ain’t,” he snapped. “Take a picture of that for the collection.” He zipped himself up and walked back, unabashed, to the gently purring Merc.

Lesley Gore focused her eyes on the bedside clock. 11.38 am. Fuck! Her head hurt. And oh, God, what had she done? Not Dougie! She’d only fucked Dougie! Dougie the fucking Dog. She curled herself up into a foetal ball but it didn’t make the shame go away. It wasn’t that he was married, or even that he was her boss’s cousin, but he had to be the worst fuck she’d ever had – too small, too quick, too rough, no attempt at foreplay. And he was probably down the Ned blabbing about it already. What was that going to do for what little reputation she had left? Fuck! She was dying for a fag. Lesley sat up. It made her head ten times worse. Coffee. She needed coffee – strong, black and sweet. She pulled on her dressing gown and lit up an Embassy. Why Dougie? Why had she let him take her out, and take her in? Hadn’t she decided after Tom McCann that she was never going to fuck another fella from the Ned? And what had it taken Dougie to pull her? Three lines of Charlie, a Chinese, and a litre of Bulgarian Chardonnay. Fuck it!

She stumbled up the corridor of her flat. The postman had been. Bills, junkmail. Didn’t anyone send proper letters any more? Lesley looked in the hall mirror. Big mistake. Her blue eyes were bloodshot. And talk about the St Valentine’s Day mascara. She poked out her pierced tongue at her own reflection. The tongue was off-colour but at least the stud still glistened. It had been the only one in her bed last night, that was for sure. She shivered. Fucking Dougie! It would be all over the Ned. How could she work there today? Bollocks.

She’d get her mum to ring in for her, go back to bed and watch last night’s
EastEnders
. Lesley smiled. Dan Sullivan, now he would be worth fucking.

Pyro Joe sat in the passenger seat, pulled on his seat belt, and opened the
Sun
at Page Three.

“Abby Essien,” he said. “Smashing tits.”

Johnny Too glanced over. “Know what I hate about Page Three now?” he asked. “They’ve done away with the funny captions. You don’t just wanna see a picture, you wanna know what the bird does for a living, what she likes on telly. Y’know, ‘Kelly from Leytonstone, 19, works in a fish shop’, so you’re thinking, Works in a fish shop, does she? I’d serve her up a portion.”

“I could reach me vinegar with Abby,” leered Joey.

“Where’s she from?”

“Blackpool.”

“There y’go, in my mind’s eye I’ve already got her riding the Big One.”

“Who was your all-time favourite Page Three girl, John?”

“Linda Lusardi! She had it all, the looks, the brains, a touch of class. She could have bin an English Teri Hatcher – who you know is my number one girl in the world.”

“Oh yeah, Lois Lane.”

“Who was yours?”

“Suzanne Mizzi,” Pyro Joe said without hesitation. The big man thought for a moment. “Do you think Superman could ever have fucked Lois Lane, what with him being super and all?”

“You mean would the man of steel have a rod of iron?” Johnny Too laughed. “Maybe not. Might hurt an Earth woman, what with all that superspeed. Think of the friction burns once he got going, and his super-spunk shooting out, prob’ly rip right through her belly.”

Joe chortled. “’E might be blowing in her ear, get carried away with passion, and her head could end up in Gotham City.”

“Their honeymoon night would be poxed. I mean, what would she wear? A see-through nightie? Why? The geezer’s got x-ray vision.”

“Superman didn’t really do much shagging, did he? Wonder why? With all those powers he’d be beating the birds off with a stick.”

“Maybe he was shy. Or maybe he really did come from Smallville.”

The brothers chuckled. The lights ahead went red, and Johnny Too braked. As soon as the Mercedes stopped, the Kosovan refugees moved in with their squeegies.

“Here we go,” Johnny muttered, adding loudly, “NO! Not today, mate.”

He waved his hands to translate the sentiment into body language. The lead Kosovan, an unshaven man in his thirties gave him a gap-toothed grin and squirted detergent over the Merc’s windscreen. Johnny was out of the car in a
heartbeat
, pushing the Kosovan away. “What part of fucking ‘No’ don’t you understand, you mug?” he shouted. Pyro Joe got out of the car too, and growled at the other refugees who kept their distance. Johnny went on: “I do not want
scumbags
like you rotting my rubbers with your cheap fucking detergent,
capisshh?
”

The Kosovan lunged at his assailant. Johnny grabbed him in a neck-lock under his right arm and smashed him in the nose with his left fist. “Oh for Chrissakes,” he said. “Now you’re bleedin’ on me whistle.”

He let the Kosovan drop to the floor, put his right boot on his head and shouted at his companions. “Why don’t you bunch of mongrels fuck off back to your own shithole country instead of poncing off of us? Asylum seekers! What the fuck are you seeking asylum from? Eh? EH? Fucking soap by the stench of yer. Newsflash! The war is fucking over, GO HOME!”

The man on the floor stirred. “Grnnkkkk” he murmured.

“Oh, excuse me, mate,” said Johnny, “am I standing on your head?” He turned, putting his whole weight on his victim’s cheek, then kicked him hard in the guts, got back in the car and drove off, straight through a red light.

The Ned Kelly in Rotherhithe is the flagship of the three pubs owned by the Baker clan. In itself, it’s nothing special. It’s got an ancient pool table; one for us, one for the taxman fruit machines; a cash payphone nicknamed the Hoover because of the way it sucks up your cash; and its very own rogues’ gallery on the walls. There were pictures of Johnny Too with the stars – Billy Murray from
The Bill
, Barbara Windsor, Glen Murphy, Terry Marsh, Dennis Stratton formerly of Iron Maiden, and even one of the two Bakers with Lord Tebbit from a Dorchester function they had gate-crashed. Below them were pictures of “Gangsters United FC” as the Ned Kelly football team has been known unofficially since the late sixties, when old man Baker first bought the pub. Pyro Joe was notorious in his footballing days. It was said he’d have your legs quicker than polio.

Dougie “The Dog” Richards saw young Mickey Fenn looking at the photos and decided to lay it on thick. “Gangsters United,” he said, shoving half a donut into his mouth. “We only got beat once last season, but seeing as the team ’oo beat us ain’t got a pub no more, there’s no worry about losing this season, know what I mean, Mickey?”

Fenn, who was just 17, was in awe of the older man. Dougie The Dog was only 25 but his reputation for violence was awesome. Not only was Dougie one of the ace faces at Millwall, he was also the Baker boys’ cousin.

“Ain’t, ain’t that old Pete?” Mickey stuttered pointing at one of the older pictures.

“That senile fuckhead,” snorted Rhino, Doug’s shadow, a huge black man from Kennington who took his nickname from one of the TV Gladiators and called his cock his pugil stick.

“Leave it out, Rhine,” Dougie protested. “Pete Miller was a real player in his day.”

By which he meant Miller kicked higher than anyone else on the pitch. Football? No, but see him go to work with a cosh, or his Frankie, now that’s when he was a player … Everyone in the Ned was either a face, a player, a wannabe or a woza (as in “he was a face”), just as everybody in South London knew that Johnny Baker was the Man. Christ, you didn’t even use his name in conversation. If you were talking about Johnny and Joey, you just say the Brothers, pronounced “Bruvvas”. The one pre-condition for drinking in the pub was to have a CRO, but nothing recent. Well, nothing recent if it was a conviction for shit-all, because a con for shit-all meant you weren’t much of a villain.