Undercover (22 page)

‘Absolutely,' Ivor said. ‘Oh, absolutely.'

BEFORE

T
he ring binder's page three and four contained pencilled plans of Norm Rice's home inside and out. Tom kept the binder open on his lap now. He had the black Merc passenger seat. Leo drove. ‘Marvellous detail,' Tom said. ‘Even the furniture layout shown.'

‘Furniture is often a tactical factor in this kind of unforgiving mission,' Leo said. ‘Vital to know its location. Furniture is capable of turning the tables – tables being themselves furniture, of course.'

‘Who mapped it?'

‘Jamie. Furniture items can be an obstruction, a hide-behind shield or rampart for its owner,' Leo said. ‘And furniture can also be an attack weapon. Think of a straight-backed, tall-backed, strut-backed, Rennie Mackintosh style chair of true timber swung in an arc to mince someone. I don't want any of my people on the end of that – getting hit by both beautifully shaped rear chair legs at the same time, one on the skull, the other cracking the shoulder, worse even than the “old one-two” in boxing. Unlikely Norm will go into a cower and collapse when our party arrives. Most probably the bastard can get brave. Oh, he's skinny, yes, but that don't mean he won't fight. Even someone so underweight believes he got an entitlement to live how he wants to live. This, obviously, is a mistake. It's arrogance. It's selfishness. He has to be flattened, Tom. He'll be resisting the will of the firm, which I call a sort of massive, insulting treachery, and the fact he's only twenty-seven don't excuse. He ought to be able to understand the needs and rules of a community, such as our long-established, happy, comradely organization.

‘Originally I thought, given nice weather, take him out to some decent country spot and hammer him there, pleasantly secluded by the greenery and grand tree trunks, some many decades old, or even more than a century, very much part of our noble English heritage, not to be matched, most probably, in any of them fucking euro-zone countries, with their fucking Black Forest, that kind of thing. These are the type of surroundings where delivery of a reproach for disloyalty would seem appropriate. But real problems might result. Can you see that? It's another example of what's known in the military as “logistics”, Tom. The chief question arising would be: do we leave him there afterwards – secluded, yes, but not totally off the tracks? Does he die on account of a beating
plus
exposure? Wrong objective. It would be going too far. He's not Justin Scray.

‘Although Norm's got no right to live how he wants to live, he
has
got a right to some kind of life, the kind we say is OK, so far. If you join a firm, the firm's thinking's got to be
your
thinking. For example, Tom, consider a nun signing up to one of them holy orders where they stay in the convent, maybe silent. It wouldn't fit if she went out on the quiet and got herself a job as, say, a sub-postmistress or assistant manager at a squash club. Those are absolutely OK posts for someone else, but they don't fit what this nun promised when she went behind the wall voluntary. It's the same with Norm. If he was just starting in the business, starting solo, he could deal with who he likes. But this is not the case with him, is it? He's part of a firm, and that firm's got its requirements, namely exclusivity – I don't know if you ever came across that term, Tom.

‘Maybe somebody out walking the dog finds Norm, possibly unconscious, maybe disabled, perhaps with enough strength left to call out now and then, hoping for help. They'll mobile for an ambulance, won't they? This is plainly a total inconvenience for us, drawing that sort of attention we don't want, but, according to normal standards, they'd be doing the proper thing. In fact, they'd feel they didn't have no choice. This is “Good Samaritan” baloney: find a wounded human being, so respond like a human being. Very nice. They would say they couldn't pass by on the other side of one of them grand old trees.

‘It sounds simple and logical, but, of course, it's got a deep fucking fault. When it's a matter of seeing to a sod who's been robbing us of customers and therefore earned income in a totally uncaring, even flippant fashion, the normal standards are not the ones we're in favour of, are they? We'd have our own, very personal, very natural, ideas about the situation, and these are not mainly to do with Norm's health. If he was discovered like that and put in an ambulance, ask yourself what comes next, Tom, in the sequence. What comes next is the police get told. That's the sequence. Routine. Maybe the media. Someone would be sure to know he works for us. I don't want all the fuss and inquiries. Such as, “Is he one of your associates, Mr Young? Have you got any thoughts on how he got to be very seriously damaged up among forestry, this not being his usual area at all?” There's a business to be nursed along, and I got no taste for questions about someone poleaxed to this side of death in a dell, which he deserved.

‘Also, if we don't leave him there to be found but take Norm home in the car following this encounter, there's the possibility people passing or at their window see him getting assisted with lovely tenderness from the vehicle at his address in Delbert Avenue, maybe a leg obviously useless for a while at least, or his jaw swinging askew, like an open door in a storm on only one hinge. Then, too, there's the possible mess in the car. Did you ever see
Pulp Fiction
, Tom, a film? Someone gets accidentally shot on the back seat and blood flies in a very embarrassing, coverall fashion throughout the interior. It wouldn't be as bad as that with Norm, because there'd be no explosion to give his blood and bone fragments wings and jet power, but bad, all the same.

‘In his house for the beating, it will be much more a neatly contained incident with a fair degree of precious domestic privacy. This is fine. You'll have heard the saying “an Englishman's home is his castle”, which still has some meaning even though the bloody government pokes about everywhere these days, so if you can get entrance to that castle you got him in extremely promising conditions: the team are protected by his property, although he himself isn't, because you're inside there with him cosy, uneyeballed by neighbours, and determined to make a memorable, very definite impression on him. Norm Rice got a partner, Cornelius Something, but he's locked up now for menaces, so we should be able to get Norm alone and probably not gun-armed in his honest little dwelling. You've met that other popular phrase “he, or she, was a very private person”, I'm sure. It's the sort of thing they get householders to say on TV News when someone living in the street has been discovered as a mass murderer who chopped up the bodies and posted pieces to various charities anon. Well, of course anon. Who's going to sign a gift tag on a toe? But, anyway, this is the kind of existence Norm likes as far as the social side goes. He don't seek a lot of company, only Cornelius, when he's not doing time. Of course, Norm will go and meet others if it's part of the job, such as some secret, major merchant who'll fill his castor case for him and take the payment. That's a different situation, isn't it?

‘The main features to notice in the plan is where there are walls shared with the next door properties, Tom.' Leo glanced down for a moment, took a hand from the Mercedes wheel, and pointed to some lines on the sketch. ‘Those've got to be avoided or neighbours might hear the carry-on, could even feel a bit of a tremor to their villa if someone's flung against the wall, although Norm's body weight is low, admitted. In fact, that might mean he's easier to fling, such as someone could throw a cricket ball further than a football, owing to size. And it's not just the blows and falling about, but possible shout-screams. This is not fair on other citizens in Delbert – they want a peaceful life, and why not? – and, in any case, it would be bad to get their curiosity started up.

‘Therefore, only certain areas of the accommodation should be used: possibly a central room where there's a telly, so the sound can be turned up, masking most of the action. Put it on to where there's big music, or an old war film, such as
Wake Island
, with Brian Donlevy, plenty of din, not someone poncing about at a flower show, voice down in case of disturbing the bees and causing sour honey. I don't mean TV turned up to a daft level, because that would make it sound like something must be wrong, as much as the banging, yelling and tumbling would. You'll notice the TV is marked in very clear on the drawing. A TV is furniture, so you'll see that's one reason why it must be included in any illustration.

‘Running a firm of this calibre, Tom, I got to have all-round vision, I need to think continuous of eventualities. Planning the perfect expedition is all very well, but you got to realize the unexpected could suddenly smack everything off course, like Scott of the Antarctic where the temperature went down so much lower than usual. I got to stress, it would be important not to let the target male fall against the TV, because this could bring it down with a noisy crash to the floor, noticeable in one of the next doors, and, beside that, do enough damage to the set to stop it working, so it can't conceal other sounds. I think of this scheduled episode with Norm as very like ballet – much activity of an extreme physical nature but
governed
activity,
precise
activity, Tom, not frantic and chaotic. Here we are. The white front door, number twenty-seven.'

It was a street of terraced houses opening straight on to the pavement, obviously built for workmen's families to rent late in the nineteenth or early twentieth century. Most would be owned now, not rented. Many had been re-roofed in imitation slate and the wooden window frames replaced with PVC. Something similar had happened to the front doors, no longer of solid wood. Mock brass knockers aimed for a period touch. So did coach lamps here and there. The red-brick frontages of several houses had been painted over in pastel shades – light blue, ochre, turquoise – quite a prettifying disaster. Just the same, these cottages would probably last at least another hundred years. Leo parked around the corner, and they went on foot to reconnoitre a lengthy back lane running behind the Delbert odds. A stone and mortar wall about three metres high separated the rear gardens from the lane. Each house had a wooden door in the wall, originally so residents could put out rubbish and ashes for collection. ‘Clearly, operational decisions must be left to the attack unit on the day, in line with prevailing conditions, but my own method would be: enter by the front door, withdraw via the garden and lane door,' Leo said.

‘The first stages needn't be violent at all. It would look simply like a friendly visit. Of course, Norm will probably realize at once it isn't that. Maybe he wondered about the van the other day. Anyway, he'll guess he's been rumbled. But neighbours wouldn't see anything brutal about the call, or even unusual. These could be colleagues looking in on Norm, perhaps for entirely social reasons, say to console about the clink absence of Cornelius; or to discuss some aspect of business, the neighbours not knowing what that business is, I hope.

‘Exiting might be different. Maybe it should be more out of sight. As I've said, Tom, I got to consider all eventualities such as damage or staining to one or more of our punishment troupe, which is how I think of them. I mean, for instance, blood on clothing, and, or face, and, or in somebody's hair. Blood in the hair, matting it and seeping down to the forehead and neck, is very noticeable in a quiet, respectable district. People won't want their children to view something frightening like that. Also the possibility of bone injury, limping, and/or torn garments, and/or ear rips. Even if none of that is so – and God grant it's not – there will be a ruffled, possibly breathless state for these lads. After all, they'll have taken part in something quite strenuous immediately before this withdrawal. This is why I referred to ballet, Tom. Dancers in, for instance,
Swan Lake
, will look wonderfully fit and elegant while they're actually performing and pissing about with the swan, but when they reach the dressing room I bet they do some mighty gasping and mutter, “Thought I'd never fucking get through the lifting tonight, such a tug on the crotch.”

‘I don't say park in this lane, Tom, while things are taking place, although that would cut the distance for our people leaving. The point is, if things go wrong somehow – which they definitely should not – but if they did, locals, such as more damn Good Samaritans, thinking trouble in Norm's place, could block both ends of the lane with vehicles. And so no matter how good a Wheels you might be, Tom, you and the other boys would be snookered. All right, you'd all be carrying something and the interfering sods wouldn't – they'd be just Delbert proles. But we don't really want that kind of blast off situation. Something like this might have very various results, results no bugger can't properly forecast.

‘And another point is that the law might have armed response cars around the area, and they'd arrive with enough weaponry to take on the Foreign Legion. I'd recommend: park where we are tonight, which gives you two possible routes out of the district. People returning to the vehicle after the meeting with Norm should, if possible, walk to it, in a relaxed and very ordinary way, acting affable chat, like some good, chummy session has just took place, with possibly extremely constructive office talk.

‘You'll say, people will wonder why the group hadn't parked right outside the house, if the call was so straightforward and harmless. Tom, there's always going to be a snag or snags in any scheme. Think of famine relief with half the money going to the crooked fuckers supposed to be using it on meals for the starving. The art is to find the prospect that's got the fewest snags and go for that, go for it with max confidence, max determination. Them's the qualities that made Britain great in a previous era, such as Trafalgar, such as Waterloo, qualities not, unfortunately, very plentiful now, maybe due to all them wind farms or the destruction of grammar schools. I expect Norm's been smuggling in gear to Cornelius on visiting days, and it might be difficult to make the journeys for a while. In any case, he'd hate to be seen by his lover scarred and/or disjointed. I'll try to fix some interimmed way for Cornelius to get his stuff. I don't want to seem uncaring, and we got no animosity for Cornelius: his menaces didn't come our way. Tom, you might think it's all a bit severe on Norm when, really, the chief thing is to get a warning to his mate, Justin. But Norm had a choice – to go with him or not go with him in this crafty abuse of the firm. Norm went with him. Norm's taking his slice of the gains. He's got to answer for it, or where is trade morality, where is order? I have to be a custodian of them high matters. It's part of leadership.'