Bent snapped his fingers. It was what he would have done in a restaurant if the owner was slow with the drinks or the menus. He snapped them and shrugged – a ‘What the fuck’s going on?’ gesture. The peasant grinned. There was the smell of animal shit, then the sound of them grunting, whatever pigs did.
Men came forward. Torches shone into his face.
Half a dozen men. One goon would come forward, do a fast frisk for a weapon or a wire, then the big fellow would walk out of the shadows and there’d be a handshake, maybe a kiss because it was that part of the world. The Turks liked a kiss, as did the Albanians. He tried to look confident. Always said, Bent did, and Jack would echo it, that the first responses were the ones that mattered. Going to do business with a man, a stranger, about to talk over four or five million euros’ worth of stuff, and it was necessary to show you weren’t fazed, took it in the stride . . . had gotten it wrong.
It was difficult for him to see properly because the torch beams were shining at him. No one welcomed him. He looked for the little fucker – the peasant – but couldn’t see him. He’d seen two faces, never seen them before, at the front of the hotel, smiling through the introductions, in broad daylight where the rest of the fucking world could see . . . He could smell the pigs and hear them.
The men behind him did the pinioning. Something round his arms, then his wrists. The necessary violence to control him, but nothing more.
He started to kick out – waste of fucking effort. And started to shout – waste of fucking breath.
They hadn’t bothered to hood him, or to stuff his mouth so he couldn’t yell. Not one man reacted to his shouts. He would have started to jabber – in English, because he had nothing else – about what he could pay. How much his life was worth. Jewels, cash, bullion. More light blinded him, and he realised the headlights of the City-Van were full on him as the peasant drove past him, seeming not to notice him, and went off the way they had come. Then he was left with the torches and they took him forward. They brought him closer to the pigs’ pen, which had a low wall round it, more cement blocks. The heads came up and one man stood beside the pen and poked at them with a stick, goading them. He would have angered and hurt them.
He wondered if Jack had known. Too fucking right the lawyer had known. Everyone had known, except Bentley Horrocks.
Only at the end did he shriek. He heard himself. He tried to thrash around and free himself but they were lifting him, like he was a bloody kid. He could hear the pigs and the frenzy of grunting. He was over the wall and, for a moment, they held him up, then dropped him. He saw nothing else, but the smell was with him, and the noise, and the pain.
Humphrey drove and didn’t make conversation. Jack had nothing to say.
The radio was turned up loud, which was useful because they couldn’t talk over it. Jack sat in the passenger seat and imagined unpleasant scenarios. They centred on whom he would have to provide with explanations as to why he had come home early and left Bent, his boss, to travel alone. Not much wriggle room, and he had Bent’s bag with him, and the phones. There might be a problem over why he was carrying Bent’s passports. He’d come up with one solution to his anxieties. He’d make sure that Bent’s passports and phones stayed in the lawyer’s car. Not quite sure yet where he would stuff them, but they’d be there. If it got nasty, and he ended up in an interview room at Old Street, then Humphrey’s name would be bouncing off the walls all the time the recorder was doing its job.
They were onto the main road, dual carriageway, the really good earner for the Calabrian clans, all done with Brussels cash, among camper wagons and loaded cars. It was the fag end of the season. He wondered where Bent was, what they’d prepared for him, and if anything of him would ever be seen again. There’d be serious fighting round Peckham, Deptford and Rotherhithe when it became known that Bentley Horrocks was off his manor, not expected back, and some tidy little interests were going begging. He’d have to keep his head down while the territory was carved up. And detectives in the Crime Squad would be going short of the cash in the brown envelopes. Trace was about the only one who wouldn’t blink, would just get a replacement and carry on, nice girl, not unintelligent. He’d never been accused of being fond of Bentley Horrocks, but Jack shivered a little, even in the heated car, at the thought of what they might have done with him.
As people often said, ‘Some you win and some you lose.’ Jack thought it a tidy old loss, but said nothing.
Giulietta had a good view of Father Demetrio. The village priest walked backwards and forwards, agitated. He had made just the one call, then had set off on the tramp that took him again and again round the car park. Twice he was nearly run down by motorists leaving. Once he had hopped back, and the other time the driver had hammered his horn at him. He smoked all the time, and lit each new cigarette from the end of the old one. When he was nearest to her she’d thought he was shaken. His eyes were staring at nothing. He would lead her. She would follow. To wherever.