‘I know,’ he replied, somewhat sharply. He wasn’t an idiot. He wasn’t about to stop outside his house and stroll to the door. ‘We’ll turn right at the end and park, and I’ll go in down the back alley.’
The cops would use blank cars, of course, because they’d want camouflage. But two could play that game. If the cops didn’t leap on Premier Windows man as he drove to install triple glazing, then they wouldn’t hassle Mr Anderson en route to lay some tiles. Karl let the distance between them grow.
He noticed a guy standing at the back of the BMW. The Premier Windows van passed his house, and then the parked car, without incident.
He stared at his house. How he’d taken its comfort for granted. What he’d give to be able to flop onto the sofa one more time. He’d eat and sleep on that thing for six straight months if he ever again got the chance.
No movement from inside the house. No sign of Katie. But her car was there. He fought the desire to leap out and rush into his house. Even if cops, or bad guys, swung down from trees and Jack-in-the-boxed out of manholes, he’d get to hold Katie before they dragged him away. And he’d burn that image to his memory for ever.
When the Caddy approached the BMW, Karl noticed a black guy in the driver’s seat. The white guy at the back had a petrol can in his hands and his head down, blocked by the open boot hatch.
Then the Caddy was alongside, and slipping past. Karl turned his head and looked at them, struck by panic. Liz was staring, and Karl was staring, and the driver was staring back at them. Just for a second, before he slipped out of view, but long enough. Liz whipped her head away, and he saw her shock and fear. He threw a hand up to cover his face.
Both of them had seen his forehead. Three ragged gashes filled with dried blood. Just like you might get if you tried to kill a man in an underground bar and a woman dug her nails into your face from behind.
Varsity. Here. For them.
They both watched the passenger wing mirror with rising dread. Waiting for the guy to shout, and point, and jump in the car before coming after them – from anonymity to ten o’clock news in a flash.
But Varsity had his back to them. He slammed the boot, and he got in the car – slowly, no haste. And the BMW just sat there.
He hadn’t recognised them, Karl realised, breathing a sigh of relief. Perhaps because of the dirty windows of the van, or maybe he just wasn’t expecting them to be in Mr Anderson’s van.
A damn lucky break. He drove on.
The BMW remained still, waiting for its prey to arrive.
Fifty-Two
Mick
Despite his rush, Mick took a moment to put the TV on, to kill the silence of the house and to try to inject some calm into his system. There was a tightness in his chest: he had no loose change for Tim’s money box.
With some bullshit morning TV show filling the house with noise instead, Mick threw a few extra items into the large satchel he was taking to Berlin. It would go in the car, along with his son’s bag, and the ninety grand liberated from Grafton’s house.
A rising urge cut the job in half. From a drawer at the bottom of his wardrobe, he pulled out a bag. From the bag, a pressed linen suit on a hanger, wrapped in cellophane. Grafton’s suit. His torso punchbag had no legs, so the trousers wouldn’t work, but it could wear the jacket. A decent fit around the chest. From the wardrobe drawer, another bag. Photos this time. He selected a portrait of Grafton with a beaming smile that he would glue to the punchbag’s head.
The double was almost complete.
Fifty-Three
Mac
A mobile number he didn’t know flashed on the caller ID. A female voice he recognised, though. The girl who had messed up his head with the Volvo printout late last night. Tennant was her name. He had meant to apologise to her for his outburst.
Apparently, his warning had sunk deep because she had found out something new and was calling to let him know. He put on a sweet tone, which was easy because of his good mood despite knowing that he probably wasn’t going to like what she told him.
‘Thanks, DC Tennant. Julie. What or who have you found?’
The second man on the CCTV video from Karl Seabury’s phone, that was who. A member of their support staff had popped in to drop off mail for DC Downey and had recognised him. A quick look at the files, and now they knew he was Nikos Avramidis, thirty-one, Greek-born, who did eight months four years ago for assault, and was a known friend of Aleksy Kozaczuk, aka Król. But what they didn’t know was where he was. No address registered to his name as of last year.
‘Well done,’ Mac told her. ‘Why don’t you get out of the office and go find him? Don’t approach on your own, mind. Call it in.’ A nice little proactive outside job to make her feel like a real detective. Then he thought of something. ‘Hang on. This support staff saw the photo? Where?’
She paused. Just a second. But long enough.
‘On the board?’ he yelled. ‘What the hell did I tell you? When did you learn this about Nikos?’
‘Half an hour or so ago. I pinned it up, yes. But I tried—’
He cut her off with an insult, and harshly reminded her that he wanted to know everything within one minute. She hung up an unhappy girl.
Fifty-Four
Mick
Bad about Nikos, but no big deal, really. This Nikos, as a friend of Król’s, would be similarly of low moral fibre. He wouldn’t tell the cops anything. But, just in case, Mick should send someone to remind the guy what happened to snitches in his world.
Then he remembered the Loyalty Box.
He wouldn’t need it now, of course, but that didn’t mean he could just leave it to be found. It also went into the car, destined for a faraway trash bin. A shame, really, because with its death two dozen nasty bastards who deserved to rot in jail would be protected for ever. The folded suit belonging to Grafton was also tucked beside it, although that item was going to remain with him for a while. It still had a purpose.
In the kitchen, he stood before Tim’s filled money boxes. He decided to take only one. Money was easy to replace.
He did a final sweep of the house, just to make sure nothing incriminating was on show. It might be weeks before anyone forced open his door to find out why he was absent from work, but that didn’t mean he wanted them to discover the truth immediately. Nothing incriminating, but Tim’s cornflakes were still on the kitchen table. He emptied the bowl into the bin. That made him think of the food in the freezer, so he filled a plastic bag with frozen items for the old guy across the road, who he liked.
‘See you later, Tim,’ he called out, then locked up. He put the bag of frozen goodies on the guy’s doorstep and returned to his car. He checked his watch. Good timing. He could get to St Dunstan’s in plenty of time to brief his men and scout the area. After Seabury and the bitch were toast, he’d get the fuck out of here early tomorrow morning.
Fifty-Five
Mac
Mac believed there were four types of people in the world, and he met them all in the retirement home that his father, Chris, had called home for nine months. As Mac entered the building, the receptionist gave him a wary look, and the male nurse she was talking to said: ‘Yorkshire Ripper admitted to any more killings yet?’ Shortly afterwards, he passed a woman who virtually sneered at him.
He noticed a missed call from the same number Tennant had called from. Thirty-seven minutes ago. He almost laughed. He called her back and apologised. She hung up a happy girl. Good deed done for the day.
He found Dad in the garden, playing chess by himself at a table under a bamboo canopy. A big guy, like Mac, with the same granite chin, but his powerful coalman’s physique had grown flabby over the years.
‘See the guy by the pond?’ his dad said as Mac stepped onto the patio.
Mac handed over a couple of detective novels. ‘Dad, I have some news,’ he said as he sat down.
‘Did you see that chap at the pond? He’s from Clapham. Here, read this.’