Mick had handed him his card, and he hadn’t needed to voice that gesture: We help each other now. Call me if you think of anything I need to know. Then Mick had exited the bathroom and announced to his colleagues that the room was clean, nothing useful found.
Later, Brad called and outright admitted he’d killed the guy. Many suspected that pressure from Razor’s men up in Scotland would force Grafton to hand them someone. Grafton had already severed ties and withheld payment from Brad and Dave because they’d failed to kill Randolph. Suspecting that Grafton might try to have him killed to ensure his silence, he had been watching the street below. Had seen a strange car arrive and gone down to meet it. Rocker wanted Brad to accompany him back to Scotland. Brad said no. Rocker insisted. Stalemate – what could be done? A shopkeeper returning home from work found the dead Scotsman’s body ten minutes later and hit triple nine.
Brad trusted that Mick would not arrest him after the confession. And there was no arrest. There was only the start of a beautiful relationship between them. Brad had provided Mick with the one thing he’d desperately needed, and for that Mick felt he still needed to protect him. Still owed him.
‘And what’s the job?’ Brad asked.
‘Unconnected to this Grafton lark,’ Mick said. ‘You don’t need to know. Loose end I want tying up before I go away, that’s all. A guy needs to regret the error of his ways. Look, Brad, it’s a big ask, I know. Even for those two, which is why I just paid them twenty grand. I’ll give you twenty as well. Twenty extra big ones, and all you have to do is the same shit you’ve been doing for years. Drive half an hour, kick in a door, shout a bit, break a nose, drive away. If I’m done here, I’ll text you where to meet me for the cash.’
It beat doing this, Brad realised. Liz Grafton was Mick’s little pet obsession, not his. He didn’t really want to go break a stranger’s nose. But neither did he really want to do the alternative job. So, he said okay.
He got out, and into the back seat of the T3 via its rear hatch. Some owners would use this contraption as a bus and leave the rows of seats, while others, because it was popular as a weekend adventure ride, turned the interior into a bedsit. This pair of jokers had gone for just the sitting room part. An armchair against each side wall, under the curtained windows, facing each other. The floor was carpeted. Brad ignored the chairs, walked between them with his head bowed, and knelt behind the cabin seats. Floppy gave him a quick look, and a thumbs up, and said: ‘Hold tight and don’t sing.’ The brute turned his head almost 180, and glared again at Brad.
‘Let me save you some confusion,’ Brad said to him. ‘It’s you.’
‘What the fuck you talking about?’ the guy replied, his accent thick Irish.
‘You’re sizing me up and wondering if me and you got into it who would end up screaming for mummy’s help.’
That made Floppy laugh. But it also made the brute face forward.
‘Name’s Sink,’ Floppy said. Also an Irish guy. ‘Pleased to meet. This is Guff, my blood. Let’s do this.’
Seventy-Five
Karl
‘So, if you don’t mind a blunt question—’ Karl started, and Danny cut him off.
‘Bike crash. No, I don’t mind. People wonder. Some people get an IED in Afghanistan story. Those who know I worked for Ronald Grafton think I got done over by him because he kicked me out. That’s not true, either. I simply fell off a bike.’
‘I did wonder if Liz’s husband—’
This time the ringing phone cut Karl short. He almost jumped for it. But it was right by Danny, and he got there first.
‘I understand,’ Danny said after listening for just a few seconds. Then he hung up. Not Katie, then, but the solicitor. Karl knew it was a delay even before Danny said so.
‘Six o’clock. Court stuff.’
Karl was in a state of SAS-like readiness, but it was a drain on his energy. Liz seemed withdrawn, barely aware. Danny was taking it all in his stride, as if he escorted fugitives to jail every day.
‘I’ve got Monopoly,’ Danny said.
Seventy-Six
Mick
Last he knew, Theo Timberland worked at a yacht repair unit at Gillingham Marina in Kent, and according to a Google search he was still there. Assistant manager now, at just twenty years of age. Probably that brash attitude of his. The same one that had made him bully Mick’s son during primary school. On the map, he drew a line from Ramirez’s home to Ramsgate and that line passed nicely by Gillingham. As he’d said to Brad: if this wasn’t a sign of Fate, no such beast existed.
His mobile rang. He looked over at the target building, and it was still dark. Still empty. He answered the phone.
‘We’re here,’ Sink said. And then there was a pause.
‘Don’t make me ask,’ Mick said. ‘Just talk.’ He spotted movement on the darkening road. A mangy dog, snout on the ground, hunting for food or a mate. It was the only life he could see, and it gave the quiet land a surreal ambience, a post-apocalyptic-world sort of feel.
Sink said: ‘Semi-detached place. Posh kind of poncy street. Pathway down the side of the house. Lights on in the living room, none upstairs. No sign of anyone. Should we watch a bit or go in now?’
The dog passed before his car, twenty feet away, and his eyes followed.
‘How’s that memory of yours? Wait for my call, that’s what I said. Knock on the door and hide, see if it’s him who answers. Just try to make sure there’s not a party going on in there. Call when it’s done, and just tell me straight out, okay? Don’t make me ask. And double-time it back here. But none of that until I give the word. That part is very important.’
He hung up. The dog had vanished.
Decided, then. After the bitch and Seabury were dead, he’d head north ten miles to Ramirez’s home, end that bastard, and slip east to Gillingham. He may as well tick another enemy off the list. Once Theo Timberland was well and truly sorry that he’d ever messed with Tim McDevitt, Mick would continue east to Ramsgate where he’d decided he would try to get a trip across the water to Dunkirk or Calais. After that, Germany and a new life.
Seventy-Seven
Karl
He knew it was the solicitor again, but still flew out of his seat like a pilot who’d thumped the eject button.
Danny answered the phone. An even shorter call this time. Five seconds. ‘He’ll call us when he’s back home,’ he told his guests. ‘But he thinks about seven o’clock now. Two hours.’
Liz was on Danny’s mobile. He wondered if she was looking at news of her husband’s murder, but didn’t want to ask.
Danny was on his desktop computer, looking at Google Earth. He looked up and said: ‘I’ve found a spot where we can wait. Round the back of Gold’s house, over a field. There’s an access road, and we can watch Mr Gold’s house without being seen. That way we can be there in five minutes when he calls.’
‘But it might be hours, right?’ Karl said.
Danny looked at him. Long and hard, and Karl knew that his plan, which he’d just come up with, was written all over his face. He had called Katie’s dad’s house again ten minutes earlier, only to be told she was home now but asleep again, and no, her dad was not about to wake her, not after the ordeal Karl had put her through. So, it was probably pretty obvious what Karl wanted to do.
‘When people are on the run, they’re expected to head to people they know. Right now, pal, every relative and friend and work colleague you have is an island in shark-infested waters. If you’re real lucky, you’ll at least get a glimpse of your wife’s dad’s house before a ton of cops come down on you like a ton of bricks.’
‘Why hasn’t she called?’
‘Asleep, you said.’
He grunted. He hated waiting. But he knew he couldn’t call her dad again.