FORTY-FIVE
WE GOT OUT of the Tube at Barking, and we walked up to the Barking Minicabs office, where Nice fired up her new cell and called for a car from the sidewalk outside. There was the usual ragtag selection of sedans on the kerb, old Fords and Volkswagens and Seats and Skodas, unfamiliar models to us, but clearly ideal for their line of work, like Crown Victorias in America or Mercedes Benzes in Germany. Within a minute a guy came out of the office. He was digging in his pocket for a key. He was middle-aged, and he looked local, and a little sleepy. He saw us and didn’t react in any way. Maybe he was part-time only, and unaware of late-breaking gangland APBs. He said, ‘Where to, folks?’
I said, ‘Purfleet,’ because I liked the sound of the name. I had seen it on a road sign. I figured it was east and a little south of Barking. The guy indicated a scraped-up Ford Mondeo the colour of sewage, and he said, ‘Climb aboard.’
Which we did, side by side on the rear seat. The guy slid in behind the wheel and took off, smooth and competent, left and right through the back streets, working the gearshift, keeping the diesel purr going. I figured he was aiming to join the main Purfleet road as late as possible, to beat the traffic, which worked for me. I waited until I saw a bleak stretch up ahead, with weedy sidewalks, and boarded windows, and a forlorn line of shuttered small-business workshops, and I pulled out my gun and waved it in the mirror, long enough for the guy to see it for what it was, and then I touched it to the back of his neck, and I said, ‘Pull over, right here.’
Which he did, instantly sweating and panicking, and he said, ‘I don’t have any money on me.’
I said, ‘Have you been robbed before?’
He said, ‘Many times.’
‘This is different. We’re not going to rob you. We’re going to pay you for your time. Every minute. We’ll even give you a tip. But we’re going to drive now, and you’re going to ride in the back. OK?’
The guy didn’t answer.
I said, ‘Put your hands behind the seat.’
Which he did, and I wrapped his wrists with about a yard of duct tape, and then his elbows with a yard more. Uncomfortable, but necessary, to keep him out of action. I asked him, ‘Do you breathe well through your nose?’
He said, ‘What?’
‘No nasal congestion, no deviated septum, no adenoidal conditions, no current flu-like symptoms?’
He said, ‘No.’
So I wrapped another couple yards around his head, over his mouth, again and again, and then I slid out of the car and opened his door. I found his seat recline lever, and I laid him on his back, and I taped his knees, and his ankles. Then I hoisted his feet up in the air and I shovelled him backward and upside down over his seat into the rear compartment. Casey Nice took his shoulders, and we got him laid out on the floor, a little compressed, but liveable. I found a cell phone in his pants pocket, and I left it on the sidewalk. I put two of the Romford Boys’ fifty-pound notes in his shirt pocket. We figured that was a decent tip. Then Nice got in the front passenger seat, and I got in behind the wheel, and we drove off again, eight twenty-five in the evening, about three miles from where we wanted to be, which was Romford.
We navigated by a shifting mix of dead reckoning and memories, of our previous trips, and of the maps we had seen on Bennett’s second computer, and we got to Romford OK, with about twenty minutes to spare, but then we agreed we needed more detail and precision, so I pulled over and Nice ducked out to a newspaper store and came back with an A–Z street atlas. We sat together with the taped-up guy grunting on the floor behind us, and we found Charlie White’s address, which gave us a drive from one page to the next. Five minutes, maybe. Rush hour was over, and traffic was moving right along. But slower than it looked, clearly, because it took us seven minutes, not five, to get to the end of Charlie White’s street.
Which was a hard-boiled, somewhat leaner-and-meaner version of Little Joey’s street. The houses were a generation older, their chimneys a little taller, and their bricks a little shinier, but fundamentally the deal was the same. Lots of walls, lots of fences and gates, and lots of late-model automobiles.
Including a black Rolls-Royce and a black Jaguar, parked nose to tail two houses down on the left, behind a fence just like Joey’s. Part red brick, with a knee wall and tall spaced pillars, and part wrought iron, painted black and twisted into shapes like licorice, with two electric gates made of the same stuff, one for in and one for out. The Rolls-Royce was parked ahead of the chase car, which made logical sense, at least linguistically. Both gates were closed.
There was an 84 per cent chance he would leave home exactly one hour before.
Five minutes.
I looked at the map and said, ‘They’re heading for the North Circular Road. They’ll turn left out of the house. They’ll drive away from us. We need to be at the other end of the street.’
Nice said, ‘Do you want to risk a drive-by, or should we go around the block?’
‘We took a minicab for a reason. We can get away with a slow cruise, like a guy looking for an address, and then turning around and pulling over and waiting for his customer.’
‘These people have drivers of their own.’
‘Not all of them. Only the working-class heroes.’ I backed up a little and made the turn, and drove exactly like a guy looking for an address, slow and obvious, peering out the side window all the time. Charlie’s place was a solid old pile, fairly ornate, built back when bricklayers were cheaper than bricks. The front garden was long gone, replaced by a shallow curving driveway, in one gate and out the other, over flagstone slabs and gravel shapes, between concrete urns and concrete angels, some of them with pans of water held high above their heads, for the birds to drink.
I turned around two houses later, and I pulled into the kerb, and I waited.
Etiquette meant everything. And ten o’clock meant ten o’clock. Therefore exactly one hour before meant nine o’clock. And at eight fifty-nine on the nose Charlie’s front door opened, and he stepped out. He looked just like his photograph. Seventy-seven years old, bulky, round-shouldered, with thin grey hair, and a plain face, and a nose the size of a potato. He was wearing a black suit with a black tie under a black raincoat. Behind him came a shorter old guy, who I assumed was the driver. Behind the short guy came a stream of six younger men, all plainly dressed, all with shaved heads, all a useful size. Four of them headed for the Jaguar, and the other two trailed along towards the Rolls-Royce, now directly behind old Charlie himself, because by that point the driver had hustled on ahead to open his door.
Which was awkward, because it was a suicide door, with the handle at the front, one of a seamless pair with the driver’s door handle, which was on a regular door, and Charlie was approaching from the rear, all of which meant Charlie had to pass by his driver, and then stand and wait until the guy opened up, and then reverse direction, and get in. But between them they got the job done eventually. Charlie settled back, and the driver closed the door on him, and he opened his own regular door, and he slid in, and the two guards got in on the other side, one in the front and one in the rear.
At nine o’clock exactly the gate started to move.