Calibre (16 page)

Opened the front door of the house and a man was standing there. Graham panicked for a moment, thinking the media had found him. Then relaxed, this guy was wired, too wired even for a tabloid hack, seemed to be shaking, a Mormon who’d lost his marbles perhaps?

Graham said:

‘Can I help you?’

Put some edge in there, have a little of the sucker’s balls just for exercise. Then the guy’s hand was moving, he had a heavy gold bracelet like a bloody pimp would wear, and then he saw the barrel of the gun, tried:

‘Hey, wait a sec…’

The first shot took out his forehead and the second one, in his groin, blew a hole between his legs that gushed a fountain of blood. The splatter ruined the fine sheen of his black shoes.

JAMIL WAS SERIOUSLY pissed. Some fuck had been in his crib, stolen his stash, his piece and worse, his gold bracelet, it was like the one the guy wore in
The Sopranos
. He wanted to off some bastard, break into a man’s home when he was in nick, how low was that? He had a spliff going, a major one, but even it didn’t chill him enough to offset the loss of the gear.

A knock on his door and he grunted and figured he’d have the ass of whoever it was. Opened it to the yellow cop, the motherfucker who’d run. He was astonished, went:

‘You?’

McDonald looked crazy, like he’d been on a blitz of heavy dope. He shot out his fist, taking Jamil under the chin, putting out his lights. Dragged him into the flat, got the weapon out and wrapped Jamil’s fingers round it, then scattered coke all over the place. He wasn’t wearing the bracelet, had with regret left it at home. Then he picked up the phone, called the cops.

Chaos.

The press, cops, the Super, Jamil’s lawyer all arrived, and it took awhile to put it together. Sounded highly unlikely but
Ken Bruen the cops had passed fishier cases along. Don’t mention the Birmingham Seven. The story that got issued as a press release went like this:

PC McDonald, acting on a tip that Jamil had offed the child molester, arrived at Jamil’s flat and the suspect pulled a gun, the same gun ballistics were able to prove that had killed Graham Picking.

It smelt to high heaven but the public, shedding no tears over Picking or Jamil, were delighted to have a hero cop and be rid of two scumbags. The cops didn’t believe a word of it but were prepared to pull out all the stops to, not only reinstate a disgraced cop, but have two pieces of garbage removed. Smiles all around. If somewhat uneasy ones.

When Brant heard the story, he whistled in admiration. It was a scheme worthy of himself. He had no love for McDonald but didn’t like to see any cop go down. He figured he’d buy the clever mad bastard a drink, it had been a plan so crazy that you had to sit up and go WOW

Porter Nash was stunned, he couldn’t believe the awesome audacity of the deal. Worse, somewhere in his mind was the mad notion that the cops were still the good guys, but this proved that they were seriously deranged. He was glad that McDonald was off the cowardice hook, and the image of the force, though highly suspect, was at least cosmetically okay.
But he felt a new low had been reached in the annals of the Met. Mainly, he was saddened. Sighing, he figured he’d do what he did best, continue to fight the bedraggled fight. He was going to wrap the Manners killer case today before Brant went and killed the guy.

He went out, hoping to hell he could wrap at least this one thing and do it clean… or cleanish.

Fitz, the beater of Roberts, had flown to Prague and was currently living it large, the only fly in his ointment that they didn’t serve Mild. Roberts would spend fruitless weeks trawling The Costa Del Sol for him. Only when dodgy fifties began showing up in Eastern Europe did he begin to realize where Fitz was. Part of him kinda respected the guy.

Falls rang Don, went:

‘Get the hell out of my life.’

And then she wept for three solid days.

Two days later Porter lashed at Brant:

‘He’s gone, Crew has disappeared, his bank accounts closed, the house up for sale, and because he’s a bloody accountant, a paper trail is useless. Did you off him?’

Brant laughed, said:

‘I should have but I got distracted. I didn’t give him enough credit, he was slicker than I figured. What the hell, you win some, you lose some.’

Porter stalked off, too angry to answer. Days like this, he figured maybe he’d resign but Brant was calling him, going:

‘Come round my place this evening, I bought you real coffee. I’ll bring you up to speed, let you see my manuscript.’

IN THE DUSTY roads of Montana, a man named Wilson was hitching, hadn’t seen a vehicle for hours. Then here came a pick-up and stopped. The door opened and a guy with a Limey accent said:

‘Hop in.’

Wilson did, noticed a hounddog at the guy’s feet and Hank Williams on the tapedeck. They drove off and Wilson, who didn’t like Brits, didn’t bother to say thanks for the ride. The guy had a paperback on the dash, but Wilson couldn’t see the title.

The guy smiled, asked:

‘Don’t you have any manners?’