Civvies (10 page)

Mary went cautiously up the stairs, the toddler, drowsily sucking her thumb, clasped in her arms. Megan lagged behind, peeping round her mother to the piles of stuff Taffy had placed on the landing. She pointed and whispered, ‘See… he’s moved everything out!’ Mary looked down at the bundle, Megan’s and the toddler’s clothing piled on top, the dismantled cot, the blankets and bedding beside it in military order. Handing the child to Megan, she shuffled forward to the door and listened. Not a sound from within, and blessed silence from next door as well, which probably meant they were all watching Noel Edmonds with their tea on their laps, thank God. Mary raised her hand to tap on the door, but didn’t. She called softly, ‘Taffy? Do you want something to eat? Taff?’ Frowning and shaking her head, Mary went back down, silently shooing her daughter ahead of her. From the bend in the stairs she saw the light under the door go out. She hesitated, but carried on down. In his dressing-gown Taffy lay on the bare mattress, arms straight at his sides, watching the light fade through the net curtains. The streetlamp came on, throwing a yellow trapezium on the flowered wallpaper and the pale areas where the pictures had hung, and, as if this was the signal triggering something in his brain, Taffy got up and began the final stage. Opening his Airborne-issue bergen rucksack, he laid out his kit on the bed.
DPM
Para smock, olive green denim trousers, ‘Hairy’ KF woollen shirt, ‘58 pattern webbing order, cloth puttees,
DMS
rubber-soled boots, green lanyard for compass, maroon belt with regimental badge in bright metal on the circular buckle, maroon beret with matt-black cap badge. All present and correct, sah! Taffy unscrewed the lid off the black boot polish and worked up a nice smooth paste with a globule of spit. Dipped the yellow cloth into it, set to with a will, bulling up the toe-caps. In the silent, darkened room Taffy polished industriously away, a frown of rapt concentration on his face.

‘What time is it?’ Dillon, dressed only in jockey shorts and socks, carrying his uniform on a hanger, halted in mid-creep halfway across the bedroom floor. Susie’s eyes watched him from above the covers as he hung the uniform on the wardrobe door. Dillon arched his back and crawled into bed with a groan. ‘After two … I got terrible backache.’ ‘What time are you on in the morning?’ ‘Seven-thirty.’ Dillon tried to relax, let the tension flow out of him. ‘We’ve been sittin’ in that car for twelve hours solid ‘Well,’ Susie retorted, ‘at least you’re sitting down.’ ‘Might have known I’d get no sympathy from you,’ Dillon mumbled sleepily. He stretched and made a noise somewhere between a yawn and a groan, and snuggled down, totally whacked. Crash! From downstairs, but loud enough to wake the dead, Steve falling in through the front door, colliding with the bikes in the hall and thudding headlong to the floor. Floating away on the soft pink billow of deep wonderful sleep, Dillon came bolt upright in the bed, eyes sticking out like organ stops. Another thud, clang of bike frames, and Dillon, realizing what it was, flopped back, the pillow over his head. Steve, muttering drunkenly to himself, was now attempting the impossible, death-defying ascent of the stairs. Halfway up he missed his footing and tumbled to the bottom, landing with a thud that jarred the floorboards and made the wardrobe door swing open. From the boys’ room, a shrill plaintive ‘Muuuu-mmmmmm!’ With a heavy sigh, Susie whopped the bedcovers aside and prepared to get up. Dillon whopped them back again. ‘Leave it — just leave it!’ ‘But it sounds like he’s fallen downstairs…’

‘Good! Hope he’s broken his ruddy neck!’

There was a red line around Dillon’s forehead where his cap had been. He drummed his fingers on the steering-wheel, glancing every now and then at Steve, bent over in the passenger seat with a Little Chef road map spread across his knees, marking the motorways with a felt-tip. Bloody wonder they’d ever got here. And how long had it taken them — over two hours? Jesus wept. Dillon kept a wary eye on the clients, just in case. Three bags full, sir, that was the drill. At the moment they were on the farside of the cobbled yard, talking to a tall thin man wearing baggy cord trousers and a polo-necked sweater under a tweed jacket, trainer or stable manager, Dillon guessed. He didn’t know it for a fact, but the horses all looked like thoroughbreds, a row of glossy necks and proud heads arched over the stable doors, lively, intelligent brown eyes. He wondered how many of them Ali Baba owned. Dillon wrinkled his nose. Was that horseshit or what? He said, ‘And for chrissakes, Steve, make sure we get the right route back to London. We go the same way we got here, we’ll never get back.’ He leaned nearer, suspicions confirmed. ‘An’ I told you, use some deodorant, you stink!’ Steve sniffed his armpits. ‘It’s not me!’ he protested, and nearly poked a hole through the map with his pen. ‘Your fault — you said Newmarket was near Ascot!’ ‘Give. You always were bloody useless on directions.’ Dillon snatched the map off him and glared at it with weary disgust. Thirty-grand silver Merc and they were using a Little Chef free road map to ferry their clients the length and breadth of the Home Counties… ‘I told you, Steve, get a decent map … we need to check how we’re going for gas.’ There was a low rasping sound as Steve released a fart. ‘Very funny,’ Dillon said. He glanced worriedly at the fuel gauge. ‘We got any cash?’ ‘I’m skint.’ ‘We can’t ask them.’ Dillon looked across the cobbled yard to the two Arabs. The slim dapper one, Salah Al-Gharib, was beckoning, his gold ring winking in the sunlight. ‘Hey, they want you.’ Dillon nudged Steve. ‘Go on. I’ll check the route.’ Grumbling, Steve climbed out, and shambled over. Dillon swore, long and loud, discovering his squashed cap Steve had been sitting and farting on. He bashed it into shape, too busy straightening the bent peak to notice Steve was shaking his foot in the air, having trodden in a heap of fresh horse dung.

The black and chrome
JVC
stereo deck (nearly five hundred quid’s worth) was the first item on the agenda. It smashed through the upstairs window and landed on the concrete path, disintegrating in a tangled heap of plastic and metal and solid-state circuitry. Taffy stood at the broken window, spick and span in parade-drill order, maroon beret pulled low over the left eye in the approved Parachute Regiment manner, and let fly with a stream of tapes, CDs and records, showering down over the scrubby patch of lawn. A portable TV set followed, and a transistor radio followed that, hurled out with a methodical calm efficiency that was strangely at odds with the crazed, wide-eyed expression on Taffy’s face. The front door opened and the phantom drummer shot out, dreadlocks flying, a look of sheer terror in his eyes. He stumbled down the path, screaming abuse as a bass drum smashed an even bigger hole in the window and scored a direct hit on the garden gnome casting his rod in the flower bed. Out sailed the rest of the drum-kit, hi-hat cymbals setting up one hell of a racket as they skimmed and bounced into the road. Mary came out of the kitchen next door and ran screaming round the side of the house, arriving to see Taffy emerging through the front door. ‘Oh God Almighty — what have you done?’ Taffy strode down the garden path, kicking the mangled remains of the stereo deck out of his way. ‘Got some peace and quiet,’ Taffy said. ‘That’s what I’ve done.’ He turned sharp left through the gate, straightened his shoulders, and setting his beret at the correct angle, marched off. ‘Where are you going?… Taff? ‘For a quick drink,’ Taffy said, arms swinging.

Dillon was crouched forward in the passenger seat, brow furrowed, speaking on the portable phone: ‘I told her this morning! I mean, what am I supposed to do, Susie? Hello…?’ He shook the handset. ‘This ruddy thing keeps cutting out… Hello?’ He shook it again, and this seemed to do the trick. He listened, nodding, and in a quick muttered aside to Steve: ‘It’s Taffy’s wife again, she’s freakin’ out about something.’ He said into the phone, ‘Susie? Can you hear me…? Okay, give her this number, if she calls again, or you get her number, but Susie —’ Snap, crackle, pop. ‘Bloody hell! Hello… can you hear me?’ Steve nudged his elbow. ‘Here they come.’ ‘I got to go,’ said Dillon quickly. ‘Don’t call me unless it’s an emergency, ‘cos I’m working!’ He cradled the handset and hopped out, tugging his jacket straight and squaring up his cap. ‘London, sir?’ Dillon asked, opening the rear door. Salah Al-Gharib gave a curt nod. ‘White Elephant,’ he said, climbing in after the big man. Dillon pulled a face at Steve through the window, who returned Dillon’s blank look with one of his own. Dog track? Indian restaurant? Mosque? All the way down the M11 Dillon anxiously watched the red needle of the fuel gauge creeping to within a hair’s breadth of Empty. Finally, scared to death they were going to run out, he ordered Steve to pull off at the service station just outside Epping. Luckily the clients were going through some papers, taking no notice; even so, Dillon blocked their view of the petrol pump meter as he carefully measured out £2.72 pence’ worth to the drop, then surreptitiously palmed the handful of loose change from Steve. Now they were both skint.

It didn’t take them long to find him. Taffy’s glass of Murphy’s stout was still half-full when the phantom drummer’s redheaded older brother, a couple of his mates in tow, walked into the saloon bar. Three customers took one look and shifted rapidly out of the way, leaving Taffy alone on his bar-stool in the corner. Slowly, all the time in the world, Taffy turned his head to look at them. They were a mean-looking bunch but his expression didn’t alter, kept its same level, sullen stare, unimpressed by this walking pond-life. ‘Oi! You three —’ The landlord was across, pushing his rolled-up shirtsleeves further up his arms, pointing at the door. ‘Out! Out now!’ Taffy’s red head neighbour stopped in the middle of the floor, head lowered like a bull about to charge, eyes glittering. ‘Gonna have you,’ he murmured softly, just loud enough for Taffy to hear. ‘You want to come outside?’ ‘Police — call the police,’ the landlord told the blonde barmaid, who scuttled to the phone. He put both hands flat on the counter and leaned forward. ‘Did you hear me? I’m calling the cops. Now — all of you — out. Get out!’ Redhead and his mates stood their ground, a tight little knot of hatred, and as the landlord raised the hatch, Taffy saw a stealthy movement and there was a knife in the redhead’s hand. ‘No trouble, lads… come on now…’ Taffy stood up. He lifted both hands, palms open, to indicate that he didn’t want any trouble either. The red-head came for him. Taffy side-stepped, got an elbow lock on the knife-arm, twisted the redhead round to the bar with his arm up his back, wrist bent double. Taking the knife off him, Taffy dragged his head back by his red hair and slit his throat.

‘Put your hat on,’ said Steve. ‘Get the doors open!’ While Dillon rammed his cap on and fixed his tie his eyes never left the wing-mirror, which he’d been anxiously studying for the past fifteen minutes. He gripped the doorhandle and said, ‘You clocked that red Sierra parked at the back of us? They’ve been around the block twice and come back. They seem very interested in us…’ Steve flicked the air-spray round the back of the car and switched on the engine. He waggled his thumb urgently, indicating that Dillon better attend to the clients, stepping out of the White Elephant after a dinner that probably cost as much as Susie spent on food in a month. Dillon held the door open, and while they were settling in he glanced sideways under the peak of his cap, attempting to make out the occupants of the Sierra and how many. In the darkened interior he saw the glow of a cigarette, nothing more. He nipped round and climbed in. ‘Back to base is it, sir?’ Dillon inquired, glued to the wing-mirror. Steve flashed the indicator and pulled out into Curzon Street, the Sierra’s dimmed headlights springing on. It began moving off without indicating. ‘Yes,’ the secretary replied, polishing his gold-rimmed spectacles. ‘Then that’s it for today!’ His boss, the big man, was dozing off, hands clasped comfortably on the swell of his paunch, recently replenished. Steve drove up Park Lane, crossing into the right-hand stream to make the approach into Oxford Street. At this late hour, traffic was fairly light, at least by London standards, and Dillon could see the red Sierra merging into the same lane, two cars behind. He spoke quietly, hardly moving his lips, ‘Keep your eye on ‘em, they’re right behind us.’ Steve nodded, the Mercedes surging smoothly forward, whisper-quiet under the power of its three-litre, 140 bhp engine. Dillon, after a minute’s private debate with himself, inclined his head to the rear of the car. He kept his voice calm, no sign of agitation. ‘Excuse me, sir… we’ve got someone following us. They were parked outside the Club, and they’ve been on our tail since we left. It’s a red Sierra — take a look for yourself.’ Raoul Al-Mohammed immediately blinked open his heavy eyes and with his secretary turned to stare out of the tinted back window. They turned back, eyes locked together. ‘Are you sure they are following?’ the secretary asked quietly, leaning forward. ‘wE cAN maKe SUre iF yOU liKe ‘What did he say?’ ‘We can drive around a bit,’ Dillon explained, ‘see if they are really following… Okay?’ He glanced behind and got a single, firm nod. Steve was too expert and experienced a driver to tip off those behind that they’d been rumbled. Besides, this wasn’t ideal territory to lose a tail. Better to get them into a warren of back streets they possibly weren’t too familiar with — but he was. So in no great hurry he turned into Tottenham Court Road and proceeded at a stately pace towards Euston Road, eyes doing a constant slow swivel from the road to the rearview mirror. Actually, he was starting to enjoy himself. The Merc was a joy to drive, he’d never got his mitts on such a large powerful, beautiful motor before. Plus — and it was a big plus — he felt the old tingling thrill of pitting himself against an adversary. Didn’t matter who: it was the enemy, the bad guys, the ones who had to be beaten at all costs. That’s what he’d been trained to do, and Civvy Street had no use for his talents and specialist skills. No use for him, period. Slowing for the traffic lights at the junction with Euston Road, Dillon turned round in his seat. It was make-your-mind-up time, so he called for a decision. ‘He’s still with us, what do you want us to do?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘We head back into Regent’s Park and we’ll play follow-my-leader all the way back to the house…’ Salah Al-Gharib moistened his lips. ‘What is the alternative?’ he asked, and now his voice had the suggestion of a tremor in it. Steve sucked in air, burped, ‘I can lose ‘em, Frank. No problem.’ ‘You sure?’ At Steve’s nod, Dillon turned back and said tersely, ‘He thinks he can lose them, sir.’ The lights changed, and being in the left-hand lane Steve had no choice but to turn left into Euston Road. There was a confab going on in the back, the secretary doing most of the talking, his boss interjecting the odd comment or question now and then. Both men seemed distinctly uneasy, rather fearful in fact, Raoul Al-Mohammed clutching his alligator-skin briefcase to his chest, resting it on his heaving stomach. At last the secretary leaned forward. Behind the thin gold rims, the whites of his eyes gleamed against his dark complexion. ‘If it is possible, lose them. Do what you have to do.’ Dillon touched Steve’s arm. He took off his cap and said to the men in the back, ‘You want to put your seat-belts on?’ They did so, Dillon pulling his tight. Steve operated central locking, securing all four doors, took a long searching look in the mirror, and put his foot down.