Gatecrasher (3 page)

‘I’ve got a few little specialities in my repertoire George, yeah. Soon as I realised that I couldn’t live with me Mum forever I quickly realised that I couldn’t live without her rice and peas and jerk chicken either. Used to hang around the kitchen when I was 18 and watch her work. Still can’t get close to the old girl but I do alright.’

‘I’ll bet you do son. Now,’ Gresham said as he went back to work on the meat, ‘are you going to tell me why you are standing in my kitchen on a Sunday morning, watching me
skin a brace of rabbits
and talking to me about your Mum?’

Warren
drew in a breath and the rehearsed words that he had run through several times in the car deserted him ent
irely. ‘Last night boss... Tony,
’ he said and stood silently searching for the next sentence to form.

Gresham
put down the knife, which
Warren
found strangely more threatening than had he still been holding it. ‘Jools, I am going to assume that since you were not alone last night when we spoke and you are now that the others have sent you as the messenger because they know I like you and they know that I’ll have their fucking knackers if they turned up here and said to me what I am very much concerned that you are about to say to me. Am I right, Jools? Are you here alone because you have bad news for me?’

Warren
, to his credit, looked his boss in the eye when he
a
nswered. It was one of the reasons the older man liked him. He had balls. He had balls enough to own up when he fucked up.
Gresham
could only respect that quality in a man.

‘Think he walked on us.’ he said flatly.

‘Fuck off Jools,
’ he spat. ‘He did or he didn’t. Stop messing about.’

‘OK, he did. But… well he can’t have got far. He was not a well boy.’

‘If you believed that, you wouldn’t be here ruining my weekend.’

‘
OK. We followed him round most of the day, but he was really edgy so we couldn’t get near him for ages. Anyway, when we finally got hold of him, well, it wasn’t much fun. He was a mate too you know.’

‘Jools
–
’

Warren
stopped him. ‘I know George, I know. But it doesn’t make it easier.’

‘Just makes him more dangerous.’

J
ools shrugged a reluctant acknowledgement. ‘Anyway, Keano did him. Volunteered for the job in fact.’
Gresham
’s eyebrows arched but
Warren
pressed on. ‘You know what he’s like though, keen as mustard. It’s like one-upmanship with Slater half the time. Anyway, he found somewhere quiet and we left him to it.’

‘Why do I get the feeling you’re about to tell me that boy is making us all look like cunts again?’

‘He forgot himself gov. Came back over to us and Slater says to him ‘Have you done it right?’ – I don’t think Slater really wanted to leave Keano to do it alone but Cooper knew Slater’s game all the way. Maybe he fancied his chances with Keane.’

‘Keith’s the only one with any intelligence half the time.’ observed
Gresham
. ‘So what did the little shit do wrong?’

Warren
then began to explain to his boss what had happened the previous afternoon. They had taken the other man, into a pub, feigning innocence, playing friendly, although he was clearly not convinced by their false sincerity and forced conversation as he nervously swigged back a number of drinks. Drinks they had been careful to spike.

Before long the man – Tony Cooper, another of
Gresham
’s crew
–
was slurring his words and had begun to plead with them as he dropped the pretence but his words were met with denials as they insisted not to know what he meant.

Soon they left the pub,
Warren
with an arm around Cooper’s shoulder as he staggered through the door. They assured him they were going for a curry and he had reluctantly stumbled along with them, eyes slightly glazed but still darting between them with suspicion.

Stuart Keane, a short man of twenty six with a prominent brow and a double chin had helped Cooper into a dark, quiet passageway – ‘Co
me on Tone, you must need a slash
. I’m dying for one,
’
–
and emerged alone not two minutes later.

‘Have you done it right?’ asked Keith Slater. Slater was to all intents and purposes,
Gresham
’s number two, his hatchet man. Intelligent and soft-spoken he was as hard as he was cruel. But his ruthlessness made him a very efficient professional and his loyalty to
Gresham
was clear from the number of scars he had gained in his service and the two brief stints in prison he had done in place of his boss.

‘Fuck off Slater,
’ replied Keane irritably and dropped the zip on his jacket six inches to show the dark bloodstain smudged across his sweater beneath.

‘Alright Keano. Alright. What you going to do with his stuff?’
Warren
asked.

K
eane frowned.

Slater looked about ready to swing at him.

‘His stuff, Stu. His wallet, his watch. It wo
n’t look like much of a robbery
if nothing’s been taken, will it you prick?’

A look of cold rage passed over Keane’s face and he span and stalked back round the corner.
Warren
turned to Slater whose mouth was hanging open. He smoothed his beard, usually a bad sign in
Warren
’s experience.

‘You fuck off home when we’re done here. I’ll take him out for a few. He’ll want to let off steam and he’s not going to do that if you’re han
ging around looking to slap him,
’ Warren told him. But Slater was already looking over
Warren
’s shoulder by now and his expression told him that all was not well.

‘He’s... Jesus! What the hell...?’ muttered Keane as he shook his head.

‘
Christ Keano, what now?’ barked Slater.

‘He’s
gone.’

George Gresham had quietly closed the kitchen door and showed him politely to a seat. Breezily he asked if
Warren
wanted a drink of something. For all the courtesy he was being shown
Warren
felt a palpable sense of menace. Suddenly he was acutely aware of the knife rack, the heavy looking pots that hung suspended in the corner, the gas burners on the hob. He accepted an offer of tea.

G
resham
filled the kettle and
Warren
began to question the wisdom of having the man boil water but the last thing he was going to do was speak out of turn. His only job now was to sit and wait until the boss said something.

Thankfully he wasn’t kept waiting too long.

‘So where did this little circus take place? I mean, is Cooper running around somewhere looking for a copper? Is he going to come knocking on my door with a shooter and a grudge? You said you think he walked. Tell me it wasn’t far Jools.’

Warren
shook his head slowly and tried to think of how best
to finish the story. ‘Keano sai
d he knifed him in the neck
–
I can’t imagine he got too far.

‘Anyway, we figured that the booze and stuff had put him half to sleep and the knife would finish the job. I guess it woke him up. We checked a few streets round there,
‘
cos he must h
ave jumped a wall or something –
lots of houses round there, lots of gardens. But we didn’t find him. My guess is he started crawling off somewhere but he didn’t crawl far. Can’t have done. My guess is we check the Standard for the next few days and read about where they find him in there.

‘This was down Fulham way. He ended up going to the
Chelsea
, West Ham game see – goes to
loads of Hammers games right? –
so we kind
of pretended it was all spontan
eous,
that we’d figured on heading down to meet him and picked up a few tickets off a tout. Handy that it was miles away from here too.’

Gresham
handed
Warren
a cup and saucer and offered him milk from a jug. Again
Warren
felt the incongruity of such niceties against the topic of their conversation. He prepared himself for an onslaught from his boss
–
instead he got a biscuit.

‘
Julius. We appear to have a situa
tion don’t we? Yes we do George,
’ he answered for him. ‘Now, you boys have fucked up and you’ve left us even deeper in it than we were this time yesterday. Not only is he still out there somewhere, where he can be spotted, identified and pulled in and
take the whole lot of us down –
and if you don’t know otherwise Jools then we are sure as fuck going to have assume that he is out there and looking for th
e nearest Old Bill to help him –
but he’s walking round with a hole in his neck. And that doesn’t make us look like a nice bunch of men does it Jools? No, George, it surely does fucking not. Not to mention the fact that it was one of his best mate
s that shoved a blade into him –
well, I think I’d fancy my chances with the Bill personally given the choice. I would think that our position and his position were pretty bloody crystal now
,
don’t you? Cooper’s going to find a copper as soon as he can and he’s going to give them all sorts of juicy stories to make them keep vicious bastards like you and Keane and Slater away from him.’

W
arren
nodded his head. Cooper, as an associate for many years, could give enough information to the police to bury the lot of them if he wanted to try to buy his own safety.

‘
Which means you and Slater and Keano should be in Fulham, or wherever he’s got to, tidying this lot up.’

‘
Course boss. I’ll call the lads,
’ he replied trying to sound upbeat, on the ball.

‘The lads are already there aren’t they Jools?’

Warren
didn’t move.
Gresham
stayed silent which was enough to scare the other man into responding.

‘We didn’t really know where else to look. We couldn’t
exactly start knocking on doors
...’

‘That,
my useless friend
,
’ hissed
Gresham
through tightly clenched teeth, ‘is exactly what you could do. Pretend you’re the Bill, pretend you’re the fucking Gas man! Now get your black arse back to Fulham and start from where you left him. I don’t want to see any of you back here until you’ve made absolutely certain that that bastard isn’t going to put the whole fucking lot of us on the front page of the fucking papers!’
Gresham
finished with his voice a coarse roar.

Warren
stood and walked sheepishly to the front door, his shoulders low and sagging.

‘Jools,
’ growled
Gresham
.

Warren
turned.

‘They win? The Hammers?’

He shook his head and stuffed his hands into his pockets.

‘No boss. They took a spanking.’

Sunday
.
12pm.

It felt like he was paralysed, like he couldn’t move at all and when his eyes flicked open he immediately squeezed them closed again.

Campbell
’s head thumped like something was trying to pound its
w
ay out through his temples. Slowly he drew his arm up and wrapped it over his eyes, burying the bridge of his nose in the crook of his elbow. After a moment he became aware of his tongue which felt like it was slightly too large for his mouth and as if it had been stuck in place with something foul tasting.

He rolled to the side of the bed, opened his eyes a crack and felt around for the glass of water that he knew was on the floor. Grabbing it he lifted the glass, rolled his head upright from the mattress and poured water between his lips. The glass was empty before his thirst was satisfied. He slumped onto his back again and rolled his tongue around his mouth.

H
e lay there for long minutes stretching his limbs slowly, trying to work out whether he was going to throw up or not, that maybe getting up and moving around might hasten it but also that if he didn’t get another drink of water soon it was probably going to happen anyway. At least if he was up, he could get to the bathroom. Keep it tidy.

The flat was dark as he moved through it, the curtains drawn in the living room, blinds lowered in the kitchen and bathroom. This, he knew, masked the reality of what he faced. He had staggered through the mess the night before on his way to bed and in the subdued daylight it looked worse still and the smell of stale tobacco and lager was thick in the air.
Campbell
avoided the kitchen entirely and headed with his empty glass to the bathroom instead. Nothing had happened in there.