The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman (17 page)

       
Iwanek moved back on the bed and leant against the wall. He was dressed like a polytechnic lecturer, brown corduroy jacket and trousers and a green sweater, a pair of scuffed desert boots and brown socks with black squares on them, but no polytechnic lecturer had eyes like his, and they studied me through half-closed lids like a sleepy lizard about to ensnare an unwary insect with its long and very sticky tongue.

       
‘They’ll be armed, I suppose?’ He had the knack of making every question sound like a statement of fact.

       
‘Almost certainly, but they won’t be expecting trouble, they’re dealing with somebody they know. And you’ll have the advantage because they’ll have the boat to worry about and you will be on dry land.’

       
He brought out a packet of Silk Cut and lit one with an old gunmetal petrol lighter. He didn’t offer me one which meant he’d been observant enough to notice that I didn’t smoke or he just didn’t care. He angled his head back and blew a smoke ring towards the pale green ceiling, but his eyes never left my face and he weighed me up through the wreaths of smoke.

       
‘There’ll be three of us, myself and two big guys. One is my bodyguard, the other is the man who set the deal up. I’ll be carrying the briefcase with the money. For God’s sake be careful, I don’t want anyone killed.’

       
‘Not yet you don’t,’ he said and laughed quietly, but it was only his mouth that smiled, there were no crease lines around the pale blue eyes and no spark of humour in them.

       
‘Do either of your two friends know what you’ve got planned?’ he asked.

       
‘No,’ I said. ‘This is just between the two of us. So be careful. They’re as likely to take a swing at you as the men in the boat are.

       
‘I’ll come back here to pick up the drugs and the money sometime within the following forty-eight hours. You just stay put and order whatever you want from room service. Then I give you the rest of your money and we part company for good.’

       
He’d emptied his tumbler but made no move to refill it. I wasn’t surprised because Iwanek was a pro and pros don’t drink while they’re working, not to excess anyway.

       
‘Have you got the gun?’ I asked, and he patted the suitcase next to him.

       
‘A Fabarm Eight Shot Slugster, though you’d be hard put to recognize it now,’ he said. ‘Matt black anti-glare finish, three inch magnum, lightweight and fast operating.’ He didn’t open the case but ran his fingers up and down the leather, smoothing it gently.

       
‘The barrels are normally twenty-four and a half inches long but I’ve cut off more than half that and taken off the stock and the recoil pad and just left the walnut semi pistol grip. It’ll fire eight shots and it’s one of the sweetest pump actions around.’

       
‘Pity you won’t get to fire it,’ I said and pushed myself out of the easy chair. ‘I’ll leave the map with you.’

       
Iwanek didn’t get up, and he was still looking at the case and toying with the handle as I left the room, walked out of the hotel and turned along the harbour wall. It was starting to rain, drops splattering on the pavement, and I turned up the collar of my brown tweed jacket.

       
Before I reached the Caledonian I went into a small newsagent which was just about to close for the night and bought copies of all the national newspapers along with a
Glasgow Herald, Scotsman, Daily Record
and
Oban Times
and a packet of elastic bands.

       
The ruddy faced man behind the counter rang up the till and took my money. ‘You’ll be doing a lot of reading, then?’ he asked. ‘Or is it something in particular you’re after?’

       
‘What else is there to do in Oban on a wet Saturday night?’ I asked. He followed me to the door and reached for the bolt as I stepped onto the pavement.

       
‘Aye, you’ve a point there,’ he agreed and wished me a good night. I pushed the papers under my jacket and kept my head down as I walked back to the Caledonian. It was raining heavily now, and I started to run as water began to trickle down the back of my neck.

       
I borrowed a large pair of scissors from reception and spent the next half hour in my room cutting the papers into ten-pound note size pieces and bundling them together with elastic bands. On the top and bottom of each pile I put a real note, and by the time I’d finished I had sore fingers and what would hopefully pass for £250,000 in used tenners in a poor light. I packed them into the old brown leather attache case I’d brought with me and pushed it under the bed. Right on cue McKinley knocked on the door and said it was time to go down to the bar to meet Read.

       
We found him sitting on a high stool at the far end of the polished oak bar nursing a lager. He’d dressed for the occasion and looked every inch a Scottish landowner with his green tweed suit and heavy brown brogues.

       
On the back of his head was perched a shapeless hat of some unidentifiable material and I swear there was a fishing fly pinned to the brown band. I half expected him to tell us it was ‘a braw bricht moonlit nicht the noo,’ but he just smiled and asked us what we were having.

       
We took our drinks over to a table in the corner furthest from the bar, and McKinley attacked a bowl of peanuts while Read and I got down to business.

       
‘You’ve got the money, squire?’ he asked.

       
‘Upstairs,’ I said. ‘Is everything still on?’

       
‘It will be once I’ve made one phone call.’

       
‘It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it? Surely the boat will have left by now?’

       
‘You’ve heard of ship-to-shore radios, haven’t you? I call Ireland and they contact the boat. Then, and only then, will the dingy head for the loch. You’re not dealing with amateurs, you know.’ He took his glasses off and began to polish them meticulously with a bright red handkerchief.

       
‘I should hope not,’ I said. ‘Not for the sort of commission you’re getting, anyway. I hope you’re worth it.’

       
‘Take it from me, squire, I am. There’s no way you could have arranged this without me, just remember that.’

       
He removed his hat and placed it on the seat next to him and scratched the back of his head. That encouraged McKinley to delve into his beard again and pretty soon the two of them were scratching away like flea infested puppies.

       
‘There isn’t anything that could go wrong, is there?’ I asked, and Read narrowed his eyes.

       
‘Not getting cold feet, are we?’ he asked. ‘It’s too late to back out now. That would be about as smart as auditioning for the lead role in a snuff movie. Not to be recommended, squire. The sort of people we’re dealing with won’t stand for that, believe me.’

       
‘Hell, of course I’m not getting cold feet, you know just how badly I need this deal. It’s just that a quarter of a million pounds is one hell of a lot of money and it’s not cash I can afford to lose.’

       
‘No, I suppose it isn’t.’ He turned and looked at McKinley. ‘Not on top of the money you’ve already lost,’ he added and laughed, shoulders jiggling up and down in time with his bellowing laughter.

       
McKinley smiled and helped himself to more salted peanuts. Read took a swallow from his glass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. For the first time I noticed how hairy it was, only the finger joints were clear of thick, black curly hair.

       
‘They’re using a fishing boat to cross the sea, and then the stuff’ll be transferred to a small rubber dinghy with a large outboard motor. If it looks like they’ve been spotted they’ll make a run for it, but there’s as much chance of that as there is of Get-Up here passing the Institute of Advanced Motorists driving test.’ He laughed uproariously at his own joke, mouth wide open and a couple of gold fillings glinting somewhere at the back.

       
‘But what about the dinghy? Surely that’s vulnerable?’

       
‘Let’s get something straight, squire,’ he replied. ‘The coastline,’ he gestured with his drink, ‘out there isn’t exactly crawling with customs men, you know. Don’t you read the papers? They’re more understaffed than the Moscow branch of the CND. It’s a chance in a million that they’ll bump into anybody. If they do they’ll run for it. And if they can’t run for it they’ll dump it over the side and go back for it later. Don’t worry, it’s easier than delivering milk.’

       
‘Will you be armed?’ I asked.

       
‘God, you are nervous. No, I won’t be carrying a gun, but the men delivering almost certainly will be.’

       
‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

       
‘Don’t let it worry you. Remember, they’re the ones who are taking all the risks. They’ll be coming in with the drugs, you’ll just be a guy on the lochside.’

       
‘With a quarter of a million pounds in his briefcase.’

       
‘Yes, there’s always that, isn’t there?’ He laughed again. He hadn’t been drinking much and it wasn’t that funny so I guess he was more nervous than he was letting on, but I believed him when he said he wouldn’t be armed. I also believed him when he said the delivery boys would be. Still, how good a shot could they be from a rubber boat tossing around in the loch? I would have touched wood but the table our drinks were on had never been near a tree. Anyway, the whole point of the operation was that I wasn’t depending on luck. Luck is for amateurs.

       
‘What’s the time, now?’ he asked, finishing his drink with a noisy slurp.

       
‘Ten past seven,’ I replied.

       
‘Time I was ringing Ireland. Can you lend me a ten-pence piece for the phone?’ He roared at the look of surprise on my face and slapped me on the back.

       
‘Come on, you can take a joke, can’t you, squire?’ He stood up, running his fingers along non-existent creases in his rumpled tweed trousers. ‘I’ll see you back here at nine o’clock. Everything is going ahead exactly as I explained to Get-Up last week. Stop worrying. Just be ready at nine, we’ll take both cars. What are you driving?’

       
‘BMW. It’s parked outside.’

       
‘Nice. Wrap up warm in case we’re stuck outside for a couple of hours. See you.’ Then he was off out of the bar, picking up a huge green, yellow and red golfing umbrella from the cloakroom and tossing a coin into a white china saucer on the counter.

       
‘He means well, boss,’ said McKinley, almost apologetically.

       
‘I know, Get-Up, I know. You hungry?’

       
‘I’m always hungry, boss, you know that.’

       
‘Go and get yourself something from the restaurant. I’m going for a walk.’

       
I stood at the side of the hotel entrance and saw Read by the BMW, examining the tyres, looking through the window and checking the speedometer like a hesitant buyer on a used car lot. Any moment now a young chap in a sheepskin jacket would come along and tell him it had one lady owner and had been treated just like one of the family and did he have a trade-in, sir, or would he be interested in an HP deal? Read took a pen and notebook from his jacket pocket and wrote down the registration number and then began to walk away, glancing at the Rolls as he passed it.

       
He stopped and took a closer look at the registration number, then walked around to the back, running his hand along the white soft top and down the rear wing. He scratched his ear thoughtfully. Unlike McKinley he had kept in touch with Laing’s drug scene and he was sure to know what car Laing was driving.

       
He began scribbling in his notebook again, and I knew his telephone call to Ireland wouldn’t just be to arrange the delivery, that he’d mention the Rolls and suggest that maybe, just maybe, Laing was around or involved. It wouldn’t be enough for them to abandon the delivery but alarm bells would start to ring. I waited until Read got into a brown Range-Rover and drove off before I walked out of the hotel.

       
I rang Iwanek from a call box along the harbour wall to say that Read wouldn’t be armed, and to confirm that there had been no changes to the original plan.

       
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll be there.’ Suddenly everybody was telling me not to worry. That worried me. It had stopped raining but the wind was strong enough to whip up ripples in the pavement puddles as I wandered aimlessly towards the docks, shoulders hunched against the cold, fingers clenched tight in the pockets of my tweed jacket as I mentally ticked off the various stages of the plan.

       
I went over and over it in my mind and I couldn’t find any faults. But they said the Titanic was unsinkable so I went over it again but it still seemed OK, and I relaxed a little and even started to whistle to myself but then I thought of McKinley and the whistle died on my lips.

       
If there was one weak link in the chain of events I’d set up then it was McKinley. He was like an affectionate Old English sheepdog, I trusted him completely and I only had to call and he’d come. He was faithful and loyal but I was using him, and if he ever found out he’d have every reason to turn on me, snapping and biting and going for my throat.

       
Several times I’d come close to telling him the truth, but I still wasn’t sure how he would react or whether he’d use the information as a way of getting back on Laing’s team. I trusted him, but not that much, and I couldn’t take the risk. But that meant he would be at Loch Feochan tonight under the impression that he was taking part in a straightforward drugs buy, and when Iwanek turned up as the Lone Ranger he might take it into his head to go charging in like a head-strong rhino.