The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman (5 page)

       
‘Do I look like the police?’

       
‘As a matter of fact you do. Sod off and leave me alone.’

       
‘Look, Dinah, the fact that I’m here talking to you in the pub and not bursting into your yard with a search warrant should prove to you that I’m not a cop, but if you want I could give them a ring. I think they’d be fascinated to hear about the operation you’re running over there. Pays well does it?’

       
‘What operation? What do you think I am, a surgeon?’

       
‘Of sorts, Dinah, of sorts. How did you get a name like Dinah in the first place? Parents expecting a girl, were they?’

       
The change of subject took him by surprise and his mouth hung open in amazement. ‘My name’s Maurice, Maurice Dancer—-’

       
‘I don’t believe it,’ I said interrupting. ‘Maurice Dancer? Somebody in your family must have had a sense of humour. Had a tough time at school did you?’

       
He shrugged. ‘Yeah, I guess so. For a while, anyway, then Maurice was shortened to Mo and then I got the car bug and got stuck with the nickname Dyna-Mo and that got shortened to Dinah. What’s it to you, anyway?’

       
‘I just want a chat, Dinah, that’s all. Let me get you another. What are you having?’

       
‘Bitter, a pint.’

       
‘OK.’

       
‘And a double whisky.’

       
‘Expensive tastes, Dinah, can you afford them?’

       
‘If you’re paying, I don’t have to. Get us a meat pie as well, hey? I haven’t eaten today.’

       
I bought Dinah his supper, and we went over to the corner table where I watched his two mates scuffing the pool table and spilling lager down the pockets as Dinah attacked his pie and drank his whisky in two swallows.

       
‘What’s your game?’ he asked finally, brushing crumbs onto the floor and picking up his beer.

       
‘As I said, Dinah, I need a car, and I think you’re just the man to get it for me.’

       
‘But I’ve already told you that selling cars isn’t my game.’

       
‘Dinah, I’m not stupid. I know exactly what your game is. And it’s not Subbuteo.’

       
‘What are you getting at?’ he asked, and started tearing a soggy beermat into tiny pieces, flicking them into a dirty ashtray.

       
‘Dinah, it’s simple. You’re a car thief, and I presume you’re a good one. Your yard over the road is packed with parts you’ve taken from almost new cars, you steal them and strip anything of value. The chassis and any other identifiable bits you probably sell for scrap. Am I right?’

       
He said nothing, his eyes fixed on the table, fingers busy destroying the wet cardboard.

       
He obviously wasn’t going to reply, so I continued. Maurice Dancer, this is your life. ‘It’s virtually the perfect crime. The only risk is when you actually take the car away, and the way you look you’d probably be able to claim it was a first offence and that all you were doing was taking it for a joyride, officer, and you’re very sorry but it won’t happen again, your honour, because you’re the product of a broken home and an uncaring Government and you’ll get nothing worse than a few months’ probation.

       
‘But underneath that ludicrous purple hair I reckon there’s a brain a bit too smart to be caught red-handed. Am I right?’

       
He looked up and smiled, showing crooked teeth. ‘Maybe. Maybe you are. But I still don’t know what you want from me.’

       
‘You asked me what your operation is, Dinah. Well, I think you’re making a nice living selling bits of cars that would cost an arm and a leg if you bought them honestly. Luxury cars, the Rollers, the Mercs, the Porsches, cars where you’re talking three figures for a spare wheel and four for an engine.

       
‘You supply a need, Dinah, like all good entrepreneurs. You sell parts, no questions asked, to cut-price mechanics. They get the spares they need, you get a roll of fivers in your back pocket. Everyone’s happy, the only loser is the guy whose car you’ve knicked and he’ll be able to claim on his insurance.

       
‘The beauty of the scheme is that once you’ve taken the cars apart all the evidence is gone, it’s virtually impossible to trace things like axles, body panels, windscreens and lights. And once you’ve changed the numbers, selling an engine is no problem. I like it, Dinah, I like it a lot. If a business like yours qualified for the Business Expansion Scheme, you’d have investors queuing up halfway round the block.’

       
‘I haven’t stolen a car from you, have I?’ asked Dinah, realization breaking across his face like an early dawn.

       
‘No, Dinah, you haven’t.’

       
‘Thank God for that. That’s been a nightmare of mine for years, that one day somebody will tap me on the shoulder and ask for their motor back before plastering me all over the wall. There’s some very dodgy people driving Rollers, you know?’

       
‘You don’t have to tell me, Dinah. Now listen. I want you to steal a car for me. Two cars to be precise, a Merc and a Rolls.’

       
‘No sooner done than said. Any particular colour?’

       
‘Not just a particular colour, I want two particular cars. And I don’t want to keep them.’ His eyes brightened. ‘And I don’t want you to strip them, either, so you can forget any thoughts you had on that score. I want to borrow them and return them so that no one is any the wiser.’

       
‘You planning a robbery or something? If you are you can count me out. I’ll steal cars, sure, but that’s as far as I go.’

       
Villains are like that, each to their own. They specialize and are usually reluctant to operate in territory they’re unfamiliar with. They might progress upwards through the criminal hierarchy, acquiring new skills, but at no point would a safeblower get involved with a fraudster, or vice versa. Dinah would no more consider taking part in a robbery, no matter how far removed he was, than a solicitor would think about extracting a tooth.

       
‘No, Dinah, I’m not planning a robbery, but I’m not prepared to tell you why I need the motors. What I am prepared to do is to offer you a thousand a car, half in advance. Then, when I’m ready, I want you to break into the Rolls and wire it so that I can drive it. I’ll use it for a couple of days and then I want it put back in perfect condition. The Merc’s a different matter. All I want you to do there is to open the boot and relock it. That’s all you have to do, Dinah, and I’ll pay you two grand.’

       
‘Mine’s a pint, and you’re on.’

       
I got Dinah his pint from the bar and stood it in front of him along with the half-inch thick brown envelope I’d been carrying in my inside pocket.

       
‘One other thing, Dinah. This buys your silence as well. Don’t let your two pals in on the act, no subcontracting. I’m paying for you. And I want a telephone number where I can reach you. The job will be at short notice, very short notice. It could be any time within the next three or four weeks. Just be ready.’

       
He wrote a telephone number on a scrap of paper and raised his glass. ‘To a long and profitable partnership,’ he said.

       
‘No, Dinah, to a short and profitable one. Make no mistake, this is a one-off job, there’ll be no repeat fees. I’ll be in touch.’

       
Back outside, I pulled on the waterproofs and crash helmet and drove back to Earl’s Court where I dumped them with the bike behind a busy service station and walked to the flat. Three down, one to go.

I’d gone to a lot of trouble to find Dinah but it had been worth it, and now I had three in the bag and all I needed to complete the set was a woman. Not just any woman but one who would sleep with a man for money, and do a few other extra little tasks for me. Got it in one, I was after a prostitute, but the last thing I wanted was a woman who looked like a whore. That would have been a dead giveaway, like using a plastic maggot to catch a wily old pike. No, what I needed was something luscious, a tasty morsel that the old predator would fall for hook, line and sinker.

       
Bleached hair, heavily rouged cheeks and thick eyeliner were out, she’d have to be young, intelligent and enthusiastic, but a professional. The sort of girl you’d be happy to see marry your brother, if you had a brother and if he was the marrying kind. My brother, David, isn’t. And he never will be.

       
So, step one, find your whore. That didn’t appear to be a major problem, they’re not hard to find in a big city. Or in a small town come to that. In Glasgow you’ll find them around Blythswood Square, huddling on street corners waiting for a lift to the nearest multi-storey carpark where lusts are satisfied, almost, for as little as ten pounds. Birmingham, Manchester, Bristol, they’ve all got their red light areas, and what the hell I was in London which has more whores per head of population than anywhere else in Britain. One of the growth industries, servicing the foreign tourists and visiting businessmen.

       
There was no way I was going to go kerb crawling around St  Pancras or walking through Soho on the off chance that I’d bump into the perfect pro to complete my gang of four. The only thing I’d pick up that way was an infectious disease. Doctor, doctor, I think I’ve got Hermes. Don’t you mean Herpes? No, I think I’m a carrier. I’d been lucky getting Iwanek so I was pretty impressed with the power of advertising. At a local newsagent, not the one who’d got me
Professional Soldier
, I picked up a couple of guides to what’s on in London and also managed to find a contact magazine, ‘Middle-aged executive with own house and understanding wife seeks young blonde with big breasts for friendship with a view to unnatural sex’, you know the sort of thing.

       
The contact magazine was worse than useless and went straight in the bin. One of the London guides had a series of adverts for massage parlours and private masseurs that looked more promising, some of them offering a rub down in private apartments, discipline in your own home, a few were even in Arabic.

       
Five seemed hopeful, three in the West End, one in the City and another south of the Thames. I rang them all and the Kennington number was answered by a man so that was a definite non starter. The other four sounded like the same girl, a treacly deep voice, stroking the back of my neck and tickling me under the chin, all could fit me in, when did I want to come round, what was my name, they looked forward to seeing me.

       
Despite the personal nature of the adverts the three in the West End were all massage parlours, the only privacy was in the form of tiny cubicles and a production line of girls in bikinis and sweat, cold eyes and warm hands. I didn’t bother revealing I was a reporter, I just left.

       
The girl in the City turned out to be five feet four, long blonde hair and blue eyes and living on the tenth floor of one of the tower blocks in the Barbican complex. She was in her late thirties with a good figure that was starting to go and small lines around her eyes that crinkled as she smiled but threatened to become deep ravines within a few years. But she was bright and warm and fun despite being ten years older than I needed so I stayed for an hour and left her flat feeling a lot better than when I’d arrived. I’d paid her fifty pounds in advance, but as I went I gave her another ten pounds and I couldn’t help smiling and nodding when she asked if she’d see me again. I was getting soft, but then I hadn’t been too hard to start with. I decided to go up to Pitlochry to see David.

Shona picked me up at Edinburgh Airport and drove me the seventy miles to Shankland Hall in her Rover, or rather our Rover as it was leased to our company, Scottish Corporate Advisors. Shona and I had met at St  Andrew’s University, but while I cut my financial teeth in my uncle’s merchant bank after getting a lower second-class degree, she pocketed a first with no trouble at all and went off to work for the stockbrokers Wood Mackenzie in Edinburgh in their research department, specializing in the retail sector, followed by a spell examining the inner workings of the gilt-edged market. When I decided to set up on my own she leapt at the chance of joining me. I was lucky to get her and now we were partners, equal partners.

       
As she settled back in the driving seat of the Rover she looked more like an aerobics instructor in one of the plusher dance studios, bright pink tracksuit, white tennis shoes and her long dark hair tied back in a pony tail with a pink ribbon. She looked about seventeen. But put her in a dark two-piece suit and she’d more than hold her own in any boardroom, big brown bedroom eyes or not. One very, very clever lady and she wasn’t spoiled one iota by the fact that she knew it. I just wished she wouldn’t keep teasing me about her superior degree, but that was a small price to pay.

       
She powered us past a removals lorry before turning and asking, ‘How’s the Big Smoke?’

       
‘Big,’ I said. ‘And smokey. How’s business?’

       
‘How do you think? You’ve been away for almost a month and the cracks are starting to show.’

       
‘You’re a big girl, you can handle it.’ She could, too, and the little girl lost act wasn’t fooling anyone. She relished the opportunity of showing what she could do on her own.

       
‘Do you want a rundown on what’s happening?’ she asked.

       
‘No, Shona, not just now. Later.’