The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman, page 4
‘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.’
‘Damn you, when are you coming back to work?’
I rested my hand on her knee but she jerked it away angrily. ‘Soon,’ I said. ‘I only need a few more weeks, maybe a month.’
‘It’s been almost three months and that’s time enough for grieving. Getting back into harness would be the best thing for you.’
‘Yes, doctor.’
‘I mean it.’
‘I know you do. I’ll be back soon, I promise. How’s David?’
‘Missing you. Wants to know when he can live with you again. He keeps asking if you’re dead, too. Don’t leave him there too long – he panics. So do I.’ Then she smiled to herself and pressed the accelerator hard to the floor. Little girl lost, indeed.
‘They’re looking after him all right?’
‘Of course they are,’ she replied with a toss of her pony tail. ‘They’re professionals, and the sort of money you’re paying reflects that. The food’s better than I’m getting. I’m thinking of taking a few of our clients there instead of to the North British. The service is probably better, too.’
She spent the rest of the drive filling me in on business, whether or not I wanted to hear. I had other things on my mind but I listened with half an ear, nodded when she asked if I agreed with the way she was handling things and offered her a few words of advice. She was doing fine.
We pulled into the gravelled drive which curved in front of the grey stone building that was Shankland Hall only two hours after I’d landed at Edinburgh. Originally built as the private residence of a wealthy tobacco baron who decided to devote his retirement to the pursuit of country pastimes, it had been sold to pay off death duties just after the Second World War and was now one of the best, and most expensive, private nursing homes north of the border. Tucked away in a sheltered valley to the east of Pitlochry it’s a case of out of sight, out of mind for many of the residents, dumped there by uncaring relatives with money to spare. In David’s case, though, it was a temporary home, he wouldn’t be there long. I hoped.
He was waiting at the top of the stone steps leading to the large oak double doors, holding the arm of a nurse in a dazzlingly white starched uniform. He was jumping up and down with excitement and waving with his free hand. My daft brother.
As I got out of the car he left the nurse and ran down the steps to grab me around the neck, and he squeezed me so tight that I couldn’t breathe. ‘Missed you, missed you, missed you, missed you,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘Don’t go, don’t go, don’t go.’
‘It’s all right,’ I gasped, and reached behind my neck to unclasp his hands. I held them in front of me and looked into his brown eyes which were starting to fill with tears. ‘It’s all right, I’m here.’
A tear rolled down his plump cheek, dripped off his round chin and onto his blue linen trousers. David’s my younger brother, my only brother, and he’s nineteen years old. The only difference between David and you, me and the Duke of Edinburgh is that David was born with one extra chromosome in each of his cells, a tiny amount of genetic material that’s enough to throw his whole body out of kilter and produce a baby that will never, ever, grow up to be ‘normal’.
It happens in something like one out of every 660 births and they used to call them Mongols and now they call it Down’s Syndrome but David is David and that’s all there is to it. The doctors keep measuring his IQ and coming up with numbers between sixty and seventy which is bright for a Down’s Syndrome adult but so low as to deny him a life on his own, not that he’d want one.
He is happy, most of the time, and fun and affectionate and occasionally flashes of intuition would come shining through like a lighthouse beam slicing through fog.
Then he’d spoil it by trying to eat his soup with a fork and laugh because he knew full well what he was doing – teasing me. He’d hug me and ask me to promise never to leave him and I’d say I wouldn’t ever leave him for good and that he was safe with me. My daft brother.
‘Go and say hello to Shona,’ I said and pushed him away.
He rushed over to Shona and grabbed her from behind as she locked up the Rover, picked her off the ground and gave her a bear hug that made her gasp.
‘Put me down, David,’ she laughed. ‘You’re hurting.’ But he wasn’t, he knew his own strength and he knew by the way Shona was laughing that she was enjoying it. He giggled and put her down, seized her hand and then pulled her over to me and caught mine, linking the three of us together.
‘All for one,’ he shouted.
‘And one for all,’ we chorused. It was his favourite joke, but it was more than that, it bound us together and he knew that he could depend on us both.
Now he was laughing and giggling and squeezing my hand tight, swinging it back and forth. He’d been at Shankland Hall for about three months now, since the day after the funeral, and it wasn’t doing him any good, I could see that.
His eyes flicked nervously from face to face, eager to please and anxious not to offend. Even Shona’s visits weren’t enough and she was getting to see him every couple of days, but he wouldn’t be right until he was back in a house with me, knowing that I’d be home every night and there to read to him before he fell asleep.
‘Come on, David,’ I said. ‘Let’s go for a walk. Shona has to see the sister.’
‘Man talk,’ he giggled and released Shona’s hand. As we walked down the drive and over the close-cropped lawn he kept turning back to look at her like a spaniel being taken away from his owner, but the tight grip on my hand showed that he was glad to be with me.
The lawns sloped down to a string of trees, an oak, a sprinkling of silver birch and a line of conifers marking the path of a stream that meandered across the estate.
David sat with his back against the oak, scratching like a cat while I lay on the ground beside him, picking tufts of grass and shredding them, staining my fingers bright green. It was a fresh, clean day, the sort of day for a picnic, a day for playing football or for just lying by a stream tickling trout. ‘Shoes off,’ I yelled and helped him pull off his big black boots and roll up his trouser legs. I followed suit and we were soon up to our knees in the cold, sparkling water.
David stomped and splashed and got us both so wet we were in line for a row from the sister when we got back. He soon tired me out and I dragged him over to a large, dry rock in the middle of the stream and we sat there with our feet dangling in the water.
He draped his arm across my shoulders and rested the top of his head against my neck, breathing deeply as if he were fast asleep. His legs were swinging gently, making slow whirlpools in the stream and he was humming quietly to himself, a tuneless tune with no structure, no pattern. I began talking, he loved to be talked to, following the rhythm of speech even when he couldn’t always grasp the meaning. Empathy rather than understanding.
‘I’ve run into a problem, David,’ I said. ‘I found Get-Up McKinley easily enough – I told you I would. It took me a couple of weeks to track him down and make friends with him but now he’s on the payroll part-time. Sometimes he drives me about and sometimes I use him as a minder. It’s his first steady job in a long time. Oh, and I found out why he’s called Get-Up.’
I told him the story of how the unfortunate McKinley got lumbered with his nickname and he giggled, kicking water over me.
‘I’ve found a good man with a gun, too. His name’s Iwanek and he’s one of the paratroopers who fought in the Falklands but now he’s out of the army and he’s been working as a bodyguard. I’m going to have to be very careful with him, he’s very clever and very fit, if he decides to turn against me or to go it alone then I really will have problems.’
David looked worried and his grip tightened so I added quickly, ‘Don’t worry, I know what I’m doing, you know how carefully I’ve planned all this. Nothing can or will go wrong.’ He relaxed again. ‘Iwanek is providing his own gun and I’m going to give him a call when everything’s set up.
‘The car thief was easy, too. His name’s Dinah, that’s short for Dyna-Mo, and he’s the strangest looking young man you could imagine. Remember those punks we saw when we went shopping in Princess Street before Christmas?’ He nodded excitedly. ‘Well, he wears clothes like them, a black leather jacket with shiny chains and scruffy jeans with holes and tears. And his hair is purple and spikey and he’s got three gold earrings in one ear, like a pirate. But he’s bright and there’s nothing he doesn’t know about cars and let’s face it, who’d believe that a purple-haired punk was a top car thief?’
‘Not me,’ he laughed. ‘He sounds fun.’
‘Funny he is, but I’m not so sure about him being fun. He takes his work seriously and he’s made a lot of money without ever getting caught. He’s the least of our worries because we only have to use him twice and he has no way of knowing what he’s getting involved in. And I know enough about him to make sure that he won’t talk to anyone else about the deal.
‘So I’m three-quarters of the way there, David, but I’m having trouble getting hold of a suitable girl.’
‘Like Shona,’ he said, suddenly serious and frowning slightly, forehead furrowed as he looked into my eyes, almost nose to nose, his hot breath on my lips. ‘She’s nice.’
‘Shona’s too nice, you daft brush. We want a woman of easy virtue, a high class lady of the night who’ll charm her way into Ronnie Laing’s pants and lead him astray. She’s got to be pretty, witty and fun but hard enough to cope with a villain like Laing. And we’ve got to be able to trust her completely. She’s a vital part of the plan, David, but I can’t find her. The sort of girl we’re after doesn’t walk the streets and she doesn’t have to advertise. What am I going to do?’
The question was rhetorical but David took it seriously, he shrugged and tilted his head from side to side like a budgie gazing at its reflection in a mirror. He was biting his lower lip with his uneven teeth, his face pained with concentration as he tried to help, feet now unmoving in the rushing water.
‘Don’t look so serious,’ I chided, and ruffled his hair. ‘I’ll think of something. It’s going to be all right. Trust me.’
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