(2005) Rat Run (31 page)

When he had been dragged along by the hair and the shoulder of his overcoat, in Bevin Close, he had seen a woman at the window of number eight - she had hung on to a child, as if to prevent him coming out and joining in the beating and kicking.

The tapping was firmer, more demanding.

The man from next door had shouted, 'Don't be a bloody fool, Ricky.' He had been called 'Dad'. At the cost of a cut lip, welts on his face and a knee in the testicles, Malachy reckoned he had learned much. Fair exchange. He knew the design of the house, knew that family lived alongside it, knew that the entrance to the close was watched. He tidied the pages of his maps.

He locked the door behind him and stood for a moment on the walkway, then heard the distorted sound of the tapping, and rang the bell beside the grille gate.

Malachy followed Millie Johnson into her flat. She walked unsteadily ahead of him, leaning hard on the medical stick, but she waved him away when he went to take her arm. She was smaller than when he had last seen her, smaller than she had been in the hospital bed when she'd had the fierce bruising and the tubes in her. She sat in her chair and her small eyes pierced him. She was pale, frail, and the arm in which the pin had been put was held in a sling. Would she like tea?

Yes, she would. Did she have biscuits? She did: Dawn had shopped for her. He went into the kitchen, boiled the kettle, made the tea and did a tray of cups and saucers, milk, sugar and a plate of digestives. The woman had changed his life. He paused, in the kitchen, with the tray. The widow of the bus driver had changed his life, utterly, by going alone to an evening of bingo for pensioners. Without her . . .

'Hurry up. I can't abide stewed tea. It needs to be fresh out of the pot.'

'Of course, Millie.'

He carried the tray to her. She watched, hawk-eyed, as he dripped in the milk, put a spoon and a half of sugar in her cup, and poured the tea. He'd get no praise for his care. He laid a biscuit on her saucer -

and waited . She sipped the tea, nibbled the biscuit and irritably brushed crumbs from her lap. He broke the quiet: 'You're looking well, Millie. Very good.'

She challenged, her gaze beading at him: 'What have you been doing with yourself?'

'Not much.'

She mimicked him, 'Oh, "not much". What's with your face?'

'Walked into a lamp post.'

'Try again.'

'Must have been dreaming, didn't see the door.'

'Do better.'

'Tripped on a paving-stone, fell in the gutter.'

'Is that the best you can do?'

'Something like that.'

'You think Dawn doesn't talk to me? Dawn talks.

Who did it?'

'Did what, Millie?'

He saw the shrewdness of the old eyes. If he shifted in the chair, they followed him. If he ducked his head, they lifted. If he threw it back, they were with him. They were aged, but the eyes were keen.

'Bless you, for what you've done.'

'Millie, I've done nothing.'

Still the eyes tracked him. 'You lie there in the bed, in the hospital. People come, you don't want them.

They fuss over you. All you do is hope they will go and leave you. When they've left you, then you can hate. I'm not good with words, Malachy . . . You hate because of what was done to you, but you are helpless

. . . You see them. They have contempt for you because you are old. You cannot fight them. You hold on to the bag, all that is left for you. You cannot stand. You are down. There is nothing in your purse but they have your bag. You hate them, and those who sent them. A priest came to me, a simpering fool. What did I feel? I told him I felt
hate.
I had his lecture: "We are all God's children, my dear. Hate belittles us. We must learn to forgive." Couldn't wait to see the back of him. I hated them. What I wanted, in that bed, seeing their faces, was that they be hurt...'

'You shouldn't talk because it will tire you.'

'Rubbish. Dawn told me what's happened on the Amersham. It made me laugh. I did not say it to Dawn, but I knew it. After the laughter, in the quiet, I realized it . . . I am attacked and then these things happen. I had not given myself such importance.

Thank you.'

'I don't think, Millie, I'll be here much longer,'

Malachy said, and his voice was a whisper.

'Thank you for what you did.' The eyes, misting, struck at his. 'Please, kiss me.'

He came off his chair, knelt by her and kissed Millie Johnson's forehead. He owed her so much, more than she could have known. Then, he stood, poured her a second cup of tea and left her.

'Tony, got a moment?'

Tony Johnson, detective sergeant, had a moment, had an hour, had all day.

'Yes, Guv, how can I help?'

His chief inspector was eleven years younger than Tony, was on a fast-track career path and was part of the new world: 'Guv' was old, where Tony came from.

He saw the man wince.

'Yes, w e l l . . . Do you do Enver Rahman? Is he one of yours?'

'One of mine, like having shit on your heel.'

'Tell me.'

'He's twenty-seven, runs tarts, has a fair part of vice in north London and the West End tied down. He's scum, but clever with it. Lives in the King's Cross area, nothing permanent. Pride and joy is a Ferrari Spider. I suppose that would be worth dousing in paint-stripper.' He saw the detective inspector's mouth pucker with annoyance; no bloody sense of humour, never was for any of them that had been on the command course. 'He brings in girls from eastern Europe, and he gets muscle from Lunar House.

His goons would hang about the queues at the immigration centre and look for the likely ones. Has he been arrested? No - and frankly, we've never been close to it. The girls are taught that we're all corrupt, that if they come to us the first thing we'll do is shop them to their pimps, and to Enver Rahman. They're more frightened of us than of their own . . . And let's say that one was prepared to shop him on a vice charge - what's to happen to her? Are we coming up with a witness-protection package for life? Because that's what she'll need. We are not. If she goes home to Ukraine, she's vulnerable to a knife slash or worse, and her father and mother. If she stays here and we're not doing twenty-four/seven guard - which we won't be - she wouldn't know where to hide. That's why we're not close to locking him away . . . And he has connections. What we've heard, his uncle is the godfather of Hamburg. A sparrow doesn't fart in Hamburg without his uncle's permission. Am I of help to you, Guv?'

'An airline ticket, Heathrow-Hamburg return but open dated, was bought this morning for Ricky Capel.'

Choice lying was an art form for Tony Johnson.

'Don't think I know that name. Ricky Capel? No.'

'Capel's on the computer trigger stuff for organized crime. His name came up from the airline booking.

Runs drugs in south-east London. Interesting thing is that two tickets were bought, same destination, one for Capel and the other in the name of Enver Rahman.'

'Is Capel low-life, Guv?'

'Would think himself bigger than he is, vain little swine . . . But it's interesting that he should travel to the city where Enver Rahman has an uncle. Big-time, the uncle, you say?'

'About as big as they get, Guv. It's what I heard. Are we going to send?'

'Be wonderful, wouldn't it? With our resources the way they are? No chance. Thanks for your time, Tony.'

'No problem, Guv.'

He went on pushing paper, moving pages on his screen. It would be hours before he could slip away into the dusk and find a callbox.

'I hear what you say, Mr Kitchen, and will do my best to oblige. First things first, you've given me no proof of identity. I regret that a rent book from a London borough's housing department is not sufficient. Not that I'm suggesting anything, but I assume they can be bought for the price of a moderate lunch. No, Mr Kitchen, I'm afraid I'll require something more reliable.'

As senior partner in the company, as a solicitor of thirty years' experience, he took few short-cuts. None on that morning. The man had been on the doorstep of their offices when he had arrived. Eight thirty, and the man had actually been sitting on the bottom step with his feet trailing on to the pavement. Everything about him - except his shoes - was shabby. He'd sensed trouble, had decided to handle the man's business himself . . . Had also sensed a matter of intriguing interest, which seldom came into his office in Bedford.

'My problem, Mr Kitchen, is that the solicitor who handled your affairs is now in South Africa, and his secretary who met you is now married and has moved away. So, please, further proof of identity is needed.'

On his screen were copies of terse communications.

He had telephoned down to the basement archive and there was indeed a box there, in the name of Captain Malachy Kitchen, Army Intelligence Corps, of Alamein Drive at Chicksands. He had suggested a call be made to the base but there had been a violent shake of the head opposite him. His firm did wills and con-veyancing for many of the officers there: this man hardly seemed one of them. Old clothes on his back, new scars and bruises on his face. Only the shoes showed a military man's care.

'When is it you were last a visitor here?'

He was told, a month more than two years back, but not an exact date to match against the screen's correspondence.

'I'm sorry, Mr Kitchen, but that is too vague.

Anything else?'

The man sat straighter, pulled down the zip of his anorak, pushed away the neck of his pullover, opened the upper buttons of his shirt and reached down. The twin tags came out in his hand, held by an aged leather bootlace. They were held up for him to examine. He craned forward, read, wrote down the religion, blood group and number, and when the tag with the number was turned, he could see the name.

They were returned to their resting-place against the man's chest. The smell was stifled once the anorak was zipped again.

'That'll do nicely, Mr Kitchen. I'll have the box sent up.'

Ten minutes later the senior partner escorted his client to the main door, wished him well and watched him walk away. For a man so obviously facing acute difficulties in his life, there was a quite cheerful roll in his gait. Back at his desk he cast a quick glance at the box. A will, still there. A building-society savings book, still there. A marriage certificate, still there.

Only the passport had been taken. He wondered what the client had run from, and where he was going now with his passport. He had not liked to ask - but if he had, he doubted that he would have been answered.

They turned into the drive, past the broken gates, and Davey braked. Charlie thought that the gates, electronically controlled, would have been flattened by the first fire appliance to reach the house. All of them in the car, Charlie realized - and it was as true of himself as the others - were strung up tight, like a bow string pulled back. Davey had reckoned they shouldn't be there, not so soon: Ricky had rubbished him. In the car, Benji had tried to raise the journey to Hamburg, where it would lead and why he was called for: Ricky had shut him down. Himself, Charlie was concerned about the cash-flow implications of the fire: Ricky had said he should wait and watch. Ricky wore the big gold chain at his throat, that Joanne had given him, and Charlie knew it had been lost and that Joanne had been belted for asking about it. Ricky fingered it obsessively. Not a bundle of laughs between them as they had driven down from London and into the countryside, not even enough laughs to wrap in a handkerchief. They went past a fence and a horse that had been grazing saw the car and seemed to scream and run. Then they turned a corner in the drive and the house was in front of them.

'Bloody hell,' Charlie murmured, a little gasp.

Ricky and Davey lived in the semi-detached houses of Bevin Close. Benji was in a brick terrace by Loampit Vale. Charlie's place was detached, joined to his neighbour by their garages, nearer to Ladywell Road.

They had four houses that were typical of Lewisham in south-east London. This had been a big pile,
had
been. A wooden stable block, but the wind must have been coming from behind it, and it hadn't caught. A double garage, with the doors up, was untouched. In front of the building was a mountain of debris, some of which Charlie could make out as furniture, some of which was too charred for recognition. He could make out easy chairs where the material had burned off to leave the wood and springs, a tabletop without legs, wardrobe doors, frames without pictures, the shell of a TV and the front door, but most of the heap had no shape. And parked beside the burned mess, like it was the only place to park, was a scarlet vintage Jaguar.

Beside him in the back, he heard Ricky hiss through his teeth.

The roof in the central part of the house was off.

Some of the beams were in place, others had gone, a few sagged. All the windows were out, like black tooth gaps in a mouth. It was desolation, and quiet.

All of them peered forward through the windscreen.

Sort of made Charlie shudder, everything at bloody peace except for the wrecked house - like it had been a target, picked out and chosen. His father had been a builder, odd jobs, a bit of roofing, a bit of plumbing, a bit of whatever - when he wasn't doing scams with old folks' benefit books - and Charlie had helped him out before he'd joined up with Ricky. He didn't know much about building, but he could see that this pile was beyond repair. It would be a bulldozer job. A site to be cleared, not just scaffolding and work for a year.

George Wright had been done over, done proper. He saw the other car, by the side of what had been the house, and there was a man in a suit, and George. He nudged Ricky and pointed. They stayed put, sat in their car.

The man had a clipboard and a pencil. At that distance the sound of the voices did not travel, didn't need to. The man from the insurance was with George and he had a dour look. He finished scribbling on his clipboard and shrugged, like he was only explaining the reality of the situation confronting him. George was shaking and animated. He gripped the man's sleeve, dropped it, and had his hands at his head, like that was despair. All bastards, weren't they, insurance men? Then George had his head up, gazed at the trees, and the bloody crows - black sods - sat there and honked at the show, and the man hadn't shaken George's hand or had anything good to say and was going for his car. George was left, in a pair of suit trousers and a shirt that had been white before it was stained by the fire's smoke, alone with the crows. The car came towards them but Davey didn't shift off the drive, and it had to go on to the lawn where the first cut had just been done and the lines were good and straight and it left the tyre treads - didn't matter