Cocaine (23 page)

The facilities in the Science Labs were good. Very good indeed, and I would have more leeway with my experimentation and research than at a money-driven organization such as FutureChem. Cambridge University led the world in its research capabilities and the Nobel Prize league table. The juxtaposition of fabulously enquiring minds with tradition produced men like Jeavons, a gangly six foot sixer with a spotty face and a cigarette, which he never lit, perched behind one ear. His glasses were National Health Service circa 1981 and the lenses were so bulbous that when I spoke to him his eyes were magnified and distorted like a bad three-dimensional film.

‘What d’you want with all this tropinone?’ he asked me, looking at the order sheet I’d just printed off.

‘I anticipate huge wastage’, I said to him. ‘Which is why I need so much.’

‘I can have it made up for you’, he said, winking conspiratorially. ‘Just don’t tell Warmington. It’ll be much cheaper.’

‘I won’t. In those quantities?’

‘I’m sure I can get it done.’

‘Huge wastage, Hugh. There won’t be any left…’

‘If you find what you’re looking for, no-one’s going to care now, are they boyyo?’

I smiled and shook on it. A deal made with one of Cambridge’s finest minds, the first link in my supply chain.

Juan Andres would have been impressed.

***

December 1990

‘
La Isla Bonita
’ was Juan Andres’s favourite song and Madonna was his favourite singer. Mama Garcia didn’t care much for her.

‘She’s a whore’, she told her son. ‘Look at her with those men in ‘
Like a Prayer’
. Where d’you think she is promising to take you? Where is
there
?’

‘She’s very talented, mama.’

‘So are
you
, Juan Andres. So are
you
. What time is the meeting?’

‘Six thirty. Three hours.’

‘You want me to come?’

‘No mama.’

‘They won’t be expecting an old woman.’

‘I don’t want you to get hurt, mama. I will see them alone, as promised.’

‘But – ‘

‘No buts. They say they want me alone. I go alone.’

‘No product.’

‘A small sample.’

‘Ten grams, maximum.’

‘Yes, mama.’

‘It’s what I used to do with the mayor, the little shit. I showed him a little and he took half my crop.’

‘We’re not in Colombia now, mama.’

‘No.’

They were actually no more than few hundred miles away, on an island sheltered from hurricanes and the worst of the tropical storms, an island where they played cricket and polo chukkas were common, and where, if one paid cash, one could rent a beautiful two bedroom house in a gated compound for three thousand dollars a week. Barbados was a refreshing dose of British culture minus the climate. Juan Andres and Mama Garcia had enough money to last for approximately one year, but they wouldn’t need to economise if things went to plan.

He tightened the bullet-proof vest - the extreme light-weight model - and pulled a black cotton long-sleeved shirt over it. He slid a Makarov pistol underneath his shirt and into a special holster retro-fitted into the bullet-proof vest. He had a knife inside his right boot which sat on a spring mechanism for ease of access. Mama Garcia handed him a small bag of eighty per cent pure cocaine and he slipped it into his black jockey shorts. Smuggling everything in by boat and bringing it over to Speightstown had been achieved without fuss simply because of the presence of Mama Garcia, whom to the outside world was a caricature of a rich old lady from South America with a young male companion.

Their two bedroom villa lay between Holetown and Speightstown, less than a mile from the west coast of the island. It was semi-detached but well-screened from its neighbour. It had its own small private plunge pool. It overlooked the golf course. Juan Andres was ready to go out when the door-bell sounded. Mama Garcia frowned. They weren’t expecting anyone. She peered through the tiny hole in the door and saw, through the miniscule fish-eye lens, a man wearing a yellow polo neck and grey trousers. He didn’t look dangerous. He looked like a tourist.

‘
Mierda’
, she said, waving her hand at Juan Andres to put his gun away.

‘
Quien es?
’

‘
Turista
.’

‘Let’s wait. He’ll go.’

Mama Garcia walked slowly to the stairs and went up to the first floor. She went to the bedroom window and peered out. The man was looking out towards the golf course. She saw him turn and heard the door-bell again. Downstairs, Juan Andres perched on the end of the sofa that faced the door, his gun in his hand. He stood as he heard the letter-box rattle and then a business card dropped to the floor. He heard the man walk away. Upstairs, Mama Garcia saw the same thing and she made her way back downstairs.

‘What did he want?’

Juan Andres studied the card.

‘
He’s looking for a golfing partner’, he replied with a smile.

24

February 1994

Martin Jeavons called me into his office and locked the door behind him.

‘I know why you need all that tropinone’, he said flatly. ‘You’re going to make cocaine with it, aren’t you?’ He held up my battered notebook, the encrypted shorthand that I’d thought only I could understand. ‘I found this in your desk.’

‘The desk was locked, Martin.’

‘I have a key. I stayed up last night decoding your scribbles, old bean. You’ve done this before, haven’t you? In South America, perhaps?’

‘Perhaps.’

I fished in my pocket for a cigarette. Smoking was strictly
verboten
but I needed to give myself time to think, to work out what to do with the potential Nobel prizewinner looking at me unblinkingly through his archaic spectacles.

‘Tell me what you’re thinking, Jeavons.’

‘You know what I’m thinking, sport.’

‘Do I?’

Jeavons waved my book at me.

‘Do you think Warmington is going to be pleased to discover that his new post-grad’s getting together the raw material to manufacture cocaine?’

‘I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘But you’re going to, aren’t you?’

‘Why would I?’

‘The money.’

‘Tell me what you think about the money.’

‘Look Ryan. It seems to me that you could make close to half a tonne of the stuff from the quantities of raw product you’ve requested.’

‘Go on.’

‘I may look like a nerd to you, but I’m not a total idiot. If you could get it into the hands of the right people you might get ten million quid for it.’

‘
Or more.’

‘
More
?’

‘
Fifteen.’

‘
It’s enough to go round, isn’t it, Ryan? Ten or fifteen mil?’

‘
What are you saying, Martin?’

‘
I’m saying I want you to sit down, make us both a nice cup of tea and tell me all about Colombia.’

He slapped my note-book down on his desk for emphasis. I went over to the kettle and filled it with water. The kettle was spotless, immaculately free from scum and I knew Jeavons had a water filter. He left nothing to chance. He could get me my raw materials. He would help me. I decided it was time to alter my status from that of sole trader to one of partnership and I told him everything.

It was getting dark and so Jeavons and I decided to go for a drink around the corner at the Spread Eagle, to celebrate.

‘
I get thirty grand a year, Ryan’, he told me as we walked along Lensfield Road, passing the house I’d lived in for my third year, the red-brick Victorian semi-detached at number fifty-six. ‘And with all the free meals and accommodation I only spend ten.’

‘
How much you got?’

‘
How much
have
I got. Prison has obviously destroyed your grasp of the English language. If we’re going to do this I really must insist that you clean up your grammar.’

‘
Are you going to smoke that?’ I asked, pointing to the cigarette behind his ear.

‘
When the fat lady sings’, he replied.

‘
Two pints of Guinness, then.’

‘
Two pints it is.’

We took our drinks and found a table in the corner, letting the smoke from the gaggle of undergrads waft over us like weak chloroform. We raised our glasses in a toast and sipped for a while in silence.

‘
So how much
have
you got, Jeavons?’

‘
Forty grand in my account on Regent’s Street earning four per cent net.’

‘
That’s thirty-nine more than me.’

‘
Why?’

‘
Working capital. We need to establish our distribution channel. We can’t just sell five grams here, two grams there, can we? It’ll take us years to liquidate our stock.’

‘
We can just keep replenishing it. Less risky as well, old chap.’

‘
That’s not what I’m after.’

‘
Warmington has no idea, does he, that you were in jail for three years?’

‘
Not a clue.’

Jeavons glugged his Guinness down and placed the empty glass triumphantly on the table.

‘
Another?’

‘
Another.’

We drank three more pints each and then the curry house round the corner beckoned, the one on the corner of Lensfield Road and Regent’s Street. Everyone from undergrad to postgrad to senior tutor loved the Cambridge curry phenomenon. Five pounds would buy you a three course meal and one more would ensure it was washed down with a Kingfisher lager.

‘
So what’s the split?’ he asked me, his eyes glazed over not only with his thick convex lenses, but also with the lustrous sheen of a night’s drinking.

‘
Good question.’

‘
I thought so.’

‘
I don’t have to do this here, you know, Jeavons. I can walk away. I haven’t made one gram of the stuff yet. You can’t prove anything. Even with my book.’

‘
What about your criminal record?’

‘
In Colombia? I can say there was lack of due process, protest my innocence. I’m not a criminal in the UK you know. Or anywhere else for that matter.’

‘
They’ve got records.’

‘
Fuck off, Jeavons. Are you going to start being sensible or do I have to kill you?’ I watched his eyes widen. ‘When you survive three years in a Colombian prison, nearly four actually if you count my incarceration before the trial, you learn a lot. You learn how to survive.’

‘
Are you mad, Jacobs?’

I gripped his jaw with my right hand. I was strong now, stronger than before, physically fit. The jail in Cartagena had had a primitive gym club that I had been proud to ‘join’. No-one ever spoke in the gym. Everyone just pumped iron, building for the future, thinking of the
hijos de puta
that put them in jail in the first place and how satisfying it would be to watch them die, slowly.

‘
Let go.’

‘
You start being a bit more respectful, Jeavons.’