The First Novels: Pay Off, the Fireman (18 page)

       
I couldn’t tell him beforehand but maybe afterwards, after Iwanek had made off with the drugs and the money, maybe I’d tell McKinley the background, help him get away and start a new life. Then I thought of my parents and why I was doing this, and that what I really should do was to throw him to the dogs, another signpost pointing towards Laing.

       
McKinley was a bridge I would cross when I got to it. Until then I’d have to treat him like a mushroom – keep him in the dark and feed him bullshit. What the hell, he was a petty criminal and a violent one at that. I didn’t owe him anything, he was being well paid, and if I started feeling sorry for him then it wouldn’t be too long before I started wondering if Laing and Kyle deserved what was coming to them, and then I really might as well pack up and go home.

       
‘Shit,’ I said out loud to the grey sea, and a wee Scottish wifey wrapped up in a dark wool coat and fur boots tut-tutted like a minister and gave me a filthy look. Hell, it wasn’t the Sabbath. I sat on the harbour wall, feet dangling over the edge, and looked across the water towards mist-shrouded Mull.

       
A seagull swooped past, then curved around and landed on the wall next to me, feet clicking against the wet stones, wings flapping for balance. Head on one side he looked me over. A tourist with a bread roll pinched from the dinner table? A teatime piece of cake? Anything? Nothing? He gave me a look more disdainful than the wifey’s and pitched beak first off the wall before pulling up into a graceful glide, wings outstretched but motionless. I was impressed but I still hadn’t anything for him to eat so he was wasting his time.

       
Back at the Caledonian the black-suited undermanager handed me Laing’s American Express card as I walked into reception, practically tugging his forelock. I guess they didn’t see too many gold cards in Oban. I had signed the chit earlier and he’d held on to the card to call up and check Laing’s credit rating.

       
‘We’ll fill the figures in when you check out, Mr  Laing,’ he said, and I realized I was going to have to be careful going in and out of the hotel with McKinley. All it needed was for one of the staff to come haring after me calling ‘Mr  Laing, Mr  Laing, you’ve forgotten your bill,’ and I’d have some pretty heavy explaining to do.

       
McKinley had checked in under his own name and was paying in cash. Other than our meeting with Read in the bar we’d kept apart, so there was no reason for the staff to connect us and I’d have to make sure it stayed that way.

       
I saw McKinley through the glass partition leading to the restaurant, tucking into steak and chips and diving into extra portions of mushrooms, onion rings, peas, cauliflower and green beans scattered around the table, a large white napkin tucked into his shirt collar. His table manners were much the same as his driving, erratic, messy and a positive danger to anyone in the vicinity.

       
I left him to it and lay on the double bed in my room, gazing at the ceiling and feeling like a cigarette for the first time in twelve years.

       
I didn’t sleep but the hour passed without my noticing and McKinley’s knock on the door made me jump.

       
‘Come in, Get-Up,’ I said, and he sidled into the room wearing a huge black duffel coat and green wellington boots like an overgrown Paddington Bear. Under the coat was a thick fisherman’s sweater and grey wool trousers. He looked as if he’d just come out of a sauna, sweat pouring from his skin. I couldn’t help but laugh and he smiled.

       
‘It’ll be better when I’m outside, boss. It’s pissing down and the wind’s getting up.’

       
‘Well, you can always shelter under Read’s umbrella,’ I said, and he grinned wider and sat on the bed, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. I went over to the bathroom to swill the bad taste from my mouth and splash cold water onto my tired eyes. I came out rubbing a towel over my wet face to find him playing with the bedside radio and television controls.

       
‘Could you get Radio Four on yours, boss?’ he asked. ‘Mine’s on the blink.’

       
‘I’m not one for listening to the radio, Get-Up. I didn’t realize you were.’

       
‘I used to listen to it a lot in prison. You get into the habit.’

       
I stripped off my shirt and jeans and it was McKinley’s turn to laugh as I pulled out a pair of thermal underwear from my suitcase. ‘Jesus, boss, Long Johns. My father used to wear those.’

       
‘Yeah, well they’re coming back into fashion. Especially for men about town standing on the side of a sea loch late at night.’ Back on went the jeans and shirt, a woollen Pringle sweater from my golfing days and a pair of brown leather hiking boots. A Burberry scarf and the tweed jacket and I was ready, not exactly the best dressed man in Oban but there were no hard and fast sartorial rules about getting togged up for a drugs deal. Kneeling by the bed I reached for the briefcase and flipped it onto the chair by the door.

       
‘I’ve never seen a quarter of a million pounds in one place, boss, do you mind if I take a look?’

       
‘It’d only upset you, Get-Up. Come on, it’s nine o’clock, we’d best get moving. Pop down and see if Read’s there already. I’ll see you outside.’ He closed the door behind him and I opened the case. It looked like £250,000 so long as you didn’t pull out one of the bundles and flick through it. If all went according to plan the case wouldn’t even be opened at Loch Feochan, but if Iwanek was just a few minutes late and they got their hands on the money, or rather the cut up pieces of newspaper, then they were likely to shoot first and not bother asking questions.

       
The case had two locks and the key was in one of the leather pockets inside. I clicked the locks shut and left the key in the wastepaper basket. If we got to the stage where they wanted to look inside then it would give me a few extra minutes while I went through the motions of checking all the pockets in my clothing and asking McKinley if he had the key, and then if Iwanek still hadn’t turned up maybe I’d get away with telling them the key must be in the car and if I was really lucky maybe I’d get to the BMW before they opened fire, and if the gods were smiling on me and no black cats crossed my path and if I hadn’t broken any mirrors in the last seven years then maybe, just maybe, I’d get away without losing my kneecaps or worse. Now I really was starting to worry.

       
‘He’ll be there, he’ll be there,’ I said to myself, and that worried me even more because I hadn’t talked to myself since I was nine years old.

       
I locked the bedroom door and left the key at reception. Read and McKinley were standing by the BMW in the hotel carpark, sheltering under the colourful golfing umbrella. Read had added a green waterproof coat to his laird’s outfit and he waved cheerily as I walked up.

       
‘Ready for the off?’ he asked, handing me a powerful electric torch. ‘You’ll be needing that. There’s a quarter moon tonight but it’s cloudy enough to black it out every now and again. I’ll be in the Range-Rover,’ he nodded towards the four-wheel drive vehicle next to the Rolls. ‘Don’t get too close to me. These roads are bad enough at the best of times, on a wet night like this they can be treacherous.’

       
He climbed into the Range-Rover as McKinley and I seated ourselves in the BMW. Tonight I would be driving and McKinley didn’t argue. The briefcase lay on the back seat next to Read’s torch, and the two banged together as I put the car into gear and followed Read out of the carpark.

       
‘Don’t forget your lights, boss,’ McKinley reminded me and I gave him a withering look.

       
‘Just keep your eyes on Read,’ I told him. ‘I’ll worry about the car.’ I left it a full two minutes before I switched the headlights on but he still grinned like an intoxicated Cheshire cat.

       
‘Nobody likes a smart arse, Get-Up,’ I told him, but then my face cracked into a smile and I thumped his shoulder. ‘You take care tonight, hear?’

Read drove like a pensioner at the wheel of a Morris Minor, slowly, infuriatingly slowly, and carefully, decelerating before every bend, his brake lights on more often than off, and the BMW never got beyond third gear.

       
If it had been midday at the height of summer then we’d have had a convoy of impatient traffic behind us, but we didn’t see a single other car until we reached Cleigh and even then it was a farmer in a mud-splattered Land-Rover heading for Oban.

       
Once he stopped completely and the internal light came on as he opened the door and stepped into the road. He began running up and down in front of the Range-Rover, flapping his arms like a demented penguin. In and out of the long shadows he was casting along the tarmac road ran a handful of panicking pheasant chicks, speeding in circles and bumping into each other as they scurried and searched for their mother who was clucking anxiously on the grass verge.

       
Eventually the family was reunited and Read gave us the thumbs up in our headlights like a vaudeville star taking a bow on stage before getting back into the Rover and driving off again.

       
It took half an hour of Read’s driving before we reached the tip of the loch and followed the A816 as it curved gently round to the right and along the southern shore towards the sea. We drove for about four miles until the loch narrowed and then widened again, then the Rover’s hazard warning lights went on and it came to a dead stop beside a wooden five-bar gate. I pulled in behind as Read climbed out, opened the gate and drove through.

       
‘Get out and shut the gate after I’ve driven through,’ I told McKinley and followed Read, bumping and bouncing down a narrow dirt track leading to the loch side. A small flock of black and white sheep, startled by the unusual nocturnal activity, broke into a run and disappeared out of sight behind a hillock, bleating with annoyance. Read switched off his lights and I followed his example, blinking until my eyes grew used to the shadowy gloom.

       
He walked over to the BMW with a large red plastic flashlight in his hand as McKinley ambled down the path, and I pressed the button to wind the window down. Read leant forward, elbows on the car door, eye to eye.

       
‘We’re early,’ he said. ‘Best we wait by the water, though. The distance they’ve come means that their timing is unlikely to be spot on. Bring the money with you, squire.’

       
‘I’d rather leave it here until I’ve seen the consignment.’

       
For a moment Read’s good-natured smile slipped and his eyes hardened, and I realized that behind the laird’s clothing and the hat with a fly in it there was still a criminal, a man used to dealing in a world where the weak were quickly fleeced by the strong and where only the hard men survived.

       
‘Bring it with you,’ he said again, and then he turned away as I got out of the BMW and leant into the back to pick up the case.

       
‘OK, boss?’ asked McKinley.

       
‘Sure, Get-Up. I just forgot my manners,’ I said, because it did make sense, if the money was obviously not in sight when the delivery men arrived it would put them on the defensive. The fact that Read had seen Laing’s Rolls was enough to put them on edge, and I wanted it all to be all sweetness and light until Iwanek appeared.

       
We stood together on the shore, scanning the wild waters of the loch through the gloom and listening for any sounds other than the bleating of sheep and the occasional hoot of a hunting owl.

       
McKinley noticed it first. ‘Listen,’ he said, and sure enough in the distance I could hear a low pitched growl like a far-off motorcycle which grew louder and louder and then suddenly stopped.

       
A light flashed from the middle of the loch, on, off, on, off.

       
Read pointed his flashlight and flicked it on and off, long, long, short, long, short, long, short, long, long. Out on the water the light replied, on, off, on, off, on, off. Another complicated series of dots and dashes from Read and then the outboard motor started up again as they headed for the shore.

       
I saw them first as a dark blur against the blackened water, a smudge heading for where we were standing, more conscious of the movement than its shape. As they drew closer I could make out three figures in an inflatable boat, one at the back with his hand on the tiller, two others in the prow, tossing with the motion of the waves. The engine cut out about twenty feet from the water’s edge and the boat turned sharply side on, running silently parallel to the shore until it coasted to a stop.

       
One of the men at the front jumped out of the boat into the water and held it steady as the second climbed out carrying a green holdall, spotlighted in the beams of the two torches, twin circles of light that followed them as they splashed unsteadily to the shore.

       
They moved apart as they waded knee deep through the water and simultaneously reached inside their jackets and came out with pistols. My stomach tensed, apprehension rather than fear, Read had said they’d be armed but even so the sight of the guns brought home just how dangerous this was going to be. The one with the holdall stepped forward onto the beach while his partner stayed up to his ankles in the loch.

       
Read passed me his torch and held out his hand for the briefcase and I handed it to him under the watchful eyes of the gunmen. He walked towards the man with the holdall and held out his free hand for it. The man in the water dropped down into a crouch, both hands on the butt of his gun as the waves lapped against his legs. Iwanek, where are you?