Line of Fire: (Nick Stone Thriller 19) Page 4

  ‘So she’s got the fat fuck instead of a therapist?’

  He nodded. ‘He’s doing far better than I could, old Jamel. He’s got her on chocolate instead of coke. He’s steady, and that means the girls are at home and not in care. I know it’s over with Simone … She’s better off with him, and so are the girls. I just gotta get my head around it.’ He studied the bottle in his hand, so intently I wondered if he was working out how to tie a knot in it. ‘Rock steady. Something I suspect we’re not, eh?’

  The door opened behind me with a rush of wind, and Rio smiled. ‘Including him.’

  Gabe was wearing his default I’ve-got-the-hump face, as if someone had just crashed into his car. He’d shaved his head since I’d last seen him. Goodbye, acne-scarred ginger monk, hello, head-banger. With his prosthetic leg making all five foot five of him look as if he’d already had a few drinks, he waved a finger at the girl behind the bar. ‘Stella, please, darling.’

  Rio waved his bottle. ‘Another of these, and a frothy one for the Cappuccino Queen here. And two more crisps.’

  Gabe kept his black fleece jacket on as he dragged a chair beside me so we both faced Rio. He preferred to get hot and have something to complain about.

  ‘When you two get in?’

  I fished in my inside pocket for something I’d prepared once we’d arrived. ‘Last night, mate. I even wrote you and him a love letter each.’

  I passed them each an envelope. I’d found them among the stationery that sat on my desk next to the biscuit and the hotel pad and pen, and they both now contained a message. ‘She’s got the fifth memory stick. It’s now in Zürich. Each of you has a different pass statement, which you keep to yourself – the same goes for Jack. So if life goes totally tits-up, we’ve got Claudia as back-up. If any of you ID yourself and give her your statement, she’ll do the rest.’

  I took the drinks as they were delivered.

  ‘The statements are different for everyone. Memorize yours and give the paper back to me so I know they’ve been destroyed. Come on, you’ve seen the films.’

  They were seven-word statements. Car registration plates and phone numbers are seven figures for a reason: our brains can take in seven items and remember them solidly, plus or minus two. A couple of thick people find seven too difficult, a couple of clever ones might be able to get an extra two, but seven really is life’s lucky number.

  Rio’s was: I quite like the vivid colour red.

  Gabe’s was: Blue always reminds me of the sea.

  They clinked their glasses in a toast they’d clearly used many times: ‘Gives us something to blame everything on.’

  I stirred my cappuccino with the finger of shortbread from the saucer, and let Gabe take a few swigs of his drink, then got back to the real world. ‘So what did Jack say? He any better?’

  Gabe put his glass down and his face clouded. ‘Nah, mate. He’s worse.’

  12

  Jack had changed his mind about the four of us keeping close, and had gone to live with his mother. Well, kind of.

  Gabe started the next crisp-fest. Rio watched him for a while, then started a one-to-one. It didn’t worry me: they had history, rehabilitating at Hedley Court with Jack, way before I’d fucked about with their lives a couple of months ago.

  ‘You know the problem with Jack? Too much education.’ He tapped the side of his head with a finger, leaving a couple of crisp crumbs behind. ‘Makes him think too much.’

  Gabe nodded, clearly wanting more.

  ‘Now his dad’s gone, no matter the reason, he should be feeling good – freer. The fucker, treating him like he wasn’t good enough. Anyway, he’s dead, and that’s good for Jack, right?’

  Gabe couldn’t have agreed more.

  Rio was waiting for a unanimous decision. ‘I’m right, yeah?’

  I’d thought the conversation was just between the two, but I agreed anyway. Rio liked that. ‘See, you two should listen to me.’ He tapped the side of his head again. ‘I get what makes people tick, know what I mean?’

  Now Jack was free of his father’s overbearing ways, he should have been feeling like a weight had lifted. But he didn’t, and his relationship with his mother wasn’t any less fraught. Maybe she thought Jack resented her for not supporting him against his dad when he was younger. And then, when she was told that her husband was dead after an accident in the Arctic, the only way she could deal with it was to vent her anger and grief on her son. I didn’t care about her. I just worried about Jack.

  We all needed to stay tight.

  I downed the last of the brew and turned to Gabe. ‘So what did you say to him?’

  ‘That we all needed to meet up somewhere neutral. But he fucked me off.’ Gabe knew what I was about to say but kept going because I would have wasted my breath. ‘Look, I told him about last night, okay? I had to – it got him to meet. But at his place.’

  All I could do was shrug.

  Rio turned to Gabe for another one-to-one. ‘Last night was a fucker, mate. I checked the news and there wasn’t a thing.’

  Gabe nodded down to Rio’s waist. ‘You still carrying?’

  ‘Dead right, mate, it’s my other arm.’

  ‘Dump it! Get a new one. Forensics! You never seen CSI?’

  Rio sat back and laughed, a little too loudly for the space. ‘Yeah, yeah, but no. I’m not binning it. It’s special. I swapped it for my nappy with a Yank marine in Bastion. Cost me both tiers.’

  Rio was talking about the groin protection the army issued during the war. Tier One were boxers that looked like black cycling shorts but were made from ballistic material. They were ultra-lightweight but could stop most small pieces of shrapnel and dirt travelling at high velocity after a blast. Tier Two looked like the world’s biggest camouflaged Pampers nappy, and was worn over the trousers. When men get blown into the air the first thing they do when they come down is stick a hand inside to check they still have what’s needed if they stay alive.

  Gabe wasn’t having any of it. ‘I heard you didn’t need your nappy anyway.’ He turned to me in case I didn’t get it. ‘No bollocks.’ He sat back and waited for the abuse to come from across the table. But none did, just a big smile and a knotted crisps packet.

  I knew we’d be there all day if we didn’t get things moving. ‘So, what we need to worry about now is getting Jack on board with us, okay? We’ll be better protected if we’re stuck together like glue.’

  Gabe picked up his glass to finish. ‘Yeah, but what we going to do about this Falcon fuck?’ He winked at Rio.

  ‘Lads. It’s not a falcon, it’s the Owl. Let’s wait until we’re at Jack’s and I’ll explain. You two thick fucks just need to remember the shit on the paper. It’ll give you enough of a headache for today.’

  I looked at Gabe as I stood up. ‘Seeing as I’ve spent all my cash on you two, Crisps Boy can’t use his card, and you have a big fat pension …’

  He wasn’t impressed. ‘The rooms as well? It just cost me a fortune driving down here to Gymkhana Land.’

  Rio got to his feet. ‘Shut up, you tight, mumbling midget. You just keep filling the tank and paying our way. You should be grateful we’re here to protect you from the nasty men.’ He grabbed my arm as he headed to the bar. ‘Nick, all that talk about bollocks got me thinking. That Claudia. She married? Can you put in a word?’

  13

  Gabe steered us out of the town and it wasn’t long before we were in a world of perfect hedgerows, grass and horses that looked like Grand National winners.

  He drove a faded blue Jeep Cherokee, the square-shaped model. The T-reg four-litre engine drank fuel like there was a hole in the tank, which the Jock in him complained about non-stop. He had to put up with it, though. It was only the combination of it being left-hand drive, automatic and the right seat height that meant he was capable of driving the monster, and swinging his feet out easily and directly onto the pavement.

  Now he was searching his pockets and we knew what was on its way. His
pack had run out so as soon as he’d got to the Jeep he’d rummaged around in the crumpled collection of sweatshirts and socks in his daysack. At least he’d come to the pub prepared, but we’d made him stub it out before we got in the car. Even so, the inside reeked after his two-pack drive from Edinburgh.

  Rio was in the front with him. He made a grab for the cigarette in Gabe’s mouth and powered down his window. ‘For fuck’s sake, go ahead and die but don’t take us with you.’

  Gabe was too quick for him. He jerked his head, and smoke engulfed us. Then he powered up the windows. ‘Whose fucking wagon is it?’ The cigarette bobbed up and down in his mouth. ‘Who’s paying for the gas? It’s you two’s fault I started again so shut the fuck up. Besides …’

  He took another lungful before emptying it once more into what was now an airlock of Jeep. ‘If we’re seen by the police with the windows down they’ll have us as drug dealers, ready to dump the gear if we’re followed. With Rambo and his knife in here, we don’t exactly look like National Trust members, do we?’

  Rio was up for it. ‘Cos I can’t afford to join, can I? All my money goes up north to pay for you Jocks’ free prescriptions and university.’

  I let the two of them eat each other as I worked out the best way to pitch them and Jack an idea that had been bubbling away.

  Rio had another attempt at getting the offending object out of Gabe’s mouth. ‘Mate, I’m doing you a favour. Your missus won’t have you back if you’re sucking on that shit.’ He gave up and sat back. ‘So how’s it going up there?’

  A long sigh came out of Gabe’s mouth, which sent an extra puff of smoke into the wagon. I tried to power down my window but the child lock was on.

  ‘Hard work, mate. Hard fucking work. She says she wants to try again to become a family, but only if I keep saying sorry for everything. It’s not all me, is it?’

  Rio couldn’t restrain a chuckle. ‘Course it is, you fucking midget. I told you, just agree with her, don’t go on the piss, and smile. That’s all you have to do. You need to learn from me and my wonderful domestic situation.’

  After ten more minutes of them doing this, instead of memorizing Claudia’s contact details and their statements, Gabe pulled up at a set of solid wooden gates with an intercom on a post level with the driver’s window. He pressed and there was no answer. Ever the prime candidate for any job in the Diplomatic Corps, he pressed again and shouted, ‘For fuck’s sake, get a move on.’

  The gates opened to usher us into a world of gravelled drives, with a Georgian manor house two hundred metres away. It was big and rectangular, with huge four-paned windows. There was even a peacock. We were in murder-mystery country.

  We weren’t going to the family pile, however, or what was left of it. Asset-rich, money-poor was the term that came to mind. About a hundred metres further on, the crunch of gravel stopped as we turned off into a concrete courtyard that was edged with newly renovated outbuildings. We parked up between a muddy fifteen-year-old Land Rover and a shiny 5-series BMW estate. Both vehicles had meshed fences at the back and we quickly saw what they were designed to keep in the boot. Two big brown Labradors with aged white muzzles ranged up to see what all the commotion was about, but it took them a while. They were not just old, they had eaten all the pies.

  Once Rio had opened the rear door for me, because that was also child-locked, I climbed out of the Cherokee and its overflowing ashtray.

  I pulled out the safe phone and threw it onto the back seat. ‘Lads, have you got one with you? If so, better leave them here.’

  They looked at each other and slowly shook their heads for effect. What a dickhead.

  Looking down the driveway at the back of the house, I saw movement at one of the upstairs windows. A woman in her sixties was trying to stay in the shadows as she checked out the detectives. In a murder mystery, she would have gone straight onto the list of suspects. I definitely had to stop watching daytime TV.

  There was no way Jack’s mother would be coming out to greet us. She had a downer on us. She’d made it very plain to Jack that we were trouble. We were responsible for him going to the North Pole. On top of that we were responsible for the death of her husband – and probably for her blocked gutters as well. That was fine, as long as she didn’t come out and confront us with it. Gabe needed more time to get the hang of ‘agree, smile and move on’.

  14

  We walked across the concrete with the Labradors just about keeping up. Jack came towards us from the door of a long single-storey renovated barn, which was clearly where the dogs spent most of their day. In the open porch, there were water and food bowls, and a couple of big flat cushions with so much old dog hair on them they looked like roadkill.

  Jack had put on quite a bit of lard to match the dogs. His hair was even more of a curly mat than it had always been. He needed a shave, and a sweater that didn’t let his brown checked shirt escape at the elbows.

  He was still only in his late twenties, but wore the look of someone much older. He wasn’t alone in that – I’d seen it before on any number of once-fresh faces, after a bit of shot and shell, when their owners were facing a new set of battles back in so-called civilization. He’d been through a lot for someone so young and this drama wouldn’t have been helping him.

  I held back, letting Gabe and Rio be first in. Gabe already had his hand out. ‘How are you, big man?’

  Jack had installed CCTV since we were last here, when he’d spoken nicely but basically fucked us off. He was in denial, thinking that if he cut away from our world, probably the whole world, all would be good.

  Rio didn’t follow Gabe’s lead and shake hands. Instead he kicked the titanium under Jack’s jeans hard enough for everyone to hear the clunk, then wrapped his arm around his mate.

  Jack’s replacement leg was a much better fit. What was probably the last of the family money and a trip to the world’s top prosthetics designers in the States had seen to that. Not for him one of the NHS lumps of metal and plastic that Gabe had to fight with every time he wanted to fix it to his stump.

  Rio released himself with a slap to Jack’s face. ‘Good to see you, mate. You getting the kettle on or what?’

  Jack sort of nodded, then held out a hand to me. ‘Last night – you two okay?’

  We shook. ‘Yeah, but Rio did all the work.’

  Jack looked in worse shape close-up. There were dark bags under his eyes, and his hair and beard weren’t anguished-artist or hippie-cum-hipster but pure neglect. He could have done with a couple of laps around the bath, and a squirt of Head & Shoulders.

  I checked. ‘The CCTV? It’s online?’

  He sighed. He knew what was coming next. ‘No, and I’m not staying outside. Look, no one’s been here, and I’ve got no sneaky-beaky watching or listening to me. You think I don’t understand the shit we’re in?’ He turned back to the cameras covering the courtyard and porch. ‘Nick, you’re all here because Gabe said it was important, and what happened last night means it clearly is – but I’m not standing out here. It’s safe, okay, so we go inside or you just leave.’

  If the Owl was listening, it wouldn’t be that damaging for him to hear what I was going to suggest to them. But I wanted us to keep control of the idea: knowledge is power, and all that.

  ‘Okay, I get it, but all Wi-Fi, mobiles off, yeah?’

  Jack nodded and Gabe started towards the door with Rio a step behind, leaning forward to get into Gabe’s ear but making sure we all heard him anyway. ‘I don’t see the problem. He talks shite anyway.’

  Gabe agreed. ‘At least we can get a fucking brew on.’

  I followed Jack inside, the two dogs slobbering at his heels. There was a strong smell of paint and canvas from all the half-finished works, but the studio wasn’t exactly a hovel where rats roamed while Jack suffered for his art. Even the sculpture made out of beer cans had used San Miguel. I recognized the pose: The Falling Soldier. It was the one in the picture taken by Robert Capa during the Spanish Civil War
. The Republican fighter was dropped with a single round and Capa snapped as he fell, both arms thrown open wide as the man’s body was pushed back on impact and his rifle flew from his hand.

  That was where the struggle ended. The long barn had sand-blasted oak beams and an oak floor, and the renovated walls were spotlessly white. There was a flat-screen TV on the wall that would have been the envy of Effra Parade, and a Mac laptop on a big oak table. In fact I counted three laptops, among discarded clothes on the floor next to an unmade bed. Maybe Tracey Emin was one of his influences.

  A door was open into what was clearly the bathroom, a plastered square of stud wall in the far corner. Even the hinges on that were stainless steel, demonstrating there was no lack of provision here. His family had had it built while he was in rehab, but there’d been nothing they could do to stop him looking like a bag of shit with bad hair.

  Rio disconnected the Wi-Fi cable from the wall jack, then checked the TV wasn’t connected.

  Gabe made his way over to the kitchen, a small, open-plan area that had all the gear, even down to a coffee machine George Clooney would have given the nod to. He filled the kettle from a water-purifier jug.

  Jack might think I was paranoid, but anything online could be used as a microphone. On a phone, any mobile app with a mic option could be used as a listening device.

  The old-fashioned ways were still popular, too. From an outside wall, ultra-sensitive drills were capable of auto-stopping just as the drill bit sensed the interior paint, so when a miniature mic was inserted into the wall it couldn’t be seen from inside the building.

  There were devices that could zoom into everyday items in a target room, a bag of crisps, a sheet of paper on a desk, vibrating as a conversation took place nearby; it could be used as an amplifier to listen to what was being said. I was right to be paranoid: there was nowhere a conversation could be covert if enough effort had been put in, and we were clearly at the top of the Owl’s effort list.