To Kill For Page 20

  ‘You don’t know how much I earn.’

  ‘No, but I’d give you more. I always need people like you.’

  ‘Not interested.’

  ‘Who told you about me?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter.’

  ‘It matters to me.’

  ‘If I think you’ll go hunting for a grass, I’ll have to kill you now.’

  He nodded.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave it. So what do you want?’

  ‘I told you. I want Paget.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I never heard of any Paget.’

  He spat some more blood and rubbed his stomach. He patted his pockets and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes.

  ‘Got a light?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s a cigarette lighter in the car.’

  He must’ve thought I was stupid.

  ‘You made a big buy recently.’

  He smiled and put the pack of cigarettes away.

  ‘Who says?’

  ‘Know whose stuff it was?’

  He looked at me suspiciously. I said, ‘Ever heard of Bobby Cole?’

  ‘What’s Cole got to do with it?’

  ‘Kenny Paget worked for Cole. He nicked a million quid’s worth of heroin.’

  ‘I keep telling you; I never heard of Paget.’

  ‘Maybe. But that’s Cole’s stuff you’ve got and he won’t care if you’ve never heard of Paget.’

  ‘Bollocks. How do I know that’s Cole’s stuff?’

  ‘You’ve heard about Cole, right?’

  ‘I’ve heard something, sure. Trouble with some East Europeans. So?’

  ‘They’re Albanians. Cole owes them money. It was them Cole got the heroin from.’

  He moved over to the car and slammed shut the boot and sat on top of it.

  ‘Say I believe you—’

  ‘It doesn’t matter if you believe me or not. That stuff’s going back to Cole. If you tell me where you got it, I’ll let you take it back to Cole yourself.’

  ‘Or?’

  ‘Or I’ll put you in the boot of this car and deliver you to him.’

  ‘You’re lying.’

  ‘You know I’m not.’

  ‘So you work for Cole?’

  ‘I told you, I work for myself.’

  ‘So, suppose I give you some money to forget what you know?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘If I have to give that stuff to Cole, I’m gonna be out a lot of money.’

  ‘You can get it back from whoever you bought it from.’

  He smiled.

  ‘Fuck,’ he said. ‘I don’t seem to have much choice, do I?’

  ‘You can choose to live.’

  He spat more blood.

  ‘Bloke called Whelan. Doug Whelan.’

  Whelan. I knew that name. Where had I heard it? No, not heard it. Read it. It had been on the list kept by Harry Siddons.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I couldn’t reach Cole on the phone. When I got to his place, there was a single light on downstairs. I hammered on the door. The door opened and Cole’s wife stared out at me.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Remember me?’

  It took her a couple of seconds to focus her eyes. Without her make-up, she looked just like any old woman. She scrunched her face up for a moment, then it cleared and she said, ‘You were here before.’

  ‘Where’s your husband?’

  ‘Out.’

  ‘Where?’

  She shrugged.

  ‘Just out.’

  I went into the house. The woman watched me and then wandered off, back to her bed or her glass of gin or whatever. I searched the place. Downstairs, in a study out back, I found the small bald bloke with the bad leg. He was in a chair with his eyes closed. I nudged him. He opened his eyes and looked up.

  ‘I wasn’t asleep.’

  ‘Where’s Cole?’

  ‘He’s found them.’

  ‘The Albanians?’

  ‘Yeah. He said you might come by.’

  ‘You need to stop him.’

  He sat up.

  ‘Can’t.’

  ‘Call him.’

  He looked at me a moment then got up and limped over to a desk. He lifted the phone and dialled a number. After a while, he looked at me and shrugged.

  ‘Phone’s off.’

  ‘Try someone else.’

  He tried. Nothing. He put the phone down.

  ‘All off.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘The Albanians have got a warehouse in Barking.’

  ‘You know where?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Let’s go.’

  It took us twenty minutes. As I drove, I watched the thin grey line grow on the horizon. A new day crept in, people started moving about, trucks and busses chugged away.

  The little bloke told me his name was Gibson. He told me Cole had waited for me to come up with something, but when he got the information that the Albanians had this place they were working out of, he decided to try and take them out in one knockout blow.

  He gave me directions from a piece of paper he had in his hand. We were on some large industrial site closer to Dagenham than Barking. It seemed like mile after mile of large warehouses and workshops and lock-ups, spiked metal fences and breeze-block walls separating the places from the cracked concrete road. We passed a scrap-metal yard and Gibson told me Cole would be down the next right.

  As I turned at the end of a concreted road, I slowed the car to a crawl, moving between two rows of garages. I killed the lights and peered ahead. I could see an iron gate a hundred yards away, and beyond that an empty forecourt leading to a large prefab warehouse. Ahead of us were four cars. A group of shadows moved about, ten or so men. Many were probably the same ones I’d seen at Cole’s a few days earlier.

  I stopped a dozen yards short. There wasn’t much room to turn the car around, so I left it facing the other cars. We got out and walked towards the shadows. A dark, squat shape pulled itself away from the others and came towards us.

  ‘They’re in that building over there,’ Cole said, pointing to the large warehouse at the end of the row. ‘It’s gonna be hard getting in. The roll door is well secured. There’s a couple of windows high up, so we’re gonna chuck some petrol bombs in and wait for them to come out. You tooled up?’

  I peered through the gloom at the large square shape. The windows were small. Whoever had to throw those petrol bombs would be exposed.

  ‘Call it off,’ I said. ‘It’s what Dunham wants. He’s playing you.’

  ‘Fuck Dunham.’

  ‘He’s putting you lot against each other. He stands back and sweeps up what’s left.’

  ‘Fuck him and fuck you. I’m taking these cunts out.’

  ‘It wasn’t the Albanians who shot your place up.’

  He looked uncertain, but he was in front of his men.

  ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  I looked back where we’d come. That road, more a narrow track, pitted with potholes, a corridor of lock-up garages, quarter of a mile long. Ahead of us, the large building, all corrugated steel and aluminium, no way round, no way through, just a block of metal and a large open forecourt and an eight-foot-high spiked metal fence. The hair on the back of my neck stood up. Cole was walking away from me. I grabbed him.

  ‘We’ve got to get out of here.’

  His men were looking at us. Cole’s voice was low, hard.

  ‘Fuck off, Joe. I mean it. If you ain’t helping, you’re in my fucking way.’

  ‘Listen to me, this is wrong. Look at it. You’re blocked in. It’s a bottle-neck.’

  He snatched his arm away from my grasp.

  ‘You’ve got Dunham on the brain.’

  ‘It’s a fucking trap.’

  ‘You fucking mad? We’ve got the cunts. We’ve got them.’

  ‘It’s wrong.’

  ‘Get out of my way, Joe.’

  ‘I fo
und your drugs.’

  That stopped him.

  ‘Where?’

  ‘Bloke called Laing. He bought them from someone called Doug Whelan. Does that name mean anything to you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It should. Your nephew used to work with him.’

  ‘Carl? What are you on about?’

  ‘Yes, Carl. Think about it; that shoot-up on your house was an amateur job. You think the Albanians would fuck about like that? They’d torch the place. They’d make sure you were home. It was Carl.’

  ‘Why would he do that?’

  ‘How do I know? He’s ambitious. He got a better offer from Dunham.’

  The men heard us. They looked at Cole. They were getting nervous and closing up, into a tighter group, moving closer to the cars. Gibson turned and looked up the way we’d come.

  ‘He might be right,’ he said.

  Cole looked down the track and back to the warehouse.

  I said, ‘Who told you the Albanians were here? It was Carl, wasn’t it? It was your nephew.’

  ‘He wouldn’t fucking dare.’

  ‘So where is he?’

  ‘Christ, when you decide to talk, you don’t fuck about.’

  ‘Tell me it wasn’t Carl who told you about the Albanians and I’ll help you now.’

  Cole’s face was grim. He said, ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘We haven’t got time.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’

  I needed Cole. If it wasn’t for that, I would’ve dumped him. I said, ‘I got someone looking for a large amount of heroin that might’ve hit the streets. Your heroin. Paget had to cash it in and I think he gave it to Dunham in return for protection. Dunham gave it to Carl, or some of it, as a pay-off. Carl used Whelan to unload the dope.’

  Cole thought about what I’d told him. He said, ‘This Laing character will confirm this?’

  ‘Yes. He doesn’t want you on his arse.’

  ‘We’ve been here twenty minutes. If this was a trap, why haven’t they sprung it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  Gibson said, ‘Maybe they’re waiting.’

  ‘For what?’ Cole said.

  Gibson looked at me. Cole’s men looked at me. Cole said, ‘Fuck.’

  The first rounds hit the cars, pocking the windscreens, shattering them, thudding into the metal bodies. We scattered for cover and I saw one man crash to the ground. The shots were coming in from high and Cole’s men started returning fire towards the small windows in the warehouse where the blaze of automatic rifles flashed in the night. I had the Makarov in my hand, but from this distance and without being able to sight properly, it was useless.

  But there was something wrong with this. Those two, high up, were easy to avoid, easy to outmanoeuvre. Then I heard a sound and turned and knew we were fucked. Two garage doors behind us burst open and men poured out. They were waiting alright.

  ‘Behind,’ I shouted.

  Cole’s men swung round as one and let off bursts. I picked off one man and hit the ground as a half dozen bullets hammered into the concrete at my feet. Rounds hailed down on us from ahead and behind. Cole had grabbed a Heckler-Koch MP5 from a bunch in the boot of his car. Now he was standing madly in the middle of the carnage, screaming murder, his knuckles white as he emptied one magazine and dumped it and rammed another home. Gibson was yelling at him to get down. Cole’s men returned fire as best they could, but they had no cover aside from the cars, which were getting torn to bits. They were getting pummelled: two dead; another two or three wounded. I looked around for cover.

  ‘The garages,’ I called to Cole.

  He looked at me. I pointed to the garages. I was crouched down between the cars, keeping my head down as best I could. The others were spread out between the other cars. I could hear rounds zipping through the air all around, deep droning wasp sounds. I felt the car judder when another burst of automatic fire rocked its frame. They were getting closer. I peered around the car I was behind and saw them, ten, twelve of them, moving forwards slowly, all with autos on full, spare clips taped to the ones they were emptying. When they got thirty yards away, their firepower would be enough to tear us apart. The garage nearest me had two wooden doors, locked by a bar and padlock across the middle. I aimed from five feet away and emptied my magazine at the wood around the lock. The wood broke, but still held. Cole saw what I was doing.

  ‘The doors,’ he shouted.

  Gibson got the idea and nudged another man near him. One of Cole’s men made a wild bolt for the door and bounced into it and got cut in half. I reloaded. Cole scrambled over to me and levelled his Heckler at the wood around the lock and let go with a burst that cleaned out his magazine and shattered the wood to splinters. Gibson and the other man did the same over their side, breaking through into another garage. Shattered concrete erupted from the ground and hit me in the face. I heard a tyre explode. I looked around the car and saw that the men behind us were closing in, forty yards, thirty-eight. One of the men stopped now and pulled a bag from his back. He fished around inside and when his hand came out it was holding a small dark object. Gibson saw me looking. He looked too.

  ‘Grenade,’ he yelled.

  The man pulled the pin. Gibson stood first. I stood. Cole stood. We unleashed everything we had at that man. He jigged as the rounds smacked into him. He fell and the grenade trickled out of his hand. One of the others with him dived for it, grabbed it and chucked it towards us. We threw ourselves down. The blast was short of us, but not short enough. It rocked the ground. Debris rained down on us. The car I was behind took the shock and jumped in the air. My ears rang. I crawled around the car and peered through the dust and saw that the attackers had also been staggered by the explosion. They’d hit the dirt and were exposed, but they were too far away to charge. If we’d tried, they would have cut us down. I scrambled over to Gibson and Cole.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘Get cover.’

  Gibson shouted the order. I grabbed a bag of ammo from the boot of Cole’s car and tossed in a couple of Heckler and Kochs. Then I saw the bottles he was going to use as petrol bombs. I gave the bag to Gibson and snatched up the bottles. To Cole, I said, ‘Where’s the petrol?’

  ‘Huh?’

  ‘You were going to throw petrol bombs at the warehouse. Where’s the petrol?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘We were gonna get it from the cars.’

  ‘No time now.’

  We rushed to the garages either side, Gibson and Cole and another man with me, the rest over the other side. Gibson’s bad leg slowed him up, but he managed okay. The enemy had regained their feet now and were figuring out what we were up to.

  It was black inside the garage, and we were crowded by something covered in a tarpaulin. Gibson flared up a lighter. The shadows danced around, but we could see the place. It was big enough to house a single car with space to move around it. The walls and ceiling were all made of the same concrete slabs. The object covered with the tarp was smaller than a car.

  ‘We’ve trapped ourselves,’ Cole’s man said, panic rising in his voice.

  ‘It’s cover at least,’ Gibson said. He looked at the mass in the middle of the garage. ‘What is this? Can we use it?’

  The other bloke lifted the tarp and peered underneath.

  ‘It’s a boat.’

  ‘Shit.’

  Cole was on his mobile, calling up reinforcements.

  ‘Everything you got,’ he said. He dropped the phone into his pocket. ‘They won’t get here in time.’

  He was right.

  ‘What kind of boat?’ I said to the bloke.

  ‘You know, speedboat.’

  ‘Outboard motor?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  I looked at Cole.

  ‘Petrol,’ he said.

  I gave the bottles to Gibson to fill up. Then I went up front to the gap in the doors. Outside, the enemy were spread out along the fronts of both rows of garages, moving slowly forward. They were cagey, not sur
e how to finish us off now that we’d got some cover. One of them opposite saw me and let off a burst that battered the wooden doors. I ducked back. They were all firing now, their rounds ripping up the wood but not getting much further. The wood was thick.

  Cole and his other man were at the back of the boat. They’d got the cap off the tank, but they couldn’t get the petrol out.

  ‘We need a tube, something to siphon it out.’

  I looked up at the ceiling, five feet above our heads.

  ‘How much ammo we got?’ I said to Gibson.

  He looked through the bag and pulled out a dozen magazines.

  ‘Few minutes’ worth.’

  ‘Think we can blast a hole in the roof?’

  He followed my gaze.

  ‘Maybe. This concrete isn’t reinforced. Yeah. Take a lot of fire.’

  I turned to Cole. Outside, the sound of gunfire had erupted again. Through the gap in the doors, I could see that some of Cole’s other men were trying to make a break for it. They’d gone back to the cars and were in a firefight. I saw something sail through the air.

  ‘Grenade.’

  I dived backwards. The blast smashed the doors back, but they took much of the impact. There wasn’t much time.

  ‘Is there a fuel line, hydraulics, something like that?’ I said.

  Cole pulled the tarp back and rooted around.

  ‘Got something.’

  ‘Get that petrol out. Gibson, with me.’ To the other bloke, I said, ‘Hold them off as long as you can.’

  I left Cole to do what he could with the petrol. The other bloke went up front and peeked out through the gap in the doors. He brought his pistol up and started to fire, aiming carefully. Gibson came over to me and we stood and loaded Hecklers with new mags. We aimed at a spot above and let off a burst. The bullets smacked into the concrete ceiling, dust and chippings fell down onto us, dust filled the garage.

  ‘It’s not enough,’ Gibson said. ‘We’re not getting through.’

  ‘We use everything,’ I said.

  Gibson turned to Cole who was ripping tubing from the boat.

  ‘If we can’t get through, that’ll be our ammo gone,’ Gibson said. ‘We’ll be sitting ducks.’

  Cole looked from Gibson to me. He looked to the bloke at the front of the garage who was taking single aimed shots and ducking for cover.