A Kind of Hush (8 page)

The week after that was very busy. I moved in at Mick’s, well I say Mick’s, but it’s really his sister’s place. She rented it from the council. She’d lived there with her husband and two kids for about five years when he upped and left her for another woman. She met another bloke with his own house over Finchley way and moved in with him. Mick just took the place over. The council haven’t said anything, the neighbours haven’t said anything, so what the hell, it beats squatting.

Tony, Si and Alan moved in too. Pete, Den and Wiwa stayed all day with us but went home most nights.

We checked out as many of the addresses in the diary that we could and by asking around locally we were gutted to find that many of the people listed were not the sort of people that my old man would usually hang around with. For instance, some of the addresses listed were houses obviously owned by people who had money and power. There were doctors, lawyers, teachers, a local councillor and a senior copper, as well as shopkeepers, bus drivers and those sort of people. But the biggest name by far was that of an MP.

We also checked out the Fotojoy UK membership card. 
The address on the back took us down to Croydon. It was a dingy little photo-developing shop that did your photos in twenty-four hours or your money back. We went in and Mick flashed the card.

An old guy behind the counter looked at the card, smiled at us and disappeared into the back of the shop. He returned a few seconds later with a large brown envelope and handed it to Mick.

'I hope they are to your liking, gentlemen/ he said.

'How much do I owe you?' said Mick.

'Oh no, sir, it's all part of the service,' he said, and wished us good-day. We went back to the car and opened the envelope.

Now we'd both seen all sorts of porn photos before and we honestly thought that we could never be shocked, but these were terrible. The envelope contained pictures of kids with men, women, animals, bottles, vibrators, bananas, cucumbers, everything that you could imagine. We drove straight home and burned them. At least, we now knew what Fotojoy UK was.

The last thing to check was the keys. There were five of them, like old-fashioned car keys. The label had a number six on it and was stamped Haringey Borough Council.

'Garages,' said Mick, 'did your old man have a lockup?'

'Dunno, I don't think so,' I said.

'Ring Jen and ask her,' he said. I jumped to the phone and dialled.

'Bingo,' I said as I put down the phone. 'She said that he took over one of those around the back about three years ago.'

We were there within the hour. Number six had a blue door. One of the keys opened the lock, the door then swung up and over. There was a motor inside covered with one of those big grey plastic car covers. Against the wall were four old filing cabinets. Mick lifted the corner of the car cover.

'Sheeeit! Check this out.' He whipped off the cover and there stood an immaculate Ford Orion 1600 GL, brand spanking new, the road tax still had eleven months to go.

'Where the fuck did he get that?' I said. Mick was already inside checking it out.

'I don't believe this,' he said. 'Come and look, Stu.'

I opened the passenger door and watched as Mick pulled out the contents of the glove box.

'Look,' he said, a look of wonderment on his face. The car keys and the fucking log book. Was your old man some sort of prat or something?'

'Whose name's on the log book?' I asked.

'Fotojoy UK,' said Mick. 'It's a company car.'

'He must have worked for them then,' I said.

'Right,' said Mick. 'Seems a pity to leave it here, Stu.'

'Who said we're leaving it? No one knows what's happened and no one's looking for it.'

'That's what I like to hear. It'll be a change driving a motor with a proper tax disc on it instead of a Guinness label.' He laughed.

The other keys fitted the filing cabinets, but I wished they hadn't. They confirmed that he was working for Fotojoy UK. Pictures, pictures and more pictures. Hundreds, no thousands of them, just as bad if not worse than the shit that we had got earlier that day, and all of them in large brown envelopes. I locked them away 
again, thinking that later they could provide the evidence that the Old Bill might need.

We both felt very sick and very angry. Everything that we had been doing over the years suddenly seemed right. If we had had any doubts, those photos wiped them out completely. No way could we allow people like that to continue.

‘Police today confirmed that the body of a man has been found in the debris of a fire that took place in Hackney during the weekend. It is thought that the man was the victim of a gangland-style execution. A police spokesman said, “We believe that this man was killed by members of his own gang” and dismissed rumours of a war between rival factions of Triads.’

‘Wait till they see the house,’ said Mick as he flicked the telly off. ‘That’ll get them buzzing.’

We were all at Mick’s planning what to do.

‘It’s too big,’ I said. ‘We’re out of our league with all this.’

‘So what do we do?’ asked Den.

‘I don’t know,’ I said, ‘I just don’t know.’

‘Look, all we want is this piece of filth, Gus, right?’ said Mick. ‘Then what say we just get him and send the rest of the stuff anonymously to the Old Bill. They’ve got to do something with all that.’

‘I dunno,’ said Wivva. ‘Remember it was me that sussed out that one of the geezers in that diary was a copper, what if he’s on the team that we send it to.’

‘Good point,’ said Den.

'Why not send it to one of those TV investigators, y'know like Roger Cook or that Esther Rantzen,' said Tony.

They'll sort it.'

'Only if it makes good telly,' said Pete.

'And only if no one in telly is involved,' added Den.

'Hmm, hmm,' grunted Mick. Then he said, 'But you're right Tony, that's what we need, someone we can trust.'

'Okay, like who?' I asked. Everyone fell quiet.

'Chris,' said Si. 'Uncle Chris.'

We all looked at him.

'Well he did all that at the Quo concert for us didn't he, and we did get on well didn't we?'

'True,' said Mick. 'But why would he help us with this?'

'Well a couple of years ago,' said Si, 'he blagged a place out Watford way. When he went through the bedroom he found a stash of H; he hates drug dealers, killed his brother they did. He once said, "Drug dealers and Nonces, they're the scum of the earth." Anyway, he finished the house, then he tipped off the Old Bill. The guy whose house it was went down for five years and no one bothered about the blagging. I'm sure he'll help us get these bastards.'

'Right then, let's go see Uncle Chris,' said Mick.

'No, I'll ring him, he'll come over,' said Si.

Uncle Chris was no div. He had A-levels to prove it. He was thirty-eight years old and worked as an insurance agent knocking on doors and collecting the weekly payments from his customers, supplementing his income with what Si took from us and the occasional blagging. One, maybe two a year was his limit. 'No need to be 
greedy,' he would say. Sweet as a nut it was.

It was him or his business friends who arranged the insurance for the houses that got mysteriously done, so he always knew, or heard when one was going to be empty for a while. If it was one of his customers that got done, he would always make sure that he was somewhere with a lot of witnesses when the roll took place. Chris was devious, hard too. He also knew a lot of people from a lot of games, which is how he came to get the passes for the Quo concert.

His motor always had Elvis, Chuck Berry or Jerry Lee Lewis banging out at top volume, and he had an absolute passion for Lonnie Donnegan and skiffle. But as I said, he was no fool.

Personally, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him, but he did think the world of Si and that for me outweighed most of his bad points. Anyway, he was one of those blokes that you just couldn't help liking. Bent as a nine-bob note, stickiest fingers in the world, but would do anything for anyone.

He studied the diary for over an hour, making notes on a piece of paper. Then he took a deep breath and said, 'Well boys, let's tell you what it seems you've got here.'

The diary was mind-blowing. We all listened carefully and tried to take in everything that he was reading out.

'Firstly,' said Chris, 'there are full names, addresses and telephone numbers of people that have used Alison and Jen, those are in turn cross-referenced to the person who introduced, or should I say recruited, them and the whole lot is then cross-referenced back to the person running the area. There seems to be nine areas in London, each with its own reference number and organiser. The 
organiser in this area is this bloke that you are looking for, Giis. His name, address and telephone number are all here.' Chris had drawn a crude diagram to help us to understand that the whole thing was run like one of those pyramid selling schemes.

He went on, There's not much information on the other eight, but this book covers Gus's area completely/ He looked up. 'If this book is true, then it is the sickest thing that I have ever seen and it must be stopped.' He flicked to a page and looked at me.

'Stu, Alison and Jen's names are on a list with the names of over two hundred others. Next to each name is a date of birth and a reference number. The reference number ties up with a list on the next page, each number describing a different kind of kid.

'For instance, all of the even numbers are girls and the odd numbers are boys, with different numbers within those for different types of boys and girls - y'know, if they are black or Asian or something. Next to that list is a scale of charges. Every sex act that you can think of is listed here with its own code number and each of those code numbers is again listed with its basic cost beside it.'

He turned the page.

'On this page is contact information. Nine telephone numbers are listed, each of them with their own particular ringing code, you know, ring three times, hang up and ring again sort of thing. Several of the numbers have been scrubbed out and replaced with new ones, one of them four times. So we can safely assume that these numbers are always being changed. At the top of the page is a number that has to be used if there is a problem with any of the other numbers. That one has been changed six times.

'I've made a swift count of the number of times that Ali and Jen have been used and checked that against the basic charges listed. Sorry Stu, but your old man must have made at least twenty grand from those two within the past year alone.'

He sat back and sighed deeply, then he said, This book is dynamite. If all of this is true, then I don't doubt that they would kill to get it back. If they know that you've got it, then God help you, or anyone who knows you.'

'What d'you mean by that?' I asked.

They've already jumped you once,' he said. 'When you took Jen away. You thought they were getting heavy because they had lost some income, but it's not the girl they want, it's what she knows. While she was working for them, they controlled her. Now they don't know what she's doing or saying. Add to that the strange disappearance of your old man and the fact that they can't find this book, then it's a fair bet that they are going to put two and two together and come looking for you. If they can't find you, then they'll look for Jen, if they can't find Jen, then they'll go for Ali. It will go on and on until either they find you, or they are stopped. They have far too much to lose otherwise.'

'Why did they leave such an important book with my old man?' I asked.

'Could be a number of reasons,' said Chris. 'Maybe they thought that he could be totally trusted because he was in so deep. Maybe he kept it to protect himself if anything went wrong. He knew that if he tried anything they'd kill him and if he were to take this stuff to the Bill, maybe he thought that he would get a deal, though I'm sure that he would have to go down for what he'd been 
doing. Anyway, who'd think that a slime like that would have this sort of stuff, he was perfect.

Then again, maybe Gus didn't keep this book. Maybe it's your old man's. From what you said about his filing system for photos and the like, he seems to like to keep all of his affairs in order, so why couldn't he have kept it for his own use?'

'Sounds likely,' said Mick. 'So what do we do?'

'I agree that it might not be a good idea at this time to involve the police,' he said. 'But that must come sometime. Anyway, you guys have a few problems that I'm sure you don't need the Old Bill knowing about, so when they're dealt with, the Bill will get to know through another party and I've got an idea on that, so I'll check it out and let you know. For now, protect Jen and Ali or they'll get them. I know you've got to do something about this Gus creep and I'd rather not know any of the details, so get it done quick. We can't sit on this shit for too long, it's far too dangerous and I've got a wife and kids to think about.'

I was sure that he also had his pocket to care for; it was obvious, I thought, that he didn't need the police in at this time because he had seen a once in a lifetime opportunity to make a big score. If there was any money to be made, then you could bet that Chris would be at the head of the queue. I made up my mind to keep an eye on him.

Jen was safe, but Ali wasn't, so we went to the hospital the following morning. I went in with Mick while the rest waited outside. After what Chris had told us, we were taking no chances.

I introduced Mick to Ali then briefly explained what 
was happening, leaving out the gory details of course. Ali told us everything that she knew about Gus. The man we wanted was about fifty years old, short, quite fat and balding. He kept two minders with him everywhere he went and like him they were evil. He is driven everywhere in a large black Mercedes that bears the numberplate GUS 101. His car is his office. He spends more time in it with his minders than he does anywhere else. He also takes most of his pleasures in the car, she said with a shudder. She begged me to be careful, I kissed her and left.

At the ward sister's office, I asked if she could make sure that no one but myself and Jen visited Ali, and that any mail, parcels or presents delivered for her should be held until I arrived. I then explained that the guy that had beaten her up was her father and that we had to make sure that he didn't try to get to her while she was in there. I also lied and told her that the police had been informed and were waiting until she was stronger before they interviewed her. The sister was very understanding and agreed at once. She also promised not to talk about our conversation to Ali.

We went back to the cars. Mick was driving the Orion, I thought that I owed him that much, with Pete, Den and Wivva. I was in the Toyota with Alan, Tony and Si. We were going to Gus's place.

We turned right out of the hospital and down towards the Archway. Gus lived in Highbury near the Arsenal football ground so the drive was only about twenty minutes. We drove along Holloway Road, past the Nag's Head, under the bridge and turned left after the Poly. We followed the road round to Drayton Park tube station and turned right. Mick slammed on his brakes, I screamed to 
a halt just behind him missing his bumper by inches. He then drove on for about twenty yards, pulled into a side-street and parked, I followed. He got out and came back to me.

'Didn't you see it?' he said.

'See what?' I asked.

'Back down there, outside the betting shop. GUS 101.'

'Shit!' I said. 'Let's go take a look.'

'No, no,' he said. 'I'll go take a look, they don't know me.' And off he went with Wivva.

They were away for about ten minutes when through my rear view mirror I saw Mick running full-pelt back to the car.

'Start up!' he yelled. 'Get ready to go.' He rushed past and jumped into the Orion.

Wiwa came flying round the corner, zoomed up to us, threw himself into the open door of the Orion and they screamed off closely followed by me. In the mirror I could see two big blokes running up the middle of the road behind me.

Wivva was still laughing when we stopped ten minutes later in Finsbury Park. We piled out, keen to know what had happened and sat on the grass. Mick gave us the story.

'Gus was in there putting on a bet,' he said. 'His two boyfriends were with him. I stood beside them reading the sheets while they studied form and talked to each other. He chose a horse, wrote down his bet, nice pen, and as he was going to the window to place it, one of his goons said, "If we don't hurry Gus, we won't get to the hospital before your meet with Danny." Well, Wivva and me thought ho ho, he's going after Ali, so Wivva told me 
to get back to the motor, start it up and be ready to go, so I did and that's all I know. Wivva knows the rest.'

'It was simple,' said Wivva with a big innocent look on his face. 'I thought I had to stop him going to the hospital, so I lobbed a brick through his windscreen.'

Everyone fell about.

'It was fucking close though,' he said when he came up for breath. 'For big blokes, those two were bloody fast.'

We all collapsed again.

We cruised past his house twice that day. The first time one of his boys was picking bits of glass out of the front seats, and the second, a new windscreen was being fitted by one of those mobile replacement services. But he didn't go to the hospital.

I went back to see Ali that night. The sister stopped me on the way in and said that someone had telephoned to ask how Ali was. She said that she didn't confirm that Ali was there and also that she couldn't give out any information on any patients without knowing who the caller was. She said he wouldn't leave his name and hung up. I thanked her and after a short visit with Ali, I went back to Mick's and we started making plans.