Souvenirs of Murder (29 page)

‘Either of you got his mobile number?' Patrick asked.

‘Yes,' said Keeting. ‘I have.'

‘Be so good as to write it down for us.'

This was done.

‘Do you happen to know if he's back with his girlfriend?'

‘Er – no,' Keeting answered. ‘Do you, Ken?'

‘No,' said the other. ‘And I haven't liked to ask.'

‘It sounds to me that he's none too pleasant,' Carrick said.

‘He's OK as long as you stick to chat about the job and nothing personal,' Hills said. ‘But you get the impression, at least, I do, there's loads there, deep down, that he won't talk about.'

All we had then, was the mobile number.

‘I find it quite mind-blowing that we have no other way of contacting a British cop!' Greenway burst out with when we were back in the car.

‘Shall I phone him?' Patrick offered.

‘And say what, for God's sake?' the Commander blared, swivelling round in his seat.

Patrick tactfully bore with the momentary lull in his boss's constructive thinking. ‘If he is using an assumed identity someone must know; friends, family, whoever. There might be people in the UK with whom he's in regular contact and who have his mobile number. If we're wrong about this man, we're wrong and no harm done, but suppose I phone him and pretend to be a friend of Zoran's, the chef who Pangborne got bored with and killed, the reason this bloodbath might have happened in the first place?'

‘And?'

Patrick just smiled like a great white shark.

‘God, I get really uneasy when you do that,' Greenway muttered. ‘OK, do it and see what happens. The worst that can go wrong is that we have to put a watch on railway stations and airports for him.'

Having kept quiet for a long time in the company of so many people who really knew what they were talking about I felt that the oracle ought to utter a word of caution. ‘No,' I said, ‘Far worse things can happen than that. Patrick touched on it earlier: this man may well be in possession of weapons.'

Greenway nodded. ‘Yes, point taken.' And then, to Patrick, passing over the slip of paper with the number written on it, ‘Do you know what you're going to say?'

‘Yes, but you'll have to be patient. You won't get him until tonight. And I shall ring him from a payphone somewhere, not my mobile or SOCA HQ.'

‘Good thinking,' said Greenway, turning to the driver. ‘Right then, somewhere warm that has a phone and more coffee – well away from this dump.'

NINETEEN

‘So what happened?' Greenway asked urgently when we were in a café, Patrick having just returned from making the call.

Patrick sat down and stirred his coffee with deliberation. Then, in a thick mid-European accent and miming huddling around a phone he said softly, ‘You don't know me but I knew Zoran in the old days. I got your number through an acquaintance who is someone you keep in regular contact with.' He paused. ‘No, don't ask, my friend, it is never best to know these things. Through my own grapevine I understand congratulations are in order and to thank you myself and to bless the memory of Zoran I want to buy you a drink, several drinks. We get drunk together, eh? Shall we meet soon?' Another pause. ‘Where?' A longer pause. ‘I shall find it.'

‘The Last Gasp nightclub,' Patrick said, emerging from his re-enactment. ‘Tonight, ten thirty.'

‘Did he question your story?' Greenway wanted to know.

‘No, but I got the impression that he was pretty suspicious. And who knows, if he's on the line he might be merely satisfying his curiosity and wondering if I'm worth arresting. He must know that the nightclub is quite often stiff with his undercover colleagues in the Met.'

‘I notice you didn't call him by the name we're assuming is his real one.'

‘No, too risky.'

Greenway stared into space, thinking, and for a little while no one spoke. Then, after a gusty sigh, he said, ‘OK, so be it.'

We returned to SOCA's HQ where, over a working sandwich lunch, the plan was made, Patrick drawing on his military experience to advise where necessary. It was decided – and Greenway had had no choice but to liaise with Rundle over this – that the Met would provide support, some armed but not initially within the club premises, SOCA, in the shape of Greenway and a couple of others, as ‘bodyguards' for Patrick. Timing was vital, the details complicated and to be honest I did not take a lot of notice.

This was mostly because the oracle was deemed superfluous to requirements, on the grounds of her health and safety, which put Carrick out of the running as well. I made no protest, not sure afterwards if Greenway had wondered about this given my past record, but he did not comment. Also, I had soaked up a smiling remark from the man in my life to the effect that, ‘We need no cuckoo-class back-up, only those who know what they're doing.' Greenway had replied, sniffily, that he was sure the Met did not employ cuckoo-class anything. Patrick had quickly added, looking worried, that he had only been joking.

‘I'd better return home and undergo a quick recovery,' Carrick said when the meeting had broken up and we were walking along a corridor, leaving the building. Patrick was free until the agreed time to go to the club.

Patrick paused to look around before replying. Seeing there were others within earshot he just said, ‘Can we give you a lift back to the hotel then?'

The offer was possible because Greenway's tantrum had further manifested itself in the return of the Range Rover, which we had been told was in the car park at the rear. Carrick's eyes widened slightly when Patrick went over the vehicle with a mobile phone-sized electronic device that he has not had for very long which detects the presence of things that should not be there. The gizmo having not got excited about anything we then got in.

‘I'm meeting him at nine thirty,' Patrick said.

‘
Nine
thirty!' Carrick exclaimed. ‘But—'

‘I have a very nasty feeling about all this,' Patrick said. ‘The last thing we want is another bloodbath. I think that if all our hunches are right this character's likely to fancy an action replay. If he deeply suspects what I've told him and the arranged meeting he might just be feeling that he's been rumbled and walk into a trap. I don't want to be responsible for more killings. I shall take him – if he even turns up. But at least we can rest easy in the knowledge that if the ‘ifs' are wrong then no one will have been killed.'

‘And you'll be back to square one with your career and whole future,' James said.

‘Please don't remind me.'

‘What do you want me to do?'

Patrick gave him a smile of thanks. ‘Will you get into trouble over this?'

‘It depends on how badly you want me to behave,' was the instant reply.

We all laughed: I could not remember the last time I had done so.

I already knew that Carrick had previously worked undercover, first with the Vice Squad when he was with the Met and, more recently in Scotland, when he had become involved with a case Patrick was working on for MI5, one of the few of which I had not been a part. For that, he had successfully taken on the role of a criminal, replacing the genuine article being smuggled into the UK. This had culminated in a gang of would-be crook and terrorist importers being arrested near Paisley, a town in the west of Scotland, the only redeeming features of which are the magnificent Gothic Abbey and its railway station, where you get off the train for Glasgow airport and thus have the opportunity of leaving the place behind altogether.

Even knowing his history I was unprepared for the unsavoury-looking individual who emerged from shadows beneath a narrow railway bridge not far from Acton Town station. For a moment I did not recognize him. I actually felt Patrick, by my side, tense. Then he chuckled.

‘But you can't have had those clothes with you!' I said to James.

‘No, I did as you always do and went to a charity shop.'

The overall effect was that of a slightly down-at-heel mobster; a shirt the collar of which was several sizes too big for him, plus unkempt hair, a slouching gait and, as we had first spotted him, with a good line in sullen scowls. The two men made a good pair, Patrick having had merely to don black shirt and jeans, and his leather jacket, also black. The belt, plastic, with the brass skull buckle sporting red glass eyes which I have never been able to separate him from was there as well; he insists it brings him luck. The rest of the ‘disguise' lay, like Carrick, in deportment, having his normally wavy hair smarmed flat with gel and a superior leer that made even his wife want to give him a good smack.

For authenticity's sake the female addition to the trio was attired in her ‘tart's rig' similar to that which I had worn for my first visit: micro skirt, tight top and sundry bits of bling all topped with a fake fur jacket resembling a yak with mange that I had bought in a jumble sale at Hinton Littlemoor. These and other garments take it in turns to reside in a bag kept in the car.

‘So James is your sort of minder?' I enquired of Patrick as we strolled, with a few minutes to spare, in the direction of the club to which I was acting as official guide. I was aware that he had gone along to Carrick's room for some kind of council of war while I was in the shower.

‘No, not at all,' Patrick answered. ‘We're going to disturb the peace. Aren't we, my Jockanese friend?'

‘Aye, we are that,' said Carrick with relish.

A short distance farther on I halted and said, ‘There, on the other side of the road. It's down that alleyway between the building society and the burger bar.'

‘How far down?' Patrick asked.

‘Thirty yards or so.'

‘Off you go then,' Patrick said quietly to Carrick and the Scotsman went, hunched into his jacket – it was almost as cold as last time – and, pausing to wait for a gap in the traffic, crossed the road. Patrick and I loitered, pretending to look in shop windows.

‘What else is down the alley?' he suddenly said.

‘Not a lot – the side entrances to various premises, the sort that are locked at night, a couple of bars. That's only in the bit on the way to the club, I didn't go all the way down.'

‘Why not? It's always a good idea to know exactly what's what.'

‘Sorry!' I raved at him, getting well into character. ‘It was bloody freezing and I was on my own not wishing to have to fight off being forcibly picked up by various drunk, pig-brained men who were hanging around the doorways and thus draw attention to myself!'

Patrick staggered off for a few paces as though I had hit him and then returned to put an arm around my shoulders, giving me a fierce grin. ‘To The Last Gasp,' he announced. ‘My last gasp.'

‘What do you want me to do?'

‘What you always do, watch my back.'

‘You don't have your knife.'

‘I have the spare.'

Which I knew was not anywhere near as good.

‘But what are
you
going to do? Wasn't the original plan to sneak you in to the club so you could come face to face with this man?'

‘Yes, but I'm going in making as much noise as possible.'

‘And?'

‘It'll be the last thing he's expecting. Then play it by ear. If he's brought reinforcements then it'll immediately become apparent.'

‘But
how
?'

‘Human nature. Trust the old warrior, eh?'

I took his arm and felt the slight shiver, saw the fear of failure in his eyes, the horror of having to go home and confess to Katie that he was a murderer after all.

Was he strong or well enough to do this?

It was exactly nine thirty. There were the usual hangers-arounders in the alley, seemingly mostly those who had emerged from the club or bars for a smoke. Patrick and I sauntered along, his arm proprietorially around my shoulders, and I noted the wary looks the other men were giving him. I have never been able to fathom exactly how he emanates this aura of menace, how he thus becomes a different person to the one of five minutes previously.

In the next second I found myself confronted by James Carrick, who had appeared from nowhere, and all three of us came to a sudden stop. Carrick gave me a wonderful smarmy smile, boozed-up lechery writ large. Another second later and the front of his far too shiny jacket was bunched in Patrick's fists. The hands were knocked down and they stood still, glaring at one another.

During working on a film not all that long ago when Patrick was asked to be stand-in for the main lead he did a lot of work with a fight director. Watching what followed I began to realize exactly what he had learnt and also, how much he had managed to impart to James in the time available. But pretend scrapping on a filmset and falling on to out-of-shot mats is not the same as trying not to injure your chum in a gloomy London alleyway. There would be a few bruises.

They fought like tomcats, deliberately, I think, amateurishly, all the while ‘drunkenly' shouting abuse at one another. Word of it spread and half of Acton turned up to watch. The bit of totty did her bit, screaming encouragement on the sidelines to her man, which helped no end to attract an audience. This had been going on for a short while when someone must have fetched the club's bouncer, a different monolith than last time, just as Carrick headed, mostly in reverse and at some speed, in that direction. Rather than try to put a stop to the proceedings the bouncer fielded him and tossed the hapless man back towards his opponent thus lining him up for a clip to the jaw that I was sure connected. Carrick staggered but it was a feint and then darted at Patrick, head-butting him in the chest. Both overbalanced and fell backwards.