STANDPOINT a gripping thriller full of suspense (16 page)

“Ah, good evening. I wish to get a message to Yorgi. Ask him to ring me tomorrow on the office number. He’ll know who it is.”

The woman sounded fearful at the mention of Yorgi’s name. In the background he heard a man’s voice — it could have been Yorgi, but he doubted it. No matter, he had no interest in Yorgi’s personal life. He closed the call and settled his glass. Then, phone still in hand, he lifted an address book from his blazer pocket: ‘P’ for Peterson.

“Robert? Oh, yes, if you would, thank you. Ah, Robert, it’s Sir Peter. You did? Why, thank you! Now, Robert, I’m ringing for an update on the Harwich consignment. Yes, I saw that you’d put Crossley on to it. Good, definitely a step in the right direction. I think we’ll be ready to move soon, now that we’ve got the full team on board. Long time coming — indeed! Have Crossley get an update, first thing Monday. Capital! Now, what’s the latest on the poor driver?” He scrawled down some notes and put an asterisk against Ann Crossley’s name.

“Right. Send Crossley to my office Monday morning — she can update me there.” He ended the call and tucked the address book back in his blazer. He signalled to Trevor that the screen could be lowered. Then, he dialled home.

“Yes, hello darling. Really? It was good of you to watch. No, don’t wait up; you know how these things work. The PM likes us seniors to take every opportunity to make friends with the media. I’ll be back late — I’ll use the spare room. Night, night.” He stared out at the blurred lights of London and his smile reflected back in the glass like a malign crescent. “Trevor, I think I’ll drop in to The Victory Club.”

The chauffeur nodded; Sir Peter enjoyed the deferential bob of his head. It was the little touches that made Trevor such a treasure. Their eyes met in the mirror. “Very good, Sir Peter.”

He reached for his whisky and smiled again. If tonight’s girl at The Victory was anything like the last one Yorgi had provided, it would be.

Chapter 19

“You’ve got to be able to trust your instincts, Tommo,” Karl swivelled left and right at the first click of the target turning face on. “Do you want a go — it’s not so different from taking high-speed photos. Okay, maybe with nine mills instead of a data-card. But the principle’s the same.”

There’s a comfort.
All those years that Thomas thought he’d been honing his camera skills he’d actually been secretly training to be Super Shooter. The idea played in his head like a disturbing version of
The Karate Kid
: wax on, wax off, and reload.

Karl laid his pistol down. “So, I’ll save you the trouble of avoiding the topic of next weekend. We’re away to Suffolk for a pick-up.”

“And is this for our side or their side, or doesn’t it matter?”

“See, Tommo, I told you that you’d get the hang of it eventually!” Karl grinned like an idiot. “But seeing as you’ve asked, this is a special request from our beloved leader.”

“Dress code: casual?” Thomas straightened an imaginary tie.

“Dress code: damp-proof — we’ll get kitted out from Stores on the Friday, before we leave work. You’re going to be the water baby.”

They spent less than an hour on the range. As Karl reminded him, time flies when you’re firing guns. Afterwards in the café, Thomas scanned the horizon for Teresa. Someone as organised as Karl would be sure to have arranged a meeting.

“Relax, Tommo. She’ll be here presently.”

He picked at the pastry crumbs on his plate. So they were doing Sir Peter’s private dirty work — and look where that got him last time.

Teresa made a play of waving as she came over, but she looked agitated. “Things have moved forward unexpectedly.”

Even Karl seemed a little put out.

“There was a disturbance at the target house last night. A neighbour called the police and an ambulance out, to a domestic. It seems Yorgi went ballistic — if you’ll forgive the phrase — when he came back and found the car was missing.”

Thomas felt like raising a hand, to remind them he was still there. “Who’s Yorgi?”

Karl and Teresa gave him the kind of look that made him wish he wasn’t. “Our likely Harwich shooter,” Teresa explained, glancing at Karl.

“He has a name,” Thomas said slowly, reciting his thought aloud.

“And a reputation to go with it,” Teresa replied.

Thomas kept quiet now while the grown-ups talked, picking up the odd snippet, here and there. Yorgi was evidently a big shot — again with the puns — and Teresa’s report suggested he had left the country after the incident.

He felt his mind start to drift — funny how things bobbed to the surface when you weren’t concentrating. Now that he thought about it, he’d never seen any photographs from the year Miranda spent in Bermuda. Well, okay, a few ‘here I am at the beach’ pics, but no proper work photos of any kind. His mood soured; he tried to tune back into the conversation, just to escape himself.

“So what do you think, Thomas? Could you speak to them?” Teresa had lowered her voice.

“I’m sorry?”

Teresa and Karl both eased forward towards him. Teresa was still in the big chair. “With Yorgi away, this is our best chance to make contact with the brother again and offer him a lifeline — think you’re up to it?”

Thomas could feel their eyes on him like sunlamps and sensed his face smouldering. “I can try.” Jesus, he wasn’t even convincing himself.

“Top man!” Karl patted him on the shoulder. “Right, come on then, Tommo; no time like the present.”

Teresa sat in the back of Karl’s car. The scent of oranges was starting to fade; now it was more Earl Grey tea than breathable vitamin C.

“So what do I say, exactly? I mean, what am I allowed to tell them?” It was the third time of asking — different ways, but the same question. Karl looked ready to pop a vein.

“For fuck’s sake, Tommo! We’ve been through this. They let a gunman use their car as a sniper’s post. And we’ve got the car now. There’s not a lot
to
say.”

Maybe Karl was right to be pissed off. When Thomas heard himself, he sounded like an amateur — well, he
was
an amateur.

Teresa played peacemaker. “All we’re trying to do is offer them protection — if they want it. Let them know that there’s help available. But don’t spook them.”

Karl hardly looked at Thomas for the rest of the journey. It reminded him of Ajit, back at school, when he’d been accusing Thomas of something, but wouldn’t come right out and say it.

As they parked up, Teresa handed Thomas a scrap of paper. “Tell them they can ring here at any time, if they need us.”

He nodded and gripped the note tightly, casting a last, quizzical look at Karl as he opened the car door.

* * *

Teresa waited until Thomas was at least five cars away. “What’s the problem, Karl?”

“I can’t put my finger on it. I mean, I trust him right enough. I’d stake my life on him not working for anyone else, but . . . well, there’s something about him. I don’t think we ever get to see the real Thomas Bladen, and that worries me. When it comes down to it, we don’t know his capabilities.”

“You’d not recommend recruiting him, then?”

“No, not yet. He’s more useful to us as an outsider.”

“How much have you told him?”

“The usual — only as much as we need him to know.”

107, 108, 109 . . . Thomas counted on, just like he used to do when he was a child. Useless figures that kept his mind occupied; stopped him from too much thinking. His sister Pat used to tease him about it.

“You’d spend your whole life counting, given half a chance!”

But that process of measuring and timing; that’s what had kept him sane when Dad went into his rages or when Mam had disappeared into the kitchen to dry her tears or to get the swelling on her face to go down. Numbers.

115, 116. He could see the house looming ahead. Surely Teresa could have told him exactly what to say, how to couch it all? He felt his stomach turning over. If he didn’t get himself together his first words would be: ‘Can I use your toilet?’ A fine spy he’d make! He laughed at himself and squeezed the little piece of paper ever more tightly.

His legs dragged as he walked up the short drive, the sweat congealing against his skin. He remembered the time he’d first brought Miranda back to his digs in Leeds. How they’d both been too nervous to discuss how far they wanted to go. And how he’d ached for her. It wasn’t just the rush of hormones and Thunderbird wine, but a need to connect with her, to anchor her to him so that she’d never leave Leeds, or him.
Yeah, nice one, Thomas
. Now he was at the front door with a gut ache
and
a hard-on.
Brilliant
.

He pressed the bell, realising that he’d missed a chance to copy Teresa’s magic phone number for himself. He heard voices approaching — a man and a woman — and hoped to God that was sweat running down the back of his legs.

The door slowly opened. “Can I help you?” she said, even though her voice suggested the opposite. It was the same ice blonde that Karl had described. Refined, with a hint of yummy mummy — to use Karl’s apt description.

“Can I come in? It’s about Yorgi, sort of.”

She stared at him for a moment and tilted her head back, directing a stream of something Eastern European behind her. Best guess, she’d figured that he wasn’t Masterspy, but maybe that gave him a slight edge. The husband squeezed in beside his wife; the door didn’t open any further.

“There’s no one called Yorgi here — you have the wrong house.”

Yeah, so the Eurospeak was a happy coincidence?
He pressed his hands together and touched his lips then immediately felt foolish. He looked like his mother, back when she used to pray at home. An idea came to him. Not divine inspiration — more like desperation. He was never going to see these people again, right, so what harm was the truth?

He reached into his wallet and prised away his driving licence. Behind the ID card was a cut-down photograph, of him and Miranda. Typical adolescent photo-booth stuff; she had her arms around his neck, practically clinging to him. And he had a smile like he’d just found a fifty-pound note. The fact that she’d just grabbed his groin before the flash probably helped.

“This is Miranda. I know it’s hard to protect the people we care about.”

The couple studied the photograph for a long time; in the end he got so nervous they might snatch it indoors and lock him out that he asked for it back. His pulse was still racing as he tucked it carefully back into his wallet.

The door arced open. “What do you want, Mr . . . ?”

“Bladen. Thomas Bladen.” Yeah, he’d thought about bullshitting them like Karl had insisted, but they just seemed like two scared people who had been dealt a crappy hand.

They sat on the sofa opposite him, their son at their feet. The man did the talking “You and Miranda have children,
Tomas
?”

“What? No,” he shook his head to emphasise the point, hoping it would also cool his face off. “Look, I’m just here to offer assistance.”

“Are you with the police?” the yummy mummy reached down, hoisting her son to her lap.

He shook his head again. “Look, any chance of a drink and can I . . .” he stood up and the sudden relief on his bladder made him exhale loudly.

She pointed him upstairs.

He heard the rattling of glasses as he closed the door behind him. Karl would probably have searched the bedroom; Karl wasn’t there though. He checked the bathroom mirror. What a state! ‘Are you the police?’ That was a joke. Not unless CID stood for something completely different.

It seemed to be the longest piss of his life, as if his body was ridding itself of his fear. He flushed, did all the usual stuff and filched around in the wastepaper bin. Bingo — loo roll holder. He split the cardboard tube and copied out Teresa’s helpline number. Then he peered at himself again in the mirror and splashed more water on his face.

Downstairs, a glass was waiting for him. He turned it around and the little boy cooed as he watched the light dancing, fascinated. Smiles all round.

“Supposing my husband and I needed help — what would you want in return?”

“Me? Nothing. I’m here as a messenger,” he unfolded the piece of paper and passed it over.

The drink reminded him of the chocolate liqueurs they used to have at Christmas, in Pickering. Just the right side of sickly sweet. The couple studied Teresa’s piece of paper for a long time. Or maybe they just didn’t want to make eye contact, with him or each other. Yeah, they were rats in a trap all right: poor bastards.

“Look,” he took pity on them, “Yorgi might be mixed up in some trouble, but you seem like good people.” Okay, nought out of ten for subtlety, but it conveyed the gist.

The man cleared his throat. “Tomas, do you have brothers and sisters?”

“Yeah, a sister — Pat; she’s a couple of years younger than me.” What was he doing — why not draw them a bloody picture? He took another sip of alcoholic goo. The more he thought about it, they were
all
being used.

“Yorgi is my brother — my . . . half-brother; my name is Petrov and I am the younger in the family. When we were growing up, Yorgi was always the leader. He made the rules and I followed him. I learned very young not to challenge him.”

Thomas said nothing. He noted the wall clock above the crucifix and decided to give himself five more minutes, tops. The wife stared at him as if she could pierce the façade and see into his soul. He fidgeted in the chair.

“How much trouble are we in, Mr Bladen?”

Now he felt like they were playing him. All he had to fall back on was the truth. “The authorities know about the incident.” He watched their faces fall. “The victim survived though and you may have been unwilling accomplices.”
Unwilling?
Jesus. He’d as good as accused them of complicity.
What a prat
. He rubbed at his forehead and closed his eyes. “I’m sorry; that came out wrong. What I meant was that so far there is no direct evidence against you.”

Petrov raised a defiant hand. “He told us to face forward and to drive, said if anything happened we’d lose our son. We didn’t know
what
he was planning.”

Thomas looked from face to face. Chances were, they
knew
.

“Tomas, what would you have done?”

He said nothing, tried to hold their gaze.

Petrov patted his son. “I have always done what I could for Yorgi, but for many years we were apart. Then a year or so ago, he tracked me down . . .”

Thomas sat up: interesting choice of words.

“. . . He leads a different life. Mixes in circles I would be afraid to. You understand?” Petrov reached for his wife’s hand. Only now, as she turned towards him, did Thomas notice the reddening down one side of the face and the way Petrov shifted his weight away from one side of his ribs. “Alexandra and Lukas are my family. I must put them first. Will the people at this number understand that the way you do?”