The Devil's Home on Leave (Factory 2) (20 page)

‘I don’t know about money,’ I said, shaking my head.

‘Oh, I’ve got to have money,’ he said, smacking his lips. ‘Plenty.’

‘Look, McGruder,’ I said, ‘I don’t think you’ve quite got your brains in straight today; you can think yourself fucking lucky that you’re not still in the cells wondering how soon we’re going to charge you with murder.’

‘Cut the crap,’ he said, ‘I’m not stupid, I know there’s money in it.’

In the end I said: ‘Well, that’s not up to me. Anyway, everything will depend on what you’ve got to tell us.’

‘I can tell you plenty.’

‘You’d better be able to, it’ll be your prison memoirs if not.’

‘If I did grass,’ he said, ‘I’d need to be leaving Britain for a time, as I say. Naturally, I’d be coming back.’

‘You cheeky bastard,’ I said, ‘our proposition is that once you get out of this country you never come back. And never means never. If any copper so much as catches sight of you here after this, I’ll give you no guesses what’ll happen to you.’

‘You can’t stop me landing in Britain for ever!’ he shouted. ‘Britain’s my home!’

‘And a horrible mess you’ve made of it,’ I said. ‘Besides, no one’ll attempt to stop you landing. But where you’ll land, I’ll give you the address right now – it’ll be HM Prison, Wakefield, Yorks. So don’t come on like a barrack-room lawyer with me, see?’

He saw. ‘OK,’ he said, ‘let’s get back to money, then. What am I going to live on, once I’m abroad?’

‘Well, not on your wits,’ I said, ‘because they’re giving way, if you want to know what I think. And not on your pension, because you won’t be drawing one here. Nor on your armies, because I’m going to card you up with every police force across the known world.’

‘Well,’ he sulked, ‘there’ll have to be some arrangement made, if I’m to cooperate.’

‘And there will be,’ I said. ‘Incredible, but true. I hear it’s to be a lump sum out of the special fund, and it’ll be large. I don’t know exactly how much, of course, because I’m only a sergeant.’

‘Well, that’s something, I suppose,’ he said, ‘though of course I’d have to know the exact figure first before I told you anything.’

I looked at him. I thought, this has to be the most extraordinary experience I’ve ever had as a copper, where the villain dictates the terms; this man’s as guilty as hell and we’re paying him to get lost in return for a word in our ear.

‘I tell you I don’t like this bit about not ever being able to come back here any more,’ he was saying querulously. ‘I mean, this is my native land, that’s the bit sticks in my throat. I’m really not happy about that part. After all, I’ve every right. No, that part I’m not happy about. No. You’d have to drop any charges against me.’

‘No charge is ever dropped,’ I said, making a great effort at self-control, ‘not once it’s open and on the DPP’s file. Only through lack of evidence – but that isn’t the case with you.’

‘Well, I think it stinks!’ he said. ‘To be told I’m not wanted and can just fuck off? That’s nice! Very nice! Nice on you, friend!’

‘Think yourself bloody lucky,’ I said. ‘But of course, if you’re not
interested in our terms as they stand, the officer here will take you straight down again.’

‘Oh well,’ he said irritably, ‘as long as the money’s right, I suppose it’ll have to do.’

‘It’ll do better than a life sentence,’ I said.

‘I hear you let this bloke McGruder go,’ said Bowman, ‘that was fucking brilliant as a stroke that was, wasn’t it?’ He was leaning against the wall outside my office, his fat hands in his pockets.

‘Yes, wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘And what happened to your bank case, by the way? I heard a strange rumour they’d taken you off it.’

‘Don’t try and be clever, son,’ said Bowman, ‘it might make you ill and put you in hospital.’

‘Well, I know you’d come and see me every day, Charlie, and bring me flowers and cream chocolates. Or would you just turn up for the funeral?’

He swallowed hard. ‘Look, it’s rank that matters in this game, sergeant,’ he said. ‘Rank. Not age, see? With rank you can get anywhere.’

‘I know you can,’ I said. ‘Right up everyone’s nose.’

‘I could report you for that!’ he shouted.

‘You could, but you won’t,’ I said, ‘because you’d look a right idiot repeating the conversation in front of the superintendent, and you know it.’

‘What you know is going to get you in dead trouble one of these days,’ snarled Bowman. He paused, curiosity getting the better of him. ‘All right, all right, let’s drop it for now. Is it true what I’ve heard, that you’re working with the Branch over this Hadrill case?’

‘That’s correct.’

‘You’re all pussyfooting about with it,’ he jeered. ‘It was bad enough when Hawes scarpered from Wandsworth – but letting McGruder off the hook and all, that’s just pathetic, that is, pathetic. Christ, if I’d been on it full time I’d have half murdered the bastard
to get him singing and had him banged up for keeps by now. I’d have opened him up till he was on full chat.’

‘Yes, you would,’ I said, ‘and what a total fuck-up it would have been.’

‘I liked the way you failed that board the other day,’ Bowman sniggered. ‘That’s gone right round the force, that story has. I never did think much of your brains, but what did you go and do a stupid thing like that for? Don’t you care about promotion at all?’

‘No, I don’t,’ I said. ‘Time was, I wanted to join the Branch, but that was before A14 started. A14’s to do with the murder of ordinary, unfortunate, obscure people, and you don’t need any rank for that.’

‘Christ’ said Bowman, ‘I just don’t know about you. I wonder sometimes – under your knickers you’re like Florence Nightingale or something.’ He got a match out of his pocket and started picking his teeth with it.

‘You seem to have plenty of time on your hands,’ I said. ‘I wish I had.’

‘I’m waiting for Chief Inspector Verlander.’

‘Going to have a few frames with Alfie?’

‘I tell you, you want to watch your step,’ said Bowman, ‘because one of these days I’m going to very gently ask you to step outside with me, somewhere nice and quiet.’

‘You’d just spoil your nice jacket,’ I said.

‘I see you’ve got a front tooth missing,’ said Bowman, peering forward at me, ‘so why not the whole lot?’

‘I know they’re not marvellous,’ I said, ‘still, I think I’ll go to a better dentist than you.’

‘God,’ he said, ‘you, you really push your luck. I think you really ought to come over and join me on Serious Crimes. You don’t need to pass a board for that, and wouldn’t we have some good laughs?’

‘Maybe we would,’ I said, ‘but you wouldn’t get any of your cases solved, we’d be too busy laughing; we’d never get anything done, and bang’d go your next promotion. No, you wouldn’t really like it with me on your back, Charlie. Not really.’

I was having McGruder watched; I was also having him report to me at the Factory every evening at nine, otherwise straight back inside. He had just reported to me now and was turning to go. But I stopped him.

‘Now what do you want?’

‘A drink,’ I said. ‘With you. And don’t worry about your bank balance, the State’s paying.’

‘I don’t drink.’

‘That’s all right, you can watch me.’

‘Am I going to have you on my back like this all the time?’

‘Right on,’ I said, ‘and if you don’t like it, you know what we can do.’ We were outside the Factory by this time and walking west along Oxford Street. I waved at a cab. I could see the driver hesitating over McGruder, but he swerved in at the death. ‘Take us down to the Painted Lady in Cromwell Road,’ I said, getting in.

‘What’s this pub we’re going to, then?’ said McGruder petulantly. ‘I’ve never heard of it.’

‘You wouldn’t’ve,’ I said, ‘because it isn’t a villains’ pub for once, just an ordinary one; writers and musicians and folk like that go in there. I know you’re the jack in the pack, Billy, but I’m getting sick to death drinking with killers all the time, it’s bad enough I’ve got one sitting next to me right now.’

‘I could take offence at that.’

‘Well, I wouldn’t,’ I said. ‘Get your knees open. Let it all hang out.’

After a while he said, looking out of the cab window: ‘Traffic jams, look at them, I’d like to put a bullet through a few of these motors.’

‘Not yours, though,’ I said. ‘Anyone put a bullet through yours, you’d be too mean ever to buy another.’

He wasn’t listening. That was the worst of people like that; they were a monologue – killers are like the army, dull and dangerous simultaneously. ‘Bullets,’ he was saying. ‘Funny. I never thought of it before – what if I got one through me? Not to have my body. Not to be alive. I always reckon it’s me’s going to pump them in, not the other way round.’

‘I know,’ I said, ‘and that’s why we don’t want you around, Billy.’

‘Guatemala’ll have me all right. That’s where I’m bound next.’

‘Good luck to Guatemala.’

‘This money you’re giving me, I could run my own outfit down there.’

‘You haven’t got the money yet.’

‘But I’ll get it,’ he shouted, ‘won’t I? I will, won’t I?’

I was too choked to say anything.

‘By the way, I don’t even know how much it is yet,’ he said urgently, ‘nobody’s told me.’

‘They’re working it out.’

He was quiet for a minute. Then he said: ‘You don’t know what it means to be murdered when you’re a child. Kind of murdered in your head.’

‘Do we have to talk about you the whole time?’ I said. ‘I’ll just tell you this much, Billy – the devil can never be murdered. You can nick him all you like; he’ll always be back as someone else. I’m sorry for you, Billy. It must be terrible to be you, carrying someone like you around the whole time.’

‘I don’t know,’ he said seriously, ‘I switch on, I switch off, you know. Depends on my mood.’

‘Hell never switches off,’ I said, ‘it works twenty-four hours a day.’

‘I’ve got beliefs.’

‘I know,’ I said, ‘killing for money, and it ends up you doing the breast-stroke in blood.’

‘They’ve all got to die. Everyone has.’

‘Maybe,’ I said, ‘but people like to choose when and how.’

‘They don’t feel anything.’

‘They do before,’ I said, ‘while they’re looking a sailmaker’s needle in the eye, or waiting for a nail through the back of the head.’ We got to the pub. It was cold outside, but nice and warm inside the place. It was a pub I came to sometimes, just for a lager. You could still see traces of what the décor had been like; it was a high room, and they had kept the old ceiling with its plaster mouldings, and there was a fan to cool the place down in hot weather. But that was all. The brewers had been in to gut the rest and had repapered the walls that I remembered, and put up the same repros of hunting dogs and old-time army officers that they had in a thousand of their other pubs. It was half past nine and crowded. A group of young men in bow-ties and suavely crafted clothes were saying ho ho, ha ha to three disparaging women in shapeless knitwear that had cost a fair bit; if they hadn’t done a spell at Greenham Common yet or been on a CND march or sent a telegram of congratulations to Andropov on his accession to power, well, they looked as if they had. Some Irish regulars and Arab embassy chauffeurs were dotted along the bar, and there was a quartet of East End villains at a corner table near the bar; they liked to take a run up from Peckham in the jamjar of an evening to a nice quiet part of the town once in a while, somewhere where it wasn’t a villains’ pub.

‘What are you drinking, Billy?’

‘All right, I’ll have half a lager and lime just for once.’

I got it for him, and a pint for myself, and we found ourselves a table. A big Australian barmaid winked at Billy as we carried our drinks over; he didn’t wink back. It was strange, the way he spread coldness around him. We walked across the pub; Billy didn’t say a word. He didn’t look like anything special at all at first sight. Yet the bow-tie and woolly mob, two Irishmen with their arses parked against a fruit machine and even a villain on his way to the gents,
all made room for him to get by. Also, once we sat down, the tables around ours vaguely started to empty. Only the handful of mean old buffers who were always in there, carrying someone else’s
Times
importantly under one arm, took no notice of him; they were too busy looking out for anyone they could bum a half off or a ring-a-ding, might they be so lucky. Next I watched the governor in his corner behind the bar. He was only a tame edition of the governors I usually met, in a navy blazer with a regimental badge in gold thread over the top pocket. He was looking at us uneasily and the talk in the place, loud when we came in, seemed to have dimmed.

‘OK,’ I said, when we were settled, ‘start telling me about Hadrill. You’ve nothing to worry about now; the deal’s fixed.’

‘I’ve got the money to worry about.’

‘The way you go on about your piggy-bank,’ I said.

‘You would if you were me. Come on now, how much is it?’

‘All right,’ I said, ‘it’s fifty thousand. And don’t try and bargain over it – that’s it. If you don’t like it you can go straight back inside. As keep-clear money, I don’t think it’s bad myself.’

He lit a cigarette, something he seldom did. When it was going he laid it in the ashtray and rolled it round and round. ‘This is a terrible thing I’m doing,’ he said. ‘There are limits.’ I didn’t myself think it was anything like as terrible as the things he had already done, but I didn’t say so.

‘Money,’ I said. ‘Money and your freedom. Think about that.’

‘I am doing,’ he said. He coughed, he was so nervous, so offbalance. ‘Well, all right,’ he said, ‘yes, OK, it was done for Pat Hawes. It had been arranged I’d wait for a phone call from Tony Williams – you know who I mean by him? – and when it came it was to say come over, it’s been set up for Jackie to come in to the Drop on the night of the 13th. This was done in code, like there was an agreed code, you know? So when I got the call I went down to the Drop by tube, marked my punter, picked up the car keys Merrill had left on the bar, and pulled Jack into the motor
that went with the keys, yes, I know Edwardes is dead, I’ll come to that later, one thing at a time. What I mean is, I went off after Jack when he left the Drop; I got in the motor and followed him along the street; I wound the window down when I caught up with him and said hello, Jack, nice evening. I don’t know you, he said. Oh, come on, I said, not so fast, why not come for a ride, Jack? Not on your nelly, he said. Look, I said, I hate disorder outdoors, on the street, we don’t want a public scene now, do we, so be a good boy, just hop in the motor. I was holding him by his eyes like I was a ferret, you know, and then I took him by the arm hard. Thin little arm like it was driftwood. He said I knew all along this was moody and I said you’re wrong, you’re in on a big deal, Jack. I pushed him into the front beside me and away we went; nice motor, Renault 20, Merrill stole it and Jack said, where’re we going? And I said, now don’t you worry about that, Jack, I know where we’re going right enough. Is it far? he squeaked. Far enough, I said, the far side of the river. I always think of it as death, the river, but of course I didn’t tell him that. I don’t like it, he said just the same, and started to blubber. Look, I said, there’s nothing to this, you’re going to be rich, what are you going on about – I always think eternity is riches, do you think that’s why I am the man I am, sarge? – just listen to this beautiful tape. I found a Kim Carnes cassette under the dashboard,
Misbehaviour
it was called, I’ll always remember that, and put it on, and all the while we was driving I felt, you know, like kind of above it all, very calm. I’m always calm when I’ve been paid for work, and it’s to be done. Well, I had an easy trip with Jack. I didn’t mind what I touched in the motor. I was gloved, wasn’t I? I always go gloved, makes sense that, doesn’t it? Jack, though, every time he went to touch the motor inside, I just reached over and smacked him like he was a naughty boy. You keep your hands in your coat pockets, Jack, I said, like you’re big time – you know, you play the boss like you’re used to, you’re used to doing that. I said, I’ve got a terrible sharp toy here if you don’t front it out and play the boss, Jack. I only had to show him the razor once. It was just
blag, really, for him, for me – he knew in his guts what it was all down to, but he wanted to believe me that there was a deal at the end, see? Anyway, there wasn’t a lot of traffic, and he only threatened to yell once, at a set of lights, but I just showed him the edge and told him I didn’t care and he forgot it. So we slipped into Rotherhithe just as dark was coming, quiet as mice, and when we got there I said, OK now, Jack, out you get, I don’t want to have to haul you out, it’s undignified, that is. Well, in the death he half come out of the jam and I half give him a hand and I looked, and the street door was ajar as agreed. I didn’t see Merrill’s car. Jack said, I don’t like it, I don’t like it, I don’t know who you are, and I smacked him to let the air out of him a little. But I promise you, I didn’t like doing that, and I told him so; I only did it because he was bawling. I took him across the pavement and he looked up at this great old empty warehouse. Anyone live here? he said. No, just us, I said, you’re moving into new quarters. Merrill, who had heard us, came down, took him over for a minute while I went and got my case of gear out of the motor. I never like them to see the gear; that’s my pleasure of working. Well, I went up to the second floor (the first was old offices and not suitable) and there was everything we should need laid out; Merrill had put it there earlier in the day. We knew there’d be no trouble with the caretaker, we’d been careful about that. We’d studied him, weeks beforehand. He’s a regular old pisspot and don’t care to go round the place at night, not even with a skinful, and I don’t blame the old cunt. So we all three went upstairs, and I got my gear out and put it in a corner and then Jack looked at the two of us and said, what is this? So Merrill let him have it straight. This is a topping job, he said. You’ve done two things, you’ve grassed Pat down to that factory job in the north where the guard was killed; also you threatened to tell the law what else was taken besides the money. You was too nosy and too noisy, and you got Pat twenty years. Jack wailed, I didn’t, I didn’t! I didn’t care, I’d only come to do him; I let him wail. So we stood there, the three of us for a minute, and I could see Jack
plainly in the light from the street; that light would be all we needed. I saw Jack so clear, I watched him fade inside his funny clothes when he saw the look on my face; he had a little peaked cap on and knee-length boots – he looked like a rabbit, a pest, something you’ve caught by the ears when you’re going to give it the chop. I’d been over the whole procedure with Merrill beforehand; Merrill knew just what to do. Bring him over to this wall beside the window, Merrill, I said, but not too near. I don’t want to come, Jack bleated, I don’t want to. We know which copper you went to, Merrill said, and we know how much you were paid, because we paid to find out; it was a bent copper, and that’s all there is to it, Jack; the firm don’t like a grass. I repeated to Merrill, right over here, here, that’s right, not too near the window, just by it, that’s right, that’s right, get him up against the wall. Then I noticed that the big pans I’d ordered were bubbling away over the camping gas, and I was right pleased to see that. We had time; still, there’s never any point in wasting it. So the water was coming up to the boil nicely. I asked Merrill had he got the plastic sheet and he said, it’s over there. The bags were there, the tub to bleed him into; everything was there and I was satisfied. I said to Merrill, OK, we can go ahead then. Put his face to the wall, bang his face on the wall if he gives any trouble, I’m nearly ready. Jack didn’t give any trouble, he was like jelly with terror. Fear’s a strange thing to see in a man; smells almost like piss, makes you cry out to do it to him. All the same, Merrill put his face into the wall hard and there was some blood and I said to Merrill careful now, that’ll have to come off. I said to Merrill, now, when I come up, take him by his ears so he don’t move his head. Merrill said something like he didn’t think he could look and I said, don’t be ridiculous, with one of these there isn’t any mess. Merrill said that once something was dead he didn’t mind any more, it was just that moment. I didn’t think much of Merrill for that. That was when I began to have doubts about him. I needed him now, though. Well, I turned to Jack with my gear all ready and said to him, look, this isn’t going
to hurt, see. You won’t know a thing. Jack had been quiet up till then but when I said that he started to make a noise like a sheep or a chicken or something into the wall, sort of farmyard noises, and I knew I was going to have to be quick. Also, between ourselves, I had a hard on, and I can judge when I go off just nicely. One thing I noticed while I was going up to Jack; through the window I saw a ship crammed with people and every one of its lights blazing, moving slowly down the Thames just outside, going down with the ebb tide. There were bands playing, you never saw anything like it. You got him? I said to Merrill. Yes, he said, looking away, see, I’ve got him by the hair and one ear. Take that cap off him, I said, he won’t need it where he’s going. Merrill brushed it off Jack’s head, still without looking at him. Jack was quite bald on top. I thought again, I don’t think much of you, Edwardes, underneath you’re just piss and wind; I don’t trust you, you’ve bottled out. I loaded my gear while I was thinking that; I’d oiled it so well you could hardly hear the click. I said to Jack, OK, now stand still, take it like a man, Jack. I pulled the trigger and he was gone, smack; he just slid down the wall. I caught him and held him to the sheet in case, but there was hardly a drop of anything, just a bit of the grey; then Merrill got ready with his knives and we started. Well, you know what happened after that.’