The Horse at the Gates (5 page)

Ahead, the sparkling towers of London shimmered in the night as the helicopter began its descent. ‘When does Tariq get back from Istanbul?’

‘Next week.’ Ella reached for her cell. ‘You want me to pull him out of the conference now?’

Bryce shook his head. ‘No. The Islamic Congress will kick up a stink if we yank one of their guest speakers.’

‘So, how do you want to play this?’

‘We keep it to ourselves,’ Bryce ordered. ‘Just you, me and Davies. As soon as the dossier’s ready we go public.’

Ella turned the cell over in her hand. It was a nervous gesture, Bryce knew. ‘What about Cabinet? You’ll have to brief them.’

‘No. I can’t afford any leaks on this one.’

‘That’s a risky game, Gabe.’

‘I’ll chance it. I’m fed up with off-the-record briefings making the front pages.’

‘And Tariq?’

‘Screw Tariq,’ Bryce snapped. ‘This whole mess could sink us thanks to that idiot. As soon as we’ve got that dossier Tariq is out. Finished.’

Below, the ghostly luminance of Battersea’s chimneys swept into view as the helicopter circled the power station to land. Bryce unbuckled his seat belt as the aircraft settled on the glowing pad. It was only after he’d stepped out into the rain swept darkness, as he settled into the back seat of the waiting car, that he realised he hadn’t noticed the turbulence of the return journey at all.

The man slipped past the shaven-headed bouncer and yanked open the heavy wooden door, careful to grasp the worn metal handle with only two fingers. The door swung shut behind him and he wiped his fingers on the leg of his jeans. The King’s Head public house was, as expected, a shithole. Situated at the heart of the Longhill estate in north-west London, the single-storey concrete block sported mesh-covered windows, graffiti-daubed walls and a chalk notice board that promised satellite TV and home-cooked meals. The only thing cooked around here was heroin, the man speculated. In any case, the King’s Head was a focal point of dubious entertainment for the residents who occupied the surrounding concrete towers, and it was here he’d find the man he sought.

The inside was gloomy, the narrow windows set high around the walls beaming thin shafts of milky daylight across the floor. The man clamped his cell phone to his ear, faking a conversation while his eyes adjusted to the shadows. The bar was directly in front of him, enveloped in a layer of blue smoke. Smoking laws were unenforceable here, a pointless and potentially dangerous exercise for any local official who might be bothered to try.

To his left, along a short corridor, a dimly-lit pool room reached towards the rear of the building. More smoke swirled over the tables, a heady mix of tobacco and cannabis leaking along the corridor. Young men drifted in and out of the table lights, feral street roughs with pale chins jutting beneath baseball caps and hooded sweatshirts. Pool balls cracked noisily, the air punctuated by harsh laughter and coarse street talk. The man looked away, careful not to make eye contact with the players. To his right several tables and chairs were clustered together, their occupants bathed in the light of a huge TV. A cry went up, cruel encouragement for the horses that galloped across its high-def surface. Gambling, alcohol, drugs the blatant sins that surrounded him made his skin crawl.

He charted a course around scattered chairs and heavily-stained tables and crossed the open floor to the bar, his trainers rasping noisily on its tacky surface. He was confronted by a lurid assortment of pump lights advertising cheap lagers and a steel shutter hung above the counter like a guillotine. He finished his bogus conversation and slipped the cell back into his pocket. The landlord, a flat-nosed rough with tattooed arms, glanced up from his newspaper.

‘Yeah?’

‘Lager. Small one,’ he said, pinching his finger and thumb together. The landlord swept a calloused hand across the chipped bar, its surface decorated with a dizzying pattern of moisture rings.

‘Name your poison.’

The man selected the only brand he vaguely recognised. It wasn’t the type of establishment to flash notes around so he paid with small change, counting out a few coins and dropping them into the landlord’s outstretched hand.

‘Like a bloody homeless shelter in ’ere,’ he scowled, fingering the coins. A ripple of course laughter erupted from the cluster of punters, briefly smothering the drone of the racing commentator. It faded quickly as the horses headed toward the start line for the next race.

The man made no comment. He carried his lager over to a quiet corner and sat down, leaving the grumbling landlord in his wake. He unfurled a
Racing Post
from his pocket and stared uncomprehendingly at the form pages, sensing his presence had slid back into welcome obscurity. He sipped his drink, careful not to grimace at the foul taste.

Thirty minutes passed. The man relaxed a little more, confident he was now a part of this miserable landscape. A casual glance in his direction would confirm that he was just another of life’s hard-luck stories, crushed by the system, his only solace a few cheap beers and an afternoon watching the races. Still, it paid to be vigilant. Observation was his tradecraft, a skill that had kept him alive through countless operations in Europe and beyond.

Ten more minutes passed. Another groan went up from the horse-fanciers. One punter made a scene of ripping up his betting slip and tossing the scraps into the air like confetti. He pushed his chair back and sauntered across to the bar. It was him the man decided, recognising the target from the surveillance photographs: Daniel Morris Whelan, thirty-eight years old, medium height, slim build, shoulder-length brown hair, a faded St. George’s cross in blue ink tattooed on his neck.

He watched carefully as Whelan chatted with the barman and took a lager back to the table. He sipped the foam head, watching the latest odds ticker-tape across the bottom of the screen, then headed across the floor to the toilets. It was time.

The man left his newspaper on the table and casually followed Whelan into the gents, careful to push the door open with his shoulder. It was a foul-smelling convenience, the walls an urban collage of graffiti and rightwing political stickers, the single toilet stall to his right blocked and caked with excrement. Flies hopped and flitted across a thin barred window high on the wall and water dripped noisily, the sound echoing off the once-white tiles. The smell was overpowering. He held his breath and moved past the toilet stall. Whelan was in the far corner, urinating freely, his body swaying slightly as the overflow from the urinal splashed around his worn sports shoes. The other two receptacles were filled with cigarette ends, tissue paper and gobbets of phlegm. He saw Whelan turn, saw him register his unwillingness to use the blocked facilities.

‘Cleaner’s on holiday again,’ Whelan quipped. He zipped his fly and wandered over to the sinks, where a stainless-steel wall tile served as a mirror. He didn’t wash his hands. Instead, he pulled a comb from the pocket of his jeans, scraping his long hair back off his forehead and smoothing it down with his other hand.

The man stepped gingerly across the puddled floor and unzipped his fly. ‘Bloody disgusting,’ he muttered with unrehearsed venom. He saw Whelan study him in the mirror, taking in the jeans and the old combat jacket, the black hair cut aggressively short.

‘You new round here?’ Whelan ventured.

‘Not really,’ the man replied, his urine splashing loudly. ‘Met a mate just down the road, got me a bit of work. Just as well, coz I need the money bad. I’m still on parole.’

He noticed Whelan’s eyebrows arch with interest. ‘Really? Where were you banged up?’

‘Winchester. Fourteen months. Violent Disorder, GBH.’

‘Oh yeah?’ Whelan rinsed his comb under a tap and slipped it into his back pocket. ‘Well, you’re in good company. Lot of ex-cons round here.’

The man zipped his fly then stood at the sink next to Whelan. No soap of course, or hot water. He rubbed his hands vigorously under the cold tap.

‘That’s what you get when you defend your country, stand up for what’s right. It’s all wrong, mate.’ He wrung his hands dry and leaned on the sink, hoping his outburst would have the desired effect.

‘Where are you from? Originally?’ Whelan asked. ‘You look a bit... well, you know.’

‘My dad’s Italian. From Naples.’ He swiped a hand across his stubble-covered face.

‘Italy, eh? Proud fascist history you’ve got over there. What’s your name?’

‘Sully.’

Whelan held out an unwashed hand. ‘I’m Danny. Fancy a drink?’

They huddled together in a gloomy corner, away from the TV screen and the luckless punters. The table surface was cluttered with empty glasses. Whelan cleared a space and rolled a cigarette, carefully sprinkling a few shards of cannabis resin along its length. He fired it up, tilting his head and blowing out a long thin plume of smoke.

‘Fourteen months, yeah? That’s harsh.’

‘Proper stitched-up,’ grumbled Sully. ‘Long story short, this Pakistani firm was running gear on the estate, heroin mostly. That shocked me at first because they’re Muslims. You know, supposed to be religious and that.’

‘All part of the jihad,’ Whelan observed, sucking on his cigarette. ‘It’s not just about bombs and bullets.’

Sully nodded, his meticulously rehearsed story flowing easily off his lips. ‘Anyway, they got my mate’s sister hooked on gear, pimping her out to minicab drivers and that. So me and Calum – that’s my mate – we went round to the flat where she was staying with one of them. We knocked on the door, and I could see the geezer behind the glass, right?’ Sully leapt to his feet, a muscular arm pitching forward. ‘BANG! I heaved a lump of concrete through the door, caught him right in the face. Next minute we’re inside, giving the fat bastard a good pasting-’

‘Sweet.’

‘-then two others come running out into the hallway, so Calum does both of ’em with the pepper spray.’

‘Beautiful. Burn their fucking eyes out,’ purred Whelan.

Sully’s devilish grin faded and he went quiet. He slumped back down into his seat, deflated. ‘That was it,’ he said quietly. ‘Police turned up, we got nicked. Didn’t want to hear our side of the story, didn’t give a monkey’s about Calum’s sister. Hate crime, pure and simple. Feet never touched the ground. Fourteen months, no early release.’

Whelan pinched the end of his cigarette, balancing it carefully on the lip of the ashtray. He leaned forward on the table, his eyes focussed and alert, despite the booze and drugs. ‘A familiar tale, mate. Country’s had it.’ He waved a nicotine-stained finger between them. ‘See, the government don’t give a shit about people like me and you, don’t care about
real
English people. We don’t fit in to their bullshit utopian experiment. That’s why we’ve got to stick together, know what I mean?’

Whelan turned, and Sully followed his gaze. No one was paying any attention to them. Whelan smiled and rolled up the sleeve of his faded grey sweatshirt. ‘Check that out,’ he declared proudly.

The three lions
passant
were tattooed on the inside of Whelan’s left bicep. Unlike the blue smudge on his neck, this tattoo had been expertly drawn, the colours bold and vivid, the mediaeval lions a clear and exact representation of early English heraldry, the initials
EFM
in angular black type beneath.