What he needed most was help. The friend who gave Nick the distribution network contacts promised never to breathe a word of where the stuff came from. He gave Nick the starkest of warnings. Trust nobody, he said, when Nick showed him round the caves. The business is incredibly cut-throat. Let nobody know where you grow the stuff and, if you don’t get greedy, keep things around this size, you can get away with it for ever. Never have anyone with anything to do with this business round your flat. Don’t give your distributors your real name. If you want, I’ll show you how to set up overseas accounts. If I were you, I’d buy property. It’s the best bet in the long run.
Nick needed to start investing the money he’d made. The mortgage was paid off. He had piles of cash stacked in cardboard boxes in one of the smallest, driest cellars. Seeing them made him feel like a comic book miser. He could do with advice, but his friend was in New York (escaping, Nick suspected, from a little trouble of his own). There was only one person Nick trusted to help, the only other person who’d been into the caves with him. But Nick wasn’t sure if Joe was ready.
Notts County had had an incredible beginning to the 1990s. For two consecutive seasons they had made it to the play-off finals for their division, each time winning at Wembley. This season, however, Joe had badly broken his left leg early in September. And the team were in free fall. With two months to go, their prospects of staying in the First Division were poor. Joe had hoped to be back in training, but the break was too serious. The doctors now said he would never recover sufficiently to play professional football again.
At least he was off the crutches. He had even stopped using a stick.
‘I’m not going down there again,’ Joe said, one early April afternoon.
‘You don’t have to,’ Nick told him, and offered him the spliff he was smoking.
‘Too early in the day for me. Shouldn’t you be teaching?’
‘One of my days off,’ Nick explained.
‘This place stinks worse than a brothel.’
‘I wouldn’t know,’ Nick said. ‘Never been to one.’
‘Believe me, this is worse. What were you after, anyway?’
‘I thought you might need a job,’ Nick said.
Nick explained how the operation had grown. The turnover was more than adequate to support them both in style, he said, without revealing just how much style he was talking about.
‘Thing is, the work’s getting to be too much for one man.’
‘You want me to climb down those raggedy steps and become some kind of underground market gardener?’ Joe said. ‘Forget it.’
‘I can handle that side of things,’ Nick told him. ‘What I need is somebody to do the driving, make deliveries, shift the stuff at night.’
‘You mean, the dangerous stuff?’
‘It’s not dangerous,’ Nick said. ‘I deliver to businessmen, not gangsters. I’ve never seen a gun. Come on, it’s only dope. Half the people we know smoke it. You’d be getting well paid to provide a service.’
‘It’s worth thinking about,’ Joe said. ‘But I ought to tell you that I’m starting a business of my own.’
He told Nick about his plan for a taxi firm that would be based in Sherwood. Taxi firms were expanding everywhere. Even students used taxis all the time these days. Joe had been a popular footballer. With a name like his behind it, the firm would be off to a great start. He was going to buy a handful of cars, but most of his staff would be owner-drivers snatched from other firms, paying him a cut of their takings.
‘Sounds like a symbiotic relationship,’ Nick said.
‘Sim by what?’
‘Our businesses were made for each other. If you get stopped when you’re making a delivery, you’re a working taxi driver. In fact, I’ve got an even better idea. Why don’t I come in with you? We could be partners.’
Joe became bashful. ‘I’m already taking on a partner.’
‘Someone I know?’
‘Caroline. We’re getting married.’
‘That’s . . . you’re a lucky guy.’ Caroline was the brightest, best looking of the many women Joe had dated over the years. He had chosen well, though Nick doubted that she had. Joe wasn’t the faithful type.
‘I’m going to have to think this over carefully. You know, weigh up the risks.’
‘Even if you decide not to take on the driving, I’d still like to put some money into the firm, help you out.’
‘Thanks for the offer, bro. I’ll discuss it with Caroline and let you know.’
From the guarded tone of his brother’s voice, Nick could tell, without having to wait, what the answer would be.
24
Sarah listened to the story intently, punctuating it with questions. Nick left Andrew’s name out of it. If Sarah guessed who ‘a friend’ was, she didn’t let on.
‘How did they catch you? A neighbour? Your dodgy friend? The only other person who knew about it was . . .’
‘It wasn’t Joe,’ Nick said, with a certainty he wished he felt. ‘I don’t know.’
He told her about the night it happened. It was the evening of the last general election. Anticipating a celebration, he’d just snorted a large line of coke. Chalky flakes irritated his nose. Each bitter sniff accelerated his coke spike. The doorbell rang. Nick put down the paper and went to the window. Privacy was important to him. He didn’t like people to visit the flat without phoning first. His friends knew this, though none of them knew why. Whoever was ringing the bell stood close to the door. Nick couldn’t see who it was. It might be one of the political parties, knocking up their supporters. Unlikely though, as polling was nearly over.
The doorbell rang again, more insistently this time. Nick thought of hiding his living-room stash. Coke paranoia. Flushing his drugs would be too extreme. He opened the flat door to do a reconnaissance. From the large, shared foyer, he could see faint figures silhouetted in the smoked glass on the top half of the door. Two people, at least.
Nick paused for a moment to gather himself.
Behind him, the bell gave a long, emphatic ring. Nick hesitated. He did a mental inventory. Tiny amounts of coke and hash. Only a fine, but in his position, it was always better to err on the side of caution. The drugs could be easily replaced, but he could lose his job, which couldn’t. There was no tolerance for drug offenders in teaching. Fuck it. He went back inside, emptied the old medicine chest where he kept his stash and flushed the lot. The doorbell rang again, even longer this time. Nick decided to brazen it out.
At the door, Nick was confronted by two men a few years older than him – late thirties maybe. One had a moustache. Both wore long leather jackets which, while almost as expensive as the one Nick owned and not entirely unfashionable, nevertheless gave away exactly what they were. Nick thought quickly, but not coherently. In his current state, the only fallback position was denial.
‘Nick Cane?’ the moustache said.
‘He’s in flat one,’ Nick replied. ‘Don’t think he’s in.’
‘There’s music on,’ the other said.
‘He often does that. A lot of burglaries round here. If you don’t mind, I’m on my way out.’
‘This is him,’ Moustache said, pushing his way past Nick into the foyer. He raised the photograph he held in his hand, which Nick hadn’t noticed before.