Civvies

CHAPTER 25

Cliff's jaw sagged as he took in the shambles. 'Bloody hell, does Frank know yet?' he asked, stepping over a broken chair. He looked round, shaking his head, and then saw the two figures hunched against the wall, shirts pulled up and knotted over their heads, arms between their knees, hands and feet tied together.

Harry leaned against the overturned desk. One sleeve of his tracksuit was rolled up, his forearm bandaged and taped. He straightened up as Dillon walked in and stopped dead in the doorway, staring. Susie appeared behind him, peering round his shoulder.

Scratching his head, Harry launched in, 'They broke in last night. I didn't even feel it,' pointing to the bandage, 'but one of 'em slashed me arm, so when I done the business… Hello, love,' he greeted Susie, 'I went to the hospital. I just got back.'

'I'll go,' Susie said. She looked up into Dillon's face. 'I thought it all sounded too good to be true.'

'Susie!' Dillon called as she stumped out. He half-turned to go after her and changed his mind. He looked at the wrecked office and then at the two men, trussed up like IRA suspects. 'You didn't call the police?'

'No.' Harry moved across to them. 'I might have been a bit nasty, I gave 'em both a hell of a whack…' It sounded more apologetic than boastful. 'And then when I turned the lights on -' reaching down and yanking up one of the shirts ' – I recognised him!'

So did Dillon. It was Newman's minder, Colin, the one with the widow's peak and the permanent five o'clock shadow, only now it was a nine o'clock shadow the morning after. His hair was matted with blood, and it had caked down one side of his face. There was a sock stuffed in his mouth, which was why his bulging-eyed fury was restricted to apoplectic gurgles and choking grunts.

Dillon was puzzled. 'What did they want? Did they get our cash? I mean – why wreck the place?'

'Ask him! Or whichever -' Harry tore off the shirt, revealing the other man's head, which had an open gash along the jawline and two bloodshot eyes separating a yellow bruise ' – you want!'

Jaunty steps down to the basement and Jimmy breezed in, whistling. As the whistle died away to silence, the phone rang. Jimmy kicked the broken chair aside. 'What the hell's been goin' on?'

Dillon threw his hands up. He snapped irritably, 'Answer the phone, Cliff!'

'I'm lookin' for it, all right?' Cliff said, down on his hands and knees, crawling through the wreckage. He found the wire and traced it hand over hand to the corner behind the filing cabinet.

Dillon pulled the sock out of Colin's mouth and narrowly avoided being spat in the face for his trouble. The man was berserk, frothing at the mouth, eyes rolling.

'You bastards! I'll have this place torched! You bastards – crazy bastards -'

'Hey Frank, Frank,' Cliff yelled. 'This is business, it's Shirley…'

'Get rid of her.' Dillon clamped his hands to Colin's face. 'You shut it!' he snarled.

Cliff was still yelling. 'Jimmy, can you get your hands on a roller for a weddin'? It's Mavis's sister, friend of Shirley's, she's been let… Jimmy?'

'You make your soddin' weddin' plans another time,' Dillon shouted. 'Get off the phone!'

'It's not my weddin – it's a job!'

Jimmy whirled on him. 'Say yes, get off the phone!'

'Order a hearse, you're gonna need one,' Colin muttered, dark murder in his eyes. Dillon used the back of his hand to smash Colin's head against the wall.

Cliff had finished the call and hovered near the door. 'Burt it's tomorrow, Frank… they want a Roller.'

With a glaze over his eyes Dillon grabbed Cliff by the collar, shoved him into the passage and slammed the door, screaming, 'Get off the fuckin' phone!'

He turned back. Harry was swinging his leg. His toe thudded into Colin's ribs. Colin, already hunched over, hunched deeper, howling. Dillon said, 'You got ten seconds. What you after?'

Colin's strained, agonised face came up. 'He just wants the bloody elephant back…'

Dillon went down on one knee, gripped Colin by the throat, fingers digging in. His voice was lethal.

'You tell that prick Newman – he wants somethin' from me, then all he had to do was ask!'

He stood up, eyes glittering, yanked his jacket straight, and went to the door, jerking his head for Harry to follow.

'What you doin'?' Jimmy asked, confused.

Dillon said coldly, 'They're your friends, take ' em to Newman!' and went out.

Shirley was doing the tricky bit round the window frame when Dillon and Harry showed up. She let them in and went back to her scissors, straight edge and paste brush. 'Did you get that Roller organised?' she asked Dillon, who was standing near the door, looking round the room. It took him a second to cotton on.

He nodded, lifting a dust sheet. 'Cliff's handling that personally.'

'Well that's all right then.' Shirley peeled away the edge of the wallpaper, snipped three times, pressed it back. '… Mavis is givin' me my dress at cost price, if Susie wants anythin' run up, shirts, blouses, she'll -'

Dillon spotted it, under a sheet of newspaper on the sideboard. 'We've just come to pick up the elephant.' He grabbed it, stepped over paint cans on his way to the door.

'Oh!' Shirley glanced round with a surprised smile. 'Can you change it?'

Dillon looked at her and then looked at Harry, who shrugged. What's she on about? Down in the street, Harry opened the rear door of the security wagon and they climbed in. Sitting opposite one another on the steel benches, Dillon held the elephant in both hands and gave it a gentle shake, then a harder one.

'Is it hollow?' Harry sucked at the fringes of his moustache. 'You don't think it's drugs, do you?'

'It's not hollow, doesn't sound hollow.' Dillon snapped the trunk off where Cliff had fixed it and tapped the solid part with his fingernail. He held the elephant up, turning it this way and that. 'Can you see joins?'

Harry had a brainwave. 'Ivory, it's illegal – he's bringin' in ivory! Is that ivory, the tusks?'

'Harry,' said Dillon wearily, 'the tusks are an inch long – he'd need twenty tons of them. Come on, let's get back to camp.'

Harry reached for the handle that wasn't there; the inside of the door was smooth welded steel with a horizontal slit near the top.

'Ohhh shit! You can't open the doors from inside,' Harry suddenly remembered. 'It's a security device…'

Dillon closed his eyes.

'It's okay,' Harry said, peering through the slit. He whistled. 'Oi… Oi, Shirley!'

About to dump a black plastic bag in the bin at the garden gate, Shirley looked round. Harry's eyes squinted at her through the slit.

'Can you just open the door, Shirley… we're locked inside.'

Shirley doubled over, shaking with laughter. 'Call yourselves a security firm…!'

There must have been ten thousand items in the warehouse. Rack upon rack of carved wooden figurines, brass ornaments, beaded cloths, ashtrays, beaten copper tea trays, ebonite letter openers, brass wind chimes, pregnant fertility goddesses, tigers, elephants and snakes of baked terracotta with bits of coloured glass for eyes. The peoples of the Indian sub-continent were paid starvation wages for churning out the stuff. Barry Newman imported it by the container-load and slapped on a mark-up of twelve hundred per cent. It was what was known as enterprise initiative.

Newman moved along the racks, his gaunt, hollow face as stiff as one of the carved heads. Jimmy walked behind him, stepping lightly as if he were treading on eggshells. 'Frank said you gave it to him!' Jimmy protested, not liking the wheedling tone of his own voice, especially after the third or fourth time.