‘Seemed a bit too easy. Sod’s law that it’s all gone to shit,’ replied Slater hesitantly.
‘I still haven’t told Drennan what’s happened to the memory stick. I mean he knows about Campbell and all. Seems more worried about what he might have heard off Cooper that night than the idea that he has the bloody thing as well.’
‘You spoke to him recently?’
‘Hour ago. Sounds like he’s got someone else involved. Says that they’ll take care of it. Whoever they are.’
‘Oh shit. Take care of it? As in…’
Gresham nodded. ‘Yep, as in forever. Which means if we don’t find him first, there is no stick to hand over and no cash to collect.’
Slater remained silent while Gresham looked deep in thought.
‘I’m sick of this mess Keith. I wish I could just walk away.’
‘Well why don’t we just cut our losses? Tell Drennan we don’t know what’s happened to the stick, very sorry and all that but let’s just call it quits and go our separate ways.’
‘Because I need that money. We need that money.’
‘I realise it’s a good payday George but is it worth all this crap?’
‘Remember that deal we did with Frankie Walker in the summer?’
Slater remembered it well. They had unexpectedly come into possession of a large amount of class A drugs. Not their normal line of business but they bought it very cheap from an old associate who claimed to have stolen it from a Customs and Excise storage facility shortly after if had been confiscated from a trafficker.
Recognising a bargain and eager to move it on as quickly as possible they had sold it at a reasonable profit to a local gangster with whom they had always enjoyed an uneasy relationship but one largely without trouble. Frankie Walker was a more influential and powerful figure than Gresham and had many more men on his payroll and fingers in many more pies. He had the wherewithal to shift the cocaine that Gresham had offered him and they had done the deal quickly and without too much fuss. It had seemed good business at the time.
‘Well it seems that a lot of what he took off us has turned out to be shit. I mean they checked some of what we showed them and that seemed ok at the time but Frankie called me up the other week. He told me that they thought a lot of it had been cut by the time they got it which either means we cut it — which we both know we didn’t — or we got stiffed at our end, which seems likely. Either way Frankie isn’t happy.’
‘Oh shit,’ was all Slater could say.
‘Oh shit is right. He made it clear I had two months to pay and he wanted 50 per cent on top. You know and I know that Frankie Walker does not fuck about. That memory stick was going to pay him off in one go and give us some change.’
‘So when does he want it?’
‘Two days.’
Slater closed his eyes and inhaled. ‘How much George?’
‘He needs thirty grand.’
‘Thirty grand in two days? Surely he shifted some of it though? I mean even if it was cut they could still sell it on?’
‘Frankie says that’s the reason we’re still alive. You know what he’s like. If he says it’s thirty, then it’s thirty. Needs to make sure he looks like he’s in charge. Anybody tries to fuck him over, he comes back hard.’
Slater nodded. He had heard plenty of stories about Frank Walker. His reach extended across much of East and South East London and a little beyond and he was said to have people in his employ from hookers right up to policemen and judges. He bought, sold, stole, laundered, dealt and extorted and was not above involving himself personally in the dirty end of his business. Word had it that when one of the companies that Walker ran to help launder money got frozen out at the last minute on a construction contract to a Saudi owned company who had legitimately outbid Walker’s firm, he took it upon himself to cut off the hands of the man who handled the negotiations.
There was no way that Walker would let them get away with this without making an example of them all. Slater wondered, not for the first time, how something so simple could mean so much, to so many people. Drennan would pay a lot for this memory stick, and so would Gresham and the rest of them if they failed to get hold of it and deliver Walker’s money.
35
Thursday. 1pm.
The numbers on the digital display scrolled higher, through the 80’s and into the 90’s before they stopped and found a station.
‘- the latest in a spate of recent sightings of so-called big cats in the area. Two eyewitnesses claim to have seen the animal walking across fields near their village and into woodland beyond. Local police were called in and are said to be treating the sightings as serious.’ Static hissed across the news bulletin and he hit the tune button and the numbers climbed again.
Through the window fields swept past, a deep green shade in the early evening light. Tree lined hills formed a dark backdrop as the sun rolled down out of the sky and he could make out the lonely shapes of small farms and cottages dotted throughout the landscape. His own reflection was becoming more clear now in the glass of the window as the light outside faded and could no longer compete with the fluorescent strip lights inside.
She had agreed to meet him after he had done some fast-talking to convince her that what he said was genuine. However, she told him, she was, at the time they spoke, driving to Cornwall to visit her parents who lived in a small village on the south coast of the county. He could come and meet her there if it was so important and she would hear him out at least but that was it. If she didn’t believe him she would call the police and her boss and that would be that.
He had readily agreed and made straight for Paddington station and jumped on the next train in that direction; nervous and edgy all the while, checking over his shoulder regularly, scanning the faces of passers-by, particularly those who looked at him.
When he’d arrived at Paddington and come up from the underground Campbell had received a phone call that had disturbed him greatly. An ex-girlfriend had told him that a gruff-sounding man with a thick London accent had called her saying he knew Daniel and that he was in some trouble and had then asked for a number to contact Campbell. She had, she said, declined to give the man Campbell’s number, unsettled as she was by the tone of the man’s voice. Instead, she had offered to contact him herself and perhaps pass on a message.
The man had then given her a telephone number to call and informed her that she too might be in some danger if Daniel did not make contact. Campbell had assured her it was nothing more than a prank, though she had seemed less than convinced, but he had taken the number and promised to call the prankster and tell them to stop playing jokes, that it wasn’t funny. Though a year had passed since they had last been in touch and the girl had sounded eager to catch up and interested in his wellbeing, Campbell had ended the call rather abruptly, his mind very much elsewhere. He had known it might happen — expected it really — but he was surprised by his own reaction. He was afraid of course, worried and guilty that innocent people might be drawn into this and come to harm. But more than that he had found himself filled with anger at what Gresham had done.
Before boarding the train he made the call to Gresham from a public phone in a noisy pub near the station. ‘Now you listen to me you fat vicious cunt, if I hear that you’ve even dialled a single number in that book I’ll duplicate the information that you are so eager to get your hands on and send it to every single newspaper in the country. I'll post it on the internet. I’ll go to the police and tell them all about what you and your fucking gorilla did to me and the guy that bled all over my kitchen floor the other night. I don’t give a fuck anymore, do you hear me? You just fucking try it you bastard, you just try and fucking bully me any more. I dare you.’
Just thinking about it he could feel his scalp tighten and his skin prickle with the fear and excitement of what he had done. He may yet pay for talking to Gresham like that but at the same time he felt pretty confident that the other man would not call his bluff. Not yet at least.