Him.
Joe’s eyes flickered towards the three assistants. They had convened around the till again, and did not appear to have noticed what was on television. The image changed, to be replaced by a female news reporter standing outside the front gates of Barfield.
Calmly but quickly, Joe examined the map in front of him, scanning the surrounding area: the beach, a cliff behind, a single road leading there and a solitary house about a klick inland. His eyes narrowed as he examined that house.
‘Joe…’ Eva sounded desperate.
The nearest village: Thornbridge.
‘Joe!’
He logged out of his account, then ushered her quickly out of the shop before any of the assistants tried to accost them. ‘West Wales,’ he said.
‘But—’
‘We need to get there.’
Eva stopped walking, and as Joe turned to look at her, she grabbed his hands and held them tightly. Fiercely. Joe glanced at her watch. Midday. He had eighteen hours. ‘Listen to me, Joe,’ she said. ‘We can’t do this alone. We’ve got to tell someone what’s happening. We need to get help. I know people. I can speak to them…’
An old lady trundled along the pavement in an electric mobility vehicle. Her head turned as she passed. Had she recognized him? Or was it just that they were arguing?
‘No,’ he hissed.
‘We have to.’
‘Eva, even you’re not sure this isn’t in my head. Even you’re wondering if I made it all up. Hey, I could have done. Abbottabad. Caitlin. The whole fucking thing. What if I really am out of my mind? What if I really am a psycho?’
Eva frowned and shook her head.
‘You know me,’ Joe insisted. ‘But who the hell else could I go to that won’t just shove me back in a cell and throw away the key?’
Eva had no answer. She just bit her bottom lip. ‘What if it’s a trap?’
‘He killed my wife. He took my son,’ Joe replied. Pulling himself away from her grasp, he continued walking along the pavement. He could feel her tearful eyes burning into his back. And he’d only gone ten metres when he heard her footsteps running along behind him, and felt her tugging at his sleeve once more.
‘But what if it’s a trap?’ she repeated.
Joe gave her a hard stare. ‘Of course it’s a fucking trap,’ he said. ‘Come on, we’ve got a lot to do.’
SEVENTEEN
1300 hours.
There were easier ways than this to get your hands on a weapon, Joe thought to himself. There were contacts he could call. Favours he could pull in. But they involved showing his face. This, he decided, was the better option.
The tower block was the same grey colour as the sky. It was fifteen storeys high, and the side facing him had apartments two abreast, each with a balcony whose front was a dirty orange colour. A covered lobby jutted about five metres out from the block, and inside a bleak, dark, concrete-clad area led to stairs on the left and right.
Joe stood twenty metres from the entrance, on the edge of a small playground where three children clambered over a pyramid-shaped frame, while their mums sat on an adjacent bench, smoking, chatting and ignoring their kids. He was leaning against a lamppost beneath a sign indicating that this was an Alcohol Restricted Area. There was a car park between him and the entrance, about half full of clapped-out old vehicles, three of which had broken windows. A red mail van was just driving away. Joe had watched the postman hurry back to it having made his delivery, evidently keen to be somewhere else.
This was one of the high-rises that had been visible the previous night from their vantage point on the bandstand. He’d been born and brought up in this area. Lady Margaret Road was just a ten-minute walk in an easterly direction, and he had a suspicion that his mother, if she was still alive, lived in one of these blocks. But he wasn’t here to visit family, and he hadn’t chosen this particular block at random. He’d chosen it because it was, as it always had been, the shittiest, most run-down, godforsaken spot in the whole of west London. If you weren’t a waster or a junkie or a dealer when you first moved here, you would be pretty soon. No other type of person lived here. And even if he hadn’t known the reputation of this block that the locals referred to as ‘Heroin Heights’, he’d have recognized the signs anyway: half the curtains drawn even though it was the middle of the day, several broken windows and all but three of the balconies stuffed full of debris – old mattresses, white goods, you name it. It was a real shithole, largely untouched by the police because they’d given up and it kept all the dregs in one place.
He had spotted the two kids immediately, and recognized them for what they were. One was black, one mixed race. Both were blinged up and wearing reversed baseball caps. They were standing on the north-eastern corner of the block, about ten metres from the entrance. Parked in front of them, two wheels on the pavement, was a black Range Rover with all the trimmings: tinted glass, alloys, the works. The driver’s door, which was on the pavement side, was open and it was thumping out heavy gangster rap. There had to be sixty grand’s worth of car there. Joe didn’t get the impression these boys had saved up their paper-round money to buy it.
He continued to watch them from a distance. There was something about spending time in a war zone that made cunts like this all the more repellent. Ship them from Heroin Heights to the poppy fields of Helmand and they’d lose their attitude shortly before they lost their lives.
Five minutes passed. A thin woman with acne and piercings on her nose sidled up to them and handed the mixed-race kid what Joe assumed was a banknote. The dealer then turned his back on the woman, who shuffled off round the corner and out of sight. No doubt she’d be taking delivery of her purchase elsewhere.
Joe walked across the car park in the direction of the two dealers. They stared coolly at him as he approached. When he reached the Range Rover and slammed the door so the volume of the music faded by half, they stepped up, their faces instantly more aggressive. They were obviously used to people treating them with respect. Joe leaned nonchalantly against the car – it was vibrating with the music – and took in all the information he needed in a single glance. Apart from the colour of their skin, these two were identikit: baggy jeans revealing their boxer shorts, Puffa jackets, white trainers, chunky gold bracelets, maybe seventeen years of age. They stuck out their chins, but he saw the way their eyes flashed sideways at each other. They weren’t quite as confident as they liked to make out. The mixed-race kid casually moved his right hand to his back pocket. Joe figured he had a knife. The black boy was digging his nails into his palm.
‘Business good, lads?’ Joe asked.
Neither of them answered. The mixed-race kid made a hawking sound in the back of his throat, then spat a mouthful of green phlegm in Joe’s direction. It spattered against his trousers. Joe looked down at it. Then he looked at the kid.
‘Fancy coming a bit closer to do that?’ he said.
The kid snorted dismissively, his right hand still in his back pocket, but moving upwards slightly. His eyes darted towards his companion again.
He took two steps forward.
Then Joe made his move.
He was fully expecting the boy to pull the blade – a three-inch flick, small but no doubt sharp – so he was ready for it. As he stepped in the kid’s direction, he grabbed the wrist of his raised knife arm. With a brutal yank, he twisted the kid’s arm behind his back and forced it upwards until he heard bone splinter. The knife fell to the floor as the kid let out an agonizing scream and his friend scrambled towards the Range Rover. Joe blocked his way, shook his head and watched with satisfaction as both dealers – the injured boy clutching his arm behind his back, howling with pain and cursing – disappeared around the other side of the block in the same direction the junkie had headed. Spinning round, he opened the door of the car and removed the keys from the ignition. The ear-splitting music suddenly cut out. Joe slammed the door and clicked a button on the fob to lock the vehicle, before retrieving the knife from the ground and running over to the entrance of the block.