Lucas nods, not looking too sure, and we fall silent as we drive through Kilburn and down into Paddington before passing into the fashionable enclaves of Kensington and Notting Hill. The streets here are wide and brightly lit, and crowded with the young and the loaded who've come to play among the pavement cafes and wine bars, and enjoy this last, balmy burst of summer.
The atmosphere on the streets may be easygoing and vibrant, but in the car we're both tense as we prepare for the coming operation. We're going into the unknown. All we can predict for certain is that it's going to be dangerous. An attacking military force should always have a numerical superiority over the force it's attacking, but with only two of us involved, that's almost certainly not going to be the case. If anything, we're going to be outnumbered, so the scope for things to go wrong is immense.
When Lucas picked me up, he was making jokes and seemed fairly laid back, but as we get nearer to our destination I see that this was nothing more than an act. He chain-smokes cigarettes in short, angry drags, and sweat glistens on his forehead. I'm glad he's with me, but his presence emphasizes my own selfishness in involving him in someone else's battle. I know he doesn't want to be here, and I can't blame him. His army days were a long, long time ago, and since then he's grown to enjoy the good life of decent money and easy work. An op like this is going to be a major shock to his system and he's had very little time to prepare himself.
I want to tell him that everything's going to be fine, but I don't want to make it sound like I doubt his mental strength. Instead, I think about Eddie Cosick and what he has against me. Maybe I've crossed him somehow without knowing it. Maybe Leah was his mistress, and he found out I'd slept with her and wanted to get his revenge.
For a split second, I think I may be on to something here. But then I realize that it leaves too many unanswered questions. The first and most obvious is how on earth would he have found out? And why would he have gone to such elaborate lengths to set me up, leaving me very much alive in the process? It would have been vastly easier simply to send someone round to the showroom and blow my head off. Job done, honour restored. There's no way he would have decided that as part of his revenge I should be made to go and pick up a briefcase containing something so valuable to him that he's willing to pay a hundred and fifty grand for it.
No, there's some other reason he's using me. I just can't see what it is.
And I've got to admit that I'm nervous too. It's not just that Cosick may not supply the answers I need; this time, I may not even get out of there alive. Since waking up this morning, I've ridden my luck. I could have been the first out of the kitchen door back at the house where I picked up the case and taken Sellman's bullet, but I wasn't. I could have been arrested afterwards, but somehow I managed to escape. If I hadn't taken the flick knife from Dracula in the brothel… In all these things, the dice have rolled my way. At some point, and probability tells me it'll be soon, this luck is going to stop.
And you know what? I really don't want to die. Today's been a strange day. In most ways it's been awful. But I've felt something I haven't felt since the best of my army days. I've felt alive. I've been thrown into conflict after conflict, found myself alone in the middle of a minefield, and walked right through it. In other words, I have survived. And now I want to make it to the other side so that I can turn round and say, 'I've won.'
But I'm terrified that it's not going to happen.
32
We're almost there now. As Lucas turns off Holland Park Avenue and into a quiet street lined with mature cypress trees that runs parallel to the western side of Holland Park, the GPS system tells us that Eddie Cosick lives down here somewhere.
I look round with a combination of admiration and jealousy. Cosick has clearly done well for himself. The houses here are grand Edwardian villas of whitewashed stone that loom into the night sky. Only the truly rich have a chance of living here, and the truly rich know it, surrounding their homes with high walls and elaborate security systems to keep out those of lesser means. Cosick's own place, a detached, three-storey corner property, is no exception, set back from the street behind wrought-iron gates and a high wall that borders the entire property. There are two cars visible in the gravel driveway, a bright red Audi convertible with its top down, and a Jaguar XJS, both of which are illuminated by the twin lamps on either side of the front door. A single light shines dimly on the first floor behind drawn curtains.
'Well,' says Lucas, 'it looks like he's in.' He tries to sound casual, but I can hear his nervousness.
He indicates, and takes the first right, parking several hundred yards up the road, well away from Cosick's place, between two immense four-wheel-drives. He chucks the latest cigarette he's been smoking out of the window and cuts the engine.
'You OK?' I ask.
He manages a weak smile. 'No worse than foot patrol on the Falls Road.'
'Exactly. We've done it all before. Things that would scare the shit out of most people. And we've always survived.'
He looks a little more confident now. 'When this is over, you're going to buy me a nice big drink, right?'
'Count on it,' I tell him. 'Have you got the guns?'
He reaches down behind his seat, which is the place where he seems to keep everything bar the kitchen sink, and retrieves a Tesco bag.
'Have you still got the gloves I gave you earlier?'
I nod, take them out of my back pocket and pull them on, while Lucas reaches into the bag and removes a package wrapped in white cloth. He hands it to me, I unwrap it, and a well-kept, recently cleaned long-barrelled Browning pistol stares back at me. I place it in the waistband of my jeans as Lucas takes out his weapon, a silver Walther PPK, and stuffs it in his own waistband.
'You might want this,' he says, reaching into the glove compartment and producing a couple of black balaclavas.
'I don't think there's much point in me covering up,' I tell him. 'I have a strong feeling Eddie Cosick knows exactly who I am.'
'If you leave him alive, Tyler, he's going to come looking for you.'
I've thought about this. 'If Cosick's the man responsible for Leah and Snowy's murders, then I'm going to make sure that one way or another he's brought to justice for it. He's certainly not going to be roaming the streets planning revenge.'
'You're going to need to be careful.'
'I will be,' I say, opening the door. 'Come on, let's go.'
He stuffs his balaclava in his jeans and follows me down the road.
The street's quiet now, and bathed in dark shadows. The only people I can see are a middle-aged couple thirty yards ahead of us, out for a night-time stroll. They hold hands, heads almost touching as they talk, oblivious to the world around them. Their intimacy makes me jealous, and reminds me what my life was like yesterday, and what it definitely won't be like tomorrow.
A light breeze, still warm, rustles through the branches of the cypress trees, and from somewhere over in Holland Park the faint strains of jazz music reach my ears. My heart beats hard in my chest, and I glance at Lucas. His jaw is set hard, his blue eyes narrowed in concentration. He's scared, but I can see that finally he's ready.
The wall bordering Eddie Cosick's back garden is a good ten feet high, and curved at the top. There are no railings, making it useful only for keeping out the casual intruder. This is a bad move, and it surprises me, given the circles he moves in, but some people think it's never going to happen to them, and most of the time they're wrong. Tonight, he definitely is.
I take one quick look behind me to confirm there's no-one watching and ask Lucas to give me a lift. He grabs my foot in both hands and yanks it upwards, like he's tossing the caber. His strength surprises me, and he gives me real momentum. I jump, arms outstretched, grab hold of the top of the wall and haul myself up in one movement. I find myself looking into a well-kept garden, lined with interesting vegetation, including pampas grass and a dwarf palm tree, and with a covered swimming pool at one end. The garden's empty, so I lie across the top of the wall, gripping the brickwork between my thighs, and stretch out an arm for Lucas to grab hold of.