I didn’t have the energy to answer him but I managed a nod and he took that as a yes. He stuffed the ticket into my jacket pocket and one of the Russians gave me back my wallet. ‘No credit cards but I left you a tenner in there,’ said Gladwell, ‘let’s see how far that gets you in London eh?’ and he laughed again, ‘put him on the train.’
The two Russians stood on the platform so they could see me through the window, making sure I didn’t try and get off but there really was no danger of that. They waited until the electric doors hissed then thumped suddenly closed and the train started to pull away before they turned their backs. By then I couldn’t have got off even if I’d wanted to and, believe me, I didn’t want to. Vitaly couldn’t resist lifting his hand in something between a wave and a mock salute.
It was late. I was all alone in my half of the first class carriage and I was glad of it. I slumped back in the chair and my head lolled to one side as the train went high over the Tyne, crossing the railway bridge, speeding away from the city that had been my home all my life, a place to which I knew I could never return. I was so tired I could barely muster the energy to hand over my ticket when the conductor walked through. Despite my exhaustion, the relief flooded through me. It wasn’t me in that chair in a lock up with a bullet through my head, it wasn’t me that had been tortured to death for the numbers of Bobby’s bank accounts and it wasn’t me that had been beaten unrecognisable because four ex-Spetsnaz men wanted to prove they were tougher than me. I was grateful for that. I should be grateful. I was grateful, definitely. But something was wrong.
I wasn’t grateful enough.
All the way down as far as Durham, I kept telling myself how lucky I’d been. I’d survived a war, a war that had killed all of my comrades. Like Gladwell said, I’d been given a chance to start again, to go legit, live like a normal person. When I arrived in London, a whole new world would open up to me. I could live a life without fear. I had half convinced myself I believed all of this by the time the train pulled into Durham station, the illuminated horizon of its castle and cathedral on the hill telling me that a half hour journey had gone by in an instant, so wrapped up had I been in my thoughts.
I stayed on the train. One thing I was definitely going to do was stay on the train. Getting off it would be suicide.
I was worried though. Gladwell had footage that could get me a life sentence should he ever feel like using it. And that was only half of it. What the hell was I going to do in London, realistically? What job was I qualified for and who was going to want to take me on? My business card said I was a sales and marketing director but I wasn’t. I was an ideas man for a gangster and they don’t advertise those posts in the paper. Getting a job like that is about trust and being known by the man who employs you. No one in London knew or gave a fuck about me.
That idea I used to have about owning a restaurant? I knew nothing about restaurants except how to eat in them. It was a load of shite, a dream no more realistic than the one I’d had about playing for Newcastle when I was a kid. Face facts. It was never going to happen. I was going to be nothing in London, a nobody. The money I’d get from selling my flat wouldn’t get me a cupboard down there. I’d end up pulling pints behind a bar or washing dishes in a hotel. Shit job, shit pay, shit life, might as well be dead, which was something I hadn’t thought about when they were pointing a gun at my head.
The train pulled away once more and something began to happen to me. Somehow the fear I felt when I thought I was going to be killed or tortured started to recede. It had become more like a distant feeling and was slowly being replaced by something else. Anger.
We’d been sloppy, we’d taken our eye off the ball, we’d thought we could go on like this forever. Like every top champion that has ever lived, there came a day when we were knocked off our perch by someone else but that wasn’t the only thing burning into my brain. We had been out-thought and out-fought by wee Tommy Gladwell, the unproven, first born son of Arthur Gladwell. I told myself if it had been anybody else, someone more worthy of respect, then I could have accepted it but this just wasn’t right. I knew a bit about Tommy Gladwell and if he ran Newcastle there’d be no hope for anyone. Bobby knew how to be Top Boy. Hell, even I knew how to be Top Boy. I’d watched Bobby do it for years, learned it from him, given him new ideas that helped him to be the successful boss that he so obviously was. Together we knew how to keep order, we helped to keep the city ticking over. His other lieutenants weren’t there to advise him, give him big ideas, work out the strategy and the tactics needed to run an empire. I was the only one who could do that for him. I’d watched him for so long. It was always just a question of judgement. You had to say the right things to the right people at the right time, keep the wheels oiled, control the men who work for you and never give them an excuse to turn against you. Easy, except I still wouldn’t trust anybody from our crew, alive or dead, to do the job after Bobby. There was nobody I could work for without the risk of ending up in prison or the mortuary being way too high. I wouldn’t trust anybody.
Not one.
Well, maybe one.
Jesus, after all, I was the man who really shot Billy the Kid.
And there was one more thing that clinched it. I’d tried hard not to think about her. I’d told myself there was nothing I could do, no way I could help. It was somebody else’s problem now but I knew that wasn’t going to work. There was no way I could just ignore it. I’d been so damn scared, I wanted to banish any thought that kept me from putting at least three hundred long miles between myself and Vitaly but I couldn’t help myself because I knew I had to help her. Sarah.
I got off the train at Darlington.
THIRTY-ONE
It was starting to rain. There were some young lads standing around outside the station trying to look hard. I walked straight up to them,
‘I’ll give you a tenner for a use of your phone.’ The lad looked at me like I was mental. I stuffed the note into his shirt pocket and I must have looked as if I’d had a very bad night because, without a word, he handed me his mobile. They all eyed me suspiciously, as if I was going to run off with his precious Nokia, ‘don’t worry,’ I told him, ‘you’ll get it back.’ And I turned away as I dialled Palmer.
‘Jesus,’ he hissed, ‘where’ve you been? I’ve been ringing you for ages.’
‘My phone’s gone but don’t worry about that. Get in your car and drive. I need you to pick me up, now.’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘where are you?’
‘Standing outside Darlington station.’
‘Darlington?’ he asked, ‘what are you doing there?’
‘Just get here,’ I snapped, ‘on your way down I need you to make sure I have a car, a phone and a few hundred quid waiting for me when we get back to Newcastle. Get one of your boys to meet you with that outside my brother’s place.’