He babbled, was incoherent, and dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief to clear off the sweat from the fear he had felt. The profits of violence had never come close enough to touch him before.
‘Do I understand that I have enemies? Of course. Understand that you, loved one, or the children should be targets? Of course. I never quite understood that I could be shot — kidnapped for ransom, yes, but not killed like a stray dog, put down in the street — and it was so close. A half-second more … He came like a lion.’
He stopped abruptly, thought his legs would no longer support him, slumped into a chair. Many times in the past, in Perm and in Moscow, he had reported to Reuven that a client had defaulted on payment or used fraudulent bank drafts in settlement of debt and in two days, three, a week, the photograph would be in the paper of a body splayed out among bloodstains, of a car destroyed by explosives, of a petrol drum with a man’s legs protruding as it was winched from a river. But he, the launderer, had almost — in London — believed himself immune from danger.
‘Last evening we were among sophisticates. This morning I was with men who deal in money, have villas, play tennis, have … Then I am dead, but for Johnny. I tell you, I wasn’t brave, I cowered and waited for the shot. Almost I was screaming for him to hurry, to end the agony. Grigori, useless imbecile, has legs of lead — he didn’t move. I think he was crying, and he’s supposed to protect me! Johnny did that. From this moment, this very moment, I tell you that I’ll go nowhere without Johnny. Johnny beside me, in front and behind me. He will be with me.’
He leaned forward, reached across the coffee-table, the fashion magazines and hospitality brochures for Henley and Ascot, took his wife’s hand and held it tight.
‘Would Viktor have done better? Would Reuven’s man, Mikhail? I doubt it. When Reuven was shot, Mikhail killed the man, but it was after Reuven was hit. Johnny dedicated himself to me, me. I am only his employer, not of his blood. He might have been shot himself. I asked him, in the car, why he had — almost — sacrificed himself to protect me. He said, very simply, “It’s what I’m paid to do, sir.” That’s the man he is. Incredible. I owe him my life.’
She bent her head and kissed his hand.
‘He will go everywhere with me. Everywhere. He goes with me tomorrow.’
Chapter 5
‘Mrs Goldmann requires to see you upstairs,’ Viktor said.
He couldn’t read Viktor, impassive, unemotional and masked. Grigori was different. Grigori had sat in the ready room all afternoon, and hadn’t spoken, just sat with sullen, blurred, glazed eyes focused on the middle distance. He seemed to see and note nothing. Grigori did not have to speak to betray his feelings. Grigori was a failure and Carrick assumed he was spoiled goods, would be replaced at a time of convenience, never again trusted. The older and more senior man, Viktor, had been closeted with the Bossman and the Bossman’s wife upstairs, and Carrick assumed the crisis would have been thrashed out. Sitting in the ready room off the kitchen, with Grigori not speaking to him, Carrick had calmed, had lost the knots in his arm muscles and the slackness at his chin, had felt strong enough to get the kids from school.
He pushed himself up from the chair. ‘Yes, of course.’
Viktor held the door open for him. It was not a gesture of respect but an indication that the summons was immediate. Two things had happened, and he understood neither. Simon Rawlings should have been at the wheel of the Audi going into the City; had been removed on a drink-driving charge, but did not use alcohol. An armed attack had taken place, an attempt to kilclass="underline" nothing in the atmosphere of the household or from the body language of his employer had shown him to be fearful of a killing strike.
He went up the main staircase, with its gold-leaf paint, with the softly lit pictures at eye level. He paused to rub hard with the heel of his hand at the stain on his knee from the pavement, then at the smear on his elbow.
When he had come off the training course, had won his admittance to SCD10, Carrick had been told: ‘We think we’re going to like what we’re getting from you. What we appreciate most is that you’re not painted over with police procedures — you are still, at heart, a squaddie. We reckon you behave more in the old military characteristics than police stereotypes. It’s a good legend you have, the paratroop background, and it’s checkable. We can use you as a contract hit guy, as a muscle doorman and as protection. It’ll go fine. Welcome to the team.’ The controller, George, had been allocated to run him, Rob had been the cover officer on his first job and Katie sorted out the office. Katie had told him, shouldn’t have, that his first rating had had a handwritten paragraph in the margin: ‘… has common sense, is down to earth, above all has bottle’. On his first job, he had been assigned to a team of north London detectives, with club owners as a target.
Ahead of him, Viktor knocked at the door, didn’t wait for an answer, and opened it. He saw the family on the settee. Josef Goldmann had Peter sitting astride his knees and Esther Goldmann had Selma cuddled close to her. He was ushered forward.
The club owners were Jed and Baz — brothers. They had a place off Green Lanes, in Haringey, had made an alliance with the Turks there, and were careful, clever and did Class A stuff. A Chis had done the digging to get him in. The Chis was a Covert Human Intelligence Source, a low-life rag, and he’d made introductions, then been paid to fuck off up north, and was looking at a tenner inside if he reneged on the deal.
For seven months, Carrick had been on the door and inside, but he’d taken a night off when the uniforms did the raid. Wasn’t there to rubberneck, and enough Class A stuff was on the premises — as he’d said it would be, and where — for him not to be needed as a prosecution witness: that was about as good as it got. If an undercover could do the business, and not have to go into court and give evidence, it was big-bonus time.After the raid and the arrests, he’d had one drink with the detectives, just the one, and he’d gone off into the night, leaving them to get well pissed up. They’d never know his name, only the bogus identity he’d assumed. They’d never see or hear of him again. About three months ago, he’d read in the evening paper that Jed and Baz had gone down for fifteen years each. Not bad blokes, actually, for company, quite amusing but over-greedy.
The Goldmanns were in shock. It was one thing for the family to have the trappings of protection, men in the house to drive them, scan pavements when they were dropped and open doors for them, another thing to have a snub-nose pistol waved in the face, and two shots fired before an aim could be drawn. The Bossman looked small against the cushions of the settee and the boy on his lap had his arms round his father’s neck. The Bossman’s wife sat upright, but had her arm close round the daughter. Not every day that a husband and father came home from work to report survival from a killing effort, but there again it wasn’t everyone’s husband and father who laundered big money out of eastern and central Europe.
The Bossman’s wife said, ‘We would like to thank you, Johnny.’