Bombproof (11 page)

Murphy laughs. ‘Pull the other leg, son, it plays “Land of Hope and Glory”.’ Then his face grows hard. He gives Sami the pointy finger. ‘Enough pissing about, son. You do this job and you have a future, simple as that.’

‘I’m out of practice.’

‘Nonsense. It’s like riding a bike.’

‘No offence, Mr Murphy, but it’s nothing like riding a bike.’

‘I’m speaking figuratively, son.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Sami looks at Dessie and back to Murphy. He can’t see a way out of this. He needs time to think. Time to come up with a plan.

‘What sort of strong room?’ he asks.

‘Big fucker.’

‘I need the make and model, the specs. I don’t try to open a safe unless I know everything about it - the type, location, tensile strength of the steel. Manufacturer. How old it is?’

‘I can get you that.’

‘I don’t have any tools.’

‘What do you need?’

Sami is winging it now. ‘It’s very technical equipment.’

‘Just tell me what you need.’

‘Depends on the job.’

Sami starts talking about diamond tipped drills, fibre-optic cameras and stethoscopes. He doesn’t know about half the stuff he’s asking for, but hopefully neither does Murphy.

‘I’m going to need explosives,’ he says.

‘Why?’

‘A failsafe, just in case the door won’t open.’

Murphy clips the end from a cigar and draws on a flame, puffing out clouds of smoke.

‘Give Dessie a list.’

‘What’s in this strong room?’ asks Sami.

‘That ain’t none of your business, son.’

‘If I’m going to open it, I should know what’s inside. Safety reasons, you know.’

‘I am looking after your safety,’ says Murphy. ‘I’m giving you deniability.’

‘Deniability?’

‘Yeah. It’s like the old song goes, “You don’t put your dick in the blender if you’re running short on swizzle sticks”.’

‘I don’t know that one,’ says Sami.

‘I could get Dessie here to sing it for you, but he’s not a fan of karaoke.’ Murphy spits a fleck of tobacco leaf onto the floor. ‘He’s also not partial to smart-mouth sarky toerags who ask too many questions.’

Sami keeps his mouth shut.

‘Right, that’s decided,’ says Murphy. ‘We’ll get you the specs. Dessie, here, will get you the equipment. You do the job tomorrow.’

‘What do you mean tomorrow?’ says Sami. ‘I need more time to prepare … to practise.’

‘Got no time.’

A bell clangs. The dogs are off again. Murphy turns to the window to watch. ‘Another thing, son, I don’t want you even thinking you might tip off Old Bill about these discussions. That’s why you’re going to stay with Dessie until tomorrow, understand?

‘And if you did go shooting off your mouth at some later date, I got a dozen people, including a member of parliament, who’ll put me three hundred miles from here, watching Man City play Everton.

‘The CCTV cameras will tell ’em the same thing. Ever heard of body doubles, son? Saddam had used dozens of ’em - fat fuckers with moustaches who strutted around firing shots in the air. So did Adolf. Now I don’t like the Krauts as a rule but they’ve had some pretty good ideas, Mercedes, BMWs. Gassing them Jews was right out of order, mind you, but some of the kikes I know wouldn’t give you the steam off their piss unless they were charging usage. I shit you not.

‘So don’t you go blabbing about our little enterprise, before or afterwards. Understand? Or I’ll have Dessie here hold open your smart mouth with a spout while I piss down your throat.’

17

The address is off Whitechapel Road - three streets back from the river. Jack the Ripper territory but nowadays it could be in Bangladesh or Mogadishu or Mecca. There are headscarves and Halal butchers, Halal bakers and Halal greengrocers. How do you get Halal fruit and veg, wonders Ruiz, as he parks the car on vacant ground beside a mosque.

A gaggle of teenagers in hoodies and low-slung jeans slink out of shadows - every one of them a genetic time bomb. They begin checking out the Merc and regarding Ruiz with hate and envy.

The ringleader looks no older than twelve. Fearless. Freckled. Hostile.

‘This is our fucking turf. You can’t park here without our say so.’

‘Is that right? I didn’t see any signs. Must be getting old.’

‘It’s gonna cost you.’

‘How much?’

The kid looks at his gang. ‘A fiver.’ And then adds, ‘for a half hour.’

Ruiz takes out a tenner. ‘You got change?’

The kid looks at it greedily. ‘You can stay an hour.’

Ruiz balls up the ten quid note and looks at the gang. One of them is a mixed race kid, small and whippet thin. Built to run. Ruiz points to him. Motions him forward. Gives him the tenner.

‘Whoever catches you, gets the money. Otherwise, you get to keep it.’

The kid takes off, darting across the allotment, leaping a fence, dodging rubbish bins and parked cars. He’s flying down the street with the others in pursuit, screaming abuse.

Ruiz’s mobile vibrates against his heart. Fiona Taylor sounds concerned.

‘Funny thing happened after I talked to you. I typed Tony Murphy’s name into the PNC and pulled up his file.’

‘How many pages did it come to?’

‘Oh, it’s long, but I’m more interested in the pages I’m
not
allowed to see.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘There’s a lock on some of the information. I don’t have the security clearance to access it.’

Ruiz can hear her tapping a pencil on the edge of her desk. She’s thinking. ‘It could be special ops.’

‘A surveillance operation?’

‘MI5 or maybe MI6.’

‘Murphy isn’t in that league.’

‘Maybe not, but it might be worth treading softly on this one,’ she warns.

‘I’m very light on my feet. You should see me dance.’

‘A ballroom king - now I’ve heard everything.’

She hangs up and Ruiz contemplates why a club owner like Tony Murphy would warrant so much secrecy. There were rumours years ago that he laundered money for the IRA, but not even Murphy would be crazy enough to swim with those sharks.

Ruiz starts looking for the block of flats where Toby Streak said he dropped Nadia Macbeth. What he finds is a graffiti-stained pile of shit with scorch marks around the balconies and plywood nailed over most of the windows. A black guy with dreadlocks opens the door and blinks at the brightness, whacked out on something.

‘You know what time it is, mon?’

‘Four o’clock.’

‘People are sleeping.’

‘It’s the afternoon.’

‘Time is relative. That’s what Mr Einstein say.’

‘He also said only two things are infinite - the universe and human stupidity - and he wasn’t completely sure about the universe.’

The rasta scratches his arse. Ruiz looks past him. The hallway is littered with junk mail, bills and final demands.

‘I’m looking for someone.’

‘You a copper?’

‘Do I look like one?’

‘You fat enough.’

‘I’ll polish my boot on your arse.’

‘That would be police brutality, mon.’

‘Not if my foot slipped. I’m looking for someone. Her name’s Nadia Macbeth.’

‘You want a girl. Why didn’t you say so? Follow Puffa.’

He motions Ruiz inside and down the hall. The carpet sticks to his feet. Puffa leads him into a semi-dark room strewn with burnt spoons, bent cans, water bottles and foil wrappers. He kicks a mound of blankets. A white face emerges, with sunken cheeks and chemical green eyes. He calls her Treka.

‘So what do you think? Talk to Puffa. We can negotiate.’

‘I’m only interested in Nadia Macbeth.’

‘Nobody here called Nadia.’

Treka crawls back under the blanket.

Ruiz brushes past Puffa and begins searching the flat. He talks to a kid who looks about twenty, but is probably younger. He’s eating cereal straight from the box and staring at a corner where the TV used to be.

‘You ever heard of Nadia Macbeth?’ he asks.

‘I heard of Macbeth. Studied it at school. It’s one of them Shakespeare plays about three witches and a dude who wants to be king.’

‘You must have been listening.’

Ruiz takes out his mobile and looks at the list of recent messages, before hitting a button to return a call. The sound of a phone ringing fills the room. Puffa looks at the ceiling pretending he can’t hear it. The handset is vibrating in his pocket.

‘Aren’t you going to answer that?’ asks Ruiz.

‘Not just now,’ says Puffa.’

‘I think you should.’

Puffa pulls out the handset. Flips it open. ‘Hello?’ he asks nervously.

‘Hello,’ answers Ruiz.

‘Can I help you?’

‘Yes you can. Every time you open your mouth it’s like a fart in a colander. From now on you’re going to answer my questions honestly or I’m going to set fire to your dreads.’

Puffa’s eyes go wide and he puts both hands on his head.

‘How did you get this mobile?’

‘Dude left it here.’

‘What was his name?’

Puffa shrugs.

Ruiz points to the kid with the cereal box. ‘What was the name of that play you studied?’

‘Macbeth.’

He looks at Puffa. ‘That’s a clue.’

Puffa starts bleating about having memory problems. ‘I smoke too much grass, mon. I forget things, you know.’

Ruiz gathers the occupants of the flat into one room. There are six of them - junkies, hookers and runaways, all of them whacked out on something, sweating or ill. He takes Puffa through the story again, marvelling at how he can tie himself into knots and harangue himself for telling lies, before starting a completely new explanation about how he came by Sami Macbeth’s mobile.

Eventually, Puffa gets so tangled up in his lies that he starts telling bits of the truth. Someone paid him five hundred quid to get a girl hooked on crack. He had to start her on the brown, he explains, because she wouldn’t co-operate but soon she rode the dragon and didn’t want to stop.

‘Who gave you the money?’

‘Big white dude. Smelled like he fell in a tub of aftershave.’

‘Give you a name?’

‘Nope.’

‘You didn’t ask or you didn’t care?’

‘He wasn’t a great talker.’

‘How did you get the mobile?’

Puffa starts telling a lie. Stops. Starts again.

‘Guy left it behind. He come looking for his sister. The big mon gave him a hiding and took him away.’

‘What about Nadia.’

‘Her too.’

‘Are you sure that’s how it happened?’

Puffa nods. ‘If you want me to say it didn’t happen, that’s OK. Tell me what you want to hear.’

‘The truth.’

‘The truth is relative, mon.’

Ruiz slaps him around the head.

‘Ow, that hurt!’

‘Pain is relative, too.’

Ruiz keeps quizzing him, but the story doesn’t change. The others are next to clueless. ‘Anyone got anything to add?’

They shake their heads.

Ruiz puts a fatherly arm around Puffa’s shoulders, flicking his beaded dreadlocks with his thumb.

‘You got a passport, Puffa?’

‘No, mon.’

‘I’d get one if I were you. Maybe consider relocating. See the islands. Meet the distant cousins.’

Puffa frowns. ‘Why’s that, mon?’

‘After I find the girl you got hooked on crack, I’m going to come back and turn your balls into worry beads.’

18

Tony Murphy has four mobiles on the table in front of him. He chooses one. Punches in a number.

‘I thought we were going to talk tonight,’ says a voice on the other end.

‘I’m calling now. Is this line OK?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Where’s the stuff now?’

‘Same as before, but only till Monday. Should have gone to the lab yesterday.’

‘Tell me about this strong room.’

‘It’s not really a room. It’s more like an industrial wardrobe.’

‘What’s an industrial wardrobe?’

‘It’s like an ordinary wardrobe only it’s made of steel.’

‘Any locks?’

‘Three of them: one internal and two padlocks.’

‘Motion sensors or alarms?’

‘It’s the Old Bailey, not the Bank of England.’

Murphy doesn’t appreciate his sarcasm. ‘I need the make and a serial number.’

‘You want fries with that?’

‘Don’t be a comedian. Brummies aren’t funny.’

‘What about Jasper Carrott.’

‘My armpit is funnier than Jasper Carrott.’

They discuss the details. Decide the timetable. Murphy can get a floor plan and the location of the security cameras.

‘What about our cover story?’

‘I’m working on it. You just have to worry about the strong room.’

‘It’s under control.’

‘I don’t want a mess.’

‘In. Out. I got an expert who’s slicker than a butcher’s prick.’

19

Sami spends the night on a bunk bed in a warehouse just off the south circular. The place is full of air-conditioning units, still in boxes. Some bright spark entrepreneur bought up four thousand of the units from Taiwan figuring global warming was a sales opportunity. That was before the wettest, coldest summer in a century.

Bankruptcy resulted. Tony Murphy snapped up the units for a tenner each. It was the perfect example of stupidity and capitalism working in perfect harmony.

Sami didn’t sleep. He spent the night thinking about Nadia and feeling sorry for himself. Bad luck is supposed to float around and fall randomly on people - a little here, a little there. It’s been raining on Sami his whole life. Dumping on him. Now he’s swimming in an ocean of shit (front crawl, not backstroke) and he doesn’t know which shore to head for.

He still can’t rid himself of the images of Nadia dancing for crack and crawling on her hands and knees, trying to prise apart the floorboards. His last glimpse of her was crouching in a corner, shivering, terrified, humiliated, unable to speak.

When Sami rescued her from the sunken car she was like that, struck dumb. For months Nadia didn’t say a word. The psychologist said it was post-traumatic stress. Sami imagined the screams were trapped inside his sister’s head, echoing so loudly that Nadia couldn’t hear the sound of her own voice.

Sami took her to a place he knew - an underpass near Clapham Junction where the express trains roared overhead and created a wall of sound that nobody could shout over. He hired a portable generator and set up a microphone and the band’s biggest PA amp beneath the underpass. They waited for the next train and he told Nadia she had to open her mouth and let the scream out. The train was roaring over their heads in a thunderous roll.