Brute Force (18 page)

He had a point. 'This PIRA traitor Duff was on about – the one who gave up the
Bahiti
– you know who it was? He had to be pretty high up the food chain to know about the job.'

He didn't even blink. 'That information, Nick, is something that would get you killed.'

'You really think it could have been the Firm?'

'Duff had already revealed there was a Brit on board who killed Lesser. He would undoubtedly have exposed even more details about us. Then, of course, there is the question of a device under your car. It's not too hard to put two and two together . . .'

'You think it's the Firm tying off a few loose ends?'

'More each time I think about it.'

'But why go to such elaborate lengths to drop us two? There has to be more to this than a bit of spring cleaning.'

I rolled over and looked up at the sky. Whatever – it didn't matter right now. What did was getting out of the UK to reform, regroup and sort our shit out.

Lynn was starting to read my mind. 'Where next, Nick?'

'Not sure yet.'

He sat up and adjusted the pile of clothes to insulate his back against the bricks. 'I have a place in Italy.'

I thought for a second. 'It'll be a known location. They'll check it.'

'You aren't the only one who has a safety blanket, you know. I was about to move there myself – until you interrupted my packing.'

'It's secure? No one knows about it? You can't be found?'

'No one. Not even my children.'

50

We lay huddled for two, maybe three hours. I wasn't sure and I couldn't be arsed to expose any skin to the cold to check my watch.

The sound of adolescent voices came from over to our left, full of fucks and shits, getting louder as they approached.

There was only room for one of us right behind the bins. I motioned for Lynn to make himself scarce. He shuffled backwards, dragging his bundle with him.

The shouts and laughter came closer, until one of them stopped no more than a few feet away. 'Hold on . . .'

I looked up at him.

'Oi, mate, get a fucking job.' I was treated to a fourteen-year-old's sneer from beneath a grey hoodie. I'd have had mine up too, if I'd had one.

Four of his mates gathered round to share the entertainment. More hoodies, baggy jeans, trainers. It was obviously a big night out.

'You a mether, or what?'

They crowded round the gap between the bins.

I wasn't going to get up just yet. There wasn't any need.

'No, mate. I'm just here, that's all.'

I thought of myself at their age, doing exactly the same as they were, always in a gang. The only difference was the clothes. These lads were much better dressed.

They were just bored, with no job prospects apart from serving up fries or stacking shelves. No wonder they were roaming about, trying out phone boxes for cash, not going out to do anything specific – if it was there they'd do it. Climb through the window of a house if it was open; try a few car doors. Anything to show the rest of the pack they were one of them. If you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose.

Even their faces were the same as those around me when I was a kid. Black, white, Indian, mixed. On a housing estate, colour doesn't matter. Everyone's in the same shit. Everyone's parents are unemployed. Everyone's on benefits. Everyone's in the dustbin. Even dogs think the flats are interchangeable.

Another one shouted, 'Oi, mate . . .'

It was a white lad this time. I could just make out a chin full of zits under his hoodie. 'You got any fags? Give us a fag.'

A couple of them were getting a bit restless. It was time to stand up. Pack mentality: they were starting to think about other things than just taking the piss. I could feel it. I'd done it myself.

'No, mate. I don't smoke. Can't afford 'em.'

These lads were getting more confident.

'Yeah, but you're on the dole, aintcha? You're getting money, aintcha?'

'A little.'

I knew what was coming. The zit-faced one whipped out a blade. 'Fucking give us it then.'

There was no point debating this. I stepped forward and grabbed his hand and bent his palm back towards his forearm. My momentum gave me more power in my grip, and he went down, more with surprise than pain.

The knife clattered to the ground. The others did a kind of war dance, ready to have a go but not sure what to do now one of them was down. But one of them would, eventually.

Zit-face lay there in shock. I folded the knife and put it in my pocket. 'OK, lads, now just fuck off.'

'Cunt!' The first black lad made his move. He aimed a kick at me, but wasn't fast enough. I grabbed his leg and pulled him towards me, at the same time kicking down hard on the calf muscle of his standing leg. He fell onto his back.

The others shouted, 'You cunt!' but no one else was in a hurry to make the mistake he had.

I held onto his leg. I had to do something short, sharp and drastic to stop this from escalating. I stamped down on the side of his knee. I wasn't going to break it; just give him the worst pain he'd ever experienced. He howled like a wounded animal.

'Now fuck off.'

I let go of his leg and put my hand in my pocket. I threw about £50 at Zit-face but kept my eyes on the rest of them, just in case.

'You've got to watch what you're doing, lads. Don't take things at face value. Someone else might have got hold of that knife and jammed it in one of your necks. One or two of you would have been down and dead – just over a few fucking quid. You've got to start switching yourselves on . . .'

I gave the two lads on the floor a tap, letting them know it was OK to get up.

'Take the money, go and get pissed, do whatever, just fuck off and let me get my head down.'

They did. They took the money and ran – all except the black lad, who hobbled. He'd be all right. I watched them disappear back the way they'd come, pausing occasionally to turn and shout at me in an effort to regain some dignity. 'You cunt! You fucking mad man wanker!'

They faded into the darkness and eventually their shouts were drowned by traffic.

Lynn emerged from behind the bins. 'Next time I stay on show. Safety in numbers . . .'

'With your accent? Red rag to a bull. But there won't be a next time. We're moving round the corner. They might go and get pissed with my cash and come back with a gun. Come on.'

As he gathered up his stuff, I did my bit for the environment. I recycled the knife into the empty-can skip.

We went and dug ourselves in behind the not-so-trendy skips, the ones filled with actual rubbish and shite from Tesco. Lynn had had at least one new life experience today, an encounter with hoodie culture. He might be about to have his second, coming face to face with a real rat.

It was time to think about the next phase. 'So anyway, what are they wearing round Genoa this time of the year?'

He gave it some thought. 'It'll be fairly mild, but still cold. Smart coats mostly, but you'll get away with a ski jacket. A lot of people head for the Alps at the weekend.'

'OK, we'll buy some gear in the morning. But we won't wear it yet – we'll take the bags to the airport. We'll travel separately, take a shower, then come out in our new gear. Throw away your old clothes in dribs and drabs around the terminal. Don't try to force big bundles into a bin – remember the CCTV.'

51

Gatwick airport
0800 hrs

I headed straight to the check-in area in the South Terminal with the two plastic carrier bags that contained my next layer of skin. If we'd been flying anywhere longer haul than Europe I would have bought myself some hand luggage so I blended in, but for short hops it didn't matter. So many people fly to places like Brussels and Milan for the day that travelling without even a newspaper doesn't raise an eyebrow. The flight seemed to be on time.

I asked at the information desk about soap and a towel and went up the escalator to Gatwick Village. I spotted Lynn in an overcoat with a velvet collar and a dark brown fedora, sitting at a table in a coffee shop, staring forlornly into a large frothy cup. Giving him a wide berth, I carried on to the showers tucked away behind Starbucks.

After we'd picked up Lynn's passport and Leena had filled us up with her ginger cake, made especially for me once she found out I was coming, we'd split up for the shopping frenzy. The very last item on my list was airline tickets for me and Mr Adrian William Letts. Since I had a card, it was easily done online. The 24-hour internet café even printed out the boarding passes there and then.

We'd arranged to meet where the minicab had dropped us off by Catford station at 5 a.m., before travelling separately again to the airport.

I finished my shower, and emerged in my new not-so-man-about-Santa-Margherita-Ligure gear: jeans, Nikes, blue polo shirt and matching ski jacket from a 24/7 supermarket with a clothes section. No red or yellow Euro coloured jeans for me.

I got rid of my old stuff in several bins, and headed for departures.

The flight was busy and there was a scrum around the gate. I never understood what the rush was about. The plane wouldn't leave until the last passenger was on board, and there were seats for everyone. And in my experience, last on got the seat next to the beautiful girl everyone else had avoided in case it looked like they were trying it on.

I just hoped the only vacant seat wasn't next to Lynn. He hadn't just gone native, he'd turned into Don Corleone.

PART FIVE

52

1250 hrs

Cristoforo Colombo International Airport is quite small, despite the grand name and the fact Genoa is a big industrial city of close to a million inhabitants. Built on a reclaimed peninsula about fifteen Ks outside the city, it's only got the one terminal. But it's always busy if you're Irish or a Brit. The 1995 Schengen Agreement allows EU countries to remove their internal borders and let citizens travel freely from country to country. For security reasons, the UK and Ireland were the only two countries to remain outside the agreement. It pissed Lynn off big-time.

'The upshot is, you have to join the bloody United Nations queue for just two booths to have our passports checked. By the time you've got to the front and they've had a quick flickthrough, all the taxis have gone and there's a long wait between buses.'

'Just as well we won't be using them then, eh?'

I was feeling confident. I knew my passport chip was going to say exactly what was written on the page.

To my right I could hear Lynn being very cool and casual, giving it plenty of
'Buongiorno'
and
'Grazie'
.

If his passport didn't pass the test and the carabinieri jumped him, I'd carry on alone. From here, fuck it, I could drive to Russia, or get a train and be there within sixteen hours. Or I could even drive to Serbia or Kosovo. No heavy surveillance there: just ask Radovan Karadzic. It'd only take a few hours. It'd actually be quicker than driving from London to Dundee.

We both sailed through. Brendan had earned his fifteen hundred. Well, sixteen if you counted the hundred I gave him on top for his next three months' worth of Hob Nobs and a bunch of something nice for Leena.

Rather than getting any of the transport I could see outside, the buses that took you down to the train station, Genoa Principale, or a cab from the rank, I headed for the Hertz office. I thought I'd give Avis a miss. I wasn't worried they'd tie me in to the missing Merc because I was using my cover docs – but their cars didn't seem to be doing me any favours.

Lynn had said the forty-K drive to Santa Margherita Ligure took about fifty minutes. We could have taken a taxi, but Lynn had a theory that every cab driver in Italy worked either for the Mafia or the government. Besides, we might need to make a quick getaway from his safe house if it turned out not to be so safe after all, and I wanted instant wheels.

I left Lynn outside and went to the Hertz desk alone. The less time we were seen together the better. The girl processed my card, licence and passport with a big smile, and minutes later I had the key fob to a blue Fiat Punto in my hand and was heading for the car park. It was possible they had cameras at entrance and exit as an anti-theft measure, so I'd told Lynn I'd pick him up just outside.

He was waiting where I'd told him to. I'd taken the piss out of his Don Corleone overcoat, but now he looked like every other smartly dressed Italian in sight.

Lynn directed me onto the tollbooths for the A12. The Italians did two things well, I'd always thought: dictators and motorways. The one thing they didn't seem to go in for, I said, was CCTV cameras.

Lynn laughed. 'You worry about surveillance in the UK, but the Italians are among the most spied-upon people in the world. Seventy-six telephone intercepts per hundred thousand people each year.