Greed (31 page)

'What happened?' he said. 'We were all convinced you were dead.'

'That was the point,' said Damien. 'It was obvious that someone was following us. I reckoned I had a chance of surviving if he thought I was dead. So when I got sight of Sallum on my tail I pulled a switch – in a sauna in Manchester. I noticed a guy in there, a gangster called David. A small-time hit man. The world would be better off without him, I reckoned. I went upstairs with Sallum, then slipped out, told David there was a guy waiting for him, a real babe. Off he went. It's pitch black in those rooms, so he wouldn't notice it wasn't me.'

'He had your credit cards, the works,' said Matt. 'One came with a hand, flying through the window.'

'That was the clever bit,' said Damien. 'As Dave went off, I checked the locker number on his key ring. Number twelve. I went downstairs to the bloke on the desk, told him I'd lost my key, slipped him a twenty-quid tip, and got the spare key from him. Downstairs, I switched my stuff into Dave's locker, dressed in his gear – which looked bloody terrible, by the way.'

'And you just took off?' said Matt.

'Right,' answered Damien. 'I've just been lying low for the last week. I contacted Gill a couple of days ago to let her know I was OK. And I came along today because I didn't know where you were and this was when we scheduled the collection. If I'd have known I was running into this kind of trouble I'd have come along mob handed.'

Matt looked towards Gill. 'Thanks for coming to get me. I was a dead man until you two showed up.'

Gill slipped her hand into his. 'A girl doesn't want to be left on the shelf, you know,' she replied, a smile spreading across her lips.

Matt collected two bags from where they were stashed, tucking them under his arm. Damien took another two, and Gill one. Ten yards away they heard a low moan, and Gill ran back to where they had dragged Ivan. 'He's alive,' she called out. 'He's coming around.' She tore a strip of her shirt to start bandaging up the wound on his head. 'We must get him to a hospital.'

'We were wrong about Ivan,' Matt said, looking across at Damien. 'We were wrong about a lot of things.'

Damien started to shovel some earth over Alison's scattered remains, each clump of mud starting to obscure a different part of her body. Matt took up his own spade, shovelling furiously: the sight of Alison's splintered body disturbed him, and he didn't want to have to look at it for a moment more than necessary. The cut on his face was stinging viciously, but the work felt good. Like taking a run: hard physical activity always soothed him.

'Reid and Cooksley died on this mission,' Matt said, looking up at Damien. 'Their families are all dead, so there's no one to give the money to. I think we should bury their money.'

'You're having a laugh, right?' Damien exclaimed. 'Toss four million quid into the ground? That bump on the head must be worse than it looks.'

'No,' said Matt. 'I'm serious.'

Damien paused. 'You really mean to toss the money away?'

'If there is one thing I've learnt in the past couple of weeks it's that greed does funny things to a man's head,' said Matt slowly. 'Within a few days it made monsters out of all of us. I don't want any more than my fair share.'

Damien picked up one bag and tossed it into the ditch, then another. 'We'll keep one for Ivan,' he said. 'If he pulls through, it's his. If not, we'll look for his family, and give it to them. If not. . . well, let's see.' He laughed, watching the second of the two bags hit the ground, then tossed another shovelful of dirt on top of it. 'Christ, one day I'm going to be broke, I know it. And I'm really going to regret doing this.'

Matt grinned. 'You've got two million, how quickly can you spend that?'

Damien wiped sweat from his brow and collected some leaves to pile on top of the freshly dug earth. 'Do you think that will be discovered?' said Damien.

'I reckon Five will think she ran off with the money herself,' said Matt. He hauled his bag on to his back and started walking into the wind and the rain. 'Some stray dog might come across it one day. But we'll be long gone by then. Leading a new life, and who knows, maybe even a better one.'

A mellow sunset was resting on the horizon, sending a pale orange light across the Mediterranean. Matt sat back on his chair, a bottle of San Miguel on the table. But it was the atmosphere and the view he was enjoying, not the beer. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the sound of the early-evening crowd piling into the Last Trumpet. The usual mixture of villains, retired car dealers and stray tourists, the noise of their conversation swept across the verandah like the waves sweeping across the rocks in the bay below.

They were an odd bunch of people, with hardly a single redeeming feature between the whole pack of them. Still, they were Matt's customers.

I
better get used to them.

He took a swig of beer, letting the alcohol relax him. It was six months since he'd bought Kazanov out of his share of the restaurant and become its sole owner. Gill was living with him here now, and the marriage was set for the new year. They were going to go back to London to do it at St Giles in Camberwell Church Street – bridesmaids, morning suits, Damien as the best man, the full works. Those were the only terms on which Gill had agreed to forgive him. That woman is a sad loss to the banking industry, he reflected. She knows how to make a man pay out on his debts. With interest.

'Look at this,' cried Gill.

She walked out of the back of the restaurant towards the private patio where they often had a drink together. Fifty yards towards the bay he could see the villa that was being built for them. It was taking a fair chunk out of the money he had made from the mission, but his debts were all paid, it had been a good summer for the restaurant, and property overlooking the sea was always a good investment.

We need somewhere to start our married life together, and it might as well be somewhere nice. It isn't as if I haven't got the scars to prove that I earned it.

'In the paper,' Gill said, leaning across the table and pointing.

Matt could smell the mixture of perfume and soap on her skin: a familiar scent that always reminded him of how much he loved her. He glanced down at the copy of the
Daily Telegraph,
two days old, and judging from the smell of beer and tobacco clinging to its pages, picked up from the bar. The story was on page four, below the fold. 'Mystery over buried millions,' ran the two-deck headline.

'The body of a woman together with several million pounds in used bank notes was discovered yesterday morning in woodlands near Ashford in Kent.

'The remains were found by a man walking his dog. The woman, who has not yet been identified by local police, had been killed by an explosion believed to have taken place some months ago.

'The bodies of two other men, also unidentified, were found buried within a few yards of the original discovery.

'Two bags were discovered buried with the woman. Each one contained in excess of one million pounds in used bank notes. Local police have not yet disclosed exactly how much money was found at the scene.

'Jack Turner, the local resident who discovered the body, said, "It was an amazing amount of cash. Dollars, pounds, and euros, and some others. I've never seen anything like it."

'The bodies are believed to have been buried for six to eight months.

'Police said they suspected the killings were the result of a gangland operation or money-laundering scheme that had gone wrong. A spokesman for the Kent police admitted it was highly unusual for money to be buried alongside the body of a murder victim. "We're a bit puzzled by that aspect of it," he said. "We are actively trying to trace the source of the money to see if it will give us any clues as to who these people were, and how the money got there."'

Matt laughed, looking up towards Gill. 'I tell you what, I don't think they'll be trying very hard to solve that case,' he said. 'Someone from Thames House has probably given them a call to tell them they have more important things to do with their time.'

'You don't think they'll come after you?'

'If they were going to do that they would have done it by now,' Matt answered. 'It was a black operation from start to finish. All off the books. If they brought me in it would create too many problems.'

'And Ivan never went after the money?' Gill asked.

Matt shook his head. 'Damien went to see him a few weeks ago. He's with his family, relaxing and recuperating. The wound to his head was a bad one, apparently. It took out a few slivers of brain, so the doctors said, but he had plenty to start with, so I don't suppose he'll miss it that much. Damien gave him his two million, and told him we'd buried the rest of it in the ground.'

Gill wrapped her arms around his shoulders, her lips playing with the back of his ear. 'We don't have to worry about that any more, and I'm grateful for that,' she said. 'We have a restaurant that's thriving, a new house that is nearly finished, and we're getting married in a few months' time. We have no worries in the world. I've never been happier.'

Matt paused. His eyes were dwelling on the City pages of the papers, some calculations running through his head. 'I don't know,' he said, his finger jabbing at a pair of different prices. 'I haven't checked for a few days – I didn't realise quite how terribly my portfolio was doing.'

He looked back towards Gill. 'Still, don't worry. I'm never going on another mission, no matter what happens. I'm staying right here with you.'

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