Hard Place (5 page)

Oxfordshire, England

As he turned off the M40 to head north into rural Buckinghamshire, Ratso knew the area quite well—this was the route he often used when visiting the patients at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. For two years now, he had made a point of working with the staff to identify half-a-dozen suitable wheelchair patients to join him for a day at Lord’s or at Fulham FC’s ground at Craven Cottage. Afterwards he would treat them to a steak dinner at a pub near the hospital.

He found it emotional to go into the National Spinal Injuries Centre. If it was a privilege enough to walk in, it felt even more so to be able to walk out. Seeing so many people with their lives blighted by permanent paralysis brought back memories that at times he preferred to forget. He had first been to the world-famous hospital at the age of six, grappling to understand why his mother cried so much after every visit. It took him months to understand that his father was never again going to walk, run or play games with him. One single mistake and his dad’s lumbar spine had been fractured. Life could be cruel and now if he could cheer up the patients as they battled to come to terms with a lifestyle they had never expected, then he was delighted to be of help. Only a few more weeks till the day at Craven Cottage and then Lord’s in May. The thought cheered him as he puzzled over where the Range Rover was headed.

He called his sergeants. “This is getting like a Sunday afternoon outing. They’ll be stopping for a cuppa and Mr. Kipling’s cakes in a Lay-By at this rate.”

“Where are you, guv?” It was Tosh Watson.

“Leafy Bucks! Wait one! To be precise, I have just left the M40 at Junction Six and am heading for Chinnor. They’re about a mile ahead. Where are you?”

Ratso heard muttering. “Near Windsor.”

“Windsor? What the hell are you doing near there? Lost your map? Or lost your marbles?”

“Tea with Her Majesty … and the dawgs.” Strang, seated beside Tosh, heard the snort of irritation. “Sorry, boss! Pile-up on the M25. It’s closed, so we’re proceeding toward the A404. We’ll hit the M40 at High Wycombe.”

“Well, if you want to join us for some exceedingly fine cakes, you’d better look sharp because … hello. They’ve turned right. Up a lane leading to … or called Kingston Hill. See it?” After only a brief silence, Strang confirmed. Ratso looked at the narrow winding track on the moving map. “Remember that Chris Rea song—‘The Road to Hell’?” He almost smiled as the Scot broke into song. “Well he could’ve been thinking of this road. More like a bleeding track. It goes effin’ here, there and nowhere. Doubles back east to God knows where.” Ratso accelerated to close the gap now. “Maybe I was right about them having a picnic.”

“Window-steamers, are they? Bit of hanky-panky on the backseat?”

“Maybe. But I’d say it was husband and wife. Bell me in ten.” Ratso saw the signpost to Kingston, single track. He turned in slowly and headed more or less east uphill. Then the blip on his screen stopped. It was somewhere up ahead. But maybe not on the road. Close though. “Two sugars in mine and an Angel Slice,” he muttered as he sensed a wasted trip.

Blocking the road, he pulled up before reaching the target. He’d hoped the couple would lead him to a rendezvous. Maybe there was a meet up there. Someone who had arrived before. He had hoped for new faces or another car to photo, or even to spot cash or drugs changing hands. But out here? Anything was possible, from sighting discarded panties to a couple sitting on a fallen branch enjoying mugs of tea. After a quick call to the sergeants, he cruised slowly up the rest of the hill between the banks and tall hedges. If anybody came the other way, someone would have to do a load of reversing.

But nobody came. He drove cautiously, all the while watching the stationary blip on the iPad. Just beyond the crest of the hill, the road kinked and as he rounded it, he saw another vehicle, perhaps a BMW or Audi saloon but just its rear view as it accelerated away far too fast for the road. The blip had not moved and he was almost upon it. The speeding car disappeared round a bend and was gone. He was now just eighty meters from the blip but of the Range Rover there was no sign.

West London

Even without the lingering execution of the mystery man during the night before, Erlis Bardici would have been heading for Heathrow. He had never planned to use the Range Rover to get there but the night’s events had made prudence doubly necessary. Since dragging the scrawny figure feet first from under the vehicle, he had not been near it. Gagged and bound, his prisoner had been shifted within minutes into his cousin’s gray van. They had taken him the few miles to a safe house, an apartment in Sheen. At the time, he had not believed the man’s denials of placing a bug. That’s when the nail pulling had commenced. But perhaps the little man had been telling the truth. This morning, with daylight, he had found a neat little device lying on the hard standing close to the driver’s door.

The discovery had been troubling—not because he had perhaps needlessly tortured the bastard but because it left him uncertain what to do next. The Range Rover only had 7,000 on the clock but he had nobody trustworthy to discover if another bug had been planted. Not with certainty. Not the type of certainty he needed. And no way was he driving it anywhere. Hell, there could even be an explosive device under there. Not likely but could he be sure? Not with the Hogans looking for trouble. Over his breakfast of cold meats and cheese with green tea, he weighed it all up. It was only money, a lot of money but he could buy a replacement. I could buy an effing fleet if I wanted. No way could he risk being tracked by whoever had sent the little man. No way was he going to risk being blown up by a bomb. As he poured a second cup, his mind was clear: I’m not stepping into that damned thing.

Now as the taxi headed for Terminal Five, he could relax and relive the man’s wriggles against the belts that had held him secure to the chair. His face broke into a smile as he recalled those screams through the gag, the man’s face puce with effort, his cheeks dripping in sweat, his eyes wide open with something between defiance and fear.

Credit to the bastard, it took nine nails before he cracked. My name’s Robbie Bracewell, he’d said but Bardici hadn’t believed him. No matter. The real name would be in the papers shortly. Whoever he was, the runt had admitted to working for those Hogan bastards from Tooting. Dan and Jerry Hogan had started supplying coke and pills to the bars and clubs round Mitcham, Morden and toward Croydon and the message he had received from the Big Man was the Hogans had to be stopped. Killed. ASAP.

But getting both Hogans together so far had been impossible. The feelers were out. But had they bugged him as the little guy had said? It made sense. The ninth finger he had twisted slowly as he pulled the nail until all three bones, the distal, middle and proximal phalanges, were all broken, causing mind-blowing pain. But it had been effective. After careful thought over breakfast, he had selected a pay-as-you-go phone from over a dozen that he owned and constantly discarded. He rang a different cousin, in Chiswick and gave clear instructions on what he had to do.

Such thoughts left his mind as Bardici presented his passport at the British Airways desk at Terminal Five with his ID of Mujo Zevi from the Albanian-speaking coastal resort of Ulcinj in Montenegro. His papers, for a short vacation in Florida, were checked and accepted with no hesitation despite the fact that his burly frame and height of over six feet gave him an air of danger if not actual menace, even when smiling. But the small beard and tinted contacts changed his eye color and helped create a perfect match for his false ID. The premature iron gray in his hair was now luxurious black to complete the look.

As he accepted the offer of champagne and nuts in the Lounge, he thought ahead to his meeting in Freeport with Lance Ruthven. Of course the man would be using the name Hank Kurtner but Bardici had been well briefed by his superior, one of the lieutenants used by the Big Boss. He knew every last detail about the American. The rendezvous he had chosen was the car park of the Pink Flamingo Calypso Bar, a few miles east of Freeport. From an Internet café just round the corner and with help from Google Maps, Bardici had judged the bar to be suitably anonymous and unlikely to be busy early in the evening before the steel band arrived.

Now, as he reclined in his Club World seat, he was looking forward to the fixing the devious shit who ran the shipyard. It wouldn’t be as pleasurable as slicing off the Irishman’s manhood with the long-handled shears. But then … yes, wasn’t it Rod Stewart who had proclaimed that the first cut is the deepest? He smiled wolfishly. Not when I’m involved, Rod. Every cut is deep.

Oxfordshire, England

Ratso was a mere twenty meters from the Range Rover when he saw it, or rather, guessed where it was. The afternoon sky was rapidly filling with thick black smoke rising from an unmade track just to his left. He cruised forward, windows down and was hit by the pungent smell of acrid fumes at the same moment he heard the roar of a fire. A second later he saw the Range Rover engulfed in flames. Whether it had gone down with its occupants, it was already too late to tell. Petrol had obviously been thrown generously over the bodywork as well as inside before it had been fired. Roaring flames leapt skyward between the trees in the clearing and the air was already darkening with a spreading black cloud. From his own car, he took a series of photos showing the registration number but with the intensity of the fire he went no closer, taking no chances.

Ratso knew that some smartasses reckoned fuel tanks don’t explode but the whole team had only recently watched the footage of a Los Angeles fire-fighter being blasted from close range while battling a blazing green saloon when the tank let rip. Somehow, the poor sod had survived. If the couple were inside the Range Rover, frankly he didn’t give a stuff. More likely they had been chauffeured away in the speeding saloon. He started to accelerate after it but then changed his mind. He was never going to catch it.

He phoned Watson. It was Jock Strang who answered.

“Not a picnic after all, Jock. More of a barbeque. Tosh could grill his burgers a treat.”

“Torched it, did they?” The Scot heard Ratso’s grunted yes. “Ye got them?”

“No. Probably whisked away in a Beamer saloon—a Three Series. Or maybe an Audi.” He checked the map on screen. “My guess—and it is a guess—is they must somehow be getting back to the M40. No, wait one. The A40 first. This piddling little lane eventually winds to it. Where are you?”

“Tosh is chatting to the Duke about the rising price of deer-stalker hats. Hang on, guv. I’m checking.” Strang ran his finger along the routes. “Shit and buggerrr-ation!”

“Spilt tea on the corgis, have you?”

“We’re too far north. We’re just turning off the M40 at Stokenchurch.”

“You’ll still spot them. Take the A40 doubling back to London. The lane from Kingston Hill joins it after about a mile. Look out for a saloon with either one or three occupants. Probably two males, one female heading for London … but it might go your way. Get the number.”

“Intercept?”

“No. Follow if you can. Get intel unit back at base to check the number. Get me a forensic team out here. A pickup truck for the remains. I’m staying put so nobody corrupts the scene.”

“Take care, boss.”

“Keep me posted.”

Ratso reversed a few meters and stopped, blocking the road. The Range Rover, almost unrecognisable now, was engulfed by a raging roar of red, yellow, gold and black. Still keeping well clear, he got out and studied the tire tracks on the verge. They could have been caused by one vehicle passing another but hopefully had been left by the saloon parked in the soggy mud and grass. He looked at the muddy track down which the car was blazing. There were footprints everywhere—plenty for the forensic boys to play with but they wouldn’t make it for another hour. At least the sleet had stopped, leaving just the icy wind that whipped over the crest of the Chiltern Hills.

He settled back to wait, wondering whether his sergeants had been too late. He grabbed his phone. There was much to do; cancelling his cricket nets for this evening, for starters. He felt pissed off about that, missing the banter and the pint afterward. He’d been looking forward to bowling to the new young Aussie who had played Grade Cricket in Melbourne. And he had to fix a meet with Lefty Denholm. And talk to Charlene—once Caldwell had sent a young PC to break the news. But first, it had to be Wensley Hughes.

Though the Assistant Commissioner had a supercilious look, with a face like an inquisitive and whiskerless gerbil, Ratso liked him. He’d been tagged as a copper’s copper. He’d had the bottle to approve Operation Clam as a totally clandestine venture.

Wensley Hughes had abandoned his stack of dog-eared files in disgust, convinced that someone—someone high up and well placed—had been leaking to Zandro. Confidential reports to the Home Office were insecure. A piss-poor bucket full of leaks had been his dismissive description of the Home Secretary of the day.

So now, as an AC, Wensley Hughes remained supportive but Neil’s murder could be the tipping point. Would Hughes hold his nerve? He was less bothered about Arthur Tennant. True, that shit would carp, sneer and look smug in that I told you so sort of way. Always the first to be in his running shoes if any shit was flying. Just the thought of him made Ratso’s toes curl. Slowly he dialled the AC. Would he be hung out to dry? The odds were good. For a thin, gaunt figure, rather frail looking with waxy skin, the assistant commissioner had the balls of a stallion and the courage of a lion