Rob Johnson - Lifting the Lid (8 page)

‘Trust me, lady,’ he said in a heavy Cockney accent.

‘And why should I do that exactly?’

‘Listen, love, everybody’ll tell yer I’m honest as the day is long.’

‘In Finland in December maybe.’

The tout bristled, his jaws visibly clenching and unclenching beneath the taut, suntanned skin. ‘Look, d’you want it or not?’

‘Hundred quid.’

‘Leave it out. I’ve already come down from one-thirty.’

Sandra grunted and took her purse from the pocket of her cream cotton jacket. ‘It better had be genuine for your sake. Because if it isn’t, I shall come and find you and cut off both your nuts with a pair of very rusty and very blunt garden shears.’

‘Oh yeah?’

She paused in the middle of counting out the banknotes and looked up to see the tout grinning at her. He was missing two of his front teeth, and those that remained were clearly in need of some serious dental attention. She fixed him with a penetrating and emotionless stare, and the tout’s grin subsided as he shuffled from one foot to the other.

‘Okay, lady, keep yer ‘air on. I’m only tryin’ to make a livin’.’

After a few more seconds of watching him squirm, she released him from her gaze and finished counting the money. ‘Here.’

The tout reached for the cash but stopped when Sandra quickly withdrew it from his grasp.

‘Ticket first, I think,’ she said, raising a menacing eyebrow.

He mumbled something under his breath and pulled a ticket from a bundle of about a dozen. Sandra snatched it from him and examined it closely before giving him the money.

Placing the ticket in her pocket alongside her purse, she began to walk in the direction of the main entrance and then suddenly turned.

‘Don’t forget,’ she called out and mimed the action of opening and closing a pair of garden shears.

* * *

Trevor’s senses were being battered from every direction as he walked towards the bright yellow marquee. There was the pounding rock music from the main outdoor stage, which morphed into the thundering rhythms of a group of Japanese drummers he glimpsed through the open sides of the marquee as he passed.

There were the vivid and clashing colours, not just of the clothes the people were wearing as they scurried this way and that, but of the numerous stalls selling all kinds of goods ranging from garishly painted wooden toys to outrageously flamboyant hats and plastic angel wings.

Beyond the marquee, his nose was bombarded with a bizarre blend of cooking smells emanating from the impressive range of mobile kitchens arranged on three sides of a large square. Each scent vied with the other to attract his attention but merely succeeded in creating a distinctly unappetising stink involving curry, hot dogs, garlic, roasting chicken, candyfloss, chip fat, onions, barbecued sweetcorn, frying bacon and other odours which were impossible to identify from the mix.

Ravenous though he still was from having eaten nothing but a handful of biscuits since yesterday lunchtime, Trevor found it surprisingly easy to resist temptation. Milly, on the other hand, was evidently much more impressed with the aroma, particularly when she discovered the drool-inducing assortment of half-eaten food which had been dropped on the ground.

‘Come on, Milly,’ Trevor shouted when he turned to see his dog enthusiastically devouring what appeared to be a polystyrene tray of tapeworms but which, in reality, were probably some kind of noodles.

Now it was Milly’s turn to pretend to be deaf. Only when she had finished her meal did she canter jauntily over to him, scooping up half a sausage as she went without even breaking stride.

Glad to leave the nauseating stench of the food stalls behind him, Trevor spotted the locker area, which was surrounded by a temporary but sturdy-looking steel fence. Fixed to this was a large metal sign bearing the words “Safe and Sound” in black letters on a pale green background. Approaching the open gate in the centre of the front section of fencing, he noticed that a CCTV camera was mounted high up on each of the compound’s four corner posts and pointing inwards. He hesitated for a second and pulled up the hood of his fleece jacket to cover his head. He wasn’t entirely sure why except that he knew he was probably doing something he ought not to be doing and thought it would be wise not to have his identity recorded on film while he was doing it.

He walked over to where an attractive young woman and a slightly older man with Too Many Pies Syndrome sat behind a small trestle table immediately to the right of the gate. Each wore a tight-fitting T-shirt printed with the same words and in the same colours as the sign.

‘Hello,’ said the woman, beaming up at Trevor and displaying an impossibly white and immaculately proportioned set of front teeth.

‘Um, I need to get to my locker,’ he said and reached into his jacket pocket.

‘Certainly, sir. Which number?’

Trevor pulled out the brown paper envelope and extracted one of the two index cards. It was the one with the Bristol address printed on it.

‘Sorry. Wrong one.’ He smiled weakly at her and took out the second card.

The male attendant, who had been staring at Trevor without any trace of expression from the moment he had arrived, seemed suddenly distracted.

‘That your dog?’

Oh not again, thought Trevor. ‘Pardon?’

‘The dog. Is it yours?’

He followed the nod of the attendant’s head and saw Milly sauntering through the open gate and into the compound.

‘Ah. Yes, she’s a hearing dog.’

‘Good for her,’ said the man and proceeded to clean the dirt from under his fingernails with the plastic fork from an empty takeaway container.

Realising the attendant neither knew nor cared what a hearing dog was, Trevor turned his attention back to his female colleague, relieved that he didn’t have to reprise the deaf act. ‘C nine,’ he read out from the index card.

‘C nine,’ she repeated and began riffling through the pages of a large plastic-covered folder. ‘Here we are. C nine. I’ll just have to ask you a couple of security questions if that’s okay, sir.’

‘Fine.’

‘Could you tell me your memorable date?’

Trevor glanced at the index card in his hand. ‘Thirtieth of July, sixty-six.’

‘Football fan, eh?’ She treated him to the same dentally perfect smile as before.

‘Sorry?’

‘World Cup Final? England four, West Germany two? They think it’s all over?’

‘Oh yes, of course.’

She looked back at the file. ‘And your mother’s maiden name?’

‘Hurst.’

‘Quite a coincidence that,’ she said, closing the file.

‘It is, isn’t it?’ said Trevor, not having the slightest clue what she was talking about.

‘Right, that’s all, sir. You can carry on now.’

‘Thank you.’

‘You’re welcome.’ She beamed at him once again while the male attendant studiously continued to clean his fingernails with the fork.

Trevor headed towards the banks of lockers in the middle of the compound. By now, Milly had investigated the area thoroughly and, having apparently discovered little of interest, lay down for a nap.

Each of the blue-fronted lockers was about a foot wide and six inches high, and they were stacked in columns of ten. He located C nine with little difficulty and began entering the numbers from the index card into the chunky combination lock. Hearing a faint click when he punched in the final number, he removed the lock and cautiously opened the small metal door as if afraid that he was about to be attacked by whatever lay inside.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The ground was hard, and MacFarland’s arse was killing him. Not only that, but he was getting desperate for a pee. He shifted his position on the sloping grass bank and winced. Two bloody hours he’d been sat there, pretending to read the festival programme whilst keeping a careful eye on the locker area twenty yards in front of him. And where the hell was Humpty Numpty? He should have taken over from him ages ago. For the third time in as many minutes, he tried to reach him on his mobile phone but, as before, the unavailable message cut in straight away.

Idle bastard must have switched it off. Probably getting himself bladdered in the beer tent.

He scanned the small groups of people scattered here and there along the embankment, most of whom were in their early twenties or younger. They sat or lay chatting, eating and drinking, and every one of them seemed to be having the time of their lives except for the two older men who had been sitting in the same spot ever since he’d arrived. One was short and slightly overweight and wore a smart tan-coloured leather jacket. The other was of medium height and pipe-cleaner thin with a blue denim jacket and a matching baseball cap. Both wore sunglasses even though the sun had yet to make an appearance that day.

MacFarland had decided they didn’t look much like your average festival goers when he had first noticed them, and he’d become convinced that they too were taking an unusual interest in anyone entering the locker area. Right now, he was certain they were watching a man in a hooded fleece who was heading towards the block of lockers.

He followed their gaze, thinking this would be yet another false alarm until he realised the man seemed to be making for C nine. He sat upright. Jesus, he’s going for it. I’m bloody sure he is. – Hang on a sec though…

He snatched up his phone again and punched rapidly at the keys. It rang only twice before Delia answered. ‘What’s up, Mac?’

‘I thought ye said it was a woman supposed to be making the pickup.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, seems to be a wee blokie opening the locker.’

‘Maybe she’s got a partner. I wouldn’t worry about it for now. Just make sure you don’t let him out of your sight.’

‘Fair enough.’ MacFarland twisted round to see that one of the two men he’d been watching had produced a fancy looking camera with a long lens and was aiming it at the locker area. ‘Oh aye, an’ I reckon there’s a coupla other guys watchin’ him as well.’

‘Probably Special Branch – or whatever they call themselves these days. Hardly surprising in the circumstances, I’d say.’

‘Fair enough,’ he repeated and hung up.

He got to his feet and grimaced as he felt the stiffness in his legs and backside. At the same time, a man in a white singlet with a severe stoop and extraordinarily hairy shoulders sidled up to him.

‘Anything happening?’ he said.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ MacFarland said without taking his eyes off the locker compound.

‘Sorry, Mac. There was this really good band on the main stage, and I lost track of the time.’

‘Yir no here tae enjoy yirself, Humpty. We’ve got a bloody job tae do.’

‘Sorry,’ Humpty said again, his already flushed cheeks reddening with contrition.

‘Anyways, looks like we have liftoff at last.’

Humpty peered in the same direction as MacFarland. ‘The guy in the grey fleece with the hood?’

‘That’s the one.’

‘But I thought it was supposed to be a woman.’

‘I know. That’s why I phoned Delia.’

‘And?’

‘Said she might have sent an errand boy. He’s oor man though, whoever he is.’ MacFarland pulled the band from his ponytail, scraped back his hair and replaced the band.

Humpty’s eyes strayed from the locker compound. ‘Bloke over there seems to be taking photographs.’

‘Special Branch probably. Hardly surprising in the circumstances,’ said MacFarland, almost exactly repeating Delia’s words. ‘My guess is that one o’ ‘em will go straight tae the locker as soon as our friend has gone, and the other’ll follow him. Ye stick wi’ the locker one and I’ll go after the fleece guy. – And keep yir bloody mobile switched on this time.’

‘Er, right. Battery must be on the blink.’

With his gaze still fixed on the locker area, MacFarland heard a faint bleep, which could only have been Humpty turning his phone back on.

‘Here we go. He’s on his way oot.’

Both of them watched as the man in the hooded fleece chatted with the security woman on the gate while her male colleague seemed to be fiddling intently with his fingernails. Moments later, he walked briskly away, a black and tan mongrel dog trotting at his heels.

‘That his dog, d’you think?’ said Humpty.

‘How should I know? Just dae what I tellt ye, okay?’ He glanced at the men with the sunglasses. As he’d expected, the taller of the two was already making his way towards the lockers while the other brushed some loose grass from his pale beige trousers and set off after the fleece guy.

MacFarland waited for a few seconds to let him get ahead. More out of habit than any real need to check it was still there, he slid his hand inside his jacket and ran his fingertips over the textured rubber grip of his gun.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

It was official. Sandra was definitely not having a good day.

‘What the hell are you talking about?’ she said to the shaven-headed steward. ‘I paid a hundred and twenty quid for that.’