The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1)

T
he author thanks
Sunday People
editor Neil Wallis; he had sod all to do with the book but he buys a decent lunch. He would also like to acknowledge the help and inspiration of the original Bushwhacker – you know who you are – without whose friendship and encouragement this book would not exist. Special thanks also go to Michael Fournaris.

Long acknowledgements lists are usually just a cheap ploy to up book sales. The author hates them, and so do: Tania, Julie, Danny, Robert, Jenna, Ciara, Terry and Pat, Vic and Mandy, Mick and Helen Pugh, Lol Pryor, Paul and Sue, Garry and Julie Johnson, Jim and Sharon, Scotch John, Tommy in Wales, Joanna Burns, Garry and Leah Hodges, Jimmy Jones, Kara and Jez, Colin Blood, Colin and Kathryn, Dave Lee, Kelvin MacKenzie, Antonella Lazzeri, Dale, Tony Clayman, Dougie the Gold, Frankie Boy, Panny and Gil, Peakey, Henri Brandman, everyone at the Circus Tavern, Andy Russell, Andy Swallow and Longshanks, Jim Davidson and CAFC.

T
here are days when every part of England seems to be curling up at the edges. Stuck in mid-morning traffic made ten times worse by speed bumps, artificially narrowed roads and lashings of late summer rain, Harry Tyler would normally have been ranting aloud about town planning “minges” by now, not to mention poxy women drivers who were forever SLOWING DOWN for fellow shoppers, parkers, cyclists, pedestrians, pensioners and all the other pond life who had nothing better to do all day but HOLD HIM UP! TOSSERS! But today Harry was cool. He barely noticed the slow screech of the new wiper blades against his windscreen as the rain eased to a drizzle. He didn’t even take a second glance at Croydon’s new “shining pearl”, the tramlines installed to – whoopeedoo! – celebrate the millennium. Having a big trade on was better than Prozac. It perked him up and concentrated the mind. Harry steered his dark blue G-reg Granada 2.01 smoothly into a lay-by, got out and walked to a telephone box – why do we still call the ugly little grey slab of aluminium a box? Needless to say the handset had been ripped off. Bollocks. In his day the thing to do with a phone box was shag in it, not fuck it.

He stepped over the diluted remains of last night’s pavement vomit. South London had always been a pisshole and Croydon had gone the same way. East London had the edge and the certainty, that aggressive “oo-wants-it?” sense of moral and physical superiority. When did Charlton or QPR or Tottenham or any other London club fire the imagination like the Hammers? Sure, South London had Millwall – MUGS! – and West London had the boys from The Shed constantly battling for the silver medal, but everybody knew that
bona fide
real bastards were home and away with West Ham. The East End! That’s where the real wide boys came from, the real gangsters, the real
earners
. PROPER people.

Harry Aaron Tyler was born in Colchester, Essex, in 1958, but the family had moved to Romford when he was five. His mum and dad’s marriage had lasted eight more years. He was a working-class boy, educated at grammar school where even the teachers took the piss out of his “fink-and-fort it” council house accent. Youthful naiveté had prevented him seeing what a right old slapper his mother had been. Not that he had ever believed his fireman father had been the bastard Mum said he was. Immaterial now. Who gave a toss? He had his own kid, little three-year-old Courtney Rose, the product of his second marriage.

The Granada nudged back into the traffic. Tied up in his own thoughts, Harry didn’t notice the burly man on the powerful motorbike peer into his car as it glided past or the woman in the car behind which had a baby-seat but no baby. He was early.

The mobile phone on the passenger seat rang. It was a sensible ring, not one of those aggravating loony-tunes that pasty-looking office prats in cheap off-the-peg whistles always go for.

Harry answered. “Yeah?” he grunted.

“Harry?”

“Yeah.”

“It’s Sonny.”

“Really? It’s bin pissing down ’ere.”

“What?”

“Yes, don’t panic. I’m running on time. I’ll be 45 minutes.”

“Yeah, it’s Sonny.”

“I know. I’ve just been to a box but the poxy thing’s smashed. I’ll be there.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh, and, Sonny, I’ve got something to tell ya.”

“What?”

“I’m shagging yer granny.”

Silence. “Me granny’s dead.”

“Yeah,” Harry paused for a beat. “I know.”

“You bastard.”

“Yeah, laters.”

Harry noted the time. It was 12.15 pm. He tossed the phone back on the seat and reached for a Wrigley’s Extra sugar-free gum. The early morning wake-up breakfast of double sausage, double bacon, egg, chips, beans and two slices was lying heavy on his guts. The beans were a recent addition to satisfy the nagging concern at the back of his mind that he ought to have a bit of fibre in his diet. All them poncey, tanned-at-our-expense telly quacks must have got to him. He even had one day a week off from the sauce now. He just had a habit of forgetting which day it was…

As Harry drove into the near-empty pub forecourt he noticed the green Mercedes van parked in full view of the pub windows. He drove slowly across and circled it. The front right-hand tyre was flat. He pulled up about eight car lengths from it and gathered his thoughts. It was 12.25 pm. He picked up his mobile and strolled into the pub. What a shithole. The main bar was deserted. It was typical of public houses built on 1950s council estates: dark wood everywhere, dull brasses hanging limply, utterly devoid of class. A dead fruit machine stood next to a wall dotted with cheap mirrors: Coca Cola, Newcastle Brown Ale, Becks Bier. Central heating pipes ran up the corners of the bar. It was more Jim Bowen than Laurence Llewellyn, thought Harry. The ceiling was low and stained by the smoke of a million fags. Carpets, which had once been pink and patterned, were now frayed, shabby, and sticky with God knows what human ooze. The only sign of life was the small foot-high stage at the far end where Harry imagined the strippers performed on a Friday night. They weren’t even bright enough to have lap-dancers. There were only two punters, old boys playing crib.

Debbie Hodges watched the stranger saunter in and liked what she saw. The bloke was mid-thirties, she thought; about six-foot-one and powerfully built. His dark-brown hair was closely cropped in a vain attempt to disguise premature balding and he had the start of a beer belly but she’d never minded a veranda over the toy shop. Everything about him, the way he walked, the way he held himself, said this was a fella who could handle himself. Nicely dressed too. Blue Ben Sherman shirt, black YSL jeans, black Kangol boots. Smart.

He got closer. Debbie noticed the twinkling blue eyes. She caught a whiff of his L’Eau D’Issey and felt herself tremor.

“Yes, luv?” she said, pushing the latest copy of
OK!
magazine to one side.

Harry had a good look at the over-painted peroxide blonde behind the bar. Her eyes said, “Come to bed,” the face said, “After ten pints.” She croaked when she spoke, in a voice that had been coarsened by 40 fags a day for 25 years. She was about 38, 39 with eye-lashes like tarantulas and no less than 12 gold chains around her neck. There was a pair of gold boxing gloves on the end of the longest one which dangled inside the crevice of an enormous cleavage. Knock-out knockers, he thought – love the Tom. It might be gold but it ain’t cold. But the Doris? No. He wouldn’t be going the distance in her ring.

“Pint of lager,” Harry grunted.

“Foster’s or Oranjeboom?”

“No, I said lager, luv. Got any Stella?”

“No, just Foster’s or …”

“Foster’s is fine, angel.”

Debbie poured the pint. Harry noticed she was wearing white slacks cropped halfway up her calf. The look had been fashionable with teenage girls the previous summer. Mutton dressed as lamb foetus, Harry mused.

“That’s
£
2.20,” she said.

“What, do I get shares in the pub as well?”

“No, you’ve just bought it outright, darling,” Debbie laughed. “And very welcome you are, a big strong lad like you. We’ve got a menu if you want food.”

Harry glanced at the sandwiches behind her. Watercress! Who the fuck
likes
watercress? There was a board above them covered in chalked specials: meat pie and chips, pastie and chips, prawn curry and chips, lasagne and chips. Even, God help them,
coq au vin
, which didn’t seem to come with chips although you could probably get them as a side order.

Harry was Old School on the subject of pub grub. The only food he wanted to see behind a bar were crisps, pork scratchings, ham rolls, and cheese rolls with a layer of raw onion. Pub meals were to be frowned on, along with boozers that sold coffee and men who paid for their drinks with loose change from little
purses
. MUGS!

“See anyfing you fancy?” Debbie asked coquettishly.

“You cooking?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll give it a miss.”

“Saucy bastard.”

“Nothing like polite service, is there?”

“No, and this is nothing like it. Give us a shout if you need anything.” She winked.

It certainly won’t be a bunk up, Harry thought. Aloud he said, “OK, ta. I’ll be back in a minute. I’m gonna shift me jamjar.”

“It’s all right out there,” Debbie said.

“Yeah, but I don’t wanna get blocked in by the one o’clock rush.”

She gave him a funny look. “Are you from round here?”

Harry pointed at his left wrist. “Yeah, look. Can’t you see where I tried to slash it?” He sipped his beer. It was flatter than the tyre on the van outside. “Oi, luv,” he said, pushing his luck. “Give that the kiss of life while I’m out, will ya?”

He walked back to the Granada, checking out the car park and surrounding area. A bloke on a powerful motorbike was sailing past the more northerly of two entrances. A woman in a car with a baby-seat but no baby was parked up outside a papershop fifty yards down.

Harry got in the car and drove out on to the street, parking outside facing north, towards God’s country. He picked up that morning’s copy of the
Newham Recorder
, put his mobile in his jacket pocket then walked back into the boozer. There was a new pint waiting for him on the bar.

Debbie returned. “Sorry,” she said, hitting him with a maximum force smile. “I’ve swapped that for a good ’un.”

“What’s that? Another tenner?”

“You’d get me for that,” she leered.

“I meant ten sovs, not ten pee.”

“You really are a cheeky bastard,” she laughed. “I like you.”

Harry’s mobile rang. He turned away from the bar and looked at his watch. It was 1.05 pm.

“Yeah?” he said.

“You about?” It was Sonny.

“Yeah. Where we said.”

“Be two minutes. Where’s yer motor?”

“How long you gonna be?”

“Two minutes.”

“Yeah,” said Harry, ending the call.

Eight minutes later Sonny bowled in. He was tall and thin, about six-foot-three, with hair cropped back to the bone. Sonny was black, Nigerian looking, and dressed casually but well in designer gear. He appeared to have most of the missing gold from the Brinks-Mat robbery around his neck and wrists. The link bracelet on his right arm alone must have been worth
£
1,000, wholesale.

Harry liked him. They had the same sense of humour. Probably came from playing the same games of buying and selling nicked gear. Behind him waddled George, a short, dumpy man who was perpetually out of breath and wore shirts so bright they nearly scorched your retinas. George was lighter skinned. He probably had a grandad in the West Indies. His mobile was almost lost in his wide, podgy hand. Harry looked him up and down. Georgie boy liked his fried chicken all right. Compared to Sonny, George was a mug, a plum ripe for picking. Show him a monkey, his cock stands up and his brains fall out of his ears.

“Drink?” asked Harry.

“Guinness,” said Sonny.

“Same,” piped up George in a squeaky little voice that didn’t match his body. He sounded like Elmer Fudd, thought Harry.

“Please, luv,” Harry said. He laid a tenner on the bar and steered Sonny away, leaving George to collect the drinks and bring him his change. It was one of Harry’s little tricks. Split up a double act. Not so much to divide and conquer, more a way of working out who was the gopher on the firm and who was the guv’nor. The guv’nor wouldn’t wait for another man’s change. Sometimes it was that easy.

Harry and Sonny sat down at a corner table, adorned with attractively chewed beermats.

“She has got blinding jugs,” Sonny drooled.

“Yeah,” said Harry, “and a face to keep ’em safe.”

“Leave it out, H. She could be that one behind the bar in
EastEnders
.”

“Yeah, Frank Butcher.”

“You’re wicked, man. You got the money?”

“Yeah.”

“All of it?”

“The computers?”

“Nearby. Ten minutes.”

“The money’s about me. Five minutes.”

“I don’t see your motor outside.”

“Nah. I left it at home. I borrowed one.”

Sonny looked at him for a moment. “If you follow us down the road I’ll show you the parcel. Got the full shit, printers, screens, everything.”

“No, hold on,” Harry said, a note of anger in his voice. “You said the trade was here. I ain’t fucking going nowhere with twenty-five grand on me own.”

George walked over with the beers and change on a tray. “No,” Sonny was saying. “This was the meeting place to make sure we’re not getting tucked up.”

“What’s wrong?” asked George.

Harry ignored him. “You told me we were trading here,” he snapped. “I ain’t going nowhere with all me dough on board.”

“And I ain’t bringing thousands of quids’ worth of brand new half-inched computers up here,” Sonny snarled.

Harry shook his head. “I ain’t taking my money through some iffy council estate neither,” he said. “So the ball’s in your court, mate. I understood you was gonna fetch it here in a van, we trade and offski.”

“Well, let’s see the money,” Sonny replied. Harry leaned his face into the black man’s. “Sonny,” he said. “You know people I know, I know people you know. Do business this way first, next time you come to my slaughter with it. It ain’t that I don’t trust you but, well, let’s just get the first trade out of the way and then we’ll both be …
happier
with each other.

“No, no, no,” Sonny said. “I ain’t doing it here.”

Harry stood up. “This is bullshit,” he said tersely. “This is your manor. How do I know I ain’t gonna drive off the estate with your van and then get a pull from Mr Shitcunt Traffic Cop saying I’ve got a fucking brake light out?”

Sonny smiled. “Cos you’d come back and haunt me, that’s why, innit? I ain’t a wrong ’un, H.”

“Neither am I,” said Harry, sitting back at the table, “and if I thought you were I wouldn’t fucking be here. But I think the Old Bill would stick one nice one up from Mr Dixon’s or Curry’s or PC wanking warehouse or wherever they got nicked from just to get ’em back.”

“No,” said Sonny. “The deal’s off.”

“Fine,” Harry replied. “No harm done. Perhaps some other time.” He held out his hand, shook with Sonny, got up again and walked. Harry was in the car park when he heard the pub door open behind him. It was George, shouting, “’Arry, ’Arry, come back!”