The Fire Man (20 page)

‘And how would you imagine that would work? If, as you say, this is some sort of fucking crusade, the guy is hardly likely to be motivated by money, is he?'

‘Maybe, maybe not, but all I have in mind is a bit of carrot as well as the stick. We don't know how much he knows. All we do know is that he was asking a few nosy questions in Liverpool and hanging around at the pub. What if he knows about this project? What if he knows about the other jobs?'

Even as he spoke the words, Kanelos could feel a chill deep in his bones.
Never mind twelve, it could be twenty years. And if Mike dealt with the problem his way, they might never see daylight again.

‘I said it before, I'll say it again: leave everything to us, alright?'

Why the fuck did he say ‘us'?
thought Kanelos, although, with a sinking feeling, he acknowledged that he knew only too well.

It had begun to get noticeably gloomier in the shabby room as the two men continued to debate the issue. What little light there had been in the sky was fading rapidly. O'Connell eased himself out of his chair and switched on a table lamp, which did little to improve the visibility. He opened a sliding cupboard to his side, extracting a bottle of his preferred tipple, Bushmills, and a pair of glasses. Kanelos nodded his agreement and the Irishman poured out two hefty measures. For a few moments, silence filled the room.

Kanelos was a chancer by nature, a free spirit with a taste for thrills, but even for him the stakes were too high. He had never, not for a single moment, contemplated cold-blooded murder and yet the prospect of spending the remaining years of his life amongst the tattooed hordes in Belmarsh, Brixton or some other hell hole horrified him beyond belief. He agreed with O'Connell; McRae had to be stopped if there was the slightest danger he could expose them, but he didn't want anything to do with murder. Well, at least not personally.

The considerations were, he knew, different for the Irishman. They had never spoken of the missing years following university, when Kanelos had been flitting around London and O'Connell had been pursuing his “political interests” in Northern Ireland. However, he knew enough to guess that Mike was a lot more pragmatic where mayhem was concerned. While it had never been discussed, Kanelos had long ago guessed that the “seed corn” capital for their various projects had interesting origins. Come to that, Derek and he had often speculated as to exactly how much of Mike's half share he was allowed to retain by his faceless friends.

The clue was in the terms of their partnership shares. Mike O'Connell sourced all the funds for each project and took 50% of the profits. Kanelos, Smythson and, to a much lesser degree, George Gallo shared the balance.

The arrangement had worked well –
fantastically well,
thought Kanelos. Gallo ran the “businesses” on a day-to-day basis, while Kanelos' family connections supplied the goods. Derek Smythson made absolutely certain that the claims got paid. But now, Kanelos felt that they had done well enough. They were, he believed, pushing their luck – a view that was undoubtedly shared by Derek.

Unfortunately, O'Connell saw no reason to pull the emergency cord on the gravy train. Certainly, Alex concluded, Mike was made of much harder stuff than he was, but, nonetheless, it was his arse on the line as much as everybody else and he wanted his say. He continued to argue his case, despite the Irishman's clearly growing irritation.

By the time the gloomy sky had turned ebony, it was decided. They had an agreed strategy.

McRae wasn't quite young enough to be a geek. He reckoned, though, that had he been born another five years later, he would have been a techno-whizz like Suzanne and John. As it was, he consoled himself that he knew enough to cope with the modern world without being a slave to gadgets. It was why he didn't bother getting rid of his faithful pocket notebook, why he didn't use his phone's diary function or alarm, and why, consequently, he persistently failed to remember birthdays and wedding anniversaries. This, in turn, was why he found himself, not for the first time, phoning his mother in Crete to apologise for his latest omission.

Their inconsequential chat lasted around five minutes and she was relieved to hear that all was well. He promised to call her again soon and, better still, suggested that he might visit her again before the year was out.

The office was very quiet; the others had finished for the day and having taken care of his own familial duties, he was thinking about making his own way home. Before leaving, however, he decided to check his personal email.

Since his personal computer had been so savagely dismembered, he hadn't had the opportunity to check his private mail for some time. He could access the server remotely, but it had been nearly six months since he had last been forced to do so, and, annoyingly, the password had changed twice in that period for a variety of reasons. He was consequently struggling. He had tried three different variations on his usual password, to no avail. He was becoming frustrated. The only option left was to spend an hour on the phone to his internet supplier's call centre in Bangalore, or wherever it was this year, and get them to sort out the problem. So far, he had managed to convince himself that life was too short for such an exercise.

He couldn't honestly say that he was missing the daily flood of helpful offers from Groupon, Amazon, Expedia and God-only-knew how many other outfits, but he did tend to use his personal email address for his family and long-term friends.

The harsh truth was that McRae had a severely limited, or as he preferred to regard it, ‘select' circle of true friends.

What he really wanted to see, of course, was whether Tina Forsyth had been in touch yet. He had been expecting – more accurately, hoping – for something by now. He decided he would have to get Suzanne or someone to sort the email out for him. He had definitely had enough for today; it was time for a beer.

He quickly skimmed and signed a couple of reports for John, logged off from the system and walked through to the kitchen with three dirty coffee mugs that had mysteriously accumulated in his office. It was while he was strolling down the short corridor back to his office that someone knocked on the reception door.

He released the deadlock and opened the door.

‘Mr McRae, nice to see you again. Can I come in?'

The visitor was a familiar, but hardly welcome face.

For a moment, he was speechless. He almost felt the metaphorical clatter as his jaw dropped to the floor. Quickly regaining his composure, he invited the tall man across the threshold and showed him through to his own office, his mind racing.

‘Thank you for seeing me,' said Kanelos. ‘It's late, I realise, but I was passing and thought it might be worthwhile if we had a chat.'

‘Really?'

‘Absolutely.' He smiled, naturally and without any apparent effort.

Kanelos looked McRae in the eye before languidly shifting his gaze to survey the room. McRae felt acutely aware of the discrepancy between his own slightly dishevelled appearance and that of the man sitting opposite. He wished he had done more than remove a few coffee cups from the desk, which was a mess of papers, files, a handful of loose change and spent cigarette packets. He gestured that Kanelos should occupy the visitor chair and was relieved, as the man pulled out the chair, to see that the seat squab was not already occupied by a discarded soup carton or similar.

As his heart rate began to return to normality, McRae decided he was being far too polite. He also realised that he badly needed a drink.

Without speaking, he got to his feet and opened the cupboard behind his chair. There was, he had remembered correctly, a half bottle of scotch left from the Christmas party in there. He pulled the bottle out, together with two mismatched glasses, and placed everything on the desk. Next, he opened the sliding sash window a foot.
Sod the No Smoking policy
, he pulled out a cigarette and offered one to Kanelos, who shook his head and curled his lip simultaneously.

‘I will have a small scotch, though,' he said.

McRae poured the two drinks, took a sip of his own and lit his cigarette, observing and ignoring Kanelos's obvious displeasure before he spoke. ‘Seriously, Mr Kanelos, what exactly can I do for you?'

‘I'm sure you know what you can do: you can mind your own business.'

‘Haven't the faintest what you're on about,' he replied.

For just one second, Kanelos's poise slipped. ‘I think you do,' he snapped. ‘I don't think it was a coincidence you were asking questions about our Liverpool business and then mysteriously popped up in the pub a hundred miles away days later. I just don't believe in those kinds of coincidences.'

‘In the same way as I don't believe that you calling around here a few days after my place is trashed is a coincidence either,' retorted McRae sourly. He could feel a flush of anger sweeping across his face, while his hands formed involuntary fists.

‘I'm sorry to hear that,' said Kanelos, whose suavity seemed to have returned. ‘No serious damage, I hope? Nothing to do with me, I can assure you, but perhaps...' he paused, ‘we can, as the American's say, “cut the crap”? Look, I'm genuinely sorry you lost your job, but perhaps if you'd been more frank with us over your concerns, we could have avoided the situation? Either way, it seems to me that you've gained entirely the wrong idea of our operations. Putting it frankly, you seem to have got the idea we are up to something
illegitimate
, which is unfortunate.'

McRae found it hard to keep his face straight. ‘So I'm mistaken, am I? You guys are just incredibly unlucky, is that it?'

‘I am afraid so,' replied Kanelos, without the faintest flicker of a smile. ‘The fact is, though, we feel a sense of – how can I put this? –
responsibility
for the difficulty you found yourself in Birmingham. We appreciate that you lost a great deal and I can understand that that loss might be responsible for your anger. However, the truth is that we have
nothing
to hide, whatever you might think.' He paused theatrically, before adding, ‘Nevertheless, we're big enough to let the matter rest if you are.'

Where the hell is this going?
thought McRae, but he merely raised his eyebrows quizzically.

‘So,' continued Kanelos, leaning forwards and spreading his hands like a preacher, ‘to put it bluntly, we feel it would be fair, generous even, to compensate you a little for the hardship you suffered in the loss of your job – if, of course, such a gesture was reciprocated. Do I need to say any more?'

He's trying to fucking bribe me,
thought McRae, as he tried to play for time. ‘So what do you have in mind?'

Well, let's say we make a payment of, say, £50,000 into your account and you stop wasting your time and ours. Understand?'

‘I'm shocked,' said McRae. ‘Generous indeed… but I wonder why you would feel the need? After all, you've already said that you have a perfectly legitimate business.'

‘Mr McRae, how can I put it? ... We just don't need any distractions or aggravation. We could obviously approach this whole matter very differently, but we are fair people. Just regard it as your lucky day.'

He didn't reply immediately, taking a long pull on his cigarette and sipping the whiskey instead. He stared, without focusing, out of the window, but there was nothing to help him – just his own untidy reflection in the dark glass. ‘I need to think about this. It wasn't something I was expecting,' said McRae.

‘Okay,' replied Kanelos, ‘just make a note of this mobile number.' He slipped a small folded piece of paper onto the desk. ‘Sometime, let's say in the next three days, why don't you send me a note of your bank account number and sort code, and we'll do the rest? It can be as simple as that.'

Abruptly, he got to his feet; the meeting was clearly at an end. He turned towards the door and McRae stood. As they moved into the corridor, he spoke.

‘Before you go, Mr Kanelos, I need you to know that I haven't said I will accept your kind offer, you do appreciate that?'

‘Of course,' said the other man, without bothering to turn back towards him, ‘but I haven't yet mentioned the charge that poor little Marie is considering since you raped her in Dublin. It's your choice. Goodbye, McRae.'

He quietly closed the outer door behind him.

He didn't notice it was bucketing down as he left the office. He had walked nearly a hundred yards along Lime Street and it was only as he passed into the shelter of Leadenhall Market that he realised he was soaked. His hair was plastered across his head.
Not a good look,
he thought.

At this time of the evening there were still a few people occupying the wine bars and restaurants nestling beneath the spectacular Victorian roof, but it was getting quiet. He needed a drink but the desire for a cigarette was still greater, so he purchased a cheap glass of Australian plonk at the Lamb pub and grabbed a spare outside table on the cobbles. It was cold and he was wet, but he was oblivious to such physical factors.

He had been shaken to the core by Kanelos' visit. If that had been the gang's intention, they had undoubtedly succeeded.

His immediate temptation was to call Tina. Arrange a meeting, tell her all about Kanelos' visit – she would know what to do. It made perfect sense, but he was strangely reluctant. He had heard nothing from her for weeks, perhaps he had been fooling himself. Maybe she didn't give a toss about him? He was certain an attraction had existed between them, but it looked like he could have been wrong. Maybe, worst of all, she would actually believe the rape story. He shivered at the thought.

How the hell had they come up with that idea? What possible evidence could they have? They could presumably get whatever they wanted from the barmaid, but they'd need DNA surely? It was obvious that this ridiculous threat was just the stick to go with the carrot – wasn't it?

It was at that moment that he recalled the missing wash bag. The bag that contained his toothbrush, shaver, his comb –, his …. bloody DNA. He told himself to calm down. He wasn't sure how easy it was to transfer DNA. He knew from all the forensic shows on TV that it could be done using hairs and so on, but there would be no bodily fluids or anything like that, would there? He didn't recall but had the bar had CCTV?

He cast his mind back to the gloomy bowels of the Malinka bar
. There had been two bloody cameras!
His heart sank. If they had also got CCTV pictures of him behaving like a flirtatious prat with Marie, it wouldn't be helpful. Not helpful at all.

He tried to pull himself together. He hadn't raped anyone. It was a pretty pathetic try-on. In any event, if he just dropped everything and forgot all about Kanelos and his friends, it might be the end of it. Nothing to worry about. If he chose to do so, he could even pick up fifty grand for his troubles. He groped in his pocket for the piece of paper and stared vacantly at the number. It would be so easy.

He allowed himself to debate what he would spend a nice tax-free lump sum on, a dream that had often kept him warm in less affluent times. He hadn't the faintest intention of accepting their money. He wasn't that stupid. He had often debated whether crime ever actually paid, but had always concluded that for him to take the crooked path, it would have to be worth millions. The sad truth was that McRae was fundamentally an honest man. He hadn't really got a crooked bone in his body.

He racked his memory for evidence of historic criminality. A bit of vandalism in his teens, a water-pistol filched from Woolworths when he was a kid, but that was about it.
Oh yes
, he remembered, he had also left a restaurant without paying once, when he‘d become pissed-off waiting for the bill. Still, unless the systematic personal usage of office stationery counted, his was a pretty spotless record. Ronny Biggs, he certainly wasn't. No, they had got the wrong man for an offer like that.

The more he considered the offer, the more insulted he felt. Did they honestly believe he could be bought off for a poxy fifty grand? No doubt the wealthy public schoolboy felt, in his patronising way, that the common or garden ‘insurance man would be grateful for a few bob. Were they really so fucking dumb or deluded as to think that a multi-million pound scam could be straightened by paying the adjuster a few grand? Perhaps not? Perhaps it wasn't intended to be any more than a sweetener to accompany the far more persuasive threat posed by the barmaid?

The bile he felt rising in his gut told him that there was only one answer. Somehow, he would need to turn up some definitive, solid, totally non-circumstantial evidence that would really stick. If he could do that, the police and everybody else would surely see the pathetic rape claim for what it was.
Wouldn't they?
He was conscious, though, that a Dublin jury might well take an exceedingly dim view of an Englishman raping a good Catholic girl.
Oh God.

Angrily, he crumpled the scrap of paper in his hand and moved to throw it down onto the cobbles – but something stopped him. He smoothed and refolded the note, before inserting it into his wallet.

He hadn't a clue where to go from here. For a few minutes he considered returning to Dublin and finding a way to extract some kind of statement from Marie, before reluctantly dismissing the notion as unfeasible. If the Malinka bar was what he now believed it to be, she would be far too frightened to do anything to oppose her employers. Either that or she had been in cahoots with the gang from the start, which he found hard to believe. All in all, a return to Dublin was not a good idea.

He wracked his brain for possible avenues and kept coming back to Tina. He fervently wished he had had the presence of mind to surreptitiously switch his Dictaphone on and record the conversation with Kanelos. They pulled that kind of stunt every time in the movies, but in the sheer unexpectedness of the moment, he hadn't even considered the possibility. In any event, Kanelos would presumably have spotted him fiddling about and the opportunity would not have arisen. Nonetheless, if he had recorded the discussion, it would have been dynamite evidence. Tina would have seen it for what it was, he was sure of that.

As it was, he had nothing. Yes, Tina had told him to give up on the private enquiries, but it wasn't her who was being blackmailed. Again, he could feel cold anger coursing through his body.

He had an idea.

* * *

The rain had stopped. The pavements were still glistening in the light that was spilling from the shopfronts as he made his way to Bank tube station. Instead of catching the Northern Line to Old Street and home, he took a packed Central Line train and stood, swaying with the carriage's movement, the five stops until it reached Oxford Street.

Leaving the tube station, McRae negotiated his way between the jostling shoppers and the gridlocked traffic until he had crossed London's greatest shopping thoroughfare. He was heading north.

Within a few minutes, he had reached his destination. A modern store with windows at ground-floor level, although its steps led to a lower sales area. It was a premises he had never dreamt of stepping inside, although the tantalising “boys toys” contents of the discreet window display had often intrigued him. “Sekur-Stor” specialised in what it coyly described as “personal security equipment”.

Never in his life had McRae envisaged requiring any of their standard products. Spy cameras, briefcase recorders, night-vision goggles and bugs were familiar to Bond, no doubt, but a million miles from his own experience. He suspected that Christopher Tranquil, the professional, might have been worth talking to for advice, but was equally sure the man would have dissuaded him from his planned course of action. It was, after all, hardly ethical. Anyway, a quick visit to the company's extensive website had given him a good idea of what he needed. Better still, the shop remained open until nine.

Inside, the store was reassuringly clinical. It was almost, boringly, “normal” and far larger than he had anticipated. Glass display cabinets dominated one entire wall. Innocuous-looking items, which performed more functions than one could imagine, were being closely perused by perfectly average people. There were even two stunning brunettes of rather uncertain age, wearing couture clothes and teetering on vertiginous heels, who giggled conspiratorially in front of one display while being fawned over by a couple of over-attentive sale assistants.
Trophy Wives?
Probably spying on their cheating oligarch husbands,
he surmised. This outrageous theory was reinforced when he thought he detected distinct Eastern European accents. The only common feature of the customers, he could see, was that almost all of them did seem to be either Arab or Russian.

Browsing the displays for a while, McRae finally found what he was looking for and cautiously approached the counter. He pointed out the item he was interested in to a smooth young Asian, who then unlocked the cabinet and passed the item to him. He examined it carefully; it was indistinguishable from a million others.

‘Is this as easy to use as it looks?' he asked.

‘Couldn't be easier,' the man replied breezily. ‘It's probably our bestseller.'

After a few more questions and even fewer minutes, he had completed his purchase.