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  ‘Oh, come on,’ Harding protested, distressed. ‘I mean, I give you the gun dealer. You said if I give you the gun dealer, we could have a deal.’ He began to pace about the cell, walking forwards and back past a tray of unfinished supper sitting on the bench. The congealed fat from boiled bacon, blackening potatoes and dried carrots looked so unappetising, Pyle thought. ‘Fuck I! I mean, I give you him, didn’t I, I thought we had a deal.’

  ‘I appreciate what you did, Clifford, don’t think otherwise, son,’ Pyle assured him, as though that in itself was worth something. ‘My governor thinks that shooter makes you a more interesting proposition.’ He paused, leaving him on the hook, letting him sense what the sickening alternative was to the help he had promised for help in kind. ‘I mean, Clifford, I might be prepared to take a chance on you, regardless of what my governor said – if I was convinced you were going to come up with the goods on Jack Lynn.’

  ‘I can. I can. I’ll do the business.’

  ‘I’m not so sure,’ Pyle said.

  ‘Oh, fuck me, guv, I’ve got to. I mean, I’ve got to.’

  ‘Unless you want another taste, down the road – a long one this time.’

  ‘I’ll do the business for you. You just gimme the chance. I won’t let you down, I won’t. I promise I won’t. Straight.’

  At first Pyle appeared unmoved. After a moment he relented and nodded, letting Harding off the hook. ‘If you do, son, then you’d better leg it. Get as far away from me as you can.’

  ‘I can’t. I mean, what about my family…?’

  Pyle almost smiled at the man’s aching earnestness – no criminal might ever have run out on his dependants. Even if he did, Pyle guessed he wouldn’t be too difficult to capture again.

  ‘What about the shooter, guv?’

  ‘What, you want it back!’ Pyle said. ‘It’s left pending. I’ll see how you shape, son.’

  After he released Harding, he spent some time on both Terry Clark and Wally Marks, the gun dealer before ds Barcy returned with the two suspects Marks had put up, then he interrogated those. They could be nicked for possessing firearms and for conspiracy to rob, but Pyle suspected there was more to come here, preferring to have charges for actual robberies that had taken place. Results were always more impressive with some monetary figure, or recovery, attached to them. Somehow he wanted to tie Terry Clark up with Marks, but there was no connection between them, so he’d have to settle with charging him for his involvement with the bank raid down at Lewisham. Pyle knew he would find some means of cracking him. There would be something Clark would want; some pressure point that would make him vulnerable.

  During the night the interrogations technique changed direction. The tape recorders were switched on and the questions became more specific. The responses told Pyle that, by the end of this investigation, he’d wind up with some nice results. That was what made it worthwhile.

  Some detectives, so rumour had it, worked nonstop until they cracked their cases. If there ever existed such policemen, Pyle had never met them. When it was time to stop work for the day, or take a break, he did just that. He often left the detectives on his squad to work on after his departure, but knew to a man, and on occasions, a woman, they applied the same rules.

  Travelling north from Peckham in the back of the blue Ford, he shut his eyes but wouldn’t go to sleep. ds Lethridge was in the back of the car with him.

  ‘Bit swift,’ Lethridge said, ‘letting Harding go like that?’

  ‘Not unless the wrong people get to hear of it.’ Pyle stretched and rubbed his eyes. ‘He’ll come. He has to, he’s too active to be left loose. I’d say he was going to make one with that shooter, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘There’s a good chance.’

  ‘Let’s see what he comes up with on Jack Lynn first. I’d like to see that one nicked. You want dropping anywhere, Eric?’

  ‘No. Cocoa’ll do.’ That was how they referred to the Yard. ‘I haven’t got a meet tonight. Thought maybe I’d shoot up to Soho, give one a pull there.’

  ‘About your mark, you fat bastard. You’ll end up getting Aids.’ There was a pause. Pyle changed tack, not wanting to discuss Eric Lethridge’s sexual or marital problems. ‘I have an interview with Complaints on Friday.’

  ‘Oh yeah – been at it, Fred, have you?’ Lethridge joked.

  ‘Right at the start of my leave, an’ all. The bastards do it on purpose, I’m sure. Be as well to get it straight what you want me to tell them,’ Pyle offered. He was being interviewed in connection with the complaint against Lethridge.

  ‘S’like we agreed. Right? The villain I tried to help wasn’t my grass.’ Lethridge waited. ‘That’s best, Fred, isn’t it?’

  ‘Probably. That way you wouldn’t have any reason for going into that magistrate for help for him.’ As the ds’s immediate governor, he was supposed to be told about all and any informers that were used. This knowledge, the hierarchy believed, acted as a safeguard and prevented subsequent charges against detectives. He in his turn was supposed to inform his superior about grasses he met, but often didn’t.

  ‘I didn’t, Fred, did I? I mean, I wouldn’t go into a magistrate to try and get favours for a criminal, would I? It’s not reasonable.’

  ‘Of course it’s not, son.’ Pyle grinned. He’d give this ds whatever help he could.

  14

  THERE WERE ABOUT THIRTY MEN crowded into the first floor gym of the Grapes off Bethnal Green Road. Some were professional boxers, sparring and shaping up with would-be champions. A few old pros hung around doing what they could for whoever they could, unable to leave the game alone. Wannabe managers and would-be promoters stood around the ring discussing fighters’ prospects heavy with people who wandered up from the bars with nothing else to do, faces Jack Lynn half-knew yet who were somehow as familiar as the place itself with its humid atmosphere and sour smell of damp leather and stale seeds of sweat caught in unlaundered clothes.

  Unlike many villains he had no connection with the fight game. Not even in his youth did he do a bit. A lot of lads started boxing as an alternative to villainy, and for some of those he grew up with the two pursuits seemed to be their only options. Perhaps there were other opportunities, if he’d looked hard enough.

  Stretching onto his toes to see over the crowd, he spotted the man he was looking for working out on one of the punch bags. Bobby Shaw had been low on the list to pursue for help. Lynn hadn’t known he was out of prison until he had run into Shaw’s brother, who told him Bobby was due out any day. And here he was, mixing with the wrong sort again.

  Several people greeted Lynn as he crossed the gym and he drew a blank on some of their names. He stopped on the far side of the room and watched Shaw slam his fists into the heavy bag. Bobby Shaw glanced at him as one fist followed the other down in a series, but didn’t stop.

  ‘You look like you’re staying fit, Bobby,’ Lynn said.

  Shaw paused and clung to the bag to get his breath. ‘You gotta keep at it, son. All that bodybuilding inside, you get fat as a pig, ’you leave off.’ He was in good shape, Lynn noticed.

  ‘When d’you get out?’ he asked, leaning his weight against the punch bag as the boxer started pounding it again

  ‘Last Friday.’ His breathing was getting heavy again.

  ‘I knew you was due. I saw Terry, d’he tell you?’ He waited but Shaw didn’t reply. ‘He reckoned you got full remission.’

  ‘Was a good boy, Jack, wan’ I? Yes, sir, no, sir, three bags full, sir!’ He slammed his fists harder into the bag now. Lynn could feel the weight of the blows jarring his shoulder. ‘Got the right hump with that fucking place.’

  ‘You must be about ready to do a bit of work.’

  ‘Be handy. This don’t earn me nothing.’ He stopped hitting the bag. ‘What you got in mind?’

  ‘Something very pukka. You want to get out of here?’
<
br />   ‘Yeah, I’ll take a chance on getting fat.’

  ‘What d’you want to be slim for anyway?’

  ‘You got to, ’you wanna pull a few. Know what I mean, Jack?’

  ‘Pulling your prick’s about all you’re good for, Bobby.’ Without warning Lynn drove a right hook into Shaw’s shoulder while his guard was down. Shaw responded too late as Lynn danced back, laughing. ‘Got you, you fat bastard!’

  ‘Ah, you mug, you done m’ shoulder right up. You ruined me.’

  Lynn laughed some more, his mood buoyant, those bad feelings earlier about the job now gone. ‘That’s just to show you who’s the guvnor at this boxing game’.

  ‘Leave off, Jack,’ Shaw said. ‘You’re the guvnor.’

  Lynn knew he would bide his time and come back at him with a good ’un. It was a game, challenging and sometimes painful, but enjoyable, even when you forgot, lowered your guard and caught a left hook to the body. Always to the body.

  When he outlined the work on offer Shaw committed straightaway. Social Security was his only alternative to villainy. ‘I don’t fancy getting a proper job, Jack, even if I could find one. And prison didn’t exactly rehabilitate me. There isn’t a lot of call for sighted basket makers these days! I got one or two others who might fancy going to work, if you’re short.’

  One of them, Billy Braden, was already down on Lynn’s list. So far he hadn’t been able to reach him but had been leaving messages about getting in touch.

  It was plain to see that Bobby Shaw was impressed with the prospect when Lynn took, him down to Catford dog track to watch the collection operation by the security truck.

  ‘It’ll be a fucking doddle, Jack, won’t it?’ Shaw said.

  ‘Yeah, won’t be hard at all.’

  ‘We’ll want some shooters though, I’d say. The last bit of work I did, the one I got nicked for, we only had pickaxe handles. Some skulls got bashed, that didn’t stop people having a go.’

  ‘I s’pose guns would be handy,’ Lynn conceded, even though he was planning to use guns. ‘They’re not gonna be a problem.’

  ‘Got someone in mind to get them, have you?’

  ‘Yeah, little firm I know should do them all right.’

  ‘S’not Wally Marks, is it? You hear the Squad nicked him?’

  ‘What, the greengrocer out at Charlton?’

  ‘S’what I heard, Jack.’

  ‘I didn’t hear nothing.’ Lynn was a bit dismayed. ‘Fuck me. I did have him in mind. I mean, well, it wasn’t definite. He was one of them.’

  ‘He was well bubbled. S’what a lad who does a bit told me. Reckons it was down to Clifford Harding.’

  ‘Leave off. Cliff’s as good as gold,’ Lynn protested. ‘Least, he wouldn’t put no one away.’

  ‘How else does he keep his liberty after being nicked with a shooter, Jack?’ Shaw wanted to know.

  ‘By putting a nice earner into the filth. That’s what I heard. He’s got one on the Squad straightened,’ Lynn said. He liked Clifford Harding, thought him reliable, even considered him for this blag.

  ‘You could be right,’ Shaw said. ‘He was always a good ’un when we was in the Scrubs together. I mean, I wouldn’t wish no one back there. I’d probably pull some diabolical strokes myself in order to stay out. Know what I mean, Jack?’

  ‘Cliff’s all right,’ Lynn announced, no longer convinced.

  There was a brief silence in the car as they watched the two security guards climb into the truck and start it up.

  ‘Where we gonna do this? Just there?’ Shaw asked.

  ‘Inside’s best. In the office. I got a key to the door.’

  ‘We will need shooters then, Jack. The way some of them mugs are. One or two of them have to have their kneecaps done before they realise it ain’t worth having a go for someone else’s bit of dough. Not when it’s insured and all. Know what I mean?’

  ‘Shooters won’t be a problem. I can see about them tomorrow.’

  He knew three men who dabbled in guns, including Wally Marks, who was the handiest. He guessed Marks wouldn’t be doing anything for a while, however he came to have his collar felt. The second dealer he couldn’t reach. The third, Trevor Foley, was around.

  He lived out at Willesden. When Lynn phoned him, Foley told him to come up and see him, but to give him a bell when he got there. That made sense. Lynn hadn’t done business with this man before, but had met him a couple of times and knew he was cautious. He couldn’t fault him for his caution. That way he kept his liberty.

  From the phone box outside the post office in Harlesden Road, Lynn rang the gun-dealer again. The phone was answered on the second ring. No number was given.

  ‘Trevor? S’Jack… all right?’

  ‘Yes,’ the voice down the line said. ‘You didn’t take long. Where are you?’

  ‘Just down the road. What d’you want me to do? Come up?’

  ‘Here? No. I’ll meet you. You know Roundwood Park?’

  Lynn didn’t, but Foley gave him clear directions, then repeated them, just so there was no mistake.

  The park was only minutes from the phone box, so Lynn was the first to arrive. Sitting on the bench on the path as described, he felt a bit conspicuous as he waited. The day was damp and cold, not the sort on which people sat around in parks. Most of the people he saw were walking dogs. The park looked well kept, with the red and brown leaves that were falling being swept into piles, one of which was smouldering. The tarry smell of smoke hung in the air where the leaves were too damp to burn properly.

  His attention turned to Trevor Foley as he stepped onto the path with a dog. Lynn would have recognised him a mile off in his hat and sky-blue shellsuit, clipped moustache and thick-lensed glasses. He stopped and let the dog off its lead, before approach­ing Lynn.

  ‘Fuck knows what we’re meeting like this for, Trevor,’ Lynn said as Foley sat on the bench. ‘We can get done just as easily for conspiracy here like this.’

  ‘It’s a nice fresh day,’ Foley observed.

  ‘We’ll probably get done as flashers or something.’

  ‘That’d be a turn-up for the book, Jack,’ he said. ‘Shall we take a walk?’

  Lynn huddled deeper into his coat on the end of the bench. ‘Don’t think so.’

  ‘That’s the trouble with you people living down in all that muck,’ Foley said. ‘Unfit. It’s so unhealthy.’

  ‘Willesden’s not exactly fucking countryside, is it?’

  ‘Oh,’ Foley said, looking around the park. ‘It has its good points.’

  Lynn smiled. ‘You’re still doing a bit, Trevor?’

  ‘You have to do something to pay the mortgage, Jack.’ He checked around. There was no one within earshot. ‘What sort of shooters are you after?’

  ‘Something impressive,’ Lynn said, ‘so we won’t have to use them. Not too big – there won’t be a lot of room. A couple of sawn-off shotguns and a couple of .38s should do it all right.’

  ‘You want ammunition?’ Foley asked.

  ‘Be handy,’ Lynn said. ‘With some cut down cartridges.’ He knew that when those were fired from a sawn-off shotgun or even a full-length barrel, they didn’t carry far and did little damage. The lead shot fanned on leaving the barrel and peppered a whole area. The blast scared people witless.

  ‘When do you want them?’

  ‘As soon as possible. S’that all right?’

  The gun dealer nodded. ‘That should be okay. Give me a ring in a day or so. They’ll come to a nice few quid, Jack. About eight and a half, I’d say.’

  ‘Fucking hell! What are you doing, manufacturing them?’

  ‘The problem is, Jack,’ he explained, ‘people are frightened to dabble nowadays, in case they get done as a terrorist.’

  ‘Eight and a half ton is still a bit strong, Trevor.’ Lynn accepted t
hat he would have to pay the price. ‘Unless you have a taste of what we earn?’

  Foley shook his head. ‘I’ll take them back off you, ’you get away without firing them.’ He met Lynn’s look, then glanced across the park at his dog sniffing another. ‘You hear about Wally Marks?’

  ‘I heard he was grassed,’ Lynn said, hoping Foley might offer some information. He didn’t.

  ‘Wicked. You can’t trust no one any more. Did you try him?’

  ‘Did I fuck. D’you hear who it was, Trevor?’

  ‘Some no-good grass, for sure.’ He shook his head. ‘It’s a sad state of affairs. I’ll have those ready for your call, Jack.’

  ‘I’m relying on it,’ Lynn said.

  ‘Give me a tinkle, just to make sure.’ He rose off the bench. ‘Patch!’ he called to his dog. ‘Mind how you go, Jack.’

  ‘Be lucky.’

  Lynn watched him move away, stooping to catch and leash his dog as he went.

  15

  AT EVERY OPPORTUNITY DOLLY GAVE him ache about the kitchen not being large enough, and how he always promised they would have a house with a large kitchen. The way the housing market was at present there was no chance of selling up and moving. Of late the whole place seemed to be getting smaller as his wife piled on the pressure about the kitchen, as if it was all that mattered in her life. He knew what the real problem was: he had started work, and not the sort of work she wanted him to do. He couldn’t stop now and would just have to put up with her ache. When it was off, and they were in the good times again and her anxiety slipped away, she would think it worthwhile, even if she wouldn’t say it. Then she would laugh and enjoy almost every stroke he pulled just as she did when they were first married. Who knows, he thought, after this bit of work they might even put an extension on the house to make the sort of kitchen she wanted.

  Right now she wasn’t coping and her irritation was affecting the children. The two girls were bickering as Dolly helped to get them ready for school. Their voices rising through the ceiling were so clear they could have been in the same room. Maybe it was just that their squabbling of late was as familiar as Dolly’s responses.