didn’t move while any of this was going on, or say anything.
‘You’re a grass, aintcha, Brewster?’ said Rentners gently, walking round the other man. ‘You’re trying to fit us up, aintcha? And these geezers, they’re coppers, right?’
Brewster desperately protested his innocence, but it was no good. Stegs could see in Rentners’ face that they were going to punish him whatever he said. Rentners had decided he was guilty, and now that he had that thought in his head it was going to take a miracle to budge it. Stegs didn’t believe in miracles. That was more Vokes’s line. He’d bet that Brewster was praying for one, though.
Rentners turned and smiled at the two undercover cops, then walked over to the iron, removing it from its base. He gently touched it with his finger, then pulled the finger away with mock suddenness, mouthing the word ‘Ow!’ He was still smiling, and his whole demeanour had calmed considerably. He looked like a man at peace with himself.
‘Do the honours then, Tone,’ he said, and Tone stepped onto the prostrate Brewster, putting a foot on each arm above the elbow, thereby severely restricting his upper body movement. Rentners stood there motionless, watching Stegs and Vokes. His expression was blank.
‘Aagh!’ yelped Brewster. ‘Get off. I ain’t done nothing. That hurts.’
‘That don’t hurt,’ said Rentners. ‘
He dropped one knee onto the back of Brewster’s legs, careful not to conceal the view for the two SO10 men, then pushed the iron hard against the centre of his victim’s back, directly beneath the shoulder blades. Steam shot up as the iron sizzled and crackled, and Brewster unleashed a blood-curdling scream of agony that reverberated round the room. Rentners kept the iron in the same position, pressing hard, and using his weight to keep Brewster’s legs from moving. Brewster kept screaming, louder and louder, and Stegs suddenly had a desperate urge to piss. It took all his self-control to stop himself. He couldn’t have that. Couldn’t show them how scared he was. He avoided looking at Vokes but couldn’t help but catch the eye of the man holding the bucket. He blew Stegs a kiss.
All of a sudden the screaming stopped, and Rentners removed the iron, revealing a red-raw, sizzling wound. The smell of burnt skin drifted through the air.
‘The cunt’s passed out,’ said Rentners. ‘Get some more water, Alan,’ he told the bucket man. ‘We need to wake him up.’
Once again Alan disappeared into the alcove with the bucket. While he was gone, Rentners used a screwdriver to scrape off scraps of flesh from the iron before replacing it on its base and walking over to the sofa, stopping in front of Stegs and Vokes. He removed the gun from his waistband and put it against Vokes’s head.
‘You look nervous,’ he said, ‘and you ought to be. You’re next.’ He patted Vokes’s shirt, manhandling him in the seat as he hunted belatedly for a wire. ‘I know you’re coppers,’ he said when he’d finished without finding anything. ‘You know how I know, because earlier on you’ — he motioned towards Stegs — ‘said you’d done time in Parkhurst for dealing last year, on D wing. But you can’t have done. Tone was there then and he don’t remember you, do you, Tone?’
Tone, who’d stepped off Brewster’s arms now, shook his head slowly. ‘Never seen him before in my life.’ He stepped out of the way as Alan the bucket man chucked more water over Brewster’s upper half.
Brewster moaned and shook his head. ‘My back, my fucking back. . What are you doing?’ He tried to move but Tone stood on his arms again, and the next second Rentners had grabbed the iron and reapplied it to the same area.
The screams started again — animal-like howls of suffering — and out of the corner of his eye Stegs saw Vokes shift uncomfortably in his seat.
‘PLAAAAYYYSSE!’
Stegs tried to shut out the sound but couldn’t; it seemed to be coming from everywhere. Tried to concentrate on anything other than the events being played out before him, tried to tell himself that they wouldn’t kill them (it’d be too much hassle). Knowing he’d made a mistake. Knowing he shouldn’t have been so specific about when he’d done his supposed time. Cursing his bad luck. And bad planning. They should have done a better job of checking out Rentners’ associates.
The screams stopped.
The room fell silent.
Stegs would have given both his bollocks to have got out of there then.
Don’t burn me, you fucks. Please do not fucking burn me.
Alan the bucket man went to get some more water. Rentners smiled at them both. ‘If you both admit to me you’re coppers, and you tell me what evidence you’ve got, and give me details of who you are and where you live, then I’ll let you walk as soon as I’ve checked them out. You don’t fucking talk, then you’re going to get the same treatment as this cunt. Understand? I’ve got a business to protect, and I’m going to fucking protect it. From grasses and undercover cozzers. You understand me? Yeah, I think you do now, dontcha?’
More water splashed over Brewster, and slowly he came round again. This time, Rentners lifted him up by his hair and shoved his gun against his head. Brewster’s eyes were vacant. He looked drugged up.
‘Are these two cozzers?’ Rentners demanded, pushing him round so he was facing Stegs and Vokes. For a couple of seconds, Brewster didn’t answer, his eyes struggling to focus. Rentners repeated the question, pushing the barrel harder against his head. ‘Answer me or I’ll blow your fucking head off.’
Stegs heard himself praying that Brewster, who could surely have no fucking idea that they were SO10, didn’t simply say yes to deflect attention from himself. Don’t say it. Don’t fucking say it!
‘No,’ Brewster croaked. ‘Course not.’
Once again a sudden flash of doubt crossed Rentners’ features but was gone just as quickly. He let go of Brewster’s hair and let him fall onto the wet floor, then he walked purposefully over to the sofa and pulled the tape from Vokes’s mouth. ‘Last chance not to burn,’ he said. ‘Just admit it, tell me what you know, and you’ll be out of here inside an hour with your back in the same condition it’s in now.’
Vokes was sweating profusely, but he held Rentners’ gaze. ‘I am not a fucking undercover copper,’ he spat. ‘I am a fucking businessman. I was here looking to make a deal, now I’m just looking to get the fuck out of here.’
‘What about him, then? How come he fucked up about doing time in Parkhurst?’
‘Fuck knows. Ask him.’
Rentners ripped off Stegs’s duct tape and started to speak, but Stegs knew he was going to get only one chance to turn the tables, so he cut him off straight away. ‘Is that what this is all about? Are you putting us through this just because of something I’m meant to have fucking said? Because I tell you this, I was fucking there, and I was on B wing, you deaf cunt! Not D! And if he doesn’t fucking recognize me, then he obviously wasn’t looking very hard! Or maybe he’s the fucking undercover copper, because I’ll tell you something, I don’t fucking recognize him either, the cunt!’
His words spilt out so fast that Rentners didn’t get even half a chance to interrupt. When he’d finished, the ex-boxer’s expression had changed. He looked thoughtful now. Stegs and Vokes both glared at him, letting it be known that they were not best pleased with the way serious liberties had been taken with them.
Rentners appeared at last to realize he’d made a mistake and placed the gun back in his waistband. ‘Listen, I’m sorry about that, boys,’ he said. ‘You just can’t be too careful, though, can you? We’ve been hearing bad reports about Brewster for a while now, and then he gets all keen to introduce youse two to me. I put two and two together and it looks like I come up with five. Let me get you a drink.’
And that was how it had ended. The two of them had been released and given a large brandy each, which they’d drunk while Brewster lay ignored on the stone floor. Rentners had then begun acting like nothing had happened, and had even started trying to put together a test purchase. In Stegs’s experience, that was how a lot of violent criminals acted. It was as if they couldn’t understand what was wrong with their actions. Vokes had told him to fuck off and to watch how he treated potential customers next time, which was the attitude to take. It demonstrated how pissed off they were and bolstered their credentials as bona fide buyers. Rentners had apologized again and had got Tone to drive them back to London. On the way back, Tone had said sorry too, admitting that he’d made up the bit about being in Parkhurst as a bluff. ‘The boss told me to’ was his explanation. Stegs had told him that he’d better never show his face in Southampton, otherwise he’d get an axe in it. Tone had actually looked a bit worried at that, and had brought up the partition.
He’d dropped them off at Waterloo station, and as soon as he was gone they’d grabbed each other in a long and emotional bearhug that got the late-afternoon commuters giving them some very strange stares.
