“Come on, Bernie, we look after each other. What about that gear I brought you the other day?” She points to a dark leather briefcase sitting on top of his filing cabinet. “That’s top quality.”
She and Zac had turned over a suit in Barnes and scored the briefcase, a laptop, two mobiles, passports and jewelry.
Bernie grunts dismissively. “You’re getting sloppy. Taking too many risks.”
“It won’t happen again… I promise, but I’m really short this week. My landlord is going to give me grief.”
Bernie hesitates. Contemplates. The pawnbroker is not a soft touch. He thinks the only true sin is to surrender. He lost most of his family in the ghettos of Warsaw and at Treblinka. They meekly surrendered and were led away, a fact that Bernie despises. That’s one of the reasons he keeps a pistol in his top drawer, a shotgun downstairs and a bodyguard in the next room. Whatever happens, he’s not going to simply disappear.
Glancing at Holly’s cleavage, Bernie wets his bottom lip. “How much you short?”
“Eighty quid.”
“And what does Uncle Bernie get?”
Holly thinks, if Zac were here he’d reach across the table and squeeze your head until your eyes pop out. But she needs the money and she’d rather owe Bernie than Floyd, who charges interest with a silver knuckleduster.
Holly walks to the door and locks it. Then she pushes back Bernie’s leather chair and sits astride him, her knees on either side of his thighs, grinding her pubic bone into his groin. Her hand slides down his chest, unbuttoning his shirt so her fingers can slide across his chest.
Leaning forward she whispers something into his ear. Then she straightens and slowly undoes the buttons on her blouse, opening it a few inches. She’s wearing a black lace bra. Bernie takes a wheezing breath, lust painted all over his face.
Motioning to the cashbox, Holly waits while Bernie fumbles with the key. She takes four twenties and slips the notes into her shoulder bag. Bernie begins to unbuckle his trousers but Holly starts moving again, bumping and grinding. She increases the pressure, whispering in his ear, letting her tongue trace the outline of his earlobe. He tries to stop her, to lift her off, but Holly keeps moving.
Bernie groans. “No, no, nooooo…!”
His eyes roll back into his head and his molars grind together, shuddering.
Holly buttons her shirt and swings her body off his lap. The wet spot on his trousers is starting to spread.
“I want my money back,” he bleats.
Holly scoops the stolen goods into her bag and swings it onto her shoulder. Unlocking the door, she turns. “Here’s what I’ll do, Bernie, I’ll sign you up for membership of the Premature Ejaculation Society. They got a strict dress code. You got to come in your pants.”
She opens the door. Tommy Boyle, Bernie’s bodyguard, is outside. “Everything OK, boss?”
Bernie has a tissue in his hand. “Just shut the fucking door.”
6
Late morning in Central London: Ruiz is waiting downstairs at Scotland Yard. He still has a few contacts in the Met-colleagues who have survived the shake-ups, shake-outs and new brooms. Some adapt. Some pucker up. Some bend over and brace themselves.
Detective Superintendent Peter Vorland is one of the good guys. Snowy headed, thinning on top, he has a powerful handshake and an Afrikaans accent. He came to the UK in the late seventies, escaping apartheid. Thirty- five years later and he’s never been back-not even for a holiday.
Ruiz once asked him why, but Vorland wouldn’t talk about it. Later, when they got drunk after a Twickenham test match, Vorland said he couldn’t forgive Mandela for the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“It’s not in my nature to exonerate torturers and murderers,” he said.
A few years back Vorland had a heart attack. Thought he was dying. He told Ruiz he saw fireworks exploding above Table Mountain and heard a black gospel choir singing. The crash cart and 300 volts brought him back.
Everyone thought Vorland should have retired but he wanted to come back. After six months recuperating, he was leaner, fitter, no longer drinking. Ten years younger and twice as miserable.
His office is on the fourteenth floor with a view across the rooftops of Whitehall to Westminster Cathedral.
“You want some crap coffee?”
“I’m good.”
They spend the first few minutes talking about rugby, more out of habit than need. Finally Ruiz elaborates on a phone call he made earlier, telling the DS about “a friend” who was robbed after playing the Good Samaritan.
“Why didn’t your friend report this crime?” asks Vorland.
“He thinks his wife might misinterpret what happened.”
“Where did your friend meet this girl?”
“The Coach amp; Horses in Greek Street.”
Vorland glances down at a yellow legal pad by his elbow. “I did a computer search and came up with five robberies in the past six months, same MO, two perps, one female, one male.”
“Descriptions?”
“The girl is eighteen to twenty-five, Caucasian, five-five, blue eyes, dark hair, cut short, but it could be a wig. She’s also been a blonde and a redhead. The boyfriend is six foot, close cropped hair and a northern accent.”
Vorland taps a fountain pen on the pad. “I also checked out that phone number. The SIM card is registered to a fake address in Wimbledon. Pay-as-you-go. The police won’t track the handset unless your friend reports the crime…” He raises an eyebrow. “Maybe you could convince him…”
Ruiz gives a non-committal shrug. “I’ll have a word.”
Vorland remembers something else.
“You could talk to the CCTV Control Centre at Westminster Council. They’ve got a hundred and sixty cameras in the West End.”
“Big Brother is watching.”
“They do a job.”
“I preferred the cowardly old world to the brave new one.”
Ruiz rises slowly and makes his way downstairs, dropping his visitor’s badge at the security desk. When he steps outside the revolving door he exhales as though he’s been holding his breath this entire time. Sometimes he needs a reminder that retirement was the right decision.
City Watch Security is in Coventry Street, up a narrow stairway from street level without any signage on the door. The reception area is a small windowless room with posters on the wall urging people to be eternally vigilant. The control centre is registered as a charitable trust, funded by Westminster City Council, the Metropolitan Police and private businesses.
The woman in charge, Helen Carlson, has white-grey hair and a head that looks slightly too large for her body, giving her a doll-like quality. Ruiz follows her to a separate building, around the corner in Wardour Street, where they enter a dark sub-basement with industrial bins and a caged lift. Ms. Carlson taps a number into a panel. The door opens. They wait for it to close behind them. Another panel, a different code and a second door opens into a large room where dozens of men and women watch the streets of London on vast screens, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, every day of the year.
There are images of pedestrians in Oxford Street, couples embracing on a park bench in Leicester Square, a bicycle courier weaving between buses at Piccadilly Circus, a tramp going through bins in Green Park, a delivery van blocking a street in Soho, three teenagers kicking a can outside Euston Station. Snapshots of London, viewed from
