church in the last twelve years was for the funeral of his uncle Albert, shipped home for the last time from HMP Pentonville following a coronary. They walked on the street because the chance of being covered by an audio bug was minimal. They talked – the unrepentant veteran thief and his grandson who was a killer for hire – from the side of their mouths so that if the cameras were on them there would be nothing for the lip-reader to learn. Never before had Granddad Cairns talked to him like this, and done it awkward.
‘What I’m saying, Robbie… it’s for Lenny Grewcock, a big man… as big as any we know.’
‘Are you telling me not to cock it up?’
‘Well, you know…’
He saw his grandfather squirm. Granddad Cairns didn’t approve – as Robbie knew – of violence. He went pale at the sight of blood and had nearly fainted only a few weeks back when a bus, going along Lower Road – at the end of Albion Street – had hit a cat. Robbie didn’t expect advice about the work he took on once the payment had been agreed. He had no worries about spilled blood and didn’t welcome what was close to interference, but it was his grandfather… He had never ‘cocked it up’ and he bridled. ‘You look after your side, and I’ll do mine.’
‘I just wanted to say that-’
‘Say it once more, Granddad, then don’t say it again.’
‘Because of who it’s for… Lenny Grewcock. A good friend and a bloody awful enemy. Please, just tell me it’ll be your best effort.’
‘When wasn’t it?’
His grandfather shrugged and lines cut the tired old face. Robbie always produced ‘a best effort’: it was why he was wanted and hired. The fee to be paid was ten thousand sterling and there would be extras on top. He had a name and a location, but nothing more. Robbie didn’t know why this man had been marked out. A teacher at the school in Rotherhithe had once read a story to them and quietened the whole class with it. A guy called Billy Bones had been given – by a blind old beggar – a black spot, which meant he was condemned. All the class had liked that story, boys and girls, and it had the hope of treasure in it, but Robbie had enjoyed best the part where the sheet of paper with a black spot was put into Billy Bones’s hand and he had known he was marked for death. He didn’t know what Harvey Gillot had done that had put the paper with the spot into his hand. Didn’t matter whether he knew or not. Ten thousand pounds was on the table, with extras.
‘When’ll you go?’
‘When I’m ready, Granddad.’
‘You do understand?’
‘Could you let it go, Granddad? Could you wrap it?’ Now there was an edge in his voice and he saw the old man shrink from him. It was almost as if his grandfather was afraid of him. Robbie slipped an arm loosely on the old man’s shoulders, squeezed and felt no flesh. Then he had turned and was gone. Didn’t know where to go: Leanne was having her hair done, Vern was down at the arches where the little lock-up garages were and vehicles had their identity changed, and Barbie was on in-house training in the store. He wandered up Swan Street, drifted until he came to the river and found a bench close to a statue of a man and a boy, something to do with ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ but he didn’t know who they were or what they’d done, and he had a view of London Bridge. He liked it… sort of reassuring, and he had that feeling of being where he belonged, on his own ground. Truth was, Robbie was restless, near to pissed off, because his grandfather had gone so far as to suggest that he might cock it up. He never had, never would.
The price for the man who would kill, Josip said, was ten thousand euros. He shifted clumsily from foot to foot. Tomislav’s opinion was encouraging but of little importance set against Mladen’s decision. The word of the village’s leader had greater significance than any other man or woman’s.
Mladen sniffed. ‘Ten thousand euros for the man we hire. Why do you tell me we must raise twenty thousand?’
They were on the veranda of the cafe in the heart of the village, near to the half-rebuilt church. Down the road, Josip could see that Tomislav sat alone on his porch, his dog on his lap. He could hear the drone of Petar’s tractor from the field behind the church. Beyond Tomislav there was a splutter as Andrija started the motor of a petrol-driven mower. Everyone knew that Andrija’s wife had nearly broken his finger when she had prised it out of the grenade’s ring.
Josip said that a man in London would take a cut of their money for finding the one who would shoot… and the man in London had been contacted by another in Hamburg. The Hamburg connection was from Poland, had originated in Greece, and the link to Athens was from Serbs who had come to Ilok, but future arrangements and payments would be through Zagreb for convenience and secrecy. All of them, Josip told Mladen, required payment for the introductions they had made. Mladen had little affection for Josip, who had not stayed and fought. He knew that he himself could not have found a man to carry out a contract.
‘How do we raise twenty thousand euros?’
Josip said that the veterans could take loans from the bank. ‘They would give us loans to pay for it?’
Josip said that the veterans had the best pensions so loans would be available.
Mladen turned away, scraping his chair on the boards. He could not now back off. He would not dare to face the Widow, Maria, Andrija’s wife, and tell them that too much money was wanted. He had the largest pension, with the best disability supplement, and would pay the most. Neither could he have told his son, Simun, that the price of revenge was too great.
‘Get me more coffee.’
He would not have admitted to any form of entrapment in the past. Later, perhaps in an hour, Petar would return to his yard with his tractor and would walk down to the cafe. Tomislav would come, listen and not contribute, and Andrija’s mower would fall silent and he would be there.
His coffee was brought. Mladen said at what time he was prepared to go to Vukovar, and Josip left him. He and his comrades talked of the skirmishes when the village’s defences had held, but they had never spoken of the last hours, when the line had been holed. Then, those who had the strength took to the rotted corn and attempted to crawl through the enemy to Nustar. He was now, in his fiftieth year, a big man with a bulging gut that many of the village women considered magnificent, and a shock of silver hair. He could exert authority through his physique and with the ability of his eyes to pierce an opponent’s resolve. The story of his son’s survival was legendary in the village.
With the snow of winter still on the ground, the baby had been conceived. His wife’s belly had been huge when the road into the village had been cut and she had refused – as many did – to use the Cornfield Road. The baby, Simun, was born in the crypt under the church. The mother needed medical intervention, could not have it. Neither could she have drugs to kill infection: there were none. Mladen’s wife had been buried in the night, few there because the Cetniks had probed the lines. They had charged twice and been driven back.
On the last evening, when it was obvious to all that the village would be overrun at dawn, Mladen had gone down the steps under the church. He had taken Simun from the makeshift cradle and swaddled him against the cold. He had wrapped the bundle in a camouflage tunic and had made a carry-cot with ropes and canvas. None would go with him into the corn: the baby would cry and the Cetniks would find them. He had gone alone.
The inner security door opened and a youngish man came into the room. He held out a hand. ‘Mr Gillot, thank you for coming. I’m DS Roscoe, Mark Roscoe. I hope you haven’t been waiting long.’
He had been waiting ten minutes, almost eleven, and Roscoe would have known it because it was almost eleven minutes since the desk had telephoned to announce his arrival. At least he wasn’t asked if he’d been comfortable: the leatherette of the bench was holed and had no cushion, the flooring was scuffed, the sun burned against the outer window and the graffiti on the walls had been scrubbed unsuccessfully. Not the entrance that would be used by county councillors coming to visit senior officers, or chums from Rotary, but where those on bail clocked in. Harvey Gillot was confused.
‘If you could please follow me, Mr Gillot.’
They went down a corridor. Gillot had had little to do with police stations, dealt with the military at bases and the ministry, but had never supplied the police forces with gear. Neither had he been investigated nor entered a station to lodge a complaint. There was a bustle in the offices with open doors off the corridor but he sensed that people eyed him as if word of his visit was already abroad. He had dressed, as if for a business meeting, in a suit, quiet and severe, with a soft blue shirt and a conservative blue-base tie. He had brushed his hair carefully in the car. He reckoned Roscoe ten years younger than himself, same height but two and a half stone lighter and without flab. Hair not done, jacket creased, and the shirt had the look of second-day use. The tie did not co-ordinate with
