‘What? A piece of meat?’
‘Broken bit of wood. Like doing a vampire. He had a machete; I had a stake.’
‘And how do you get from impaling to T-Bone?’
‘It’s ironic, innit?’ he said. ‘You never have a nickname?’ He grinned, showing two gold front teeth.
‘They called me Birdy at school.’
‘Nice,’ said T-Bone. He nodded at the MGB. ‘You get in your toy car and follow me. We’re going to a lock-up in Streatham.’
‘Streatham? That’s not far; why don’t we go in the same car?’
‘Because I’m not riding in your piece of shit and you’re as sure as hell not riding in my motor. If we get stopped I want deniability.’
‘We won’t get stopped.’
‘You don’t know that. Black man in an expensive car, he’s got a target on his back. So you follow me.’ He jerked a thumb at the MGB. ‘How fast will that thing go?’
‘I’ll keep up with you. I’ll pedal real fast.’
T-Bone laughed and clapped Nightingale on the back. ‘I like you,’ he said. The smile vanished and he gripped Nightingale’s shoulder. ‘What Perry said back there is only half the story,’ he said. ‘Anything happens to me you’d better hope I don’t get bail because I’ll personally be tearing off your balls and shoving them down your throat. Hear?’
Nightingale nodded. ‘I just want a gun,’ he said.
‘I know. A big one. Don’t worry about that; we’ve got big guns coming out of our arses.’
‘Nice image,’ said Nightingale. He blew smoke. ‘Let’s go. I’ve got things to do, rivers to cross, mountains to climb.’
‘What?’
Nightingale grinned. ‘My clock’s ticking.’ He dropped the cigarette onto the pavement and stamped it out.
T-Bone went over to a black Porsche SUV and climbed in. He waited until Nightingale was in the MGB and then pulled away from the kerb and headed south. Nightingale kept close behind. T-Bone slowed down when they reached Streatham and after they’d driven along the High Road he made a right turn and then a left and then drove down an alley between two rows of houses. They came to a block of six brick-built lock-up garages with metal doors and corrugated iron roofs. There was a black Lexus there, its engine running. T-Bone parked facing it. Nightingale pulled in behind the Porsche and parked. As he climbed out, T-Bone was hugging two big black men who had got out of the Lexus. Nightingale recognised one of them from the photographs that Dan Evans had shown him by the Serpentine.
T-Bone said something and they all laughed, then T-Bone pulled out a set of keys, unlocked the door of one of the lock-ups and pushed it up. The other two went back and leaned against the bonnet of their Lexus, their hands deep in the pockets of their overcoats. As Nightingale walked over to the lock-up, one of the men pulled something black and metallic from his pocket. Nightingale’s heart began to race but then he realised it was a Magnalite torch. The man chuckled as he switched on the torch as if he knew what Nightingale had been thinking.
T-Bone waved for Nightingale to join him and disappeared inside the lock-up. The man with the torch pushed himself off the Lexus and followed T-Bone. There was an old Jaguar there, its boot facing outwards. T-Bone pulled the door down behind them. ‘Don’t want anybody looking in,’ he explained. He used another key to open the boot, then stood to the side to allow Nightingale to see into it. The other man used his torch to illuminate a dozen or so sackcloth-wrapped packages.
Nightingale picked up one of the packages and unwrapped it. It was a Glock, similar to the one he’d used when he was with CO19. He rewrapped it and put it back in the boot.
‘Too small?’ said T-Bone. A larger package contained a sawn-off shotgun with a stubby single barrel and a pistol-grip butt. ‘Takes five shells,’ said T-Bone. ‘Untraceable. It’ll blow off everything above the waist from six feet away. Bang!’
‘Maybe not quite as big as that,’ said Nightingale. ‘You know what I’d really like? An MP5.’
T-Bone sneered as he rewrapped the shotgun. ‘Nine mills don’t do no damage,’ he said. ‘Like the Glock. Nice gun, but most guys I know could take a couple of nine-mill slugs and keep on walking. You get shot in the face with this and you ain’t going nowhere.’ He put the package back in the boot. ‘Are you going to fire it?’
‘Am I what?’
‘The gun. You gonna fire it or just wave it around? Horses for courses, innit?’
‘I’m going to be playing it by ear.’
‘Here’s the thing. If you don’t fire it you can sell it back to us at fifty pence in the pound. You buy for five hundred and we’ll take it back for two-fifty. But if it’s been fired it’s on you because then it’s traceable.’
‘Unless it’s the sawn-off??’
‘You can fire that all day long and it’ll never be traced,’ said T-Bone. ‘But if you’re gonna be letting rip then you don’t want the Glock or the MP5 or the MAC-10 because you’re gonna be spitting out shells all over the place.’
‘Yeah, well, when Perry came after me I seem to remember the tinkle of casings hitting the pavement.’
T-Bone chuckled. ‘That was Reggie’s idea,’ he said. ‘He wasn’t concerned about getting his money back. They were brand new and he was planning to sell them on to a gang north of the river so that they’d take the heat for your hit.’
‘Nice,’ said Nightingale.
‘He was clever like that, all right,’ said T-Bone. ‘Too clever for his own good as it turned out. But if you’re planning to let fly you’d be better off with a revolver. Keep your casings.’
‘Fewer shots, though.’
‘See, you being a cop and all I’d be thinking you’d make every shot count,’ said T-Bone.
Nightingale smiled at the irony of a former member of a Metropolitan Police armed response unit being given firearms advice by a south London gangster, but everything that T-Bone said was right. Nightingale didn’t know how the evening was going to play out but if he did have to fire the weapon he didn’t want to be leaving evidence around. ‘So what do you have in the way of revolvers?’
‘I can do you a nice Smith amp; Wesson,’ said T-Bone, reaching for a second parcel.
Inside were two stainless-steel guns with black rubberised handgrips that looked very similar but Nightingale recognised one as the Model 627, a.357 Magnum that took eight rounds while the other was a Model 629, a.44 Magnum that held six rounds. The 627 had a four-inch barrel and the 629’s was more than an inch shorter.
‘Nice,’ said Nightingale, reaching for the 627. He checked the action and nodded approvingly.
‘You wouldn’t want to be firing at any distance,’ said T-Bone. ‘But with eight in the cylinder you’ve got more of a margin for error.’
‘How much?’ said Nightingale.
‘Twelve hundred quid.’
‘What? I only want the one.’
‘List price in the States for them both is about a thousand dollars. And we have to get them over here.’
‘Do I have “idiot” written on my forehead?’
‘I can’t see in this light,’ said T-Bone. ‘Maybe. But for a new gun that’s the price, innit?’ He took the 627 off Nightingale and wrapped it up. ‘How close do you think you’re getting to the target?’
‘Not sure,’ said Nightingale. ‘Why?’
‘The Smith amp; Wessons have both got short barrels. I’ve got something a bit longer.’ He rooted among the packages and pulled out the one that he was looking for. ‘It’s a Taurus 627,’ he said, handing the gun to Nightingale. ‘The barrel’s eight and a half inches so you can be accurate up to fifty feet without too much trouble, seventy-five feet if you’re lucky. Holds seven rounds, not too much of a kick, but again you know what you’re doing so that shouldn’t be a problem.’
Nightingale nodded, then looked along the barrel.
‘It’s a bit front-heavy so two hands are better than one,’ said T-Bone. ‘The grip’s a bit small but you’re not a big man.’
‘I’ve had no complaints,’ said Nightingale.
T-Bone wagged a gloved finger at him. ‘Funny man,’ he said.
