‘Maybe.’ Her eyes were as big as saucers, the pupils huge and black.
‘You feeling OK?’ Suzy jabbed my arm.
The pain had returned to my stomach. ‘You know, those sandwiches could have been a bit dodgy.’
As we neared the top of the road by the ship’s bow, traffic was backed up at the lights, windscreen wipers thrashing. The shopfronts this side of the building didn’t have nice purple chipboard to disguise them. They mostly just had rusty shutters. I still couldn’t see any light coming from inside and, as far as I’d been able to see, all the doors that led upstairs were well and truly padlocked.
We approached the police station on the corner of Birkenhead. Suzy was still upbeat as we passed its CCTV. ‘You see, it’s not all bad news. At least that one only looks at the station.’
We crossed towards the arcade. The source’s no-show was pissing me off. ‘Let’s do a circuit before we go back round for the locks recce. I want to go past the source’s house anyway to see if he’s in. I just don’t trust that fucker.’
We looked up Birkenhead to check what the CCTV at the T-junction of St Chad’s was up to. It had turned away from the direction of the source’s flat, and now pointed to the right of the junction.
Suddenly Suzy stopped and turned, as if to kiss me. ‘It’s him, coming down on the left.’
I glanced up. The source was making his way towards the station. I turned back with her. ‘We’ll get him at the junction.’
Turning left at the arcade, we stopped and she gobbed out her gum before we cuddled. Seconds later he appeared, raincoat collar up, arms folded. He hesitated when he saw us, then quickly crossed the road. As the flashing lights played across his face I could see he was as pissed off as I was. But that didn’t matter. Suzy got in first as he took his final three or four steps to get under the cover of the arcade. ‘You’re fucking late – we wanted eyes on over there from—’
‘Do not be stupid, I cannot afford to do these things. The whole world is watching.’ His eyes darted about him as if he expected to see a face at every window. ‘I had to leave for a while, there was too much activity in the streets. I was just coming to meet with you.’
Suzy gave him her lovely-to-see-you smile. ‘You see anything?’
‘No, nothing. What do you people expect of me? I discovered King’s Lynn for you, what else do you want?’
It sounded like bullshit to me. ‘This ASU is right on your fucking doorstep and you know nothing about it?’
His bloodshot eyes screwed tight. ‘There are many things that aren’t known. I don’t care what you think, I care little for you or your country, but you two had better understand one thing. If there are any JI in there, they have nothing to fear, they’re happy to become martyrs. They will attack with whatever is in those bottles. I know these people – I’ve been fighting for fifteen years.’
Suzy leant towards him. ‘You don’t like us much, do you, so what are you doing here?’
He pursed his lips and took several deep breaths as his eyes dropped away from us. ‘Because you people tell me I have no choice.’
Neither of us answered. I remembered the Yes Man on his cell in the flat saying he had no choice. They had him by the bollocks somehow. I knew the feeling.
He sighed, looked up, then gave a smile. ‘I will die fighting.’ And with that he walked away.
Suzy and I watched as he disappeared up Birkenhead, then followed. We got to the driveway behind his flat as a crack of light pushed its way through the closed curtains on the top floor.
The zit-faced girl and the two twentysomethings emerged from a dark area further down St Chad’s, staggering, not concerned about the rain – or us – as they squabbled over the contents of a small plastic bag. The girl giggled as they passed, recognizing us, and ran her tongue over her scabby lips.
We crossed into the shadows in case the CCTV decided to turn in our direction. The place where the three had emerged seemed to be an entry-point into a Jaguar garage, and as we passed a soft but urgent voice called out to me, ‘Oi, mate, you want some?’
I peered into the darkness as a lighter clicked and he lit up. He was a white guy, cocky-looking, about the same age as the two drunks who had just left him. He was in ripped jeans and a rain-soaked leather jacket. He’d been so off his head the last time he saw us we weren’t registering at all.
‘Want some what?’ I knew I’d asked the question, but the voice didn’t sound like mine.
The dealer didn’t notice. He took the cigarette out of his mouth and gestured with his hand. ‘Whatever – whites, brown, take your pick.’ He spoke with a lisp. ‘Come in here – get off the road, just in here. It’ll be all right.’
I let go of Suzy and turned to face him. She seemed to know what I was about to do before I did. ‘No, not now,
40
She stayed on the pavement as I walked into the shadows. The dealer pulled himself off the wall and shuffled from one foot to the other. ‘What you want, then, mate? I got whatever. I got whites, I got brown, you name it.’
I was about three feet away from him, my eyes fixed on his head. He glanced over at Suzy, a bit worried now. ‘Here, tell her to—’
That was all he got out. My left hand grabbed the back of his scrawny neck and I punched him hard under his chin with the heel of my right. His head snapped back and he dropped like a bag of shit on to the concrete. I knew now why he’d been lisping: whatever it was that he’d been hiding under his tongue flew out on to the pavement.
‘Fuck you – cunt.’ There was no lisp now.
He started moving, so I did what I had to. I kicked him in the face. I couldn’t tell exactly where it connected in the dark below me, but it didn’t really matter. I kicked him again as Suzy grabbed at my arm, whispering loudly. ‘What the fuck are you doing? Come on . . .’
The guy was face down so I gave him one in the side, hoping to get a kidney, and a couple more in the gut. I yanked myself free from her and bent down.
‘This isn’t the time!’
I started dragging him across the wet tarmac towards the kerb. Suzy tried to pull me the other way. ‘What are you—’
I got him face down, his shoulder on the edge of the kerb, his elbow above the gutter. He tried to curl into a ball but I grabbed his arm and pulled it out again.
Suzy got down on one knee. ‘For fuck’s sake! Give him to me.’ She grabbed his wrist and pulled the arm out straight. He moved his legs, trying to protect himself. His voice was blurred – his mouth must have been full of blood. ‘You cunts, cunts.’ He tried to curl up again, trying to protect himself. Suzy still had him in a wristlock, elbow pointing outwards, his forearm on the kerb. ‘For fuck’s sake, get on with it.’
I jumped a foot or so in the air, brought my right foot higher, and kicked back down with all my strength and weight. There was a loud crunch as my right foot made contact and my left landed on the tarmac. He screamed like a pig. I turned and kicked into his face once more to shut him up. Suzy was already moving out on to St Chad’s, looking up at the CCTV. ‘Come on, come on, come on!’ She turned right, towards Gray’s Inn, and I followed, catching her up within a few paces.
‘What the fuck is going on, Nick?’ She looked ahead, checking, as I kicked my boots through a couple of puddles to get the blood off. ‘Have you decided to devote a little quality time to totally fucking this job up?’
I didn’t bother answering: I didn’t care what she thought. But she still had a little more to add. ‘I don’t know what your problem is, but I’ll bet it’s fucking hard to pronounce.’
She quickened her step. Fuck it, I was sure it was all pretty straightforward, once people understood my point of view, but now wasn’t the time to explain it to her. ‘Listen, it’s done, I fucked up, sorry.’ I grabbed her arm to slow her down, then reached for the moan-phone.
The traffic was still busy, so I had to plug my empty ear with my finger again after dialling the Yes Man.
