‘It’s sorted. I’m picking it up with him. I’ll count it on the spot, then drop it round at the office and put it in the safe before we head out to the meet.’
‘Good move. So, where’s it taking place?’
‘Good question. I haven’t got a clue.’
‘Well, if it’s too far, don’t forget to charge him for petrol.’
Which was Joe all over. He’d call himself careful; everyone else preferred the word tight. I laughed and hung up.
Thursday, seventeen days ago
Iversson
There were three of us in the car. Me in the front passenger seat, Eric driving, and Tony in the back. You always feel a bit nervous when the people you’re dealing with are unknown and likely to be unpredictable, but at least I had reliable back-up.
Like everyone we used, they were ex-military. Eric was an old associate of mine, a big beefy bloke in his early fifties. He was a Taffy who’d done fifteen years in the Welsh Borderers, and he’d been an occasional employee of ours since day one. You didn’t mess about with Eric. Not only did he have a face like Frankenstein’s monster, he had the body, too, with fists like sledge-hammers. He was a calm bloke, not easily given to temper, and a real old-fashioned gentleman with the ladies, but if you fucked him about, you paid a high price. Once, a few years back, he’d been doing some debt-collecting work for a couple of Albanians. When he’d turned up at the flat where he was going to pick up the money, he’d been greeted by the debtor and two of his mates, all armed with pickaxe handles. According to reliable accounts, the three of them launched a full-frontal assault, weapons flailing. It was a big mistake. Eric hit the debtor so hard, the bloke’s head flew back and knocked out one of the others. The third swung his pickaxe handle at Eric’s head, only to have Eric grab it with one hand and break his jaw with the other, like something out of a Bruce Lee film. Enter the Welsh dragon, and all that. The whole thing took about four seconds, and immediately became local legend.
Tony was just as useful, but a lot different. Late twenties, good-looking in a public-schoolish way, he was an ex-marine who’d also worked with us on and off since the early days. He was only a little guy, no more than five nine and skinny, but he was one of the fittest, fastest people I’d ever met. I liked him, too. He had what you might call a dry wit, and he delivered his lines with all the urgency of Roger Moore’s James Bond, like he might fall asleep before the end of the sentence. But there was something about him, something in the way he carried himself, that told anyone who was interested that, for all his laid-back attitude, he was not to be messed with. He was reputed to have shot an IRA gunman in Belfast in the early nineties before the first ceasefire, finishing him off when he could have taken him alive. It was something he neither confirmed nor denied, but you could believe that he’d done it. He was that sort of bloke.
I gave them a brief rundown of my meeting with Fowler, and what I’d found out since, which wasn’t a lot, to be honest. Joe and I had both asked around to see if anyone knew anything about Roy Fowler and the Arcadia, but the only person who had any information at all was Charlie White, another ex-soldier who did occasional doorwork for clubs north of the river, and all he could tell me was that he’d heard it had a drug problem.
‘Surprise fucking surprise,’ said Eric. ‘They’ve all got a drugs problem. So, do you think there’s going to be trouble?’ He didn’t sound like the prospect bothered him too much.
I gave him one of the most confident looks I could muster. ‘Not when they see us, there won’t be.’
‘Famous last words,’ said Tony, in that enigmatic way of his. But then, he’d never been the sort to look on the bright side.
We were picking up Fowler from a pub in Farringdon Street, not far from the Underground station. It was a busy late summer evening and darkness was beginning to settle on the lively streets of Clerkenwell as they filled up with revellers. Traffic was still bad even at this time, and I jumped out of the car fifty yards short of the pick-up point, leaving it idling in a typical urban snarl-up.
The place was crowded with students and the younger end of the office-worker crowd so Fowler, with his bad-news fake tan and middle-aged side parting, stood out like a sore thumb. He was sat at a poky little table in the corner, just in front of the Ladies, nursing a Red Bull and looking like someone had just caught him fucking an under-age girl. He was nervous – nervous and shifty – and even from some distance away I could make out the sheen of sweat on his forehead.
As I walked towards him through a gaggle of scantily clad young ladies with loud voices, I saw he had two briefcases on his lap, one of which hopefully contained six grand in readies. You’d have thought the other contained a bomb, given the expression on his face.
‘Mr Fowler. Are you ready?’
Fowler saw me for the first time and cracked a relieved smile. ‘As ready as I’ll ever be. Come on then, let’s go.’ He got to his feet unsteadily, trying to hold both briefcases in one hand. It didn’t work and he dropped one. Quick as a flash, he bent down and picked it up. ‘This one’s yours,’ he said, passing it to me in a way that was almost designed to attract attention. I took it as casually as possible, and, with him following, turned and walked back outside.
The car pulled up just as we stepped onto the
