‘We want some privacy, that’s all.’
‘Christ almighty,’ growled Eric. ‘If you’d wanted privacy you could have come round my gaff. This is fucking ridiculous.’
‘We’re nearly there,’ said Fowler irritably. He sat back in his seat and sighed, wiping his brow for the hundredth time that night. He looked about as comfortable as a case of piles.
Tony asked him if he was OK.
He nodded. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.’ He didn’t sound it.
‘If things look like they’re going to get a bit tasty, we’ll just pull out,’ said Tony, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of his shirt pocket and offering Fowler one. The clubowner accepted and thanked him as he lit it. ‘All part of the service,’ said Tony, leaning forward and dangling the pack between me and Eric. Eric took one. I told him I’d given up.
‘Oh yeah? How long’s that been, then?’
‘Too fucking long.’
We came to another T-junction and Fowler told Eric to turn right. We were coming to the other end of the estate now and, beyond the buildings stretched out in front of us, I could make out the fence, and what looked like wasteground behind. It was eerily silent here, a lonely oasis in the middle of the city. The sort of place where the killers in kids’ nightmares lurk.
‘I think it’s here, up ahead,’ said Fowler.
Looming up on our right-hand side, about fifty yards in front and partially obscured by trees, was a large whitebrick warehouse, bigger than the buildings on either side of it. It was set back a few yards from the road behind a forecourt where there was room to park at least a dozen cars, and its delivery doors were open. The forecourt was empty but a light appeared to be on inside, the only light I’d seen in a building on the whole estate.
I felt the hairs prickle on the back of my neck like it was being stroked by a poltergeist. Something was wrong with this whole thing. Very wrong. I pushed back in my seat, feeling the comforting closeness of the Glock rubbing against the small of my back, confident that if I had to use it then at least I knew it would fire.
‘This is it, the one with the light on. That’s where we’re meeting.’
‘What time’s it set for again?’ I asked.
‘Ten thirty.’
I looked at my watch. Ten past. ‘Better early than late, I suppose.’
Eric slowed the car and turned into the forecourt, watching for any signs of activity.
But there were none. No movement, no voices, no nothing. The place was as deserted as a cemetery.
Eric brought the Range Rover to a halt outside the delivery doors.
‘Well, someone’s been here tonight,’ I said.
‘It doesn’t look like they’re here now,’ said Eric, peering inside.
There was a growing tension in the car. You could almost smell it.
‘You definitely got the time right?’ I said.
‘Course I did,’ snapped Fowler, who looked the most nervous of any of us by a long chalk. ‘It’s still early, remember?’ He leant forward in his seat and wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. His left leg was shaking uncontrollably and, for some reason, I found myself enjoying his discomfort.
‘Maybe we should drive in there and take a look around,’ said Tony, also leaning forward. ‘What do you think, Max? We could take up positions so we’re ready when they get here.’
It seemed as good an idea as any. ‘Yeah, let’s do that. It can’t do any harm.’ Which was a statement I was to remember for the rest of my days.
Eric touched the accelerator and we drove in through the gap in the doors.
The place was about twenty yards deep by ten yards wide, and empty aside from a row of ancient-looking oil drums which stood a few feet in front of a door in the far right-hand corner. Above the door was a long balcony that stretched the width of the room and overlooked the front of the car. A number of unmarked boxes were positioned along it, some of them stacked two or three high. I looked up at them for any sign of activity, but everything was still. As still as the grave, as my grandma used to say before she was lowered into her own.
The Range Rover stopped in the middle of the floor. Eric put it into neutral and pulled up the handbrake. He too looked up at the boxes. ‘Perfect place for an ambush,’ he said quietly, almost to himself. ‘Saw something like this back in Ulster.’
‘Look, this is just a fucking meeting,’ said Fowler impatiently. ‘Nothing more. All right?’
‘It was while we were based out of Londonderry. The RUC got a call from some woman, said she’d been raped out by this disused old factory. This was in the old days, way back at the beginning of the seventies, before they’d got wise to the way the provos worked. The Officials were still around then and they tended to play it more by the book. Anyway, they despatched a car with three RUC men in it to pick her up, and an ambulance as well. Just in case. She’d made the call from a phone box outside the factory gates, but when the car got there, they saw her wandering about inside the grounds, you know, all distraught and that.’
The car fell silent. All you could hear was Fowler’s heavy breathing in the back.
‘So they drove in through the gates and went down to pick her up. She saw them, started crying hysterically, and ran off into the building, like she couldn’t come to terms with getting near any men so soon after what’d happened. The RUC car stopped in front of it and
