Bronson looked round. The parking area was fairly long and narrow, with spaces for about two hundred cars, but bordered by a row of bushes on the side adjacent to the main road.
“You parked here?” he asked.
Weeks caught his glance and shook his head. “No. Too bloody confined for my liking,” he replied. “Never know what nasties somebody could have hidden away over there. I like the wide-open spaces. Like Tesco.”
Weeks turned right into the car park and then continued walking diagonally across it, toward the exit into Bryant Avenue. With Bronson keeping pace beside him, he crossed the road and walked on into the much bigger car park that lay behind the Gallows Corner Tesco store. Standing by itself at the far side of the car park was a late- model Range Rover, a deep lustrous black in color and with heavily tinted windows, that probably cost nearly as much as Bronson earned in a year.
“Nice motor,” Bronson said, as Weeks pressed the remote control to unlock the doors.
“Tools of the trade, mate. All the windows are bullet-proof, and there are Kevlar panels in the doors and behind most of the bodywork. That wouldn’t stop a serious attack, but I’ve had the engine breathed on a bit and the tires are run flat, so if the shooting started, I hope I’d be able to use it to get the hell out of the way.”
When they were still about fifty yards from the car, Weeks raised his hand to stop Bronson getting any closer.
“Not so fast,” he said.
“What?”
Weeks didn’t reply, just selected another button on the larger-than-normal remote control unit. As he pressed it, the Range Rover’s engine started with a throaty roar, then settled down to a steady idle.
“Just in case somebody managed to wire a lump of plastic into the ignition circuit,” Weeks explained. “I never sit in the thing and turn the key, not even if it’s in the garage at home.”
Bronson stood still and stared across the car park at the vehicle. Then he glanced at Weeks and shook his head.
“For a few minutes there I was starting to envy you your lifestyle, but if this is how you have to watch your back every day, I think I’ll stick to what I do.”
“You get used to it,” Weeks replied shortly, and led the way over to the Range Rover.
The two men climbed into the front seats. Weeks immediately checked the open expanse of the car park ahead of him and the view behind the vehicle visible in the rear-view mirrors. Shoppers, mainly women, some by themselves and others with children reluctantly in tow, were pushing trolleys to and fro, while cars were arriving and departing all the time. There was movement all around them, but none of it appeared in any way unusual or suspicious.
“Looks okay to me,” Weeks said. “No sign of any of the thin blue line lurking about either.”
“I told you, Dickie,” Bronson replied, “I’m here by myself. This isn’t a sting operation or an entrapment. Though if it was, I doubt if you’d spot any of the watchers.”
“It’s not just your lot that I worry about. I’m in a competitive industry, and sometimes people decide that a bit of direct action might be the easiest way to make sure I don’t get the business.”
“You make it sound almost legitimate,” Bronson remarked. “Selling guns, I mean.”
“That’s the funny thing about the arms business. It’s one of this country’s biggest industries, and Britain sells everything from pistols to aircraft and warships to other nations, knowing bloody well that some two-bit dictator in the middle of Africa will use the weapons to make his program of genocide that bit more efficient. And the people who run the British arms industry get invited to tea at Number Ten and are given knighthoods and all the rest. But if a freelance businessman like me gets caught selling a twenty-two-caliber target pistol to someone, he’ll end up in the slammer for a few years, and so will the buyer. Makes no sense to me.”
Bronson guessed that Weeks was treading a familiar path, though what he was saying was undeniably true- yet another demonstration of the arrant and arrogant hypocrisy of most politicians. Ever since Tony Blair had famously “banned handguns,” the only people who owned weapons in Britain were criminals, and the Labor Party had somehow managed to spin this obvious lunacy into a piece of good news for the public.
“Okay, you want a pistol, right? And some ammo, obviously. I’ve brought three along, but it all depends on what you want to spend and if you think you’re going to bring it back to me.”
“I’ll try, but I don’t know how this is going to pan out.”
“Then you probably won’t want this one,” Weeks replied.
He reached over to the backseat of the car, where a couple of coats had been draped, apparently casually, and pulled out a wooden box secured with metal catches. Weeks snapped them open and lifted the lid. Inside, set in a shaped recess, was a small black semi-automatic pistol. He lifted out the weapon, showed Bronson that there was no magazine fitted, then pulled back the slide and handed it to his companion-basic safety precautions to ensure that the weapon was unloaded.
“Smart. A subcompact Glock,” Bronson said, recognizing it immediately. He turned it over in his hands. The butt was very short, allowing the weapon to be held by two fingers, the third finger nestling in a recess at the front of the magazine when it was in place. “A nice piece of kit, but I don’t know if I can afford this. Which model is it, and what’s it chambered for?”
“It’s a Model Twenty-six, so nine millimeter, with a ten-round magazine. I’ve got a Model Twenty-seven as well, to take the forty-caliber Smith and Wesson round, but that’s a bit more expensive, and really that cartridge is a bit of a handful in a pistol this small. I’ve got a standard magazine, as well as one of the factory plus-two models that gives you twelve rounds altogether, and a spare mag from a Glock Seventeen that’ll fit. That holds the usual seventeen rounds, but it sticks out a hell of a long way. If you wanted that, you’d probably be better off with just the Model Seventeen right from the start.”
Bronson nodded, looking down at the compact pistol. “It’s ideal, Dickie, but these are expensive little buggers. How much are you asking?”
“That weapon’s virtually new, and they are pricey. But for you, as a deal, you can have it for six hundred, plus twenty for a box of Parabellum. And I’ll give you four hundred if you bring it back when you’re done.”
Bronson shook his head and reluctantly handed back the weapon. “Too rich for me,” he said. “I was hoping you’d got something for less than half that.”
Weeks nodded. “I have,” he said, “but you won’t like it as much.”
He replaced the Glock in the box, closed the catches and returned it to the backseat, then rummaged around under the coats and took out another box, bigger and more battered, showing signs of its age.
He opened this box, took out the pistol and did the usual safety checks, then handed it to Bronson.
“It’s another Glock,” Weeks said. “This one’s a Model Seventeen, with two standard magazines. It’s been around for a while, but it works well. Dead reliable, these pistols.”
Bronson nodded as he inspected the weapon. It was a bit battered and there were several smears of what looked like paint on the polymer grip, but all the damage was cosmetic and the firing mechanism itself seemed in good working order as far as he could tell. There was really only one problem with it, apart from possibly the price.
“I’m not bothered about the way it looks, Dickie, but this is a full-frame pistol, and I don’t know if I could keep a weapon this size hidden in my pocket or wherever. I really need something a bit smaller.”
Weeks smiled at him as Bronson handed back the Glock 17. “Well,” he said, “if the Twenty-six is too rich for your tastes, I’ve only got one other option.”
“And this is the one I’m not going to like,” Bronson suggested.
“Exactly. This is the cheap and cheerful option, this week’s special offer.”
He returned the box to the backseat and this time reached into the pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a small black pistol, pressed the release, which dropped the magazine out of the butt, and then worked the slide. A small cartridge flew out of the weapon and landed in his lap; clearly the pistol had been loaded. Then he passed it over to Bronson.
For a few moments, he didn’t recognize it. Although it was small and compact, the pistol bore more than a passing resemblance to the venerable Colt Model 1911, for many years the standard sidearm of the American military, albeit scaled down.
“What is it?” Bronson asked.
“It’s a Spanish-made Llama XV, chambered for twenty-two Long Rifle.” Weeks held up the ejected cartridge so Bronson could see it, then fed it into the top of the magazine. “It’s not exactly a man-stopper, but it’d probably
