Chuck smiled, first at one of his men, then at the other. He seemed to find something interesting on the tips of his shoes, and studied them, talking at the same time.
"I"ve nothing to say. I don"t know anyone called Scotty Shattuck. End of story. Goodbye, adios, au revoir."
I stood my ground for a moment longer, knowing I didn"t believe him. We could back off, or we could try another tactic. We didn"t have time to back off. Besides, if we left 112.
now, word could get back to Shattuck, causing him to disappear. There was one option left.
So I drew the gun.
It"s not easy to conceal a Heckler & Koch MP5, but it"s always worth the effort. It was why I"d borrowed a Barbour jacket from Max. It was roomy, and he"d sewn a pocket into it so the gun could be carried more easily. So what if I sweated in the heat?
At twenty inches long and six pounds weight, the MP5 can be carried just about anywhere without creating a stir.
It only created a stir when you brought it out and pointed it at someone. I held it one-handed and pointed it directly at Chuck.
"This thing"s got a fifteen-round mag," I said, "and I"ve set it on a three-round burst. You"ve been around. Chuck, you know what that"ll do to you. You"ll be lying in two pieces on the floor, and so will everybody else. Whole thing"ll take just a couple of seconds."
Chuck had taken a couple of steps back and raised his hands slightly, but otherwise seemed fairly calm under the circ.u.mstances.
"I want to know where he is," I said. "When you tell me, I"m going to go talk to him. That"s all, just talk. But if he"s not there, if someone"s warned him, then I"m coming back here."
Chuck"s minders couldn"t take their eyes off the gun. To be honest, I didn"t think I could aim the thing properly, never mind fire it. I wasn"t used to sub-machine guns, far less ones so short you could use them one-handed like a pistol. I was brandishing it for two reasons. One, I knew it would scare the s.h.i.t out of everyone. Two, I didn"t have time to take "no" as the answer to any question I needed to ask.
"I didn"t think you were a cop," Chuck sneered.
"I only want to talk to him."
"Go f.u.c.k yourself."
The men who"d been crouching by the window had risen ii3 to their feet. I could hear Bel breathing just half a step behind me. I should have known a pretty face wouldn"t have been enough for people like Chuck. They"d gone way beyond pretty faces in their time.
He wasn"t going to speak, so I waved the gun around a bit. One of his minders spoke for him, maybe for all of them.
"Scotty lives in Norwood, near Crystal Palace."
"I need an address."
He gave me one. "But he hasn"t been in for a while. I haven"t seen him around either."
"You think he"s got a job?"
The gorilla shrugged.
"Okay," I said, "sorry for any inconvenience." I started backing towards the door. Bel was already on her way. "I"ll let you get back to your weight-gain. Looks like a few of you have lost a pound or two into your underwear." I looked at Chuck again and waved the gun a final time. "They call it the mercenary"s life-support."
Then we were gone.
The taxi took us south of the river.
Bel said she felt drunk, with the excitement at the gym and then our brief jog to the traffic lights where a taxi was just unloading. I didn"t want to talk about it, not in a taxi, so she waited till the driver dropped us off. We were standing on Church Road, a busy two-lane street of large detached houses. The area must have been posh at one time, but most of the buildings had fallen into disrepair to a lesser or greater degree. The house we were standing outside definitely fell into the category of "greater degree". It was a huge monstrous affair, all angles and gables and windows where you"d least expect to see them. Paint had faded and peeled from it, and some of the windows were covered with blankets for curtains, or with boards where the gla.s.s should be. The even larger house next to it had been added to and 114.
converted into a hotel. I imagined the cheapest rooms would be those to the side.
Bel wasn"t looking at the house, she was looking at me, wanting me to say something.
"I wouldn"t have used it," I offered.
"Really?"
"Really."
She broke into a nervous laugh. "The look on their faces."
It was one of those laughs which can easily turn to sobbing.
"I was scared, Michael, and I was behind the b.l.o.o.d.y gun!"
An elderly lady was wheeling her shopping-trolley past us. She smiled a greeting, the way some old people do.
"Keep your voice down," I cautioned. Bel quickly took my meaning.
Sorry."
"Look, Bel, I don"t want to stick around London any longer than I need to. That"s why I used the gun. I can"t hang around being pleasant and polite and waiting for answers. I need them fast."
She was nodding. "Understood." She turned at last to the house. "G.o.d, it"s ugly."
"Let"s make this short and sweet," I said, heading for the front door.
The expansive front garden had been concreted over some time before, but weeds and gra.s.s were pushing their way through. There were huge cracks and swells in the concrete, doubtless caused by the roots of several mature trees nearby.
A car sat on the concrete, covered by a black tarpaulin which itself now sported a covering of wet leaves, moss and bits of rubbish. It was sitting so low to the ground, it either had flat tyres or none at all. Past it, a dozen steps led to the front door, rotten at its base. There was an intercom next to the door, complete with buzzers for eight flats. Only three had names attached. None of them was Shattuck. I pressed one anyway. There was no reply. I pressed another, then ii5 another. Still no reply. Bel placed her hand against the door and gave it the slightest push. It swung inwards.
"Shall we?" she said.
There was a lot of mail in the entrance hall, along with litter which had blown in over time, and an untidy mouldering heap of free newssheets. Someone had left a bicycle frame against the wall. There was no sign of any wheels.
Some mail sat on an upturned cardboard box. Most of the letters were for Scotty Shattuck, some identifying his address as Flat 5.1 checked the postmarks. They went back almost a week.
"Doesn"t look good," I said.
We climbed the creaking stairs, hearing no sounds from the other flats, and encountering not a soul. Flat 5 was three storeys up, near what had to be the top of the house, though the stairs kept winding. The door was cheap and newish, a..
wooden frame with thin panelling over it. A single Yale had been fitted. The door had no handles or nameplate. There were sc.r.a.pes on the jamb near the lock.
"Looks like someone kicked the old door in."
"Maybe he locked himself out."
"Maybe. Since when he"s had this new one fitted, but hasn"t got round to adding decent locks yet."
"That"s handy," said Bel. She pulled a small kit of tools from her pocket. "I brought this along, thought it might be useful."
She got to work on the Yale. It took her less than a minute to open it. Not fast, but quieter than a burst from the MP5.
"I knew there was some reason I wanted you with me," I said.
She smiled. "My dad taught me how to do it years ago. We only had one front-door key back then. He said this would save him having to get one cut for me."
"That sounds like Max all right."
116.
Bel put away her lockpicker"s kit and we entered Scotty Shattuck"s flat. You could tell straight away he hadn"t been there for some time. The place felt lifeless. It was a bachelor pad, sloppily decorated with nude mags, beer cans and empty containers from Indian takeaways. There was one chair, separated by a footstool from the TV and video. In the only bedroom, the bedclothes were messed up. The magazines here were a mix of middling p.o.r.n and specialist t.i.tles for arms collectors and users. A few empty cartridge cases had been lined up like ornaments on the mantelpiece. Mirror tiles had been fixed to the ceiling above the bed.
"Ugh," said Bel.
The room was dark, its walls lined with large cork tiles to which Shattuck had pinned pictures from his magazine collection. Women and guns. Sometimes he"d cut carefully around the guns and Sellotaped them on to the women so it looked like the nude models were carrying them.
"Ugh," Bel said again.
I started opening drawers. What was I looking for? I didn"t think I"d find a forwarding address, but I might find something. I"d know it when I found it.
What I found were packets of photographs. I sat on the bed and went through them. They were mostly of Scotty and his colleagues in action: firstly in what I took to be the Falklands, then later in what might have been Yugoslavia.
The soldiers were fully kitted, but you could tell Scotty was regular Army in the Falklands, and mercenary by the time of Sarajevo. In the later shots, he wore camouflage greens, but no markings. His smiling colleagues looked like nice guys to do business with. They liked to wear green vests, showing off biceps and triceps and bulging chests. Actually, most of them were going to seed, showing beer guts and fat faces. They lacked that numb disciplined look you see in the regular Army.
I knew Scotty from Max"s description. I knew him, too, because he was in a few photos by himself. He was dressed 117.
in civvies, and photographed at ease. These photos were taken by the sea, and on some parkland. Probably they"d been taken by a girlfriend. Scotty flexed his muscles for her, posing at his best. Be! took one look at him.
"Ugh," she said.
He didn"t look that bad. He had a long drooping moustache which Max hadn"t mentioned, so had probably been shorn off. He was square-jawed and wavy-haired, his shape not quite squat, but definitely not tall enough for his girth. I stuck one of the photos in my pocket - it showed Shattuck with some girlfriend - and put the rest back in the drawer.
"Anything else?" I asked Bel, who"d been roaming.
"Nothing," she said.
There was a squeal of braking tyres outside. No uncommon sound in London, but I went to the window and peered out anyway. A car had stopped outside the house. It was an old Jaguar with a purple paint job. The driver was still wearing his white work-out vest. He probably had his towel with him too. There was somebody else in the pa.s.senger seat, and Chuck was fuming in the back.
"Time to go," I told Bel. She didn"t hang around. I"d seen a back door on the ground floor, and just hoped we"d have time to make it that far. I took out the MP5 as we descended, but held it beneath my coat. Either Chuck and his men were so incensed at the way they"d been treated that their pride had compelled them to follow us or else they were making a rational move. If the latter, then they had to be tooled up. If the former, I"d be in for a beating anyway.
And I"d always tried to avoid contact sports.
We were in luck. They were sitting it out in the car, waiting for us to emerge. The back door was locked by means of a bolt top and bottom, easily undone. I pulled the door open and we found ourselves in a garden so overgrown it hardly justified the term. We waded through it to the side fence and clambered over into the rear car park of the hotel.
118.
The MP5 jabbed my gut as I climbed the fence. I double- checked that its safety was still on.
From the car park, we climbed over a low brick wall on to a piece of waste ground. Past this, we found ourselves emerging from behind a public toilet on to a completely different road, busy with traffic and pedestrians. A bus had pulled up at its stop, so we jumped aboard. We didn"t know where it was going, and the driver who was waiting to be paid didn"t seem about to tell us, so I reached into my pocket for some coins.
"Two to the end of the line," I told him.
Then we climbed to the top deck and took the empty back seat. A purple Jag would be easy to spot if it tried following us, but it didn"t.
"I wonder how long they"ll sit there?" Bel asked.
I told her I couldn"t care less.
We ended up taking a train back over the Thames, and a taxi from the station to our hotel. The receptionist had a message for me, two telephone numbers and their corresponding addresses. As I"d already seen, Scotty Shattuck didn"t possess a phone. But now I had addresses and numbers for the Ricks"s household and Joe Draper"s Barbican flat.
While Bel took a shower, I started phoning. It was probably late enough in the police inquiry for me to be asking follow-up questions. All I needed was gumption and one h.e.l.l of a lot of luck. Chuck wouldn"t go to the police, he wasn"t the type. But I knew things were going to get increasingly dangerous the closer we got to the real police inquiry, which was why I didn"t give myself time to think. If I"d thought about it, I might not have made the calls.
As it was, I stumbled at the first fence. My call to the Ricks"s Camden home was intercepted by the operator, who told me all calls were being rerouted. Before I had time to 119.
argue, I was back to the ringing tone, and my call was answered by a secretary.
"Crispin, Damforth, Jessup," she said, as though this explained everything.
"I"ve just been rerouted by the operator," I said. "I was trying to get through to"
"One moment, please." She cut the connection and put me through to another secretary.
"Mr Johns"s office, how can I help you, sir?"
"I was trying to reach Mr Frederick Ricks."
"Yes, all calls to Mr Ricks are now being dealt with by this office. You understand that his wife was killed recently." She gave the news with relish. "And Mr Johns, as the family"s solicitor, has taken on the task of dealing with all enquiries."
"I see. Well, this is Detective Inspector West, I"ve just been brought into the inquiry and I wanted a few words with Mr Ricks."
"Mr Ricks and his son have gone away for a few days.
Someone on the inquiry should be able to give you the details you need."
She was boxing me into a corner. I could either throw in the towel or box myself out again.
"Would it be possible to speak to Mr Johns?"
"I"m sure that could be arranged."
"I meant just now."
She ignored this. "Three-thirty this afternoon, all right?"
Then she gave me the address.