In a side street cafe called Dino’s off Battersea Park Road, the clock on the wall said seven forty-five. Whenever the door opened, London rushed in, already hectic and insistent. The clientele hardly noticed; it mingled with the cooking sounds from the kitchen. The Dino whose name was stencilled in large red letters on the window wasn’t around to complain. He’d died on the 7th of September, 1940 when the house he lived in, not two hundred yards from his business, was flattened during a Luftwaffe air raid.
Behind the counter, his grandson and the staff were busy serving full English breakfasts to workers coming off nightshifts in the New Covent Garden Market half a mile away.
Fruit wasn’t on the menu. Plates of sausages, bacon, tomato, fried eggs, fried bread and beans were, fired out at conveyer-belt speed. Nobody paid attention to the guy in the corner with the laptop.
Jonjo Hart rubbed the ‘Toon Army’ tattoo on the back of his hand, too excited to eat. Or sleep. He’d been up for twenty-one hours straight, yet wasn’t tired. After what he’d witnessed, going to bed was the furthest thing from his mind. He’d come to London determined to make a mark on his uncle’s world. This would take him where he wanted to go. He ran the video again – for the tenth time – it still made him laugh out loud. As soon as he’d got in the car heading back from Kent, he’d called his uncle. Ritchie had answered on the first ring: his nephew hadn’t disturbed him; he’d already been awake.
On Tyneside, Ritchie was an almost mythical figure. His nephew had grown up surrounded by stories of his criminal exploits. George Ritchie had never been charged with a crime. He was too smart for that.
The younger man was anxious to impress his famous relative and the video captured on his camera ninety minutes earlier would do just that: he’d been in position on the hill above the lane an hour before the cars showed up and his joints were so stiff they cracked when he moved. But it had been worth it. What he’d filmed would make the most feared gangster in the city a laughing stock.
Danny Glass – Big Bad Danny – was about to become a national joke.
At one point he’d zoomed in and almost felt sorry for him. In the early morning light, Glass’s eyes were black pinpoints set deep in a grey face. Jonjo whispered to himself in a cheesy American accent. ‘Gonna make you a star, kid.’
Ritchie came through the cafe door at ten past eight, ordered tea from a harassed waitress and sat down. Jonjo almost offered to shake hands but thought better of it.
His uncle wasn’t amused. ‘This better be good. Otherwise we’re going to fall out.’
Jonjo confidently pushed the laptop across the table’s chipped Formica top and pressed the play button. ‘You be the judge.’
On the screen, dawn broke behind a white van travelling a deserted road. From nowhere a car drew alongside, forcing it down a lane and for moments it was lost behind a hedgerow, then reappeared and stopped, blocked from going further by a second car. Four masked men ran towards it and hauled the terrified driver from behind the wheel. One of the gang – a big guy they both recognised – crashed the butt of his gun down on his head; he fell unconscious to the ground.
The unmistakable voice of Danny Glass barked orders to the back of the hijacked vehicle. ‘All right in there! Don’t be heroes! When the door opens throw out whatever you’ve got!
Seconds passed. Nothing happened.
Glass said, ‘They’ve had their chance, let them have it.’
The doors flew open and he threw himself to the ground. The camera went to a close-up of boxes stacked on top of each other and back to Glass, sheepishly getting up off the ground. He thrust his hand into the nearest one and faced where Jonjo had been hiding, so perfect it might have been staged.
Hart checked the volume so his uncle didn’t miss the punchline. Glass said, ‘Strawberries. We’ve jacked a load of fucking strawberries. Stanford, you cunt!’
The video froze on the image of strawberry juice dripping from his fingers. Jonjo waited for Ritchie’s reaction while the waitress topped up his tea. He would’ve bet his life on his uncle laughing but he’d have lost. Ritchie’s eyes bored into him across the table.
‘What the fuck is this?’
‘It’s this morning. I got there early and shot it. Great, isn’t it?’ He was pleased and missed the signs. ‘Wasn’t easy trying not to laugh out loud and give the game away.’
His uncle grabbed his arm so hard it hurt. Jonjo was shocked – this wasn’t how it was supposed to go. ‘I don’t understand. We’ve got it on film. The great Danny Glass making a tit of himself. Thought you’d be pleased. Rollie will love it.’
Ritchie scanned the busy cafe for somebody with no business being there. ‘No, he won’t. He isn’t going to see it. Ever.’
‘Why the hell not?’
‘Because he’s a clown. He’d use it. Wouldn’t be able to stop himself. Anderson isn’t somebody you should trust – he’s a child in a man’s body.’
‘If he can get me where I want to go, what does that matter?’
‘I told you when you came down here. Don’t try to run before you can walk. Who else knows about this?’
Jonjo faltered. ‘Apart… apart… from me and you… nobody.’
‘How many copies are there?’
‘This is it. But surely, it’s dynamite? If I put it on YouTube the whole world will see it. Danny Glass’ll be finished.’
George Ritchie remembered this was his sister’s boy and spoke with all the gentleness he could raise. ‘You’re ambitious. I get it. Except this isn’t the way. Sure, catching the great Danny Glass making a dick of himself is fantastic. But it crosses an invisible line, a line that will get you and a lot of other people dead. The video makes you a target. One day this war will end. The trick is to still be standing when it does.’
Jonjo was too in love with his work to listen. ‘Don’t you want to watch it again? It’s even funnier when you know what’s coming. “Stanford, you cunt.”’
Ritchie pitied him – the bloody fool was going to get himself killed.
He held out an upturned palm. ‘Give it to me. Give me the video.’
Reluctantly, Jonjo dropped a memory stick into his hand.
‘Now, delete it. I want to see you do it.’
‘I don’t fucking believe this. I thought you’d approve.’
‘Sure, we’ve put one over on Glass, but we’ve had to give up our most important route to do it. Not worth it. But I had to do it to keep Anderson from doing something stupid. He’d lap this up. Handing it to him would be just about the stupidest thing I can think of.’
Ritchie softened the blow and used the stick to make his point. ‘You think because this will noise-up Danny Glass it’s a good thing. It isn’t. This implicates a detective in serious corruption. If he goes down because of it, every copper in London will be out to get us. The whole fucking force. No surviving that.’ He put the stick in his pocket. ‘There won’t be a hardman in this city who won’t be tempted to try it on.’
‘You’re saying I’ve screwed up.’
‘Finally, you’re catching on. Glass will come back. Harder and stronger than anything you can imagine. Do you want to be the man who made a right mug out of a psycho? Believe me, you don’t. Try not to think about it or you’ll never get a night’s sleep again.’
He threw coins down on the table and stood. He’d saved this boy’s life.
Jonjo watched his uncle thread between the wooden tables on his way to the door. The man he’d idolised had settled for being No 2. For the first time in his life he felt sorry for him. Most of George’s career had been spent working for Albert and now for Rollie, although he was smarter than both of them put together. Smart but flawed: he was too careful. Always had been. Otherwise he wouldn’t have taken orders from idiots like the Andersons. On the surface, he was hard. Underneath he was afraid. Christ, he was even scared to let his own nephew know where he lived. Jonjo had no intention of letting that happen to him. He’d come south with one objective: to get to the top and stay there. Ritchie was being offered a cast-iron opportunity to give Glass a bloody nose and all he wanted to do was bury it.
‘How many copies are there?’
’This is it.’
Not true. His uncle might be a legend in Newcastle, but he knew fuck-all about technology.