I gave the knock. Waited. They would identify me from the security footage. The man who answered the safe house door was young. Too young for me to remember him from the bad old days on the force. But he knew who I was. Guess I’d become station lore. A cautionary tale for hotheaded young uniforms. He insisted on patting me down in the front hall before allowing me further access. Taking no chances.
In the kitchen, two more plainclothes stared at each other over cards. Betting on pound coins. They probably wanted a beer or two, the chance to make some jokes, turn this dull assignment into something more memorable.
I found Mary in the back room watching television. A mid-afternoon chat show. The presenter was safely camp; utterly inoffensive. The kind of man who wouldn’t threaten or challenge you. Except perhaps with a cheeky double entendre or two where he could get away with it.
Mary looked up as I came in.
‘She’s not here.’
I didn’t understand.
‘The girl. Susan.’
‘I’m here to talk to you.’
‘Oh.’
I sat down next to her. The presenter read out reader’s letters. Showed off some of the daft things that people sent him including a knitted doll that was supposed to be a good likeness. Even I had to laugh at the lack of skill. But the audience’s laughter was gentle, perhaps because they all knew that their efforts would be just as bad. If not worse.
‘You’re not here,’ Mary said.
‘No,’ I said. ‘Just thinking.’
‘About anything except her?’
‘What are you? An agony aunt?’
‘No. But I am a middle-aged woman whose husband is hardly in the house any more. It gives me pleasure to interfere in other people’s lives.’ Maybe she wanted to smile, but she suppressed it. Except around the eyes.
‘You know the truth about me?’
‘That you’re spying?’ She lost the hint of the smile. ‘Same as Ernie was? I know. My husband suspects it. But you’re just like Ernie, son. Heartbreaking, in its way. You’re a compassionate man. You want to see David for a criminal but can’t help seeing the whole man.’
‘He’s still done bad things.’
‘And maybe you’ll take him down. But what I mean is that we know what you’re here to do. It’s your job. But for him, it’s a game of chess, I think.’
I shook my head. Feeling foolish.
‘I don’t say anything to him. He doesn’t say anything to me. Maybe that’s why it works for us; the fact that we don’t talk about his other business. He knows I know. I know he knows. That’s enough. The same way that some couples have hobbies and interests the other one doesn’t understand.’
‘You have your painting, he has his kneecapping?’
She laughed. The first time I’d heard her laugh. It was gentle. A light piano riff. ‘You’re making fun of us.’
‘That obvious?’
‘Tell me this: if he didn’t do things that you disagreed with, would you like him?’
I thought about it for a while. The old man could be genuinely charming. There was a reason that the legitimate side of his interests had done so well. He was a man who made connections. He had the ability to make people genuinely like him. He could be ruthless, but then so could many otherwise legit people. He had a temper. I could relate to that. But one on one, he was charming. Had a spark in his eye that made you think of your grandfather. Seeing him with Nairn’s children had been an odd contrast to the way that he dealt with their father. Like he was two different people in one body.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In a way.’
‘Then you understand.’
‘No.’
She patted my knee. ‘You’re still young.’
We looked at the television again.
She said, ‘You avoided my question.’
‘I think I answered it.’
‘No, about her.’
Meaning Susan. The question she had asked should been simple to answer. But I couldn’t think of a simple thing to say.
‘It doesn’t do any good,’ I said, ‘running over the past.’
‘Because you’re scared of how you’ll look?’
‘Maybe. Look, things between me and her got complicated.’
‘And yet she came running when you asked.’
‘Like I said: complicated.’
Mary laughed. ‘I don’t know if it’s me or the world, but I can’t remember when love became complicated. Back when I was your age, what we did was admit we liked each other and then work through everything else.’
‘Just like that?’
‘Just like that.’
I shook my head. It couldn’t have been that simple for her. Not with a man like Burns. But then maybe me and Susan just needed to get over ourselves. Maybe Mary had a point.
I stood up. ‘You want coffee?’
‘Tea for me. Milk. Two sugars.’
I went to the kitchen. The young lad was in there leaning on the counter, checking his mobile. I said, ‘Signal’s bad out here.’
‘Wi-fi.’
‘Right.’
I hit the kettle.
There was a knock at the door. ‘Expecting someone?’
He shook his head. ‘Nah. But we get it every so often from the old duffer next door. Wanting to borrow salt or something. Bollocks every time. Reckon he’s just lonely. Doesn’t get out much. Hasn’t really twigged that it’s never the same person answers the door.’ He sighed. ‘I’ll just tell him to piss off, eh?’
‘Or you could give him the salt.’
He looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Know who pays for the salt in this place? We have to account for every fucking grain.’
He left the room. I busied myself with the kettle. Pulled open cupboards searching for the sugar. They could charge me if they liked.
I heard the front door open. Waited for the mumble of conversation.
Dropped the sugar as the bullets flew. High velocity. Deep thrumming noise as they shattered the air out in the confined corridor.
I dropped.
There were yells. Screams.
Automatic weapons.
A year earlier, I had been at the heart of a hostage situation when an armed response unit burst through the door. The noise had had a brutal physicality that rattled through my bones.
This sounded worse. More violent. More random. More deadly. The Armed Response coppers had been careful about picking their targets. They’d been well trained. Organized. This bunch sounded trigger happy.
There were two exits from the kitchen. The second would take me around to the rear of the living room. The men with the guns would be heading straight for the front door if they took the main hall. I could cut round the back way, get to Mary before they did.
I kept low, crouched as I pushed through the door, made for cover behind the sofa. Mary was on the floor, hands over her head. She looked at me with wide eyes. I gestured for her to come with me. She didn’t move. I could see the tension threatening to burst out of her. She wanted to scream, but her self-preservation was too strong. Any noise would only bring the predators into the room.
I snapped. ‘Come on!’
The words got through to her. She scrabbled towards me. I held out my hand. She took it. We went out low towards the rear entrance.
Straight into a pair of dark jeans. Slowly, I stood up. Grabbed Mary’s hand, brought her up with me. The thug’s hair was thinning, forced down flat with what could have been chip-grease. He smiled. He was holding a rifle in his hands. The muzzle pointed down. No need for posture. His eyes told me everything I needed to know. He said, ‘The police are dead. You cannot run.’ Hint of a European accent. Hungarian? I couldn’t really tell. But his English was good. Probably naturalized. He had to be working for Bako. Explained the gear. The violence. The accent. The fact that Burns wouldn’t send someone to kill his own wife.
Would he?
It had always been a hypothetical question between me and Ernie after a few pints down the Phoenix: what would the old man do if his wife turned traitor? The old man had always given this big talk about how important family was and loyalty. Yet we knew he would happily kill anyone who dared cross him. Without compassion. Without exception.
So what about his wife? What would happen to her? Would he send the boys round?
It wasn’t outside the realms of possibility. For all his talk.
Maybe he did have some kind of condition. Or maybe he was just more in touch with his own violence than the rest of us. Or maybe he was just plain bad. The kind of evil fuck we all read about in the reports, the witness testimony. Maybe it was the violence that was the real Burns, where all the talk of loyalty, graft and family was the posturing.
So I had to hope these guys were working for Bako.
For Mary’s sake.