Chapter 25

The Scandic Grand Place Hotel, Brussels, Belgium.

Wednesday 17th August 2011; 7pm, local time.

 

With his News of the World expenses and final pay still sitting in his bank account in London, Max Richmond had continued to spend his savings in chasing down the North London Gang story. His last published story for the revered old paper had warned that there was a prospect of civil unrest in North London, which would be started by the gangs who would pass the baton to the excitement seekers, the social networkers and the people who no longer cared about living in a civil society. People had scorned and laughed a month ago, but they weren’t laughing now.

The publicity his prophetic story attracted when the riots began had been helpful to him as he wrote pieces on the riots for the tabloids, the broadsheets and the highbrow weekly magazines. He had also been paid handsomely for a number of radio appearances and one TV appearance. That had been on Panorama, where he sat concealed in shadow whilst an actor voiced his words. Max wasn’t rich, but he might be very soon.

Continuing to play the role he first adopted in Tottenham in March 2011, Max had travelled to Brussels to meet a drugs wholesaler who had granted him an audience, believing that Max - or John “Snake Eyes” Patterson, as he had become known - was in the market for a range of hard drugs. As Max walked along the Grande Place in the humid hot air that accompanied a Brussels summer’s evening, he caught sight of a reflection of himself as John “Snake Eyes” Patterson in the window of a patisserie.

Max had deliberately dressed in a suit that fitted badly, the collar of which failed to conceal the tattoo of the lunging snake that stared out from beneath his hairline. Max’s natural hair colour had been replaced with bleached blonde hair closely cropped, military style. A pair of snake eyes had been expertly carved into the hair on the back of his head, forever watching all those who followed behind. John Patterson - he was in character now - straightened the tie that looked as uncomfortable as it felt around his neck, and curled his lip in a snarl. That would do, Max thought.

A minute later ‘Snake Eyes’ walked into the foyer of the unassuming white stuccoed building on the Grande Place which housed the Scandic Hotel. The flags outside the hotel were brightly coloured and varied but, he noted, they did not include the flag of the European Union.

The foyer was air-conditioned, a welcome relief after the sweltering heat of the day. Snake Eyes took a deep breath and followed the signs to the Waterloo Suite, where he was due to meet his Belgian contacts. The real John Patterson had fled London in June after a violent dispute with a North London villain called Dennis Grierson. Max had interviewed the terrified man, who was now staying with his sister in Manchester, rarely leaving the house for fear of retribution. Young Mr Snake Eyes confessed to Max that he had siphoned off almost fifty grand of gang money over five months before being caught in the act by a brute of a man called Barty, Grierson’s minder.

Hopefully, the Belgians would accept Max as John Patterson. If they didn’t - well, Max didn’t want to consider what might happen to him if they rumbled him as an undercover reporter. There was no reason why the drug lords should suspect that he was anyone other than Snake Eyes. Max and John were a close match in height, build and eye colour, and, the temporary tattoo of the snake writhing up his neck was what caught everyone’s attention.

Max saw a suited heavy standing outside the door to the Waterloo Suite and with an exaggerated swagger he approached the mountain of a man. He was about to announce himself when the minder opened the door and nodded Max in without a word.

***

Inside the suite he could see a long meeting room table surrounded by a dozen chairs. The surface of the table was so highly polished that the reflection from the window dazzled Max as he entered. As the door closed behind him, a man stepped out of the shadows and Max was professionally frisked and wanded before he could go any further. Satisfied that the magnetic wand and the frisking had turned up no weapons or listening devices, the man nodded to the men at the back of the room.

Walking around the table, Max moved towards two men who appeared as no more than silhouettes as they rose from an overstuffed sofa. As he approached them Max’s eyes adjusted to the glare, and he could see that both men were middle aged and immaculately turned out. They both wore expensive suits, cut in the slightly brutal European style, and their crisp white linen shirts bore double cuffs that were fastened with gold links. Max’s expert eye caught sight of a Rolex Oyster watch with gold bezel and strap, and a Patek Phillipe Chronograph as he shook hands with the two men, calculating that they were wearing thirty thousand pounds’ worth of watches between them.

“Well, Mr Patterson, your persistence is certainly more impressive than your reputation,” the taller man teased. Max figured that John Patterson would not have known how to respond and so he stayed in character and looked puzzled.

“I am Willem Peters and this is my partner, Peter Willems - a strange coincidence, yes?” The tall man’s eyes laughed at Max, but the man himself just smiled. Max knew that these men considered Snake Eyes Patterson a bit of a joke, but hopefully they would underestimate Max and let something slip during the meeting.

The three men sat down and the taller man who had introduced himself as Willem Peters spoke first.

 

“John, we were minded not to meet you at all but, as I said before, your persistence persuaded us that you might be useful to us, although we are wary of thieves who steal from their employers.” The man let the comment hang in the air as if inviting a response.

“Well, thieving is in the eye of the beholder, isn’t it? I mean, if you steal from a bloke who owes you money, it ain’t stealing unless you take more than you’re entitled, right? I mean, even the courts agree with that.”

Peter Willems replied by directing his response to his colleague.

“Whilst Mr Patterson’s response was inelegantly worded, he does have a point Willem!” Max was being patronised with style. “John, we are busy men, as you must be, and we don’t want to waste valuable time that you could be spending in the tattoo parlour, so please outline your proposal.”

Max replied as he imagined Patterson would have done.

“Right, OK, my plan is simple, really. As you know, Dennis Grierson was booted out of the Farm before someone topped him.” Max stared meaningfully at each man in turn, but their faces bore no signs of guilt. “So, me and a few of the guys who have been distributing your gear for Grierson, we thought we could form a cooperative sort of thing, you know, and step up a bit. Maybe miss out the middle man, so to speak.”

“Missing out a level of management does seem to offer an improvement on margins. It worked for Shell, after all,” Willem grinned, and Peter stifled a laugh. “But, John, we have a problem. The only reference for you that we could acquire, in the short time we had to prepare, was from the colourfully named Red Ronnie, who said, and I quote: ‘Don’t trust that thieving little scrote’.”

“Well, of course he would say that, wouldn’t he? It was probably him what topped Dennis. Wants the business for himself, to my mind,” Max replied boldly. “Look, the word is that you had Dennis seen to. Now, I have no problem with that, I’m happy to take it as a warning that we can’t mess with you lot over the water. But I think I can take his place.”

This time there was a reaction when Max examined their faces.

“Who is suggesting that we had Mr Grierson killed, if that is what your implication was intended to convey?” Peter asked, clearly affronted.

“Look, Mr Willem, no offence, mate. I have a friend in the police and he said that it was the Belgians that did for Dennis and that the police had the Eurostar and the planes watched for suspicious characters. Naturally, as you supplied Dennis, I thought....”

There was anger in his voice as Mr Peters replied.

“Listen to me very carefully, Patterson. If we ever did supply anything to Mr Grierson, and we deny it, we do not kill people who owe us money. Dead men cannot pay us back. We are not violent men, we are businessmen and we deal only with businessmen. Is that understood?”

Max spoke in his best grovelling tone, fidgeting for effect.

“Yeah, man, I knew that. I never meant anything; I was just saying what the authorities were thinking.”

 

“The authorities are thinking what someone wants them to think, but I can assure you that neither Mr Peters nor myself, nor any of our helpers, were anywhere near London when Grierson was killed.”

“I wouldn’t of blamed you. I mean, he did lose quarter of a million pounds’ worth of dope,” Max said, in a deliberately clumsy effort to placate.

“John, in this business, losses are inevitable. Customs, police, rivals, they all interfere with the safe delivery of goods to the user. It is a part of life. We accept such losses are unavoidable. The street value may have been higher, but the wholesale value of the lost shipment was less than one hundred thousand Euros. We don’t terminate long-term relationships for such paltry sums. We can make good such a loss in a single shipment.” Willem Peters took a moment to compose himself, before adding more calmly, “John, we both admire your ambition, but Dennis Grierson was a spent force. He knew it and we knew it and so we have had a replacement working with him for a long time, and they are most certainly alive. We suggest that you go back to London, go back to the Trafalgar House flats. We think you know which flat you must visit, and make your peace with the new owner. He will need good people to help him distribute his goods. Your ‘cooperative’ can make your sales pitch to him.”

Max looked genuinely surprised.

“I thought that flat was gutted. I didn’t know there was anyone else running things,” he said, in an effort to elicit more information. The two men leaned in close together, heads almost touching, and spoke in a foreign tongue before Willem Peters turned his attention back to Max.

“Things move quickly in this business, John. Go home, do as we say and by the weekend you will be on the streets again making a good living. Tell the new man that Mr Peters and Mr Wiilem sent you. That is the best we can do. Now, we are all busy men and I am sure you need a drink at one of the Grande Place’s many bars. Goodbye.”

The two men stood, as did Max, and they shook hands once more before Max left the suite, breathing a sigh of relief and muttering curses under his breath.