TALLIS’S orders were to drive Kennedy in the Land Rover to the clinic, the place scheduled for the meeting with the Commission. First, Kennedy put on a bulletproof vest. He offered one to Tallis, who accepted. Probably the most sensible precaution he’d taken lately. That, and having Charlie Lavender on side, he thought. Although he took a less than obvious route, Tallis was pleased to see her astride her motorbike, powering down the road behind him. She wore traditional black leathers. He absently wondered what she’d look like beneath them. Steady, he thought.
The journey was without incident. Taking a piece of his own advice, Tallis asked Kennedy to direct him to the rear entrance.
‘Why?’
‘Like I already told you, when you leave this car to go inside, you’re most vulnerable.’
Reluctantly, Kennedy complied. Justin was waiting. ‘All clear,’ he told Kennedy. ‘Rex and Darren are in place.’
‘Make sure everyone is checked before they get into the building. Don’t want any cock-ups.’
‘Yes, Mr Kennedy,’ Justin said, studiously ignoring Tallis.
Tallis followed Kennedy inside. ‘I understand you’re a dab hand at languages.’
‘Some,’ Tallis admitted. Fluent in five, could make himself understood in three Arabic dialects, had only a shaky command of Russian. He’d always fancied having a crack at Mandarin but hadn’t had the time.
‘We’re a pretty multinational group,’ Kennedy explained, as if he were talking about a UN peacekeeping force. ‘It would be useful to know about any unguarded, off-the-cuff remarks.’
The reception area was much as it had been last time, except for the staff. Tallis recognised two men from the Walsall premises ostensibly manning the phones, the bulges in their jackets telling a different narrative. As he followed Kennedy down an unfamiliar corridor, Tallis spotted two other armed men flanking doorways, one definitely a face from another slice of his history. He’d recognise that bad skin anywhere.
‘Afternoon, Pat,’ Tallis said, walking past.
‘Afternoon, Mr Tallis.’ The bloke smirked.
Tallis did the maths: Patrick Simms arrested in 1997 for possession of a shotgun without a licence, later convicted in 2000 for attempting to smuggle an automatic and pistol into the country after a ‘holiday’ in Eastern Europe.
The interior landscape changed. The garden room lay off another wing of the building. This section looked more corporate, less like a clinic. They came to a door with a time lock on it. Kennedy punched in a code, releasing the lock. The door, made of reinforced steel, swung open to reveal a conference room in which a long table, to rival those used for Cabinet meetings, was laid for twenty guests, each place with its own notepad, pen, glass and bottled water.
Kennedy took a seat in the middle. He asked Tallis to pull up a chair beside him. ‘Like I said, we’re a broad church,’ Kennedy began, giving Tallis a jaw-dropping précis of those likely to be in attendance. ‘The Colombians have pulled out. No offence taken, they’re notoriously suspicious of who they deal with. Could have got some of their bottom-rung players, but didn’t see much point. I heard along the grapevine that one of the major cartels has a woman fronting it.’
Tallis stared at him. Surrounded by white noise, he felt something click more firmly into place in his mind, forcing him to briefly wonder how Crow was getting on.
‘You listening?’ Kennedy said tersely, as a father might discipline a child.
‘Sure, you were saying about one of the Colombian cartels fronted by a woman.’
‘What you have to remember at all times is respect,’ Kennedy said. ‘Everyone believes that the Yardies are the big face-savers. They’re not. The Albanians and triads corner that particular market.’
From what Tallis knew of the Albanians, he could believe it. He was part Croatian himself so he had some experience of their peculiarities. ‘You’ve only mentioned international crime families—what about British?’
‘Coming to that,’ Kennedy said. ‘Asians have taken the high ground here in Birmingham. Yardies mainly run the show in Bristol, Hell’s Angels in Plymouth, but they won’t come because they never publicly admit they’re anything other than a group of fun-loving motorcycle enthusiasts.’ Tallis smiled, remembering Oz. Perhaps he ought to view Oz’s mates in a different light. ‘Then you’ve got various outfits representing Liverpool, Manchester, Doncaster…’
‘Doncaster?’ Tallis expressed surprise.
‘Important connection to the north-east,’ Kennedy said matter-of-factly. ‘Nottingham’s on the slide with a nasty power vacuum developing since a main man got banged up.’
‘Gunn by name, gun by nature,’ Tallis said, referring to Colin Gunn, who had been responsible for a notorious reign of terror until his arrest for conspiracy to murder.
‘And let’s not forget London,’ Kennedy said. ‘Turks heavily embedded in the north, but there are about five other major crime families, including the Adams family.’
‘Whose boss is serving time for money-laundering,’ Tallis chipped in.
‘See, you’re not so wet behind the ears.’ Kennedy grinned. ‘You actually work for MI5?’
‘No.’
‘Thought not. You’re too grounded. More of a mercenary.’
‘I prefer to think of myself as a freelance.’ Tallis smiled. He had often thought of himself as a mercenary, but coming from Kennedy’s lips he found himself resisting the man’s cold-blooded assessment.
The first of the crime lords and their seconds-in-command began to trickle through twenty minutes later. It had to rate as one of Tallis’s more surreal experiences. It was a bit like being at a high-class cocktail party, everyone greeting everyone, asking after family and, in Kennedy’s case, villains making solicitous enquiries about Billy, his son. One constant thread of conversation was the recent drugs bust in the city that morning.
Tallis was introduced to a smiling Sicilian whose boss, by all accounts, headed an outfit specialising in stolen fine art and black-market anti-obesity drugs. From the other side of the room, Kennedy was deep in conversation with a large, dough-faced man from Manchester who’d recently diversified into cannabis importation, as he put it.
‘Yeah, but the profit margins are crap, Steve,’ Kennedy was saying.
Steve let out a loud, throaty laugh. ‘Be surprised. Customs are busting a gut on Class-A stuff. All I’m doing is using a bit of common,’ he said, knuckling his forehead. ‘Nothing like cashing in when everyone’s looking the wrong way.’
While Steve moved off to greet a wiry-looking Russian with feral features, Tallis watched Kennedy fall into thick conversation with a huge black man who spoke in an incomprehensible Bristolian dialect coupled with Jamaican patois. If Kennedy’s information was correct, the guy was the king of crack cocaine. He’d somehow managed to survive turf wars and numerous attempts on his life. Tallis reckoned the West Indian was no more than twenty-five. He looked edgy and unpredictable, like he’d sampled too much of his own product. The rate he was going, Tallis thought, he probably wouldn’t see his next birthday.
Every time the door opened another face arrived. Tallis observed two mean and Mediterranean-looking men slide into the room unnoticed. Both took a stand away from the others. Tallis slowly positioned himself so that he could listen to them. It didn’t take him long to work out they were Turks. Ergul and Alpi, as he soon discovered, were bemoaning the fact they’d lost twenty-five million pounds’ worth of heroin.
The door swished open again. On the threshold stood a tall, handsome-looking Asian. Dressed in an expensive suit, his sophistication and presence went well beyond the clothes he wore. Tallis had the impression that this guy had learnt to control the expression on his face and the giveaways of body language a long time ago. Kennedy rushed over to greet him, calling him by name, Ahmed’s light Midlands accent confirming his geographical status. So this is the would-be terrorist sympathiser, Tallis thought, never taking his eyes off him. Like most criminals, he didn’t look mean or evil, or give the slightest hint that he was capable of taking someone’s life, let alone aiding and abetting the bombing of hundreds of people he didn’t even know.
By now the room was filling up more quickly. There was a definite protocol. Seconds-in-command talked only to seconds-in-command. Among the bosses, there emerged some curious alliances. The Italians and the triads seemed to have a number going with high-tech crime, involving counterfeiting. The Russians appeared to be hooking up with the Albanians in their pursuit of sex trafficking. As with all gatherings, there were those Tallis suspected he might like if they didn’t go round murdering and torturing people, and those he’d never want to share the same air space with in a million years.
Kennedy, however, made no such distinctions. He was polite and effusive to everyone. Although there were no class differences, it soon became clear from the seating arrangement who held most power. While the seconds-in-command stood silently behind their bosses, the heads of state, as Tallis regarded them, elaborately and with a great deal of shunting around, took their places. He was reminded of an all-star pop concert at Wembley some years ago. It had taken bloody ages for the class acts to step onto the stage.
Kennedy took his place opposite a fearsome-looking Albanian called Vasel. Next to him sat a thin-faced Chinese man who represented the oldest and one of the largest criminal organisations. Mr Wo was at pains to point out that he was not speaking only for himself but for the other three major triad gangs. Observing the softly spoken Chinaman, Tallis found it hard to believe such a harmonious-sounding individual was part of the same group that had meted out extreme violence in a Birmingham restaurant a few years before over a loss of ‘face’. Ahmed, Tallis noticed, was seated closely to Kennedy’s right. He would not have been surprised to see either Kennedy pulling out a written agenda or a secretary taking the minutes.
After a brief welcome by Kennedy, debate swiftly followed. It included a thorough précis of joint operations, the smuggling of arms top of the agenda, a résumé of the state of the drug market in the UK and where certain products like crack cocaine could be more successfully introduced, marketed and increased, followed by the promotion or otherwise (meaning elimination) of certain individuals within the various organisations. The names of a number of high-profile people within the judiciary and political circles were also bandied about, some of whom Tallis recognised as being eminently bribable. Then things took an unconventional path.
‘Where’s Gabriel?’ It was the meaner of the two Turks, Ergul.
All eyes were on Tallis.
‘My fault,’ Kennedy said smoothly. ‘Let me introduce you to Milton, my new second-in-command.’ He glanced behind him, looking up at Tallis. They’d already arranged to give him a suitable pseudonym. He was simply known as Milton.
‘That because your old one’s dead?’ Vasel let out a laugh, displaying an appalling set of broken and discoloured teeth.
Tallis couldn’t see Kennedy’s face but, from the way everyone was looking, he could picture his embarrassment and irritation.
‘That’s true,’ Kennedy said slowly, with great precision. ‘How did you find out?’ The suspicion in his voice was obvious.
The Russian answered. ‘We have all lost good men, one way or another,’ he said, looking around the table. The Italian nodded. ‘After our last meeting one of my men was abducted. It was not good, not a clean kill,’ he said, shaking his head ruefully.
‘We is suffering, man,’ the West Indian said. ‘Nothing is cris. Yannerstan? Got a bird dog in the house, man.’
Shit, Tallis thought. The guy means an informer.
‘Yeah, how else did we get busted?’ Alpi burst out. He was tall, rake-thin, with twisted features.
‘Tell your man to shut up, Ergul,’ Vasel said, picking his teeth with a dirty finger.
Ergul, flat-faced and pudgy, did as he was told, speaking aggressively to Alpi in rapid Turkish. Only Tallis understood what was really being said. His gut felt as if it had been lanced with a laser.
Kennedy spoke, trying to restore some order. ‘Gentlemen, in the circumstances, I’d like to call a sidebar.’
To Tallis’s dismay, this was met with a unanimous murmur of agreement. He tried to catch Kennedy’s eye as he and the other seconds-in-command were forced to file out of the room. Either Kennedy was lost in concentration or deliberately ignoring him. Perhaps he’d planned it from the beginning, Tallis thought suspiciously, outwardly playing ball, inwardly continuing his own terrorist agenda, whatever that was. Always at the back of his mind, he knew that Kennedy’s success lay in his ability to deceive. If he was a master at deception, he could also be a master of disinformation.
Out in the corridor, the ‘lieutenants’ were shepherded into another oblong-shaped space. Formica tables, four chairs at each, the room resembled the type of enclosed and dingy place where jurors waited before selection. Nobody sat down. Everyone stood, backs to the wall, at arm’s length from the man next to him. The bonhomie that had kicked off the proceedings suddenly vanished, to be replaced by stone-faced looks and hard don’t mess with me expressions. The heat was on. Everyone felt under threat. As the newcomer, Tallis knew that he fell under most suspicion. Wasn’t logical. Simply human.
Like the rest, he was wondering about what was being discussed. The Sicilian looked at his watch. The Albanian’s henchman did the same. Others followed suit. Tallis didn’t need to look. He had an internal and accurate sense of time, and reckoned they’d been inside alone for forty minutes. Fifteen minutes later the door opened, Rex and Darren giving the all-clear. Tallis watched the faces as they filed out. He’d expected them to be grave and stern. Only Ahmed seemed vaguely troubled, although it was difficult to detect from the calm expression on his features. The others seemed buoyant, jubilant, as though stirred to action by a great leader. Kennedy came out last of all. He too was smiling. Tallis wasn’t fooled. He’d seen that strange light in his eyes before.
Suddenly he got the unholy feeling that he was stepping into a dead man’s shoes.