Nick Oldham - Dead Heat

Al Major was not amused.

‘You incompetent idiot,’ he sneered down the phone. At her end, Jo Coniston could see his face in her mind’s eye. She bit her tongue and thought better than to point out what an ill-judged and purely hopeful operation it had been from the word go. . and that she had done well to even come across Turner in the first place. . and, and, and. . but she didn’t. She kept her mouth firmly closed.

‘What do you want us to do?’ She was standing at a pay phone at Bolton West Motorway Services on the M61, formerly known as Anderton Services. Dale O’Brien was standing behind her, hopping from foot to foot as she got their bollocking.

There was silence at the other end of the phone whilst Major thought about his response. Jo handed O’Brien a slip of paper on which she had written the result of the PNC check on the 4x4 registered number — it had come back with no current keeper.

‘Call it a day,’ Major decided. ‘I’ll debrief when you get back.’

Jo knew what that meant — a real roasting, probably with his anger directed mostly at her for no other reason than she had dumped him.

‘OK.’ She hung up, turned to her hyperactive partner. ‘Back to base for a court martial. . except I don’t feel like rushing back — let’s have a coffee here first.’

Andy Turner shifted uncomfortably. He felt like he was being interviewed for a job — although he had to use his imagination somewhat because he had never actually worked in his life other than in a criminal capacity and interviews for such positions were fairly unstructured at best. He looked across the table at the Spaniard, feeling himself bubbling with frustration.

The Spaniard was a very important man. He was a scout on the lookout for business opportunities for his boss, a very big underworld figure based in Barcelona. Turner knew he was lucky to get to talk to him, to pitch his business. If he could get this guy’s nod, he would be going sky high.

It was not easy. The guy was cagey and inquisitive. Questions, questions, questions — and he had done his homework on Turner, something which Turner found disquieting.

Turner realized he had to keep his cool. Don’t get riled. Go with the flow. Answer the questions. Tell the truth where necessary, otherwise bullshit. . but above all, do not lose it.

‘Tell me about your organization,’ the Spaniard said. He was sitting with his back to the wall, sipping from a glass of chilled mineral water with lemon. He was casually dressed and came across as confident and knowledgeable, but Turner did not like the man’s mouth at all. It reminded him of something. . then he remembered and became fascinated by the lips because he knew exactly what they looked like. Turner had once visited the Sea-Life Centre at Blackpool, just to see the sharks, but the stingrays had also caught his attention. The way they moved, the way they could actually rise out of the water and stay upright, showing their mouths and the white undersides of their bodies. They had pink, anaemic-looking lips, just like this Spaniard. Obscene, somehow.

‘What do you want to know?’ Turner asked, masking the revulsion of the thought: this man had lips like a stingray.

The pink lips turned down. He shrugged his shoulders a little. He was becoming irritated by Turner, who he thought was merely a small-fry time-waster on the make. He wondered how he had been duped into this meeting. He knew his boss would not be overly impressed with this one.

‘Your structure. How does it work? Do you have firewalls in place?’

‘What the fuck’s a firewall?’

‘A firewall is a layer, or layers, of protection. It prevents leakage. It’s a safety mechanism ensuring that the people who need to be shielded are shielded, so that mistakes at a low level do not have repercussions further up.’

‘Uh, right,’ said Turner numbly, failing to inspire confidence.

‘So. . your organization?’ the Spaniard prompted.

Turner blew out his cheeks, stumped a little. ‘Fluid,’ he said. ‘Nothing formal. . very loose, yet safe.’

‘OK,’ said the Spaniard, ‘describe how you would get a consignment on to the streets. How would the consumer be dealt with? What’s your process from receipt to consumption?’

‘Pretty simple, really. I’ve got several little labs dotted around the city. The goods would go into them for processing and packaging. They then get sold on to the dealers for street distribution. I got about twenty people doing the dirty for me around the north of the city. Some areas are well sewn up and I’m moving into others, expanding bit by bit.’

‘A small operation then,’ the Spaniard observed. ‘Not as large as we were led to believe.’

Turner felt his feathers ruffle. ‘I’ve been in this business over ten years. I’ve worked across Europe and the north of England. I’m a hands-on guy. I like to keep control, keep my finger on the pulse. I need to expand now. . yeah, it’s a small operation, but it’s fucking profitable and I do very well, thank you.’

‘Do you have any respect for the law?’

The question threw Turner. ‘Eh? Do I fuck! Cops and courts mean nothing to me. I ran a cop down once. I shit on cops.’

‘Interesting,’ the ray-lipped man remarked.

‘Cops are frightened of me. People are frightened of me. I scare the shite out of people. No one gives evidence against me. I see to that personally.’

‘How?’

‘Midnight visits. Phone calls. Beatings. . I don’t mess around and I don’t get anyone else to do my dirty work for me. No one frightens me.’

‘Hm,’ murmured the Spaniard, unimpressed. Turner did not pick up on the less than wonderful reception to the news of the ways in which he dealt with people. ‘I believe you were responsible for the death of Wolfgang Meyer in Germany, about a year ago.’

‘If you think I’m going to say I did that, then you’re wrong, pal. How do I know you’re not wired up?’

‘You don’t. . but I’m not, and you did, didn’t you?’

A dangerous smile fractured on Turner’s face. He nodded and pointed to the Spaniard with his forefinger. He clicked his thumb, as though cocking a revolver. ‘Bang, bang,’ he whispered.

‘So you deal harshly and effectively with wrongdoers?’

‘He was causing problems. . in fact,’ Turner began boastfully, ‘I’ve sorted a problem just today.’ His hands slid under his jacket and emerged with a set of photographs which he passed across. ‘This man was operating on my area without permission. Now he ain’t,’ he said proudly.

The Spaniard fanned out the photographs on the table. He winced at the blood-soaked tableaux depicted in the digital images.

‘Personal service,’ Turner gloated.

The Spaniard stacked the photographs as though they were a pack of playing cards. He handed them back. ‘We cannot do business, Mr Turner.’

‘I beg your fuckin’ pardon, spik?’

The Spaniard looked impassively at Turner and licked his pale pink lips. ‘Your organization is not sophisticated enough. There are too many holes and you are far too unbalanced. You do not have respect for law enforcement. . No, let me finish,’ he indicated to an agitated Turner. ‘Whilst our business is illegal, we treat day-to-day law enforcement with dignity, because we do not wish to fall foul of it through stupidity.’

‘Stupidity, you stupid bastard! Are you calling me stupid?’

‘Hot-headed, reckless.’

‘You are just another shitless wonder,’ Turner blasted and shot angrily to his feet, towering over the Spaniard, who did not flinch. ‘I’ve shat people like you.’

Suddenly, standing behind him, was the man who had driven him to this meeting. Turner saw him and snarled. He spun to the Spaniard. ‘You do business with me, or I’ll waste you, you cunt.’ He held his fist underneath his nose, so close that the hairs on the back of his hand were clearly individually visible. Again, the Spaniard did not move. His eyes rose slowly and met Turner’s.