Simon Kernick - The Business of Dying

'Give me more of a snifter on this story. Something to really whet my appetite.'

'Get me Kover's current address by tonight and I'll tell you a bit more then.'

'This'd better be fucking good, Dennis.'

'I'll call you on this number at five tonight.'

'I've got a meeting. Make it six.'

'Six it is. And same thing applies. Don't tell anyone you've heard from me.'

The beeps went as he started to say something else, and I hung up without saying goodbye.

I stepped out of the phone box into the morning rush hour and made my way slowly back towards the hotel.

'With you in a minute,' came a voice from the back of the shop as I shut the door. I pushed the bolt across and switched the sign round from OPEN to CLOSED – not that I expected to be disturbed. Len Runnion's shop is hardly a Mecca for retail activity. Still, always easier to err on the side of caution.

He appeared behind the counter wiping what looked like a Chinese ornamental vase with a cloth, presumably to get rid of fingerprints. When he saw me, he attempted a smile, but it wasn't a very good effort and his eyes started darting around alarmingly, always coming back to the vase in his hand.

'Oh, hello, Mr Milne,' he said as jovially as possible. He put the vase down under the counter. 'What can I do for you?'

'Guns,' I said, approaching him. 'I want some guns.'

His eyes seemed to go into overdrive, and he took a step back. I think there was a look on my face that scared him. 'I don't know where you'd get them sort of things from,' he said nervously. 'Sorry, I can't help on that one. I make it a point never to go near any sort of weapon.'

I stopped on the other side of the counter and eyed him carefully. 'I'm no longer a police officer,' I told him, 'so I'm not interested in nicking you for anything. Now, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.'

'Look, Mr Milne, I don't know what the fuck you're talking about so I think you'd better leave if that's the sort of thing you've come for.' He was more confident now that I'd told him I was no longer with the Force.

However, the confidence was shortlived. I pulled out the gun I'd taken from Illan's man and pointed it directly at his chest. 'I'm not fucking about, Leonard. I need at least two firearms other than the one I'm pointing at you, preferably ones that are magazine loading. Plus a reasonable quantity of ammunition.'

'What the fuck is going on here, Mr Milne?' he asked unsteadily, his eyes for once very much focused as they stared at the gun. 'Is that thing real?'

'Very much so. Now, I know you deal in illegal firearms, everyone knows that.'

'I don't know what you're talking about-'

'Yes you do. You know exactly what I'm talking about. You're going to supply me the two weapons I've just asked for now – today – or I'm going to kill you. It's as simple as that.'

'I've got no guns. I promise.'

'You know something, Runnion, I've always disliked you. And I'll bet you shifted those tax discs from that Holloway robbery as well.'

'No, I didn't. I'm serious-'

'But you know what? That's nothing to do with me any more so I'm not even going to pursue it. I'll leave that to other people. But what I will tell you is this: if you don't get me these two guns this afternoon, you are a dead man. It's as simple as that.'

I moved the gun upwards so it was pointed directly between his eyes. A bead of sweat rolled down his forehead and on to his nose. He blinked rapidly, but remained stock still. I think I'd convinced him I was serious.

'Please stop pointing that thing at me.'

'Are you going to get me what I want?'

'It's going to take some time.'

'Have you got the ones I want in stock?'

'I don't carry stock. Not of that-'

'Stop lying. I repeat: have you got the ones I want in stock?'

'I can get you two guns like that, yes.'

'Where are they?'

'I've got some gear over in a lock-up in Shoreditch. Guns. I should have what you're looking for. Now, please stop pointing that thing at me. It might go off.'

I doubted I'd have hit him if it had, but I wasn't going to tell him that. I lowered the gun and smiled. 'Let's go over there now. Have you got transport, or shall we go in my car?'

'I can't go now, Mr Milne. I've got things I've got to do.'

I laughed, but there was no humour in it. 'We're going now,' I told him. 'My car or yours?'

He sighed, then looked at me as if he still couldn't quite believe I was doing this. I looked back at him in a way that convinced him I was.

'We'll take mine, then,' he said. 'It's out the back.'

He went and locked up the front of the shop properly, then the two of us exited the rear door, fighting our way through the boxes of crap, unsafe electrical goods, and stolen property that made up the vast bulk of his inventory. The back door emerged into a tiny potholed car park containing two cars that looked like they were just about ready for the knacker's yard. We got into the slightly more respectable of the two – a rusty red Nissan which had probably looked quite flash and sporty back in the mid-1980s – and drove slowly out into the street.

The mid-afternoon traffic was heavier than usual due to an accident on Commercial Road backing things up and it took three quarters of an hour to make a journey that wasn't much the wrong side of a mile. We didn't speak a lot on the way. Runnion did ask a few probing questions about who it was who'd provoked my ire and whether I was going to kill or simply wound them, but I told him to keep his mouth shut and his eyes on the road, and after a while he got the message. I felt strangely detached from the whole thing. I was doing everything instinctively without any real thought as to the possible consequences. Nothing really seemed to matter. I had a plan, and if it succeeded I would be pleased, but if it failed, then so be it. I might even end up dead, yet, sitting there in the choking traffic, even that thought held no fear. And the funny thing was, it wasn't such a bad feeling to have. It felt almost liberating to know that this world, so often wrought with pressures and tensions, was no longer of real importance. Life for me had come down to a set of tasks that I would either complete or not complete. It was as simple as that.

The lock-up was one of a row on a narrow back road off Great Eastern Street. Runnion parked up on the pavement directly outside, and we got out together. There weren't many people about – a few City types taking shortcuts, the odd courier – and you wouldn't have thought you were only a couple of hundred yards from one of the largest financial districts in the world.

I stayed close to Runnion, keeping my hand in my coat pocket with the gun. 'Don't get any ideas about running,' I told him as he opened the lockup. He didn't say anything, and stepped inside. I followed him in, trying not to look too conspicuous, and pulled the shutter down behind me as he switched on the light.

Unlike his shop, the lock-up was remarkably tidy. There were boxes piled up on both sides but there was space to move about in the middle. At the far end, under a pile of tarpaulin, was a wooden strongbox which Runnion had to unlock. From inside it, he removed a large holdall which he put on the floor.

'Pick it up,' I told him. 'We're going back to your house.'

'What?' He looked at me, aghast. 'What for?'

'Because I want to take my time choosing and this isn't the place to do that.'

He started to argue, but I pulled the shutter back up and waited for him to walk out. He put the holdall on the back seat, secured the lock-up, and we were on our way again.

Runnion lived in a row of reasonably well-kept terraced houses in Holloway. I'd raided it once with Malik and a couple of uniforms looking for stolen property, which, predictably, we hadn't found, but I remembered it being quite a homely place. That had been about a year ago now and he'd been married at the time to a surprisingly pleasant wife who'd even offered us a cup of tea as we rummaged through their possessions, which is something of a rarity. She'd left him now and I kept enough tabs on him to know that he lived on his own.