Simon Kernick - The Murder Exchange

‘Surprise fucking surprise,’ said Eric. ‘They’ve all got a drugs problem. So, do you think there’s going to be trouble?’ He didn’t sound like the prospect bothered him too much.

I gave him one of the most confident looks I could muster. ‘Not when they see us, there won’t be.’

‘Famous last words,’ said Tony, in that enigmatic way of his. But then, he’d never been the sort to look on the bright side.

We were picking up Fowler from a pub in Farringdon Street, not far from the Underground station. It was a busy late summer evening and darkness was beginning to settle on the lively streets of Clerkenwell as they filled up with revellers. Traffic was still bad even at this time, and I jumped out of the car fifty yards short of the pick-up point, leaving it idling in a typical urban snarl-up.

The place was crowded with students and the younger end of the office-worker crowd so Fowler, with his bad-news fake tan and middle-aged side parting, stood out like a sore thumb. He was sat at a poky little table in the corner, just in front of the Ladies, nursing a Red Bull and looking like someone had just caught him fucking an under-age girl. He was nervous — nervous and shifty — and even from some distance away I could make out the sheen of sweat on his forehead.

As I walked towards him through a gaggle of scantily clad young ladies with loud voices, I saw he had two briefcases on his lap, one of which hopefully contained six grand in readies. You’d have thought the other contained a bomb, given the expression on his face.

‘Mr Fowler. Are you ready?’

Fowler saw me for the first time and cracked a relieved smile. ‘As ready as I’ll ever be. Come on then, let’s go.’ He got to his feet unsteadily, trying to hold both briefcases in one hand. It didn’t work and he dropped one. Quick as a flash, he bent down and picked it up. ‘This one’s yours,’ he said, passing it to me in a way that was almost designed to attract attention. I took it as casually as possible, and, with him following, turned and walked back outside.

The car pulled up just as we stepped onto the pavement and I ushered Fowler into the back with Tony before jumping in the front.

‘Do me a favour, Mr Fowler,’ I said. ‘Don’t draw attention to us by handing me a briefcase in the middle of a pub. You could have given it to me back in the office.’

‘Sorry, I wasn’t thinking straight,’ he said, clutching the other case close to his chest.

‘Is everything all right?’

‘Yeah, no problem. I’m just a little nervous, that’s all.’ He wiped the sweat off his brow with a grubby-looking handkerchief as Eric did a three-point turn in the limited space available and headed back the way we’d come.

‘There’s no need to worry,’ I told him. ‘You’re in safe company.’

I introduced him to the other two. Eric just grunted an acknowledgement. He wasn’t one to get over-friendly with punters, particularly when they were greasy-looking nightclub owners. Tony gave Fowler one of his half-smiles and put out a hand which was shaken just a little bit too vigorously.

The offices of Tiger Solutions were a set of rooms above a tatty-looking mobile phone shop near Highbury Corner. Eric pulled the car up in the bus lane directly outside and he and Tony waited while Fowler and I went upstairs to count the six grand.

‘Have you got the gun?’ he asked me as I put the money in the safe. It was all there, in fifties and twenties.

I looked at him closely. He was watching me, moving his weight from foot to foot, a man with far too much on his mind. ‘Yeah, I’ve got it,’ I said, making no move to show it to him.

‘I want to see it. I want to see that you’ve got it.’ His voice was almost a whine, like some spoilt kid.

This bastard was beginning to give me a bad feeling. Still, anything to shut him up. I reached under the back of my jacket and pulled the Glock 17 from the waistband of my jeans. I held it out in the palm of my hand for him to see, thinking to myself that it really was a fine piece of craftsmanship, and light as a feather, too. Say what you like about the Germans, but they do do all the important things right. Cars, football teams, porn (if you forgive the haircuts) and firearms.

He stepped over and looked cautiously down at it, as if he half-expected it to jump up and bite him. ‘It does work, doesn’t it?’

‘Do you know something I don’t?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, why are you so interested in whether it works or not? Do you think I’m going to have to fire it or something, because if you do, then I’m not sure I want to be coming along with you. My life and the lives of the other two men down there are worth a lot more than six grand. Do you know what I mean?’

‘I wouldn’t be going along myself if I thought anything was going to happen, but, just in case something does, I want to be certain that we’ve got some sort of back-up.’

‘It works,’ I said, ‘but if I have to use it, I’ll be one unhappy man. And if I’m unhappy, so will you be. I promise you that.’

I opened the door, then waited while he went out, before switching off the lights and following him.

‘Left here,’ said Fowler.

Eric turned the wheel and the car pulled into the entrance of a deserted-looking business park surrounded by high mesh fencing. An unmanned barrier blocked our path.

‘Pull up to the keypad and punch in the code. It’s C234.’

Eric didn’t say anything but did as he was told, and the barrier went up. The car moved inside, and carried on down to a T-junction. The single-storey building up ahead had a neon red sign identifying it as Canley Electronics.

‘Stay here for a moment,’ said Fowler, and jumped out of the car before any of us had a chance to ask him where he was going. As we watched, he crossed the road and walked up to a short, tatty-looking hedge in front of Canley Electronics. He stopped and made a great show of looking left and then right, then bent down and pushed the briefcase underneath the hedge so that it was out of sight.

‘What’s he doing?’ demanded Eric. ‘I thought you said they were meant to be the deeds to his club.’

I shrugged. ‘That’s what I thought.’

Eric shook his head, looking troubled for the first time. ‘I’m not sure about this, Max. This just doesn’t look right. What with all this meeting up in the back end of nowhere …’

‘Perhaps he’s just being careful,’ said Tony, calm as always. ‘Maybe he wants to see that they’ve got the money first.’

‘Maybe,’ I mused, not feeling too convinced either. ‘We’ve just got to keep our wits about us, that’s all. Obviously these blokes are dodgier than we thought.’

‘Christ, I’m getting too old for this shit. I’m a granddad, for fuck’s sake.’

‘The key to warding off old age is mental and physical exertion,’ said Tony. ‘My granddad did nothing but watch telly when he retired, and he went completely senile in five years. Ended up thinking that he was going out with Carol Vorderman, poor sod.’

‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘I quite like her.’

‘He used to send her flowers and everything. My mum and dad had to put him away in a home in the end. Lack of stimulation, that’s what they said it was. Think on that one, Eric. There’s a moral in there somewhere.’

‘Fuck off,’ said Eric, giving him a dirty look. Not that there was any real malice in it. He and Tony knew each other pretty well and, as far as I knew, they got on, too. That was one of the other reasons they’d been mine and Joe’s first two choices for this job.

The conversation stilled as Fowler returned to the car and got back in. ‘OK, turn left and keep going until the end of the road.’