Simon Kernick - The Crime Trade

‘His what?’

‘His accident. He was doing a film a few months back fucking this bird in the wheelbarrow position — you know, holding her up in a semi-handstand while doing her from behind.’

Stegs was horrified. ‘What? That’s a real position?’

‘Come on, Stegsy, get with the Kama Sutra. Of course it is. Provides just the sort of deep penetration a young woman requires. Plus it’s very useful exercise. Builds up your biceps and triceps.’

‘Sounds fucking knackering.’

‘Ah, well, there’s the problem. Tino’s perhaps not as fit as he thinks he is. Too many late nights, and all that. Anyway, there he is, doing this bird at ten to the dozen, just building up a head of steam for the money shot, when he gets a sudden attack of the cramp, mid-thrust. He yelps in pain, stiffens up, so to speak, and can’t fucking move. The director’s going mental, the bird on the receiving end wants to know what the fuck’s going on because obviously she’s a little uncomfortable, and Tino’s just stuck there, legs bent, rooted to the spot, with all the lower-body flexibility of a breezeblock.’

Murk stopped to savour the moment, chuckling heartily. Stegs joined in, unable to help himself.

‘What the fuck happened?’ he asked.

‘Apparently, he was stuck like that for three hours. They had to take him to Casualty in the back of an ambulance with both of them stark bollock naked and him still inside her.’

‘Ah, fuck this, you’re making it up.’

Murk nodded, still chuckling. ‘I am, as it happens. That last bit, anyway. Still, I have heard it’s happened before. And on a porno as well. The rest of it’s true, though. Tino’s not having it easy getting hold of money, and one of his contacts within the industry is this director who’s also fallen on hard times. Apparently, the fourteen-year-old Tino shagged was this bloke’s girlfriend, and he’s like fifty or something. Anyway, he’s the one who’s the source of the gear. Him and Tino have gone into partnership. The director’s producing the goods and Tino’s job’s to find a buyer and transport the stuff to where the transaction’s going to take place. Which is where I come in. I think I must have mentioned to him at some point that I liked to indulge in tablets of a recreational nature, and so he thinks maybe I’d be a useful business partner as well. He was offering the whole batch at six grand.’

‘What did you say?’

‘I said I wasn’t in the market — cashflow problems, and all that — but I knew a bloke who might be.’ He grinned happily. ‘My mate, Stegsy. As reliable as he is trustworthy. Though I did say you’d probably only pay five for that sort of bulk.’

Stegs nodded. ‘A wise move. I don’t like to fork out too much for my pills.’

‘Exactly. Anyway, I told him I’d try to make contact with you and set up some sort of meeting. What do you think?’

Stegs thought it incredible that informants like Trevor Murk could be quite so blase about double-crossing and thereby ruining the lives of people they were meant to like, and, since he was suspended, he said as much. ‘Doesn’t it bother you that your actions are going to send that poor bastard down for two, even three, years, minimum?’

Murk looked genuinely upset by the question, as if Stegs had just accused him of something heinous he hadn’t done. Like shagging his best friend’s missus in the wheelbarrow position. ‘I can’t fucking believe you’re getting like that. You lot survive on the sort of info people like me are good enough to provide — at considerable danger to ourselves, I might add. I didn’t ask him to come offering me gear, did I? If he’s stupid enough to try and flog five thousand tabs to someone he once starred in a porn film with, he’s got to accept the, you know, consequences, hasn’t he? It’s dog eat dog out there, Stegsy. You know that. You don’t bite, you don’t fucking survive. Anyway, you were the one who called him a pervert. Why are you suddenly getting all moralistic about it? Found God or something?’

Stegs stubbed out his cigarette and took a drink from his beer. ‘No,’ he said eventually. ‘If I found God, Trevor, I’d put him back. No place for someone like him in my life.’

He smiled from behind his near-empty pint glass, pleased that he’d riled Murk. It was a small victory, but it still felt good. He had an urge then to tell him to fuck off. To tell him that he could go and peddle his nasty little tales to some other mug, that he didn’t want anything to do with it. He thought it might even be quite a hoot to print up some posters of Murk with that smug fucking grin of his, and plaster them all over Barnet with the message in bold black letters that here was a grass who made money out of putting fellow scumbags behind bars. Then maybe someone would end up wiping that smile off his face for ever.

But if there was one thing Stegs had learnt over the years, it was never to cut off your nose in order to spite the rest of your face, and already an idea was beginning to form itself in his mind. An idea for a nice little piece of payback. He’d always been good at improvising.

‘Tell him I’m interested,’ he said, ‘and let’s set up an initial meet. As soon as possible.’

Murk grinned, Stegs’s alleged defamation of his character forgotten in the desire to make a bit of cash. ‘That won’t be hard. He’s flying in tomorrow.’

‘Good. Like I say, as soon as possible.’

Murk licked his lips. ‘And, er. . how much are we talking for this? Gonna be a nice little collar, innit? Nasty Class A peddler, ex-porn star to boot, foreign. That’d look sweet on your record, wouldn’t it?’

He spoke the words coaxingly, like a lustful adult to a child, and another truly unpleasant smile spread like gangrene across his face. The love of money. It really is the root of evil. And all for five hundred-odd quid, which would be the maximum he’d get for a collar like this, courtesy of the taxpayer. Not that, sadly for him, he was going to be seeing any of it. The germ of Stegs’s idea was growing fast. It had potential, real potential. And best of all, it didn’t involve Murk.

‘You’ll be nicely reimbursed, Trevor, should it end in a result and conviction. As befits a grass of your quality.’ Like fuck you will. ‘Fancy another pint?’

There’s a story about Nicholas Tyndall that’s long been doing the rounds. For a while a couple of years back he was running a crack den out of a semi-detached house in Stepney which belonged to a retired panel beater of West Indian descent. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say allegedly, because Tyndall always denied that he had anything to do with that particular house.

The retired panel beater’s name was Tony Lackman, and he was in his early sixties. He had no criminal record, had lived a pretty blameless life, and lived alone, having been married and divorced many years earlier. There were no children. Unfortunately for Mr Lackman, the fact that he was the sole occupant of his property and without close family made him an ideal victim for what’s becoming a fast-growing problem in London: the forced colonization of an individual’s home by a crack gang who then use it as a front for their business. It happens a lot more than people think, but because there’s usually very little publicity (the victims, often elderly, tend to comply under threat of violence), people don’t tend to hear about it. Lackman, however, was different. He wasn’t prepared to give up his home that easily and, though understandably terrified of his unwanted guests, committed the cardinal sin of complaining to the police. A few days later a team of armed officers raided the property, made several arrests and recovered a small quantity of crack cocaine. One of those arrested was a close associate of Nicholas Tyndall, but because he hadn’t been in the same room as the drugs, had later tested negative for being under their influence and had denied all knowledge of them (claiming he’d been round there for a party), he’d been released without charge.