“If I were, I’m pretty confident you couldn’t do it.”
“Again I say: Try me.”
Another long silence ensued. Then the director announced, “I’m starting work on a new project. About criminal gangs in London.”
“What would it involve for the actors?”
“Deep cover. Infiltrating the gangs.”
Kenny was aware of the slight admonitory shake of Lesley-Jane’s head, but he ignored the signal. “I’m up for it,” he said.
“I’ll phone you with further details,” the director announced in a magisterial manner that suggested the audience was at an end.
“Shall I give you my mobile number?”
“Land line. I don’t do mobiles.” Clearly another eccentricity, which was indulged like all Charlie Fenton’s eccentricities. He flashed another smile at Lesley-Jane, then looked hard at Kenny, his lips curled with scepticism. “If you can come back to me in three months as a member of a London gang, you’ve got a part in the show.”
“You’re on,” said Kenny Mountford.
Lesley-Jane wasn’t keen on the idea. If Kenny was going to go underground, he wouldn’t be able to squire her to all the premieres, launches, and first nights her ego craved. Their relationship was fine while he too had a high-profile television face, but she didn’t want to end up with a boyfriend nobody recognised. She also knew that her own work situation was precarious. Young femmes fatales in soap operas had a short shelf life. One of the scriptwriters had already hinted that her character might have a fatal car crash in store. There was a race against time for her to announce that she was leaving the show before the public heard that she’d been pushed off it. And then she’d need another series to move on to, and there weren’t currently many signs of that being offered. At such a time, she’d be more than usually dependent on the reflected fame of her partner. (She had always followed the old show-business advice: If you can’t be famous yourself, then make sure you go to bed with someone who is.) The last thing she wanted at that moment was for Kenny to disappear off the social radar for some months while he immersed himself in gangland culture.
But Lesley-Jane’s remonstrations were ignored. Her boyfriend’s mind was now focused on only one thing: proving his seriousness as an actor to Charlie Fenton.
And to do that he had to infiltrate a London gang. Which actually turned out to be surprisingly easy. He didn’t have to hang around Shepherd’s Bush Green for long before he was approached by someone with a heavy Russian accent and asked if he wanted to buy drugs. After a couple of weeks of making regular purchases of heroin (which he didn’t use but stockpiled in his bathroom cabinet), he only had to default on payments twice to be hustled into a car with tinted windows, blindfolded, and taken off to meet the organisation’s frighteners.
They didn’t have to hurt him to get their money. Kenny Mountford had the cash ready with him and handed it over as soon as his blindfold was removed. He found himself seated on a chair in a windowless cellar, loomed over by the two heavies who’d snatched him and facing a thin-faced man in an expensive suit. From their conversation in the car, he’d deduced that his abductors were called Vasili and Vladimir. They addressed the thin-faced man as Fyodor. All three spoke English with a heavy accent from somewhere in the former Soviet Union.
“So if you had the money all the time, why didn’t you pay up?” asked the man in the suit, whose effortless authority identified him as the gang’s leader.
“Maybe he enjoys being beaten to a pulp,” suggested the heavy who Kenny was pretty sure was called Vasili.
“Maybe,” said Kenny Mountford with a cool that he’d spent three years at drama school perfecting, “but that’s not actually the reason. I just thought this was a good way of getting to meet you, Fyodor.”
“Do you know who I am?” the man asked, intrigued.
“I only know your name, but it doesn’t take much intelligence to work out that you’re higher up this organisation than the two goons who brought me here.”
Kenny felt the men on either side of him stiffen and was aware of their fists bunching, but he remembered his concentration exercises and didn’t flinch.
Fyodor raised a hand to pacify his enforcers. “You are right. I control the organisation.”
“And am I allowed to know what it’s called?”
He smiled a crooked smile. “The Simferopol Boys. From where we started our operations. Do you know where Simferopol is?” Kenny shook his head. “It is in the Crimea. Southern Ukraine. Near to Yalta. I assume you have not been there?” Another shake of the head. “Well, we did what we could over there, but the pickings were small, and there were a lot of... entrenched interests. Turf wars, dangerous. In London our life is easier.”
“And how many are there in the Simferopol Boys?”
“Twenty, maybe thirty, it depends. Sometimes people become untrustworthy and have to be eliminated.”
Kenny was aware of a reaction from Vasili and Vladimir. Clearly elimination was the part of the job they enjoyed.
“And do you just deal in drugs?”
Fyodor spread his hands wide in an encompassing gesture. “Drugs... prostitution... protection rackets... loan-sharking... The Simferopol Boys are a multifunction organisation.” Then came the question that Kenny knew couldn’t be delayed much longer. “But why do you want to know this? Curiosity?”
“More than just curiosity.”
“Good. If it was just curiosity, I think Vasili and Vladimir would have to eliminate you straightaway.” The gang boss smiled a thin smile. “They may well have to eliminate you straightaway, whatever the reason for your enquiries. You could be a cop, for all we know.”
“I can assure you I am not a cop.”
“But that’s exactly what you would say if you were a cop.”
“Well, I’m not.”
“Mr. Mountford, I am not here to chop logic with you. I am a busy man.” He looked at his watch. “I have a meeting shortly with a senior civil servant in the Home Office. He is helping me with some visa applications for members of my extended family in Simferopol. Now please, will you tell me why you are here? And why I shouldn’t just hand you straight over to Vasili and Vladimir for elimination?”
Kenny Mountford took a deep breath. There was no doubt that he had put himself in very real danger. But, as he had that daunting thought, he couldn’t help also feeling a warm glow. Charlie Fenton would be so impressed by the lengths he had gone in his quest for authenticity.
“I’m here because I want to join your gang.”
“Join the Simferopol Boys?” asked Fyodor in astonishment. Vasili and Vladimir let out deep threatening chuckles at the very idea.
“Yes.”
“But why should I let you join us? As I said, you could be a cop. You could be a journalist. You could be a spy from the Odessa Reds.” The reactions from Vasili and Vladimir left Kenny in no doubt as to what Fyodor was talking about. They might sound like a breed of chicken, but the Odessa Reds were clearly a rival gang.
“How can I prove to you that I’m none of those things? What are the qualifications for most of the people who join your gang?”
“Most of them have family connections with me in Simferopol which go back many generations. At the very least, most of them are Ukrainian.”
“I can sound Ukrainian,” said Kenny, demonstrating the point. (He had made quite a study of accents at drama school.)
His impression didn’t go down well with Vasili and Vladimir. They clearly thought he was sending them up. Two giant hands slammed down on his shoulders, while two giant fists were once again bunched.
But again a gesture from their boss froze them before the blows made contact.
“Anyone who wants to join the Simferopol Boys,” said Fyodor quietly, “has to pass certain tests.”