Reid shrugged. 'Maybe something will turn up,' he said sourly.
Matt paused. 'It just did,' he said.
Reid looked up towards him, a question-mark in his eyes.
'There's a job,' said Matt, lowering his tone. 'For Five. Off the books, unofficial, but we get training and gear. At the end, a big pay-off.'
Matt watched him closely. He had seen Reid in many different situations: under fire, showing incredible bravery and determination; in a funk of cold fear when he lost his nerve; drunk out of his brain on cheap beer; sighing over pictures of his children on a cold, lonely and distant battlefield. But he had never seen the look he saw in his eyes now: hope, mixed with relief. 'How much?'
We listen in different ways. Some of us want to know who we hit. Some of us how dangerous it is. And some of us just want to know how much.
'Enough,' said Matt. 'You could get your princess a new tiara, yourself a new car, and still never have to work again.'
'And you're in charge?'
Matt shook his head. 'Five are in charge,' he replied. 'They just started with me.'
Reid took his hand-rolled cigarette from his pocket, slipped it between his lips, and searched around for a light. 'One question,' he said. 'Who handles the money? I don't mind doing a job for Five, but I wouldn't want their thieving hands on my cash.'
Matt nodded. 'A friend of mine,' he said. 'Five don't know it yet, but we bring along our own boy for that end of the deal.'
Reid drained the last of his mug of tea, glanced towards the window, then looked back at Matt. 'Well, if it's good enough for you… I can't face going back to Jane and telling her we might lose the house. Christ, we might have to go and live at her mum's.'
You look at people you grew up with, the first thing you notice is how they've aged, Matt realised as he shook Damien by the hand. Then it hits you. If they've aged, so have you. 'You're looking good,' said Matt.
'You too,' said Damien.
Matt glanced along the length of the bar. The Two Foxes was an average boozer, in a side street around the back of Camberwell High Street in south London. To anyone dropping in for a pint it looked like one of thousands of pubs tucked into every street of the city: faded Victorian coach lamps on the walls, thick, stained wood around the bar, beer mats on every table, and the same pair of old geezers nursing their glasses of stout and rolling their own. But to anyone in the know, it was an office — a place where the Walters family, and a few of the other south-London crime dynasties, came to carve up the spoils. Two men sipping on pints might well be arranging who could and couldn't sell dope on the Brixton streets. Two guys at the bar sinking whiskies and sodas could well be arranging protection for the Albanians who shipped eastern European hookers into the massage parlours of south London. To the innocent, it was just another pub. To the regulars, it was as busy with deals as the trading floor of any City bank.
The SAS had been Matt's escape from this part of town, and this kind of fife. Crime had been Damien's. The Army had given Matt respect and dignity, and the gangs had made Damien richer and better dressed than he would have been. He looked different to Gill — his hair was black, he was six inches taller, and his eyes were darker — but there was similarity in some of their gestures and mannerisms. You could tell instantly they were moulded from the same materials.
'How's business?' said Matt.
'Too much competition,' said Damien. 'Can't keep the margins up. People think it's a soft option, but it's bloody hard graft.'
There had never been any secrets between Matt and Damien: there were no pretences about what Damien and his family did for a living. They had grown up together. Maybe when Matt was five or six he'd started noticing that Damien's parents had a lot more money than his. Certainly after Matt's father injured himself at the factory and couldn't work again, somehow Damien always had the cash for new trainers, new records, and a new car when he was eighteen. But that had never been a barrier between them. All through their teenage years they had run through the streets together, getting into the same fights and chasing the same girls. The night before Matt left to join the Army he went round to Damien's house, and his father spoke to him, told him he could have a better life and make more money working for one of his gangs. 'That's the life for a man who wants to fight,' he could remember the old guy saying to him. 'We look after our boys a lot better than the Army looks after theirs.' And maybe, looking back on it fifteen years later, he was right.
'And you?' said Damien.
'OK,' replied Matt. 'Gill sends her love.'
'Tell her to ring mum,' said Damien.
Inside, Matt was squirming. On the drive back from Hereford he had called Damien, telling him he was in town and suggesting they get a beer. He still hadn't spoken to Gill since the split. She obviously hadn't told her family. If she had, he suspected Damien would be furious with him. Gill may have moved to Spain because she wanted to put some distance between herself and her family — she didn't approve of the way they made their money — but she was still blood.
'I'm swapping trades,' said Matt. 'Mine for yours.'
Damien looked up at him. Even though he was the same age as Matt, he looked younger. Most people would guess he was twenty-nine, thirty. He spent half his life at sea, and sailed his own small dinghy every weekend off the Essex coast, which gave his skin a thick, weatherbeaten appearance. His teens and his twenties he had spent on the smuggling runs between Holland and the Essex marshes. He'd take a boat over to Rotterdam, pick up some gear, and be back by dawn. That made him both an expert sailor, and a man who knew all that could be known about navigating at night.
Damien had thick black hair, swept back over his head, clear blue eyes, and strong shoulders that sloped away from his neck. It was in the way he laughed that Matt could see bits of Gill in him: he always started giggling right at the start of one of his own jokes, and Gill did the same thing.
'Aren't things OK at the Last Trumpet? Last time anyone looked at the books it seemed to be making a bit of money.'
Matt shrugged. 'The bar is fine,' he replied. 'It's just not making the kind of money I need to get myself out of the jam I'm in.' He paused, letting the alcohol fill his veins. 'I've lost a bundle dabbling in shares, and I need to get it back quickly.'
'And you want to rob it?'
'Listen, between you and me, I've been tapped up by Five for a job,' said Matt. 'It's just parting some money from some very nasty boys so they can't do anything bad with it. The twist is, we get to keep the loot at the end. It's a private job, not Regiment.' He looked at Damien. 'Listen, at the end of the job we might have a lot of valuable stuff. But hot. What's your advice?'
Damien whistled, running a hand through his hair. 'The trick with robbing is to make sure you're nicking from the right people,' he said. 'That's why people rob banks, insurance companies. You just get a few middle management types riled up, and they don't scare anybody. It's like having some bunny rabbits chasing after you. But who are you nicking from, Matt, and what are they going to think?'
'I can't say, not yet,' Matt replied. 'I can look after myself. The money is worth it.'
'OK, so long as you know what you're getting into, that's all.'
'I know,' said Matt. 'It's how I fence the money that bothers me.'
'How much?'
'I can't say yet,' answered Matt. 'But unless it was the Bank of England, more than you'd find in any bank.'
'Then you want to make sure you keep hold of the money yourself,' said Damien. 'Don't let Five go near it. Any job you do, it's not getting the money that's the problem. It's getting rid of it, and splitting it up.'
'Could you help?'
'Since Dad died business hasn't been so great,' said Damien. 'The gangs, they're like a corporation. You have to prove yourself a coming man. You have to bring in some big deals.' He glanced through the pub, his voice dropping to a whisper. 'I could use something big. In this line of work, you're only as tough as your last hit.'