Back in his comfortable jeans and Chelsea shirt next day, he could hardly believe his strange experience. But the four grand in his top drawer was real and so was the suit hanging in his wardrobe. He decided to treat himself to an early beer at his local. The barman held the fifty pound note to the light to look for the watermark, just as Herbie had done when he took it from the packet. It was kosher.
The pub was quiet. Just a couple of pensioners playing crib and one of the regulars picking horses from a paper. He’d discarded the inside pages, so Herbie picked them up to see what was happening in the world.
Not much. Another drug scandal involving a pop star. A feature on violence in the classroom.
Then he turned a page and saw a large picture of himself wearing his Armani suit. The caption, in large letters, was OUT. With heart pounding, he read the story underneath.
Spotted last night in his favourite haunt, the Black Bess in Hounslow, Jimmy “The Suit” Calhoun. The feared king of West London’s underworld was released this week after a three year stretch in Pentonville for the injuries inflicted on “Weasel” Mercer, leader of a rival gang in Chelsea. One of Mercer’s ears was slashed off with a cut-throat razor said to have been wielded by Calhoun himself in the fracas behind Stamford Bridge in 2005. Our crime correspondent, Phil Kingston, writes that Calhoun’s reappearance will be viewed in some quarters as a declaration of intent considering that Mercer has taken over much of his territory in the three years since. Nicknamed The Suit for his taste in expensive clothes, Calhoun was alleged to be making millions in protection, “putting the arm” on pubs, betting shops and restaurants south of the river, but his funds were never traced. A police source said Scotland Yard will deal vigorously with any revival of the out and out gang warfare of the recent past.
Herbie dropped the paper. No question: the picture was of him. It hadn’t been Jimmy Calhoun in the Black Bess last night. It had been Herbie Collins. How could they get it so wrong?
He was shaking. He turned the paper over so that no one else would see the picture, thinking as he did so that he couldn’t stop a million other readers from seeing it. He picked up his glass and had to grip it with both hands. People were going to think he was an underworld king, a vicious hoodlum who’d slashed off another man’s ear and been locked away for three years. He could ask the paper to print a correction, he supposed, but really the damage to his reputation was done.
With a sense of doom he pieced together the clues that made sense of this. The people in the Black Bess had looked at him in his suit and made comments like “uncanny” and “you could have fooled me”. They’d stared at him in a way he’d never experienced before, and the explanation could only be that he resembled the real Jimmy Calhoun. Everyone is supposed to have a double somewhere in the world. His unfortunately happened to be the most vicious man in London.
His thoughts moved on to Chloe. It was hard to credit that such a stunningly attractive woman should have got into bad company — the worst, in fact. Clearly she felt some loyalty to Calhoun or she wouldn’t be working for him. Herbie could only suppose money had been the turn-on. Money and power are said to be irresistible to women. She’d gone to all the trouble of seeking out a double, someone to take the risk of sitting in that pub with the rest of Calhoun’s henchmen, symbolically reclaiming his manor, an act of provocation that could have resulted in death.
Herbie shuddered. Good thing he hadn’t been aware how dangerous it was.
Still, he’d carried it off, and carried off five grand and the Armani suit. Pity he hadn’t carried off Chloe as well, but that would have been pushing it, as she had pointed out.
Three weeks passed and he heard no more from Chloe. He supposed he’d served his purpose and been taken off the payroll. The trouble was that he couldn’t get Chloe out of his mind. She was a lovely, misguided woman seduced by money and power, he’d convinced himself. How could she respect Calhoun after he’d behaved in such a cowardly fashion, letting someone else double for him and risk being killed?
He’d thrown away the aftershave she’d called cheap. What a fool he’d been to use it. He ought to have expected such a classy woman to know it was third-rate.
Thinking about her constantly, he went to Harrods and purchased an aftershave that cost sixty pounds. It was called Je t’adore. He also bought a new tie, pure silk, by Galliano.
That evening, in what he now thought of as his slob clothes, the jeans and the Chelsea shirt, he was in his local with Paddy and the others watching football on the big screen TV and trying to forget Chloe. At half-time there was a short news bulletin. None of them paid much attention. Herbie only caught the item when it was almost through:
“... are treating it as a gangland killing. Mercer, known as the Weasel, had become increasingly powerful in recent years and taken over much of the so-called empire formerly run by Jimmy the Suit Calhoun, who was released from prison last month after serving three years for grievous bodily harm. Calhoun’s present whereabouts are unknown.”
Herbie didn’t stay for the second half. He told the others he was meeting a friend.
At home he turned on the 10.30 news and got the full story. Someone had pumped two bullets into Mercer’s head in a barber’s shop in Fulham. The killer had made his escape in a silver Porsche.
Herbie’s first reaction was immense relief. He’d not felt safe since his picture had been in the paper. It had been no fun walking the streets of West London wondering if one of the Weasel’s mob would mistake him for Calhoun. The killing of the Weasel had to be good news.
But it wasn’t.
The more Herbie pondered the changed situation, the more alarming it became. The Weasel was dead, but his people weren’t going to disband. Gang warfare had broken out. Anyone with a resemblance to Calhoun was in mortal danger.
Moreover, as the TV news had strongly hinted, Calhoun was the obvious suspect for the murder of the Weasel. Every copper in London would be on the lookout.
His situation was perilous.
He decided he needed protection. He was entitled to it. After all, he hadn’t asked to become involved with Calhoun’s mob. They’d pressganged him. To put it better, he’d been snared in a honey trap.
OK, they’d paid him good money, but they hadn’t told him his life was on the line. They had to understand the consequences of their actions. He didn’t have much confidence in approaching them, but he reckoned if he could appeal to Chloe’s conscience she might have some influence. After all, she’d hinted at more than just monetary rewards. He still believed she fancied him.
He waited till after dark the next evening, when he felt safer out on the streets. He would have taken a taxi, but he didn’t know Chloe’s address except that it had been somewhere on Richmond Hill. He’d decided to walk, wearing the suit and the new tie and the Je t’adore.
The house was higher up the steep hill than he remembered. He’d been on cloud nine when he’d come here before. Tonight the place seemed to be in darkness. He hoped she was home. As he opened the gate and walked up the small path towards the porch a pair of coachlamps came on and a security light dazzled him.
A voice at his side said, “What do you want?”
He turned to find himself almost nose to nose with the scary Brady.
Should have realised Chloe’s house would be under guard, he thought. “I, em—”
Brady cut in, his tone and manner transformed. “It’s you, boss. Sorry. Didn’t expect you so early.”