‘Nah.’ She thought of the boy scowling at them from the armchair, of his thick brown hair and the perfect roundness of his chin, his fingers, his eyelashes. She imagined the softness of his cheek meeting her lips. ‘Grandad Tait must be desperate to see that boy. He wouldn’t risk it. Might pass the intel on to someone else but he’d never risk that, I don’t think. His wife died…’
‘How would he know about Billal having a VAT scam, though?’
‘Suppose he’d keep his ear to the ground, wonder where the money for Lily was coming from, dig about.’
‘Aye, dirt sees dirt, eh?’
Morrow smiled at that. ‘Yeah, dirt sees dirt right enough.’
The radio crackled to life, the FAU officer notified her that they were ready to go in around the back and Morrow and Harris looked at each other, excited as children.
They saw nothing. Watching the bland front of the garage they heard a crash, some shouting, another crash, someone shouting back and then silence. A long silence. When the FAU officer came back on the radio he sounded out of breath and angry. ‘We’ve got three guys. No firearms. A room full of…’ he broke off to ask someone what the room was full of, and then came back onto the radio, ‘broken-up cars. No papers to verify the ownership. Seems like… um… not, eh, legitimate.’
Morrow and Harris threw the car doors open and ran around to the back of the building. FAU had clipped a big hole through the chicken wire and battered the back door flat so it lay in the back entrance like a bridge. It led straight into the workshop.
It was so much colder inside that Morrow found herself shivering as she looked around at the engines and car doors stacked up against the wall. She was smiling as she looked up at the big FAUs in their protective gear and the three men they had nicked. Two wee guys and the big broad man in the Audi. The only one not wearing a cheap gaudy tracksuit. Danny McGrath looked at Morrow coldly, as if he’d never seen his sister in his life before.
She had skated straight into the path of the train.
37
The heavy metal doors opened with a clang and the passengers poured onto the car deck, snaking their way between the vans and cars lined up neatly in rows, facing the green ramp wall of the ferry. An overhead announcement ordered them in prissy estuary English not to start their engines before the ferry docked and the ramp was lowered. And to not even think of lighting a cigarette on the car deck.
An unexceptional white-haired man in a navy golfing jersey, belly like a plain-clothed Santa, made his way past cars of families going or coming from holidays or visits to family, past vans heading for work in Glasgow or London, to a green Peugeot estate car. He unlocked it, climbed in, did his seat belt up, slid the keys in but did not turn them and waited patiently, keeping his eyes down, remaining unremarkable. The ferrymen, in dayglo yellow jackets and big wellies, stood by the doors, staring at the passengers insolently, waiting.
The roar of the ferry engines suddenly changed gear, churning backwards, slowing the ferry’s approach to the pier and the boat lurched sideways, coming to a stop. The prow was lowered slowly in front of them, letting the bright grey day into the bowel of the ship.
The first row of cars fired up their engines and the ferrymen signalled to them to drive on, herding them over the ramp and into Scotland.
Even in his maddest dreams of blood-soaked glory Eddy had never imagined himself sitting in a car with an actual ex-paramilitary terrorist, cruising along the streets of Glasgow after a roast beef dinner at a Beefeater all-you-can-eat buffet. Eddy was, in short, creaming it. He was trying to act cool but observe as much as he possibly could about the guy. He liked the calm manner, and the shoulder swagger when he walked. Liked the way the guy seemed to be watching all the time, never really making eye contact with him much but watching over his shoulder. And he loved that when they went to the Beefeater, after the man had piled a small plate with meat and gravy and a single potato, that he had chosen a seat in the corner, away from the door and windows. Careful. A pro.
Looking out of the passenger window of the Peugeot Eddy reflected that this would have gone very differently if the Irishman had been there all along, that he must have been very high up when he was in the Provos because he had such natural authority, and that Eddy would have followed him into battle.
‘There.’ The white-haired man, who had asked Eddy just to call him T, pulled the car over to the pavement and nodded at a phone box in the street up ahead.
‘But,’ Eddy didn’t know whether to say it or not, ‘place is polluted with cameras.’
The man looked out through the windscreen at the grey box attached to a street light. ‘Not a problem,’ he drawled in his throaty accent. ‘Ye know just to keep your cap on and chin down, don’t ye, boy?’
Eddy didn’t know that but noted it for future escapades. ‘Um, I haven’t got my cap with me, but-’ T reached over the back of his chair into the footwell behind him and pulled out two identical England Cricket Team navy-blue skip caps, handing one to Eddy.
Eddy chanced a little camaraderie, pointing at the logo. ‘I hope that’s a fucking joke,’ he said.
‘What do you think yourself, son?’ He had a twinkle in his eye. Eddy was starting to think T liked him.
‘T, man, what’s to stop them picking us up at the drop? What if they have phoned the polis?’
T smirked at him, keeping his mouth shut tight. ‘Done this a hundred times, son, don’t you worry about that.’ He pulled his cap low over his face and Eddy copied him.
Caps donned, they exited the vehicle and walked over to the phone box in sharp formation. Both getting into the box was a squeeze though because the Irish was a bit fat around the middle and Eddy was none too slender himself, having done a lot of work on himself in the gym. They managed to get the door almost shut behind them though, blocking out the background sounds of traffic and high beep of the pedestrian crossing a hundred yards away.
The Irish had one latex glove on and picked up the receiver, holding it between his shoulder and chin as he pulled a pound coin out of his pocket and dropped it into the phone. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘you dial then, son.’
Eddy nodded, pulled out the Tesco’s receipt with the Anwars’ home number scribbled on it in pencil and started to stab it into the keypad, using his knuckles in a manner he hoped looked professional and finger print savvy.
‘You’ve got it written on a scrap of paper in your pocket? What if ye get picked up? That’s the case against ye right there.’
Eddy flinched. ‘Aye, but just, my mate was calling them and so I didn’t know it off by heart and then, well,’ he could see the dismay in the man’s face, ‘I’m going to… eat it after we call now.’
‘Right?’ T’s disappointment turned to surprise. ‘You’re going to eat a Tesco’s receipt?’
‘To get rid, like.’ Embarrassed at his gaffe, Eddy stabbed in the final numbers on the receipt and put it in his mouth, wishing it wasn’t such a long receipt because it tasted of ink and newspapers.
T watched him, curious and a little disgusted. ‘Ye should maybe have waited until we were sure it was the right number before ye-’ His attention was suddenly drawn by someone on the other end. ‘Anwar?’
Eddy couldn’t hear the answer on the other end but the ambivalence was gone from T’s face. ‘I’ve a matter of business to discuss with you,’ he said firmly, his brow coming down over his eyes.
Carefully, T reached over and opened the door to the phone box, gently but firmly shoving Eddy out into the street and closing the door behind him. Eddy stood in the street, chewing the paper dutifully as the rain flecked the lenses of his Reactalite glasses until he couldn’t see any more.
Sadiqa, Omar and Billal stared at the phone as it rang, jittery as flies. Apologetically Omar reached for the receiver. The voice on the other end claimed he had a matter of business to discuss. It was a different voice, Northern Irish, more nasal, deeper.