Maddie had been born just before Jones went off to Afghanistan on his second tour. It had been a hard time for Gina. She’d suffered from post-natal depression, and her own mum, who would have helped lighten the load, was diagnosed with breast cancer. And with the TV news filled with reports of young soldiers dying in the dusty killing fields of Helmand Province, Gina was in constant fear that her own husband might not be coming back.
When he did, she gave him an ultimatum. Leave the army or lose her.
He left, but things were never the same between them, and their marriage had begun its steady disintegration, shattering completely when he’d been sent to prison.
Even after she’d told Jones it was over, Gina hadn’t dated for a long time. She’d felt too guilty. After all, it wasn’t his fault that he’d become the dark, violent man he now was.
But the fact remained that she no longer loved him, and as a healthy thirty-five-year-old woman she longed for companionship, and a chance to start again.
She’d met Matt on the internet. He was a solid, serious man, ten years older, and very different in personality from how Jones had been in the good old days. But he cared for her, and he made her feel wanted, and she suspected she was beginning to fall in love with him. They’d been seeing each other for six months now, and had kept things very low-key, but Gina knew that soon she was going to have to tell Jones, because she wanted to make things official and have Matt meet Maddie. She’d almost said something to him when she’d seen him earlier, but it hadn’t felt like the right moment. It would have to happen soon, though.
Gina looked at herself in the mirror. The face that looked back at her was still pretty. There were a few lines round the eyes, and crossing her forehead, but nothing that a little foundation couldn’t cure, and she wore the toughness of the last few years well. She wondered whether or not to put on lipstick. She was seeing Matt tonight. He was taking her out to a surprise destination for dinner and had asked her to dress up. She had no idea where it was, but it had been in the diary for weeks and Matt had begged her to keep the night free, and had promised that she’d enjoy it. Thankfully Maddie was feeling better now, and downstairs watching TV, otherwise Gina would have had to cancel it.
In truth, she’d rather not go out, especially if it was into central London, what with the terrorists threatening another bomb attack, but she felt foolish, and maybe even a little cowardly, saying that to Matt. Gina knew how important tonight was for him and, not for the first time, she wondered if he was planning to propose. They’d talked more than once about living together, and the previous week when they’d been lying in each other’s arms in his bed, he’d told her he loved her, and she’d smiled and said ‘I love you’ back. It had felt good saying it too.
She reached for her red lipstick, wondering whether she’d say yes if he asked her to marry him tonight, and smiled to herself, because she knew that she would.
Thirty-five
17.37
The place we were meeting was as deserted as anywhere you were going to get in London. You reached it down a winding side road right at the end of the industrial estate, which finished at a pair of heavily padlocked high-mesh gates with a large CLOSED sign stuck on one of them. A light glowed dimly in a Portakabin just inside the entrance but that was the only sign of life.
We waited for a few seconds, and then a shifty-looking, unshaven guy smoking a cigarette appeared in the headlights on the other side of the gate as he checked out the car. He wore a heavy donkey jacket with bright green illumination strips that may or may not have concealed a gun.
‘Recognize him?’ I asked Cain.
‘Never seen him before. He’ll just be muscle.’ Cain got out and went to speak to the guy, leaving the engine running.
I knew this was my last chance. I could jump in the driver’s seat and drive off before either of them had a chance to react.
But I didn’t. I just sat there waiting as the guy silently unlocked the gates and Cain came back to the car.
We drove slowly inside and I watched in the wing mirror as the gates were shut and locked again, effectively trapping us inside. A potholed track led through a graveyard of burnt-out vehicles and huge tangled heaps of crushed metal, rising up on each side of us.
‘Have you been here before?’ I asked Cain, my words breaking the silence.
‘No,’ he answered, without looking at me, and I could see that, although he was trying to hide it, he was uneasy too.
The track stopped in front of a large single-storey building with its double doors open and light flooding out from inside. Cain parked next to a Ford Transit van, which looked to be the only driveable vehicle in the whole yard, and we got out. There was a strong odour of acetylene, engine oil, and something else too — similar to chip-shop fat — that made me want to gag. I looked around, searching for a glimpse of Cecil and his MP5 amid all the crap, but there was no sign of him. In fact there was no sign of anyone. Somewhere off in the distance I could hear the rhythmic rumble of a commuter train as it gathered speed, and once again I had this uneasy feeling that this could all be a trap, and that the whole point of bringing me here was to kill me.
I pulled my jacket down to conceal the gun, and joined Cain at the front of the car.
‘OK, let’s go,’ he said. ‘And remember, I do the talking. You just do the strong, silent routine.’
We walked side by side through the building’s double doors, moving carefully as if we were back on patrol in the wilds of Afghanistan, and stopped just inside. The room was big and window less, one side lined with floor-to-ceiling shelving containing everything from copper piping to car radios, the other side dotted with newly arrived cars, some up on raised platforms, and various bits of machinery. An ancient-looking desk and chairs sat at the far end of the room, beyond which was an open door; and it was through this door that two men now emerged, both dressed in leather jackets and jeans — one small, the other large and powerfully built.
‘Hey, Mr Cain, glad you could make it,’ the small one called out as he and his friend started towards us. His accent was eastern European.
‘Good to see you, Dav,’ said Cain. ‘Have you got what we’ve come for?’
‘I have,’ answered Dav. ‘Have you got our payment?’
Cain grinned. ‘Course I have. You know me. I’m a man of my word.’
The two men, both Albanians by the look of them, stopped in front of us. Dav was somewhere in his forties, with a pinched, heavily lined face and long, straggly hair that had been dyed black by someone who didn’t care much about the quality of his work. He was grinning, showing teeth that looked like they needed some serious investment, and there was the malevolent gleam of the sadist in his eyes. Straight away I was on my guard. The other man, who looked like he was about to burst out of his leather jacket, was a lot younger, and by the way he was standing back, he was Dav’s bodyguard.
Dav and Cain shook hands.
‘If you’re holding two hundred K, you’re hiding it well,’ said Dav, still grinning.
‘It’s near here. You can have it as soon as I’ve checked out the goods.’
Dav nodded. ‘Sure. Come this way then, guys.’
He motioned for us to follow him, and I’d just started to relax a little when a mobile phone started ringing. It was Dav’s, and he pulled it out of his leather jacket, frowning down at the screen. ‘Excuse me for a second, Mr Cain. I need to take this.’ He walked away from us, talking quietly on the phone in Albanian, while the rest of us stood in vaguely uncomfortable silence.