Skelton was on his feet again, pacing the room. Resnick responded to Millington’s wordless question with a light shrug of the shoulders and a quick sigh.
“You knew him, Charlie. Rains. Worked with him. You were a lot closer to him at the time than either Graham or I. Serious armed robbery-do you see him being involved in that?”
Resnick leaned forward in his chair. “The thing about Rains, one above all others, he was never afraid of pushing hard where others-myself included-would tend to hang back. No matter what else, I always had a grudging sort of respect for that.” Resnick sat back. “About the only thing I did have respect for. Find a weakness, use people, dump them-that was Rains.”
“So if he’s yet to dump Churchill?”
“He’s still using him.”
“And robbery, heavily armed,” Skelton probed, “he’d have no compunction about that?”
“If ever he reckoned the gains worth the risk, I don’t think the thing’s been invented Rains’d have one pennyworth of compunction about.”
The rain drummed and drummed and Skelton rested his head against the upturned fingers of his hand. Millington, sensing the way the wind was turning, allowed himself the beginnings of a smile.
“Okay,” Skelton said, hands now flat on his desk, “Graham, lean on this informant of yours just as far as you think you safely can, your own judgement. Meantime, we’ll chase Churchill up on the computer, last known addresses, whatever we can. Contact Interpol and the Spanish police and see if they can locate Rains, be nice to know where he is. If he’s been traveling here regularly it’s possible he’s been using an assumed name, in which case it might be the one he’s living under over there. Divine’s been checking the flight manifests for this French caper of his, much of the information we want should either be on file, or, better still, on disk.” He looked from one to the other. “Gentlemen, let’s keep this pretty much to ourselves for the time being, but meantime why don’t we run with it as far as we can?”
Both Resnick and Millington got to their feet and turned to leave.
“Graham,” Skelton said, calling him back. “Good work. Much more of this, we’ll run out of excuses to keep you where you are.”
Millington was so chuffed, he came close to colliding with the door on the way out.
Forty-Five
When Darren had arrived back at the shop, Rose told him he would have to wait a couple of days. Darren couldn’t believe it. No wonder private enterprise was going to the dogs if you couldn’t get hold of a shooter without going through a lot of red tape and standing in line. It was nearly as bad as signing on for the dole.
“No,” he’d said. “No way. Not two days. I want it now.”
“Fine,” Rose had said, “there’s somewhere else you can get the same, good luck to you.”
But Darren didn’t know anywhere else.
“Look,” Rose said, lowering her voice to avoid being overheard by a couple who were mulling over the purchase of a gas fire. “Look, don’t be a stupid boy. What’s so important it has to be done the next couple of days? Eh? Someone’s slipping your girl friend a little something on the side and you want to catch them at it, don’t you think he’s still going to be the day after tomorrow? There’s a post office you’ve got your eye on, a betting shop perhaps, it’ll still be there, believe me.”
Darren felt like whacking her around the head for suggesting that he was stupid, but she patted him on the arm as if he were a recalcitrant child. “You come by, oh, not too early, eleven, eleven-thirty, I’ll have it all arranged. Okay?”
Darren had grunted that it was okay.
“Good boy!” And she patted his trouser pocket with a laugh. “You keep tight hold of it now. Don’t go spending it on all the wrong things.”
Now Darren was waiting on a patch of disused land close by the canal, across from a disused warehouse from which the letters spelling out British Waterways were steadily peeling. Pigeons bunched on the sills of broken windows, launching themselves without warning into sudden flumes of flight. Darren tightened his hand around the iron bar beneath his jacket for comfort. Half-ten the meeting had been set for and his watch had passed that nearly fifteen minutes ago.
Not far from his feet the water lapped gently and above his head the moon slipped in and out of cloud. If Rose was setting him up, he’d go back to the shop and turn her face to mush.
Even as he had that thought he heard the car engine slowing on the road, the crunch of gravel as it turned towards him. A moment later he was caught in the uneven circle of dipped headlights and the car was slurring to a halt.
One man was black, the other white. Lethal weapon’s right, Darren thought with a nervous grin. Wearing short jackets and jeans, one with Converse basketball boots, the other tan deck shoes, neither of them looked that much older than he was himself.
“Got the money?” the white bloke asked.
Darren nodded: yes.
“Show.”
Darren had a fleeting thought that they were going to mug him and drive off, pitch him into the canal.
“I’ve got it,” Darren said, “you don’t have to worry.”
“Okay,” the young black man said, turning back towards the car, “we wasting our time.”
“No.” Darren lifted the roll of notes from his pocket and held it for them to see.
The men exchanged looks and made their decision. The boot of the car was unlocked and snapped open. Resting on the spare wheel was a canvas duffle bag and it was this that the black man unfastened and reached inside.
There were two guns in thick polythene, bound at each end with wide brown tape. The tape was prized loose from one end and pulled back, the weapons shaken out onto the bag.
“Pistols, right? That’s what you said?”
“Yeh.”
“Okay, this one …” lifting it for inspection “ … Browning. Like new, hardly been fired. Well good. This-PPK, nothing better. Here, cop a feel.”
Darren took first one, then the other weapon into his hand; they felt alien, cold, heavier than he’d expected. He didn’t want them to know this was his first time, but there was no way they couldn’t tell and their eyes found each other in the dark and shared their amusement at his expense. The white man lit a cigarette and the smoke from it showed light upon the air.
Darren liked the heft of the PPK in the palm of his hand. “How much?”
“Seven hundred.”
“You’re joking.”
The black one held out his hand for the pistol. “Joking,” his companion said, “not something we do a lot of.”
The PPK was replaced carefully inside its polythene sheath.
“The other one, then,” Darren said. “What was it? Browning, yeh. How much for that? That can’t be as much, right?”
The pistols were already out of sight.
“What we were told,” closing the boot, “you were serious. Must’ve been a mistake.”
“Six hundred,” Darren blurted. “I can manage six hundred.”
The white man in the deck shoes had the driver’s door open. “Six and a half.”
“Ammunition. I’m going to need …”
“Half a dozen shells.” He was back in front of Darren, holding out his hand. Behind him, the boot door popped up and the duffle bag reappeared.
“You won’t regret it,” the man said, counting out the notes. “Will he?”
“No,” his mate said, shaking six shells loose from a cardboard box. “I doubt it.”
“This is it?” Prior said, staring up at the house.
Pam Van Allen nodded. “This is it.”
A large building originally, it looked as if extra rooms and sections of roof had been added piecemeal, to accommodate unexpected children or, more likely, a live-in gardener, an undermaid. Ivy clung to the face, thick around the windows and above the polished oak door. At any one time there were a dozen ex-prisoners housed there, occasionally more.