Freelance 12

CHAPTER THIRTEEN – AMBUSHES

George Upton liked to have an early night on Sundays. George lived with his mother in a small house on South London’s vast St. Helier estate, and had a reputation for being a bit of a hard man. People came to him when they had problems with neighbours, or trouble collecting their debts, and needed a bit of muscle. He had also had some bother with the Old Bill over smuggled cigarettes. He made his living officially selling secondhand cars, but he also filled in on Friday and Saturday nights as a bouncer at a nightclub in Lewisham, and spent a couple of afternoons a week at his local gym, punching hell out of bags – for George would have had boxing ambitions if his mother allowed, but Sandra Upton was adamant that nobody was going to rearrange her boy’s face. His father had long since vanished, run off with a floozie young enough to be his daughter. Neither George nor Sandra missed him.

It was Sunday, and George was watching a little television, prior to turning in. He had worked a long day: on duty at the club until the early hours, then a little job collecting some unpaid rent from a man with pretentions to toughness. The man had been rash, not wanting to pay. George practised a nice line in head-butting, and the man’s nose had bled like a river, and might well have broken. He had found the dosh, no problem. Then a call had come in about a girl flogging her mutton across the river in West Kensington. Silly tart had forgotten to pay her dues to her minder. George carried a cut-throat razor, mainly for effect. Girls did not like the thought of losing their looks. The cow had begun to scream. Silly thing to do: the noise had upset him. She had bled as well, but not so much: he had sliced a sliver from her ear, and forced it between her teeth. It was nothing long hair could not cover. She had paid as well, of course, and Steve, who had been driving, and generally helping out, had laughed and laughed. But then Steve was a bit simple, and could laugh at anything.

George rested his head against the back of his chair, and his eyelids began to droop. Sandra watched him fondly. George was a good boy, no bother at all. He drank very little, always helped with the dishes, and slid her a couple of big ones from time to time, to spend on going out and making herself look good. She could not understand why the Bill hounded him – he worked hard for his living, and somebody had to keep the world in order.

‘You look tired, George.’ She spoke softly, because her son did not like to be bothered. But a mother cannot help being a mother.

George grunted. He would go to bed when he was ready.

The telephone began to ring, and they were both suddenly alert.

‘You answer it, mum.’ George made a pushing gesture with his hand. He did not like telephones, they sometimes brought trouble. People sometimes rang him, for the odd job or two, but he preferred face to face meetings. He could assess and negotiate risks and rewards much more easily in face to face dealings.

Sandra picked the telephone up cautiously. It was late for anyone to call. She had a boyfriend, sort of, who took her out from time to time. But he had strict orders not to ring her at home unless it was urgent. She knew George didd not like it.

‘Hello?’ Her voice wavered. She listened for a moment, and covered the mouthpiece with her hand as she looked at her son. ‘It’s for you.’

George retreated into his chair. ‘Who is it?’

‘Dunno. Some man.’

George took the telephone reluctantly, grunting into it, and then stiffened. He was listening to a voice he had not heard for a while, the voice of a very powerful man indeed.

‘George?’ The voice was affable. ‘How could you do with a grand in readies tomorrow afternoon?’

George was immediately all respect. ‘I’d be glad, guv’nor. Anything I can do to help.’

‘It’s a little job in Chelsea. There’s this man, he’s being a bit of a pain. Some friends of mine want him trussed up and taken out of town.’

‘Yes, guv.’ George’s respect shaded a little. ‘Taken out of town’ might be a euphemism for something rather terminal, and terminations conventionally cost rather more than a thousand. He hesitated. He had never topped a man yet. ‘You want him six feet under?’

‘No, George. Not that.’ The telephone voice was reproachful. ‘Just a delivery.’

George heaved a small sigh of relief. ‘No problem, guv.’

‘Good.’ The voice began to speak quickly. ‘Find yourself a van and a mate, and go to 235 Kings Road, it’s on the Fulham side of Chelsea Town Hall. The top floor flat belongs to a man called Richard Lindsay, he shares it with a model called Melanie Crowther. Go there as soon as you can, and wait for him if he isn’t there. Truss him up when you have him and call 0724 0798, you’ll be answered by an answering machine. Just say ‘the cat is in the bag’, and then take him to the abandoned airfield at Alpheton, on the A134 between Sudbury and Bury St. Edmunds in Suffolk, and park at the northern end of the runway. You must be there by eight tomorrow morning, because this thing has got to be quick. A plane will come to collect him.’ The voice paused. ‘Do you have a shooter?’

George had friends prepared to supply anything for cash up front..

‘Good, but don’t damage him unless he cuts up rough.’ The telephone was silent for a moment, before speaking again thoughtfully. ‘Hmm, and I’ll allow you another five big ones for your mate, the van and the hardware.’

George beamed. A grand and a half for a quick snatch would be a piece of cake. He was already calculating his profit as he hung up. Steve had a bent Transit, and would be glad to lose it for fifty, would drive it as well for another ton. A shooter would run maybe another fifty for the day, providing it was not used. He would be rich, and really no bother at all.

He looked at his watch. He could catch Steve would be at home, and the man with the hardware in the back room at the Lowndes Arms. He stretched. It was time to start moving.

Half an hour later he was heading towards the Thames, driving a rusty white Transit, with Steve seated beside him. He had tucked a sawn-off shotgun, well wrapped up in sacking, under a couple of crates of fish donated by a mate with a fish and chip shop, just in case he was pulled by a rozzer. The hardware man would understand about the smell when he got his gun back, particularly if it came with an extra tenner. Steve sat cleaning his nails with George’s razor. George did not really approve, because razors were dangerous. But Steve treated the shiv like a toy, and it seemed hard to refuse him such a simple pleasure.

The Kings Road was quiet as they reached Lindsay’s address. George parked the van in a side street and approached the ground floor entrance. It was a gift entrance, set back in a kind of open porch that hid them from the open street. The door to the flats was locked, but Steve had a way with locks, and it only took him a couple of seconds to open it. They padded upstairs, lighting their way with Steve’s big torch, hunters seeking a prey. The top floor flat was silent, and Steve again worked his magic on the lock, slipping the door open almost without a sound. They both slipped balaclavas over their heads, masks with slits for their eyes and mouths – it always paid to be anonymous on missions like these. George unwrapped the shotgun, wrinkling his nose at the smell. The fish was a good idea, for keeping nosy coppers at bay, but the sacking stank worse than a rotting shark.

They pad into the flat, softly trying doors. They heard sounds coming from behind one door, the sounds of two people screwing themselves silly, and George and Steve exchanged quick hungry smiles. Somebody was about to get a really nasty shock. George positioned himself facing the door, bracing the shotgun against his hip. He expected no trouble, but it always paid to be careful. Steve suddenly turned the door handle to push the door open fast, shining his torch into the room in a searching beam. It caught a couple in bed, fastening on them.

The couple lay enlaced as the beam caught them. They seemed frozen in shock for a moment, before parting in a flurry of movement, both tugging at a duvet to cover themselves. Both were white-faced in the light, staring at the doorway, and both seem terrified, too frightened to scream or yell. One was a man with long dark hair, a bit of a ponce, by the look of him. The other was a girl, a dish of a girl, a real peach, with big dark eyes dilated with fear. George licked his lips. Now he really could enjoy himself. Frightening birds was always a pleasure. But frightening good-lookeders was cream on the cake. He and Steve would teach this little miss some juicy lessons, once they had nicely secured her boyfriend.

‘Alright, Mr. Lindsay, get your clothes on.’ George made his voice cold, the voice of a man of ice. He was a hard man, nobody monkeyed with him. Steve switched on the bedroom light, and he swung the shotgun from side to side to make sure the two in the bed could see it clearly. ‘We’ve come to take you for a little drive.’

The man in the bed shrank back behind the girl, and George felt his temper begin to rise. Nothing narked him more than a coward. He gestured with the gun. ‘You heard what I said.’

Now the man was out of the bed, standing covering his genitals with his hands, and shaking with fear. ‘I’m not Richard.’ His teeth chattered as he tries to get his words out.

‘I said get dressed.’ George had heard it all before, at least a dozen times. People were never the people they were supposed to be when they stared down the sharp end of a gun. Guns had a magic effect. They always thought they were somebody else.

‘He’s not, he’s really not. Richard doesn’t come back until tomorrow morning.’ The girl’s voice was a small wail of terror. She had begun to cry.

‘I said get dressed.’

The man hesitated. But Steve was now playing with George’s razor, testing the blade delicately with his thumb, and he had a strange, distant look on his face. He approached the man, and the man scrabbled blindly at clothing laid out on a chair.

The room was silent, except for the girl’s soft sobbing.

George waited until the man had pulled on his shirt and slacks, socks and shoes, and nodded to Steve. They had worked out their plan in the Transit: open up the pad, grab the geezer, truss him up, trot him down to the van. He had no need to speak. Steve had a length of rope, equally handy for trussing or hanging.

‘Ok, down on the carpet, on your face.’

The man was shaking his head as though demented. ‘I’m not. I’m not really not. My name is Paul Cormack, I’m a photographer. I can prove it.’ He had tugged a wallet from his hip pocket and was waving a press card bearing a picture. ‘Look, here’s my NUJ card.’

‘Down on the carpet.’ George gestured with the shotgun. Strange development. But the man was best trussed, for safety’s sake, before he started to check this one out.

Cormack knelt and then lay down reluctantly. Steve tied his hands quickly, and used the razor to cut a strip from the duvet cover to use as a gag, first making a small ball of material to stuff into Cormack’s mouth, then binding his strip tight across Cormack’s face. He stood up, and kicked Cormack hard in his stomach to test for tightness. Cormack made a muffled groan of a sound that might have have been a scream ungagged, and Steve looked pleased with himself. He had done a good job.

George pointed to the press card, and Steve passed it to him. He looked at it, and frowned. Seemed like the man was telling the truth. The photo was clearly a picture of the man on the floor, identifying him as Paul Cormack, fully paid up member of the National Union of Journalists.

George stared at the girl. He needed to know all about this. The girl was now trying to hide behind the duvet, clutching it around her. But she was only a girl. He handed the shotgun to Steve, took his razor, and stepped up to the side of the bed. The girl watched him in her terror, unable to take her eyes off the blade. He waved it a couple of times to create a good effect, and then suddenly snatched at the duvet, pulling it away so that she was naked. She crouched back, and he lickd his lips. This was good, this was fun.

He waved the razor in front of her face, watching her eyes follow it, as though mesmerised. ‘Right, dear. Tell me what’s going on.’

‘Richard’s not here.’ Her voice held a note of desperation. This was getting better and better.

‘So you’re screwing with one of his mates?’

The girl did not reply, but looked down, avoiding his eyes.

George stepped up very close to her and buried his hand in her hair, yanking her head up. This was very good indeed. Much more of this and he would have an erection, and if he grew hard, he knew he would need some action. ‘So, what’s this bloke doing here?’

Melanie was silent. She was petrified, but she could not speak. She could only think of the man’s cut-throat razor, and what it might do to her face.

George licked his lips. He could feel himself growing inside his trousers, and he felt good, because he was master of the situation, and a man in control. He yanked again. ‘One last chance, dear. The blade’s very sharp.’ He holds the sharp steel under her nose. ‘This is a razor. Has a lot of handy uses. I could shave you clean as a whistle.’ He sliced a tendril of hair from close to the girl’s ear, taking pleasure as she winced. He waved the blade again, slicing the air in front of her eyes. ‘I could make you look like a patchwork quilt, tramlines everywhere. Nobody would look at you then.’

He was slicing the blade backwards and forwards in front of her, closer and closer. Maybe he could start on one of her eyebrows, trim it off. Girl like this, with her looks, would do anything to keep them. He had a vision of her, on her knees in front of him, fumbling with his zip, and it was almost more than he could bear.

He did not hear the door to the flat open, nor the light tread of footsteps, until it was too late, and then it was too late, because Lindsay was standing behind him, and he had a gun in his hand.

Lindsay had planned his homecoming as an operation of stealth. It was likely Melanie had Cormack in the flat, and he imagined the two would be writhing in his bed. He winced at the thought, but a man must face even the hardest reality. He decided to burst into the flat, and block the bedroom doorway, whilst Aileen, Heath and Yvonne deployed in a mopping up operation. They would be four against two, and Melanie was no fighter: she only cared about her face and her body. He would handle Cormack on his own, and he would be armed by revenge.

Aileen’s Mini parked outside 235 Kings Road, and he issued a last minute briefing. ‘My bedroom is straight through the front door, then second door on the left, after the diningroom.’

Aileen thought of a wheelbrace in the Mini’s boot. She was a grownup girl, and prepared to behave in a grownup way. ‘Shall I bring a big stick?’

Lindsay smiled at her fondly. She was a girl and a half, with good looks and a good background, fluent in French and German, and well on her way to qualifying for a private pilot’s licence, a spin-off from riding the skies. Just the right kind to take home to the parents for tea. He smiled at the thought, because it stowed itself away in his mind quite naturally. Lindsay’s father had begun talking of grandchildren, and his mother would thoroughly approve. No catwalk vanities about Aileen. But he shook his head gently. He did not want to play rough.

The three British Caledonian girls grouped behind him as he fumbled to find his key to the street level entrance. Strangely the door was unlocked. Lindsay began to climb the stairs warily, his ears cocked. Cormack might be taking advantage again, leaving the ground floor entrance open, planning to use his flat for partying. He advanced the last few steps to the top floor on soft pussycat feet. But the building was silent, no party noises at all. He prepared to unlock his front door, and realises that this was also on the latch. A tiny alarm bell began to ring in his mind, and he felt under his armpit. This was his own front door, and it was open, and something was totally out of order. The alarm bell in his mind refused to switch off, and he pulled Delahaye’s gun gently free from its holster to cock it, using his body to shield it from the three girls at his shoulder. It seemed ridiculous, playing cops and robbers in his own pad, but a man must be prepared for all eventualities. The girls need not know, if he discovered later that he had gone over the top for no reason. He could just slip the gun quietly back into its holster.

He pushed at the door very gently. He could see a light in his bedroom, and he heard a male voice. But it did not sound like Cormack. It was somehow too tough. Lindsay signed to the three girls to wait, and sidled towards the open doorway. He stood for a moment listening, and heard a man talking in a menacing way, and it was definitely not Cormack. Somebody was threatening Melanie, and Lindsay smiled to himself, because somebody was about to get a big shock.

He made sure that the gun was ready to fire, stepped into the doorway, and saw two men in the room. One was big and square, standing by his bed, waving a cut-throat razor at Melanie, and she was naked, and staring up at him, quite mesmerised, with the terror of a defenceless rabbit convinced that it had come to its last moment. A second man stood beyond the bed, holding a shotgun loosely, looking down at something on the carpet.

Lindsay had watched American crime thrillers on TV: he knew the words. He barked in his best parade ground voice. ‘Freeze. Both of you.’

Both men quivered, and swivelled to looked at him. The man holding the cut throat razor twitched, as though contemplating a lunge of some sort, but then saw Lindsay’s gun, and was still. The man on the far side of the bed fumbled with the shotgun, and then lowered it.

Lindsay could feel the three British Caledonian girls at his shoulder. He stepped sideways, to let them pass. Now they could see his gun, but it did not matter any more. It was something he needed, to control the situation. He spoke quickly. ‘Get the shotgun, Aileen.’

He watched as she took it. Now they were two up, and no other firearms in sight. ‘D’you know how to use it?’

Aileen nodded.

‘Heather, get the razor.’

Yvonne frowned. Somehow she felt she was being left out of things. She circled the bed, to find herself looking down at a man, trussed like a chicken. This was her discovery.

Melanie began to weep again, and Yvonne moved to comfort her. Heather made the second villain untruss the body on the bedroom carpet, and Cormack got cautiously to his feet. He could see that Lindsay held a gun, and he was fearful. Lindsay ordered his two prisoners to stand with their faces to the bedroom wall, and listened as Melanie coughed out an account of their arrival. She was still tearful, because she could not rid her mind of the razor swinging from side to side, ever closer to her eyes. Lindsay took the razor, testing the edge with his thumb. It was remarkably sharp.

‘Ok, you two.’ He stood a little way behind the two men facing the wall. ‘Talk to me.’

George and Steve were both silent. George had no intention of talking, and Steve knew nothing.

Lindsay pondered for a moment. Somebody wished him ill, perhaps from Germany. He took a step closer to George.

‘Who sent you?’

George was silent.

The razor was really very sharp indeed. Lindsay ran it caressingly down the back of the jacket of the man in front of him, and was surprised to see how well it slashed the material. He caught his breath apologetically. ‘Sorry, your jacket is coming apart.’

The man facing the wall tensed. But he still did not reply.

‘I could cut your throat, you know.’ Lindsay’s voice was conversational. But he was unsure where he was heading. He had never used physical violence against anyone, not since playground fights at school. Slicing the man was an easy thought, no more than slicing into steak. But he had never done such a thing, and he was not sure he wanted to do it. He stepped back. Perhaps the three British Caledonian girls might come up with an answer.

Heather watched him with a strange look in her eyes, a kind of hungry fire. She had been briefly married, and had no great opinion of men. She joined Lindsay, holding out her hand.

‘Can I have him for a moment?’ She stared at the cut-throat razor. ‘And that.’

Lindsay nodded. He was not sure how she could do better.

Heather knelt. ‘Make sure you have a gun pointing at his brains, if he has any.’ Her voice was hard, a bitter voice. ‘He may start jumping about.’ She began to stroke the front of George’s slacks, and then unzipped them slowly, to fumble inside. She pulled his penis free, and he was erect, and she had his cut-throat razor in her other hand. ‘Now ask him whatever you want to know. I’ll slice bits off him if he refuses to talk.’ She laughed harshly. ‘I had a husband, once. I know how to carve.’

George was perhaps not as hard as he thought himself. He felt this woman’s hand invading him, and could sense the sharp blade of his razor slicing into him, even though he was yet untouched, and he was suddenly beyond all terror. He began to talk, quickly and fluently, repeating everything for good measure, with sweat pouring down his face, because it was one thing to be a hard man exercising power and engendering fear, but something quite different to be in fear oneself.

Lindsay questioned him, and looked at the three British Caledonian girls. Now they formed a team.

Aileen spoke as their leader. ‘Let’s call his answering machine, take the van and go and meet this plane.’ She was close to taking her final pilot’s exam, and she scented a chance to joyride. She would be practising, even if she added no qualifying hours.

Heather and Yvonne both nodded enthusiastically. They were having the adventure of a lifetime, with no risks at all.

Lindsay eyed Melanie. Cormack was now seated in a corner of the bedroom, quite mute. He had nothing to say, and feared that anything he did say might lead him into danger, for he had watched Heather from nearby, and he had no illusions about her willingness to butcher.

Aileen was decisive. ‘We’d better take them as well. Otherwise they’ll spill the beans.’ She eyed Melanie with contempt. Pretty faces might be pretty faces, but they were no replacement for guts. ‘Let’s get going.’

Freelance 14