Trust No One. Alex Walters

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СКАЧАТЬ picked up in the last three months. Bail refused in every case. Somebody’s grassing.’ She could see Boyle drop his cigarette butt and crush it hard under his shoe. He looked as if he was envisaging performing the same action on some more animate object.

      ‘We don’t know that,’ Morton said. ‘Shit happens.’

      ‘It’s happening too often lately. We need to do something. Send a fucking signal.’

      ‘We can’t take somebody out just because you think he might be a grass—’

      ‘Why the fuck not?’ Boyle said. ‘Even if we’re wrong, we’ve sent a message.’

      ‘We’ve sent a message that we’re a bunch of fuckwits who don’t know what we’re doing.’

      Marie had moved a step or two closer, listening hard. It was the kind of stuff they needed to get on surveillance, she thought. Which was presumably why Boyle and Morton were having this conversation out in the car park, in case they were bring tapped in their hotel rooms or cars.

      ‘Come on, lads. Bit of teamwork. We’re all pulling in the same direction.’ It was the third figure who’d remained silent up to this point. Kerridge himself, she realized. He gently interposed himself between the two younger men with the air of a boxing referee who can see the bout slipping out of control. ‘You’ve both got a point.’

      There was nothing in what he was saying, she thought, but he had a natural, easy-going authority that had immediately reduced the other two men to silence. His own voice was unexpectedly soft, so that Marie had to strain to make out his words.

      ‘Way I see it,’ Kerridge went on, ‘we’ve got some big deals coming up. Drugs, especially. That Rotterdam consignment’s the biggest we’ve done to date. Can’t afford for that one to go tits up.’

      Marie made a mental note of the reference to Rotterdam. It was quite possible that her relevant colleagues were already on to it, but if not it would be another piece in the jigsaw.

      ‘Too fucking right—’ Boyle began. But Kerridge was continuing to speak, halting Boyle without raising his voice.

      ‘But that’s Jake’s point. If we go stirring up trouble now, without knowing what we’re about, that might be misinterpreted. We’re moving into a different league with some of this new stuff. We don’t want our suppliers to think we’re a bunch of amateurs.’

      ‘I don’t—’

      ‘I know you’ve got the best interests of the business at heart, Pete. And I’m not saying you’re wrong.’ He paused, in a way that seemed theatrical, though Marie could see that he was lighting a cigarette. ‘But we need to get our ducks in a row. Do a bit of digging. If there is a grass, then, yeah, we dispose of him. Quick and clean. Take him out.’ Another pause. ‘I’ve no problem with that.’

      Marie suddenly realized that she was wearing only her thin evening gown and its silly, largely decorative jacket to protect her from the cold. Even so, it wasn’t the temperature that sent a chill down her spine. It was the clinical language. Dispose. Take him out. She was finally beginning to recognize the reality that she was dealing with.

      She pulled her useless jacket more closely around her shoulders and moved another step or two, watching the three men. She was reminded, grotesquely, of a bunch of middle managers discussing a redundancy. Except that in this world, termination had a more literal meaning.

      Up to now, though she hadn’t realized it, this had felt like a game. Like another of Winsor’s exercises. It was hard. It was a challenge. But there were no real consequences. If she failed, it might set her career back a notch or two. Maybe cause her a bit of feminist embarrassment.

      But of course it was much more than that. She was dealing with people who, if they thought she was a threat, wouldn’t hesitate to deal with her. Take her out. Dispose of her.

      Jesus. For the first time, she began to wonder whether she was really up to this.

      ‘What do you think, Jake?’ she heard Kerridge say. ‘You OK with that?’

      Morton had taken a step or two backwards, she thought, as if he were trying to disassociate himself from the other two. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part. She’d liked Jake, maybe even been attracted by him. She didn’t want to think that he was really part of all this.

      ‘It’s the sensible way,’ he said. ‘We don’t want any more screw-ups.’

      And that was it. That was all he said, leaving her in the air. Not knowing whether he was really on board or just going through the motions. She knew what she wanted to believe, but she wasn’t sure what she really did.

      She heard no more of what the men said, because there was a sudden sweep of headlights from beyond the car park entrance. She glanced at the luminous face of her watch. Nearly midnight. This would be the first of the taxis arriving to ferry guests home.

      She was about to slip back along the edge of the cars when the taxi pulled into the car park, turning to the left to arc round towards the hotel entrance. She was caught momentarily in the full blaze of its headlights, dazzled by the glare. She stopped, breathless, feeling like an unprepared actor gripped centre-stage by a spotlight. She was sure, in that moment, that everyone could see her. Kerridge and his cronies. The taxi driver. The clustered smokers.

      Then the lights swept by and she was back in darkness. Kerridge, Boyle and Morton were tracking back towards the hotel now, apparently oblivious to her presence. Beyond the car park, lower on the hill, she could see the flicker of more cars arriving.

      She paused by the car park fence, safe now in the night, waiting for her heart to stop pounding.

      Shit, she thought. I’m really not cut out for this.

      ‘Have you any real grounds to think so?’ Salter had asked a few days later when she’d first brought up her thoughts about Morton. She remembered Salter slumped back in the hotel armchair, his feet propped up on the coffee table. It was impressive, she thought, the way he managed to sound simultaneously both scathing and uninterested. As if he couldn’t quite be bothered to tell her what a stupid suggestion it was.

      She shrugged, then made a show of pouring herself another cup of coffee, ignoring Salter’s empty cup. ‘Not really,’ she said. ‘Just a hunch.’

      ‘Ah. A hunch.’ Salter rolled the word round in his mouth, his expression suggesting that he might be about to spit it out physically. ‘One of those.’

      ‘Woman’s intuition, Hugh. You know how it is. We’re just better at that kind of stuff.’ She smiled. ‘You lot have parallel parking instead.’

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