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  ‘No, pal, it won’t happen again,’ said McGregor ruefully and nodded at Abbott.

  Abbott grasped the guy’s wrist with his left hand, tensed on the little finger with his right. He reminded himself that this was a guy who made money off the back of human misery. He told himself that carrying out the punishment might deter him for the future.

  Perhaps he was even doing the kid a favour.

  He broke the finger.

  The kid was still screaming as they left the house without another word.

  ‘Excellent, pal,’ said McGregor when they were settled back in the car. ‘I don’t have the stomach for that kind of work myself.’

  Abbott looked out of the window.

  ***

  Their next stop took them to a tatty block of flats and right to the top. Abbott, to his shame, knew a prostitute’s flat when he saw one, and he was seeing one now. She sat in the front room, dressed for work, a young Polish girl, not more than twenty-two but old enough to be married with a kid of five or six. He also knew a junkie when he saw one. Two junkies, to be exact. There was a husband on the scene. A jittery guy who loitered, speaking only briefly in Polish.

  This, then, was ‘the Polish prozzie’.

  ‘You’re short,’ said McGregor to her, and they waited as she translated for the husband. The kid tried to enter the room but was ushered away. The door to the kitchen shut. Abbott steeled himself, unsure if he could go through with another ‘punishment’. The drug dealer was one thing. This pair quite another.

  ‘But business hasn’t been good,’ she managed, unable to summon the necessary conviction.

  ‘Well, you see, a little birdie tells me that you’ve been out buying gear. Might be that we have to take our payment in other ways,’ said McGregor, who looked meaningfully towards the kitchen. From within they could hear the kid singing to himself and playing, blissfully unaware of what was happening outside.

  Abbott felt his heart harden, wanting to reach for his Glock but keeping his face neutral. Meanwhile, the woman was shaking, pleading with McGregor in Polish and English, McGregor merely nodding, letting his threat stand.

  They left the flat, stood out in the hall. McGregor held up a finger. Wait. Then he pulled out a pen, made a mark on the door, although nothing was visible. ‘UV pen,’ he explained. ‘So the boys know.’

  ‘They don’t get another chance to pay up, then?’

  ‘Och, no, those two are never going to pay. We might as well move in before they get their act together and ship the kid out.’

  As they left the block, McGregor made another mark. He caught Abbott looking. ‘You sure this doesn’t bother you, pal?’ he asked slyly.

  Abbott shook his head. ‘Business is business.’

  But he thought of the couple upstairs who right now would be living in fear, and at that moment he hated himself even more than usual.

  CHAPTER 23

  The day of work over, Abbott expected to be dropped in the town centre. Instead, McGregor took them back to Kemptown.

  ‘What’s all this, then?’ asked Abbott warily. The MP7 was hidden in his hotel room but he carried his Glock and his Gerber knife. Even so, Doyle had the numbers. None of them were likely as fast and accurate as Abbott. But still. Numbers.

  ‘Don’t you worry your pretty little head, pal,’ smirked McGregor. ‘It’s just that the boss wants a word, that’s all.’

  ‘A bit early for a performance review, don’t you think?’

  ‘Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe the boss just wants to get the measure of you.’

  ‘What have you told him about me?’ asked Abbott, thinking that if McGregor had informed Doyle about Abbott’s occasional information-gathering exercises then Doyle’s suspicions might have been raised. And if Doyle’s suspicions had been raised, then what might he have in store?

  A kid, as it turned out. A kid and a brassy-looking woman, who sat in the factory reception area.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve met Mrs Cynthia Doyle, have you?’ said McGregor with an amused air. She wore a furry lounge suit and was completely made up. Once upon a time, you would have called a woman like that ‘brassy’. Abbott mentally called her that now.

  ‘I haven’t had the pleasure,’ said Abbott.

  The kid was, what, sixteen? A smattering of teenage acne on his forehead, sullen expression, dressed like a walking advertisement for Nike. ‘And this is Finn,’ said McGregor, adding, surely in a spirit of stirring the shitpot, ‘One day all this will be yours, eh, Finn?’

  Finn responded by pushing his hands into the pockets of his track pants and sneering. Abbott saw a large expensive watch on a gold bracelet worn loosely, along with several other bits of jewellery. A gold chain around his neck.

  ‘And may I introduce your father’s newest employee, Owen Flyte. Let me tell you, this is the real deal we got right here. A proper bad man, and don’t you forget it.’

  Finn was looking at Abbott. ‘You the SAS man?’

  ‘Something like that,’ said Abbott.

  ‘How many you killed, then?’

  ‘Enough,’ said Abbott.

  Finn rolled his eyes apparently dissatisfied with the answer but offering no real reason why.

  ‘You guys waiting for the boss man?’ asked McGregor. Mrs Doyle curled her lip in response. Finn stayed silent. ‘Well, I don’t suppose you’ll be very long. Just a quick meeting with this one here.’ McGregor jerked a thumb at Abbott. ‘Come on then, Mr Flyte. Let’s get this over and done with so these good people can get back home, eh?’

  They trooped up to the office, knocked and went inside, where Abbott was surprised to find that Doyle sat by himself, nursing a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of Coke, fixing himself a drink as they entered, the latest in a fairly long line by the look of things.

  ‘Well, well,’ he said, sloppily, ‘if it ain’t my new friend Owen Flyte. How you getting on with the work then, Owen, eh? Hours to your liking, are they? Pleased with the holiday cover?’ Before Abbott could reply he had turned his attention to McGregor. ‘How’s he getting on then, Mack?’

  ‘Oh, aye, he’s doing very well. A valuable addition to the team, I’d say. Putting the fear of God into the natives.’

  ‘Well, you can’t say fairer than that. That’s what you’re here for, after all.’

  ‘I thought I was here under orders.’

  ‘Well, you see,’ said Doyle, taking a big slug of whiskey and then leaning back in his chair, ‘that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. See, I’m still being kept in the fuckin’ dark here. I want to know why London are so interested in you.’ He reached to scratch at his sweatshirt in the usual place. Abbott noticed that the spot was more faded than the rest of his top. A spot close to his heart.

  OK, thought Abbott, play this one carefully. One wrong move. One thing he said that didn’t check out, and his cover, that most flimsy of disguises, was blown. Then again, perhaps he could tease something out of Doyle.

  ‘I’ve already told you everything I know. Strikes me that you need to speak to Kilgore.’

  ‘You went through a go-between, is that right?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Abbott. All his work had been conducted that way. There was no reason to believe that Flyte operated any differently. And one thing becoming clear about the London end of the operation was that they operated very much on a need-to-know basis.

  ‘And you weren’t told why you were needed up here?’

  ‘I never am. Ours not to reason why . . .’

  ‘Ours but to do or die,’ said McGregor.

  ‘All right, all right,’ said Doyle, irritated. ‘Come on now, Flyte, you must have some idea why London are so interested in you? You must be wondering why they want you kept here,’

  Abbott shook his head. ‘There could be any number of reasons. Perhaps they’re lining me up for another job. Perhaps there’s heat and they need to wait for it to die down. Right now it suits me to stay. I’ll be sure to let you know as soon as it doesn’t.’

&nbs
p; ‘Lining you up for another job, eh?’ Doyle’s eyes narrowed. ‘I wonder. I wonder if that’s it. What does Juliet have planned?’ He said this last bit to McGregor. Abbott’s ears pricked up. Juliet. Who was Juliet?

  At that moment, Doyle’s phone buzzed. He looked at it then spoke to McGregor, slurring his words. ‘Go downstairs, would you, tell them I’ll be down in a minute.’

  McGregor nodded and left the room.

  Doyle drained his whiskey, took a final pull on a cigarette and stubbed it out. He put his elbow to the table, pointing, so that Abbott half expected him to say, ‘You’re fired.’ Instead what he said was, ‘You better be being straight with me, Flyte. If Juliet wants to try something, let her try. I’ve got a safe in there full of all the evidence that I need to put her away for the rest of her life.’

  He was pointing to a door off to one side, his finger trembling. He was almost completely in the bag. Probably didn’t Juliet?’ he asked.

  Doyle stood unsteadily, grasping onto the edge of the desk for support, the effects of the booze clearly hitting him with more force than he had anticipated. ‘Perhaps you’ll never find out,’ he said to Abbott. ‘Better for you that way.’

  That night, back in his hotel, Abbott spoke to Cuckoo. ‘I got three names for you to look at in conjunction with Doyle. A bloke called Sweaty. Don’t know the real name. Another guy, Kilgore. Presumably a surname. Somebody else, the name’s Juliet.’

  ‘I’ll see what I can do, Abbott,’ said Cuckoo. ‘How’s it going up there?’

  ‘I’m still alive, mate. Only just. But I’m still alive.’

  CHAPTER 24

  In order to employ a suitable security consultant, which is to say, a security consultant with the necessary ethics, or lack thereof, the ex-husband of Montana Norton, Clifford Levine, had approached the firm retained by Norton Gaming, spoken to his contact there and explained that he needed a more, shall we say, ‘specialised’ service, a service that was to be strictly off the books.

  He had been given a name – Monroe – and a meeting had been arranged. During the meeting, Clifford had looked across at Monroe, who drank a sparkling water as Clifford nursed a G&T. This guy looked like a hard nut made good. He was, in short, just the person that Clifford Levine needed.

  Clifford had hired him on the spot.

  The two met now, in a branch of All Bar One in Canary Wharf in London, Clifford having dived out of work for fifteen minutes; Monroe looking like a work contact in a smart single-breasted suit.

  The only other people in the place were two women having what looked like a business meeting over coffee. Clifford and Monroe took a table well out of earshot.

  ‘What do we know about the proxies of the others?’ asked Clifford.

  ‘Nothing. Your opponents have conducted themselves with absolute secrecy, just as we have. All I know is that your mother-in-law, Juliet—’

  ‘Ex-mother-in-law.’

  ‘Of course. It appears that her first choice fell through for some reason. I’ve no news of a replacement.’

  ‘Oh, well, that’s good news. Juliet Norton in disarray. Poor old mother-in-law. Ex-mother-in-law.’

  ‘Which still leaves you, Mr Levine.’

  Clifford nodded. His tongue darted over his lips.

  ‘I trust you have reviewed all the material I sent you.’

  It had all been uploaded to a protected hosting site, and, yes, Clifford Levine, sitting in a penthouse flat with the glittering lights of London as a backdrop, had reviewed it all. ‘I read everything you sent. Looked at all the videos. I’ve made my decision.’ He slid his phone across. On it was displayed a picture of a woman. ‘What do you think?’

  ‘I think that had you tried to choose anybody else then I may have attempted to change your mind,’ said Monroe, nodding approvingly. ‘Heidi Kavanagh is her name. I should declare an interest because I have, in the past, had a relationship with Heidi, and I can tell you from experience, not all of it pleasurable, that she will prove a very capable operative.’

  ‘I like it. It feels like the left-field choice,’ said Clifford, feeling very modern, very progressive.

  ‘You mean because she’s a woman?’

  Clifford nodded.

  ‘She may be that,’ said Monroe. ‘I can indeed vouch for it. She also happens to be the best. Whatever your reasons for making the choice, I can assure you that you’ve made the right one.’

  CHAPTER 25

  At night, Abbott struggled, finding it tough to resist the clarion call of the bar downstairs. When he closed his eyes, he heard the crack of the drug dealer’s finger. He remembered the looks on the Polish couple’s faces. He told himself that the ends justified the means, but it did little to assuage his guilt. It made it no easier to gaze upon his own reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  Over the next couple of days, things got worse. Until one afternoon, he and McGregor visited what was clearly a derelict pub in the shadow of tower blocks that according to the various taped-off doorways and windows – not to mention the prominent warning signs – were earmarked for demolition.

  Looking around, Abbott found himself reminded of bomb sites in Belfast, areas of the city that had been reduced to rubble and would stay like that for a while. Here the culprit was not bombs but poverty, neglect and misconceived town planning. Not far away was a burnt-out car. Close by, somebody had dumped household rubbish, scorched kitchen units, an incongruous pushchair.

  And in the middle of it all, as though mounting a valiant rearguard action in an attempt to resist the encroachment of the wasteland, was the pub.

  The Freemasons Arms was its name. Or had been. Now, though, the windows were covered with metal grilles. The door was reinforced.

  McGregor led Abbott to it and knocked. Another incongruity was a modern-looking CCTV camera trained on the door. McGregor looked up into it, smiling sardonically, and moments later, the door was opened for them by a guy with a machete tucked into his belt. He raised his chin in silent greeting, allowed them in and closed the door.

  Now they found themselves in what would once have been the bar area, which even though it was unused and derelict, was comparatively habitable considering the state of outside. It even seemed to have a working bar. Sitting on a banquette seat along one wall was a nervous-looking guy whose eyes travelled to McGregor and Abbott. A customer, thought Abbott. What kind of guy was so desperate to get his rocks off that he went to a place where the doormen carried machetes?

  Answer? A degenerate.

  At a table on the other side of the room sat three men who looked like security. They’d been playing cards but were gazing over curiously, as was a black guy with dreadlocks who stood behind the bar. Along with the optics and pumps were monitors showing feeds from the front and back of the pub.

  ‘Mr McGregor,’ said the guy behind the bar. ‘Can I get you a beer?’

  ‘Aye, I’ll have a beer. And one for my friend here, Mr Flyte.’

  ‘Who is Mr Flyte?’ said the barman, dead-eyed. As he spoke, he drew back the leather waistcoat he wore, displaying the handle of another machete beneath.

  ‘He’s providing security for Mr McGregor,’ said Abbott, sweeping back his own shirt to expose the butt of his Glock and gratified to see the guy’s eyes widen a little in response. Just a touch.

  McGregor chuckled. ‘Fucking hell, this is like bringing your bird to meet your parents.’

  ‘Excuse me,’ the voice was small and came from the guy sitting on the banquette. He had stood up. ‘I’m sorry, but I think I’ve changed my mind.’

  ‘Sit down, your room’ll be ready soon,’ barked one of the guys from the card table.

  McGregor stared at him, waited until he’d regained his seat and then said to the barman, ‘Tell you what, I’ll leave that beer as long as that’s all right with you, Mr Flyte?’

  It was. It was more than all right with Abbott, who had been wondering how a refusal might play; indeed, had been wondering whether he wanted to refuse at all, and besi
des, guilt could take a day off as this was duty, not addiction.

  ‘Where’s Sweaty?’ asked McGregor. ‘Is he in the cellar?’

  Sweaty.

  Abbott felt his jaw clench, breathing through his nose as the barman nodded. McGregor and Abbott moved off, through a door at one side of the bar and down stone steps into the cellar.

  Here, the walls were bare brick, dark and damp.

  Here, too, was Sweaty.

  It was not difficult to see why. He sat there like Yoda. No, not like Yoda, the other one, Jabba, stewing in his own juice – the juice in this case being a mix of biscuits and booze and stubble and cigarette smoke. He wore an old England shirt, three lions on his chest, just to the side of which was a stain that might have been ketchup or blood.

  He turned as they entered. ‘Mr McGregor,’ he said through a mouthful of biscuit. There was a packet of Hobnobs on the desk in front of him, the screwed-up wrappers of several more there, too, while in front of him was a series of monitors, arranged in a wraparound formation, each showing CCTV images.

  Some were of outside, front and back, two more of the pub’s communal areas. Most, though, were of rooms, the sharp end of the operation.

  In one, a young girl no older than nine sat on the edge of a bed in her night clothes. In another was a woman – older, thank God for small mercies – emaciated, sitting at a table, her hands shaking as she rolled herself a cigarette; in the third, a client, a vast sweating hulk of a man, who completely obscured whoever it was he was currently paying to abuse. Another room was clearly some kind of communal area. In here were more girls. Again, very, very young. There were other youngsters, one of whom held a dustpan and brush. Support staff, no doubt.

  All told, Abbott counted around ten of them. Not all of them kids, depending on your definition of the word. But all of them trafficked. He had always known that he hadn’t needed to go as far as Thailand to face off with child traffickers; he knew that it was happening in this country, too; more and more frequently as more and more desperate people poured in. But to see it up close, having it rubbed in his face? That was different.