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  ‘Fond of the merchandise, is he?’

  ‘Not in the way you’re thinking, pal,’ smirked McGregor, but left it there.

  They reached the main factory building.

  McGregor led him inside to a series of dingy ground-floor offices. He was invited to take a seat and he found himself wondering if they knew. Was he unwittingly walking into a t rap that at some point would be sprung, armed men guffawing at his pathetic attempts to escape? Not for the first time it struck him that he had literally no idea of what he was getting himself into.

  After sitting there a while, feeling like a guy in a dentist’s waiting room, they appeared. A phalanx. The Red Arrows, if the Red Arrows were provincial thugs led by a big guy with a navy sweatshirt stretched over a huge belly, who took a draw from a cigarette and said, as though he had been rehearsing it, ‘My name is Raymond Doyle. And right now, you’re alive because I say so.’

  ‘I came of my own accord,’ replied Abbott flatly, still sitting, refusing to be intimidated by the entourage.

  ‘You think, do you?’ said Doyle. ‘Here, come with me. There’s a few things I want to know.’

  ‘I don’t know if I can help you,’ said Abbott.

  ‘How about we decide that in my office?’ He turned to one of his men. ‘Have you patted him down?’ The guy looked shifty in return, shaking his head, a guilty no. ‘Well, then do it!’ roared Doyle.

  The guy gave Abbott a pat down, but it was so cursory he missed the Gerber knife in Abbott’s boot. Amateurs, reflected Abbott as Doyle headed the group out of the reception area onto what had once been a factory floor and then across that to a set of metal steps at the other end. Up they went in silence until they reached a gantry above, close to the mouth of a large, funnelled inlet, which led to a huge machine beneath.

  Doyle stopped, took a final drag of his cigarette and then flicked it into the funnel.

  Abbott looked at him. ‘Expensive ashtray.’

  ‘Meat grinder,’ said Doyle. Close by was a large red stop/ start button, and he punched it, grinning as the machine started up with a deafening whine. The sound of grinding industrial blades came from below. ‘Your friend Abbott will be going in there later. Scutter, too,’ he yelled over the sound of the machine starting up. Abbott tensed, wondering if this was it, until just as suddenly Doyle punched the red button again and the machine wound down.

  Doyle led the group into an office which boasted views out over the empty factory. He took a seat behind a large desk.

  ‘So you’re Owen Flyte?’

  Abbott nodded. ‘But you already know that.’

  ‘And here’s the problem, mate,’ growled Doyle, leaning forward and snatching a packet of Benson & Hedges, pulling one out and lighting up without offering them to anybody else. ‘That is literally all I know. And do you know what? I don’t like that. It pisses me off. You staying in the city?’

  ‘Close enough.’

  ‘Where?’

  This was good, thought Abbott. Whatever surveillance they’d mounted hadn’t extended to discovering his room at the Travelodge. ‘I’ll be keeping that information to myself for the time being, thank you.’

  ‘Suspicious, eh?’

  Abbott shrugged. ‘This is the bit where I say that being suspicious keeps me alive.’

  ‘Very wise.’ Doyle leaned back. ‘All right, we’ll let that one go. A man needs his privacy. But just you make sure that I get answers soon, or the next finger you break will be your own, got it?’

  Abbott swallowed, knowing that now, more than ever, this was a trip into the unknown. What were they doing? Testing him? Interrogating him? Either way this could end badly if he said something that met with their displeasure.

  ‘What are you doing in Derby?’

  ‘You know what I’m doing in Derby. I’m doing a job in Derby. Correction. I’ve done a job in Derby.’

  Doyle’s eyes squinted as he took a deep drag, smoking it like he wanted it to kill him. ‘I want to know why.’

  ‘Would you believe I don’t know?’ said Abbott.

  A silence hung in the room. Abbott kept his face neutral but his mind raced. Was this the right answer? ‘I was given names,’ he continued carefully. ‘Provided with pictures and told that McGregor would be in touch. That’s all.’

  Doyle’s face darkened. He stubbed the cigarette out angrily in an already overflowing ashtray. He reached for another.

  ‘I’m sorry if I give offence,’ said Abbott neutrally, ‘the fact is . . . Mr Doyle . . .’ At that Doyle looked a little appeased, nodding approvingly at Abbott’s newfound show of respect, ‘the fact is that the only details I was given are the ones we’ve already discussed.’

  ‘Well, in that case, I do have the edge on you,’ smiled Doyle, losing a little more of his sore-headed bear demeanour. ‘I happen to know that what you did today was some form of a test. Reckon you’ve passed with flying colours.’

  ‘What sort of a test?’ said Abbott.

  ‘Kilgore didn’t mention it?’

  Kilgore? Who was Kilgore? And why did Abbott feel like he’d just been given a glimpse into the higher echelons? He felt his palms moisten. ‘Not in so many words, no,’ he said.

  ‘You like to play things close to your chest, don’t you?’ Doyle reached to scratch at his faded sweatshirt. Chest hair sprouted at the collar.

  ‘It’s kept me alive so far.’

  ‘How about if I tell you that Kilgore wants me to keep you here for the time being?’

  ‘You might find that difficult.’

  ‘I bet you I wouldn’t.’

  Abbott’s gaze swept the room. To Doyle he said, ‘I could take out two of these guys before the other two even had a chance to draw their guns. After that I give myself good odds.’

  Doyle held out peace-making hands, cigarette smouldering between two fingers. ‘Slow your roll there, chief, there’s no coercion involved. The last thing we want is an unwilling employee on our hands.’

  ‘You misunderstand me,’ said Abbott. ‘I am not and never will be an employee.’

  Doyle looked at him. ‘I have been asked—’

  ‘I don’t care what you’ve been asked. I didn’t get into this game to start working for a small-time gangster in Derby.’

  He knew he was pushing it. Why? He wasn’t sure. Only that he had a sense of having gained the upper hand and wanted the leverage.

  Just don’t push it. Just don’t push it.

  ‘I was thinking of offering you a job,’ said Doyle, with a note of warning in his voice, as though it would be unwise for Abbott to reject it.

  ‘I’m going to decline,’ replied Abbott.

  Big long drag on the cigarette. Eyes squinting through smoke regarded Abbott impassively. ‘Then we have ourselves a problem.’

  ‘We do?’ said Abbott.

  ‘Because Kilgore was very keen that you should stay.’

  Abbott, still thinking, Who the fuck is Kilgore? pretended to consider. ‘I tell you what, I need a piss. Show me the way to the toilets, let me have a think.’

  ‘Marky will show you,’ Doyle indicated.

  ‘Just directions will do.’

  ‘Indulge me, eh?’

  Abbott thought it best to go with it, nodding sure. The two of them trooped off to the loo. At the door to the gents, Abbott stopped. He turned to Marky. ‘I trust you’re not coming in,’ he said.

  ‘Happens I need a piss,’ said Marky, who in contrast to his boss’s estuary tones, had a northern accent. Halifax direction, if Abbott wasn’t very much mistaken. One thing you could say about being in the forces: you got to recognise an accent.

  In they both went. There was only one urinal, so Marky used the cubicle while Abbott stood, having a piss but also gathering himself, thinking that he somehow needed to extricate himself from this situation, every instinct he had screaming at him to get out before his gossamer-thin cover was blown.

  He finished his piss, could hear that Marky was doing the same in the cubicle. ‘Do yo
u want me to wait, darling?’ he called.

  And then the door to the toilet opened and in came a tiny little girl, maybe eight or nine years old, dragging a plastic bucket and mop.

  She looked at Abbott, who looked back, assessing her with the same eyes he’d used for the Somalian boy back at his B&B in Finchley.

  But coming up with a very different answer this time.

  ‘Hello, there,’ he said.

  She looked at him with wariness in her eyes.

  ‘What’s your name?’ said Abbott. ‘And shouldn’t you be at school?’

  She heard the cubicle door go and her eyes widened only to relax a little when she saw that it was Marky.

  ‘You best get on with it, love,’ advised Marky. ‘You don’t want Mr McGregor getting angry again, do you?’

  She shook her head mutely. Abbott had already noticed the bruise at her collarbone, and when he re-entered Doyle’s office and agreed that he would stay on to do some work for the organisation, it was that bruise he was thinking of.

  That bruise and the look in her eyes.

  CHAPTER 21

  Abbott sat in the passenger seat of McGregor’s BMW. The previous evening, he’d been given his stuff back. McGregor had taken him into town, and he’d made his way on foot to the Travelodge, careful to make sure he wasn’t being followed. This morning, he’d met McGregor at the drop-off point.

  ‘I’ll drive today,’ McGregor told him. ‘After that, you’ll be behind the wheel.’

  ‘Oh yeah? And why’s that?’

  ‘Because I’m the bagman and you’re the muscle, pal, and on a normal day, the muscle drives, you get me? That’s just the way it be.’

  ‘I’m the muscle. That’s it? That’s my job?’

  ‘Any problems, take it up with Doyle. He’ll tell you what he told me. That you’re to accompany me on my rounds.’

  ‘And what rounds is this? Paper? Milk?’

  ‘Paper just about covers it, my friend,’ McGregor said, rubbing money fingers at Abbott. ‘Only, instead of delivering, we’re collecting.’

  ‘And you need me along for that, do you? Big tough Glaswegian like you can’t handle that himself?’

  McGregor chuckled. ‘I’m all about showing you the ropes, Sonny Jim, so that you can fly solo. Then you get to be your own muscle.’

  Abbott shook his head. ‘I doubt I’ll be around that long.’

  ‘That’s what the boss wants, and so that’s what the boss gets,’ McGregor said.

  They drove out of the centre and into a residential area, and not the good part either, as far as Abbott could tell from his glances out of the window.

  ‘Looked to me like Scutter was living all right,’ said Abbott, breaking a silence best described as ‘uneasy’.

  ‘Oh, aye, and what’s that supposed to mean, “living all right”?’

  ‘I did my research, McGregor. I know that Scutter spent time in jail, and I know what for. And it’s not that common for convicted paedophiles to be living in nice new houses with an Audi slotted in the drive.’

  ‘Ray Doyle does things differently. He looks after members of his family.’

  ‘That includes approving their assassination, does it?’

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Just that I get the impression that nothing happens in this city without his say-so.’

  ‘True.’

  ‘So he allowed his nephew to be killed?’

  At that, McGregor merely shrugged and Abbott let it drop for a moment or so, before adding, as though he’d only just thought of it, ‘I mean, it looked to me as though Scutter had been set up there. Like he was being looked after maybe. Payment for services rendered.’

  ‘And what services might they be?’

  ‘I can think of a few. Look, if I’m going to be on board here, then I need to know what I’m getting myself into.’

  McGregor sighed. ‘Everything is what you’re getting yourself into, Flyte. If there’s anything going on in this town then it’s because—’

  ‘Ray Doyle lets it happen, yes, I was getting that impression.’

  ‘Well, there you go. End of story.’

  ‘And everything includes people trafficking, does it? Child trafficking.’

  McGregor looked across at him with a sarcastic, patronising expression. ‘Aye, Flyte, everything includes that too. Have you got a problem with that? Some kind of noble moral objection that says it’s OK to hire yourself out to the highest bidder and kill on their behalf, no questions asked, but you draw the line at dealing in human traffic?’

  It was Abbott’s turn to shrug. ‘So Scutter was being looked after until he wasn’t being looked after. Is that what you’re saying?’

  McGregor drew his fingers across his lips.

  ‘It’s just that you and Doyle are making a big deal about how you control the city, like everybody answers to the Doyle crew and yet . . .’ He left it, went back to staring out the window.

  ‘And yet what?’ asked McGregor.

  ‘Well, there’s obviously another player.’

  ‘Like who?

  ‘Kilgore.’

  ‘But you’ve dealt with Kilgore, haven’t you?’ said McGregor.

  Yet again Abbott wondered if he was pushing it too far. ‘I don’t know what you think you know, McGregor, but it doesn’t work like that. Me and Kilgore didn’t meet and never would. All my work is done via an intermediary. I’m talking about the fact that Kilgore can hire me to do a job in this town and Doyle stays in the dark about it. Not only that but the hit is on his own nephew.’

  ‘Well, for someone who values secrecy, you seem awfully curious,’ frowned McGregor. ‘You want to watch it, pal. You don’t want me getting the wrong idea about you and then telling Mr Doyle. You especially don’t want me telling Mr Doyle that you think he’s a puppet, having his strings pulled by somebody else.’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Aye, but it’s what you meant.’

  ‘I’m interested in the set-up, that’s all. I like to know who I’m working for. That’s not curiosity in my game. That’s staying alive.’

  McGregor nodded. ‘Fair enough. But look, Flyte, if anybody’s revealing details of the operation, it ain’t me. Mr Doyle will tell you what he wants you to know when he wants you to know it. In the meantime, you’re my assistant, which means standing around, looking like a hardnut. Think you can do that?’

  ‘I think I can do that.’

  Abbott left it as they drew up outside their first port of call, a terraced house in the back streets. Although parked cars lined both sides of the street, there was one particular space free – deliberately so, thought Abbott – and McGregor pulled into it. They got out and Abbott looked around. Across the street an old woman watched them from the window of her house, a look of undisguised hatred on her face. Abbott knew why. He knew that after a career of chasing down drug dealers and people traffickers he had suddenly joined the other side. He saw himself through her eyes.

  No, you haven’t. You haven’t joined the other side. Remember why you’re here.

  McGregor knocked. A shirtless kid in jogging bottoms answered. He led the pair of them through to the front room.

  ‘May I speak to the drug dealer of the home,’ drawled McGregor sardonically. The kid was about to call through when another, older kid – but still a kid – appeared, this one also wearing what appeared to be the regulation outfit of no shirt and jogging bottoms, although he had shown a little flair by teaming it with a flat-brimmed cap.

  ‘McGregor,’ said the kid, coming forward. He went to give McGregor a fist bump, but McGregor, to his eternal credit – shooting up in Abbott’s estimations at the same time – placed his hands firmly behind his back.

  ‘Money,’ he said.

  The guy tried to save face by snapping at various underlings, even clipping one of them around the ear until the money appeared. A sandwich bag was handed to McGregor, who in turn handed it to Abbott. The kids in the house looked at Abbo
tt with new eyes.

  Moments later, Abbott and McGregor were back in the car.

  ‘So that’s it, is it?’ asked Abbott. ‘It’s drug money?’

  McGregor shrugged. ‘We’ve got our fingers in lots of pies.’

  ‘Drugs, prostitution . . .’ Abbott paused. ‘People? Kids?’

  ‘We’re back to that, are we?’

  ‘Just that I saw a kid back at base, a little girl.’

  ‘Just a kid doing a bit of part-time work for us. You got a problem with that?’

  ‘Moral judgements don’t figure high on my list of hobbies.’

  ‘Good to know that you’re not the squeamish sort. Unless you’re just saying what you think we want to hear, that is.’

  Abbott gave a sigh. ‘McGregor, you don’t know me, but you know me better than that. Besides, if I was worried about anyone in the operation where that’s concerned, I’d be worried about Marky.’

  ‘Oh yeah?’ McGregor looked sideways at him. ‘You noticed that, too, did you?’

  And if Abbott felt bad, throwing Marky to the wolves like that then, well, he didn’t feel that bad. He was getting close now, he felt. Close to what, he wasn’t sure. Just close.

  CHAPTER 22

  They made a couple more stops at terraced houses where the clientele were virtual carbon copies of their first stop. Scrotal kids playing at being gangsters, handing over their money, feeling like proper bad men.

  ‘This next one has been coming up short,’ said McGregor. ‘If I give you the nod, break one of the guy’s fingers.’

  Inside, McGregor did the count, decided it was light and sure enough, he gestured towards Abbott. ‘My friend, Mr Flyte here, needs to give you a message from Mr Doyle.’

  The guy whimpered and squealed. Abbott kept his feelings hidden, accepted the trembling hand that was offered and took the little finger.

  ‘Wait.’ The kid was sweating, shaking. ‘You told me to let you know if the Polish prozzie came. She’s been in here, Mr McGregor. She came buying.’

  McGregor nodded approvingly. ‘Well done. A bit late, mind. But well done.’

  The kid looked hopeful of a reprieve, but McGregor shook his head.

  ‘Please,’ said the kid quickly, sweating hard now, his hands slick with it. ‘It won’t happen again, Mr McGregor. I promise it won’t happen again.’