The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1) Read online

  “Yeah,” said Harry. “I’ll give ’em to her later.”

  As the barman turned to pour the beers, Harry wrapped up the lighter and cigarettes in a serviette and slipped them into his jacket pocket for DNA testing and finger-printing. Johnny returned and motioned for Harry to join him in an alcove. Harry brought over the beers as Johnny rummaged through his new Head bag. He pulled out a padded Jiffy bag and read its contents silently. Harry was bursting to know what it said but knew better than to ask. Instead he sipped his beer and stared at the floor.

  “Harry,” John said eventually, as he replaced the bag and its contents in the hold-all, “do you know what I like about you?”

  “Don’t say fuck all, John, or I’ll get the hump and burn your puff.”

  Baker’s smile vanished and he jabbed his right-hand index finger at Harry.

  “No jokes, H. What I fucking like about you is you’re the only fucking geezer I know who didn’t ask what was in the envelope.”

  Harry frowned back at Johnny, mirroring his seriousness.

  “You know why I never asked, John?”

  “Why?”

  “Cos I read it all backwards in the window reflection behind you.”

  Baker glanced over his shoulder. The windows were about twenty feet away. Both men laughed. “No seriously, John. It ain’t my business. I don’t ask questions if it ain’t my business.”

  “H, I don’t need a degree in psychology to know you’re proper. I’ve got a good sense of judgement when it comes to people. I can tell if someone’s a wrong ’un in minutes, sometimes seconds. You probably can yerself. Nah, you’re top dollar, mate.”

  “So what does it say, then?”

  “Joking aside, this time next week I am fuckin’ rich. We’ve got a lorry to meet filled to the roof with onions and tomatoes.”

  “Lovely job. Never tried snorting onions meself…”

  “Makes yer fuckin’ eyes water.”

  “Do you need me to help out, John?”

  Baker paused, then shook his head. “No,” he said. “I’m sorted for the slaughter, I’ve got a place down Bermondsey docks, and plenty of faces on the plot, but I might need you to keep dog-eye around the manor as the lorry rolls in. Y’know, keep an eye out for the Filth.”

  “John, I ain’t gotta say be careful,” said Harry, his voice heavy with concern. “There’s a ton of bird waiting if you get caught with that parcel.”

  Johnny Too made the sign of a handgun again. “They’ll think World War III has broken out if they try and take us. Don’t worry, H. I’ve got plenty of scouts out and a good firm to unload it. I just wanna see it’s there and then I’m out of the scene, know what I mean.”

  Harry gave it one more push. “You want me to drive you?”

  Baker shook his head. “Nah, Geri’s gonna run me in, looks less iffy with a bird driving.”

  Harry Tyler was shocked. What kind of a man puts his woman on offer?

  “Mate, you sure?” he said. “It ain’t my business but…”

  Johnny Too cut him short. “H, I appreciate your concern, but she’s sweet as. She’s a big grown-up girl and she knows what she’s getting into.”

  Harry knew not to say any more. So Geraldine would get nicked with the rest of them. In the immortal words of Grant Mitchell, “Oh dear, what a pity, never mind.” Johnny’s logic made some sort of sense and, besides, he was hardly treating Lesley like Sir Galahad.

  Their business in Amsterdam was done, but they still had over six hours before they were due to meet the girls and so Johnny Baker and Harry Tyler, the gangster and the undercover cop, set off on a marathon bar crawl.

  The third bar seemed the friendliest. They sat at the bar talking about football to a couple of young Dutch men. It was all very pleasant. Then Johnny Too went for a slash, and the man next to Harry put his hand on the detective’s thigh and asked with a smile, “Can I come in your mouth?”

  Harry may have moved faster in his life but he couldn’t remember when. He collided with Johnny Too who had made the same discovery just from the posters in the gents. They didn’t even stop to finish their drinks.

  “You must have known,” said Johnny accusingly.

  “How would I know?”

  “You come here all the time.”

  “Yeah, but I’d never been to that bar.”

  “So why was your mobile number written on the khazi wall?”

  “It can’t be…”

  “It is now!”

  “Bastard.”

  “You must have noticed there were no women in there.”

  “Did you?”

  “I just thought they were, y’know, football geezers…”

  By 4.00 pm, they found a bar they liked and settled.

  “This is OK, H,” said Johnny. “Amsterdam. I like it. I like the vibe, if not the weather.”

  “I never want too much sun,” said Harry. “Why do I want to lie on a beach and fry for a fortnight? What am I, a fucking lizard?”

  “You grumpy bastard! You’ve been to Spain, though?”

  “Menorca, once.”

  “Where d’you stay?”

  “Cala N’Porter.”

  “Nice. Jimmy Jones has got a villa there. Two I think.”

  “Kinnel!”

  “Where did you eat?”

  “La Polette, up by the caves of Zorro.”

  “Xorai. Pukka grub up there, a bit dearer but…”

  “But worth it.”

  “Ever been to St Pete’s Beach in Florida, Harry? It’s a little slice of paradise. I fancy getting a little waterside condo over there once Chislehurst is done and dusted.”

  “The working-class dream, eh, Johnny? Moving out to respectable suburbia, holidays with Mickey Mouse.”

  “You taking the piss?”

  “No, mate, that would be my dream, too.”

  Johnny Too lit up a spliff. “You vote Labour, H?”

  “I voted for Blair.”

  “Why?”

  Harry shrugged. “Dunno – now,” he said.

  “I’ll tell you why, cos your dad was Labour and your granddad and probably his dad an’ all.”

  “Yeah, but Labour stands for the working man, equality, fraternity, a fairer society.”

  “Fair? What’s fair? You ever see a nature documentary, Harry? You see the lion taking down the gazelle? Where is the fairness in that? That’s life, H, the survival of the fittest. Do you wanna be the lion or his fucking dinner?”

  Harry went to say something, but Johnny Too ploughed on. “Society is built on lies, mate,” he said. “And you’ve just hit on the biggest. All men are equal? Where? It’s bollocks. The basic truth of human life is that all men aren’t equal. Tom is stronger than Dick who is cleverer than Harry. Life is about winners and losers, H, the elite and the also-rans, and if you’re born at the arse end of society like we were, all that matters is, if you’re hard enough and smart enough, you have to become part of the elite. Kick, claw or cheat your way in. It don’t matter how. Otherwise you’ll just be ground into the dust with all the other monkeys.”

  “So you wouldn’t call yerself working class?”

  “Why wouldn’t I? I was born working class. I can’t stand to be with middle-class people; even those that work for me I only tolerate. I like working-class people. I like their company, their culture, if you like. The people in South London are much the same as they are over your side, or probably in any English city – they’re good people, solid, loyal. They look after their own. They’re inward-looking, too, which some people think is a weakness but I think is a strength, and they’re fiercely patriotic. But basically the English working class have been hoodwinked.”

  “How d’you mean, John?”

  “You talk to the fellas in the Ned, specially the older ones. Their idea of the world and England’s place in it is entirely defined by the papers they read, and it always harks back to World War II, fifty-five fucking years ago. That England don’t exist any more, Harry. It’s been des
troyed by the Arabs and the Muslims, Europe and the bogus fucking asylum seekers taking us for mugs. The way England is going, it’s gonna end up the Islamic Republic of North West Europe.”

  Harry felt a shiver down his back. He’s right, he thought. He’s fucking right.

  Johnny Too downed his beer. “Ratbag politicians and big businesses who don’t give a fuck about England exploit their patriotism,” he went on, “and they’ll carry on exploiting it until they’re pushing up the fucking daisies.”

  “So, yes, I’m working class, but that ain’t the be-all and end-all. I’ve been poor and I’ve been rich and believe me rich is better. All you can do is look after yerself and yer own, Harry. Carve out your territory and defend it mercilessly. Now get a fucking round in before I get signed up for Panorama.”

  Harry ordered two beers. “I don’t wanna bang on about politics,” said Harry, “but I think the welfare state is the thing that really made England weak. It was a great idea in theory, to create a safety net to look after the old and the sick, but it turned into a dossers’ paradise. We’ve turned nature on its head so much we’re in a situation where…” He paused, searching for the correct quote. “It’s like ‘when all men are paid for existing and no man need pay for his sins’.”

  “Kipling,” said Johnny.

  “Yeah,” Harry replied, surprised. “I didn’t know you were a reader, Johnny.”

  “Now you insult me.”

  “No, it’s just I could see you soaking up Tarantino, but not Nick Hornby.”

  “Talk daft,” Johnny spluttered. “I wouldn’t have that cunt in the house. Did you ever read any Nick Hornby, Harry? This is supposed to be men’s writing – go to football, eat a fucking curry. Not exactly Hemingway, is it? Tom Wolfe is the only living novelist I’d give the time of day to. But Kipling was the boyo. In his time, men were men and Britain meant something. They had an Empire to believe in.”

  “So what do you think of villains who write autobiographies, these kill-and-tell books?”

  “Anyone who writes a book like that is a grass,” Johnny Too proclaimed. “Unless they’re working a flanker and mugging the publishers like Courtney. So don’t get any fucking ideas.”

  “I’ll turn the tape recorder off, then,” Harry grinned.

  On they talked and drank until Harry realised it was 7.15 pm. They scrambled into a cab and arrived at the meeting place at 7.28 pm. The girls didn’t let on they had only been there five minutes themselves.

  “Leave us standing on the corner for half an hour,” moaned Lesley. “It’s fucking ’taters and we’ve had blokes coming up thinking we’re on the game.”

  “Don’t say you turned them down,” said Johnny Too. “You could have made a few bob, paid me back for my generosity.”

  “Pig,” said Lesley.

  “She’s right, John,” Harry deadpanned. “Be fair, they wouldn’t have made a penny. They’d have had to pay the fellas.”

  “Oi!” said Geraldine with mock indignation. Johnny Too laughed. “What can we do to make it up to you?” he asked. “I know.” He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a fistful of cigars. “Fancy a ten-inch Cuban?” he asked.

  “I’d rather have an eight-inch Cockney,” said Geri grabbing his crotch.

  “OK, you lovebirds,” said Lesley. “Any chance we could eat first?”

  “I know just the place,” said Harry. “A little Argentinian steakhouse five minutes down the road from the Bulldog, they do the best steaks in Holland.”

  “Argies?” said Lesley with disgust.

  “The war’s a long time over,” said Johnny Too.

  “And you can always go down like the Belgrano later,” laughed Harry.

  “Here, we went in a gay bar,” said Johnny.

  “Yeah,” said Harry. “John dropped his wallet in there and kicked it all the way back to the hotel.”

  They ate, then drank, smoked a little weed and then drank some more. It ended up just Harry and Johnny drinking brandies in the hotel bar at 1.30 am. Johnny gave an impassioned speech about cannabis and cocaine, and again Harry Tyler found himself following the logic of his argument which was basically anyone who wants to take drugs can get them so why waste millions of tax payers’ money trying to impress people who don’t take them? People who don’t even understand that a bit of ganja is ten times better for them than a bottle of malt, y’know?

  “More and more of the population have tried drugs,” he said. “Millions smoke dope, fucking doctors recommend it. But leaving that aside what we’re talking about here is a nanny state trying to regulate supply and demand.

  “I’m a capitalist operating in a Prohibition. People like Ann Widdecombe are living in the fucking dark ages. I’m not forcing anyone to snort, H. I’m just supplying them that want, grown-up people with minds of their own.”

  “But it ain’t like going to the offie for a can of Stella, mate,” said Harry. “You hurt people.”

  “Only fuckers who take liberties, H. You’ve gotta show out, you gotta be respected or you lose it all.”

  He was starting to lose it, Harry thought. He heard the slur in the gangster’s words. Half an hour later, Johnny Too had his arm around the detective’s shoulders, drawing him closer. “Thing is, H, if next weekend goes to plan I am going to be fireproof,” he said. “I’ll be able to move away from the dirty stuff and take my family with me.”

  “Joey included?”

  Johnny shook his head. “He’s become my anchor,” he said. “You unnerstan’, Harry, you unnerstan’?”

  When Harry Tyler got into bed just after 2.15 am, he couldn’t sleep. For the first time in his police career he was having doubts about the justness of his cause. Maybe Johnny Too was right, maybe he was just a modern-day buccaneer, an alternative entrepreneur following market forces in defiance of arcane laws. Why was dope banned, anyway? What harm did Charlie do? Johnny wasn’t exactly kidnapping school kids and stringing them out on smack. Pyro Joe was clearly holding his smarter brother back. If Harry took Joey and Dougie down, maybe Johnny could blossom into the next Branson.

  Against all his instincts and his training, Harry Tyler had started genuinely to like this funny, dangerously articulate man. Johnny Too was one of life’s cavaliers bucking roundhead laws, he decided. He was a red-blooded, devil-may-care Englishman denied greatness by the circumstances of his birth, and the baggage around him. A tooled-up Toby Belch to Harry’s Falstaff. Well, maybe it was time for Falstaff to hammer out a Faustian deal…

  That night he dreamt that he, Lesley, Geri and Johnny Too were drinking champagne with dolphins on a beach in Cala N’Porter, inexplicably re-located to Florida. They were lying on sun beds and when Harry looked at them more closely, they were made of dollar bills.

  Sunday went much the same as Saturday – sex, booze, sightseeing and clubbing. On Monday morning they cabbed it back to Schiphol Airport. Harry felt physically and mentally drained. Keeping pace with Johnny Too was like trying to train with Arsenal. He closed his eyes on the plane and didn’t wake up till touchdown. It was Baker’s idea to round the trip off with “one last drink” at the Ned. Geri couldn’t be seen there, of course, so Johnny’s driver, Tony Boniface, drove her home after dropping Johnny off. It was just unlucky that he mentioned it in passing to his wife who was straight on the phone to Sandra Baker. Harry and Lesley pulled up at the Ned ten minutes after Johnny and 15 minutes before his wife who burst in shouting and swearing about “the SLUT”.

  There was hardly anyone in the pub: Johnny, Harry, Lesley, Slobberin’ Ron and young Mickey Fenn. They watched open-mouthed as Sandra pulled Johnny’s own .38 Beretta on him.

  “You fucking bastard!” she screamed. “Why are you still fucking that slag?”

  Johnny Too snapped. He ran straight at her, tore the gun from her hand and knocked her to the floor.

  “You wanna play fucking gangsters?” he roared. “I’ll show you how to be a gangster.”

  “NO, JOHN!” Harry shouted. Too late. Johnny T
oo squeezed the trigger. The Beretta jammed. Harry grabbed Johnny’s arms. Slobberin’ Ron took the gun off him and fired it at the ceiling. The second round went off perfectly. Johnny Too fell to his knees and sobbed, pulling Sandra into his arms. Both were crying.

  Ron turned and said, “Nobody saw a thing, right?” Everyone nodded. That was understood. Harry made his excuses and left. He drove the car for about a mile, then pulled over and butted the steering wheel with his head. How could he have started to believe Johnny Too was OK? The guy was a fucking psychopath. He punched his leg in frustration, then started up the car and drove to a phone box in Shoreditch to call his overlords. It was 6.37 pm. They wanted a meeting at Southend police station at 10.30 pm.

  Harry was weary but he knew time was against them. He drove to his flat, showered and changed, then checked his messages. There was nothing that couldn’t wait. Peter Miller had called several times. His first messages were short, the final three were longer every time – a clear indication of his sobriety. The short calls were when he was sober, they got longer as the evening wore on. Apparently, Miller felt Harry needed to know that while they were away, Pyro Joe had got charlied up and gone looking for some minor irritant who had failed to pay the few hundred he owed the firm. According to Miller, Joey had hung the poor wretch over the second-floor balcony of his Deptford council flat and the idiot’s shoe had come off causing him to fall and break his legs.

  Miller was laughing all the way through the message: Harry was incensed. What kind of sick bastard could find a man falling two floors remotely funny? He shook his head. Bet the silly git wears lace-ups from now on, he thought.

  Harry got to Southend early. He spent 20 minutes making sure he didn’t have a tail on him. As arranged, a covert van pulled up next to him then reversed into a side alley. Harry pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head and walked back to the van. The back door opened and he was in and gone.

  He was driven to a small police station about a mile from Southend city centre. To Harry, it looked like a traffic warden base. The meeting with top brass lasted into the early hours. It was agreed to place additional technical surveillance equipment on Geraldine. Her car interior would be wired for sound, and tracking devices fitted. The buzz in the room was hyper. One hundred kilos of cocaine was on the way – enough to put the Bakers away for a very long time. As tired as he was, Harry was boosted by the energy of the others. His role in the coming maelstrom was to stick to the Baker brothers like shit on their shoes.