The Face (Harry Tyler Book 1) Read online

  The van went straight to the Plough Way warehouse. Shutters up, van in, shutters down. The warehouse was empty. It had been hired on a false company account six-month lease and could easily accommodate an artic. On the far side of the warehouse were two cars, a series 5 BMW and a Volvo Estate. Both vehicles had been bought for cash at an auction “up North” eight months before and were now registered to separate addresses in Kent that were no longer used as mailing addresses. A pile of newly made-up cardboard boxes sat at the rear wall.

  The Baker mob left the transit. To the side of them was an orange-coloured fork-lift truck.

  Rhino started it up and drove it over to the two cars and parked it.

  9.30 am, bingo! One of the mobiles rang. Johnny Too answered it. “Yes … No …Yes…OK.”

  The others stood in expectant silence. Johnny hung up and punched the air. “YES!” he exclaimed. “It’s there! It’s cleared the docks.”

  A cheer went up.

  “How long?” asked Joey.

  “Here at two o’clock,” said Johnny. “Ring the others.”

  A few miles away, Harry Tyler was showering. He had been woken earlier than he’d have liked by a phone call from Geraldine. There had been a change of plans, she’d said. It was Lesley’s mum’s birthday so she was going to treat her to lunch in South Ken and could Harry pick them up earlier for shopping and wait to take them back later in the afternoon? Why not?

  Pyro Joe made two calls and said the same sentence each time: “It’s me, we’re going to the races on Saturday.” End of conversation. These calls triggered six others to sweep the entire area for half a mile around the warehouse. Only two roads approached the entry. Every car, every van, every house and shop window en route would be checked every 15 minutes for the next five hours. The manor was a fever of activity. The sweepers had set up their own observation posts on friendly flats on the approach. Every innocent walk or drive through from the local police was enough to start hearts pounding.

  Johnny Too put two-way radios and disposable mobile phones in every vehicle, while Pyro Joe moaned continuously about being hot in his bulletproof vest.

  “You’re turning into fucking Victor Meldrew,” snapped Johnny.

  “He’s dead,” said Joey.

  “You better watch yer back then.”

  “Boys, boys,” said Rhino. “C’mon. Calm down, take it easy. The waiting is killing us all, but think of what’s coming.”

  Harry was outside Geri’s at 10.30 am and the women were in their first shop by 11. It was impossible to park in Knightsbridge, so he kept on circling Harrod’s until they came out… at a quarter to one.

  “Fucking hell, Les,” he moaned.

  “I’ll make it up to you, darling.”

  “You will, won’tcha?” he snapped.

  “Well, if she doesn’t I will,” said Geraldine.

  “Maybe we both will,” said Lesley. “If you don’t run away this time.”

  She kissed him on the lips. He drove in silence to Sloane Square station where Lesley’s mother was waiting.

  “Right,” said Lesley. “I’ll take Mum to lunch. We won’t be long, she’ll have to get back to work. Where am I meeting you?”

  “The Gore Hotel at three,” said Harry. “How can you forget, Les? It’s your own surname.”

  “Silly me. OK, see ya later, lover.”

  “Which one of us was she talking to then?” Harry asked Geraldine.

  “Both of us, I think.”

  “So where to now, ma’am? More shops?”

  “Oh I think we deserve a drink, don’t you, Harry?” she said mischievously. “Let’s go straight to the Gore.”

  In the warehouse, the Baker mob had been amusing themselves for the last two minutes watching Dougie The Dog psyching himself up by pulling aggressive faces in the reflection of the BMW window. In the end, they could hold their laughter in no more.

  “You doing all right there, Doug?” roared Joey.

  “He thinks he’s David Beckham on the fucking cat-walk,” laughed Johnny Too. “He’ll be wearing a sarong next.”

  “Fucking leave it out, John,” Doug said feebly.

  “Your missus ain’t posh, though, is she, Doug?” teased John.

  “No,” said Joe. “But I bet she takes it up the arse.”

  Everyone except The Dog laughed uproariously. Pyro Joe led them through an impromptu outburst of the terrace ditty “Does she take it, does she take it, does she take it up the arse?”

  “Great footballer, but fucking hell they don’t half squander their wedge,” said Mickey Fenn.

  “Squander, what d’you mean squander?” roared Johnny Too. “Just cos they got in a hundred Gucci sandbags for the floods.”

  “I am fucking hungry,” moaned Dougie, anxious to change the subject. “Can’t we send out for some nosh?”

  “You’re always fucking hungry, man,” said Rhino. “You’d eat a fucking horse.”

  “Here, Rhino,” said Pyro Joe. “Remember that time you got done for threatening behaviour to a police horse at Millwall, West Ham?”

  “Yeah,” said Rhino. “Then Dougie took her out.”

  “Who?” said Doug.

  “The horse. Right dirty mare, weren’t she?”

  “Fuck off.”

  “Here,” said Pyro Joe. “Did I tell you about the old trunter he pulled while you was in Amsterdam?”

  “Don’t, Joe,” pleaded Dougie.

  “Yeah, some old barmaid tart in a pub down Streatham. Ugly as a bucket of arseholes she was. He was plastered of course. The next day he said she had a fanny like a bill-poster’s bucket.”

  “What is this, pick on Dougie day?” The Dog whined.

  “What else have we got to do?” Joe shrugged.

  “We could send out for KFC.”

  “Doug,” said Johnny Too. “Shut the fuck up.”

  In the bar of the Gore, Harry Tyler bought Geraldine a large glass of Chablis and sat down nursing a bottle of Bud Lite. She reached over and stroked the inside of his thigh.

  “I liked what I felt last night,” she said in a low whisper.

  “I liked what I was looking at.”

  “So you want to see some more?”

  “How much are the rooms here?”

  “That’s exactly what I was thinking.”

  At 1.30 pm a mobile rang. Johnny Too didn’t let it ring twice. “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah… OK.” He killed the call, and punched both fists into the air. “Yes,” he said. “It’s twenty minutes away. It’s just passed Ronnie on Blackheath, nothing up its arse.”

  “Fucking lovely job,” said Pyro Joe.

  “John, now can I get a McDonald’s or something?” said Dougie. “I’m gonna pass out if I don’t eat soon.”

  “Go on then, you silly bastard, but you’d better be fucking quick.”

  Dougie started towards the exit door.

  “Dougie, you plank,” shouted Johnny. “Leave the fucking tools.”

  At 1.45 pm, Harry Tyler had just come explosively inside Johnny Too’s moll. Geraldine had orgasmed twice.

  “So, how do I compare to Johnny?” he panted.

  “The weird thing is, you feel absolutely identical,” said Geraldine. “But you’re a bit rougher.”

  She snuggled into him. “Will there be any more where that came from?”

  “You try and stop me,” said Harry, who was already thinking ahead. Lesley was due in 90 minutes. Maybe he would nail them both in one go after all.

  At 1.57 pm, Dougie The Dog left the Yellow Submarine fish shop, three minutes from the warehouse, wolfing down chips. Three black youths approached him.

  “You got some money, mon?” asked the tallest kid.

  “Fuck off, cunt,” snarled Doug.

  “Don’t dis’ my brother,” said a second, burlier youth, producing a switchblade knife.

  “You don’t understand,” said Dougie. “Don’t you know who I am.”

  “No, but I know what you am, raasclat,” said the first
youth. “Now hand over your fucking money, guy.”

  Dougie flattened him with one punch, and grabbed the second youth by his knife hand. He couldn’t do anything to stop the third kid from smashing him round the head with his portable CD player. Two of the Baker sweepers chased them away but Dougie The Dog was out cold.

  At 2.03 pm, a mobile phone rang out in a Rotherhithe warehouse. Johnny Too snatched it up like a lunatic. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, yes, OK.” He turned to the others. “It’s coming up Plough Way,” he shouted. “Get the shutter ready.”

  Two minutes later there was a distinctive rumble followed by the sound of airbrakes punching like a steam geyser outside the shutter. The lumbering giant came to a halt. All they could hear now was the engine ticking over. Johnny Too was feeling a nervous sickness in his stomach muscles. A mobile rang. “Yes,” said Johnny. “Dougie’s what? No, fuck him, get off the line.” Another mobile rang. Johnny snatched it. “Yes, OK, yes,” he said.

  He turned to Pyro Joe. “It’s clean, nothing up its backside. Open up.”

  The shutters rolled up. Johnny went out and spoke to the driver.

  “Everything cool?” he asked.

  The driver nodded. “Hurry up and get it off,” he said.

  “Back it in to the warehouse.”

  As the beast roared back to life, Harry Tyler’s beast did likewise. He made Geraldine go on all fours and took her roughly from behind, doggy fashion. She came, he faked it, but she was so wet she couldn’t tell. Harry decided he wanted to preserve some of his libido for Lesley.

  As the tailgate of the artic came down and the gates swung open, Rhino had already crossed the warehouse with the fork-lift and it sat there nudging forward impatiently, begging to be loaded. Johnny Too jumped on the tailgate. “Where’s Dougie?” asked Joe.

  “Fuck him, tell you later,” said John. “Get up here.”

  The trailer was three-quarters full of tomatoes and onions. As quickly as they unloaded the pallets, Rhino was speeding them across the warehouse for Mickey Fenn and John Boy Saunders to line them up. It took nearly an hour to unload the lot. Johnny Too called the driver over and handed him a large brown envelope. “On yer way, son,” he said. The driver didn’t need telling twice.

  The Baker mob were now alone with their booty, box after anonymous box of the stuff.

  “So which one’s it in, John?” asked Pyro Joe.

  “Fucked if I know. Cut ’em all open, but be careful not to break the balls.”

  They tore into the first two boxes frantically. Nothing. Then the third. Nothing. Joey was starting to get the hump. Then Rhino opened up the fourth.

  “Yes,” he said. “Fucking yes!”

  The box contained ten plastic balls, each containing a kilogram of cocaine.

  “Stop!” commanded Johnny Too. The men stopped and stood motionless, watching their leader. Johnny took a small penknife and cut a slit into one of the balls, exposing the virgin white content. He put a small coating on the knife tip, wiped it on the end of his tongue and then massaged it around his top gum.

  “Nectar,” he said finally. “That is pukka gear.”

  The others cheered, then turned and ripped into the remaining boxes. Onions were rolling everywhere, but the balls of Charlie kept popping up: 12 kilos, 18 kilos, 25 … As they came out, Rhino was packing them ten to a box and sealing each one with a tape gun. Joey walked the first batch up to the transit and placed them under a tarpaulin sheet. The floor of the warehouse was now awash with onions. Pyro Joe walked back, grabbed a large tomato and lobbed it at Mickey Fenn. It hit him square on the back of the head. Mickey yelped with pain.

  “Fuck off, Joey,” he shouted, ripping open another box, grabbing an onion in each hand and hurling them back. Another eight kilos fell out of the box, but the jubilant gang were now more preoccupied with having a food fight. Mickey got in a good shot that blackened Joey’s eye. The older gangster suddenly lost his sense of humour and chased the teenager around the warehouse. The other three were in stitches. They were blissfully unaware that outside each of their spotters was being beaten to the ground at the point of an H&K machine gun.

  It hadn’t taken much persuasion to get Lesley Gore to join Harry’s hotel party. Now she sat naked at the top of the bed, with Harry going down on her as Geri gobbled eagerly on his erection. Harry claimed this position was number 70 in the Kama Sutra – 69 plus one. They spent about fifteen minutes enjoying variants of this carnal chain gang before Lesley decided she wanted to be fucked. She pushed Harry on his back and mounted him, pumping up and down while Geraldine squatted behind her and massaged her breasts. When she had climaxed the girls swapped over. Geri came and then it was Harry’s turn to go on top, thrusting into Lesley as Geri caressed his balls gently with her fingernails. It was almost painful when he came and he flopped exhausted on to his back, a girl either side of him. A Harry sandwich, just like in his fantasy.

  Johnny Too had just managed to restore order and get his troops back to work when Rhino slipped on a large onion and fell into Pyro Joe, knocking him to the ground. John Boy, Mickey and Johnny Too collapsed in hysterics just as two armoured land rovers hit the shutters at speed and rammed straight into the warehouse. Percussion grenades exploded and the warehouse was flooded with a rush of boiler-suited, machine-gun-toting police. The goggles and gas masks that they wore added to the terror of the attack. Screams of “ARMED POLICE!” filled the air.

  Rhino scrambled to his feet and drew his automatic. Johnny Too saw it and shouted “NO!” Too late. Rhino let off three shots into the invading force. Johnny threw himself backwards. He saw Joey draw his weapon as he rolled towards a box of onions. A wall of automatic gun fire exploded at them. Pyro Joe took a round straight in the forehead. Rhino’s legs were cut from under him, and Mickey Fenn was hit in the arm and jaw. He lay three feet from Johnny Too, weeping. Johnny lay face down on the ground, his arms outstretched, shouting, “Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” He watched as his last soldier, John Boy Saunders, made a dash for the BMW, his gun in his hand. He was cut down in an instant, turning and letting off three rounds as he fell. As John Boy hit the deck, his stomach muscles gave out and he discharged a brown stinking mess down his legs. It was all over in seconds.

  A cloud of silver-grey smoke hung inside the depot. The floor was awash with blood, onions and tomato. All Johnny Too could hear was Mickey crying and Rhino’s groans of agony. He tried to look round and felt something solid smash into the side of his face. Plastic cuffs bit into his hands. Suddenly it seemed to all go quiet. The scene froze, everything seemed to be going in slow motion. Johnny heard voices but they were distant and drawn out.

  “This one’s gone, sir, three need medics. This one’s shot, he’s shot. That one’s shot and he’s shit himself.”

  Johnny Too raised his head slowly. He could see the boiler-suited commandos everywhere. A pair of boots were right in front of him, polished to perfection. The man stood motionless, machine gun across his front, staring at Johnny. Baker looked back at him hard. The bastard wasn’t shaking. He wasn’t even out of breath. He just glared back at Johnny. The gangster looked to his left. His brother lay motionless. Was he …? Johnny knew enough not to ask. He wouldn’t even let these motherfuckers know it was his brother lying there.

  Two cops hauled Johnny Too to his feet. The flash of cameras hit him in the eyes. His gloved hands were filmed. His guns were filmed. His gloves were pulled off and his taped fingers were filmed too. Johnny surveyed the scene. It was carnage. He looked straight at the nearest gunman.

  “Who’s in charge?” he snarled.

  The cop didn’t reply. Two plainclothes officers wearing police baseball caps approached him. The taller one started speaking: “Johnny Baker, I am arresting you …”

  Johnny Too spat straight in his face. “Fuck you, you piece of shit,” he snarled. “Get AIDS and fucking die. Your fucking grass is gonna bake in an oven.”

  “What grass would that be, then?”

  “The one
I’m gonna torture.”

  “Not for twenty years, pal. Take him out.”

  Two detectives moved forward and pushed Baker into the daylight.

  At 4.10 pm Harry’s mobile rang. It was a message from on high, letting him know the job was done. He turned to the still writhing women and said urgently, “Johnny needs me. Sorry, girls, can you make your own way home?”

  “Sure,” Lesley panted.

  “Is everything OK?” asked Geraldine anxiously.

  “It will be soon,” he smiled.

  “How long is the room booked for?” asked Lesley.

  “Until six.”

  “Lovely,” purred Geri, cuddling Lesley closer.

  When the two women finally checked out and went to reception to pay for extra room service and phone calls, they were surprised to be asked to settle the entire bill.

  “Harry must have been in a real hurry,” said Geri as she passed her gold Amex card to the receptionist.

  “Yeah, don’t worry,” said Lesley. “He’ll settle up”

  The front page of the Evening Standard on sale outside the hotel told a different story. “SHOOT OUT IN SOUTH LONDON”, screamed the headline. “Police raid villains, one dead.”

  Geraldine snatched a copy from the three-toothed vendor. She felt faint. A surge of anguish rose up from the pit of her stomach. Her legs began to feel numb and give way.

  “No,” she said. “No, not Johnny.”

  Lesley grabbed her to stop her falling, then the tears flooded out.

  “Oh, Lesley,” she sobbed. “What am I going to do?”