Payback Time 3 ( Paul and Tom)

Tom Marks was thirty six and had been Paul Fletchers solicitor for the past eight years. He had been repaid handsomely, not by just the amount of money that Paul paid on a monthly retainer, but by the “extras”.

There were lots of “extras” that came Tom’s way.

Paul paid for both of Toms kids to go to private school, each cost sixteen thousand a year, two holidays a year wherever he wanted to go and always a bit of spending money to go with it!

Yep Paul was a good client, but he was also a fucking psychopath, Tom knew that, but it was too late to pull out now, Tom was in far too deep, he was as Paul would say “on the firm!”

They’d met through a mutual friend. Paul said he was looking for a good Solicitor to look after all his business interests and Tom gave him his card. They clicked straightaway, they were both around the same age with similar backgrounds. Tom was brought up in the heart of Docklands, working class parents, council estate, secondary modern school, but then went on to better things, evening classes, college, until eventually he qualified as a Solicitor.

Paul was from the heart of the East End, Bethnal Green. Similar background, but after school Paul had decided to go in another direction. Paul started out with a scrap yard, he bought and sold scrap metal, a very solid, reliable, cash business. He also dealt in drugs, firstly on a small scale but as the scrap business became more successful he invested heavily in drugs, importing in huge quantities.

The money started to roll in and Paul asked Tom what he should be doing with it. "Spend it, buy things, buy other businesses" was what Tom told him. So Paul did. He quickly had a Scaffolding Business, several Cleaning Companies, three launderettes, a Building and Maintenance Company.

From then on it was one big party, lots of wining and dining, lots of women, lots of booze and drugs and Tom loved every minute of it.

The first time he saw Paul “lose it” was when the two of them had been on a boys night out at Park Lane Casino, it was four in the morning and they were waiting outside for a cab, the concierge called one over and he and Paul went to get in. Just as the door opened, two other men decided to jump the queue and barged past Paul and got into the cab, both laughing as they did so. That’s when Tom saw the real Paul Fletcher for the first time; he dragged one of the guys out of the cab by his hair! He then proceeded to smash his face on the pavement several times until the guy was unconscious and covered in blood. Then quite calmly got into the cab and told the cabbie to drive away, the cabbie was too scared to refuse!

Then Terry Murphy happened.

Paul told him he was about to make an “acquisition”, a local scrap company owned by Terry Murphy, who also dealt heavily in drugs. It turned out to be a “hostile” takeover and Trevor Murphy was shot holding a bag containing 12 kilos of cocaine.

The Police never arrested Paul, but he was always the prime suspect, they just didn’t have enough evidence, they also knew that Paul would have the best legal team that money could buy, so they didn’t want the embarrassment of having the case thrown out of court. They were just content to see a known drug dealer taken off the streets as well as a substantial amount of cocaine. He was given twelve years, a year for every kilo.

Paul took over everything that Terry Murphy owned once he was inside, in fact just about everyone that had worked for Terry now worked for Paul.

Tom was worried that Paul may do something silly, he was a hot head, what he should do was nothing. Just wait to see what Terry did. Tom thought it unlikely that Terry would do anything, not yet anyway, he no longer had the contacts or the finance, but he knew that Paul would panic and if Paul panicked anything could happen. He called Terry Murphy’s solicitor.

“Hi Bob; hear Terry’s out, great news, well done, everything ok?”

“Yeh, got out this morning, you know what the overcrowding situation is all about so he’s walked, no idea where he is now though, home I would have thought, why, worried?”

“Bob, can I call you on another line, there’s a problem with this one!”

“Ok, no problem”

Tom hung up and went to the top drawer of his desk, knowing that Bob would be doing just the same; he took out an old pay as you go mobile and rung Bob’s number.

“Bob, that’s better, so what’s the score, should we be worried or has he calmed down now after all these years?”

“That’s a toughie Tom, you know what he’s like, he never lets go, hard to call. What about your man?”

“Fucking hell Bob, he wants to rip his throat out and shit down his neck, I’m worried he’ll lose it and it’ll be all over for all of us”

“Jesus, look I’ll do what I can from my end you do the same, maybe we can broker a deal that works for both of them, if they’re sensible they’ll see it makes sense!”

“Cheers Bob”

Tom put down the phone and just for a minute there was a look of relief on his face. Then his mobile rung. It was Paul.

“Hi Paul, I think we can work this out”

Paul shouted down the phone.

“You cunt, of course we can’t it’s him or me and it’s always gonna be me!”

“Why, what’s happened?”

“You know young Danny, one of my boys that works with Craig?”

“Err Yeh think so”

“He’s just been found with a fucking knife in his neck and a kilo of powder in his pocket!”

“Fucking hell Paul!”

“It’s a message you cunt, he’s sending me a fucking message!”