Watching You Chapters Nineteen and Twenty

Chapter Nineteen

 

Kelly feigned sleep when she heard Joe come home. The persistent smoker’s cough heralded his arrival. There was guilt at having slept with McCain, but not enough to force the matter out in the open, and particularly not around midnight. There was elation too, that heaven-sent light-headedness of a new romance in the making. It was what she’d craved for so long, and now, at long last, it seemed to have arrived.

McCain had no ties that she knew of; it seemed his wife had left him several years back, and if he’d had affairs, he kept very quiet about them. Okay, so few people shouted it out, but all the same, nobody seemed to know of any. She didn’t think she was treading on anybody’s toes.

When it came to Joe, by the way things had been going, he couldn’t have any complaints when the time finally came to tell him. He would, of course, he’d likely rant and rave, condemn her treacherous behaviour. It would be jealousy factor on overload. There would be accusations and insinuations that she’d have to accept if she were able.

But not yet.

She needed her head to clear, to wait and see how things developed. McCain had told her she wouldn’t see him for a while. She’d miss him, but at least she’d have the knowledge he was acting on her behalf, and that prospect eased her worries. All in all, she felt that much better.

Kelly heard Joe’s footsteps on the stairs, a heavy-laden tread that spoke of too much drink, and then the sound of urine splattering the toilet bowl.

She was lying on her side when he entered the room, facing the window, which was her norm. She heard him fumble around, heard the clink of his belt as it hit the floor, the simultaneous soft thud of his jeans as they hit the carpet, and then the sheer weight of his lunge on the bed made her start. He caught her resulting sigh, realised she wasn’t asleep.

She felt his hand on her shoulder, the whisper of his beer-drenched breath in her ear, more than suggestive, demanding. No, please, not now. It was difficult enough at the best of times, but tonight especially so. She fought with her conscience, rolled onto her back; her eyelids might have been held down by hundred-pound weights as she forced them open. ‘Not now, Joe, please, I’m tired …’

Joe’s hand left her shoulder. She heard it clout the pillow and caught his heavy sigh. ‘For Christ’s sake, Kelly, that’s all I get from you these days, sometimes I wonder …’

‘Wonder what?’ She met his eyes for an instant – they weren’t bleary, alcohol-driven as she might have expected – tonight, they were different, intense and probing.

‘Whether you’re seeing somebody else …’

Her heart started to gallop, and then to race; just three short hours ago, she’d lain here with McCain, feeling his presence inside her, feeling warmth and excitement she’d never felt before.

Now you’re really living a lie. Get it out now; in the open, it’s come to a head with the speed of one of Joe’s darts, but –

He craned his head over her. ‘Why the silence. I’m right … I’m right, ain’t I?’

She shook her head, closed her eyes. ‘I can’t believe you’d come to bed past midnight and wake me with a question like that.’

‘It’s been on my mind all day, and besides, you weren’t asleep.’

‘I damned nearly was … that was why I jumped out of my skin. You gave me a hell of a fright, Joe. I’m going through a rough patch. Are you going to let me get some sleep?’

‘You and your bogey man – see a doctor like I say, get it sorted.’ He rolled away from her, grabbed the sheet, although it was a sticky night. The surge of relief that he’d let matters drop almost made her feel like yelling out. At least tonight she could rest and consider what she’d done, what needed to be done.

‘And another thing …’ She heard the rustle of the sheet, but it was the deepened tone of the voice that alerted her that things weren’t over. ‘There’s a funny smell in this room …’

‘What do you mean by that?’

But it had hit her at once – McCain’s aftershave, he wore it in copious amounts – it was acrid-smelling too, and she wasn’t exactly struck on the stuff. She’d changed the sheets, covered her tracks so she’d thought, but she’d had a blocked nose over the past couple of days, nothing serious but enough to stifle her senses. Damn Joe, he would normally be too pissed to be aware of anything like this; why not now?

‘I can’t smell it.’

‘Or perhaps you just don’t want to …’

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake Joe, just let it drop, can’t you?’ She was aware her voice had risen, that it was trembling, that she was on the verge of blurting everything out – she needed sanctuary now, needed to find it before he forced it out of her, before she’d had time to think.

‘I’m not laying here, listening to this … you’ve always had an imagination, Joe, I’ll say that for you …’ She flung back the sheet, a queer mixture of anger and anxiety rising from the pit of her stomach, right through to her head, and she wanted, no needed to keep so calm, but Joe was the calm one now – if only because he suspected he’d got her on the rack.

And he had. Didn’t she know it.

He didn’t try to stop her, but she felt his eyes on her as she bounded from the room without switching on the light.

She knew why – he’d a feeling he’d made his point and that sooner rather than later, she’d have to answer it.

But would Joe be Mr Calm when it all came out in the open? Of course not. In the sanctuary of the back bedroom, she flung herself on the bed, felt her wet tears soaking into the pillow. Damn she hated crying. Not so long ago she was calm, collected, strong-minded, and independent. That was the way she saw herself anyway.

Before the days of Joe, Black, and McCain.

 

 

Chapter Twenty

 

It might have been a Sunday afternoon, but the streets were littered with traffic, pedestrians, and all the discarded wrappers and cans he’d become so familiar with.

Black hated North West London, he’d had to hang around here once or twice, but although that was a while back, it hadn’t changed a bit. The place was as much a flea pit as the place he’d been forced to leave.

Long past midnight, beneath the railway arches, some eighty miles back now, Main Man had paid him a surprise visit, assigning him a job he had not expected and was loathe to carry out. But he knew he couldn’t risk Main Man’s wrath.

The timing couldn’t have been worse; he’d the radio in his possession, and he needed to use it at the first opportunity, but now the plan was doomed. Even though he’d kept it in his clutches, there seemed no prospect of using it. What good was the thing to him eighty miles out of range, and to make matters worse, Main Man’s directive had left him with the prospect of being in London for three days, leaving the battery on his return as dead as a dodo, and security tightened up no end.

He wouldn’t be able to reach her. Bottom line. Black had thought he had blown it in any case when Main Man had spotted the radio, but after a moment’s contemplation, he’d accepted his logic for having it. Not much use now, though.

The demented driver alongside him had his foot hard on the pedal again, impervious to the heavy traffic flow and dismissive of red lights. Black was beginning to feel the pressure; okay, but he still liked to think that not many things fazed him. This guy’s driving certainly did.

He hadn’t been given full details of the job, only that it included drugs, and that was no surprise because just about everything Main Man was engaged in involved drugs of some kind. Main Man had told him of his distrust of Sammy Winter, the driver alongside him, Winter of the permanently glazed eyes and pockmarked face. Apparently, he’d heard some talk that Winter might try a runner, taking the cache for himself. Main Man had said he needed to be cautious. He’d assigned Reilly and Dickson, the two heavies in the back, as security. He needed men he could trust.

Black allowed himself a rare smile. It was good to be regarded as someone Main Man could trust.

‘How much further?’ The smile didn’t last long; he felt impatient and irritable, glancing across at Winter, hunched forward, hands glued to the wheel. The perfect driving position, it wasn’t.

‘Almost there.’ Winter managed a smile, the pockmarks on his face seeming to widen into craters. ‘Whasamatter, am I making you nervous?’

Black shook his head, glanced away at the increasingly grimy streets, more warehouses now than shops, buildings that looked damp even in the heat of summer, pressing in on each other.

‘It’s okay, Blackie, almost done now.’

‘What do you mean by done?’ Black glanced back at Reilly, one of Main Man’s inner circle, a nightclub bouncer now largely on Main Man’s payroll, and a grade ‘A’ thug. There had been something in the delivery – like he’d been talking to a child.

‘Just a figure of speech, mate; don’t let it get you fazed.’

Winter turned further away from the main hub, following a road that dipped and twisted, passing loads of rusting barbed wire fences and partially demolished buildings with rubble strewn across cracked concrete surfaces, before it straightened and ran close to a canal, no sign of human activity here, in stark contrast to the high street.

Black’s forehead knotted. He didn’t like where this was leading; far from what the public thought, deals often took place in upmarket streets and flats, not in shoddy rundown areas such as this.

A swift, head-jerking turn, and they’d pulled into a yard with an abandoned warehouse at its perimeter, bordering the canal, its doors open to expose a long-neglected gantry and pulley.

‘We need to go inside; there’s an office at the back,’ Winter said, his accent as flat as his expression, ‘and wait.’

‘For who?’

‘Our contacts, of course.’ Winter took a packet of fags from his trouser pocket, offering it in turn to the pair at the back and then to Black.

‘Seems a funny place to do a deal.’

‘The deal’s been done,’ Reilly snapped from the back, a plume of smoke from his fag misting the windscreen, ‘all that needs to be done now is to collect it.’

‘Just like that, eh?’ Black pressed a button, watched the front passenger window slide down, lit up, and rested his cigarette on the ledge. ‘We come here, collect the stuff, and go. That’s all there is to it, so why does it take three days?’

‘You ask too many questions,’ Reilly again, talking to Winter now, ‘let’s get inside; they’ll be here any minute.’

‘No. I don’t think so.’ Black turned, meeting Reilly’s glare, ‘We stay outside until they arrive; it’s summer, and I like to see a little daylight.’ Black inhaled on his fag. His instincts told him there were problems here; it might be a straightforward deal, but he’d learned how to smell a rat.

Winter scowled, hit the accelerator without warning, ‘We go inside, like it or not.’

Black was jerked back and then forward as the Range Rover roared into the semi-dark void of the warehouse and pulled to a stop. When Black’s eyes adjusted, he saw what Winter was holding. No longer the fag, it had been replaced by a Smith & Wesson. The short barrel glinted in the pale light. ‘We can either do this the easy or hard way – now get out.’

Game, set, and match. Black had known time was running out, but not as quickly as this. This was no drug deal. Somehow Main Man had twigged – somehow, things had gone pear-shaped.

Reilly had come from the back, yanked open the passenger door, his weighty arm pulling him from the seat the way an angry dad might deal with a troublesome kid.

Dickson joined Reilly, blocking off any exit he might have. Winter handed his revolver to Reilly and took a few steps to the sliding door, closing them until just a funnel of light showed through.

‘What the fuck’s this?’ Black stretched out his hands, took a couple of steps back into the shadows. ‘Main Man thinks I’m acting on my own, is that it? He’s making an example of me so Bug might take the hint …’

‘Don’t take us for cunts, Black.’ Dickson struck his hand heavily into Black’s chest, and pain shot from chest to collarbone. ‘Or is it really Carl Black, eh? That’s what we want to know.’

Black tried to look impassive, but beads of sweat already trickled down his brow and nose. In the confines of this place, it was like being in an incinerator,

‘Main Man had a visit yesterday from a very trusted source,’ Reilly said, cocking the revolver, ‘he didn’t like what that visitor had to say. It seems we have someone in our midst who ain’t quite what he makes out to be, someone who’s a lousy copper, someone who ain’t exactly grass roots, someone who ain’t local, some high-ranking intelligence bod in London. A bit of a loner, so it seems. The description, Black, fits you to a tee. What have you got to say to that, Mr Carl Black?’

Dickson took a step forward, pushed hard again, forced him towards Winter, who propelled him back. It was like a playground scuffle in deadly earnest.

‘Shall I tell you something, Mr Professional,’ Reilly said, ‘you’re a little too professional … you fuck and curse like the rest of the rubble, wear the clothes, doss on any street corner, even piss in the odd alleyway, yeah – fine, but your accent sucks. I ain’t heard any street dosser talk quite like the way you do, sure you snort coke but no one has ever seen you inject, and you just suddenly seem to have appeared in our town – where did you come from – suddenly fall out of the sky?’

Reilly stretched his arm, levelled the revolver, and Black heard a click on the trigger. Reilly laughed, his face splitting from ear to ear.