“Just down here, mate,’ my minder said, indicating yet another corridor far below the point at which natural light has any beneficial effect. Double swing doors had broad metal bands running across their width at trolley height, presumably a necessary precaution against damage when the trolley pusher was working alone. Despite the protective strips, the paint on the doors suggested that herds of stampeding cattle passed through on a regular basis.
The first door on the left was our destination. There wasn’t much to see, even less to impress. Two swivelling typists chairs: a lime green plastic monstrosity without arms that looked potentially lethal and a larger model with armrests, all visible areas covered in a rough tweed material. I didn’t fancy sitting on either of them for any length of time. The desk was real wood, not chipboard, but that was its solitary virtue. The top was marred by deep scratches, cigarette burns, coffee cup rings and a complete art gallery of ink stains while four sharp corners threatened the safety of passers- by. A bottle green metal filing cabinet, four drawers, and a Victorian coat stand tilted alarmingly to one side were the only other furniture.
My guide to this underground rabbit warren shrugged.
‘Not fancy, is it?’
I agreed. It was very far from fancy. I’d spent the previous night at the Adelphi and the contrast between this room and the city centre hotel suite provided at Government expense could scarcely have been more marked. Several floors above this room the business of the Crown Court was in full swing. I was a witness in a major trial, hoping desperately not to be called upstairs to give evidence in person.
Some weeks previously I’d sat in a room very like this and videotaped twenty hours of evidence, all I could recall from a time long since passed. I’d been assured my evidence would be held in camera, far from the public eye, with only the judge and a few lawyers present. That was the idea. Being required to give evidence in person would be hazardous. Not just for me, but for others who were still working undercover. I was here, waiting, on the off-chance that a legal challenge was made to my evidence and it became necessary to repeat elements of it in open court. I wasn’t looking forward to the next three days.
‘Got to keep you out of sight, see?’
I nodded. It made sense.
The man who’d led me here looked as if he couldn’t wait to leave. ‘I could fetch a coffee,’ he offered, ‘and a bacon sandwich, if you like.’
I nodded, as much for his benefit as my own. A drink would be welcome and even if I was stuck here there was no reason for him to be similiarly confined. A trip upstairs, to natural light, would do him good. His skin tones had bleached away leaving a pasty complexion heavily scored with deep lines and he wore a weary, defeated expression. As he shuffled away like a walking corpse I wondered if he’d find his way back again. Actually, the walking corpse reference was unfair; I’d seen dead people and they’d all looked better than him. A lot better.
After he left I tried the chairs. Both were equally ill-suited to the purpose for which they’d been designed. In the room opposite a man sat with an expression of intense boredom etched on his face.
The gloomy expression on his thin face had a distinct air of permanence. Seated, his legs appeared awkward, almost as if they belonged to someone else. A wide gap between trouser and sock revealed a slice of pale white skin, mottled like the dead flesh of a plucked goose. Thin to the point of emaciation he crossed one ankle over a knee and jiggled his foot nervously, adding to my initial suspicions that chemical influences were fuelling his surging metabolism. He studiously avoided my eyes, obviously settling down for a long wait.
A court usher, clipboard in hand, bustled through the double doors and beckoned to the man over the way. He rose without comment, followed the usher without a change of expression, leaving me alone. I perched on the edge of the table, thinking back to the events that had brought me here. Almost twenty years ago yet still as fresh in my memory as the football match I’d watched yesterday.
I looked down the barrel of the gun. My focus settled on the isotropic barrel, a dull grey in colour and, in its own way, a thing of beauty. I forced my gaze away from the gun towards the face of the man holding my immediate fate in his hands. ‘You’re fucking dead, pal,’ he said.
His deep and unfathomable eye sockets were those of a dead person, eyes barely visible, yet burning with the fanatical zeal of someone who loved his work. We’d been mates for the last few weeks. Of a sort. Had got on well together.
In as far as a drug dealer’s minder gets on with anyone.
There’d been a leak. The usual method, tried and tested, in these circumstances was to root out the unknown factors. Those without a long history behind them.
The new boys.
That included me.
I tried to stay calm. I’d faced down guns before, but never with a dead body in the next room. The man pointing the gun at my face had shot him. Even without the orders to get rid of anyone who could have passed on information, I had been a witness to a murder. Not a good situation to be in.
‘Big mistake, Dan,’ I said, calmly. ‘You stopped the leak. You need me.’ I nodded to the body behind Dan. ‘I’m not some bloody kid with a big trap like him. Tommy knows that. He needs me.’
Dan pushed the barrel of the gun against my cheekbone, the front sight nicked the side of my nose and I felt blood trickling down my cheek. He smiled. ‘Maybe he does. I could check. Or I could just pull the trigger. Not bothered either way.’
I raised my hand slowly, pushed the barrel of the gun to one side. ‘Ring Tommy,’ I said, ‘tell him it’s done. Problem solved. Then I’ll give you a hand with that.’ I nodded my head towards the body in the next room.
Dan nodded. ‘You’re a jammy bastard,’ he said. ‘Just as well I’ve got a heart of gold.’
I laughed, slapped him on the back, and we walked through the open door to where the body lay.
Twenty years ago. Now the man who’d pushed the gun into my face was several floors above this room. In the dock, flanked by burly police officers. He wasn’t even the main event, just one of the smaller fry caught up in the net when the big fish was finally hooked. I didn’t want to see him, or his boss, ever again. The next few days would decide it one way or another. Being stuck in this room wasn’t an inviting prospect, but I’d willingly settle for it when the alternative was so much worse.
