‘I talk to you and I’m dead, you know?’
I shrugged as if disinterested. He’d talk to me. I’d seen that look in his eyes. What I knew was enough to send him away for a very long time. We weren’t at that stage yet. He wasn’t important to me. Not important enough. He knew I wasn’t a copper, wasn’t Drug Squad, but a word in the right ear could make life very difficult for him. The offer to trade would come.
‘I’m out of here, soon as I can get my stuff together,’ he said. He sighed. Resigning himself to the inevitable. I’d seen it often enough.
‘Spider,’ I said. Just the single word. It was enough.
‘He’s a clever bastard, keeps things close, you know?’ He stopped talking, looking at me. I said nothing. This wasn’t about me.
‘Likes to keep it personal. No emails, text messages, words on screens. Not secure, he says. I reckon it’s more than that myself.
Face to face is more honest, he says that a lot.’
I nodded. I’d come across this before. Especially with the younger guys on the way up. Cautious to the point of paranoia. Sometimes it was more than simple caution. A desire to get inside the mind of the person they spoke to. Even phone conversation reveal much of the caller’s real self. Accent, dialects, even intonations or quirks of speech, they all build a picture of who you are. That can be far more revealing than the words you actually use. A human voice reveals so many unwitting clues relating to background, social class and degree of education. The personal touch was the only reliable method of communication. Face to face was always the most reliable means of contact. I could relate to this. It was exactly the view I held myself. My impression of Spider went up a notch.
‘Cautious, then?’
‘Yeah.’ He looked more relaxed now. Once he’d started to talk, the dam had burst. ‘No paper trails. No bank records or invoices. Nothing like that. Drugs, weapons, anything dodgy, always kept away from any link to him.’
I nodded again. Encouraged him. This was no street thug. He’d come from a good family, been to university, had a good degree. Accountancy was a safe enough profession, but there were always ways of earning more money. A lot more money. He’d chosen the path of easy money. Now, the consequences of that decision were staring him in the face.
‘Spider’s got it worked out. Everything, the entire business, is arranged in such a way that there’s never any link to Spider. If the police get lucky, a job goes wrong, someone else takes the fall. His name will never be mentioned.’
‘Clever,’ I said. ‘Loyalty too. He must be sure of himself.’
‘Soldiers are loyal but loyalty only goes so far. Anyone arrested knows the score. Classic stick and carrot method. Keep your mouth shut, do your time and you’ll be rewarded when you come out. That’s the carrot. The stick, that’s equally simple: anyone grassing up Spider or any other member of the group is a dead man. They all know it from day one.’
‘Impressive,’ I said. I meant it. Prisons were full of Category A hard men who’d been grassed up by their subordinates. Spider had recognised the threat of treachery and made it a zero tolerance issue.
‘It works,’ he continued. ‘Wives, girlfriends, mothers, sisters, all in the frame. Grassing, not even a consideration.’
I looked at him, evaluating the man in front of me. He was eager enough to talk, even knowing the consequences. I wondered why.
‘I don’t know about drugs,’ he said, ‘Not involved in that.’
I doubted this was true, but was prepared to leave it for now. Drugs were hard time. He knew that, was eager to distance himself from any association.
‘Guns,’ I said. ‘Tell me about the guns.’ There’d been shootings for a while. Drive-bys, often random in nature, punishments, settling scores, establishing territory. All gangs had access to guns. Spider’s team were different. There was control.
He frowned. ‘The soldiers, they all want guns. A gun, well it goes with the job, doesn’t it? Spider’s very strict about guns. Anyone waving one around, showing off, that’s a death sentence. He explained this to me a while back. Guns are bad news for civilians. Bad news means headlines. The victim may have deserved everything he got; he’s still seen as a victim.’
He stopped talking, stared at the ground. I waited him out.
‘Evil little bastards who deserve to be put down like a mad dog, in death they become a victim. A teenage victim. Attract the wrong sort of attention. Tabloid headlines. Bad for business.’
That made sense. I sensed there was rather more to Spider than I or anyone else had imagined.
‘Punishments, when a body needs to be visible, set an example say, no guns allowed.’
‘So, no guns ever, then?’
He almost smiled, perhaps at a particular memory. ‘Well, if it’s a business rival they could be shot full of holes just so long as the body disappears. A mile out to sea, strapped to a gearbox, that’s the favourite.’
He stopped talking again. Looked pensive. I hadn’t pushed him, so far, but he’d only told me minor stuff. Useful in building up a picture, but nowhere near enough for me to walk away and forget about turning him in.
‘This isn’t enough,’ I said. ‘Not nearly enough. How do I get to him? Where’s his weakness?’
He gave a nervous giggle, put his hand over his mouth. ‘He doesn’t have any. Look, he’s not your old style gang boss. No mansion, no flash car. He’s single, lives like a fucking tramp in empty flats, moves around all the time. Money, that doesn’t seem to bother him, yet he’s fucking rolling in it. All tucked away. Even I don’t know where it goes. Oh, I know bits and pieces, but nothing that’ll help you get close to Spider.’
I thought about the next step, how hard to push. He looked nervous, his speech faster, less refined.
‘Where’s the money go? That’s your job, right? Hiding the money.’
He shrugged. ‘After it leaves me? Who knows? Only Spider and he ‘aint telling. I told you, nothing written down. Bank accounts, overseas mostly, all in his head. He never forgets.’
The sound of a racing engine I’d heard in the back of my subconscious grew louder. The car came round the corner on two wheels. A black BMW, three series, two men in the front seat. That was as much as I saw. The left wing just missed me as I threw myself to the side. I heard the sound of the collision as I hit the ground. The car roared off, snaking from side to side as the driver floored the pedal.
There was very little blood, but the man’s head was crushed almost beyond recognition. I stood up, dusted myself down. Nobody around. No witnesses. Nothing more for me here. I scuffed the area where I’d been standing, removing any trace of my presence, walked away.
The BMW would turn up, sooner or later. Abandoned, sanitised, a dead end.
Nothing more for me here.
