No Peace For The Wicked

Chapter 36

Riley felt the skin tightening on the back of her neck and debated driving the Mercedes into the nearest brick wall. But she knew it wouldn’t work. McManus was sitting beside her with a handgun in one huge fist and the other hand resting on the seat-back behind her. The proximity of the gun repulsed her almost as much as the touch of his hand.

After leaving the hotel, he had walked her to his car with his arm clamped around her shoulder, then pushed her into the driving seat, handing her the keys.

“You’re driving,” he told her. “And forget about any silly shunts on the way. Make a wrong move and I’ll top you where you sit.” As he got in the passenger seat he produced a gun, which he held under his jacket with the muzzle pointing at Riley’s stomach. “Yeah. Look at it, darlin’,” he muttered. “Imagine what kind of bullet comes out of a barrel this big. Think of the damage it’d do to that precious little body.”

She followed his directions onto the coast road towards Malaga, then out to a suburb of narrow streets and shabby housing. Whining mopeds buzzed around the big German car, overtaking on blind corners and slipping through gaps which looked suicidally small. And everywhere delivery trucks of all shapes and sizes seemed to fill the streets, causing jams and minor altercations as motorists leaned out of the vehicles and shouted at each other. McManus’s hand moved forward off the seat, resting heavily midway between Riley’s shoulder and neck as a reminder not to try anything.

“Slow down.” McManus leaned forward as they nosed along a narrow street, then indicated a parking space ahead. “Pull in there.”

Riley did as she was told and cut the engine, shivering as McManus’s hand curled warningly over her shoulder. She saw why: a hundred yards ahead, a dark blue car was nosing out of the gates to a house next to a hoarding advertising a new block of flats. A uniformed policeman closed the gates, then stretched a length of plastic tape across the front before climbing into the car. Another policeman stepped out of the front door of the house and closed the door, pinning another length of tape in place, before joining his colleague. Seconds later the car was disappearing down the street.

McManus sniggered quietly. “That’s handy. Everything stops for lunch in this country, did you know that?” He pointed forward. “Okay. Up to the gates.”

Riley started the car and drove forward. She briefly considered driving right through the ironwork but she knew McManus would kill her before they even made contact.

“Keys,” McManus ordered, his hand held out as soon as she stopped. She handed them over and he got out and untied the police tape, then opened the gates. Returning the keys, he told her to drive the car inside, then retied the tape before closing the gates behind them.

In one of the Hotel Palacio’s small conference rooms, Lottie Grossman was staring coolly at Andre Segassa. Alongside her sat John Mitcheson and Howie. They were watching Segassa’s escort as he stood against the wall behind his boss.

Doug and Gary were in the corridor, watching the doorways on each side and the fire-exit at one end.

The Grossman party had arrived fifteen minutes early and, to Lottie’s annoyance, was being made to wait for the privilege. Segassa had come down to meet them, but had explained that his colleague was busy on the telephone. In the meantime he had arranged for coffee and sandwiches to be served.

There was a tap at the door and Gary appeared. Behind him stood a man with the wary expression of the professional bodyguard. His eyes flickered around the room and he nodded at the man behind Segassa.

“Man wants us to clear the corridor, boss,” said Gary. He was looking directly at Lottie Grossman rather than Mitcheson. “Says the big chief’s on his way down.”

Mitcheson kept his face blank, although Howie looked surprised. For a brief second nobody moved.

“Very well,” said Lottie, and Gary disappeared, followed by the other man.

Lottie leaned closer to Mitcheson and hissed: “Has McManus called? He was supposed to let us know if he’d found the girl.”

Mitcheson shook his head, feeling the slow burn of anger and despair. Even with Gary’s casual display of transferred allegiance, he was asking himself the same question and trying hard not to freak out at the implications. Right now he was more concerned about Riley’s safety than Gary’s duplicity. “I haven’t heard from him. He went out this morning like you told him.”

“I’ll have his balls,” Lottie grated angrily, ignoring the pointed dig at her orders. “Who the hell does he think he is?”

Moments later an elderly man entered the room. With gold-rimmed glasses and a receding hairstyle, he looked more like an academic than a Moroccan narcotics dealer. He nodded briefly at Lottie and sat down next to Segassa, produced a gold lighter and lit a cigarette.

“Can we get on with this?” Lottie Grossman said stiffly.

The man paused, cigarette mid-way to his mouth. He lowered it and stared at the woman with the beginnings of distaste. “You English are so impatient,” he said softly. “And discourteous.” He puffed on the cigarette, sending a cloud of strongly-scented smoke into the air. “Mr Bignell was also impatient, although always polite… in his own way.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” said Lottie, a flinty look in her eye. “For now I’d like to get things moving. When can we have the first shipment, Mr…?”

“You can have the shipment tomorrow,” the man replied, without giving his name. “Make the first payment now and the package will be landed in the afternoon.”

Lottie seemed impressed in spite of herself. “That’s quick work.”

The man shrugged. “We already had the route set up, until you… took over from Mr Bignell. It works — why change it?”

“Isn’t it risky, using the same methods?”

The man sighed and looked at the woman as if she was a child who had made a silly remark. Lottie’s face coloured beneath her heavy make-up and her pudgy hands balled into fists on the table top.

Alongside her, Mitcheson was struggling to restrain himself. He wanted to grab the stupid old woman by the shoulders and tell her if she continued the way she was going, there wouldn’t be any deal and they could all go home again. But at least he could continue his search for Riley.

“If you’re using existing routes,” Lottie pointed out doggedly, “your costs won’t be as high, will they?”

Segassa spoke for the first time. “What are you suggesting — that we give you a special discount, maybe? Buy one, get one free?” The tone was mocking but his eyes were cold as a dead fish.

Lottie ignored the sarcasm. “Why not? We’ll increase your volume by ten times what Bignell was shifting.”

Segassa appeared unimpressed. “You know how much Bignell was moving?”

“It was peanuts compared with what we can shift.”

The elderly man stubbed his cigarette out in a glass ashtray and looked questioningly at Lottie. “Have you any idea what twenty kilos looks like? How difficult it is to… to manage?”

“I compare it to bags of sugar,” Lottie replied simply. “And how I put it away is my business.”

“No. Not quite.” The man wagged a finger from side to side, the most animated he had been since entering the room. A faint pulse had started to beat in his throat. “If you make a mistake, Mrs Grossman, it could lead back to us. And that will very definitely become my business.”

In the silence that followed, a vacuum cleaner hummed in the distance. Outside the door a man cleared his throat.

“Now,” the elderly man said, rising from his chair and placing his hands flat on the table, “at the risk of being discourteous also, I must go. Do you wish to deal, or not?”

Lottie glared at him, aware the Moroccan was in the stronger position. “All right.”

The man nodded and glanced at Segassa. “You know what to do.”

He stepped away from the table, then paused and looked back at Lottie. “Payment now, delivery tomorrow. No problems, we do more business.”

“What about the other matter?” Lottie’s voice was calm, but with a hint of resentment bubbling just beneath the surface.

“Ah, yes. The travellers. There is a big demand. Maybe very big. Something we may have overlooked, perhaps.” He smiled, self-mockingly. “First, let us see how this arrangement goes. Then we will talk again.” He reached into his jacket and took out a white square of thick, glossy paper and flipped it onto the table. It skidded across the polished surface and came to rest against Lottie Grossman’s hands.

“A small demonstration of how closely we control things around here, Mrs Grossman,” he said pleasantly. “Please do not underestimate my reach.”

He left the room and closed the door. Lottie turned over the square of paper and gave a sharp intake of breath. Mitcheson and Howie craned their necks to see what she was looking at.

It was a grainy photo of an elderly man lying on a bed, staring up at the camera. To one side lay a bowl and flannel, and a tube of soap gel.