The Cleaner

57

Pinky took a seat on the see-saw and looked around. They were in the playground next to Blissett House. He looked up at the fifth floor. The fire had been contained there, but Elijah’s old flat and the ones on each side had been gutted. Black ash and soot was everywhere, the windows and doors had been boarded up, the damage sticking out like an ugly bruise on the concrete face of the block. Pinky didn’t have strong feelings about what had happened. Elijah and his mums had brought it on themselves. What else was Bizness supposed to have done, the two of them sending that man after him like that? Pinky had no sympathy for them.

He had sent messages to the other boys and they had been waiting for him when he had arrived five minutes earlier. They were all there: Little Mark, Chips, Kidz and a couple of the primary school kids from the Estate who had been hanging around with him for the last week. Time they got promoted, Pinky thought, time they had something useful to do. The boys were spread out; Chips and Kidz sat on the swings, Little Mark leant against the chain-link fence, the youngsters kept together, eyeing the older boys with a mixture of bravado and nervousness. The older boys were smoking from the joint that Pinky had rolled and passed around.

It had been a crazy few days and Pinky had not slept much. It didn’t matter, though; he still felt good. There was no point in pretending that he hadn’t been frightened, but nothing had happened to him and now he was in the clear. He had searched the studio after Milton had left; he figured he had a little time before the Feds came and he knew that there was bound to be stuff worth taking. He had been right about that: he had found more than ten grand in a holdall and dozens of little bags filled with cocaine, ready to be distributed to Bizness’s dealers, the network of shotters that he had on the street. Pinky had put the Mac-10s and the drugs into another bag he found and left the studio by the fire escape at the back.

It had been hairy getting back. London had been a war-zone that night, police cars and vans speeding through the back streets under blue lights, but he had not been stopped. He had stored the guns and money under his bed at home, hiding it beneath his empty trainer boxes and dirty clothes. His Mums had given up trying to get him to keep the room tidy long ago and she had stopped going inside. He knew they would be safe there for a day or two until he could think of somewhere better.

Pinky cast his gaze around the group. They all knew Pops was gone but no-one had said anything about it. Pinky guessed that they had heard that he was responsible, and, while he was not stupid enough to admit that it had been him, he was happy for them to speculate. He would not own up to it, but he would not deny it, either. A little bit of fear was a good thing, especially with what he had planned. It helped to build respect. That had been a long time coming, and he was going to make sure that he took advantage of it.

Pinky reckoned that he had been given an opportunity. After always being second best, now he had a chance to really do something with his life. Make a name for himself, make some money; he wasn’t going to fuck it up, no way.

He got up from the see-saw. “Aight,” he said. “First things first. I’m in charge now. Anyone have a problem with that?”

No-one spoke.

“Didn’t think so,” he grinned. He lifted the holdall onto the roundabout and pulled back the zip. Dozens of little bags, full of white powder, were snuggled together inside. “Pay attention,” he said, making sure that they had all seen the stash. “Things are going to change around here. We’re going to make some mad cash. I’m going into business, boys — if you got the balls to be a part of it, listen up. This is what we’re gonna do.”

58

Group Fifteen had its own private medical facilities attached to a well-known London teaching hospital. State of the art facilities, the best doctors in the country, absolute discretion. Control watched through the window as the surgeon bent low to examine the damage that had been done to Twelve’s knee. The man — and his three colleagues — were wearing green smocks, their faces covered by surgical masks and latex gloves over their hands. Twelve had been anaesthetised and was laid out on the operating table, covered by a sheet with a long vertical slit that allowed easy access to his right leg. The surgeon had already sliced open his knee, a neat incision that began just below the quadriceps and curved around the line of his leg. The opening was held open by medical clips and a miniature camera on an articulated arm had been positioned overhead, its feed visible on the large screen that was fixed to the wall in the observation suite. Milton’s bullet had ruined the knee, smashing through the anterior and posterior ligaments and shattering the patella. They had examined the damage with an arthroscope first and determined that repairs were not possible; a full arthroplasty was necessary. The surgeon had removed what was left of the patella and had shaved the ends of the femur and tibia so that he could fix the replacement joint. One of his colleagues was preparing the bone cement while the other was checking that the prosthesis was ready to be implanted.

Control watched the screen, his eyes a little glazed. He was not bothered by the blood and the gore; Heaven knows, he had seen enough of it over the years, and much worse than this. He was not really concentrating on Twelve at all. His mind was on Milton.

His liquidation should have been straightforward. Twelve had had the benefit of surprise and Milton was not as young as he had once been. And, yet, here they were, with a badly injured agent and Milton a ghost.

He had been working on damage control ever since Twelve had limped out of the church hall and called for emergency pickup. He had taken the response team himself to ensure that there was no trace of Twelve ever having been there. The blood from his leg had been scrubbed away and footage from local CCTV cameras had been deleted. The dead man — Rutherford — was left where he was. Twelve had explained what had happened. The surprise of Rutherford’s appearance had saved Milton’s life and so now, in death, he would have to pay back the damage that he had caused. His body would prove to be useful. It was easy to fabricate the story. CCTV footage placed Milton at the scene and showed Rutherford arriving moments before he was shot.

A camera at the entrance to the park had footage of Milton heading north. He was wounded, too, a bullet to the shoulder. They had immediately checked local hospitals for admissions but it was perfunctory; Milton was much too savvy to do something as foolish as that. An hour later they had intercepted a call to local police of a break-in. A couple had returned to their house on the edge of the nearby park to find that someone had forced the door to the garden. Their car and a few clothes had been stolen. That, in itself, would have been enough for Control to have investigated but they had also reported that their first aid cabinet had been ransacked, that a lamp had been moved onto the kitchen table and that kitchen utensils had been found covered in blood. Control took command of the investigation himself and visited the house. He went through into the kitchen and sat at the table, glancing at his reflection. He knew that Milton had been sitting in the same chair a couple of hours earlier. He had operated on himself, cleaned the wound and made it safe until he found someone that he could trust to do the job properly. He had showered, changed clothes, taken their car and fled. The police were looking for the vehicle but they had not located it yet. It would not matter. They would find it eventually, abandoned at the side of the road when Milton switched vehicles. It would be too late then. He would stay ahead of them unless he made a mistake or he chose to be found.

Control focussed on the screen again as the prosthesis was carefully placed into Twelve’s wrecked joint.

John Milton was a chameleon. He had twenty years’ experience of blending into the background, surfacing only to do the bloody work of his trade before sinking out of sight again. Control felt an icy knot in the pit of his stomach. Milton was the most dangerous man he had ever met and now he knew that the State wanted him dead. He had no idea what he would do next and that was the kind of thought that would keep a man up at night.

59

The motorway stretched away into the distance, the slow-moving row of tail-lights painting a lazy swipe across the valley. There had been a crash outside Wolverhampton and the traffic had backed up, filtering slowly through two lanes while the grim wreckage was craned away. Milton had cursed the accident. He knew that it would only be a matter of time before the details of the stolen BMW were added to the national registry. The motorway was equipped with the CCTV masts that serviced the police’s number plate recognition system, and the longer he stayed on the road the greater the chance that the car would be noticed. He felt vulnerable and, even though he knew it would make no difference, he had tugged down the brim of the baseball cap he had found in the glove compartment so that his face was partially obscured.

He was tired and his shoulder throbbed. He had been driving for three hours. His instinct was not to stop until he reached Manchester but, as he passed the sign advertising the services at Stafford South he decided it was worth the risk for a strong cup of coffee.

Milton moved carefully into the crawler lane and pulled off the motorway.

The car park was quiet, a wide open space lit by a series of tall overhead lights. Milton parked in a shadowed area and walked across to the complex of buildings. There were very few drivers around, a handful of red-eyed travellers drinking coffee in the small Starbucks concession. Milton bought a packet of Nurofen from WH Smith and then ordered a double espresso and a bottle of water from the bored-looking barista.

Milton looked up at the screen fixed to the wall. The BBC’s rolling news channel was showing. He sipped from the Styrofoam cup as the anchor recapped the day’s news. The riots were the main focus. The worst of the disturbances had abated but the police had been short-handed and there was talk of calling in the army. Milton was stunned by their severity. Large parts of Croydon had been set alight, and a furniture store that he recognised had been razed to the ground by a ferocious blaze. There was footage from Hackney and Tottenham, crowds of rioters with scarves obscuring their faces, packs of looters that descended on retail parks and local businesses alike, taking whatever they could lay their hands upon. A police superintendent was interviewed, and promised that the culprits would be caught and punished. Milton thought of Elijah. Had they had got to him in time?

“And in other news, Police have launched a murder hunt after a man was found dead in the boxing club he ran in London’s East End. Dennis Rutherford was found this evening by one of his students. He had been shot.”

A picture of Rutherford was displayed. He was with a group of youngsters, holding a trophy and smiling into the camera. The picture switched to an outside broadcast. A reporter was standing in front of the boxing club, a policeman standing guard at the entrance.

The reporter spoke into the camera. “The Metropolitan police and London ambulance service were called here at 10.20pm, where the victim, from Hackney, was subsequently pronounced dead. A post-mortem is due to take place tomorrow but it is understood that he died from a single gunshot wound. Police sources say that they want to speak to John Milton, last seen in the London area. He is described as a middle-aged white male, six foot tall, well built and with short dark hair. They recommend that he is not approached and that members of the public with information on his whereabouts should contact officers as soon as possible.”

A head-and-shoulders picture of Milton flashed onto the screen. He recognised it: the picture had been taken from his Group file. Control was behaving exactly as he knew that he would. He would organise a manhunt, co-opting all the other agencies: the intelligence service, the police, everyone. His picture remained on the screen as the report continued. Milton looked around at the other customers anxiously. No-one was paying the television much attention but he replaced the cap on his head regardless.

He took his coffee with him and went back out into the hot night. The steady hum of the motorway was loud, the stand of trees that had been planted at the edge of the car park doing little to dampen the noise. Milton ignored the BMW. It had served him well, but he knew that it would have been reported by now. He found a spot that was poorly served by CCTV and approached a Ford Mondeo. He forced the door, slid inside and hotwired the engine.

The digital clock on the dashboard showed a little after three in the morning as he rejoined the motorway heading north. He passed through the gears, making sure to stay below the speed limit. In an hour and a half, the lights of Liverpool sparkled in the distance. Milton turned off the motorway and drove into town.