Aggressor

1

‘Hereford.’ A finger prodded me in the shoulder. ‘You wanted to know when we got to Hereford.’

I struggled to open my eyes. I hadn’t realized the train had stopped. Lucky I’d asked the old lady opposite to give me a shout, or I’d have woken up in Worcester.

I thanked her and headed for the door, feeling like a zombie. After a two-and-a-bit-hour journey from Paddington, I’d changed at Newport for the local commuter to ‘H’, as it was known to guys in the Regiment. Before we’d even left London, my lids had been drooping and my chin was on my chest. Too many time zones and twelve thousand miles in cattle class were against me.

My conscience was weighing pretty heavily, too. I felt bad about lying to Silky. ‘Going to the station to see if he’s left anything in the wagon’ was hardly the same as ‘I’ve spoken to the broker and it sounds like he’s accepted a job offer somewhere, so I’m flying halfway across the world to find out more. You know that bit about being back here tonight? I’ll actually be thirty thousand feet over Singapore by then, but apart from that, everything I said was true and we can trust each other always, honest.’ But what else was I supposed to do? The only way to find out where Charlie had gone was to put in a personal appearance. The broker wouldn’t help me. His job was to match guys and work, not tell them to go home. The only way I was going to be able to fetch him back to his family was to physically grab hold of the silly old fucker and find out exactly what the problem was, and then see if I could help.

Maybe it was being separated from her for the first time in three months that did it, but I had a terrible feeling I was missing Silky already. She had a stupid accent and an irritating habit of understanding people much better than I did most of the time, but I’d got used to her being around, and it wasn’t at all a bad feeling. The lying thing wouldn’t go down well, of course, but Hazel would explain and I’d make it up to her somehow when I got back. Whenever that was. And if she was still there.

As I stepped onto the platform, carry-on in hand, I had a go at wiping off the dribble soaking into the front of my leather bomber jacket. The old lady must have thought I was pissed.

I wandered out to the taxi rank. Not much seemed to have changed. There was a new superstore opposite the station, but that was about it.

I climbed into a cab and asked for Bobblestock. The driver, a guy in his mid-fifties, eyed me knowingly in the rear-view of his old Peugeot 405. ‘Been far, have you?’ The locals loved the Regiment being based in their town, and not just because of the amount of money they spent. This guy was drawing all the wrong conclusions from a bloke with a tan who looked like he’d slept in a hedge.

‘Yeah.’ I tried to rub my face back to life. ‘I can’t remember the name of the road but I’ll show you where it is when we get there.’

I spotted a new pub and a couple of shops that hadn’t been there long, but otherwise Hereford was exactly as I remembered it. I’d left the Regiment in 1993, and I’d never been back since. The only thing I’d left behind was my account at the Halifax. I wondered how much interest I’d made on £1.52.

Bobblestock had been one of the first of the new breed of estates that sprang up on the outskirts of towns in the Thatcher era. The houses were all made from machined bricks and looked as if they were huddled together for warmth. With 2.4 children inside, a Mondeo on the drive, the minimum of back garden and front lawns small enough to cut with scissors, these places had about as much character as a room in a Holiday Inn. The developers had probably made a killing, then bought themselves nice period mansions in the outlying villages.

Crazy Dave lived on the high ground of Bobblestock, which he proudly told me had been Phase Three of the build. That was the only landmark I had in my head, but it was good enough.

‘Just here, mate.’

We stopped outside a brick rectangle with a garage extension that looked as if it had been assembled from a flat-pack. The house to its right was called Byeways, the one to its left, the Nook. Crazy Dave’s just had a number. Typical. Crazy Dave had been in Boat Troop, A Squadron. I knew him more from the café downtown than from work. We both used to spend our Sunday mornings there, drinking coffee, eating toast and reading the supplements. Him because he was trying to avoid his wife; me because I didn’t have one.

Crazy Dave had earned his name because he wasn’t; he was about as zany as a teacup. He was the kind of guy who analysed a joke before saying, ‘Oh yeah, I get it. That’s funny.’ In all the time I knew him, he never understood why shitting in someone’s Bergen was funny. But for all his faults, being as straight as a die made him perfect for his new job. Discretion was everything. When I’d asked him about Charlie over the phone, he’d admitted the old fucker was on the books, but wouldn’t give me any wheres or whens. He did invite me round for a brew, though, any time I wanted to chat; so, well, here I was.

There was no car outside, but I could see movement through the living-room window. I paid the driver and walked up the concrete ramp that had replaced the front steps.

I rang the bell and the door was opened almost at once by two guys on their way out. They looked young and fit, obviously either having just left the Regiment, or being about to. They were both dressed, like me, in Timberland boots, leather jacket and jeans.

I closed the door behind me as the two guys walked away. The staircase was dead ahead, and fitted with one of those stairlifts that Thora Hird used to flog in the Sunday supplements.

Dave’s voice came from down to the right somewhere. ‘Straight through, mate. Out the back.’

I walked into a no-frills living room; laminate flooring, three-piece suite, a large TV and that was about it. The rest was open space. French windows opened onto the garden.

‘I’m in the garage, mate.’

I crossed a small square of lawn to where another ramp led up to a pair of doors set into the garage wall — a recent addition, judging by the fresh mortar and brick edging.

The garage had been converted into an office. There was a stud wall where the up-and-over door would once have been, and no windows. Crazy Dave was sitting behind his desk. He didn’t get up. He couldn’t.

2

I went over and shook his hand. ‘What the fuck did you do to yourself?’

Crazy Dave wheeled his way round in front of me, in a very high-tech aluminium go-faster chair. ‘Not what you think. Got bounced off my Suzuki on the M4 by a truck driver from Estonia and took the scenic route. Did a tour of the central reservation, then checked out a fair amount of the opposite carriageway. Six months in Stoke Mandeville. My legs are fucked. I’m still in and out of hospital like a bleeding yo-yo. Plates in, plates out; they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.’ He looked me up and down. ‘Fuck me, you don’t look too good yourself. Fancy a brew?’

Not waiting for my answer, he spun the wheels past the sink and towards the kettle in the corner. ‘So that was me out of the Regiment. Too handicapped even to be a Rupert. I get disability pension, but it hardly keeps me in haircuts. Then this landed on my plate. Madness not to.’

There had always been a broker knocking around Hereford. He had to be ex-Regiment because he had to know the people — who was in, who was getting out — and if he didn’t, he had to know a man who did.

There was a clink of mugs. ‘Had to turn the garage into a fortress, of course. The doors have drop-down steel shutters. Got to be firearm secure because of all that gear.’ He nodded at the desk. All he had was a phone, a notebook, and two boxes of plain postcards, but to people wanting to know which companies were doing which jobs, they’d have been worth more than a whole truckload of AK47s.

‘How’s it all work, Dave? I’ve never been to a broker.’

‘Guys come in, or phone me and say they’re looking for work. I bang their details down on a card and put them into the box marked “Standby”. See the other box? That’s for “Bayonets”. They’re the boys who are actually working.’

I hoped the kettle was going to boil soon. Admin stuff might be fascinating to Dave, but I now knew all I needed to.

No such luck. A light started to burn in his eyes. Maybe he was crazy after all. He was like a trainspotter who’d just been asked to give a guided tour of the Orient Express. ‘The system’s simple. A company calls and asks for four medics, say, and a demolitions guy. I go into the Standby box and shuffle through the cards from the front, until I’ve got the requirement. They get a call. If they want the work they get moved from Standby to Bayonets. If they don’t, their card goes to the back of the box. Once they’ve finished that job, if they still want to be on the books, they go into the back of the Standby box.’

What could I say? I gave him the sort of look that I hoped he’d mistake for total fascination.

The kettle finally rescued me. Crazy Dave busily squashed teabags as I settled in the chair the other side of his desk. He wheeled himself across to me with two mugs in one hand.

The choice was Smarties Easter Egg or Thunderbird 4. I settled for Smarties; it wasn’t quite so chipped and stained.

‘So, what do you want to know about Charlie?’

‘He’s a dinosaur, Dave; he’s far too old to be fucking about. Hazel wants him home.’

He manoeuvred his way back to his side of the desk. ‘She still putting up with the old fucker then?’

I nodded. ‘Talking of which, your kids OK?’

He sat back in his wheelchair and had a sip of the brew. ‘Married and gone, mate. The boy’s in London, fucking about with some Polish model, and the daughter’s married a pointy-head. Got a nice place in town.’

Dave had lived here for over thirty years now, but he still called everyone a pointy-head, as if he’d just turned up.

I took a sip of my own tea and nearly choked. It was three parts sugar.

He grinned from ear to ear. ‘Even the exmissus has married a pointy-head. One of the local coppers. What about you, Nick? Married? Divorced? Kids? The whole catastrophe, I shouldn’t wonder…’

I shook my head and smiled. ‘I think I may still have a German girlfriend back in Australia, but I had to leave her in a hurry because of you. She isn’t going to be impressed.’

He grinned again. ‘Them box-heads have always got the hump about something or other.’

We could have waffled on. I could have told him about Kelly — he’d known her dad, Kev. But we’d done the social bit, and I was here to find Charlie.

‘Can you give me some idea where the old fucker’s gone? I promised Hazel I’d give him the lecture. You know how it is.’

Dave gave a smile that told me he did, and he’d heard it a hundred times. ‘You know I can’t tell you anything, mate. It’s the deal with the companies: they don’t want anybody knowing what jobs they’ve got going on. And if everybody went home as soon as their wives started honking, there’d be hardly any fucker working.’

He put down his mug and gripped the arms of his wheelchair. He lifted himself a couple of inches out of the seat and held himself there; maybe something to do with circulation, or to stop pressure sores developing on his arse.

‘What about yourself, Nick? I haven’t heard your name mentioned on the circuit; what you doing?’

‘Oh, you know… Stuff.’ I shrugged and smiled. ‘Look, Dave, I don’t need to know what Charlie’s up to. I just want to be able to phone up Hazel and say I spoke to him.’

He put his tea down and wheeled himself back alongside me. ‘Sorry, mate, but you’re fucked. Apart from security, what if you convinced him to head back for the pipe and cocoa? I’d have to find a replacement. And anyway, he was gagging for a job. I didn’t make him come to me, did I?’

He swivelled the chair and headed off towards the door. ‘Tell you what, I’m going for a dump. I’ve been trying to put a toilet in here, but planning won’t let me, the bastards.’ He whistled through the French windows and down the ramp.

‘Hey, Nick, watch this!’

I got up and went to the door just as he lifted his front wheels and did a 360. ‘I’ve got to close up, mate. Want to wait in the front room and finish your brew? What about a pint, later?’

I followed him outside and watched as he locked the garage doors with one of a bunch of about half a dozen keys.

We went into the living room and he carried on to the bottom of the stairs. As I sat down he transferred himself onto the lift. Then he selected another key from the bunch, pushed it into a control box on the wall, and gave it a turn. The chair glided slowly upwards.

‘You need a hand, Dave?’

‘Nah, it’s rigged up like a monkey’s climbing frame up here.’

The moment I heard the bathroom door close, I was on my feet and heading for the kitchen. No sign of the fuse box. I tried the cupboard under the stairs. There were two rows of cutout switches encased in a neat rectangle of plastic, but not one of them was labelled. Fuck it; I turned the whole lot off at the master switch.

I went to the control box, grabbed the bunch of keys, and headed for the garage.

Charlie’s card was right at the front of the Bayonets box. It didn’t say who for, where, or what the job was, just that Dave had booked him a hotel room in Istanbul.

I locked up and went back to the living room.

‘Nick! The fucking power’s gone. Nick, you there?’

‘Coming, what’s up?’

I got the key back in the box just as Dave eased himself off another wheelchair at the top of the stairs and onto the lift. He hammered away at the down button like a lunatic.

‘See? I can’t even have a fucking dump in peace. Try a light for us, see if the power’s gone.’

I hit the hall switch. ‘Where’s the fuse box?’

Dave told me and I headed for it. A few moments later the microwave in the kitchen buzzed a power-cut warning and he started to make his way back down.

‘Dave — sorry, mate, but I can’t stay for that pint. If Charlie’s in touch, tell him to phone home — Hazel’s lost something and he’s the only one who knows where it is.’

3

One of the first things I always noticed about a new country was the smell. In the arrivals lounge at Ataturk International it had been of strong aftershave; in the back of this cab it was even stronger cigarettes. The driver was already sucking on his second since leaving the airport.

The traffic was chaos, and to add to the misery the driver sang along, between drags, to the loud Arab pop music that blared from the radio. He kept turning his head for approval, like he’d mistaken me for Simon Cowell and I was about to sign him to a billion-lira contract. His blue-eye talisman swung wildly from the rear-view mirror as we hurtled from one side of the road to the other. I hoped it worked as well with articulated lorries as it did against evil spirits; the driver’s eyes were everywhere but on the road.

Every leg of this journey had been a nightmare, Australia to Hereford, Hereford to Stansted, Stansted to Turkey. Stansted on its own deserved some sort of prize. It felt like I’d spent longer there than I had in the air from Brisbane.

I’d made my way to it from Crazy Dave’s without checking flights. I’d assumed one of the bucket carriers would be my best bet, and I just hoped I’d walk straight on. But of course I’d missed the last one by an hour, so had to spend the night stretched out on a row of anti-sleep seats in the terminal. And because I got there late, I’d missed the last of the baguettes at the only café still open. I settled for four packets of salt and vinegar instead, and two large coffees that proceeded to keep me awake all night.

Even though the weather was cold, grey and blustery, I kept the back windows of the taxi open, partly because I needed the ventilation, and partly because I thought it might help me in a crash. We finally got to the Barcelo Eresin Topkapi Hotel without being flattened. The journey had been only three cigarettes long.

I hadn’t had time to go online and check the place out, but it looked pretty impressive. A drive swept past the front of a large, four-storey building that wouldn’t have been out of place among the grand hotels along the Croisette in Cannes.

A huge banner over the entrance welcomed the architects of Germany to their very important conference. That was what I assumed it said, anyway. All I’d learned during my two years in Sennelager as an infantry soldier was how to ask for a beer and half a chicken and chips, and I’d normally ended up with two; if they asked me whether I’d like anything on it, I’d just order it all over again.

I paid the driver and headed through a pair of towering glass automatic doors into the lobby. An ornate rope barrier guided me towards a metal detector, maybe a hangover from the bomb attacks in 2003. Whatever, the security guard, whose shirt collar was at least three sizes too big for his neck, just waved me past, then busied himself hassling a couple of locals coming in behind me.

Three or four blonde girls were clustered on a portable exhibition stand to the right of reception. The display space behind their hospitality desk was lined with photos of glassy, high-tech buildings, and they could hardly move for the piles of goody bags on either side of them. The architects were clearly getting the warmest of welcomes.

The lobby was constructed entirely of dark wood and pale marble. I kept walking, looking for signs that would point me to the bar, a café, even a toilet — it didn’t matter, so long as I looked as if I knew where I was going.

I headed for a big leather armchair at the bottom of a flight of marble steps where people sat drinking tea. I ordered myself a double espresso, and tried to resist the urge to put my head back; it wouldn’t have taken me long to flake out.

The coffee took for ever to come, but it didn’t matter. I waited and watched. A group disgorged from a plush Mercedes coach and were shepherded straight to the hospitality desk.

I picked up one of the ‘This place is great’ type brochures. The hotel, it told me, ‘distances itself from and to the following point of interests: only 3 kilometres from the famous Covered Bazaar, Suleymaniye Mosque, Blue Mosque, and Topkapi Palace’. All the rooms had a ‘luxurious bathroom’ and, what was more, ‘own private hairdyer with a parallel line are all individually yours’. Wasn’t Charlie the lucky one?

I’d never been to Istanbul before. All I knew about it was that spies used to be exchanged at the railway station, and the Orient Express stopped here before it crossed the Bosphorus. When it came to the Turks themselves, I just had my stepfather’s words ringing in my ears. ‘Don’t stand still or they’ll nick your shoelaces,’ he used to say about anyone east of Calais. I guessed it might have been like that once, but when I looked outside I didn’t see a steamy bazaar full of shifty conmen. I saw sleek women in Western dress and steel-and-glass trams gliding along a broad, boutique-lined boulevard. If I hadn’t known better, I’d have said I was in Milan. The newer cars had a little blue strip on the side of their number plates, optimistically preparing for EU membership.

I looked around for any sign of my coffee. Maybe I’d try giving Charlie a call.

When it finally arrived, I took a sip from the thimble-sized cup and eyed up the house phones between the reception desk and the lifts. I’d call Charlie to tell him I was downstairs. If there was no answer, I’d wait out on the street and just keep a trigger on the place until he returned — which I hoped wouldn’t be long, because I was going to fall asleep soon whether I wanted to or not.

Should I call Silky and Hazel back at the farm? I hadn’t emailed or spoken to them since leaving Brisbane. Better to wait till I had some definite news, I told myself — though the truth was I wanted to avoid having to explain where I was to Hazel for as long as I could.

I slipped a couple of bills under the saucer and wandered over to the phones. As I picked up the receiver, the lift pinged. A crowd of Germans and Turks came past, swinging their conference goody bags.

The operator rattled off her hellos in Turkish, German and English.

‘Listen, the architects’ conference…’ I smiled broadly; when you do that, it transmits to the listener. ‘I’m the English-speaking organizer in reception, and a Mr Charles Tindall has gone up without his welcome pack… Could you possibly put me through to him?’ I flicked through my imaginary notepad. ‘He’s in… let’s see, room one-oh-six… or is that two-oh-six? I can’t read this writing.’

‘Mr Tindall is in three-one-seven. He is with the conference?’

‘Well, I’ve got a welcome pack for him. Oh my word, here he is right now… Thank you very much for your help. Mr Tindall, here’s your—’

I put the phone down, and seconds later was pressing the button for the lift.

4

I followed the signs to rooms 301–21, down a wide, carpeted corridor. Room 317 was near the end, on the left; its windows would look out onto the boulevard. A Do Not Disturb sign hung from the door handle.

I knocked and took a step back so he’d have a good view of me through the spyhole. ‘It’s Nick.’ I gave him a big grin.

The door opened.

‘I’ve come to pay back that three quid I owe you.’

Charlie was wearing jeans and a pullover he could only have bought from a shop catering for colour-blind customers. He wasn’t smiling as much as the bloke who sold it to him must have; as he ushered me past, I wasn’t too sure if his expression was one of surprise or anger.

I walked into a big, well-furnished room, dominated by a mahogany bed and a window that filled an entire wall. I could just about hear a tram rumbling below us. He still hadn’t unpacked his carry-on, which lay open with his washing and shaving kit and a few pairs of socks on display, but there was a black laptop sitting on the desk next to the TV, lid up and screen working.

Charlie was close behind. ‘Er, don’t tell me, you were just passing.’

‘Had to get my finger out and find you, didn’t I? You spoken to Hazel yet?’

‘You’re joking! She’ll rip my head off and drag it down the phone. I emailed, said I’m fine and I’ll call later.’

I went and sat down on the bed. If he decided to chuck me out, he’d find it more difficult if I’d made myself at home. ‘Do us a favour, will you? Get a plane home with me, and I can go back to my German without your wife killing me.’

He opened the minibar under the TV and brought out two cans of Carlsberg. He handed me one and we both pulled back the rings.

‘Sorry about that.’ He leaned against the desk by the TV and took a mouthful. ‘She can be a nightmare when she’s got the blood up. I’ll call her tonight to explain, now I know how long I’ll be away.’ He smiled briefly before taking another swig. ‘How’d you find me?’

I told him about the power cut at Crazy Dave’s. He laughed so loud they probably heard him on the tram.

I was feeling too out of it to laugh, or even to touch the beer; I just rested the can on my chest as I stretched out on the bed. ‘I don’t want to know the job, mate. That’s your business. But if you’re serious about working, you could do much better than here. What about Baghdad, or even Kabul? The money’s better. Four-fifty to five hundred a day for a team leader, even for a geriatric.’

‘Oi, less of the team leader. Anyway, who said anything about Istanbul?’ He took a long swig of Carlsberg and studied my face. ‘Three days’ work and all my problems are sorted.’

It was my turn to smile. ‘Sorted? What the fuck you on about? You’re already sorted. You’re living the dream.’

‘Hazel’s dream…’ He sighed. ‘Look, I’m happy to go along with it. Since Steven died, the only thing that’s kept her sane is having the whole family around her. But a farm don’t run on horseshit. The pension only just about pays the mortgage, for fuck’s sake. Cash flow, it doesn’t exist. This job will pay off the debts in one swoop, and then some.’

The high sweat-to-bread ratio sounded worrying. It normally signalled a job no-one else wanted to touch with a ten-foot pole.

‘How much?’

He smiled again, and this time it was the really annoying smile of someone who knows a secret you don’t. ‘It’s a one-off. Special senior citizen rates. Two hundred thousand US.’

‘Fuck me. You dropping Putin or something?’

‘Nah, I turned that one down.’

I raised my can to my mouth, then realized the taste of beer was the last thing I wanted. ‘Whatever. You’re too old for this shit. Go home; make Hazel happy. Let me get back to my German.’

Charlie kept looking at me and smiling, like the thing he was keeping to himself was the secret of the universe. ‘It’s not just about the money, lad.’

‘I knew it. All that waffle about that horse of yours… then that stuff on the TV… you just want to get out there and do it again, don’t you?’

‘I wish.’ He turned his back on me to gaze out of the window, and when he turned back, the smile had evaporated. He just stood there and stared at me for a long time, like a cop on the doorstep with bad news, searching for the right words to tell me. He looked down at his trembling hand, then back at me.

I finally twigged. ‘You’re sick, aren’t you?’

He looked away. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone this, especially Hazel. You up for it?’

I nodded. As if I was going to say no.

He stared at me again for what seemed like for ever, and in the end he just shrugged. ‘I’m dying.’

I was so tired I wondered if I’d heard right. ‘What? What the fuck’s wrong with you?’

He looked out of the window again. ‘MND, mate. Motor neurone disease. Well, one of the forms of it. A few Yanks who were in the Gulf have got it as well. They’re trying to find a connection, but it’s pretty academic. By the time they do, it will be too fucking late.’

‘You’re kidding me?’

He shook his head. ‘I wish.’

It was my turn to stare. I didn’t know what to say. The only person I could think of with motor neurone disease was Stephen Hawking. Did this mean Charlie was going to end up buzzing around in a wheelchair and sounding like a Dalek?

‘What’s the prognosis?’ I put the can down on the side and swivelled round to get my feet on the carpet. ‘I mean, is the bad stuff inevitable?’

‘It’s already happening.’ He took another swig of beer before holding the can out towards me. ‘Sometimes I have to really concentrate just to pull the ring on one of these things. Sometimes it’s a bit difficult turning door handles. It’s been going on for six months. I went to see a doctor on the quiet’ — he pointed his finger at me, the can still in his hand — ‘and it needs to stay that way. At least until all the money’s in the bank. I want something to cushion the blow for Hazel when I tell her.’

He siphoned up the last of his beer and this time I decided to join him.

‘Does it have to get worse? I mean, maybe a few trembles is as bad as it’ll get?’

He shook his head slowly. ‘Sure as night follows day.’ He sounded almost matter-of-fact. ‘The next step is memory loss, then my speech gets slurred. Then I won’t be able to walk or swallow… Five years on average, and that’s me gone.’

‘Stephen Hawking’s been going for donkey’s years.’

‘One in a million. It’s five years, some much quicker. I wouldn’t mind that. Once it gets to the stage where Hazel’s spoon-feeding me mashed banana, I’ll get her to kill me anyway.’ He started to laugh, maybe a bit too much. ‘Or maybe I’ll see just how much of a mate you are.’

5

We nursed our second can of Carlsberg in silence. I was still on the side of the bed; Charlie was by the TV, staring out of the netted window. I didn’t feel like drinking, but at least it was cold and purged my mouth of three days’ worth of airline shit on a tray. I wished it could have washed away Charlie’s bad news as well, but it didn’t. I felt sorry for him and his family, and that was a strange feeling for me to have. Normally it would just be a case of, tough shit and I’ll kill you when it’s spoon-feed time.

‘It makes sense now.’ I couldn’t stand the silence any more. ‘But what if your hands start disco dancing while you’re working?’

‘Chance I’ve got to take.’

‘Crazy Dave know?’

‘Crazy Dave’s a good man, but he’s not in the charity game.’ He shrugged and gave me a smile. ‘I just told him how much cash I needed and if there was a job that paid it, I’d be there. It’s my last payday. Hazel will need the money. And you were right about the horse…’ Charlie took the final swig from his can and put it down on the desk. He bent and stuck his head half inside the fridge as he rummaged among the drinks and chocolate bars. His voice was muffled. ‘I don’t want to spend my last few breaths stuck in the corner of a fucking field.’

Charlie hadn’t seen the state Hazel was in after he’d done the runner. ‘Why not go home and explain everything to her, then come back? What if you fuck up and don’t get home? That’ll be two Hazel’s lost, and all she’ll remember is you fucking off.’

He stood up with two cans, water this time, and handed me one. He placed his on the desk and had a go at opening it. This time his middle finger made a meal of getting under the ring pull.

‘Well, lad.’ The can finally fizzed. ‘She’s going to lose me whatever I do. This way at least she gets some compensation. I’m staying here.’ His eyes gleamed and there was certainty in his voice. He was suddenly the Charlie I knew of old. ‘Better to burn than fizzle out. I’ll do the job I’m contracted to do. Then I’ll go home and face the music. She’ll calm down after a while. She loves me really.’

He fixed his eyes on mine. ‘You want to come along as shotgun?’ He brought the can of water up to his mouth and tilted his head to drink. His eyes swivelled so they kept contact with mine. ‘No pay, mind — that’s all for Hazel. But I’ll pick up the costs and get you back to your German, Club Class.’

I couldn’t help but smile; it almost turned into a laugh because the situation was so ridiculous. I’d never worked for nothing in my entire life. I’d even charged my mum twenty pence to go to the corner shop for a pack of Embassy Gold. ‘But you haven’t even told me the job.’

Charlie detected the flicker of interest. He fished a USB memory stick out of his jeans and plugged it into his laptop. A dialogue box asked if he wanted to carry on with the movie clip from where he’d left off, or go back to the beginning. He tapped the keyboard and we got a jerky picture of a ten-foot brick wall with broken glass cemented into its top. A succession of Ladas trundled down the potholed road alongside it. I could see only the top two floors of the worn-out and pitted brick cube the other side of the wall, but every window was protected by a heavy grille that sat proud of the building so it could be opened outwards. The camera passed the graffiti-sprayed gates. Two wall-high metal plates closed the house off to the public. They looked as if they had been there as long as the house, rusting and battered, held together in the centre by a lever lock.

The picture curled as Charlie poked the screen. ‘Fucking amateur bag fit.’ The camera had been concealed in a bag of some kind, with just a small hole cut into it. If the lens had been pressed right up against it they might have got a full picture, but they’d done it so badly it was blurred round the edges.

‘What are we looking at?’

‘This, my lad, is the home of a government minister, in that most upright and enlightened of landscapes, the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He goes by the name of Zurab Bazgadze — though I like to think of him as plain old Baz.’

‘Great. And?’

‘I’m going to pop in there and do a little job.’

‘No job’s that little, for that sort of cash. You covering your back?’

He grinned. ‘That’s why I’m thinking you should come along and help me.’ He pulled at his jumper. ‘This wasn’t the only thing I bought duty free.’ He stood up, walked over to his carry-on, and extracted a small digital camcorder. Its red light glowed. ‘I thought it was him at the door again…’ He powered down the device. ‘I’m building up as much of a security blanket as I can lay my hands on. If I get stitched up, he’ll go down with me.’

‘Who the fuck are you on about?’

‘The world’s fattest American, with one of those fuck-off whitewall haircuts.’

Charlie came back to join me at the laptop. He pulled out the memory stick and waved it at me before it disappeared into his pocket. ‘He dropped this off, and the laptop — and before you ask, don’t.’

He was right. I didn’t need to know who this man was. If I did go with Charlie and Whitewall found out I was also on the ground, Charlie could say that I knew nothing about anything. He wouldn’t have shown me the tape now anyway. I had nothing to do with the job.

‘I don’t want to know. I’m more worried about you getting caught. Those shaky old hands of yours will see out their days with thumbscrews attached to them. They don’t fuck about in Georgia, mate.’

‘Piece of piss getting into that target, lad. Who d’you think did all those banks in Bosnia?’

‘I thought about you when I read the story.’

Towards the end of the Bosnian War, the Firm needed to get their hands on the financial records of certain government officials and high-ranking army officers who were taking bribes from the drug and prostitution barons. MOE guys from the Regiment hit a whole lot of banks. The idea was that when the new country was formed, we could make sure we kept the dodgy ones out of the picture, and got the good guys in. Not that it had worked, of course. It never does.

‘Yeah — should’ve skimmed off a few bob for myself while I was at it, shouldn’t I? Wouldn’t be here now…’

‘What is this little job you’re doing, then?’

The screen went blank and Charlie looked up at me. ‘Can’t tell you just yet. But come along as shotgun, and I’ll tell you in-country. I’ve got to hit the place this Saturday, leaving here at dark o’clock tonight.’

‘Why Saturday?’

‘Baz is away, but he’ll be back Sunday. So I can’t hang around chatting; it’s make-your-mind-up time, lad.’

He raised an eyebrow, waiting for a reply.

‘Read my lips, Nick. It’s decision time.’ He locked his eyes on mine. ‘Which means you’ve got to dig deep, and ask yourself a big question.’

‘How big?’

‘None bigger, lad.’ He took a deep breath, and adopted the kind of intense expression you use when grappling with the mysteries of the universe. ‘I mean, it’s the twenty-first century. So answer me this: just what kind of sad fuck goes round with a whitewall any more?’

He laughed like a drain.

He laughed so hard he had to hold his sides.

‘Tell you what, Charlie,’ I said wearily, ‘you call Hazel and tell her you’re OK and I’m here, and I’ll think about it.’