Assassin

12

Damon Tyzack was back in London, sitting at a table outside a cafe on Brompton Cross. He watched the glossy Eurotrash girls passing by, babbling into their mobile phones, while bankers' wives and trust-fund totties wandered in and out of Joseph and the Conran Shop as if they'd never even heard the word 'recession'. These were the women he had been born and raised to possess.

He should have been properly settled by now, with a family in the home counties, a flat and a mistress in town, and an agreeable life all round. Instead, he'd suffered disgrace, been disowned by his family and forced to spend years doing squalid work for ignorant, lowlife scum. And that had all been Samuel Carver's fault. His small-minded attitude – a determination to play by the rules and regulations that was, quite frankly, proof that he was common as muck, for all his attempts to pretend otherwise – had cost Tyzack everything he held dear. Now that, entirely through his own efforts, he was in a position to exact some measure of revenge, Tyzack intended to make the most of it. Years ago, he might have acted out of anger or bitterness. But now, having had plenty of time to reflect, he was going to treat the whole thing as a game, a treat to be savoured and enjoyed.

A waitress came to take his order. She was a pretty enough thing, with blue eyes and an engaging smile. Carrying about five to seven pounds of extra weight, Tyzack estimated, but tighten up that stomach a little and firm up the jawline, stick her in a studio flat off the Gloucester Road and you'd be looking at two to three hundred quid an hour, twelve hundred for an overnight.

When the girl asked if he was ready to order, Tyzack's face broke into a friendly, open smile and he looked at her as if there were no one in the world he was happier to see standing in front of him than her.

'Absolutely,' he said. 'I'll have scrambled eggs and smoked salmon, brown toast, a nice big glass of fresh orange juice and a double espresso, please.'

As she was writing it down he asked, 'What's your name?'

The girl smiled shyly. 'Agnieszka.'

'What a lovely name. Where do you come from, Agnieszka?'

'From Lod, in Poland.'

'Well, I feel very sorry for all the boys from Lod, then.'

She frowned, not quite sure where he was going, but unable to resist the obvious question: 'Why?'

'Because they don't have a beautiful girl like you to look at any more! Still, very good news for us boys in London, isn't it?'

The lines were ridiculously corny, but it didn't matter. Tyzack had charm, a gift that stupid people always saw as a sign of warmth, when so far as he could see it simply involved a cold-blooded knack for sensing what other people wanted and then giving it to them.

Agnieszka giggled, right on cue, flashed him a coy, heavy-lidded glance and walked away with an extra little swing in her step.

Not bad, thought Tyzack, watching her rump in her tight black skirt. A good little earner if she did what she was told. She would, of course, once he'd persuaded her. That was always the enjoyable part of the process, establishing who was in charge. Tyzack contemplated precisely how long it would take to beat the light out of those bright-blue eyes: experience had given him an almost mathematical appreciation of the effects of time and abuse. His mind drifted back to Lara Dashian. When she made her pathetic, stumbling way to his table, he'd immediately felt that essential deadness, overlaid with a dusting of fear and desperation, like the icing sugar on a sponge cake. Obviously seeing him as the lesser of two evils, she'd tried so hard to please; he'd been tempted to chuck her back to her pimp, just for a laugh. On balance, he decided he'd have more fun keeping her. As they went upstairs, he watched her fear melt away and for a moment he regretted his decision and wondered if he'd better give her something to be scared of himself.

But then he remembered he was playing the part of Samuel Carver. And that pathetic little man would never have taken advantage of a screwed-up teenage whore. He'd have behaved like his dismal, suburban idea of a gentleman. And there was something else, too. As he chucked her on the bed it suddenly occurred to Tyzack that the silly bitch might actually want him to screw her. All the more reason, then, not to.

Tyzack's phone rang. He saw the number come up on his screen and gave an exasperated sigh. 'Yes, Foster, what is it?'

'It's that container, guv. It's fallen off the ship.'

Tyzack closed his eyes and inhaled slowly through his nose, trying to ease the tension that had suddenly clamped around his temples. He let out his breath and asked, 'What do you mean, "fallen off the ship"? Tell me, Foster, how exactly does a container just fall off a ship?'

'Storms, innit? They had, like, force ten winds in the North Sea. Blew a dozen of the bastard containers right into the water. One of 'em was ours.'

'This is the cargo from Hamburg?'

'The Chinkies, yeah.'

Tyzack leaned forward, putting a hand over the receiver to hide his mouth, and hissed, 'Are you telling me that seventy of our little yellow friends are currently sitting on the bottom of the North Sea?'

'That's about the size of it, yeah.'

'They're not going to pick much fruit down there, are they?'

'Nah…'

'So what do you plan to do about that? When I get a couple of extremely irate gangmasters on my hands, wondering where all their farm labour's gone, what am I going to tell them?'

'We can cover it, guv. We got them Somalis down Plaistow, yeah? That's twenty-odd right there. Couple of trucks coming in from Bulgaria this week, pikey scum, obviously, but we can knock them out to the farms 'cause there's piss-all for them to do on the building sites. Bring in a few others we got lyin' around. No worries.'

The waitress, Agnieszka, had discreetly sidled up to the table and placed Tyzack's food in front of him, along with the juice and coffee. He gave her a flickering smile of acknowledgement, took a forkful of egg and salmon and went on with his conversation.

'Well, I certainly hope not, Foster. I'm supposed to be getting on a plane for America in less than four hours' time. I have important work to take care of and I don't want any distractions. Which reminds me, those Pakis up in Bradford, were you able to explain that they really could not be allowed to operate in our market?'

'Oh yeah, me and a few of the lads went up north, gave 'em a proper kicking. Happy days.'

'And the merchandise?'

'Yeah, we took the slappers, obviously. Stuck 'em in our places. Got 'em workin' the same night.'

'Excellent. Glad we got that sorted, at least. Now, piss off and replace the seventy Chinese. Chop-chop!'

Tyzack hung up. Foster Lafferty was a shaven-headed thug from the East London end of Essex, but dealing with him was really no different to maintaining control over a stroppy, rather insolent sergeant-major. In fact, running a criminal gang, Tyzack had discovered, was very much like being in the forces: the fact that he'd been killing people for drug-runners and traffickers rather than Her Majesty was really just a technicality. His success had, over time, enabled him to start up his own small firm, much like a platoon. This had grown in size and power so that he could now regard himself as the colonel of his own private regiment.

There were, of course, still more senior men from whom he took orders and for whom he carried out assignments. They were hardly the kind of individuals for whom he would have chosen to work, all things being equal, but at least there was always the professional satisfaction of a job well done. By poisoning Dey, for example, he had both removed a competitor and framed an enemy. And the cocktail cherry, that had been a sweet touch. After that, putting a bullet through the back of the pimp's head had been the perfect way to round off the evening.

As he sipped at his espresso, Tyzack wondered whether Carver felt the same way. Was it a pleasure to him, too? Deep down, perhaps, but a man that obsessed with his own righteousness would never admit it. Tyzack had gone to considerable trouble and expense to compile a detailed dossier on his old enemy's activities. He'd pulled a few strings, called in some favours and found his way to Percy Wake, the pompous old poof who'd run the Consortium, the secret group of wealthy, powerful individuals who'd given Carver most of his jobs and by doing so made him rich. Wake was living down in the country now, in disgrace, missing the old days, bored out of his mind and longing for some malice and intrigue to brighten up his life. When Tyzack had asked for his help to get at Samuel Carver, Wake had been only too happy to help. He'd spilled the beans about Carver's old operations and working methods. He'd even done a spot of recruiting on Tyzack's behalf. It had all worked out very nicely.

'Can I get you anything else?' The waitress had returned to the table.

'How kind of you to ask, Agnieszka. Just the bill, thanks.'

He bestowed another one of his smiles upon her, wondering if it was worth slipping the manager half a dozen fifties and taking her away right now. He looked at his watch as she put his card through the machine. No, he really ought to be on the way to Heathrow. He had one man to kill, another one to screw up. So he tapped out his pin-number on the keypad, left the girl a generous tip and walked off down the Fulham Road.

Work, work, work, thought Damon Tyzack. I deserve a nice break.