Death on the Pont Noir

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Moments after Tasker and Biggs had thrown themselves back in the DS, Calloway was revving the car and hurtling away from the bank, the engine screaming in protest. Tasker let him get on with it and reloaded the sawn-off, leaning out of the window to fire two parting shots at the front door of the bank to keep the third man’s head down. Then he sat back and swore repeatedly. He’d be glad to see the back of this shit town and shit country, and get back home to where he felt able to breathe.

‘What,’ said Calloway quietly, ‘the fuck happened back there?’ It was the first time Tasker had ever heard him swear. ‘And where’s the cash — and Jarvis?’

‘There ain’t no cash and Jarvis is dead. We were sold a pup.’ Tasker was breathing hard, the rush of adrenalin making his nerve ends jangle. He was trying to work out what had just happened, how such a simple job had gone belly up. ‘There wasn’t the money we were told about, and another mob was already there.’

‘Mob?’

‘Firm… crew… you know what I bloody mean. Frenchies.’

‘How?’

‘Because we were sent on a sucker job. Somebody’s going to pay dearly for this if it’s the last bloody thing I ever do!’ He dug in his pocket and took out two more cartridges, and sniffed at them as if they were a source of comfort.

Calloway seemed happy with that. ‘Fair enough. So, where are we headed — back to Calais?’

‘Not yet.’ Tasker had been toying with an idea for some time. It had taken root days ago, but had grown fast over the past few hours, fermenting in his mind and now tugging so urgently at his consciousness that he couldn’t let it go. ‘Soon, though.’

Rocco was the cause of all this. Had been from the very beginning, ever since he’d walked into that cell, revealing that he spoke English and even understood cockney slang, treating Tasker like a nobody, a gofer, and questioning Calloway first. That was right out of order.

He breathed deeply, his blood pressure rising the more he thought about it. Even dropping the suspicion of corruption on the big French cop hadn’t given Tasker the satisfaction he’d expected, not long-term. He knew his thinking was irrational, that he was on foreign soil and way out of his depth. But he didn’t care.

Because right now he had nothing to go back to. It was over. Ketch had seen to that. Ketch and his smooth-talking, number-crunching weasel, Brayne. They’d talked him and the others into a dead-end job — he didn’t need a degree in accountancy to know it, either. Not now. There were only so many ways the game could be played, and after years of using the distraction thing for their purposes, Tasker knew and recognised when he himself had become the distraction. It was the way things were. But he didn’t have to like it.

Before anything else, though, he had a score to settle over here. After that, well, he’d get back to the Smoke and make a couple of visits. He stroked the shortened barrels of the shotgun. He’d have to lose this one, but he’d soon get another just like it or better. No sweat.

Then they’d learn what it meant to have crossed George Tasker.

‘So where to?’

Tasker leant forward and picked up a road map of the area, found the place he wanted and stabbed it with a thick finger. It was back towards Amiens, but off to the east. ‘Here.’

Calloway glanced across, nodded and began looking for a turn to get them off the main road and double back. ‘Poissons-les-Marais? What’s there, then?’

‘Not what,’ said Tasker, rolling the two shotgun cartridges between his fingers. ‘More like who.’