Last Rites

Thirty-one

The only thing, Preston thought, that had changed about motorway services all the time he’d been inside had been the prices. Otherwise, especially at four in the morning, they were the same sad, scruffy places, smelling of grease and disinfectant.

He’d parked Maureen’s car close to the entrance and glanced around for any sign of Cassady; no idea, of course, what kind of motor he drove now, but sensing that the Irishman had still to arrive. Maureen, snug in the bedroom where he’d left her; hopefully the rope wouldn’t be biting too deep into her wrists and ankles. No matter how much you trusted people, you could only ever trust them so far.

He took a leak, then stood in line in the cafeteria behind a longdistance haulage driver from South Shields, making his way back from carrying a load of copper wiring to Germany. In no hurry, Preston waited while the man ordered his plate piled high with everything from chips to black pudding. He ordered two slices of toast for himself and a large tea to wash them down. Someone had left the previous day’s paper on one of the tables, and Preston picked it up and dropped it on his tray, heading for the elevated area off to one side. The tea was weak, the toast thin but fresh; he was surprised at how many names in the paper he recognized, how many he did not. Although he made a point of watching the TV news once in a while in prison, you were so removed from what was happening nothing you watched seemed real: a shock, almost, then, to realize those stories about fat cats in business, soap stars and royals, millionaire Lottery winners were true.

He spotted Cassady before Cassady saw him. Shorter than he remembered, his features, even at that distance, decidedly older, his gaze uncertain as he paused and looked around.

Then he was heading straight for Preston, a grin brightening his face as they shook hands, Cassady punching him playfully on the shoulder, once and once more again for luck. “Jesus, Michael, you’re looking good. You really are.”

“Just as well one of us is; you look like shit.”

Cassady laughed and stepped away. “What can I get you? Another-what? — tea, is it?”

“Tea, yeh, thanks.” Watching him, then, as he crossed between the largely empty tables, circling jauntily around a tall Asian slowly mopping the same area of floor, a different man already from the one who had walked in.

A few minutes later, Cassady took a quarter bottle of scotch from his side pocket and tipped a generous shot into his cup. He offered the bottle across to Preston, who shook his head.

“So,” Preston said, “I hear you’ve gone legit.”

“Not so’s you’d notice,” Cassady replied with a sly grin.

“Security, isn’t it?”

“Clubs for the most part, pubs. Couple of shopping centers, out of town. Nothing grand.”

“Money in it, though?”

“Oh, yes. Especially with a little-what is it? — creative accounting.”

Preston looked at him over the top of his cup. “Money enough?”

“Ah, never that, is it? And, besides, sitting in that poxy office every hour of the day, having to be polite to people down the telephone-sure, that’s not me.”

Preston still looking at him, staring now.

“Oh, I see, Michael. Yes, I get your drift. It’s a loan you’re wanting. Well, of course, I’ll do what I can. I …”

But it wasn’t a loan. Preston’s hand was quick, gripping Cassady’s fingers till the knuckles were white. “Miss it, don’t you? The buzz. Going out on a big job, tooled up.”

“Course I do.”

“Well …?”

“Ah, Michael, things change. All that cash, used to be running around, there for the taking, it’s not the same. Big firms, these days, they’re as likely to transfer wages electronically, one account to another. I don’t know. It’s as if money, your actual money, never sees the light of day.”

Preston lowered his voice even farther. “I need one big score, maybe two. And soon. You in?”

Cassady leaned back and, for a few moments, closed his eyes. He’d seen it coming, of course he had. What else would Preston have wanted with him? You take risks like this just to reminisce? And Cassady had been thinking for some little time now, things were ripe for moving on. A little overripe maybe, overextended, that policewoman coming round earlier, for instance, questions she was asking never quite the ones she meant. Yes, pastures new. Jacky would jump at that now, sure she would.

“Yeh. Yeh, of course I’m in, but where? I mean …”

“You’ve been outside, eyes open. That’s what you’re supposed to be telling me.”

Cassady lifted his cup with both hands. Through a wall of plate glass, lights blistered and flickered along the length of motorway. “Drugs, then,” he said. “Got to be.”

Preston sat back and shook his head. “I don’t want to be messing with all that shit. Buying, selling, it’s not what I know. I don’t have the time.”

“No.” Cassady leaning closer now, the whole thing coming to him, seeing it, even then, playing out before him. Working Planer and Valentine, one against the other, while they slipped away through the middle. “It don’t have to be that way. The money, that’s what we want, right? The cash. You know how much some of these monkeys have, making unsightly bulges in their shiny new suits? Do you?” The old grin was back on his face, wider than before. “And one thing they’re not doing, keeping it all in the Midland at five point nothing per cent, rest assured of that. All we have to do, find out where they’ve got their stash, hit ’em at the right time. Bob’s your uncle.” He laughed at the simple joy of it. “What’re they going to do? Go runnin’ to the police, is it?”

“But finding out, it can’t be that simple, right?”

Cassady was smiling fit to bust.

“What?” Preston said. “What’s with that stupid grin? You can do that, is that what you’re saying? Set it up, what?”

Cassady tipped a little more scotch into his tea. “My boys, Michael, working the clubs, they get to know a lot. Well, that’s where a lot of this stuff is sold, moved on. Where a lot of these deals are made. Sometimes they’re paid to turn a blind eye, that’s fine. Some of them, the smarter ones, they’ve got these little deals going for themselves. Likely think I don’t know, but of course, I do. No skin off my nose. But I watch what’s going on, well, you know me, always have done. Ask me who the big movers are, the ones making the serious money, I know. Liam Cassady knows. One of them especially …” He held up his hand, one finger hooked over another. “Like that.”

“And you reckon you can set something up? Fast? Couple of days?”

“Well, now, Michael, I don’t know, I was thinking more like a week. You know, to be certain, get everything into place …”

But Preston had hold of his hand again, squeezing tight. “Two days, Liam. Three at most. That’s what it’s got to be.”

“Plans, then, have you, Michael?” Cassady trying not to grimace, acknowledge the pain. “Spot of traveling, I expect that’s on your mind. Now that the heat’s died down a little, what? Get away. God! I wouldn’t mind getting away myself.”

Preston looked round at where the sky was beginning to lighten. “One last thing, I’ll be needing a fresh place to stay. Just till this is through.”

Cassady nodded. “No problem. Is there anything else?”

Preston punched Cassady’s arm twice, not hard. “You won’t let me down, Liam, I know that.”

“Sure, sure. That’s right, that’s right.”