Severed

5

The address I've been given is in a part of east London that has so far resisted the steady process of gentrification that's been a feature of so much of the East End since the late 1980s. The main drag is tired and litter-strewn with a windswept, forgotten feel about it. Running along both sides are cheap takeaways with bags of uncollected rubbish outside; discount shops offering all kinds of useless paraphernalia for under a pound; and, most common of all, empty, boarded-up units, blackened by smoke or covered in graffiti and fly posters. At one intersection there is even a roofless, jagged shell of a building that looks like it might have been bombed back in World War Two and is still waiting for its turn to be repaired. The house I want is on a quiet residential road, lined with mature beech trees. It must have been quite a grand road once, but its tired-looking Georgian townhouses have long ago fallen into disrepair, their white paint now, for the most part, a dirty, stained grey.

I drive past number 33 – not much different from the others, with an ancient Ford Sierra taking up the tiny carport – and keep on going, watching for any suspicious activity, anything that may suggest that this is some sort of trap.

When you've been a soldier exposed to guerrilla warfare, especially the hate-filled maelstrom of Northern Ireland, you learn to be paranoid. You develop antennae that can spot trouble in a way ordinary civilians can't. They're twitching now, telling me that the street's too quiet, almost dead. I don't like it. The Glock feels comforting against the small of my back, as does the Kevlar vest I picked up from home on the way here. I bought it a year ago after another car dealer I know vaguely in Tottenham was shot in the leg while trying to stop a masked gang stealing his two prize Mercedes. I'd intended to wear it whenever I was working late and on my own, but in the end it was never going to be practical, and even though I shelled out three hundred quid on it, it's been gathering dust ever since. Until now, that is.

I continue driving, keeping my eye on the rear-view mirror and the cars parked on either side of the road to see if they contain anyone who may be noting my presence. But there's nothing.

I find a parking spot in one of the adjoining roads several hundred yards away, between a battered old combi van and a skip that is overflowing with household junk, including, bizarrely, a huge African woodcarving of a long, narrow face that has a big crack running through it. The face seems to be giving me the evil eye, and I feel like telling him not to bother. The evil eye's been placed on me already.

It's just short of 12.15, and it's strange, but the fact that I'm on the move and at least temporarily in control of events again has helped to dissipate the grief and shock that almost incapacitated me earlier. I try to push thoughts of Leah from my mind. There'll be time to think of her later, when I'm alone and through this. But for the moment I need to concentrate on survival.

There's a navy blue New York Yankees baseball cap on the seat next to me – something else I picked up from home – and I put it on now. There are bound to be council-run CCTV cameras monitoring this area, and I don't much want them getting a good look at me. I pull the brim low over my face and get out of the car. The space is metered so I put a couple of quid in, knowing that the last thing I need is to return to the car and find it clamped or, worse still, towed away. Once again, I wonder what it is I'm collecting. The most obvious thing would be drugs. I don't like to generalize too much, but it would fit with the area. It's going to have to be some truly high-grade gear though, given how much effort has been made, including committing a murder, simply to ensure that I come here to pick it up. And that's what makes me think it may be something else, something hugely valuable but also dangerous. Because whoever wants this case won't risk coming here himself. It also bolsters my earlier suspicion that I know the person or people I'm doing this for: they would know that, with my training and experience only a little out of date, I have a better chance than most of emerging in one piece from a difficult situation.

As I walk back the way I've come, I pass a grimy-looking takeaway called Ace Fried Chicken. At least I assume it's Ace: the 'c' is missing on the garish orange sign, as is the 'h' in the Chicken. A gang of half a dozen teenagers, all wearing the delinquent's uniform of pulled-up hoodie and big trainers, congregate on the pavement outside. The day is hot and bright, the temperature probably close to eighty already, but these guys are protecting their IDs, which means they're probably up to no good. A couple of them are on mountain bikes, and they are laughing and fooling about as they devour their greasy fare. I catch the eye of one of them – probably no more than sixteen, but big for his age – and he appraises me from the shadows beneath the hood, a predator sizing up potential prey. I meet his gaze with blank disinterest and give it a long second before turning away, at the same time slowing my pace a little so he knows I'm not intimidated. Body language tells the people watching you everything. Keep your poise and your movements assured, and just the right side of casual, and people will know you're not scared and will, almost without exception, leave you alone. This guy and his friends are no different. They ignore me, going back to their food and banter. There are plenty of easier victims out there.

I stop on the street outside number 33. All the windows are closed, and it looks deserted. As I approach the door, the honk of a car horn startles me. I turn round and see a short, wizened-looking white guy in the driver's seat of the ancient Sierra. He beckons me over with a bony arm.

I walk up and crouch down by the open car window.

'Who are you?' he asks in a voice that somehow manages to be high-pitched and gravelly at the same time, as if it belongs to a chain-smoking twelve-year-old. To add to the mix, the accent is pure 'cor blimey' cockney, making the end result a very strange sound.

'I'm Bone,' I answer, remembering that this is what I've been instructed to call myself. 'I'm here to pick up a briefcase.'

He looks me up and down carefully yet dispassionately through pale, bloodshot eyes. I stare back at him, thinking he is one of the strangest-looking guys I've seen for a while. His face, partially obscured by long, lank, mousey hair that exposes blotches of pink scalp, is thin and deeply lined, yet somehow the end result gives the impression of agelessness. This guy could be anything between forty and sixty, although nothing about him looks well kept. He is dressed in a cheap brown suit that smells of mothballs, underneath which is a faded Iron Maiden T-shirt that was once black but has now turned the same off-grey pallor as his skin.

'You've come to the wrong place,' he tells me.

I notice then that he isn't sweating, even though a steady wave of cloying heat is emanating from the interior of the car.

'Are you going to tell me where the right one is, then?'

His eyes dart down. 'What's in the case?'

'Have you got the one I'm here to collect?' I ask him.

His face contorts into an unpleasant smile, revealing a plaque-stained jumble of teeth that come straight out of the 'before' posters on a dentist's wall. 'Is it the money?'

'Have you got the case I'm here to collect or not?'

He shakes his head ever so slowly. 'No,' he says at last, 'someone else has. I'll take you to him.'

I step out of the way as he opens the door and slowly climbs out.

'You got a name?' I ask him.

'You can call me Sellman,' he says, turning and beckoning for me to follow him.

At full height, he stands no more than five five, and when he starts walking I see that his right foot drags. All in all, he's not the finest figure of a man you're ever likely to see, but I spot the telltale bulge in the back of his suit that tells me he's armed, and I guess he's the kind of guy who enjoys being underestimated.

We walk up the street in silence while his eyes move back and forth, taking in everything. It is obvious that he trusts me as much as I trust him. Two Asian kids in Islamic clothes and prayer caps are coming down the pavement in our direction. They talk animatedly and ignore us as they pass, but Sellman's eyes still drift back to them, just to make sure they are nothing more than bona fide passers-by. 'You can't be too careful,' he says, more to himself than me. I don't bother to reply.

After we've gone about fifty yards, we stop at a corner house that's in an even greater state of disrepair than the others. The paintwork is peeling away, and the ancient windows are hanging loose in their wooden frames. A dusty skip filled with household junk and bags of foul-smelling rubbish sits in the middle of the carport, while the area around it is unkempt and overgrown with weeds and stinging nettles.

'Here we are,' says Sellman, pulling a phone from his pocket and motioning me towards the house's decrepit front door. I watch as he speed-dials a number and starts speaking into the phone. He tells whoever is on the other end that we've arrived and that I've come alone, but as the door buzzes and he pushes it open, ushering me through, he checks the street one last time.

'This way,' he says, leading me through a dingy hallway with a huge burn mark splashed against one wall, and up two flights of uneven, carpetless stairs.

'Nice place you've got here,' I say as my boot catches a nail sticking out of the bare wood.

'It does the job we need it for,' he answers in that strange high-pitched voice of his.

The building has been split into separate apartments, both of which appear to be empty. At the top of the stairs, a narrow walkway leads to a single door. Sellman steps up to it, knocks on it three times, pauses, then knocks three more times. A second later comes the sound of two locks being released and the door slowly opens about six inches. An immense shaven head belonging to what appears to be a similarly immense body glowers at me over Sellman's shoulder from behind a thick metal chain, then the chain is released and the door opens just far enough for us to walk in.

Sellman steps to one side and I find myself in a large, cluttered living room. The blinds are pulled down on all the windows, and the only light is provided by a TV in the corner which is showing one of those daytime property programmes with the volume turned down so low it's almost mute. Three desk fans whirr away at different points round the room, but they do little to banish the stuffiness.

To my right stands the shaven-headed man who's just let us in. He must be six feet five and isn't far off being of similar width. He's dressed in jeans and a tight-fitting T-shirt and is carrying a gun in a shoulder holster, American cop-style. He glares at me. I ignore him.

To my immediate left stands Sellman, and then beyond him, in front of a partially open door that leads through to the rest of the apartment, is a third man. Intimidating without being particularly big, he watches me with a professional malevolence. He has shoulder-length brown hair, cut in a style I remember being popular with soccer hooligans circa 1985, and unpopular ever since then with pretty much anyone who cares about fashion, and is wearing a baggy purple suit and white shirt unbuttoned at least two buttons too far. A thick gold chain round his neck and thick tufts of chest hair poking out of the gap in the shirt top off his retro appearance, making him look like a gangster straight off the set of Miami Vice.

There's a fourth man at the end of the room. He's sitting behind a table facing the door, next to one of the fans, his face a silhouette in the near darkness. Straight off, I can tell that he's the boss, and he confirms this by snapping an order for Sellman and his shaven-headed colleague to search me.

Sellman produces a sawn-off single-barrelled shotgun from the back of his cheap suit and points it at my midriff. I clutch the briefcase but don't resist as Shaven Head comes forward and gives me a rough search, quickly locating the Glock. I let him remove it, and he holds it up in the air for his boss to see.

'Pass it over here,' says the fourth man.

Shaven Head checks the internal safety mechanism and chucks the gun over to his boss, who catches it one-handed by the barrel, his hand shooting out like a snake's. 'Ah,' he says admiringly, 'a Glock Nineteen. Very nice.' He turns it over in his hands, giving it a once-over, then places it on the coffee table.

I look at him as he speaks, and I'm almost unable to believe my ears. Unless I'm very much mistaken – and I'm damn sure I'm not – I know the man in front of me. I recognize the voice. A clear, slightly West Country brogue with a confidence in it that hangs very close to arrogance. He served in the same battalion of the Parachute Regiment as me. He was a captain. I didn't know him well – I can't even remember his last name – but we were soldiers together, and that will always count for something.

'Hello, Iain,' I say.

He tenses in his seat, then reaches over and switches on a lamp, which is when I get my confirmation. This is definitely the man from the battalion. He's looking thinner than I remember, and he's bleached his hair blond and added a thin beard-like strip of hair, which is also bleached and runs from his bottom lip to his chin, but it's still him. Beneath the look of surprise, his face is etched with knots of tension. I don't know whether to feel relieved or mightily pissed off. In the end, I plump for both.

He squints at me. 'It's Tyler, isn't it?' he says in a way that tells me he knows exactly who I am. 'Jesus, what the hell are you doing here?'

'You know exactly why I'm here,' I answer.

Like everyone else, Sellman looks surprised. 'You know him, chief?'

'Yeah, we know each other,' I say.

The captain shakes his head. 'I didn't think someone like you would be in with them, to be honest.'

'I'm not in with anyone,' I tell him. I glance at his three bodyguards. I don't want to say too much in front of them. 'Is there anywhere we can talk?'

He looks at me distrustfully. 'You're not a cop, are you, Tyler?'

'Of course I'm not. You know that.'

'You might be working with them.'

'I'm not working with anyone.'

'But you've got what I want, right? The money?'

There's a glint in his eyes as he speaks, and I remember a story that once did the rounds that he was something of a gambler and used to lose a lot of money on the horses. The military isn't the kind of career that can sustain heavy financial losses. Considering that one of the job hazards is sudden and violent death, it's actually very poorly paid. I'm guessing that this is why the captain's started a new career, and from the amount of money I'm about to hand over to him, whatever it is is pretty lucrative.

'Have you got what I'm here for?' I ask him.

He ignores the question and addresses Shaven Head. 'Check if he's got any mobile phones on him.'

Shaven Head silently continues his pat-down where he left off, and pulls out the one I was supplied with.

I put a hand on his wrist. 'You don't need that,' I tell him, meeting his eye.

I'm trying to be as reasonable as possible, but I'm not going to let these people take the piss out of me, and I have to hang on to this phone. At the moment, it's my lifeline. Shaven Head and I glare at each other and I tense my body, ready to strike out. If it comes to it, I'll use my free hand to take him in the pressure point just below his left ear, swing him round while he's weakened, and smash my knee into the small of his back. He's a big guy, no question, but anyone can be beaten if you know what you're doing, and I've always known what I was doing, even if, at the moment, I'm not exactly feeling my best.

'Be careful of Tyler,' the captain tells Shaven Head, with just a hint of amusement in his voice. 'He's a dangerous man when aroused. We just need the thing turned off, Tyler. For security reasons. They can do anything with mobile phones these days. Even turn them into recordable microphones. I don't want anyone listening in.'

'I told you. I'm not a cop.'

'It's not just them who can listen in,' he answers cryptically.

At this point, Shaven Head interrupts. 'Let go of my wrist,' he tells me, his tone one of barely suppressed rage, 'or I'll break your arm.' I notice then that he has an Eastern European accent.

'Let him turn it off,' says the captain, 'then you can have it back. OK?'

I release my grip on Shaven Head's wrist, knowing there's no point in forcing a confrontation. He turns off the phone and smacks it down in my hand, and I put it back in my jeans pocket.

The captain looks over at me, and I think I see confusion in his eyes. 'You actually want it, do you? What's inside this case?' He leans down behind the table and produces a burgundy briefcase smaller than the one I'm carrying, and carefully places it on the table in front of him.

'What I want is to talk to you,' I say.

'What's there to talk about?'

'Has he got the money or not?' demands Sellman. 'We need paying, chief.'

'You'll get your money, Sellman,' the captain tells him.

'I just want five minutes alone with you, that's all. I'm in trouble, sir. All right? So, for old times' sake, do me this favour.'

He doesn't say anything for a couple of seconds, and if I'm honest, he doesn't really owe me anything. We're not great mates. Christ, I still can't even remember his last name. But then he nods slowly and gets to his feet, picking up the Glock and the burgundy briefcase. 'We'll go through to the kitchen.'

'Are you sure you want to do this, chief?' demands Sellman. 'It could be a trick.'

'He's unarmed. Just keep an eye on the front door, and make sure no one comes in.'

The captain motions me to follow him through the door the man from Miami Vice is guarding. Miami Vice himself, who's remained utterly impassive throughout the conversation, moves aside as we pass.

As the captain switches on the overhead strip light, shutting the door behind him, I see that the kitchen is cramped and ancient, with holes and gashes in the linoleum flooring. There's a small table with two chairs squeezed into one corner, and we sit down opposite each other. I put my briefcase down by my side, and he does the same thing. Up close, I notice he isn't looking so well. His skin is pink and blotchy, and his cotton shirt is so heavily sweat-stained that parts of it are clinging to him. It's clear he's under a lot of strain.

I wipe sweat from my own forehead. The kitchen is windowless and stuffy, and the overhead light is making an annoying buzzing sound.

'So, what's there to talk about, Tyler?' he asks.

'I need your help,' I tell him. 'My girlfriend's been murdered and I've been set up for it.'

'I'm sorry to hear that.'

'I need to find out who's behind it.'

He shakes his head. 'I can't help you.'

'What's in the case you're selling?'

His expression changes, as if a shadow is passing across his face. 'Something you don't ever want to see, I promise you.'

'I know I don't want to see it. I just want to know what it is.'

He sighs. 'Listen, Tyler, I always liked you,' he begins, although I don't think he ever did particularly, 'but I'm in a lot of trouble too, and I don't know who it is who's setting you up. All I was told was that somebody would be coming here today to pick up this case, and they'd have a hundred and fifty grand in cash. Have you got that?'

'You're not helping me, Iain.'

'I told you, I can't.'

'If you're in trouble, maybe I can help you.'

He smiles, but it comes out looking close to a sneer. 'No, mate, you can't help me. No-one can. That's why I need that money. I'm finished here, completely. And I'm a marked man.'

'What have you done?'

He crosses and uncrosses his hands on the table in front of him. Drops of sweat run down his cheek, and there is a hint of something painful – is it shame? – in his expression. 'I've got something on someone,' he says quietly, his eyes moving about but not quite settling on anything. 'Something bad. Something that'll ruin him. Rather than ruin his life, I've thrown him a lifeline. In exchange for some money, he can have that something back.'

'You're blackmailing him?'

He pulls a pack of Marlboro out of the pocket of his cotton shirt and lights a cigarette with hands that aren't quite steady. 'You could call it that.'

'That's what I am calling it. Who is he?'

'A businessman. Someone who won't have been involved in your girlfriend's death. He's not that type of person. He's the sort who keeps well away from the dirty work.'

'How can you be so sure?'

He takes two short, angry drags on the cigarette. 'Because I am, all right? Listen, you remember Maxwell and Spann?'

I nod. They were members of my platoon before moving eventually into the shadowy world of security work. Everyone remembered Maxwell and Spann.

'You heard what happened to them?'

'They got killed doing some bodyguard op, didn't they?'

'That's right. Three years back, in a Paris hotel. They were guarding some big-shot Russian mafia man in the penthouse suite. He was only meant to be in the country for a couple of days to sign some contracts, but he was the kind of guy who made a lot of enemies, and word was that one of them had put a contract out on him. The idea was that it was better to hit him in Europe because he'd have less security here than he'd have in Moscow, but because word got out, the guy panicked and made sure he had security to the hilt. He travelled to his meetings in a bombproof car with a police escort, and the hotel was sewn up tighter than a drum. Him and his entourage had the whole of the top floor, with cameras in every lift and stairway, and the local gendarmerie all over the building. There was no way a hitman could get through.'

'But someone did.'

'That's right. The next morning, the cleaner found the Russian dead in bed with his throat slit from ear to ear. Outside his bedroom door, they found Spann. He'd had his throat cut as well, the wound so deep it almost severed his head. His gun was still in his hand. It hadn't been fired. Maxwell was out in the hallway. Also armed, also killed the same way. No sign of a struggle from any of them. They'd been taken completely by surprise, one by one, and it seemed the first each of them knew about it was when the knife was crossing their throats.' He pauses and takes another short, urgent drag on the cigarette. 'And Maxwell and Spann… well, they were pros.'

'I know,' I say, recalling them as a pair of hard-nosed bastards who wouldn't easily have been caught off guard.

'The thing about the Russian killing', the captain continues, 'was that the hitman didn't leave a single clue. Nothing. He spirits into the place and right back out again, past all the security and the surveillance cameras, and no-one hears or sees a thing. So, you know what? They start calling him the Vampire in police circles, because it's almost as if he's got some sort of supernatural powers. Apparently, they've linked him to contract killings all over Europe, and his modus operandi's almost always the same: cuts his victims' throats from ear to ear. He even got hired by the Iranians a year or so back to kill an Israeli diplomat and his family, as revenge for an Israeli air raid in Lebanon that killed a couple of their Revolutionary Guards. He cut the throats of all of them, even the kids. Nobody knows who the Vampire is, or what he looks like. He's invisible. Like something out of a nightmare.'

I'm beginning to lose patience. His story reminds me of Leah and the butchery that was done to her in that stifling, blood-drenched room with the chintz curtains.

'Why the hell are you telling me this?' I demand.

'Because I'm hearing that this guy I'm selling the briefcase to…' He pauses a moment, and our eyes meet through the smoke. His are grey and haunted, and I know what he's going to say even before he says it. 'I'm hearing he's hired the Vampire to come after me.'