Lifting the Lid(91)

Patterson felt as if his frontal lobe had been poked with a cattle prod. Harry Vincent. Of course. He knew he’d recognised him from somewhere when he’d seen him get out of the taxi but hadn’t been able to put a name to him until now. He hadn’t even twigged when Jarvis had said one of the men in the flat was called Harry. Patterson remembered him from his Flying Squad days before he’d joined MI5. Everyone knew what a nasty little bastard he was, but there’d never been enough solid evidence to pin anything on him. Even when they’d tried to manufacture the evidence, Vincent could afford to hire the most expensive lawyers in the country to make sure he wriggled away scot free every time. The last Patterson had heard was a couple of years or so ago when the police had finally been able to put together a case which was not only likely to stick but which would also have put him away for a very long time. Unfortunately, though, Vincent had been blown to pieces in a car explosion before they’d been able to run him to ground. At least, that was the story at the time.

‘So what do we do now?’

This time, it was Statham who cut short his deliberations. Patterson stared at him as if he was struggling to remember who he was.

‘Do?’ he said at last. ‘I’m really not sure what we can do.’

‘But if they’re starting to shoot people, shouldn’t we be—’

‘Look,’ said Patterson. ‘It seems a pretty safe bet that this MP we were supposed to keep alive has already shuffled off his mortal coil, and what’s more, there are two dead men in there who appear to be very much in the land of the living. No, we listen and wait and see what happens. With a bit of luck they might all end up killing each other and save us the bother.’

Statham opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by a loud knocking on the door of the flat. Of the four men, only Jarvis did not turn instantly towards it. His eardrums having recovered sufficiently, the headphones were now back in place, and all he could hear were the sounds from the next door apartment.





CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT



Harry pitched sideways when the bullet hit, and instinct made him throw out his hands to break his fall. One of them caught the top of the armchair, and he brought it crashing down on its back with the dead MP still attached.

‘Ah, don’t they make a lovely couple,’ said Bracewell, clearly enjoying the sight of Harry sprawled on the floor next to the upturned corpse and clutching at the still-smoking hole in his foot.

‘What the fuck d’you do that for?’ said Harry through teeth clamped shut from the pain.

‘Let’s just say I’m not at all keen on your attitude towards the gay community, old boy.’

MacFarland laughed. Harry’s complete lack of sympathy for the injury to his own foot made the scene especially comical. Harry screwed his head round to glare up at him, his face twisted into a fusion of agony and rage. Whatever happened from that moment on, MacFarland realised he was suddenly out of a job. What else did he have to lose?

‘Looks like you’ve really shot yirself in the foot this time,’ he said.

‘You’re a dead man, Scotchboy,’ Harry snarled as he dragged himself into a sitting position with his back against the side of the armchair, blood now running freely from the hole in his tan-coloured brogue.

‘Perhaps you should have stayed in Greece,’ said Bracewell. ‘In fact, I can’t for the life of me understand why this MP chappie was so important that you felt the need to come back at all.’

‘Thought your little bum-chum there would’ve told yer all about it,’ said Harry and grunted as he struggled to untie his blood-soaked shoelace.

‘Michael told me all I needed to know for my purposes of course, but not the… nitty-gritty, so to speak.’

‘What d’you care anyway?’

Bracewell shrugged. ‘Shall we say… professional curiosity?’

‘Well yer know what you can do with that, don’tcha?’ Harry said, finally releasing his shoe and tossing it weakly in Bracewell’s direction. ‘’Cept a fucking shirt lifter like you would probably enjoy it.’

‘Our wee deid MP here stitched ye up good and proper, didn’t he, Harry?’ said MacFarland. ‘And nobody messes wi’ the great Harry Vincent, do they, eh?’

‘Oh do tell, dear boy,’ said Bracewell.

MacFarland needed no further encouragement to add the insult of humiliation to his ex-employer’s physical injury and explained how Harry had bribed the MP about a year ago to ‘do him a wee favour’. As well as his less-than-legal enterprises, Harry also had his podgy little fingers in some rather more legitimate business pies and even had his own construction company. When he heard there was a major government contract in the offing, he’d decided to try and tip the balance his way, and that’s when he nobbled Gerald Quicke.