Storymania - It Wasn't The Bullet by Iain Young

It Wasn't The Bullet (18)
Iain Young

                                                                  PART TWO
                                          Chapter Ten
                                                 Something ain’t fucking right here

The warm breeze that had travelled all the way from the Sahara had been slowly dissipating as the day gently turned from morning to afternoon. The sun finally succeeded in its battle with the clouds that had hidden the sky from view for the last three days. Samantha watched the amber light creep across the calm Mediterranean and gradually envelope the sand that lay stretched out in front of the small villa. It moved studiously up to the veranda and wrapped Charlie in its warm syrupy blanket until it burst into the kitchen illuminating the grey flagstones and making Samantha squint her eyes. When they had adjusted to the glare she took stock, once again, of the nature that surrounded her. She had her elbows on the large wooden kitchen table, her hands cupping a bowl of coffee and the ashtray containing a cigarette butt that had survived her death grip smouldered. She stared into the horizon, convinced that she could see the long dark shadow of the coast of Africa, she couldn’t of course, but she liked to pretend that she did. Her gaze shifted to her right and there she could see the purple black out line of the mountains. They had arrived here at dusk and Samantha commented to Charlie that it looked like it was going to rain judging by the size of the clouds in the distance. He smiled and explained that ‘clouds’ were the beginning of the Pyrennes commencing their long arduous journey to the Atlantic. The dark looming mountains fascinated her; so powerful that she always recalled Bilbo Baggins and his first sight of Mordor, yet it had an eerie beauty that changed with the sun. She pulled her attention back from the land and tracked the ocean through the fifty feet of glass wall that fronted the faux farmhouse kitchen stopping when she reached the beach lounge chair that Charlie was reclining in. It had been his resting place of choice for a week now.
The two of them had been here for almost a month. Samantha looked down at herself; she had begun wearing sarongs, and nothing beneath. She had begun feeling sexual and liberated, unashamed of her body, for the first time in her entire life her whole body was tanned. Her mind was on some kind of philosophical roller coaster, stripping away her past or even first life and pushing herself to another level. She pushed herself back a little from the table and crossed her legs, she turned her consideration back to Charlie.
Although they had not physically made love since the night in Sussex, Charlie always slept with her, holding her tightly until one of them fell asleep. She would wake up and Charlie would open his eyes, she wondered how, no matter how quiet she was, Charlie always knew when she had returned from the land of nod. He would tell her to have a shower and by the time she had washed herself the smell of coffee and toast would have reached the bedroom. Charlie would be sitting at the huge kitchen table, reading a French newspaper, smoking a cigarette and waiting for her to appear in the kitchen. When she arrived, he would kiss her good morning and serve breakfast, refusing to even let her wash the dirty plates. Then later, their days would be spent walking along the beaches or hiking into the foothills of the mountains. He was as good as his word and they went to Perpignan three of four times so she could spend the day shopping for clothes. It was in Perpigian that Charlie had found the enormous wooden table and insisted that the storekeeper deliver it that very evening. They had talked over the events that had transpired that awful night on the beach near Cherbourg. Charlie had not asked for forgiveness or even understanding, he said that sometimes extreme measures had to be taken to satisfy the order of the world. He made her see that Todd would have quite happily killed them both and collected the bounty, when he explained that he never took any physical pleasure from his actions only a sense of justification and she believed him. Samantha was not sure in herself why she felt that way, it was against her background and her upbringing, the complete juxtapose, but it was Charlie’s intensity of purpose that swayed her. It was almost as if he could not be more honest, if he stripped away any more of his shell he would be lying. She, too, was changing. Charlie had shown her Terry’s letter and she pleaded with him to explain what it all meant, but he said he wasn’t ready to talk about it. She so wanted to understand, but whenever she pushed he closed himself off to her.
In the last ten days or so, Charlie had taken to going out on his own. He’d came back late at night or only be gone for a couple of hours. One time he had a bag of grass that he said he found by the side of the road. It was the next morning she had woken up and Charlie’s side of the bed was empty. She had made her way to the kitchen but he was not there either after a moment of panic she saw him swimming in the sea. She went down to the beach and waited for him to return to the land, she asked him jokingly where her breakfast was. He replied that he had to think now and how they couldn’t stay here forever. They walked up to the villa together, Charlie saying that she should swim more, she left to have her morning shower and when she came back to the kitchen, Charlie was in his chair. The bag of marijuana on one side, a glass pitcher in a plastic bucket of ice on the other. In the garbage pail was a bottle of vodka and an empty tin of tomato juice. He had spent the whole day and most of the evening drinking and smoking, only rising to relieve himself, get more ice or fetch another package of smokes from his supply. One night she could not rouse him and left him out under the stars covered with a thin blanket she had found in one of the cupboards. She had half-slept in the kitchen trying to be his guardian angel, but she could not stay awake for the whole night and when she came to Charlie was gone. He came back the next morning leading to an argument, Samantha saying that if he had to disappear for a day and a night he could at least left her note so that should would not worry herself into a frenzy, expecting the police to arrive and ask her if she knew this man in the death photograph. He explained that he had found what he was looking for and would not leave her alone again. That night he suggested they make a nice diner together and get high. Samantha wasn’t very experienced at smoking grass and had always declined any invitation since the time the hashish had made her very ill when she was at college. Charlie said that it was ok, but he wanted her to take some mescaline with him, they could sit under the stars and ponder the significance of the cosmos.
Samantha ended up by throwing up her meal and having a wild ride around her inner most thoughts. All this interspersed with Technicolor waking dreams and wild distortions of the familiar world that had surrounded her life until that night. She felt altered by the experience, somehow richer and somehow closer to Charlie. It was almost as if a door had been opened for her to look out into another part of the universe and it was an opening that could never be closed again. It took her some time to return to what she called a sense of normality, and in this time she had watched Charlie do the same thing. He would run for god knows how many miles, swim for an hour and then sit down in the chair and drink and smoke.
This morning she had decided it was time for her to speak with Charlie, she wanted to know so many things. He was such an enigma to her, a character of opposites. Kind and cruel, loving and hateful, tender and viscous. The night of her trip, she did not see the devil in his eyes, she saw small child coping with concepts just beyond her reach, it made her want to hold him tight and shield him from whatever thoughts he was reliving in his mind. She put down her coffee cup and lit another Silk Cut, she was smoking as much as Charlie now, although Charlie joked that she wasn’t really smoking at all, real cigarettes did not have holes in their filters. She stood up and walked to the glass door, she leant against the jam and soaked up the warmth of the sun, the stone floor was hot to her bare feet. She felt a tingle in her loins and noticed with pleasure that her nipples had become hard and were straining against the thin fabric of her sarong. She paced quietly out onto the veranda and gently touched Charlie’s hair, he turned his head upward and caught his smile at the same time as she saw her reflection in his sunglasses.
She ran her hand down his cheek and leant forward to kiss him. Charlie had shaved his beard off, a couple of days ago and had not shaved since. The coarse hairs prickled on her lips. He turned his head at her touch. Samantha let herself down and sat cross-legged on the wooden veranda. The Mediterranean waves crashed gently on to the beach and the sounds held them transfixed for awhile. She had fallen in love with this beautiful house. She had always imagined living in a place that was on the ocean, with a long driveway and big windows. It wasn’t a particularly big place but it felt so spacious and comfortable. She daydreamed that they would just stay here forever, but Charlie had to exorcise the demons that were driving him. She felt herself biting her bottom lip, she took a small breath and asked her question,
“ Charlie, how did you get here?” Charlie inhaled through his nose and rubbed his face. He let out a long sigh and leant his head back on the chair. Like a boxer waiting for the bell he twisted his neck from side to side. He came to rest; Samantha gazed into the smokey glass of his Raybans and could just make out his closed eyes.
“The whole thing?”, Charlie’s speech was slightly slurred,
“Yes. I want to know it all. Please Charlie” Samantha was surprised to that she felt a certain amount of trepidation. She didn’t want to know, but she knew she could never really be at peace with Charlie unless she did. He was still silent, his head lolling to one side. When he began to speak she felt like she was not being spoken too rather Charlie was just talking aloud.

“ I guess it all started when I went on a two week vacation with some friends when I was eighteen. Our first European holiday without any restraints and no parents. Our friend Christy had an Aunt who lived near Fréjus. It’s not far from here. Had one of those big caravan things on a camping site. It was a great holiday, and for some reason I decided I didn’t want to go back to England when the two weeks were up. I had the romantic notion I would busk my way around France and be a kind of vagabond. I had lots of fun; meeting all kinds of people, travelling by walking, hitch hiking, sleeping rough. It ended up being almost a year, spent a winter in Berlin, came back south for the summer.
I was eating my lunch in Avignion by the bridge and this couple came over and asked if they could join me. A Dutch couple it turned out. Mathias and Trudy. We got on really well. They had some grass, I had some wine. We all got screwed up and spent the next few days hanging out with each. They invited me back to Amsterdam with them. I said yes of course. Mid seventies in Holland. A mecca for faux hippies like me. They had a squat on the top floor of an old warehouse in the Magana Platz area. All we did was have parties and take drugs. It never occurred to me to wonder where Mathias was getting his money. I was having regular sex for the first time, all these exotic narcotics. Every thing you could think of. Remember I was only just nineteen, these guys were a good four or five years older. I guess they kind of adopted me.”
Charlie paused as if remembering something pleasant, because he displayed the tight grin she had seen once in a while. He lit another of his endless cigarettes and sipped his drink. He seemed enthused as if recalling these times for the first time.
“ Well one evening another of the self perpetuating parties broke out, and a pair of guys arrived. Mathias and Trudy were overjoyed to see them. It was like they were long lost cousins or something. Their names were Justin and Mike, or Mikey as he liked to be called. Justin was an odd bloke. Not very tall, shoulder length black hair and these deep blue eyes that drew you into his conversation. He spoke in these really weird fast sentences, put pauses in where they didn’t really belong. The next day I spent quite a lot of time with them, we seemed to get on like a house on fire. It’s hard to explain; he’s about six foot five, built like a brick wall, you always got the sense he wasn’t quite up to speed in any conversation. Mikey was quite, didn’t say much and just came across as plain mean. They disappeared as mysteriously as they arrived about a week later. We definitely hit it off.
Mathias and Trudy sat me down a bit later and told me these were not nice men and I was never under any circumstances to discuss their visit with anyone. Not even a friendly stranger I met in a bar or at a party. They were very, very intense. I recall feeling sacred. As the weeks passed by, either willingly or subconsiosly, I forgot about them. Then things went really wrong.” Charlie paused again; he sat up and leaned forward in the chair, holding his drink in two hands, his elbows resting on his knees. He seemed to take a deep breath,
“I was coming home from this amazing two day orgy of sex and drugs at another big squat just down the street from where I was living. Feeling really great. Still a bit high and wanting to tell Mathias and Trudy of my adventures. I remember walking up the wide wooden stars and sensing something was not right. Just the atmosphere, it was charged with a feeling of sadness or evil. I can still feel it, an awful dread. I walked into the wide-open loft, the morning sun catching the dust in the air, the wooden pillars casting long shadows on the floor. I felt I was a man of the world. But I was so far from that, completely naive. So totally unaware of what was really going on around me, it was just about pathetic.
Mathias was sitting on the floor next to their bed. As I got closer I could see that Mathias was sobbing, and Trudy was laying there naked and she didn’t look right. I stood next to him, and then I saw Trudy clearly, there was a syringe in her arm, her lips and face were tinged blue. On her cheek was what appearing to be a dribble of vomit. Mathias looked up at me, he was shaking.
‘Yes, she’s fucking dead. What are you staring at you stupid boy! You really no idea what goes on here do you.’ He was frightening me, I’d never heard him raise his voice before, I thought we were friends and he was making me feel like a child. ‘ Oh you thought all was just fun and games, all the women, the drugs, free fucking money. Have you ever paid for anything here Charlie? No, of course you haven’t. Don’t look at my wife with that disgust in your eyes. Everyone you met here is a fucking junkie. We just hid it from you, like you hide booze from a child. We’re dealers. We all like you Charlie, because you’re innocent. You were a stupid form of hope for me and Trudy. Now she’s gone. And now you know. That’s changed a few things for you, huh? Not the Eden you imagined it was. Get out, go home. You’ve had your fun, stay out of this life.’ I remember being confused; I couldn’t tear my eyes of Trudy. There was just too much to process. I couldn’t move. Mathias stood up and started beating me with his up turned fists, screaming ‘Get out, go home.’
Charlie took another sip of his drink, a tepid breeze crawled off the sea and cooled Samantha’s skin. She felt like she wasn’t really next to him. He was talking into a void, recollecting these memories in real time.
“I went home in a daze. I really have no idea how I got back to England. My Mum and Dad let me stay with them. But I know they weren’t happy that the child who left had come back a different person. No longer the innocent boy with the privileged education, the dreams of doctors and lawyers. I had long hair, alien philosophies, I had experienced the world outside the safe cocoon they had constructed for me. We couldn’t last long living in the same house together. It wasn’t long before I got a job in a music store and found my own flat. However, parents being parents, and the unconditional love that brings, invited me over for Sunday lunch. I walked in to find this beautiful girl there. Her name was Annie and she was the daughter of some old family friends. They had invited them all over for the afternoon. I remembered Annie as this gawky girl that had to be put up with once every couple of months. Now she was a woman. We made a subliminal connection immediately. I put on my best man of the world impression to impress her. Telling her stories of the places I’d been. I found out later she just allowed me to do that. She wasn’t impressed at all, and if I had allowed her to speak too, I would have discovered that we shared many of the same ideals. She was beautiful Sam, just like you but different.” He turned toward her, still hunched over and she saw twin tears on his cheeks. She wanted to hold him, but was afraid the spell would break.
“Anyway, I persuaded her to come to a party I had been invited to that evening and this is where I started to believe in fate and destiny. That all the major events in life are all predetermined and there is nothing you can do except make the choice. Turn left or right. There is no straight ahead. You must choose. At the party were Justin and Mikey. This was a complete shock to me. I equated them with Trudy, and the fact that they were bad people. But I was on a first date, and so determined to impress. They were the coolest people in the room and I thought it would impress Annie if I introduced her to people I knew from Amsterdam. I walked over with her and before I could say anything, Justin said with a smile, ‘Hey Charlie. How are you?’ I was a little taken aback that he remembered me. I managed to squeeze out a hello. And introduced Annie as my girlfriend. I found out right then what kind of woman she was because she said to Justin, ‘Well, almost girlfriend. Hello Justin, nice to meet you.’ He laughed out loud and I blushed. I felt a presence at my shoulder and turned to see a man looking at me quizzically. He was about three or four inches smaller, but big. He had an aura of meanness about him. Justin said in a quiet voice, ‘He’s cool Terry’. He relaxed and held out his hand.’Me names Terry, pleased to meet you.’ As I was about to shake it, someone started bellowing, ‘You fucking cunt! That was my fucking beer. I’ll fucking throw you out the poxy window if you don’t give it back…’ The shouting continued and Terry rolled his eyes and said to me, ‘Who upset that fuckin plonker now. It’s alright Justin I’ll go and get him.’ He was gone before I knew he was. He moved through the throng of the partygoers without getting hung up once. He returned a minute later with a man mountain in tow. They were arguing, ‘Can’t you just go out and have a fucking laugh. What is it with you, yer fucking retard.’ He looked at me and said, ‘This is Mikey, he’s a bit thick so talk slowly.’ Mikey glared at Terry and said,’ I swear one fuckin’ day I’ll turn your fucking lights out. Yeah, and Terry we already met. How the fuck are you Charlie.’ We spent the rest of the party with them and Justin invited us back to his place to finish the evening. “ Charlie stopped talking, and slowly unfolded himself, he got up and mumbled something about having to pee.
He staggered slightly as he lurched toward the house. Samantha had the sense that he needed to collect his thoughts because he normally just walked the ten yards to the beach and relieved himself there. She felt a pang of irrational jealousy about this girl Annie. His voice was so full of electric emotion each time he mentioned her name aloud. She looked over at the distant peaks, and wondered how long she would be able to gaze at them.
He sat back down heavily into the chair, he paused, took off his glasses and looked into Samantha’s eyes.
“By the time I’ve finished telling you all this, you might not want to be with me anymore. I’m going to tell you the truth.” In a small and fragile voice Samantha replied,
“I’m ready, Charlie” He slowly replaced the shades over his eyes, like closing the curtains on his soul.
“The evening at Justin’s house was outrageous. He had the strongest grass, the purest cocaine. We were all talking. We all got with each other, Terry and I especially, although Mikey was his usual sullen self. I had mis-judged Annie; she accepted the drugs with no hesitation. We started a conversation about hopes and dreams. I mentioned the back line business I had just embarked on and was moaning about not having quite enough money. The usual things you bleat about when you’re high. We left in the very early morning and Annie came home with me, we stayed up the rest of the day, just talking with each other. A couple of months passed, Annie and I had begun to causally talk about moving in together. I remember being up late just watching the end of TV with the sound down and Dylan of the stereo. There was a knock on my door, I thought it was Annie. When I opened it, Terry was standing there. Dressed in what I found out later, was a kind of uniform. Black Alpha silk aviator jacket, white t-shirt and blue Levies.
‘Alright Charlie? Get yer shoes on, we’re going for a ride.’ Terry had this great smile, all wrinkles and a sparkle in his blue eyes. ‘Don’t look so fuckin’ worried matey, this is a good thing.’ Feeling nervous and shaky, I went with him to a flat in Maida Vale. All the ride Terry kept up this non stop barrage of conversation, about everything and nothing. He was making me feel at ease. He stopped the car in front of one of those old Victorian houses that had been converted into spacious flats. I followed him up the front steps and we climbed the stairs to the third floor. In the living room sat Justin and Mikey. They both stood up when I came in, shook my hand, and said hi. Justin motioned me to sit down on a threadbare old sofa, and then he sat opposite on the matching threadbare armchair. I didn’t notice Terry and Mikey leave the room until I heard Mikey say in his gruff voice, ‘You ain’t making the fuckin’ tea, no fuckin way’. The door to the kitchen must have closed because there was a relative silence until Justin spoke.
‘Well, the three of us had a bit of a meeting about you, young Charlie. You may or may not have guessed what we do for a living.’ Justin held his hand up in the classic stop signal. ’Doesn’t matter, I’m going to tell you. We import and distribute various controlled substances for profit. We have become a little too successful and the three of us can’t handle all the business we have. I, or rather we, have a proposition for you. We’d like you to take over our hash and grass sales. We figure you move in the right circles, you seem level headed and the rest of it. If you agree, Terry said he will teach you, and you’ll work with him as partners. If you don’t want to do it, we’re all OK with that and trust you to keep your mouth firmly shut.’
He turned his palms outward and inclined his head. I said yes without really thinking about it. Justin called the others back into the room. As they entered, he smiled and nodded. Mikey growled, ‘Welcome to the firm’. Terry put down the tray with a pot of tea and mugs on it, shook my hand. ‘We're going to have a lot of laughs, you and me matey, a lot.”
“In the next couple of months Terry would bring over small amounts of weight, a half pound here, a pound there. Sometimes grass, sometimes hash. He taught me the subtleties of dealing. A very short list of people who would actually be allowed to come over to the house, no phone calls after 9pm. He taught me to be very regimented and pay attention to the smallest detail. No matter how tired or high, always clean the scales. You can’t get busted for owning scales! Anyway, Annie kind of either ignored or accepted the business; we certainly both liked the increase in income. As the year rolled on I was selling a lot. I mean maybe 2 kilos a week. In ounces. That’s a lot of people. I would be ‘that’ guy in various pubs. Never the same bar on the same night. The pot heads would have to find me. It was hard work and getting a little too big for one person. Terry turned up one day and told me were we going for a drive. We ended up in Maida Vale outside the same house where I had met Justin. Terry looked at me and said, “Well me old mate, you’re moving.” I didn’t even think to even include Annie in my deliberations. I just said great. I asked how much the rent was and was told that the rent was taken out of the crews profits. So essentially I had been accepted into to the machine. In fact, it was probably the turning point of the rest of my life. Things started to get a little darker, meaner. I was to be in control of my own ordering and selling. Introductions were made to Justin’s connections and I ended up responsible for distributing the kilos instead of the ounces. Annie seemed pretty unaffected by the whole thing. It was clear she knew what was going on, I think she just accepted it as part of our lives. I told her we had been offered a better flat and she just seemed happy to do her thing. She liked to sew and knit that kind of stuff. She didn’t seem to mind the odd hours I kept or the strange whispered telephone calls. Or perhaps I just was just indifferent to her feelings. You know, in my early twenties, big shot dealer, or so I thought, lots of money. I was so into myself, perhaps I just didn’t notice how she was feeling.
Well, things carried on the same for awhile until a deal went bad with Justin and Mikey. There was a miscommunication somewhere along the line, people were hurt, money lost, drugs misplaced. It was the first time I’d really heard of the Yardies. Not people you want to piss off. It was decided that our flat, being off the radar would be used as a temporary safe house for the stock. A couple of kilos of coke, some sheets of acid and sulphate paste. I didn’t even think twice. Justin called for a two week shut down in business and all of us were just to hang out and have a kind of holiday. As Terry put it, ‘Watch yer fucking back every second, but have fun.’ We ceased all contact with each other and arranged a meeting at the two-week mark to see how tempers were and if Justin would have to go and speak with the boss of the Yardie crew we had upset unintentionally. So I got to hang out with Annie, we went for walks, did stuff. I kind of got to know her again.
Then one night about ten days after the shit went down I got a phone call from a very good customer. He was desperate for some product and because I liked the guy I went behind my crews back and dropped him off a key. I was happy I just made a £1000 and thought I would take Annie out for a slap up meal at some fancy restaurant in Mayfair. I was only gone a couple of hours. I parked my car on a side street and did my surveillance, not as thoroughly Terry had taught me. It was the last time I didn’t spend half an hour getting into my house. As I walked up the stairs I heard the Stones wailing Beast of Burden at a phenomenally loud volume even for Annie. I remember smiling to myself as I bounded up to the second floor, Mrs Bradshaw, one flat below us, must have been purple with rage. When I got to our front door I saw that was ajar and as I got closer the frame had been kicked in. The record had moved onto the next track and it was even louder. I cautiously opened the door. I was really sacred; I didn’t know how to react. The small kitchen was immediately off the hall. I don’t know why, but I grabbed a knife off the table, I remember it still had the lamb grease on it from the leg that Annie had cooked the previous evening.
“I walked into the living room and saw Annie, naked, covered in blood and tied to one of the dinning room chairs. Two black guys with dreadlocks on either side of her. They looked up at me; I remember one of the guys grinned at me. It was pure evil. “Where de blow?” he said. I couldn’t help myself, instinctively I blurted out,
‘I don’t know, it’s not here.’
‘Dat a shame mon.’ Then he slit Annie’s throat, just like that. Oh fuck, the blood, the gurgling sounds Annie made as she fought for breath. She died right in front of me.”
“Have you ever had a black rage? A rage so powerful that there is no control, no fore thought. I don’t remember anything after that. When I came back to the real world Terry was holding me. Gently pulling me away from Annie. I was covered in blood. I started to focus on the room, the two guys were cut to pieces, and somehow I had called Terry. He was talking softly to me, “Come on me old mate. Come with me. I’ll sort this all out for you. We’ve got to leave. Come on son.” Everything for the next couple of days was fragmented, like I was in a waking coma or something.
I finally came out of shock one morning as Terry was cooking breakfast. He explained that I was in a farm house somewhere in deepest Wales. The Black Mountains to be precise.
“How are you feeling, matey?” was the first piece of conversation I recall since seeing the knife slice into Annie’s throat. I sat back in the chair in the flagstone kitchen, and for some reason I really thought about that question. I felt different. I felt cold inside.
“I want to kill the person that ordered those guys to my flat.” Terry looked at me, his craggy face set in a half smile. He slowly nodded his head and said in a low, almost gleeful voice,
“Oh we will mate. Those guys are already fucking dead.” He turned back to the stove and finished off the eggs and bacon. After I had wolfed down the food, and was drinking the last of Terry’s awful tea he started to speak to me.
“We’ll get to all that later. Those fuckers will get what’s coming to them, but first I’m going to train you. There are a few things we have to discuss. Number one you’ve got to lie low for awhile. I’m going to be staying here with you, but I’ll be back and forth, got to keep the customers satisfied right? Tomorrow you start your training. Today, let’s drink beer, and do a stupid amount of drugs. Because after today you are my little fucking protégé, and you, you little fucker, are going to be the best.’
So we did, through the day I asked him what happened after the killings. He explained that Justin and Mikey came to the flat and sprayed the whole place with bleach, removed as many traces of our existence there as they could find. They waited until everybody was out of the house, turned the gas on and blew the place up. He disappeared and came back with an old newspaper that showed the ruins of our house on the front page. I read the front page article and it appeared that the police assumed the bodies were as a result of the explosion and subsequent fire. The verdict was ‘a terrible accident’. I wanted to contact Annie’s family but I could think of nothing to say to them that would make any sense. I guess she just became another woman who disappeared in London. It still irks me from time to time that I never made my peace with them.
Terry also explained that I was still a bona fine member of the crew and even though I wasn’t actively working, I was still entitled to my share of the profits. I spent the rest of the day and half of the night, trying to come to terms with the change in my persona, I didn’t feel anything soft. Something had come disconnected in my wiring, a part of my emotions were off limits to me.
The next morning Terry turned into a sergeant major. He woke me at five am, threw some running clothes on the bed and said,
‘Alright laddie, outside in ten minutes.’ What followed was a run, breakfast, another run, the first instalment in a course of unarmed combat, lunch, another run, small arms practise. This went on for three months. The runs getting longer every day, the self defence and attack training harder and more vicious. Sometimes Terry went back to London for a few days, I ran, practised my shooting and martial arts exercises. Justin and Mikey came up to visit a couple of times. Justin would sit me down and teach me the intricacies of the drug world. How to read someone, that sort of thing. Then one day out of the blue, Terry informed me we were leaving Wales and heading to Scotland for a bit. I stayed in another farm house there for around for a couple of weeks. Everyday I was getting stronger, leaner and meaner. I was getting an intensive course in being a combat soldier. Then Terry informed me that I could go back to London again, things had been worked out and the police pressure had lessened. The boys had found me another flat in Hampstead. Justin filled it with all sorts of stuff. It was a real Aladdin’s cave. I did notice that none of them spoke of Annie or what they had done for me. I felt part of a team. A unit.
The next month or so were spent with me playing spy games. Terry would get some shady friends of his to either follow me, or I would follow them. I learnt how to spot a tail, or lose one. How to follow someone without them being aware they were under surveillance. I used to imagine I was Harry Palmer. Then all of a sudden it was back to work. I still felt cold, I had no feelings one way or another. I just felt meaner.”

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