DS Evans delivered Clive’s firearms certificate personally and at the same time he returned his father’s rifle.  Clive had installed a steel firearms cabinet with two massive locks and the detective waited until he saw the gun locked away before he said his goodbyes and left.  Clive wasn’t at all sure now why he had wanted to keep it.  He’d told the firearms officer who had interviewed him that it was a family heirloom and that he was keeping it as a collector.  There was no ammunition on the certificate which meant that if Clive ever wanted to use the gun he would have to apply for a variation.  Then he would also have to explain where and when he wanted to use it and prove that he had permission to do so from the landowner concerned.

He hadn’t forgotten the cartridges which Mr Thomas had found and which were still in the glove box of his car.  He hadn’t mentioned them to anybody.

The initial euphoria at getting the building work underway had now worn off.  There really wasn’t very much for him to do on the site anymore.  Max was well in control.  Even Simon Bristow had taken a back seat as all the construction work was finished.  Now there was a small army working on the finishing.  The decorators had started in some areas and Clive was trying to focus on marketing.  He’d had a series of meetings with estate agents, all of whom were eager for his business, all of whom had sent along their most attractive female negotiators in their smartest business suits to try and convince him.  He was none the wiser and really couldn’t decide between a local agent and the sort of prestige international outfit that also sold country estates and private Caribbean islands.

This morning then, with DS Evans gone and the rifle safely locked away, he was rattling around in his own modest, rather grubby little flat near Battersea Park.  He was bored.

Life was no longer a struggle.  His new bank had taken an entirely different view of his circumstances.  Once they’d seen the cash deposit of £150,000, a manager had been sent to visit him at the development and had then updated his file and credit status.  Although Clive didn’t know it, the bank now saw him as a high net worth individual and he had a notional limit of £50,000 against his name.  He could ask for any type of borrowing up to that level and it would be granted immediately without any further question.  In fact, on paper he was probably now worth around £5 million so he didn’t need to worry about paying his bills anymore.

What the hell!  He was going to enjoy this morning.  It was a beautiful day.  Strong sunlight was dappled through the leafy trees in the park.  It was half-term so there were kids and their scantily clad mothers everywhere.  He sauntered along the Albert Bridge Road enjoying the sunshine and wondering whether perhaps he should invite Mark for lunch at Vermont – or somewhere else.  His money was good anywhere.

Next thing there he was on Albert Bridge – again.  How long ago was it now since that evening before he’d first met Mark?  It was just a matter of weeks.  How things had changed since then.

******

Another morning at the library was over and Sir Damian was enjoying the very much more relaxed lifestyle of a worker. After being let back onto the wing he was free to wander around and chat until lunch was served.  Then he was expected to go back to his cell and push his own door shut for the lunchtime lockdown.

There was loads of noise coming from the servery but they clearly weren’t ready to start yet so he went back to his cell.   There was one letter and a slip of paper that had been pushed under the door.  He knew straightaway that the letter was from Barnaby Evans.

He ripped it open and scanned the contents quickly.  His appeal against sentence was to be heard in two weeks time.   The slip of paper told him that he was to be transferred to Ford prison in a week.

He was elated and angry, surprised and shocked, relieved and frustrated.  He almost shouted out aloud.

He barely noticed lunch although he ate it hungrily.  He didn’t want to leave Brixton now.  Why would they move him just when his appeal was coming up?  He was just a few miles from the Court here.  In Ford he would be half a day’s travelling away.  He started to write an application requesting that his transfer be cancelled.  Everything in prison is accomplished by “app”.  He’d learned that very quickly and it helped to be literate although it was best to word everything in very simple and direct language.  The officers themselves weren’t the most highly educated of people.

As he was drafting he realised that the prison probably didn’t even know about his appeal.  Even if the governor’s office had been informed he recognised that usually one hand didn’t know what the other was doing.  Everything happens behind closed doors in prison.  The administrative and management methods were like something out of the 19^th century with an unhealthy dollop of union demarcation rules thrown in.  He decided to mention his job in the library as another reason he should not be moved.

The spectre of Andrew de Boer fluttered briefly across his mind but he dismissed it.  He knew now that he could cope with a couple of years.  He’d be out and rebuilding his life sooner than he’d expected.  The last thing he needed to get involved in was any sort of escape plan.  That was an absurd idea.

…read more here.

Chapter 9

Across London the street lights were coming on, burning orange to begin with as they warmed up.  The western sky was also orange as the early spring day came to an end and cooled down.  From Docklands in the east to Hammersmith in the west, the traffic surged to its evening crescendo and then began to fade away as the commuters reached home or dispersed from the main roads onto the M25 and various motorways heading for the home counties and more distant destinations.

The river continued its endless and timeless meander through the capital.  The setting sun reflecting off small wavelets, the spring tide running fast, creating hard work for the dozens of small boats plying up and down, carrying passengers, moving cargo or just messing about.  The lights on Albert Bridge burned brightly as a solitary figure strolled along the pavement and paused to lean over the side and watch the water.

Clive was worrying.  He had hoped that a walk through Battersea Park and along the river would calm him down and prepare him for the meeting.  Staring at the water he told himself that he had done everything that he possibly could.  In his younger days that had been the recipe for a worry free existence.  If you’ve done everything you can then worrying isn’t going to achieve anything more.

That philosophy, or perhaps it was just a mind game, didn’t seem to work anymore though.  Not since the long and painful break up from Kim.  That experience had wounded him deeply, perhaps more than any other.  He had tried to – no, he had – acted with integrity throughout.  He had been ready to break away himself but her tears and her pitiful begging had reeled him back in and he had re-committed to her more deeply and profoundly than ever before.  Her betrayals had hit him hard and it had taken too long for him to see the truth that was actually staring him in the face.  She had pleaded to move back in with him and he had found a delightful cottage in Sussex that she had enthused about and seemed to be the perfect solution.  Within days of moving in though she had disappeared.  She went straight back to her former ways.  She’d go out to the shops and three or four days later would surface “at her sister’s” or “visiting her mum and dad”.   Clive had to come to terms with the fact that the woman he was doing his best to love was a liar and a cheat.  It hurt.

He’d spent a year looking at the bottom of a bottle.  At first it had been to dull the pain and the worry, a way to sleep.  Later it had become a problem.  He’d stopped working and would go to the pub for a couple of pints at lunchtime then spend the afternoon and evening getting through a bottle of scotch and watching old black and white movies.  Along the way, he had to deal with his father’s death and with three or four passionate reunions with Kim, each occasion causing him more pain and demonstrating the depth of her insincerity.

Tonight was to be the end of all this.  No, he’d already put all that behind him.  Tonight was the start of his new life.  He’d done everything he could.  There was no point in worrying.

He turned away from the river and started back towards the park.  He had an hour now to get home, get changed, into his car, back up through Chelsea, Kensington and Holland Park to the restaurant.  The walk had done him good.  He felt calmer and stronger.  Howard would be introducing a new man to Mark de Boer this evening.

******

The early evening rush for Mo was well underway.  His business phone was ringing almost constantly and he was making an endless and impossible series of promises to be at various different locations in west London“in 10 minutes”.

Mo knew the Range Rover was far too conspicuous but it was the one thing he was unable to resist.  He lived his life in a constant state of fear, always watching over his shoulder, checking every car behind him, trusting to his instinct, avoiding any situation that felt dangerous.  He was always ready to cut and run.  Once, outside a chicken shop on the Harrow Road, he’d been spooked by a van that he was sure he’d seen following him earlier that day.  He was serving a new customer.  He’d seen him before but never on his own, always with a girl that he’d known for some time.  The van had suddenly appeared in the side street.  Mo had turned, walked calmly but briskly away and dropped several hundred pounds worth of gear into the waste bin.  He hadn’t been pulled so on the face of it, it was a false alarm.  Several hours later he’d sent one of his soldiers to check the bin.  Amongst the empty boxes and the greasy bones and skin, he’d recovered more than half of what he’d dumped.

In this constant game of cat and mouse, Mo excused the Range Rover on the basis that the police knew who he was anyway.  If today was to be his day, it wouldn’t make any difference what he was driving.  He gunned the big black beast up to the top of Ladbroke Grove and past the Sainsbury’s roundabout.  Everything was quiet now.  The store had reopened but rumours were rife about exactly what had happened earlier.  He swung right immediately after the roundabout and headed down the back road to Trellech Tower.   There he stopped twice on two corners before completing the loop back down Golborne Roadand onto the Grove again.  He waited opposite the tube station until one of his regulars showed up, jumped in the passenger seat and then he cruised round to Portobello while they negotiated the price of a quarter-ounce in good humour.  “Give ‘em both one for me!”, Mo grinned.  “You’re too greedy for your own good!”.   He barely let the customer out of the car before flooring the throttle again and then, just as quickly, screeching to a halt as he saw Beanie bumbling down the road.  “C’mon, get in.  I need your help”.

Beanie was strung out now but he had the latest news about the stabbing at Sainsbury’s.  “It was that squaddie girl.  Susan something.  She went nuts.  There was a cash van collecting and she tried to jump them but that big fat security guard jumped her.  Y’know the one what nicked Jimmy’s missus.  She shanked him good and proper.  He’s dead”.

…read more here.