The Drop

leave it to me.’
    I waited a couple of hours at the club. I ate a meal, trying not to think about the imaginative methods Palmer was going to employ on our grey-haired stranger to get him to talk. Did I have sympathy for him? No. He’d been following me around, noting my movements. He might even have been the guy who’d told Weasel-face I’d be at the match when he broke into my apartment and almost killed me.
    I’d long finished lunch when my mobile vibrated into life again. It was Palmer.
    ‘He’s copped for it,’ he told me calmly, though he sounded a little out of breath, ‘the whole story. You are going to want to hear this.’
    ‘Good,’ I said, ‘keep him there.’
    ‘Oh he’s not going anywhere,’ he assured me.
    ‘Did he give you a name?’ I asked impatiently, ‘did he tell you who?’
    ‘Yes he did,’ and Palmer proceeded to tell me the whole bloody tale. I didn’t say a word. I just listened. When he’d finished I thanked him and said, ‘there’s something else I need from you, well, from him.’
    ‘Name it.’
    ‘There’s someone on the inside. Somebody’s been handing our organisation to these bastards one bit of information at a time. They couldn’t have known so much just by following us around for a few weeks. Get me a name. Who’s their man on the inside?’
    ‘You’ve got it,’ he said
    I got straight to my feet, my heart thumping with a combination of anger, adrenalin and dread. I now knew what was going on. Our enemy finally had a face and a name. I had to get to Bobby quickly. Things were about to get rough.

TWENTY-NINE
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    O n my way out of the club I dialled Bobby’s mobile and it rang out. ‘Pick up the phone Bobby,’ I said aloud. I was walking quickly and I pressed the key for the Merc. It bleeped a couple of times to show it recognised me. I ended the call and tried to dial Finney before I reached the car. It rang eight times without any answer. I hung up and, as I did so, my phone rang.
    ‘Hello,’ I said.
    ‘It’s me,’ it was Sharp, ‘I’ve been making calls like you said and I think I’ve finally turned something up.’ Unsurprisingly, he seemed eager to please after our last meeting.
    ‘And?’
    ‘A big Russian bloke with a shaved head rented a farmhouse out in the sticks. It sleeps half a dozen people and you know, I thought, how many groups of big Russian blokes can there be on their holibobs in Tyneside.’
    ‘That’s them alright.’
    He gave me the address.
    ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘while you’re on I need another address. It’ll be easier to find but you can’t give it to any one who’ll want to link it back to you later, so don’t use your police computer.’
    There was a pause while he digested my meaning. ‘Name?’ he asked. I told him.
    I was almost back to my car when I phoned Palmer again and gave him the address Sharp had supplied for the Russians.
    ‘You’re going to be working this weekend,’ I replied.
    ‘What’s the plan boss?’ he asked nonchalantly.
    ‘Wait till I have a word with Bobby,’ I told him.
    ‘Fair enough.’
    I hung up and opened the door of the car. I was about to climb in when two huge blokes suddenly appeared from nowhere. One blocked the door I was about to open and the other appeared from behind me. I hadn’t heard a thing and they were on me so fast I couldn’t even think about walking away. They were both big guys with shaven heads. They looked exactly like the guys who’d steamed into Benny the doorman. The same guys who’d murdered Jerry and George. I was trapped.
    I knew immediately that I was fucked. I’d been stupid and careless. I was so exhilarated that I’d landed grey hair, so full of my own clever-clogs instinct that I’d parked my car in a side street by the club. That was fine in daylight, but by the time I’d walked out again it was dark and there was no one around. I’d made it easy for them.
    The guy behind me pressed a gun into my side, ‘get in the car,’ he ordered me in heavily-accented English. He sounded Russian alright.
    Instinctively I looked about me for help or some way to escape but there was no one else around and I could hardly call out. It would have been the last sound I ever made, ‘don’t be stupid,’ he told me, ‘now get in before we hurt you. You drive.’
    So I got in. What option did I have?
    It was all I could do to start the car, my hands were shaking so bad. My mind was racing as