‘Good for her,’ Thorson said softly as Carol returned to her bar stool. She sipped her drink and toyed with the cigarette, stubbing it out before it had burned halfway down. Then she was on her feet in a blur of movement, grabbing her bag and heading for the toilets. As she opened the door, her contact jumped to his feet, leaving his magazine, and followed her.
‘Oh shit,’ Morgan said. ‘Is there an exit out there?’
Surtees shrugged. ‘I’ve no idea. It was Mary who checked the place out.’
Thorson coloured. ‘There’s a fire exit. It’s alarmed …’
As she spoke, the peal of a security siren screamed. At the same moment, all hell broke loose in their ears.
Carol ran down the narrow service alley between the tall buildings. She didn’t have to look over her shoulder to check her contact was behind her; she could hear his heavy footfalls closing on her with every step. They emerged on a narrow side street, the pavements busy with people returning to their offices after lunch. Carol slowed to a brisk walk, her contact falling into step beside her. ‘Fucking hell,’ he said. ‘You trying to kill me?’
‘I spotted a geezer from the Drugs Squad sitting outside the café in a car,’ she said, still firmly in character. ‘Him and his storm troopers turned over a mate of mine’s place a couple of months back. They didn’t get anything then, and I’m fucked if I was going to let them get anything now.’ A nearby police siren swirled through the air. ‘We’ve got to get off the street.’
‘My motor’s over in Greek Street,’ he said.
‘They might have clocked that an’ all,’ Carol said impatiently. She jinked across the road between the traffic-jammed cars, heading for a dingy corner pub. She pushed open the doors. It was still busy from the lunchtime crowd and she squirmed her way to the rear of the room, checking he was still with her. They squeezed into the angle between the bar and the back wall. Carol’s hand was in her bag. ‘Have you got the money?’
His hand was inside his jacket pocket. He came out with an envelope folded to the size of a twenty-pound note, thick as a London A-Z. Their hands were low, his body blocking them from any curious eyes. Carol passed him the drugs and took the money. ‘Nice doing business,’ she said wryly, then pushed past him. She looked around for the ladies’ toilet, made her way through the throng and dived into a cubicle. She sat on the toilet, head in her hands, shaking. What the hell sort of assignment did they have lined up for her if this was their idea of an exercise?
Gradually, she got her breathing and her heart rate under control. She stood up and wondered if there was any point in trying to change her look again. She pulled off the leggings and replaced them with the skirt, then jammed the baseball cap down over her hair. She might as well give it a try. Now all she had to do was get back to Stoke Newington in one piece. That shouldn’t be beyond her, she thought grimly.
Out on the street, there was no sign of pursuit. She made her way by a circuitous route to the Tottenham Court Road underground station and tried not to think about what could still go wrong. At least now she didn’t have any drugs on her. Money was always explicable. The only dodgy thing in her possession was the CS gas canister. When nobody was looking, she pushed it into the gap between the seat and the bulkhead of the tube. Not the most responsible thing she’d ever done, but she wasn’t thinking like Carol Jordan any longer. She was thinking like Janine Jerrold, one hundred per cent.
Three-quarters of an hour later, she turned back into the street where the day’s mission had begun. There was no sign of anything out of place. It was funny how, in just a few hours, normal could seem so rife with potential threat. But at least now the end was in sight. She took a deep breath and marched up to the front door.
It wasn’t Gary who answered the door this time. The man on the doorstep had the bulky upper torso of a weightlifter. His reddish hair was cropped close to his head and the glare from his prominent pale blue eyes was unnerving. ‘Yeah? What do you want?’ he asked belligerently.
‘I’m looking for Gary,’ she said. Her nerves were buzzing again. He didn’t look like a cop, but what if this was another trap?
He pursed his lips then shouted over his shoulder. ‘Gary, you expecting some bird?’
A muffled, ‘Yeah, let her in,’ came from the room she’d been in earlier.
The weightlifter stepped back, opening the door wide. There was nothing in the hall to make her uneasy, so Carol stifled her doubts and walked in. He stepped neatly behind her and slammed the door shut.
It was obviously a signal. Three men stepped out from the doorways leading off the hall. ‘Police, stay where you are,’ the one who had opened the door shouted.
‘What the fuck?’ she managed to get out before they were on her. Hands seized her and half-pushed, half-dragged her into the living room. One of them made a grab for her bag. She clung on grimly, trying for the appearance of indignant innocence. ‘Get your hands off me,’ she shouted.
They pushed her on to the sofa. ‘What’s your name?’ the weightlifter demanded.
‘Karen Barstow,’ she said, using the cover name she’d been given in the brief.
‘Right then, Karen. What’s your business with Gary?’
She tried for bewildered. ‘Look, what is this? How do I know you’re the Old Bill?’
He pulled a wallet out of the pocket of his jogging trousers and flashed a warrant card at her too fast for her to take in a name. But it was the real thing, she knew that. ‘Satisfied?’
She nodded. ‘I still don’t get it. What’s going on? Why are you picking on me?’
‘Don’t play the innocent. We know you’re one of Gary’s mules. You’ve been carrying drugs for him. We know the score.’
‘That’s bullshit. I just came round to give him his winnings. I don’t know nothing about no drugs,’ she said defiantly. She thrust her bag at him, relieved she’d ditched the CS gas. ‘Look. Go on. There’s fuck all in there.’
He took the bag and unceremoniously dumped the contents on the floor. He went straight for the envelope and ripped it open. He riffled the bundle of notes with his thumb. ‘There must be a couple of grand here,’ he said.
‘I don’t know. I didn’t look. You won’t find my prints on a single one of them notes. All I know is that my mate Linda asked me to drop off Gary’s winnings.’
‘It must have been a helluva bet,’ one of the other officers said, leaning indolently against the wall.
‘I don’t know anything about that. You gotta believe me, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t even do drugs, never mind dealing them.’
‘Who said anything about dealing?’ the weightlifter asked, shoving the money back into the envelope.
‘Dealing, running, whatever. I don’t have nothing to do with that. I swear on my mother’s grave. All I was doing was bringing Gary his winnings.’ She was confident now. They had nothing on her. Nobody had seen her hand over the drugs to her contact, she was clear on that.
‘Gary says he sent you off with a parcel of drugs this morning,’ the weightlifter said.
‘I don’t know why he’d say that, because it’s not true.’ She was almost sure what he was saying was a bluff. All she had to do was stick to her story. Let them come to her with anything concrete.
‘You went out with the drugs and you were due to come back with the money. And here you are with an envelope full of readies.’
She