was a coin.
Clerkenwell, London18th July – 4:30pm
Outside, the afternoon rush hour traffic rumbled past, a never-ending river of rubber and steel that surged and stalled in tidy blocks to the beat of the traffic lights.
Inside, the shop windows glowed yellow as the sunlight fought to shine though their white-washed panes. In a few places, the paint had been scratched off and here narrow shafts of light pierced the gloom, the dust dancing through their pale beams like raindrops falling across car headlights.
The room itself was a mess – the orange walls blistered, the rough wooden floor suffocating in a thick down of old newspapers and junk food wrappers, while bare wires hung down menacingly from the cracked ceiling like tentacles.
At the back of the room, almost lost in the shadows, two tea chests rested on the uneven floor. Hunched forward on one of them, Tom Kirk was lost deep in thought, his chin in his hands.
Although he was just thirty-five years old, a few grey hairs flecked the sides of his head, becoming more noticeable in the several days of rough stubble that covered his face, the hair slightly darker in the shallow cleft of his square chin.
He reminded everyone of his father, or so everyone told him, much to his annoyance. Certainly he shared his delicately angular face, messy brown hair and deep-set blue eyes that nestled under thick brown eyebrows.
He was more athletic than his father though; a lithe, sinewy five foot eleven physique that suggested someone both quick enough to steal second base and strong enough to crack a shot into the bleachers if he had to. The irony, of course, was that he’d never been much of a big-hitter in high school, his signature play instead being a split-fingered fastball that had batters swinging at thin air as it broke violently downward. It fooled them every time.
Perched on the chest opposite him, a large backgammon board threatened to slide onto the floor at any moment. It was an intricately inlaid set that he’d picked up for next to nothing in some dusty side street off the Grand Bazaar in Istanbul years ago. It still smelled of glue and grease and spices. When he couldn’t sleep, he would sometimes play against himself for hours; checking the probabilities, shifting the pieces around the board, studying how different moves and strategies evolved. The half-empty bottle of Grey Goose on the floor next to him suggested that it had been a long night.
But Tom wasn’t even looking at the board. Instead he was considering the black ski mask that lay in his lap, carefully cradled as if made from the finest Limoges porcelain. With a half smile, he slipped his right hand into the neck opening and then stuck a finger out of each of the eye holes, wiggling them playfully up and down like fish chasing each other in and out of a skull’s eye sockets.
He had long, elegant fingers that made graceful, precise movements, each joint flexing like individual links in a chain, large white half moons at the bottom of each neatly clipped nail. And yet the back of his knuckles were covered in small white scars and his palms were rough and worn. It was almost as if he was a concert pianist who moonlighted as a bare knuckle fighter.
Tom knew that he couldn’t avoid making the call any longer. He’d been out of contact for three weeks now and didn’t have a choice. But would Archie understand? Would he even believe him? Abruptly his smile vanished and he flung the mask as far as he could across the room, willing it to shatter into a thousand pieces against the opposite wall.
He took his phone out of his back pocket and dialled, the high-pitched tones echoing back over the traffic’s low rumble. It was answered almost immediately, but there was silence from the other end. Tom coughed and then spoke, his voice smooth and soothing, his slight American accent more pronounced than usual as it often was when he was nervous.
‘Archie, it’s Felix.’
‘Jesus Christ, Felix!’
Felix. A name that he’d been christened with years ago when he had first got going in the game and one that he was stuck with now.
‘Where the hell have you been?’
‘I got … held up,’ Tom answered.
‘Held up? I thought you’d been nicked.’
Archie. The best fence in the business. Tom had often wondered whether his was an invented name too, a shield to hide behind. On balance, he thought that it probably wasn’t. Somehow it seemed to fit.
‘No. Just held up.’
‘Spot of aggro?’
For once Archie sounded genuinely concerned.
‘No, but I’m not doing the States again. I’ve told you, it’s too risky doing jobs back there. I know I’m the last person they expect to see but one day they might get lucky.’
‘How did it go?’
‘Pretty much like we planned. Except they were having some construction work done and I was worried about extra security until it was finished. So I staked it out for about three weeks in the end before I went in – you know, just to be sure. I dealt with the pressure pads and the combination hadn’t been reset, so it was all pretty simple.’
‘Nice one. Usual place, then?’
‘My stuff already there?’
‘What do you think?’ Archie almost sounded offended.
‘Fine. I’ll drop it off in a few days.’
‘You’re going to have to get your skates on for the second one, though. You’ve not left yourself much time.’
There was a pause and the line crackled with static as Tom sat down on the tea chest, massaging his temple with his left hand. As he’d thought, Archie wasn’t going to make this any easier for him. But he’d made his decision and he was going to stick to it.
‘I wanted to talk to you about that.’
‘Oh yeah.’ Archie’s tone was immediately suspicious.
‘Thing is, I’m not going to do the other job.’
‘You what?’
‘You heard me. I’m calling it off.’
‘You having me on?’
‘The truth is Archie, I’m done with this shit. I just don’t want to do it any more. I can’t do it any more. I’m sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ The word was hammered back into Tom’s ear. ‘Sorry? What the hell’s that supposed to mean? You do me over and then you apologise? You must be having a laugh. Well, I’m sorry too, sunshine, but sorry just doesn’t bloody cut it. You’re sorry and I’m buggered because I’ve got to deliver two Fabergé Eggs to Cassius in twelve days time or I’m a dead man. Capeesh?’
‘Cassius?’ Tom’s lips formed around the word. He stood up again, his feet sinking into the trash-strewn floor like it was quicksand, his voice a whisper. ‘That was never
