NATIONAL TREASURE Barry Faulkner (the little red hen ebook .txt) 📖

in a matter of minutes; it was dripping oil and petrol as the magnetic crane lifted it into its place onto a pile of similar squashed metal boxes.

Annie turned to me. ‘Well, at least there wasn’t anybody in the back of it.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Blood is a different colour to oil.’ She laughed and added quickly. ‘So I’m told.’

I pecked her cheek. ‘Thanks for that.’

‘Anytime, Ben. Don’t be a stranger – pop in and say hello from time to time.’

‘I’ll try.’

‘That’s what all the nice boys say, but they never do.’

We laughed together and I gave a wave and a thumbs-up to the crane driver and walked from the yard. Job done.

     CHAPTER 13

Clancy rung; he wanted a meet, but wouldn’t say why. I arranged to see him at Charing Cross in an hour, giving me time to check in with Gold. I gave her a call. She hadn’t dug anything up on the West London Cleaning Company; in fact she said she sensed a wall of silence coming up every time she mentioned it to her street contacts.

Clancy wasn’t a happy bunny. I got two cups of British Rail dishwater when he arrived and sat back, prepared for a bollocking.

‘My friends in Romania are not very happy with you.’

‘I rescued a kidnap victim, a British National, held by a Romanian drugs family.’

‘There are diplomatic channels open to use for that.’

‘Really, like the Diplomatic channels that are open for Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe?’

‘That’s above my pay grade, Nevis – you wreaking havoc and killing Romanian nationals in Romania isn’t.’

‘Don’t know what you mean.’

Clancy let out a long sigh; he was fed up with me. I’d better tread a bit more lightly.

‘I have CCTV footage sent from Romania of you with Janie Johnson on an underground station – a station where two stabbings took place. I have various still photos they have cut from various retail CCTV cameras of you in amongst a crowd running from that station. I have CCTV footage of four men being shot at the Debrecen border post by somebody looking suspiciously like you and a female accomplice, together with Janie Johnson in a hired car. The car was rented at Debrecen airport and returned a short time later, just before a private charter flight left there for Stansted. I seem to recall meeting you, your partner and Janie off a private charter flight at Stansted. I’ve checked, and it came in from Debrecen. So cut the bullshit and let’s figure out what we are going to do to avoid an international incident and the Home Secretary going up the wall.’

I didn’t say a word, sometimes silence is the best policy. Clancy took a gulp of BR dishwater, grimaced and carried on. ‘Lucky for you, Nevis, I have regular dealings with my opposite number in Romania. We have been working on eliminating the Bogdan family both there and here – and by eliminating I mean by legal methods through the courts. So far you have eliminated three of the five brothers by illegal methods, Alexandru here and two over there. That leaves, according to my sources, two brothers, Danut and Stefan, who they believe are in the UK. I told you before that we are monitoring the family, the reason being that a joint strike would be made in Romania and here when we are ready, with enough evidence to put the family away for many years. They were going about their illegal business quite unaware of our surveillance, until you started a war with them.’

‘Hang on, they started it – they kidnapped Janie. I was just getting her back for my client, Marcia Johnson.’ I was sounding like a schoolboy in the head’s study, ‘He started it, sir, not me.’

‘Doesn’t matter who started it, Nevis, it’s got the Bogdan family worried and running around like blue-arsed flies – and, I may also add, put Marcia Johnson well into their firing line. The last thing we want is for the Bogdans to close their drug supply business now – we know where they operate from and how they distribute. Another few weeks and we will have enough evidence to bring them down and put them away. So back off – you’ve got Janie back, so back off.’

My mind was racing; if Clancy and his Romanian partners were going to bring the Bogdans down, then that left an awful lot of money in an Isle of Man account that they wouldn’t be able to do anything about it whilst sitting in their cells. Be a nice bonus to the job if I could whip in and get my hands on it.

‘Ever heard of the West London Cleaning Company?’ I thought I’d ask; Clancy might know where that fitted in. I didn’t expect the result I got; he nearly choked on his dishwater and I had to thump his back to clear his windpipe.

‘Don’t even go there, Nevis – strictly off the grid, out of bounds.’

‘I’ve already been there.’

‘Oh Jesus!’ His face sank with despair, ‘What, when?’

‘Last night, two goons were sitting in a West London Cleaning Company van outside Janie’s flat waiting for her to return – probably going to grab her again. There was a business flyer from that company on her table the first time I went there after she’d been taken.’

‘And you did what last night?’

‘They’re gone.’

‘Gone? Gone where?’

‘Just gone, disappeared.’

Clancy knew what I was saying. ‘Where’s the van?’

‘Gone, disappeared.’

He sat back in his chair and pondered things for quite a while before speaking again. ‘West London Cleaners is a Bogdan cover company. Being a cleaner and dry cleaner they can order quantities of chemicals without any problem – chemicals they use in the production of crystal meth, the most addictive drug on the market, and a killer. They get the