CHAPTER 30. INTO THE TANK TRAPS.
As soon as they were out of the office, Willard stood and disappeared into the Mayor's private office. A moment later, he returned tossing a USB flash drive from hand to hand. Patryk noticed that someone had painted its side with tippex liquid paper and then scrawled a swastika on it. Subtlety was not a characteristic associated with Peachornby.
"What's that?"
"This, my friend, is what will put Peachornby away for a very long time. All the evidence that will enrage even the most lily-livered liberal judge."
Patryk raised his eyebrows. All the stress he'd been under, he felt he was entitled to know what else Peachornby was up to. With a nod Willard leaned down, stuck the flash drive into the PC's tower under the desk and waited for the drive to boot up. Patryk moved around to the other side of the desk to watch.
Initially, one icon only popped up. A briefcase symbol allowing the user to keep documents up to date when switching between two computers.
"He must do some work at home," murmured Willard as he clicked on the briefcase. He wondered who the Mayor had got to help him.
It was all there. Everything. Names and numbers of the cannabis buyers, inflated expense claims – together with the real costs. Scans of the originals and his altered planning applications for the Bass Maltings as well as letters and emails to and from the architects.
Scrolling down, there was reams of race-hate material that even the BNP's leaders would have disowned. It looked as though Peachornby had been in direct contact with foreign right-wing terrorists. Patryk recognised the name of one Polish loudmouth bigot. Willard had heard of a few more but he didn't say anything.
Patryk looked away in disgust. Willard copied all the documents and then pulled out the flash drive and dropped into the envelope. "Make sure you give this to Superintendent Donelan personally. Nobody else. I'll call ahead so he'll be expecting you."
Patryk took the envelope, nodded and hurried out of the Town Hall towards the van park. A few minutes later, he was heading north up the A15.
As soon as the door closed behind the young Pole, Willard crossed to the window and watched Patryk cross the car park and walk over to his Transit. He wasn't happy about sending Patryk off without so much as a warning but orders had come down from on high – from one cricket-obsessed Superintendent in particular.
Donelan didn't just want Peachornby – that memory stick guaranteed him Peachornby's head – but he wanted all the Smashers rounded up as well. Donelan wanted them ground into the dust, a five-nil whitewash, trampled so low that nothing like them could ever rise again. So if that meant risking a couple of Poles, hey! it wasn't like they were angels. All the same, Willard didn't like the idea but he had been overruled.
***
Later that afternoon, Peachornby rolled back supported by Mason. It smelled as if the Mayor had enjoyed his lunch. Willard stood and watched them enter the Mayor's office. He started counting in his head. One... two... three... By the time he'd reached fifty, there was a yell from the Mayor's office. Wiping the grin from his face, Willard knocked and went in.
"You called, Mayor?"
In front of him Peachornby was standing behind his desk with the drawers wide open and their contents spread all over the leather top. Mason was kneeling underneath the desk, his mitts casting ever-widening circles over the rug. His rear was presented to Willard and for one moment he was tempted to draw back his steelie and kick the skinhead right up the arse.
"You seen my memory stick?" Peachornby said. He thumped his fist onto the desk making the objects bounce. One or two fell onto the floor. Mason's hands darted to those things.
"What memory stick, Mayor?"
"My special one – my private one. Have you seen it?"
"The one with the swastika?"
"Yes!" shouted Peachornby, his eyes lighting up with desire.
"No, sorry, Mayor. Last time I saw it, it was sticking out your computer. But I'll keep my eyes open."
Peachornby's face slumped with disappointment. He thumped the desk with rage again even harder.
Willard couldn't resist rubbing it in. "Surely you made back-up copies, Mayor?"
"No. It was too important to have loads of copies lying about. MI6, y'know."
Hiding a grin, Willard turned to go. What a fool. With his hand on the ornate brass doorknob, a thought came to him. He rubbed his chin. "That Polish guy who was here earlier? I saw him pick something up off the floor. Didn't think anything of it at the time."
"Call yourself head of security! You're useless! You're fired! Get out!" Peachornby screamed, spittle flying over the desk.
Startled by the sudden noise, Mason jumped up and cracked his head on an open drawer. He dropped back onto all fours. "Ouch!" he said, rubbing the back of his bonce.
Willard winced. That had to hurt. Although Mason's skull being as thick as it was, he doubted if Mason was too badly injured. On the other side of the door, Willard grinned. What he'd done wasn't exactly kosher, wouldn't stand too much scrutiny, but it would put the cherry on the icing on the cake. It would send Peachornby after those Poles. Excellent.
Turning around, Willard rapped on the door. Mason was still grovelling on the floor making increasingly desperate circles with his hands. Peachornby looked up from the pile of rubbish on his desk. "Oh. Nearly forgot, Mayor. I overheard Patryk say he was meeting some guy down by the Bass Maltings tonight. Could be one of those scumbag journos – or a different developer, who knows? Might be worth going down there and catching him before the meet."
Peachornby's face lit up as if he was a baby offered a sweet. "Excellent. You're hired again."
Smiling, Willard backed out of the Mayor's office. Now all that he needed was for Superintendent Donelan to put together a team – an eleven to use the Superintendent's phrase – to take down not just Peachornby but all his Smashers.
***
Willard's call puzzled Patryk as he stood outside Lincolnshire Police's Nettleham headquarters. He frowned as he wiped the sweat from his forehead. The nerve centre was out in the countryside and in the distance a tractor trundled through the fields followed by a flock of rooks all cawing loudly. Closer, a police cruiser was going through its paces on the test track, its tyres squealing on the tarmac oval as the driver flung the car from side to side.
What was Willard playing at? The man had never come out and actually admitted he was an undercover cop but it was almost certain that was what Willard was. Patryk's mother had raised no fools so now Patryk wondered what was really going on behind the scenes.
Surely Willard had more than enough on that memory stick as well as evidence of Peachornby's other activities to have him arrested? And once you'd chopped off the snake's head, the rest of the body and tail would die away. There was no way someone like Mason could organise anything more than a Saturday afternoon punch-up. And as for the rest of the Smashers, they were even less capable of independent thought. So what was Willard after? Surely, the law didn't need any further proof?
So what was the real reason why Willard was asking himself and Lukasz to spy on Peachornby at the old Bass Maltings? Willard said he'd heard that the architect from Haider-Allbutt & Associates wanted to discuss some problems on site with Peachornby; some difficulties to do with the outlook from the Maltings over the nearby estate. Willard wasn't too sure of the exact details and so he wanted a witness to the meeting.
So it was another mission like he and Lukasz had undertaken on behalf of Naismith all those months ago. Take a camera with a low-light lens and a good microphone capable of picking up a bat's squeak from a kilometre away. Then Willard would have everything – the cherry on the icing on the cake. And that yuppie Haider-Allbutt architect would also find himself dragged down into a world of hurt. All the same, Patryk didn't like it. Once, he and Naismith had underestimated just how dangerous Peachornby and his Smashers would prove to be and was Willard making the same mistake now?
Also, something didn't ring true about Willard's request. Why didn't the two men meet in a top restaurant and put the meal down on expenses, as usual? That would be more usual. It had to be something that didn't show up on the blueprints, something that could be best explained on site. Or, more likely, the young architect was offering the Mayor an extra bung or sweetener. That had to be the case, Patryk decided.
Not for the first time, Patryk wished that Kassia was there to advise him. She was a very astute young woman. She would have seen through Willard's games and would have suggested what he could do about it. However, after a recent row as to when he was coming back home, she was not taking his calls at the moment. Kassia hadn't yet gone as far as defriending him on Facebook but she wasn't replying to his messages neither.
A nasty thought came into his mind. What if he and Lukasz were being set up? What if Willard was using them as a sacrificial goat, a lure to draw the tiger out of the jungle so it could be killed. Patryk shook his head. No, Willard must have enough ammunition to kill the tiger without that. But a dull kernel of unease lay deep within his belly. Patryk thought deeply as he walked around to the police HQ's car park and edged out into the traffic. He wasn't happy. This had better be Willard's last request.
***
Lukasz stood waiting for Patryk when he pulled up outside his friend's flat. Lukasz wore a fisherman's multi-pocketed canvas vest filled with lenses, filters, spare batteries and accessories and his camera was in its bag slung around his neck. A second bag contained the microphone and an extra-long lead. Over his shoulders was a black backpack.
Patryk grinned. "You going on safari? We're only out for the evening."
Lukasz shook his head and winced. Following that beating at the roadblock, Lukasz had withdrawn into himself and had dropped out of the resistance group. And that was another bone of contention for Patryk. If it wasn't for the impossibility of getting such a well paid job back home, Patryk knew that his friend would have taken the first Wizzair flight to Warsaw. Lukasz was Polish after all; descended from generations of the bravest of the brave. The man should toughen up and seek revenge. However, Lukasz wasn't the only one to disappear from view as, after the beating, the resistance group's meetings had become sparsely attended.
"You can't be too careful. I hope that this is the last job as I'm getting sick of Peachornby and his mob," said Lukasz, breaking into Patryk's thoughts.
"Aren't we all? So let's do something about them and help Willard finish them off."
Lukasz dug two fruit bars out of one of his many pockets and offered one to his friend who chewed slowly as he drove back to Sleaford.
"Shall we go straight there?" asked Lukasz as Patryk turned off the Holdingham roundabout and then south down Lincoln Road towards the town centre. They were trapped in a long tailback as people headed home. "We can find a good spot to set up before the rain comes."
Patryk nodded. "Good thinking. We don't want to be caught out in this."
Even as he spoke, raindrops splattered onto the windscreen; a few at first, then more and more, outliers of the approaching storm. He flicked on his wipers and sidelights. The van inched through the town centre, caught up in the daily snarl-up and it was full dark by the time they crossed the railway tracks and over the junction onto Mareham Lane.
The rain was heavier now, pouring down, and the wipers were putting in a double shift. They heard it drumming on the metal roof and cascading down the sides. Patryk switched on the heater to stop the condensation building up.
Water splashed up from under the Transit's tyres as it bounced down the rutted lane. Then from the forecourt in front of the block of flats undergoing renovation a bank of headlights switched on, lighting up the storm-driven night like a lightning bolt. One, two, three vehicles at least.
"I knew it! We've been set up! That bloody Willard – he's set us up...," exclaimed Patryk as Lukasz threw his arm over his eyes.
Involuntarily, Patryk swerved and then recovered. He put his foot down on the accelerator and the Transit surged forwards. The headlights pulled out behind them, washing the back of the van in white light. Patryk recognised Mason's red Rover in the lead.
"Step on it," called out Lukasz.
Patryk needed no encouragement. The Transit wasn't a Ferrari Testarossa but he still cracked on speed. He rounded a bend in the lane, the hedges blocking out the pursuing skinheads. Too late Patryk spotted another skin crouching under a tree by the roadside verge. The skin threw a plank of wood studded with nails like crocodile's teeth into the road. At the speed he was doing, Patryk had no hope of avoiding the cobbled together stinger.
His tyres shredded, ripped to ribbons by the nails. Through his mirror, he saw the skinhead quickly withdraw the stinger. Round the bend came the small convoy of skinheads. Patryk was driving on the rims, sparks flying and dying in the driving rain. There was no way he could control the Transit on the wet road. It lurched from side to side, veering across the tarmac like a drunken skinhead after a heavy night on the sauce. It sideswiped an oak and leaned against the tree as if it needed a rest. In the sudden silence, they heard the rain beating against the sides.
"We can't stay here. Bring that crowbar and get out," shouted Patryk. Lukasz was ahead of him, flinging open the passenger door stepping onto the verge and edging around the front of the van. The two men looked back down the road and into the headlights of Mason's Rover. Within seconds, they were wet through. A lightning bolt ripped across the sky for one instant of time making everything stand out in stark relief.
There was only one way to go. They couldn't retreat into the path of Peachornby's oncoming thugs, they couldn't escape to the side as they were hedged in. So the two men ran down Mareham Lane towards the vast bulk of the disused Bass Maltings.
"We'll lose them in there," Patryk shouted, but his voice was drowned out by the first deep rumble of thunder.