Read Online East of the City by Grant Sutherland - Free Book Online Page B

the switch. All we heard on the speaker now was the dial tone. Bill returned to the map. The pair of them traced their fingers left and right, searching; they seemed to be having some trouble finding it.
    I said, ‘I know where it is.’
    They both turned in surprise. ‘Brentwell?’ Bill said, looking at me curiously.
    I had a sinking feeling. ‘Yeah, Brentwell,’ I said, glancing down at my shoes then back up. ‘Brentwell, and also Lower Park Barn.’

    Ten minutes later we were in the van motoring through the City, heading for the Old Kent Road. There was a driver and Bill and me in the front, and four men with guns in the back. I caught a glimpse of the Lloyd’s Building; it made me wonder what the hell I was doing.
    Bill had the folded map on his knees, now he pointed to Brentwell. ‘Which way from the village?’
    I told him I wasn’t sure, there were a couple of lanes, but I’d know when we got there. He glanced at me like he was having second thoughts about taking me along.
    ‘There’s no racetrack marked on the map,’ he said.
    ‘It’s an old flapping track,’ I told him. ‘It’s probably just fields now.’
    He folded the map up and tossed it onto the dash. ‘You’re sure this barn’s derelict?’
    I reminded him that I hadn’t been near the place in fifteen years, I wasn't sure of anything. His glance lingered on me just long enough this time to make me feel uncomfortable. I suppose I couldn’t blame him for having doubts; it must have seemed pretty strange to him, me knowing about the barn. Right then it seemed pretty strange to me too.
    Lower Park Barn. I hadn’t given the place ten minutes’ thought in the past ten years; it was just one more place on the circuit where the old man used to put up his stand. Flapping tracks are the bottom rung of the dog-racing ladder. Not properly regulated, the dogs racing there are generally third-raters, trained by their owners, and the tracks aren’t much more than sandy circuits on a conveniently flat stretch of ground. Thirty or forty years back there were dozens of them all over the country, but now most of them have gone the way of Brentwell, abandoned and ploughed up or turned into industrial estates. As a kid, going out for a day at some flapping track was like going on a picnic. Good times.
    ‘What’s on your mind?’ Bill said.
    ‘The place,’ I said. ‘The old track.’
    ‘Exposed?’
    ‘What?’
    ‘The barn,’ he said. ‘Is it out by itself, in a hollow, up a hill, what?’
    I tried to remember. Took a stab. ‘In a hollow.’
    ‘How many access roads?’
    ‘Come on, how many roads? This is fifteen years ago.’
    ‘There’s four guys in the back,’ Bill jerked his thumb that way, ‘who’d be grateful if you tried to remember.’
    I tried. ‘I’m not sure. I think just farm tracks, I couldn’t swear to it.’
    ‘Any woods nearby?'
    He just didn’t seem to get it. There were heaps of these flapping tracks we used to go to, and the years had blended them all in my mind. I was confident that once we got to Brentwell I’d remember the way there; I used to be the old man’s navigator on those trips out of London. To Dad and Tubs, out of London was off the edge of the world. But exactly what we’d find at Lower Park Barn now I couldn’t say. I was even having second thoughts about it being in a hollow. I reached for the map. There were a few patches of dark green around Brentwell. Woods?
    A voice came over the CB. Bill picked up the handset. ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘We got the fax.' It was the surveillance man we’d left back at the house, you could hear him quite clearly, it wasn’t your average CB. ‘Reads just like Max Ward said. Name, time and address.’
    ‘Any chance of tracing the e-mail?’
    ‘No.’ There was a pause. ‘Your friend Max, he scrubbed it.’
    Bill stared straight ahead. ‘Okay, keep us in touch.’ Bill double-clicked the button on the handset then hung it back on the hook. He stared ahead a few