Shores of Death Read online

  Jack smiled broadly and started up the engine. ‘Just forget about it. The job will survive without you.’

  She knew that – it was something that she thought about more and more. She put her head back on the rest and closed her eyes.

  1

  Eric Gunderson steered his sixty-foot trawler west–north-west towards his destination in the port of Eyemouth on the Berwickshire coast. He was a North Shields fisherman but his orders were to land north of the border.

  Gunderson’s blond hair, these days thin and lifeless, was sticky with nervous sweat. He had blue eyes that had once sparkled with the joy of a man who lived most of his life at sea and crammed all his human needs and desires into the short trips home. A product of generations of men who’d fished the shallow waters of the Dogger Bank from his home port on the Tyne, Gunderson had the looks of his ancestors, who’d harried then settled on the east coast of the British Isles.

  The early summer weather had been kind since he’d navigated his boat, the Brighter Dawn, from Den Haag harbour on the coast of Holland into the cold waters of the North Sea. He’d left at the same time as two other British boats and they’d sailed in convoy across the unusually tranquil waters, never more than a mile apart. As night fell thousands of stars sparkled in the ink-dark sky, unspoiled apart from the boat’s navigation lights. He looked at the mirror-smooth blackness of the waters and saw the darting luminescence stirred up by a shoal of mackerel driven into high-speed terror by the approach of the rumbling engines. On a passing ship the watchman would just see the navigation lights of fellow sailors and nothing else, but he would know that below those small lights men lay in bunks built more like coffins than beds. He would recognise that feeling of brotherhood for the men he couldn’t see but who thought just like him – the men who faced the uncertainty of life at sea and understood each other without the need for a common language. They carried a pride in what they faced from an element that could be the sweetest friend or the most terrible foe.

  Gunderson felt nothing that resembled pride, and for the first time in his life he had a churning sense of self-loathing for what he, along with the men who skippered the other two boats, was doing. They’d all grown up in fishing families – had known nothing else but the sea and their trade. Life had always been hard, but they’d been there in the boom years when the British fishing fleets were making fortunes from the trade and an ever-increasing market. What they hadn’t foreseen was the crash caused by muddled politicians in Brussels and London, or the problem of overfishing. Like the other skippers he’d invested heavily, getting his boat built only a year before it all started to go wrong. On top of everything else his wife had decided that the drop in his earnings meant an equivalent drop in her feelings for him. She’d taken the car and most of his worldly goods then threatened him with a call to the Inland Revenue about the ‘black’ income that he’d avoided paying over the years. She dictated a deal that he couldn’t afford but would keep her in the comfort she thought she deserved.

  Debt had crept in close then overwhelmed him. Gunderson had always been a man who was prepared for almost anything and was afraid of no man. Debt – its consequences and especially the stigma – was something that made him shiver in his bed at night. In the good years friends were glad to shake his hand when he came home and smiled on cue when he bought their drinks, but they disappeared overnight when there was a problem. If they couldn’t avoid him, they’d drop their eyes as if he was suffering from an incurable disease, and in a way that was the truth. In earlier and better times he would have said that what he did next was the act of a fool and didn’t deserve a good man’s sympathy.

  It had been too easy, but he was a drowning man and would’ve grabbed any lifeline to keep him going. He had been introduced to someone with money to lend, and just like the most desperate junkie he’d believed that a cash hit would make all his problems go away. When he couldn’t meet the deadline or the spiralling interest charges it seemed too good a deal to refuse the second and third loans. By that time he was drinking most of the day just to keep his mind anaesthetised and sheltered from the pile of dog shite that was the reality of his position. It wasn’t just a pile of dog shite, it was a pile of dog shite on the pavement that people walked through then cursed. Unfortunately his creditors dealt in nothing but reality; the man who’d given him the loan and acted like an old friend morphed into his tormentor. It didn’t matter what he did, the man seemed to be able to find him – and he didn’t work alone. They were part of a bigger team, and when he’d told his few remaining friends and relatives who they were they’d stared at him as if he was insane. Everyone seemed to know them, and that they were bad news, yet no one had said a word at the time. No one wanted to help or have anything to do with the gangsters who were Gunderson’s waking nightmare.

  The threats increased, more deadlines passed and then he was given his final warning. Although the men knew Gunderson didn’t have the money it didn’t worry them – they had other plans for a man with a boat and the knowledge to sail it to the Netherlands and back. The other advantage was that he was clean as far as PC Plod was concerned, apart from a couple of convictions for being drunk and disorderly, plus a pier-side rammy with another skipper. For a deep-sea fisherman that was clean, and he’d always counted himself as an honest man.

  He’d ended up staying with his mother, who wondered what had happened to the man she’d been proud to call her son. He was broken; if he wasn’t an alcoholic he was the next best thing, and it was only the unproductive trips into the North Sea that kept him from drinking himself to death.

  On his return from yet another trip where the catch had been slightly better than poor, it occurred to his mother that he seemed to have aged by five years each time he came back. She knew he had money worries but would have wept if she’d known the extent of his debt and who held the note on it.

  Gunderson had kissed her tenderly on the forehead, but his throat ached for a taste of beer after a week at sea where the weather had been tropical and humid. Two minutes after he’d left his mother’s door the heavens had opened and he’d run along the pavement cursing the water splashing in through the three-inch split in the sole of his shoe. He’d tried to cross the road and was waiting on the pavement for a space in the traffic when the Beamer drew up and someone inside opened the door.

  ‘Get in, Eric. We don’t want to have to chase you in this pissing rain.’

  Gunderson leaned down and looked into the back of the car. He didn’t know the guy perched on the rear seat, or the two in the front, but they looked fucking horrible and he didn’t award himself a prize for guessing what they wanted. It dawned on him that they must know where his mother lived and that made up his mind to get in the motor with them. He was soaked and shaking but not with cold – just plain old-fashioned fear.

  The deal was straightforward. He did what they asked, because otherwise they’d promised to bury him in the concrete under a set of Newcastle roadworks. Gunderson was a hard man, but these men were professional, and he knew enough about Northern criminals to know that they had his balls in a vice. They had merchandise that had to be picked up every so often in Holland – and he had a boat. They told him that if he mentioned one word to another human being they would get a couple of infected junkies to do his mother while he watched. That would be just before he got the concrete bath.

  The first couple of trips had been straightforward and two heavies did the run across with him, picked up some packages in Scheveningen on the Dutch coast and went straight back to North Shields. He never saw what was in the cargo and the heavies hardly spoke a word, but he didn’t need Sherlock Holmes to tell him what they were picking up. After the second trip he felt easy about it and asked how long it would take to pay off the debt. The main man had looked at his mate and laughed before grabbing Gunderson by the throat and spitting words into his face: ‘When we say so. Do a few trips and then we’ll see, but don’t ask again, as a refusal tends to offend.’ He’d
turned to his partner and smirked at his own joke, but he wasn’t finished humiliating Gunderson. ‘Maybe we’ll just get tired of looking at your face and call it a day,’ he’d added, clearly enjoying himself as he pushed the fisherman away.

  That was how it was, and he was caught in a trap with few options – though the cemetery or lying under a new piece of road were certainly two of the strongest possibilities. The debts just kept going up from all sides though, and when the Inland Revenue told him they wanted to do a complete inspection of his finances, a fucking awful situation took a turn for the worse.

  2

  Forty miles from the Northumberland coast the two other boats changed course. The Brighter Dawn kept her line towards Eyemouth; the Glory and the Horizon headed further south for the Northumberland harbours of Amble and North Shields. They would all sail into port in the small hours of the morning and with as much cover of darkness as the early summer days would allow.

  When the Brighter Dawn was less than two hours from Eyemouth harbour the streets of the fishing town were calm and quiet with most of the population asleep. The narrow streets were empty and even the occasional strutting fox raking for half-empty takeaway cartons was more than obvious to a watcher. The police tactical firearms and arrest teams came into the town as quietly as they could, but they couldn’t hide until they were settled into their positions. In the circumstances, the operational commander was pleased with the smooth dispersal of the teams, and by the time they’d all settled down no one would have been any the wiser. It made no difference though because the two men who’d been watching the harbour area before the police arrived saw it all. They looked at each other and realised that the presence of the heavy team meant only one thing – there was an informant; and that meant someone was going to die. The older man, Maxi Turner, calmly pressed the quick-dial button on his phone and it was answered after two rings. It was 1 a.m. but someone was waiting on the call.

  ‘There’s a whole fucking pig artillery unit arrived and no doubt they’re waiting for our friends.’

  There was a fifteen-second delay in the answer as the news was digested. ‘Okay, stay out of sight but keep an eye on it till they arrive. The goods will have to disappear but the boat still needs to arrive as planned or those thick fucks will work out what we’ve worked out already. If they make a run for it they’ll be intercepted before we can get them in somewhere else. As long as there’s no cargo aboard we’re fine, job done and we’ll see what happens with the others.’

  The phone clicked off and Turner slid back into his seat. He closed his eyes and spoke. ‘Your watch, son, but nothing’s going to happen till they arrive. Make sure and wake me as soon as you see their lights.’

  The younger man looked round and cursed silently but accepted the privilege of rank. His name was Geordie Simms, a new recruit in the team, and getting up the ladder meant taking a lot of shit from people like the thug who was snoring quietly only a minute after having given his order. Simms pulled his collar up and wished he was back in Newcastle.

  The man who took the call in North Shields put the phone back in his pocket and lit up a cigarette. Pete Handyside was a Geordie through to his black and white soul. An unusual-looking man for his chosen trade, where steroid-pumped muscle seemed to be a necessary requirement for acceptance and credibility, he looked more like a bookkeeper and rarely put on a pound in weight through a good diet and running. His gaunt features had led a few people to underestimate him at their cost. What he had in abundance was speed and a vicious streak that surprised and frightened even those close to him. He was a career criminal and had no problem with admitting that to himself, his friends and his enemies. His family, however, were something else, and he protected his wife and infant children from the reality of his business.

  He’d started young, when he realised that he didn’t want to be like his father, a born drunk who got his kicks from beating his wife or kids, and sometimes all at once. The oldest of five, Handyside was stealing to help his mother and siblings before he was twelve years old. When he was sixteen every CID officer in North Shields knew him as one of the best burglars in the trade and someone who would admit fuck all if they brought him in. It didn’t matter how much they threatened him or softened his ribs, he just took it and smiled back at them, even with the pain searing from the site of the blows. By the time he was eighteen he was running his own team, had a couple of detectives in his pocket and saw the drugs trade as his future. He’d been right on the money about that.

  When he celebrated his thirtieth birthday he’d just stabbed to death his last remaining rival, an achievement that elevated his status to the main man in the North-east. It was about that time that he’d made a house call to a retired detective who lived on his own and on past memories. The policeman had been on Handyside’s case since he was a kid, taking great delight in giving the boy a hard time, and Handyside’s skin was still marked under the heart from the beatings he’d taken from the bastard.

  A week later the neighbours had complained about the smell and the uniforms had found the old detective hanging from the back of his kitchen door with his trousers round his ankles. The heating had been left on full and he was starting to come apart already. They’d called a couple of detectives, who basically didn’t give a fuck about their old colleague and were glad to see the back of a man even they’d regarded as a disgrace when he was in the job. His state of undress and the red top opened at page three beside him was enough to convince them that it was auto-erotic asphyxiation gone wrong (more common than Joe Public realised) so they’d just shaken their heads and written him off as a dirty old bastard. After all, he was a dinosaur and well known to have a serious drink problem, so who the fuck would be interested in topping him? The men who’d taken care of the late detective’s last moments knew exactly what they were doing and how to dress it up so there was no need for the cops to treat it as a suspicious death.

  On the night of the man’s funeral Handyside had sat quietly at home, and although he wasn’t much of a drinker he cracked open a bottle of champagne and poured his wife a glass of the best vintage in his cellar.

  ‘What’s the celebration?’ she’d said, smiling at the man she loved so much – the man who treated her and the children as if they were sacred.

  ‘You know how hard it was for me as a boy?’

  The question had surprised the woman, who understood him better than most. She’d nodded, knowing his childhood had been scarred and that although it played on his mind he rarely brought it up. They had been raised in the same neighbourhood, but both her parents had smothered her with affection, and her father had worked long hours at sea to make life better for his only daughter. Handyside’s family were the sort that people sneered at from a safe distance. She’d heard all the gossip about Peter’s father and how he treated his wife and children. People had talked about it, sometimes with too much relish, then made no attempt whatsoever to do anything about the abuse taking place so near their doorsteps. She’d taken his hand as he spoke quietly, staring at some memory she couldn’t see. ‘I think I’ve finally left it behind. I paid off an old score this week and now I just want to concentrate on us.’

  In his mind, killing the old detective had wiped part of the sins committed against him. He heard people talk about their fond memories of childhood and it made him grind his teeth at the thought that he’d never had one, only a series of adults who had stripped away his humanity piece by piece. He’d kissed his wife tenderly and she’d thought again how lucky she was to have this man. For a moment, the line in the local paper about the death of the detective who everyone said was as bent as a Westminster politician had made her wonder, but she knew to lock it away and love the man beside her. She didn’t know the Pete Handyside mentioned so often as top of a criminal organisation and didn’t want to meet him. She never even called him Pete, the name that made every criminal and detective in the North-east sit up and pay attention. Her man’s name was Peter.

  He l
oved only his wife and their two children, who he kept well away from his business, and they adored him right back as a gentle and loving father who had to work a lot of unsocial hours. His wife had only asked him once for the truth. He’d kissed her warmly, told her not to worry and she’d never asked again.

  Now Handyside narrowed his eyes as the smoke drifted round his face. He was sure his gut instinct had been right. He’d suspected for months that there was an informant close to the heart of their operation and before the night was through they would know at least what part of the organisation had the problem. They’d lost two small consignments in transit, supposedly through routine or accidental stops on couriers by the uniforms. He knew that had to be more than coincidence, and one of his bent detectives had told him that in each case anonymous phone calls had been made to the uniforms telling them that the couriers were on the road and where they were going. They’d both been headed to Scotland, which was clue one. It smacked of one of the heavy teams on a long-term operation and getting a few take-outs to build their case. On top of that, a couple of his boys had reported that they might have been followed. He knew there was always paranoia about surveillance, but the men who mentioned it were the best he had and cool heads.

  Handyside pulled the phone out of his pocket, knowing he had to make the call. Other men would have flinched at what he was about to do, but he’d learned a long time ago that there was no room in his business for sentiment or weakness. Only the brute strong survived; the rest ended up in the ground or fed to the pigs – both animal and human.

  The Brighter Dawn was in sight of the guiding lights on Eyemouth pier end and two of Handyside’s men were on-board with Eric Gunderson. Alan Hunter was ex-army and had joined the team after six years in uniform and active service in New Labour’s wars. He was brought up in Newcastle, ruthless and loyal, but the first to admit that even after all these years his boss was a bit of a mystery to him. But if you did the business for Handyside he looked after you. Unlike so many other so-called crime bosses, he was like the best football managers and took an interest in everyone, including their families. Hunter had done a spell inside for assaulting a uniformed cop who thought he could talk to him like a dog. The uniform had got what was coming and Hunter did six months in HMP Durham, which he thought was a worthwhile penalty for wiping the smile from the bastard’s re-arranged gob. Handyside had been pissed off at his lack of discipline, but after the bollocking and final warning he’d made sure Hunter’s partner received more than a wage every week he spent inside.