Assassin by Tom Cain Read Free Book Online Page B

earner if she did what she was told. She would, of course, once he’d persuaded her. That was always the enjoyable part of the process, establishing who was in charge. Tyzack contemplated precisely how long it would take to beat the light out of those bright-blue eyes: experience had given him an almost mathematical appreciation of the effects of time and abuse. His mind drifted back to Lara Dashian. When she made her pathetic, stumbling way to his table, he’d immediately felt that essential deadness, overlaid with a dusting of fear and desperation, like the icing sugar on a sponge cake. Obviously seeing him as the lesser of two evils, she’d tried so hard to please; he’d been tempted to chuck her back to her pimp, just for a laugh. On balance, he decided he’d have more fun keeping her. As they went upstairs, he watched her fear melt away and for a moment he regretted his decision and wondered if he’d better give her something to be scared of himself.
    But then he remembered he was playing the part of Samuel Carver. And that pathetic little man would never have taken advantage of a screwed-up teenage whore. He’d have behaved like his dismal, suburban idea of a gentleman. And there was something else, too. As he chucked her on the bed it suddenly occurred to Tyzack that the silly bitch might actually want him to screw her. All the more reason, then, not to.
    Tyzack’s phone rang. He saw the number come up on his screen and gave an exasperated sigh. ‘Yes, Foster, what is it?’
    ‘It’s that container, guv. It’s fallen off the ship.’
    Tyzack closed his eyes and inhaled slowly through his nose, trying to ease the tension that had suddenly clamped around his temples. He let out his breath and asked, ‘What do you mean, “fallen off the ship”? Tell me, Foster, how exactly does a container just fall off a ship?’
    ‘Storms, innit? They had, like, force ten winds in the North Sea. Blew a dozen of the bastard containers right into the water. One of ‘em was ours.’
    ‘This is the cargo from Hamburg?’
    ‘The Chinkies, yeah.’
    Tyzack leaned forward, putting a hand over the receiver to hide his mouth, and hissed, ‘Are you telling me that seventy of our little yellow friends are currently sitting on the bottom of the North Sea?’
    ‘That’s about the size of it, yeah.’
    ‘They’re not going to pick much fruit down there, are they?’
    ‘Nah …’
    ‘So what do you plan to do about that? When I get a couple of extremely irate gangmasters on my hands, wondering where all their farm labour’s gone, what am I going to tell them?’
    ‘We can cover it, guv. We got them Somalis down Plaistow, yeah? That’s twenty-odd right there. Couple of trucks coming in from Bulgaria this week, pikey scum, obviously, but we can knock them out to the farms ‘cause there’s piss-all for them to do on the building sites. Bring in a few others we got lyin’ around. No worries.’
    The waitress, Agnieszka, had discreetly sidled up to the table and placed Tyzack’s food in front of him, along with the juice and coffee. He gave her a flickering smile of acknowledgement, took a forkful of egg and salmon and went on with his conversation.
    ‘Well, I certainly hope not, Foster. I’m supposed to be getting on a plane for America in less than four hours’ time. I have important work to take care of and I don’t want any distractions. Which reminds me, those Pakis up in Bradford, were you able to explain that they really could not be allowed to operate in our market?’
    ‘Oh yeah, me and a few of the lads went up north, gave ‘em a proper kicking. Happy days.’
    ‘And the merchandise?’
    ‘Yeah, we took the slappers, obviously. Stuck ‘em in our places. Got ‘em workin’ the same night.’
    ‘Excellent. Glad we got that sorted, at least. Now, piss off and replace the seventy Chinese. Chop-chop!’
    Tyzack hung up. Foster Lafferty was a shaven-headed thug from the East London end of Essex, but dealing