The Soul Collector by Paul Johnston Read Free Book Online

Nedim Zinar closed up the general store in Dalston, East London. He didn’t work The Soul Collector
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    there, but his cousin Muhammed had asked him to check the security a year back and it turned into a regular thing. Nedim found that the man who worked evenings had been taking a percentage from the till in addition to his salary. At least he wasn’t a relation, which meant that Nedim could beat the crap out of him and throw him into one of the nearby Clapton Ponds to bring him around. It wasn’t Nedim’s fault that the asshole had drowned. Nothing came of it. Everyone in the Kurdish community knew that Nedim was an enforcer for the King. Although the man himself had been in prison for the last three years, he still controlled his interests, both legal and illicit, by phone and coded message. Everyone in important positions was a family member. There were legitimate businesses—a freight and haulage company, travel agencies, a car dealership, estate agents and a food importing company that supplied delicatessens all over Britain. But the King also bought and distributed drugs, mainly heroin and ecstasy, trafficked people and porn, ran brothels, financed robberies and ran protection rackets. His operations were all over East and North London. The police knew about them, but were content with a few token arrests each month. They knew that the streets would be much more dangerous if the King and the other gangs didn’t keep their people in line.
    Nedim checked the last lock and stood looking at the shop for a few moments. It wasn’t his, but as he could walk in and pick up anything he wanted free of charge, it felt like it was. Occasionally he got a call from Muhammed—some kids who had run off without paying, or alcoholics who had stuffed bottles of cider in their stinking coats; even young mothers who had slipped tins of food under their babies. Muhammed caught them 50
    Paul Johnston
    himself most of the time and if he didn’t, he had a good idea who they were. All Nedim had to do was go around and talk, or knock, some sense into them. Even the junkies didn’t try it again after that.
    The big man—Nedim was six foot one and over sixteen stone—checked his watch. He would have time for a quick beer before he went to work the door at the nightclub the King’s brother ran in Islington. He crossed Lower Clapton Road, holding his hand up to stop the traffic—he wasn’t one to waste his energy walking to the lights fifty meters away. A couple of black guys in a four-by-four yelled at him, but they shut up when he made the sign of the letter K in the air. Only the hardest members of the Turkish gang known as the Shadows would take objection to that, and Nedim wasn’t scared of them. He had a Beretta 92 in his breast pocket and people knew he would use it.
    It took Nedim five minutes to reach his minivan. That was the only problem with Muhammed’s shop—there was no parking in the immediate vicinity, and even the King’s lawyers couldn’t do much about the police cameras that registered infringements. The other boys in the operation had laughed when they heard he was getting a
    “mummy’s car,” but they shut up when they saw it—the black paint and custom-built stereo system almost made it cool. It wasn’t as if Nedim had any choice. He was often told to move people around in groups—tarts, illegal immigrants, men tooled up for action. Besides, he had four kids.
    At least there was a narrow lane that most people never noticed a few minutes’ walk away. Nedim parked the wagon there every evening and it had never even been touched—he would have known. As he walked around the The Soul Collector
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    corner, he pressed the button on the key. There was a chirp and lights flashed on the vehicle.
    Nedim was trying to decide whether to play traditional Kurdish music or his recent discovery, Bruce Springsteen, and he didn’t notice the figure crouching behind the car. He went to the rear door and walked into a