Smith 1: Smith, #1

By Timothy London

Violence has been privatised.  Smith works for a company that specialises in violent solutions.

"The natural government of the world is gangsterism. The establishment is the biggest gang in town.
But gangsters worry that some day they won't be frightening enough, charismatic enough, clever enough . . . to prevent a revolution."

Smith isn't interested in revolution.
Revenge will do.
For the moment.

 

Stephen Smith is a translator. He is also trained to kill and hurt. Employed by a private security company owned by two brothers with a grotesque sense of humour, he goes out to the highest bidder, mainly the UK government who prefer not to use their own for any really dirty business. After a particularly gruesome event pricks his conscience Smith has a break down. The brothers disagree about what to do with him. One of them, Cornelius, wants him dead. The other, Horatio, likes the idea of keeping him alive, to annoy his brother.

 

After a failed attempt on his life Stephen decides to go rogue, escaping and embarking on a series of escapades that will expose the company and the people who employ them. Cornelius orders Blake, a serving policeman, disturbed and psychopathic, to track Smith down. The two outsiders, both being used by people who hold them in disdain, create bloody mayhem across a violent Britain where, if 'the establishment' is the biggest gang in town, it is also an unwieldy dinosaur, vulnerable to attack from the wildly unpredictable Smith.

 

Is Smith a revolutionary? An anarchist? He doesn't think so. As far as he is concerned, this is the response of reasonable people to an unequal society. And he'll keep it up as long as he's having fun.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Timothy London
• Release date: Jul 12, 2021
• ISBN: 9781919654713

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Further information

www.timothylondon.com

Here you will find links to an original musical soundtrack, images and contact information.

All rights reserved. 2021.

PUBLISHED BY SOULPUNK

ISBN 978-1-9196547-1-3-

To all the young punks.

CHAPTER ONE

Passers-by

SOMEONE IS BEING tortured. It’s a sedate affair, almost gentle, the pain apparent in the clenching of tendons at the man’s ankles, occasional moans and ragged sighs, all muffled by the cloth bag over the man’s head. Smith wonders again what the bag actually is. It’s not a regular sack, too big to be a cushion cover. Perhaps it’s been made specially, to certain specifications. Washable, of course. What’s the bag for? To take away the personality of the victim, reduce him to a talking, twitching carcass. To make it easier for Smith to ask questions as Bassett, the in-house torturer, does his stuff.

Clad in a dark green cardigan, with tiny knots of fluffed wool betraying its age and a smart, light check shirt from Marks and Sparks. Tie. Bassett looks like he may be suffering with back pain. It’s all the bending down, to whisper, to listen, to dig and slice. He’s getting on a bit, is Bassett. They should build him a stage so he doesn’t have to bend all the time.

‘His’ man, Bassett, also known as ‘Allsorts’, is really very good at this. He doesn’t take it personally when he reaches the slight up-slopes of the man’s last feeble resistance. Bassett just gives a little flick of the reins, so to speak, and the journey is resumed.

There we are. The taps are open fully. The carcass shivers, like a cat treading in a pool of water, a deep vibration, from the core to the skin. Accompanied by a tumble of words. Almost too many words. Bassett should stop now and let the man ponder his situation. The taps are flowing. ‘Okay, wait a moment,’ he quietly tells Bassett, who looks up at him, from his crouch, lips by the man’s left ear. Smith knows he won’t need the pill wrapped in foil, fingered in his trouser pocket. He hasn’t yet; Bassett never makes mistakes. But it’s good to have the cyanide, just in case, to get it over and done with quickly.

Questions in English. Answers in Yoruba. That’s why Smith’s here. To translate. That’s his job, but there’s more to it than that. He has to interpret, too. Figure out exactly what is meant. Meanings can get lost in translation, lost in the transit of pain. Here are the essential answers he has translated and interpreted today: Jim Darboe, a significant officer in the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, otherwise known as MEND, normally lives under the protection of a local criminal in a house in Njemanze in the city of Port Harcourt in Nigeria, from where he plots the destruction of pipelines, the kidnap of oil company employees and attacks on the Nigerian military. But for reasons unknown, he is visiting Britain, using a fake passport, and staying at an address in Birmingham. Here’s the street. Here’s the number.

Unfortunately, the rules of the game mean that the man must provide several more unnecessary answers to obscure the importance of the crucial ones. And Smith must stay and watch a while more, letting the smoke from the cigarette in his left hand, burning, without touching his lips, obscure the smells the man has produced. So much smell from one man, mixed with iodine. It’s always a surprise. More names, places, dates. All unnecessary.

Becoming aware of the faint sounds outside the concrete workshop. Smith knows there’s a football field not far away. It’s a Saturday – time and a half for Bassett. And a day for the weekly shop. A walk in the park with the grandkids, to feed the ducks. Torture a man who, only yesterday, had been joyfully chatting away on his mobile at the counter of an international money transfer shop in north London before being bundled through the back of the shop and into a Transit van and transported to this trading estate in Surrey by two efficient gents in suits. Now Bassett is looking at Smith, questioning. Smith nods.

It’s over. He can leave now and Bassett will clean up the small mess. Neatly torn black bin liners around the chair, slicked with liquid. Incredibly, the man can walk, stagger unaided. Waiting, tottering slightly, head tilted to one side inside the sack as Bassett pushes the mess from the floor into a plastic shopping bag with rubber-gloved hands.

Bassett really is very good. This man will be back at work by the end of the week. Perhaps there will be a moment when a great, throbbing sob will heave his shoulders and make his eyes bulge, but he won’t cry, not in front of his customers. Life will go on, for a while. He won’t tell anyone, least of all the police, because as far as he knows it’s the police who have him now, plus he doesn’t want to be sent home where torture is more basic and probably more final. Smith ponders for a moment how much the Nigerian government are paying for this job. Quite a lot, probably. It might actually be cheaper for them to come to terms with the locals, but that’s not how it’s done. You don’t negotiate with the insects.

Without the sack the man becomes a person. Smooth skin, sweaty, shaved skull reflecting the fluorescent tubes. His jacket and shirt on, bandaged and plastered, no need for stitches, elbows squeezed in tight to his ribs. Perhaps in pain. Perhaps because his instinct is to hug himself. They sit on plastic chairs, either side of a cheap laminated desk in an office next to the workshop, Smith’s creased suit jacket slung over the back of his chair, his tie pulled down, top button undone, sitting uncomfortably, his long legs looking for somewhere to rest. The window above the man’s head shows a dim sunlight. Smith silently shows him what to do, putting his own hands on the table, splayed fingers. The message gets through and the man follows suit. Smith smiles at him. It’s just the two of them, but the suited gents are just outside, leaning against the wall, enjoying the late spring sunshine. He won’t need them.

‘Do you know who I am?’ The man nods, then shakes his head. He doesn’t want to know.

‘Joseph, my name is Mr Smith. It’s okay, you can say my name. We’re nearly done. You can go home soon. Now, Joseph, tell me who, again, and where.’ Smith gives a rolling, royal wave of encouragement with his right hand. ‘It was . . .’ he says. And, thus prompted, Joseph tells him all over again, but this time with more detail and considerably less agony. Smith is only mildly interested.

When did the callous begin to grow on his soul? Years ago, before 200 stories, in five, six, seven different languages. A Russian man, apologising and calling for a priest. A Ukrainian man, spitting Russian and fighting, the only time Bassett has needed any help. Back then, Smith thought he was the least bad option, having met some of his more enthusiastic colleagues. In a strange twist of self-awareness Smith had thought that by becoming an inquisitor he could do good, or at least counterbalance some of the bad. His years spent as an active agent were periods marked with a full stop, end of the operation. No need to think. Now everything is cerebral, he doesn’t know what he’s for.

A lot of the stories he has been told have been about oil, or governments, or bombs. But many have been mysteries, questions asked and answers given about subjects he could only guess at. Hard to tell who were the most deserving of torture. Had he interrogated innocents? Undoubtedly. The shepherd in eastern Morocco, who had really just been a shepherd and who had known nothing of value. Eventually left lying by the sandy roadside with a bullet or two in his head because he was less than useless to Smith’s boss.

But, after all, who was truly innocent? It was his ability to acknowledge the many subtler shades of grey in the spectrum between not so bad and truly fucking evil that had got him this job in the first place. This job? This opportunity. To travel. See places. Meet interesting people. Travel to Surrey. See the inside of yet another concrete box. Meet Joseph, a sorry soul from the Niger Delta who was unfortunate enough to be related to a terrorist. When he was an agent, the answer would have been simple: Joseph would be dead. But he had grown a conscience, and over that he had grown layers of cynicism, protection. In order to do his job.

Stephen Smith catches the bus back into town. It’s a long journey through the shop traffic, the double-decker wreathed in exhaust fumes. The top deck alive with smells. Rancid fried chicken. Teenage perfume. A crafty joint smoked somewhere behind him at the back of the bus. A freshly opened can of Czech lager. Soap and body odour. All with a top note of torture, the smell he can never seem to wash from his nostrils nowadays.

It’s not until the bus approaches Vauxhall Bridge, slowly crossing the Thames, that he gets the call. It’s been three and a bit hours since the address was wrung from Joseph. It seems they didn’t waste any time. Smith’s bosses had sent the message to a man at home in Dulwich, London, who had sent it on to a general in Lagos, Nigeria, who had delegated it to a colonel who incorporated it into an order to an undercover team who had kicked in the door of the house in Birmingham and thrown a couple of grenades, without checking first to see who was actually in the place. The problem is, inside the house were three British Army soldiers, two of whom are now dead and the third badly wounded. Oh, and several members of Darboe’s extended family – a woman, a couple of kids, a grandma – all dead. Joseph hadn’t mentioned the family. Smith hadn’t asked.

Looking for excuses. The job should probably have been given to one of their own, but the Nigerians were trying to save money. They had already spent a fair amount on the kidnap, torture and translation. Tight-fisted bastards. What did this mean? Nothing. Something. Why were there British soldiers, three of them, in a house in Birmingham? Smith notices the something, something inside himself. Pain, like an ulcer just above his groin. A slight dizziness. The evening becoming darker, with an encroaching, misty grey.

When did Miriam Taylor first notice? Perhaps it was at school, when the pleasure she felt for her best friend – who arrived at the gates in her father’s shiny BMW, who went on holiday twice during the summer break and skiing in the winter, whose complexion was innocent of pimples and whose complacent demeanour was sublimely untroubled by the normal teenage horror of the future – turned to envy. How did her best friend do it? How could she be so . . . right, all of the time? It was a genuine mystery. Yes, her friend was lucky to be born into a relatively well-off family. But Miriam’s dad was pretty well paid, too. Miriam was as conventionally attractive as her friend, she washed and moisturised, and tried to eat well and exercise, and she had intelligence and a sense of humour. Boys liked her. Girls liked her. But, somehow, she just knew, her friend was higher up the pecking order. If Miriam was a cheerleader, her friend was the prom queen. At ease with life. Just, not struggling.

But what did Miriam notice? She’s still unsure, years later, exactly what, when she notices it yet again. With a wry smile she watches another woman, literally rising above her in the glass-box lift which goes to the offices above the newspaper bear pit. This same woman, the same age, with fewer qualifications, with less experience, whose legs and breasts are no more remarkable than hers, who can’t write for toffee . . . there she goes. Up to her new job, to meet the owner, to talk ‘terms’ and accept the position of assistant editor on the foreign desk.

‘Trying to see if she’s wearing any knickers?’

Slightly embarrassed, Miriam looks over her shoulder at a stocky man in shirt-sleeves and tie. Bill Freeman, her boss, is giving her a stern look, as if he has any other.

‘If she’s not, there are other reasons why she got the job, too, Miriam. For instance’ – she falls into step with him as they walk towards her desk – ‘if I told her to interview a traffic warden she would interview a traffic warden. Not a traffic warden’s wife.’

This is a reference to a recent example of what Miriam presumed would be accepted as above and beyond the call of duty, when she managed to interview the wife of a traffic warden who had been brutally murdered, apparently for doing his job and handing out tickets, including one, presumably, to the wrong person. Wanting a short interview on the dangers of being a warden, Bill received a theory on the type of heartless killer who would be prepared to make a widow of a beautiful young Indian wife, who, by the way, needed a translator to tell of her sorrow, which meant the useless piece also cost him money.

‘You still used it though, I noticed.’

A withering look shuts her up. Bill accompanies her all the way to her desk and leans in close as she sits. She notices her friend Neil wincing in sympathy behind Bill as he passes by holding a cycling helmet.

‘Right. Sort yourself out. People are beginning to notice. Prove me right. Show that you’re capable of following orders. I know you get bored. I’m giving you a story that doesn’t need jazzing up. In fact, if you jazz it up, you fuck it up. It’s really that simple.’

Miriam feels honoured by the swearing. He cares. She manages an ‘okay’.

‘This’ – pointing at her PC monitor and, she presumes, an email waiting for her – ‘is a real story. Dig it up, but concentrate on the story. Don’t get distracted with the morality of it all. That’s not your job. Just report it. On my desk by Tuesday morning.’

Bill’s empty space is soon filled by Neil, now munching a sandwich. ‘He loves you really.’

‘He thinks love is a conspiracy theory, won’t believe it exists until there’s been a thorough investigation and even then he’ll remain highly sceptical. You busy?’

Neil puts his hands up, palms out, one holding the balled-up sandwich wrapper as he backs away. ‘Not me, Miriam, dear, you don’t get me. Busy, busy, busy, all day long.’ He places the wrapper on her desk and makes a quick exit.

Several huge TV screens, each silently showing a different twenty-four-hour news channel, hang from the ceiling of the two acres of open-plan hangar in which she works. Beneath the steel beams and girders and natural-daylight bulbs toils a regiment of hunter-gatherers, fighting extinction by digital.

Settling into her chair, Miriam tunes out the hubbub and concentrates on the information written in the email from her boss, based on an anonymous tip. In a north London borough, compulsory property purchases, graveyards sold off, links to construction companies, a literal hole into which pours millions of virtual public/private finance and matching funds, a project which obviously needs labour, diggers, materials, but, most importantly, consultants. An office, a phone, a qualification plus a contact in the right department and you, too, can be a consultant.

What do you need to know? Or who? In this case, the brother-in-law of the head of the council commissioning agency was asked to cast his expert eyes over the possibilities of the new building becoming dual-use workshops and living space; how would that fit in with the current plans and, please, come up with the right amount and then pocket a million pounds for your trouble, which amounts to a 10,300-word survey report. Turns out, the brothers-in-law are both directors of a company, registered in the Bahamas, which has another director, the head of planning at the same north London borough council who are paying for everything. Very cosy. A bit local, but the magic million makes it sexy enough. Any less and it would be a job for a local gazette.

It’s her job to see if there is anything else that can be squeezed from the story and, if she misses anything relevant which someone else finds out about later, particularly a rival publication, then she will be in the shit. Makes a change from the murder and mayhem trail, her usual beat, counting beans instead of bullets.

Miriam allows herself a sigh.

Saturday evening. She’s got nothing planned. At the age of thirty she should be arranging, at the very least, a trip to a pub with some other thirty-something graduates. There are names and numbers on her phone, people she could call, but she seldom does. Neil, her best friend at the paper, has a busy life with his latest boyfriend and is seldom available for anything more than a quick gossip at lunchtimes. Her last boyfriend is a year-old memory of uncomfortable silences and so-so sex. She pats her laptop in its soft case, her date for the evening, and suppresses another sigh. She loves her work but it’s a one-sided affair.

As Miriam passes the conference room she looks in and sees the editors seated round the table, discussing the Monday edition. Bill sees her and holds up a finger so she waits for him to come out.

‘Call John Kaspar, Redbridge Council. He might have something for you. First thing Monday. Got it? Kaspar with a K.’

‘Got it. With a K.’

‘You’ll probably need to go to his office.’

Miriam keys the name into her phone as Bill returns to the meeting. She makes her way out of the building, through metal detectors, past security guards and onto the street. Passing cleaners negotiating homeless people preparing cardboard beds in office doorways on The Strand as she heads towards Charing Cross station. The streets temporarily quiet between the end of the day and a Saturday night. London, making up its mind. Glad that she’s wearing warm slacks and a jacket now the air has chilled and a slight mist promises rain.

There are wisps of smoke, hanging in corners as if suspended, at number fifty-two. Charred flesh battles melted plastic foam and the distinct smell of explosives. Outside, there is only the smashed window to prove to the locals that something happened here. The locals aren’t looking though. Curtains are drawn, windows are shut. Too many flashing lights, too much fluorescent yellow coming and going. Men in suits. Even a helicopter for a few clattering minutes.

A small group of young lads had gathered at one point, faces shrouded in hoods, causing the local police boss to wonder for a moment if it might kick off again. But this is too mysterious to provide a spark for a riot. Gas explosion. Sofa fire. Who knows. Just five-O doing what they do, with all the accompanying kerfuffle.

The youths were sauntering off as Smith arrived, jumping out of a taxi, flashing his magic multi-pass at whoever frowned at him, slipping through with no explanation to examine what he feels he has wrought. London to Brum in two and a half hours. And here it is. All his own work.

Apart from the dripping walls caused by high-powered jets of water, the room has been left untouched. Waiting for the ‘experts’ to arrive. Some of the cops attending assume Smith to be one of these ‘experts’ with his neat laptop case and professional urgency, here to sift and bag and box. The older hands know better and avoid eye contact.

Smith stands still. The dizziness intense. He concentrates and looks. There. A foot. A small foot. There, the crushed, scraped-out body of a man, intact apart from the hollow running from chin to pelvis, as if a giant, sharp spoon had dipped in. There, a smile. A smile! Yes, it is, truly, a portion of a face, a young boy. The top of his head is buried in a mass of congealed material, his body, somewhere else, leaving just his smile, still perfectly intact. Caught laughing? As the door was kicked in and the grenades thrown, just as he was giggling with his sister, tickling perhaps. An in-joke between siblings. Or something on TV. A moment before the air is sucked from the room and four adults and two children are taken apart and reassembled as cosmic modern art. Celestial irony. Look what I can do, says God. But it wasn’t a god. It was Smith. Who shouldn’t even be here.

Managing to stay upright. Marching out, his face, drawn and white and reflecting yellow from the lights on the street. Leaving on foot as a car arrives. He notes the men watching him. Smith knows they’ll be straight on the phone, wondering what he’s doing there. They stay in the car and he walks quickly round a corner, down another street, more houses, identical to the cheap red brick of number fifty-two.

Walking for an hour, as rain begins to drizzle until, damp and disorientated, he manages to board a near-empty bus heading towards the city centre. Why this one? Why now? He’s seen worse (not much worse, he admits to himself), but this time he’s run out of excuses. He’s been wrong for a long time, forever actually, and he wants it to stop. He can’t excuse himself for that boy’s smile, all that’s left of a child. This postmodern art atrocity: he did that. His misted blur of a face in the bus window, he can’t look even at that morphed version of himself. He catches a glimpse and panics.

It’s not so unusual for the staff at the Istanbul Café to serve a coffee to a bedraggled businessman at this time, even on a Saturday night. Too early for the after-pub rush, too late for the after-shop supper, Smith is the only customer. Outside, car headlights flick past and echoes of a small city squeeze past the plate-glass window to blend with a Turkish love song, auto-tuned over an electronic beat. If Smith concentrates, he can probably make out the meaning. As it is, he subconsciously registers a woman’s name and the fact that she is special to the man who is singing. So special.

His gaze is fixed beyond the counter, where one of the two young men preparing the food is using a long, sharp knife to slice wobbling slivers of compressed meat from the doner kebab slowly turning on its upright spit. Another young man waits, this side of the counter, dressed in waterproofs, a crash helmet in hand and an insulated bag hanging over one shoulder. The bag is emblazoned with ‘Istanbul Delivery’.

Soon, a pitta bread is full of meat and the man behind the counter is loading a pile of mixed salad on top. Then he takes a plastic bottle from the top of the counter and squeezes a dark brown juice over the ensemble, before packing it into a polystyrene box which he wraps with a sheet of off-white paper before putting it into a paper bag. Plastic knife and fork, napkin, a sachet of hand cream. The package is handed over to the delivery man who stuffs it in his bag before slowly making his way through the café, ignoring Smith as he walks past his table.

At the door, Smith doesn’t see the delivery man stop and catch