CHAPTER one

CHAPTER ONE

“So, let me see if I’ve got this right,” Ashkan paused for effect. Like a lot of gangsters, he fancied himself a bit of an actor. The Iranian Al Pacino was how he styled himself. Right now his well practised glare was boring a hole in Sam’s forehead.

“You muppets borrowed fifty grand of my money, my fucking money, to shoot a feature film. Ten days you said, ten days to shoot it. Two months to edit it, then blam, stick it out on the net as video on demand and we’ll recoup the cost in a matter of weeks. Am I lying?”

“No,” said Sam, appalled at how high and frightened his voice sounded. “Look if you just give us a bit of time we can . . . ”

Ashkan brought the back of his hand across Sam’s face. The blow sent Sam sprawling and the only reason he didn’t fall out of the chair was because he was held there with duct tape. The side of his face stung and it took a second for his vision to come back into focus.

“When it’s your cue to fucking speak I’ll tell you, alright?” said Ashkan. Sam nodded and his head throbbed. Ashkan drew himself up to his full height. At six five he was pretty imposing. He adjusted his leather jacket and smoothed down his Ben Sherman shirt like he was about to go on stage. Then he looked from Sam to Jimmy, who was duct taped to the chair next to him.

“See, what really disappoints me is, I like you guys. I like what you do. You’re good at it. So I put in a little sweetener. I let you off the interest for six whole months. That should’ve been enough time to clear the whole debt. Now, some people might think I was going soft. But I saw it as an investment in my acting career. You guys were writing me a big part in the movie, so it was the least I could do. So yesterday, I rock up at the set with my crew, looking to show off me mad acting skills and what do I find, Farshad?”

“These two cunts, with their dicks in their hands and fuck all else,” said Farshad, a short guy with a thick beard and huge shoulders. He was standing behind Sam and Jimmy.

“That’s right,” said Ashkan. “And trust me guys, as far as dicks go, they weren’t that impressive. I was expecting lights, cameras, the whole fucking shebang. Instead I got mugged off. No equipment, no script, no fucking actors, just you two cunts in an empty fucking warehouse. That’s all I got to show for my fifty grand. Am I lying?”

Sam and Jimmy shook their heads.

“You know what else I found out? Last week you two pissants tried to buy fifty grand’s worth of coke from one of my rivals. One of my fucking rivals! Only someone pulled a gun as it was going down and you were left with fuck all to show for yourselves. What were you gonna do with all that coke? Sell it to your friends in the film biz?”

Sam and Jimmy looked at each other, then nodded hesitantly.

“So you never had any intention of making a film then?”

Sam didn’t know what to do.

“You can talk now,” said Ashkan.

“No, we’re still going to make the film,” said Sam. “I swear we’re going to make it, but we had overheads. I maxed out all my cards funding our last feature and costs were spiralling. We were going to take the profits from the coke and plough it all back into the film, I swear to you we were.”

“Whose idea was this?”

“It . . . it was mine,” Jimmy croaked, after a long pause. He was sweating heavily, it ran in trickles from his chestnut curls and pooled in his beard. He blinked nervously.

“Jimmy thought we could use some of his underworld contacts and bring the deal off quickly,” said Sam.

“Oh yeah,” said Ashkan with a derisive snort. “Big man is Jimmy, really well connected. See, what I don’t understand is, I just found you got some huge fucking trust fund waiting for you. So what the fuck you getting mixed up with all this shit for?”

Sam hung his head. “It’s my parents,” he said in a small voice.

“What?”

“It’s my fucking parents. They won’t let me access the fund until I get a proper job, in the City or something, raping third world countries.”

“You have to admit they’ve got a point. I mean you wouldn’t be in this mess if you had a proper job and I wouldn’t be about to do this.”

Ashkan clicked his fingers. Faisal, one of the thugs who’d grabbed Sam and Jimmy and driven them to the Bethnal Green lock up, sidled up to Ashkan. He was tall and rangy, with a thick black moustache and a scar down his left cheek. He handed Ashkan a syringe. It was the big, thick kind you find in hospitals, not the sort you get at a needle exchange. It was full of clear liquid.

Ashkan grabbed hold of Jimmy’s hair and bent his head to one side. A blue vein throbbed on Jimmy’s neck, Ashkan plunged the syringe into it.

“Jesus, Ashkan,” Jimmy screamed, “What the fuck, what the fuck?”

“Just giving you a little taste innit,” said Ashkan, pushing the plunger. “Thought you boys liked this sorta shit.”

“The fuck is it?” Jimmy looked like he was going to have a fit. The muscles in his legs spasmed and his eyes twitched.

“This shit? This is better than meth, better than any of that crap you get on the street. This is from my private collection. Save it for special occasions, like this one.” Ashkan clicked his fingers and one of his flunkies handed him another syringe.

“Please,” said Sam, as Ashkan approached. “Not the neck, please.”

“It’s better in the jugular vein, innit. Goes straight to the brain see. Gives you twice the fucking hit—Blam!”

Sam felt a sharp prick as the needle hit his vein and the drug shot into his blood. His heart hammered like he was going into cardiac arrest and an ice cold wave washed over him. All the hairs on his body stood on end. The mother of all rushes charged through him. Ashkan hadn’t lied, this stuff was powerful. Sam’s head began to shake and his jaw worked involuntarily. He was blinking about a hundred times a minute.

Faisal put a laptop down on a card table in front of them. “Have I got your attention? Good. Wouldn’t want you to miss a minute of this.” Ashkan opened the laptop. “You boys like film shows don’t you? Well I’ve got one mother of a film for you.” He clicked an icon on the screen and a piece of footage came up. “See this? This is what happens when you fuck with me. When you take my money and mug me off in front of my crew.” Ashkan patted Sam and Jimmy on the shoulders. “Enjoy the show boys.”

The footage showed a dimly lit stone room that could have been a cellar or a prison cell. The camera, held by an amateur, swung unsteadily about the space. It picked out three figures, two men and a woman, strapped to operating tables which were covered in thick plastic sheeting.

One of the men was screaming and sobbing, snot streamed down his top lip as he writhed and fought his straps. The other man, from his expression, was bargaining for his life. He looked Mediterranean, but was shouting in a language that sounded Arabic.

The woman couldn’t have been a bigger contrast. She lay very still, her body completely relaxed and her face serene. She seemed completely at peace with what was going to be done to her.

She was very striking, with strawberry blonde hair and high cheekbones. Her curves suggested a sensuous nature, but her eyes seemed to look heavenward, giving her a saintly, almost beatific look.

“This the tape you got from Mr Isimud?” said Farshad.

“Yeah man,” replied Ashkan. “This is some seriously fucked up shit, seriously fucked up.”

“Sweet, wanted to see this for ages.”

“Some of the things they do man, they’re like artists, trust me, artists—not killers.” Ashkan smacked Sam and Jimmy on the back of the head. He reached over their shoulders and pointed at the screen. “Pay attention boys, this is my money back guarantee. I guarantee this will happen to you if I don’t get my money back.”