Chapter One
THE BANYAN TREE
THE ROCK OF Gibraltar soared majestically above the small British colony below, its impressive white jagged outline contrasting dramatically against the deep blue sky. Main Street, which cut through the heart of the small city centre at the base of the rock, stretched out narrowly from Casemates Square to the Cable Car Base Station, its architecture reminiscent of colonial designs from the Caribbean, with pastel buildings and casement windows. Main Street closely resembled many of the pedestrianised streets that occupied the UK cities. Here you would find everything that belonged on the standard British high-street – Natwest bank, Marks & Spencer’s, Woolworths (now obviously closed), Mothercare, British Home Stores, red pillar boxes. Road vehicles all possessed UK style registration number plates, with a single letter `G’ followed by a series of numbers (similar to Jersey’s system, except `G’ would be replace with `J’ in Jersey). Crime was relatively low in Gibraltar, yet you were more likely to find regular British uniformed police casually walking the streets on the beat here, than you would in many of the major crime-ridden cities in the UK. For tourists, a visit to Gibraltar was usually a one day affair, a brief stop-off while on holiday in Marbella. It would usually involve the customary cable car ride up to the tip of the Rock, witnessing the playful but occasionally vicious Barbary apes (which were not to be fed), then down for a visit to St. Michael’s Cave or the Great Siege Tunnels, followed by afternoon scones and cream teas at the colonial Rock Hotel. If there was still time before the inevitable bus journey back across the inconvenient Spanish border, then a seafood dinner at either Casemates Square or one of the more fashionable restaurants on Queensway Quay.
It was nearly 5:00pm and Main Street was now slowly becoming deserted, as many of the shops had closed for the mid-afternoon siesta. But Casemates Square was still relatively busy. Many people were sat outside the various bars and cafes, drinking, eating and enjoying the last rays of the sun. One bar in particular, The Banyan Street, had its doors closed and the tables and chairs were stacked away in a corner. The board outside stated in white handwritten chalk that the bar would be open again at 7:30pm for England v Germany.
Matthew Smith impatiently watched the last of the customers finishing their drinks. It was nearly 5.00pm, and the bar was supposed to be closing early this afternoon at 4:30pm, due to the World Cup match which would be kicking off later that evening. Smith was longing for a Whopper burger with cheese from Burger King opposite the bar on the Square, followed by a nice afternoon siesta in his apartment before his shift started again later. Not much chance of that now. Smith fumbled below the bar to turn off the CD that was playing rather loudly. It was Don Henley’s brilliant `The Boys of Summer’, and he was reluctant to stop the song mid-way through, but at least it was an obvious indication to the customers that the bar was indeed closing.
`Come on guys, drink up. I’m supposed to shut this place up at half four,’ Smith shouted out across the bar. `The boss may be back any time now.’
The couple who sat in the corner suddenly both reached for their glasses and began drinking hurriedly. Smith smiled to himself. The mere suggestion of his boss returning early had the desired effect. It should have surprised Smith that his boss could cause such an immediate reaction among these three strangers he had never seen before in the bar, but it didn’t. His boss was a well-known figure among the locals in Gibraltar, a celebrity almost, and word obviously filtered down, even to these visitors, probably from over the border. Smith watched the couple stand up and leave, then walked over to the door and bolted it shut. Thank Christ for that! He let out a blessed sigh of a relief and looked back at the room. What a mess. It would take a good 40 minutes at least to get this place cleaned up before he could get away.
Matthew Smith was born and raised from a modestly wealthy family on the Wirral, near Liverpool, and had moved to Gibraltar only seven months ago. Seeing as his boss was such a football fanatic, maybe that’s why he had hired Smith to work at The Banyan Tree, coming from a city famous for its football team. Two topics of discussion were guaranteed to be raised by locals who came in to the bar when they heard Smith’s Scouse accent – Liverpool Football Club, and The Beatles. Thankfully, Smith was a fan of both subjects, otherwise he would have been bored of the endless conversations by now.
The Banyan Tree was like any standard bar you would expect to see in Gibraltar. Slightly narrow, compact (like everything was in Gibraltar, due to its size), wooden furniture throughout, and with the typical array of British beer pumps lit up on display across the bar – Tetley, Newcastle Brown (usually in bottles, but here on draught), Guinness, Carling and the customary San Miguel. There were four wooden pillars in the room, and each held a framed picture. One was a horizontally framed photo of the England victory in 1966, a splurge of red tops and beaming faces, with Bobby Moore the central figure raised up on the shoulders of the other players, his right arm aloft, proudly holding the Jules Rimet World Cup trophy. The second was another horizontally framed England football picture, this time a dejected Bobby Moore, longer hair and sideburns, leaving the pitch in Leon from Mexico 70, when England crashed out of the tournament against West Germany in the Quarter Finals. The third was the former Hull City manager, Phil Brown at Wembley, celebrating the victory against Bristol City, and the fourth was not football related at all. It was a vertical poster advertising the second series of the BBC TV time-travel cop show `Life on Mars’, displaying the characters Gene Hunt and Sam Tyler with the infamous bronze Ford Cortina behind, and above them a slogan, in retro 70’s typeface - `Back in the Nick of Time’, accompanied by mock fold-up pull-out-magazine creases, and a blue and black spinning globe with `BBC in Colour’, obviously reproduced from the time the programme was set – 1973.
For the third time that day, Smith again reflected that all four of these pictures somehow summed up his boss’s persona, the man called Adam Grant. The 1966 poster showed his Patriotic nature. The Mexico 70 picture related to the gloomy, pessimistic side Adam Grant could occasionally reveal, particularly if the topic of the continuing failure of the England football team was brought up in conversation, or more significantly, the subject of Grant’s short-lived football career. It apparently came to an abrupt end while playing for Hull City when he was 17, with a severe knee injury caused by a miss-timed tackle during a football practise session. Adam Grant was originally from Hull (the broad accent was a giveaway) so there was no real surprises to see Hull City’s biggest ever victory on display in the bar, and with a manager who shared a similar show-off style to Adam Grant. And finally, the fourth poster, portraying TV character Gene Hunt (played by Philip Glenister), somehow epitomized the attitude of the man. The resemblance was uncanny. Adam Grant looked very much like a cross between a 1970’s Robert Redford and Gene Hunt. Medium length blonde hair, long sideburns, a muscular, athletic build but with a slight paunch around the waist (probably brought on by too much drinking, Smith reflected) and a general retro 70’s throwback in the style and way he dressed. If Adam Grant wasn’t wearing tight-fitting shirts with long collars, and tailor-made suits with flared trousers, he would be wearing wide-bottom jeans and the coolest pair of retro Adidas TRX blue and lemon yellow trainers, reproduced from 1976 and worn by Roger Daltrey in the film McVicar, (Smith knew this because Adam Grant told people often enough!) He was in his mid-to-late thirties, about 6 feet tall, blonde and suntanned. In summary, a good-looking Bas***d that could get any girl he wanted.
And yet there was something else - a hidden inner toughness, an edge, a gangster-like quality which effortlessly oozed from the man. Excluding the extrovert blonde 1970’s appearance, maybe the attitude of Adam Grant was more in tune with a TV character like `Dirty Den Watts’ from `EastEnders’, or more fittingly, wide-boy gangster Marcus Tandy from the failed early 90’s TV Spanish soap `Eldorado’. Adam Grant certainly appeared to own as many shops, bars and restaurants in Gibraltar as Marcus Tandy had done in the Spanish TV soap. And people in general were either wary of Adam Grant, or were lusting after him, usually young female locals or Spanish housewives, Smith reflected enviously (although Smith was only 18 years of age, he had seen both these TV characters in episode repeats on UK Gold a few years back, as he was an avid soap fan). Smith knew little else about Adam Grant’s background, other than he was an ex-footballer from Hull that could have turned professional, had a brief spell at boxing once his footballing career came to an end, was a black belt in Karate (not sure which dan he had reached), was seen with many different women, drove a flash Jaguar XKR, was rumoured to be working for English gangsters back in London, and more disturbingly, had supposedly killed a man back in the UK. These last two pieces of gossip was something that Smith didn’t really want to acknowledge, or think about. In Smith’s eyes, Adam Grant was an iconic figure, a hero almost, someone whom Smith certainly admired and looked up to. Smith gave an involuntary shrug of the shoulders and then, as always, quickly put these last two rumours to the back of his mind and set about clearing up the empty glasses littered among the tables. He was longing for that Whopper with cheese. Maybe he would go for a double.
By 8:30pm England had kicked off and the bar was heaving. Matthew Smith and two young Spanish bar-maids were struggling to serve the overcrowded drunken throng that was becoming increasingly vociferous.
`Where’s the boss?’ one of the girls shouted over the deafening noise at Smith, while simultaneously pouring several pints in a stressed manner.
`I thought he would be here to help out on a night like this?’
`I dunno!’ Smith yelled back truthfully. `Not sure where he is. It’s not like him to miss an England match though. His game of golf probably went on a bit longer.’
With that, a fight suddenly broke out. Several pint glasses were flung into the air, lager and beer raining down among the animated crowd. There were crashes of glass and loud thuds as tables toppled over in a wild frenzy, several men falling to the floor in a mass brawl, kicking and punching ferociously. Women started screaming and desperately tried to move away from the scene, pushing and shoving the crowd towards the bar. The two bar maids looked on nervously. `Go on Matt!’ one of them called out. `Do something. Quickly!’
Smith reached for the Sky TV remote and turned off the large screen showing the game. He ignored the yells of protest, and instead wondered what he would do to try and stop this. Christ, where was the boss when he needed him? Smith ran round the bar to the cannibalistic flaying fists and feet, blood now splattered among the men on the floor. Smith caught the collar of one of the men and pulled him up to his feet. As he did that, a large fist suddenly struck him in the face from somewhere. Smith fell back against the bar, his heart racing.
And then several of the men quickly scrambled up on their feet and made off to the doorway, pushing it open and running out. With that the pandemonium suddenly ceased. Three men stood proudly back up, wiping away the blood and began shouting at the top of their voices. `Waheyyy! That fackin’ showed them!’ screamed one of the men, raising his hands in the air. He had a shaved head, a thuggish face and a large, obese tattooed stomach, now offensively on display after his England shirt had been torn from his body.
The second man had short-cropped dark hair, looked slightly slimmer than the first man, and had blood streaming down the left side of his cheek. He then turned and yelled out at the blank screen above their heads. `Where the fack has the telly gone. Oi! Barman, put the fackin’ game back on! Now!’
The third man, who was slightly stockier and smaller than the other two, with a shaved head and a painted cross of St. George across his face, joined in. `Yeah mate! Do it now, or else!’
Smith hoped that someone would come to his rescue, but the crowd were escaping as quickly as they could from the bar in droves. He stood up and walked quickly back round the bar for safety. `Sorry lads. The game is off. Now you’ll all have to leave before I call the police,’ he tried to sound determined and confident, even though he was shaking inside like a leaf.
The three men fell about in laughter. `Is that so, mate?’ said the first one menacingly. He then came forward and grabbed Smith by the collar of his T-shirt, pulling him up towards the round, terrifying face. Smith nervously glanced down and saw the bottle in the man’s hand. The bottom had been smashed away, and now it protruded like a weapon from the man’s hand, jagged and glistening in the bar-light. The man’s arm was slowly drawing back, ready to strike.
`If you children don’t play nicely with my staff, I’ll have to teach you some manners.’
The man suddenly loosened his grip at the sound of the voice and turned towards the door. Smith’s heart lifted as he recognised it immediately.
Adam Grant stood casually at the open doorway, and walked in.
Wonderful Sweeney 
You publish and I will be standing in line at the book shop 