beyond to the moors which swept away towards Bolton. On a clear day the view was magnificent. Today the weather had worsened and slanting snow reduced visibility to a matter of metres.
Coffee, sandwiches, biscuits and brandy had been brought in. A Do Not Disturb sign hung on the outside of the door — rather pathetically as no one would have countenanced disturbing them. The two apes with big bulges under their arms and sloping foreheads saw to that.
McNamara was doing the talking.
‘ I don’t need to tell you both that things are reaching a critical stage here, and the last thing we need is to have our equilibrium rocked in any way.’ He dunked a ginger biscuit deeply into his coffee, immersed it for a good few seconds to allow it to soak, then placed the whole soggy mess into his mouth. ‘My part of the negotiations have gone extremely well and my contact — my very nervous contact — will be here soon to view the samples.’ He sighed grimly and looked with undisguised scorn at Conroy. ‘Only we don’t have anything for him to look at, do we?’
‘ It was just fucking unfortunate that Dundaven got picked up,’ Conroy snapped defensively.
‘ What were you thinking of, taking them to Blackpool in the first place?’
Conroy stiffened. ‘You’re the one who wanted them stashed well away from your warehouse, just in case. Rider’s club seemed as good a place as any. I shouldn’t have given the bastard any choice. I should’ve just told him I was going to use it… and, of course, those two guys turning up with shooters complicated matters, threw me off- course a bit, y’know?’ He touched the side of his face. ‘Having a gun stuck into the back of your head, then going off next to your ear ain’t pleasant. My ear still rings like fucking chapel bells… It was a bad fucking day all round.’
‘ And that’s another thing,’ McNamara latched onto. ‘What’s the position with you and Munrow? We won’t be doing business with anyone unless we can show we’re in control. What’s the current state of play?’
‘ I have no fucking idea at all. It’s a waiting game. I don’t know what his plans are. He’s an unpredictable, dangerous twat.’
‘ Take him out,’ said McNamara.
‘ Oh — like, yeah. Easier said than done. There’s not many willing to go up against him.’ Conroy turned his attention to Morton. ‘Has that bastard Rider shot in the leg turned up yet?’
Morton shook his head.
‘ One big fucking cock-up, all this,’ Conroy said in dismay. ‘All at once.’
Quietly, Morton said to McNamara, ‘Ron’s not the only one who’s got a problem, is he Harry?’
McNamara clammed up tight. He reached for the brandy bottle and tipped more than a generous measure into his coffee.
Conroy laughed. ‘You haven’t been picked up for kerb crawling again, have you, you daft cunt?’
Nothing came from the millionaire.
‘ Shall I tell him?’ Morton said, who, when nothing came, went on, ‘The police in Blackpool are investigating the murder of a prostitute. One by the name of Marie Cullen. Ring a bell, Ron?’
Conroy nodded and glowered sourly at McNamara. ‘You haven’t, have you?’
‘ She threatened to go to the press about our relationship,’ McNamara blurted under pressure. ‘She wanted money to keep quiet. She could have ruined me.’
‘ You mean she’d had enough of you beating the living crap out of her every time you fucked her. Is that what you mean, you sadistic bastard?’
McNamara placed his cup down. He rose from his chair and without warning plunged himself across the room at Conroy who was standing at the window with a drink in his hands.
They fell into a heap, McNamara’s fists flying, rolling across the carpeted room, crashing into chairs. But, though McNamara was bigger than Conroy, his technique was lacking badly and within moments he found himself face down on the floor, nose pressed into the shag pile, with Conroy’s left hand pushing the back of his neck down. In his right was a switchblade which he pressed dangerously into the side of McNamara’s neck.
‘ Don’t ever try a fucking stunt like that again, or I’ll skewer you like a pig,’ Conroy panted heavily.
Morton pulled him away. ‘Gents, gents,’ he cooed.
Conroy released his grip and stood up.
Spitting phlegm, McNamara drew himself onto all fours and gasped, ‘At least I’m not a little-boy shagger.’ He wiped his face.
‘ I don’t hurt them,’ said Conroy.
‘ Gents, please! Come on, we’ve got problems to solve here, solutions to find,’ Morton said with patronising smoothness. ‘Let’s not make things any worse than they are.’ He helped McNamara to his feet. ‘We’ve all got problems and we need to air them reasonably, otherwise we might as well go our separate ways… and in the long term that could do us all damage, knowing what we know about each other. We need a corporate approach here. Heads together.’
Conroy brushed himself off. The blade had disappeared.
McNamara returned to his seat, wheezing slightly, and lit a cigar.
‘ Point taken,’ said Conroy.
‘ Harry?’ Morton probed the tycoon.
Reluctantly the man nodded.
‘ Good, let’s get on with it then.’
Conroy stalked moodily over to the window where he stood, arms folded, staring out at the snow.
To McNamara, Morton said, ‘I’ll do what I can to help you, Harry, but I’ve got to know one thing. Did you kill her?’
‘ Bitch deserved it,’ McNamara spat.
Morton sighed. ‘In that case, you do have a problem. A monumental one.’
‘ Why? Can’t you do anything to get them off my back? That’s what you’re paid for, isn’t it?’
‘ It’s not so simple in this case. I don’t hold any influence over the cops in Blackpool. I managed to get my team onto the newsagents killings because it’s one of my men who ended up dead there and we need to control the investigation. But there’s no way I can get anyone onto Cullen’s murder… I couldn’t justify it.’
‘ Shit,’ said McNamara.
‘ And you’re in a similar position too, Ron, but I might be able to get a couple of my people onto the Dundaven enquiry on the pretext that we’ve got an interest in him, just to keep a watching brief on it. That way at least I could pre-warn you of any developments in your direction.’
‘ I don’t see it as that much of a problem. Dundaven won’t talk. If he does, I’ll ensure he commits suicide on remand. My difficulty is getting a shitload of guns up here in time for the viewing.’
‘ No — you’re wrong there,’ Morton warned him. ‘If finding guns was your only problem, you’d be laughing. Both your problems are much, much bigger than that.’
He had the rapt attention of both men.
‘ Your — our — problem is a very nosy, tenacious detective who doesn’t quite know anything at all just yet, but given time, knowing him and his reputation, he’s very much on the verge of discovery. And that problem,’ said Morton, ‘is called Henry Christie.’
Long hours hunched over a desk did nothing for the small of Karl Donaldson’s back. Reading and writing in a completely ridiculous posture gave him severe pain in the lumbar region. Around lunchtime, having spent two hours sifting meticulously through the accumulated paperwork, he knew he should get up, stretch, have a walk round. Otherwise he’d be set like a statue in that position.
He leaned back creakily and rubbed his neck.
‘ I’m not cut out for this crap,’ he said to no one in particular. ‘Desk jockey.’
All this close-up work was playing havoc with his eyes too. He had a horrible feeling he might need spectacles soon. In his book that was the ultimate concession to the onset of middle age. That and a beer gut.
He ran a hand carefully over his face, touching the chain-mark, black eye and swollen jaw. The combination pulsated continually, even though he’d now succumbed to Nurofen. Suffering pain wouldn’t bring Sam or Francesca back to life.
He had almost reached the foothills of the mountain of paperwork. He quickly signed off an Intelligence bulletin from Madrid without reading it too carefully, then a name in one of the paragraphs caught his eye.
It was a surname: Mayfair.
