disapproval of the actions that had led to my temporary incapacity had been too plain to be ignored, however much he seemed to have softened down his attitude since.
Wisely, perhaps, Pauline didn’t pursue that one any further.
We managed to get into Lavender Gardens unmolested, although we attracted close scrutiny from Garton- Jones’s heavies as we went past. They’d already checked out Jacob when he turned up to collect me earlier.
As I should have expected, Friday went totally ballistic at his owner’s return, bouncing round the living room like a puppy and letting out ear-splitting yelps. The Ridgeback had that crafty look in his eye which said he knew full well this was one occasion when he could get away with total disobedience, and he was damn well going to make the most of it.
Our efforts to shut him up had Jacob grinning. He made his excuses and left quickly once we’d unloaded Pauline’s cases. I supposed I couldn’t blame him for not wanting to leave a Range Rover too long unattended anywhere on Lavender Gardens at the moment. It didn’t matter that it was fifteen years old, and the body was slowly taking on an interesting mottled two-tone colour scheme as the rust encroached on the cream paintwork.
In the midst of all this havoc, it would have been easy to miss the sound of the phone ringing. Pauline dragged her frenzied dog off into the kitchen and closed the door behind her, leaving me to pick up the receiver.
“Charlie!” It was a woman’s voice on the line that I didn’t immediately recognise, the tones made echoing by the distortion of a mobile phone. “Where on earth have you been? I’ve found him!”
“Madeleine?” It took me a moment to catch up. “Who have you found? Roger?”
“No, more’s the pity,” she said. “Jav. He’s inside at the moment, but I don’t know how long he’s going to stay there.”
“Inside where?”
“That gym that Nasir went to, remember? I found out he was also on the membership list and I’ve been keeping an eye on the place to see if he turned up. He arrived about an hour ago. I’m in the car park. Do you want me to go in and talk to him?”
I bit my lip, glanced at my watch. “No, stay put. I’ll be with you in ten minutes and we’ll go in together. That way he’s less opportunity to try and lie about what he told me. OK?”
“OK,” she said, and rang off.
I turned to find Pauline in the doorway with a resigned look on her face. “I won’t ask what you’re mixed up in now,” she said.
“I’m sorry, Pauline.” I shrugged helplessly. “I didn’t go looking for trouble.”
“You don’t have to go looking, dear – it comes and finds you,” she said, then gave me a quick grin. “Go on, girl, don’t look so mortified. Get off with you if it’s so important. Just don’t think you can fob me off indefinitely. I’m going to want to know what you’ve been up to before too long, in all its gory detail!”
***
When I turned into the car park of the gym Madeleine had mentioned and pulled up alongside the Grand Cherokee, she climbed out as soon as I’d brought the bike to a halt.
“Jav’s still in there,” she said, by way of greeting. “Let’s just hope he can give us some answers.”
I nodded as I dumped my helmet and gloves onto the passenger seat. She blipped the door locks and we walked across the mainly deserted car park towards the squat pale blue building that was the health club.
Nobody was manning the reception desk as we pushed open the main doors, and we didn’t give them chance to be slow on the uptake. Instead, we carried on straight through a second set of glass doors into the gym proper, then paused to look about us.
It wasn’t difficult to spot Jav. Apart from the blond teenager, the place was deserted. He was working on a set of barbell bench presses at the far side of the room, and his technique was poor enough to make me wince.
He didn’t look round when we walked in, too busy concentrating on locking his arms out against a weight that must have been ten kilos too heavy for him. I nodded silently to Madeleine, and we moved quickly over to stand on either side of him.
He twitched as we came into his line of sight, one elbow buckling. If Madeleine and I hadn’t grabbed hold of the bar, he would have been in trouble.
Mind you, he was in trouble anyway. We pushed down at both ends until it was driving onto his chest, pinning him to the bench.
I shook my head sadly. “One thing I always say to people when they start training, Jav, is never to do bench presses without someone to spot for them,” I said, my voice bland. “If we hadn’t come along then you might have had a nasty accident.”
“Get it off me!” He writhed under the bar, but the combination of the two of us pressing on top of it, and the fact he’d overloaded it to begin with, was enough to hold him.
Madeleine tutted. “Now now, Jav, don’t get stroppy,” she said. “We just want a little chat.”
He kept struggling, but it was a lost cause, and it didn’t take too long before even he realised the fact. Then he stilled and asked sullenly, “What do you want?”
“That’s better,” I said. “I want to know who put you up to coming round and priming me up with all that bullshit about Sean Meyer.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Jav spat, his lisp conspicuous. He gasped as Madeleine and I leaned a bit further onto the bar.
“Yes you do, Jav,” Madeleine said. “Somebody gave you the information, patted you on the head and sent you off in Charlie’s direction, and you did as you were told like a good little boy, didn’t you?”
I took in the mulish look on Jav’s face and gave her a harsh glance. And I thought she was good with children. Ah well, too late now.
“What are people going to think when they find out you’ve been tipping off the police?” I tried a different tack.
Jav’s expression didn’t change much, but at least he said, “They won’t think anything, because it wasn’t me.
“Well, somebody’s been talking to them, Jav, trying to drop Sean in it, and it doesn’t take a genius to work out that you’re the common element here,” Madeleine pressed. “So, who primed you?”
There was a flash of movement on the other side of the glass doors. A couple of figures dressed in pale blue polo shirts, and moving hurriedly.
I saw from Madeleine’s face that she’d seen them, too. Knew that our time was running out fast.
“So, come on, Jav,” she tried one last time, “who was it?” and before I could stop her, she added sharply, “Was it Langford?”
I held back an inward curse, as the doors to the gym flew open, and two large members of staff hustled in.
“Oi,” one of them shouted, “what the hell d’you two think you’re doing!”
We ignored them for a second longer, holding the bar down on Jav’s chest. “Yes, all right, yes!” he cried. “It was that bastard Langford, all right? Now let me go!”
We complied with his request abruptly, but left him to shift the bar himself. For a few moments he just lay there, dragging air into his constricted lungs. One of the staff grabbed the barbell to lift it off the boy. I noted in passing that Attila had been right about the quality of the staff here. His technique wasn’t much to speak of, either.
The other man snatched at my arm, started to try and drag me across the floor towards the exit.
Big mistake.
I broke his grip in an automatic reflex action, twisting his hand back to reverse our positions. Getting out of wrist holds had been part of Lesson One on my self-defence courses. I could do it in my sleep.
The man swore and struggled, but I had his wrist joint, elbow and shoulder all under considerable tension. I could have held that lock all day with one hand, and there wasn’t a damn thing he could have done about it.
Jav was on his feet by this time, rubbing his chest and glaring at us. The other staff man had jerked the
