let’s assume that’s why I topped him. If I wasn’t working with him I’d have to kill him anyway, but we both know I’m no killer and I can prove I was in Thailand when he was last seen, so I must have paid someone and the same logic applies. I’m not going to give the job to a couple of crack-heads and watch them balls it up, so it would have to be a professional and they aren’t cheap. Same problem, I’m a young man, I’d be on the run and I’d have sod all left to retire on.’
‘Fair enough,’ he said. The sweat was pouring down Bobby’s face and I could feel drops of it sliding down my torso. They had the heat up high in the steam room today.
‘Besides, you know I could earn the same money in two good years with you so why would I jeopardise that? You taught me to pay top men well enough so they don’t even think about betraying you.’
Bobby looked at me for a long while without saying anything. Then he looked away, like he was thinking. In my fevered state I was starting to wonder if I’d gone too far and he was going to suddenly lose it and smash my head in on the floor tiles.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said finally.
I wasn’t expecting that.
‘Come again?’
‘For not trusting you.’
I let this sink in for a bit then said, ‘you shouldn’t trust me,’ and he looked me right in the eye, ‘you shouldn’t trust anyone Bobby, not right now.’
‘You’re right Davey,’ he said, ‘but you are the only one who ever tells me that, which is why I do trust you.’
He was looking straight at me again in that unflinching way he had of sizing people up, ‘you can forget tomorrow’s deadline.’
I nodded gratefully. I felt the pressure visibly lift until he jabbed his finger at me and said, ‘but that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. That money was still your responsibility and Cartwright was one of your boys, so it’s still your neck…’
He didn’t have to finish.
‘Course,’ I said, ‘I’m all over it, believe me.’
‘Good, you should be,’ he didn’t look much happier now that he’d stopped suspecting me of personally ripping him off. I guess he had the same problem; someone had done it and we still didn’t know who, ‘and I’ve got a job for you.’ He finished.
‘What kind of job?’ I didn’t know why but I was suddenly worried he was going to ask me to kill somebody to prove my loyalty. It was an absurd notion but I got a little surge of panic anyway. The heat in the steam room was making me feel weak and I wanted to get out of there.
‘The Drop. I need to make good on the Drop. I want you to deliver it and I want you to take Finney, just in case.’
Just in case someone tries to kill me or just in case I try and run off with it, I wondered, probably both.
‘When we realised it hadn’t reached him I managed to buy us some time but it did not go down well,’ he continued, ‘so I’ve put some extra in there to sugar the pill. Northam will let you have it when you turn up with Finney. Make sure you hand it over to Amrein personally and whatever you do make sure he understands we are back in control.’
‘Of course,’ I said. He was teaching me to suck eggs but I understood. He was stressing out, making sure no detail was left to chance. I’d have done the same in his shoes. ‘I’ll get it there, no problem.’
‘Good, make sure you do.’
I spent Monday morning at our restaurant in the Quayside. I knew I’d get some peace there. I sat at a table before it opened to the public, making calls, sending members of our crew out on errands, following up leads and leaning on people, anybody I could think of who might know anything about Cartwright, however trivial. My meeting with Bobby had bought me some time but I knew I couldn’t relax, not until I’d got his money back, every penny.
The sun came out, shining through the big open windows, bathing the place. It was a lovely spot and Bobby hadn’t skimped on the decor; bright white linen tablecloths topped with outsized wine glasses and expensive flower arrangements, welcomed the diners, who could sink into soft leather banquette seating and chose from a wine list that had more pages than the phone book. This was about as classy as we got.
The place opened up around me and people started to wander in. It was quite busy for the beginning of the week; mostly business lunches by the look of it, but there were one or two well-heeled couples and some ladies who lunched.
I took calls from our guys as they reported back to me. Nobody had come up with anything new. No one knew anything about this mysterious Russian. One of the waitresses brought me a plate of halloumi and chorizo, some foccaccia and hummus and a glass of Sauvignon. She was a pretty little thing, neat in her crisp, white blouse, short black skirt and dark stockings, with her honey coloured hair tied back, not much make-up, natural looking, the way I like them.
‘Chef thought you might fancy a plate of something, Mister Blake?’ she said, then she smiled, ‘the wine was my idea.’
‘Tell the chef he’s a mind reader,’ I told her, ‘and you’re a darling.’
She gave me a big smile before she walked away. It was a nice little spread but I made sure I got through it quick before any of our crew caught me eating ‘poncy foreign food’. Most of our lads thought lasagne was exotic. Me? I’m different. I’m interested in good food and decent wine. One day, I’ll have enough money to open a restaurant like this myself, somewhere classy with a good chef and a respectable wine list, that you wouldn’t be ashamed to take your other half to on her birthday. Until that day though, well, as they say, this beats working for a living. Well, usually. Today was a bit different of course.
I was just finishing my lunch when in walked DS Sharp followed by a man I’d never seen before. He was a short, rotund guy in a long, black overcoat with a cheap grey suit beneath it, the collar of his white shirt slightly frayed. He was obviously one of those men who never looked entirely comfortable in a suit – that fact alone would probably prevent further promotion.
Sharp pointed me out. The shorter man walked up to me determinedly.
‘David Blake?’ he asked me, ‘Detective Inspector Clifford,’ he added sternly, with the unmistakeable accent of East London. He made sure he showed me his warrant card, holding it high enough for the other diners to satisfy their curiosity. It was a form of harassment I was used to and I was hardly going to be embarrassed by it, ‘you’ve probably heard, I’m the new kid on the block,’ I thought that was an odd description for a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a straggly little moustache that contained a greasy fragment of his breakfast. What was it with these two and their ‘taches?
‘No,’ I said, as if his arrival was of no consequence to me whatsoever.
‘Detective Sergeant Sharp you do know,’ he told me.
‘We’ve had the pleasure,’ we all shook hands. ‘Inspector,’ I said giving him my best hundred-watt smile, ‘would you like to join me for some lunch, your colleague too of course? This Sauvignon is excellent,’
‘No thank you Mister Blake,’ he said, like I had just offered him an all-expenses trip to the Bahamas in return for forgetting a murder I’d committed, ‘do you have somewhere for a private conversation?’ A bit rich, considering his very public entrance.
‘Of course,’ I assured him, ‘always happy to assist Northumbria’s finest.’
I led them into a poky little office out back and we sat around a desk normally used by the restaurant’s bookkeeper, ‘how can I help?’
‘By dispensing with the usual bullshit,’ he told me. He was leaning forward in his chair, an excitable sort who couldn’t wait to tell me what was on his mind.
I decided to play the genteel, slightly-incredulous suspect, the kind you might see on an episode of
‘Heard of the Marshall brothers?’ he asked, ‘Don’t answer that, course you have.’
‘I think I may have read about them in the newspaper.’
‘I’ll bet you did,’ he nodded emphatically, ‘A lovely bust, that one. They’d ruled half of Manchester for donkey’s years, then, one day we took down one of their dealers for the third time. I mean, he was looking at more Porridge than Ronnie Barker.’
