If they needed advice we used web phones, so much more secure than mobiles or landlines, or someone flew out to see me. Kinane, Palmer, Hunter and Danny took it in turns so the authorities wouldn’t become too suspicious of any frequent flyers. I came back to Newcastle from time to time to oversee things but it was deliberately infrequent and it became less and less over time. I’d set the thing up and told them what to do, how to handle themselves with the police, other villains, our employees, everything. If they did what I told them it would be sweet and the money would continue to roll in, just so long as they remembered my cut, same time every month, regular as clockwork. Another Drop that was never to be forgotten.
Before I left the country, Detective Inspector Clifford hauled me in for a chat. I went voluntarily with my solicitor. She sat next to me in the interview room. We were complying with a request to assist the police with their enquiries. I’m afraid I wasn’t much help.
‘I am obviously aware that Bobby Mahoney has disappeared,’ I told Clifford and his tape recorder, ‘and it is deeply upsetting to me that my former employer, a respectable businessman after all, has vanished into thin air like this, but I have heard that hundreds of people go missing every year for no apparent reason.’
‘You’re trying to tell me that Bobby Mahoney has cracked up, lost the plot and gone walkabout?’ asked Clifford, while Sharp sat stone-faced beside him. Nothing ever came from that Police Complaints Commission visit. It wasn’t even about Sharp. Like I’d told him, he’d been worrying about nothing.
‘I think it just goes to show how little you really know anyone,’ I said. ‘Have you called the homeless hostels in London, just in case? It might be a good place to start?’
‘Are you taking the piss?’
‘Inspector, my client has attended this interview voluntarily,’ my solicitor reminded him, ‘he is merely trying to assist you in your missing person’s enquiry.’
‘It’s not a missing persons enquiry, it’s a murder investigation.’ His face was turning puce again, ‘one of the rumours doing the rounds on the streets of this fair city is that Bobby Mahoney is in fact dead and that a person or persons unknown is now running his empire.’
‘Indeed, well, where is the body?’ asked my solicitor and Inspector Clifford looked even more irritated.
He turned his disparaging gaze back onto me. ‘So, what are you going to do, now that your employer has apparently fucked off?’
‘I am in the fortunate position that Mister Mahoney’s daughter is overseeing the family business for now, until we have news of his safe whereabouts. She has asked me to remain as Group Sales and Marketing Director, in the medium term, to assist her.’
‘Sales and M… ’ he clenched his teeth and shook his head, ‘so I take it you have no knowledge of another missing person’s case we are working on?’
‘I’d be glad to help of course but I’m not sure how…’
‘A gangster from Glasgow called Tommy Gladwell, his wife and two bodyguards have also mysteriously vanished into thin air around the same time that Bobby Mahoney went AWOL. The difference being, we found blood on the ground outside his home.’
‘I can’t help you there Inspector. I’m afraid I’ve never met any gangsters, let alone one from Glasgow.’
The Inspector took a deep breath and I got the impression it was only the presence of my eminently respectable, female solicitor that was keeping him from leaning over and smashing my face into the table.
‘Perhaps I can get your opinion on a little matter closer to home then,’ he persisted. ‘How about the violent turf war that has erupted on the Sunnydale estate?’
‘Oh, this I do know all about,’ I assured him.
‘You do?’ he seemed surprised.
‘Yes, after all it has been on the front pages of both
‘Do we fuck,’ he hissed, ‘it was your lot. We are not bloody stupid.’
At this point my solicitor interjected, ‘can I once again remind you that my client is a company director who has never even been charged with, much less convicted of, any crime.’
‘Might I remind you Miss,’ DI Clifford hissed through gritted teeth, ‘that I am very much aware of your client and his role within the so-called Gallowgate Leisure Group.’
At this point I wanted to say ‘if you’re so clever Inspector, how is it that I’ve got your right hand man on my payroll and you haven’t even worked that out, but I obviously thought better of it. He turned his attention back to me. He leaned forward so that he was stretching right over the desk, deliberately invading my personal space, ‘I suppose you are going to try and convince me you have never even heard of a man called Vitaly Litchenko?’
‘Oh yes, I have heard of him’ I said calmly and DI Clifford frowned in surprise. I could see Sharp looking a little nervous at this point, ‘doesn’t he play for Chelsea?’
I was almost at my car when DI Clifford caught up with me. He sounded excitable.
‘I want you to know something, off the record,’ he told me, ‘with no solicitors around. This is just between you and me. I want you to be aware that I know what’s going on. I just can’t prove it yet but I’m going to.’
‘Really,’ I said trying to look unconcerned.
‘Yes I do,’ he told me, ‘Bobby Mahoney isn’t dead. He’s very much alive. He just used a war with that piss ant, little pretend gangster from Glasgow to get the fuck out of it. I know Tommy Gladwell. I know all about him and he didn’t have the brains to mastermind a takeover of this city. Bobby killed him, his wife and their bodyguards and they probably deserved it too, the bloody fools. Bobby’s abroad somewhere but he’s still running things. I know it and I won’t rest until I prove he’s alive and bring him back here in handcuffs. You tell him this from me. He can run but he can’t hide!’ I tried to look a little bit sideswiped by this outburst and it worked. ‘I knew it!’ he said triumphantly, ‘I’m right. Go on, admit it, just between us.’
I paused then, waiting for as long as I could before answering him, watching his piggy little eyes glaze with expectation.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ I told him as I climbed into my car. I closed the door on his indignant face and started the engine.
‘I will find him,’ he called through the glass, ‘I will!’ ‘Give my regards to Lord Lucan while you’re at it,’ I muttered to myself as I drove sharply away.
EPILOGUE
Look at him. Go on, look. Take a good, long look. Scary isn’t he; standing there by the swimming pool, five feet eight inches of muscular, killing machine and about as hard as granite.
Not a big guy but he’s a Gurkha, ex-British Army, Palmer put me on to them. Him and his mates don’t come cheap but they are worth it because they have a very important job to do, the most important there is. They are keeping me alive.
He won’t leave my side today and his mates are patrolling the grounds of my new home right now; a huge, luxurious, state-of-the-art, all-mod-cons, gated compound, not a stone’s throw from the Hua Hin resort where I took Laura on holiday, about a lifetime ago now. Funny how things work out isn’t it?
Sarah comes out of our house looking beautiful in her tiny, little, white bikini and he doesn’t even notice her as she pads past him in her bare feet, hips rolling. At least he pretends not to, doesn’t even give her a look, not even a quick, furtive, sidelong glance as she flips her pert, little arse up in the air into a perfect dive before disappearing beneath the cool, clear water. Instead he just stands there, that big fuck-off Kalashnikov slung on his shoulder, staring straight ahead like a tin soldier. He can’t be human. I mean if you can’t enjoy a sight like that you’re not alive, not really. But me? I’m just glad he is so dedicated, so focused, so completely in the zone, concentrating on nothing more than keeping me breathing, just so long as I keep on paying.
And he is loyal, which helps in my business. Like I told you, loyalty is a rare and underestimated commodity these days. At least it is in my game. You want my opinion? You can’t put a price on loyalty.
