A Prospect of Vengeance

important, he thought. 'I don't know, Jen. We've never had to get out of here — ' And that, in turn, concentrated his mind.

'I'll ring for Mr Malik.'

'You do that, darling.' She had been there before him, so she was back with Reg Buller now. 'You're supposed to be dead, Reg. Why aren't you dead?'

'Why ain't I dead? It's a good question, Lady.' Buller scratched his nose abstractedly. 'Well . . . you could say that I ain't dead because Mr John Tully stood in for me — '

' John — ' Jenny swayed suddenly.

'Or, then again, maybe it was poor old Johnnie they wanted in the first place, an' not me. I don't rightly know, you see, Lady — '

'For God's sake, Reg!' As Ian caught her arm the full impact of what Buller was saying hit him: they were back in a nightmare again.

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'Oh aye.' Buller was unrepentant. 'There's an easier way of breakin' the news, is there? Now that it ain't me?'

'I'm all right.' Jenny's face was white again, but her voice was steady as she shook Ian off. 'What happened, Mr Buller?'

'You don't know . . . anything, then?'

She shook her head. There was just the rumour . . . that it was you, Mr Buller. A man in the crowd outside said so . . .'

'An' you didn't wait around?' This time Buller sounded more understanding. 'Well, I can't say I blame you.' He nodded to Ian. 'I could use another drink, lad — with a chaser this time, if the bar runs to one. An' whisky for choice.'

John Tully was dead: Ian's relief at seeing Buller alive seemed like a dream already. Buller alive was John Tully dead: that was the appalling reality he must accept, now.

And, more importantly, he had to get Buller a drink.

'I didn't wait to ask, neither.' Buller shook his head, after reassuring himself that Ian was moving. 'They've got clever young coppers trained to remember people who ask questions, when there's a crowd outside . . . An' I ain't got any real friends in the Met, now — not that wouldn't shop me, to get promotion.' He shook his head again, as Ian clinked the bottles while trying to watch him while looking for something better than 'gnat's piss'. 'But, as to makin' a mistake . . .' He sniffed derisively. '. . . I took the BMW last night, to drive up north. An' John — 'e 'ad my little Metro, with the 'Disabled Driver' sticker — they don't clamp that so dummy2

quick, in case the newspapers make a scandal out of it. So we always swap when I go out of town.' Buller's expression hardened. 'An' when I was probably somewhere else, an' 'e was up to something . . .'e used to leave 'is credit cards at

'ome, an' carry only cash-money — losin' cash isn't a problem, they just takes it off you, if they've a mind to ... But

'e'd have my calling cards on him, maybe. And those premises are in my name, too ... if it happened there, that is.'

'Here you are, Reg.' Having put the glass and the opened bottle on the corner of the table, Ian just had time to move Mitchell's half-drunk whisky alongside it, for want of anything quicker, if not better, before Reg Buller looked at him. 'You're saying . . . they got the wrong man?'

Buller swept the smaller glass up, and drained it. And then poured the 'gnat's piss' carefully. And then looked at him over it. The wrong man — ? Maybe the wrong man. Or maybe not the wrong man.' He sank half of the piss. They got John Tully, is what it looks like. And, with all his faults . . . which were many . . . Mister John Tully wasn't a bad bloke.

Because ... if he didn't pay twenty shillings in the pound ... at least he paid fifteen of 'em. Which is better than most.' He shifted from Ian to Jenny as he swallowed the rest of the piss. 'So now we owe for him, as well as that one of yours, Lady — '

This time it was a genuine knock at the door, not a ghostly scratching.

'Come in!' Jenny reacted more quickly this time, recognizing dummy2

the knock.

'Madam!' Abdul took them all in almost as quickly, half-smiling first, and then smiling hugely as he saw Reg glass-in-hand. 'Mr Buller — you know Mr Buller — I know Mr Buller: I am not wrong, to admit him?'

'No — yes, Mr Malik.' Jenny brushed at her hair. 'Can we have three of your special take-aways, Mr Malik, please.'

'An' then your special 'get-away' to go with 'em,'

supplemented Buller.

'Please?'

'Back-way. Out-the-back — an' then scarper . . . vamoosh

— ?'

'Ah! Tradesman's entrance? Fire escape? Both in passage —

at the side, Mr Buller — council regulations: orderly damn departure, no panic, one minute.' Then the little man stared at Buller. 'But then you go out the front again.' The stare became a frown. 'Nothing out front, my cousin says. But I send him out again, maybe — '