'Sort of. For a while. Then she married again.' Louise shuddered at the memory of her stepfather.
'That's why I left home.'
'Your stepfather didn't like you?'
'Oh, he liked me all right. He liked me too much. Couldn't keep his bloody hands off me.'
Robbie looked away, embarrassed.
Louise reached over and put a hand on his leg.
'I'm sorry, Robbie. Bad memories.' She forced a smile.
'Do you want to play cards? Until you feel sleepy?'
'Okay. What do you want to play?'
'Guest's choice.'
'Blackjack.'
Louise frowned.
'You're sure?'
'Yeah,' said Robbie eagerly.
'Can we play for money?'
Louise looked at him through narrowed eyes.
'Am I being hustled here?'
'Do you want a beer?' asked Bunny, opening the door to a small fridge.
'Yeah, cheers,' said Donovan.
The two men were in a room five minutes walk away from the shooting, above a minicab office. They'd hurried through the office with Bunny nodding a greeting to two big jamaicans who'd been sitting on a plastic sofa and a West Indian in a Rasta hat who was talking nineteen-to-the-dozen into a microphone. Bunny had taken Donovan up a flight of stairs and through a door on which had been tacked a sign saying 'Management Only.'
Bunny tossed Donovan a can of lager and sat down behind a cheap teak veneer desk.
'We'll hang out here for a while, till things quieten down. Just in case someone gives your description to Five-O.'
'I thought we all looked the same.'
Bunny flashed Donovan a tight smile and popped the tab on his can of beer.
Donovan looked around the room. There was worn lino on the floor and a bare minimum of furniture. The desk, two chairs, and a filing cabinet. Sheets of hardboard had been nailed over the window and the only light came from a single naked bulb in the centre of the ceiling.
'Nice place you've got here,' he said.
'It serves its purpose.'
'The taxi firm is yours?'
'None of it's mine, PM's the top man.'
'Yeah, right,' said Donovan. He took a long gulp of beer.
'You use the taxi business to clean your cash?'
'Some. But it makes money, too. Try getting a black cab in London anytime after nine. Especially if you want to come out this way. We can pretty much charge what we want. We even pay tax.'
Bunny leaned back in his chair and unbuttoned his shirt. He examined his Kevlar vest.
'You were lucky,' said Donovan.
'The way they were spraying bullets, you could have got hit in the head.'
'Firing from a car, they'd be lucky to hit anything. They've been watching too many movies.'
Donovan took another drink from his can.
'How long have you been with PM?' he asked.
'Three years, thereabouts.'
'Not thought about setting up on your own? Or joining a bigger operation?'
'Why? You recruiting?'
'You've got your head screwed on, seems you'd make more working for yourself than helping PM up the slippery pole.'
Bunny shrugged.
'I do okay.'
'You're holding his hand,' said Donovan.
'Don't let him hear you say that, he's young but he's hard.'
Donovan raised his can in salute.
'No offence, Bunny,' he said.
'I was just making an observation.'
'I'm happy with the way things are, Den. But if you were to make me an offer .. .' Bunny left the sentence hanging.
'You'd be an asset, that's for sure. I've not met many who throw themselves in front of a bullet for me.'
'That's not the way it went down, and you know it,' laughed Bunny.
'I practically fell on top of you.'
'Whatever,' said Donovan.
'The simple fact is that if it wasn't for you and that vest, I'd be lying on the street in a pool of blood. Seriously, Bunny, if I was going to be in this for the long haul I'd make you an offer, but after this Turkish deal, I'm out of the game.'
'For good?'
Donovan grinned.
'For as long as the money holds out. And that'll be for a long, long time. I've got a boy needs looking after. Robbie. Nine years old.'
'Your son?'
Donovan nodded.
'His mum's done a runner so I'm going to be a single parent. For a while at least. You got kids, Bunny?'
Bunny shook his head.
'Married?'
Another shake of the head. Donovan kicked himself mentally. Underwood had said that Bunny was gay. He'd clean forgotten but Bunny was a big man, well-muscled and hard-faced, and there wasn't the slightest thing about him that was in the least bit effeminate.
'Yeah, well considering how unlucky I've been in the marital stakes, you're probably well out of it,' said Donovan, He sipped his beer.
'What about the drugs game, Bunny? You see a future in it for you?'
'Long term, the only future's prison, right? You've got to quit while you're ahead. Make your stash, get it in legit businesses, then leave the dirty stuff behind. It's always been that way. Half the land in this country is owned by the descendants of robber barons of the Middle Ages. In a hundred years time, drugs money will have become old money and no one will remember where it came from. Take your son. Nine, you said? You'll put him in a good school, a top university, then you'll have enough money to set him up in whatever he wants to do. His children will be another step removed, and eventually it'll all be clean and no one will care.'
'So long as we don't get caught.'
Bunny grinned and raised his can of beer.
'Here's to not getting caught!'
Donovan grinned. He leaned over and clinked his can against Bunny's.
Donovan stayed in the office with Bunny for the best part of an hour, then Bunny arranged for a minicab to run Donovan home. Donovan decided to go to his house in Kensington rather than disturbing Louise. He had the cab drop him half a mile from the house and he went in through the communal gardens and the back door.
He showered and had a whisky, and then put his mobiles on charge on the bedside table before diving under the quilt. He was asleep within minutes.
When Donovan woke up it was light and a pop song was playing. He rolled over and groped for whichever mobile was ringing, cursing his son. He'd told Robbie several times not to mess with the phones. They were too important to be played with.
