She started the general catch-up stuff. Have you seen this guy, that woman? All that shit. I didn’t have a clue who she was on about half the time. This was no longer my world. When I’d left Hereford to go and work for the Firm, that was it. I wasn’t coming back for weekend trips. Hereford was done. And after London, there was somewhere else, and somewhere else again. I’d moved out. I might even have moved on. The only thing I’d left behind was my account at the Halifax. I wondered how the recession had hit my ?1.52.
‘Seen anything of BB?’
Her expression clouded. ‘No — fucking arsehole. He stayed at my place the night before the funeral, then didn’t even bother coming to the service. What a wanker.’
I shuffled her towards the bar for another drink. There were still a few things this girl wouldn’t take lying down.
‘What about Tracy? Last time I heard, she was in France. She met somebody?’
There was no hint in her face of a drama. ‘Yeah, she’s OK. Some Russian or other. Lucky bitch. I wanted to go over as well, see if I could get one. She’s in love. They’ve got a little boy. Stevie … something like that. I think he’s about four … five … six, maybe. Don’t really hear much from them.’
She didn’t look too impressed with it all.
‘That’s great news, isn’t it? That she’s happy?’
The barman came over to Jan far earlier than our place in the queue deserved. She didn’t even need to tell him what she wanted. ‘What about you, Nick?’
‘I’ll just have an orange juice.’
Her eyes narrowed. ‘You still looking to live to a hundred?’
‘Nah. I just know a whole lot of other ways of killing myself.’ I moved the smile back into place. ‘You haven’t heard from Tracy, then?’
‘Not since she’s been in the money.’ She leant in a bit closer. ‘You kept on telling her to leave, didn’t you? Well, hasn’t she done well for herself?’
Her nose wrinkled. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
‘You could go, try somewhere else. You said your kids have left home …’
The drinks turned up, and a brighter future was no competition for a long swig of spritzer. ‘You were always good to her, weren’t you, Nick? She used to give me some of the money you sent, just sometimes, when I was a bit hard up.’
‘Oh, right. And I bet she still sends you a few quid, eh?’
I got a nod, but a disapproving one. ‘Yeah, but not that much. And it’s not like she couldn’t spare it. I thought maybe she’d buy me a house, but no. It’d be pennies for her. But what do I get? Nothing. And I’m her
Jan took another slug. She’d made the mistake of thinking that just because people had money it was their duty to piss it away. She was jealous that Tracy had it, and angry that she didn’t hand enough of it over. It wasn’t Tracy’s to give away in the first place, but that didn’t seem to occur to her. All she wanted to do was grab.
‘Listen, Jan. I’ve got to meet someone at the Market Tavern. I’ll try and get back later. But if I don’t make it, what’s your number?’
I pulled out my phone, still smiling so much my face was beginning to hurt. She opened her bag. I didn’t expect to see house keys. She got so pissed she’d lose them, so she used to hide a spare set. But there they were. And I also clocked three mobiles.
‘Jesus, Jan. You a dealer or what?’
She selected one and powered it up. ‘Just a complicated life, Nick. Two men to manage, and you’ve got to keep them apart. I’m a bit old-fashioned like that.’
I gave Jan my number once she had worked out how to access her contacts file. ‘This is my personal phone. I don’t really like keeping anything on it. Not even texts or anything. You never know who might sneak a look while you’re busy making yourself beautiful. That wanker BB would have been straight in there. He’d probably send texts from it to all his mates, to tell them what he was up to. If he had any mates.’ She gave me hers. An O2 number. I tapped it in.
‘Whenever you’re in town, Nick …’ She gave me a hug, phone still gripped in her hand. Then she switched it off. ‘I hate these things.’
We parted with a quick kiss on the cheek. Her soapie mates were now getting chatted up by another group of guys with well-clipped hair and Friday-night shirts. She selected the one with a very tight blue-striped short- sleeved number, and was soon in the swing of things. Banter wasn’t necessarily his strong suit, but he was keen to give her the full benefit of his tribal tats. He flexed his biceps by gripping his Bud bottle like it was the last one on earth.
10
I worked my way out of the bar and turned right along Widemarsh Street towards the Green Dragon.
Ant was the taller of my new pair of comedians, but seemed to think lighting a cigarette in the doorway of Marks & Sparks would make him invisible. He was still in his favourite overcoat. I didn’t bother looking for Dec and his nondescript haircut. He’d be staking out the other side of the bar in case I chucked a left when I came out. The car they’d followed me in to Hereford was a C-class Merc, in case they had to keep up with the 911. But it wasn’t in sight now. They would have seen mine in the car park. They’d assume I wasn’t going anywhere for a moment or two.
They hadn’t been on my flight, and the next one was four hours later. But they’d managed to pick me up outside my apartment after my meeting with Jules and followed me to Hereford. Frank really did take that knowledge-is-power shit seriously. He couldn’t just let me get on with the job.
I left Marks & Sparks behind me and followed the road round to the right, then went left onto Broad Street. I got online as I drove, checking for the default PIN code to access message services on O2 numbers. I found it on Google.
Once back in the hotel, I used the almost redundant payphone and called Jan’s mobile. It was still switched off. If she’d answered it, I would simply have said, ‘Hi,’ and tried again in the middle of the night.
I pressed the star button as soon as it went to voicemail. I was welcomed warmly to the O2 messaging service. I tapped in the 8705 PIN code Google had given me, and was inside in less time than it had taken to defeat the electronic lock at the Ararat Park Hyatt.
An infuriatingly cheerful female pre-record told me that there were three new messages and twenty-four old ones. The voice prompt then invited me to press 2 to listen to them.
The first was three days old: a pissed-off Jock, honking that none of his calls had been returned on either of her phones and that he had found this mobile in her bag — so she could fuck right off, and by the way, he also wanted his iPod speakers back. The next one was the same guy, a day earlier. He’d just got back to H and he’d love to meet up and, yes, he knew about this number but he had missed her.
I cancelled them. I didn’t want her to know they’d been accessed. This was the method a few journos had been using to hack into mobiles belonging to celebrities, royals and politicians over the last couple of years. And if you couldn’t be bothered to change your PIN, what grounds did you have to complain?
The next message was four days old. ‘Hello, Janet. Greetings. My name is Nadif. You must call me.’ The voice was deep, slow and resonant. ‘This is very important. Your sister, her child and her friend … they are in great danger. I can help you. Please, you must call me.’
I reached for the stub of hotel pencil on the bedside cabinet, scribbled the mobile number on the pad, and cancelled this message too.
Then I called Nadif.
11
