Dillon shook his head vigorously. “No. She’s a …”
Tyler interrupted him, his tone cynical. “I can guess: A disfigured mutant with three eyes, grown in a test tube by a mad scientist doing experiments with radioactive plasma. I bet she glows in the dark!” He grimaced at the thought.
“No, no, no! Will you trust me? I wouldn’t do that to you,” Dillon protested.
“Oh, come on, Dill!” Jack exclaimed loudly. “Of course you would.”
The bartender shot them a look of disapproval.
“Look behind you,” Dillon whispered without moving his lips. He glanced over Jack’s shoulder, pointing with his eyes. Following Dillon’s gaze, Tyler glanced behind to see two girls, a blond and a brunette, approaching. He felt his jaw drop. If the theme from Charlie’s Angels had suddenly started belting out of the bar’s speakers, he would not have been surprised.
Dillon quickly moved forward to greet them. Smiling warmly, he ushered them onto seats at a nearby table with a flamboyant wave of his hand. “I’m so glad you could make it. Let me introduce you to my close friend and colleague, Jack Tyler. Jack, this is Karen and her friend, Fiona.”
Jack was speechless as he shook their hands. To his amazement, both girls were tall, shapely and very easy on the eye! Nonetheless, he remained wary. There had to be a catch somewhere along the line if Dillon was involved. Fiona flashed him a dazzling smile, revealing perfectly aligned teeth. “It’s nice to meet you, Jack,” she said, with just a hint of shyness.
He surreptitiously ran his eyes over her as they sat down, guessing that she was in her late twenties or early thirties. The easy way that she moved, and her deportment in general, made him wonder if she might be a dancer of some sort. “My pleasure entirely,” he responded. “Have you been coming here long?” Not a very original opening line, he realised, but he always felt awkward making small talk and it was literally all he could think of to say.
“A while, but I haven’t seen you here before.”
“There’d be no reason for you to remember me even if you had,” Jack said, wishing he had been able to come up with something wittier instead.
“Oh, I’m fairly sure I’d have remembered you,” she purred, green eyes glinting mischievously.
Jack swallowed, and felt his knees go weak. “I’d certainly have remembered you, too,” he stammered, giving her a goofy smile. He signalled to Dillon. “I believe it’s your round, Tony.” Perhaps coming to the gym hadn’t been such a bad idea after all he decided, returning his attention to Fiona.
◆◆◆
Winston angrily pressed the off button on the remote and watched the TV screen flicker into blackness. He had propped himself up in his hospital bed to watch the late-night news, but the main story was the ‘dramatic car chase and shootout in Central London’, which had led to his earlier arrest. He was sick of hearing the actions of the police described as ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’. The bastards had beaten the crap out of him.
His whole face was badly swollen and he could hardly see out of the left eye. The right eye was better, but not by much. His nose had been reset before he’d regained consciousness, and they had wired his broken jaw up tightly, making speech difficult. His cheekbone was badly bruised, but at least it wasn’t broken, as they had first feared. On top of everything else, he had a concussion, and his motor reflexes were all over the place.
“Bullshit!” he shouted at the television set, and immediately winced at the pain the outburst caused him.
“Shut it, scumbag,” the armed guard sitting in the corner warned. The officer had made his feelings for Winston clear from the start.
“Fuck you, too!” Winston muttered, turning over to face the window. At least he had been given a private room so he didn’t have to suffer the noise and commotion of a general ward.
His solicitor had visited him earlier. The news he’d brought had been grim. He had actually laughed when Winston enquired about the likelihood of bail. It transpired that the entire incident on the platform, where Claude ruthlessly gunned down the young transport officer, had been caught on video. The uncut drugs had been discovered at his flat, along with a few other illicit items he had forgotten about. As if that wasn’t bad enough, the bastards were trying to fit him up with the murder of Tracey Phillips.
And they called him dishonest!
He had told his brief that he hadn’t even known she was dead, that he had been looking for her when they pounced on him. To his amazement, his lawyer hadn’t even bothered to pretend that he believed him! Since when had solicitors started caring whether their clients were guilty or not? The soulless parasites were quick enough to take his money from him. He paid them for results, not excuses. He had told the skinny, turkey necked, four-eyed bookworm what he wanted in no uncertain terms. His demands got him precisely nowhere. Winston had finally kicked the man out in a fit of temper.
The doctors said that he wouldn’t be fit enough to be discharged for a good few days, so at least he had some time to come up with a plan of escape. There was no way that he was going to go to prison. No way!
◆◆◆
After Dillon excused himself and Karen, Jack Tyler had remained in the bar with Fiona until closing time. She turned out to be great company and, as he walked her to her car, he surprised himself by asking her to have dinner with him later in the week.
“I’d love to,” she replied.
“That’s great.” He smiled, although he was already half regretting the impulse. This was a dreadfully inconvenient time to start seeing someone, not that there was ever a good time for him. They might have cracked the Phillips’ case but there was still a hell of
