The giant grinned again. ‘Fam, I am Goliath. Surely my size gave you an inkling?’
Livingstone studied him dispassionately. For all he knew, the moniker had nothing to do with physical size. ‘Can you prove it?’ Livingstone asked. ‘I apologise if the question seems rude, bruv,’ he added hastily, ‘but a person in my position has to be extremely careful.’
Far from being offended, Goliath – if that was indeed who he really was – seemed to approve of the other man’s caution.
‘You’re quite right to ask me,’ he said, nodding vigorously, ‘I would do exactly the same in your position. So, let me clear that up. You were pointed in my direction by a broker called Clive Middleton. He told you to come to the VIP entrance this evening and ask for Goliath. You were told my fees, which you said were exorbitant. He assured you that I was worth every penny, which I am by the way. You wanted to pay half up front, and the rest on completion. He said that I would expect the full amount to be paid up front, and that this was non-negotiable. Is that right?’
Livingstone gave a satisfied nod. That was pretty much how the conversation had gone down.
‘I’m very much looking forward to being of service to you,’ Goliath said. ‘However, I am half-way through dealing with a little situation that has arisen, so would you mind if we talk while I work?’
Without waiting for a reply, he stood up.
Livingstone hesitated for a moment, but then he followed suit. After all, what real choice did he have? As he watched, the giant went behind the bar and felt for a hidden switch on the side of the cabinet. Something clicked and, placing his enormous hands on one side, he gave it a firm pull. Rotating smoothly outward, the bar opened on concealed hinges like a conventional door. ‘Follow me,’ Goliath said, and stepped inside the gap that had appeared.
Livingstone cautiously crossed the room to join his host, and discovered a dimly lit stairway that descended down to who knew where.
‘I must apologise for those two idiots at the VIP entrance, Fam,’ Goliath said, his words echoing all around them in the confined space. ‘I assure you they were told to expect you, and the way that they behaved was not professional. I will speak to them about that, you can be assured.’
Livingstone ignored the apology. ‘Where are we going, bruv?’ he demanded, wondering if he was being dicked around. ‘I’ve come a long way to see you, and I’m very anxious to discuss my situation, know what I’m saying? How long is this work you’ve got to do likely to take?’
‘Don’t worry, Fam,’ Goliath soothed. ‘This won’t take long at all, and then you can have my undivided attention.’
When they reached the bottom of the stairs, Goliath pulled open a thickly padded door. He stepped into a three-foot recess and paused. ‘The room we are about to enter is completely soundproofed,’ he announced proudly. ‘You could be standing on one side of the door while I stood on the other firing a machine gun. You would not hear it.’ Motioning with his head for Livingstone to follow, Goliath pushed open an identically padded door and stepped into what appeared to be a brightly lit storage area.
As Livingston followed him in, he immediately recognised the large open space as the basement area he had seen earlier on CCTV. Only it was no longer empty. The entire floor had been covered with thick plastic sheeting. Two men, both black, both in their late twenties, had been beaten, bound to chairs that were bolted to the floor in the middle of the room, and gagged. The men were clad only in their boxers, and their faces were bloodied and swollen.
The one nearest him was a runt of a man who seemed to be all skin and bone. He sported a big afro haircut like the ones that had been popular in the seventies, and from the smell of it, he had soiled himself. Thankfully, his incessant blubbering was being largely muffled by a filthy gag that had been forced deep into his mouth.
The head of the male furthest away, a short and rather plump individual with a receding hairline, was slumped forward onto his chest, which was covered in blood from where his nose and mouth had recently bled profusely. His chest rose and fell slowly, telling Livingstone that he wasn’t dead, just unconscious.
This was madness. ‘What the fuck are you involving me in, bruv?’ Livingstone demanded angrily.
‘Don’t worry, Fam,’ Goliath assured him, ‘nothing that happens here will come back to bite you. Of that you have my word,’
Livingstone had learned the hard way that you never took anyone’s word for anything. For a moment, he considered turning around and walking away, leaving the club while there was still time to distance himself from whatever was about to go down. But if he did that, his plan would be over and he would have come all this way for nothing.
I hope you’re as good as your reputation suggests, he thought, studying Goliath uneasily.
‘Someone is going to die in this room tonight, Fam,’ Goliath casually announced. ‘They will die brutally, and by my hand, but no one will ever be able to prove that I did it, or that the killing took place in this room.’
Livingstone recalled that a live feed from this room was being recorded on the equipment up in the manager’s office. His eyes urgently sought out the camera. When he found it, mounted high on the wall behind the two men, he breathed a sigh of relief.
Clever, he thought. Very clever,
A ten-by-eight-inch photograph had been expertly positioned in front of the camera’s lens. Livingstone immediately realised that he had been looking at this photograph on the manager’s monitor, and not at the actual basement itself. It had
