‘Did you do that often?’
‘What?’
‘Not remember or listen.’
‘Both. Sal could talk, and sometimes I just switched off. Not that she realised. I liked her, but you know that already. But she could talk rubbish sometimes, especially about celebrities and their perfect lives.’
‘They have their problems the same as everyone else.’
‘They don’t have to live around here.’
Wendy realised that Ralphie wanted better, but as he sat eating it was clear that his time to change was limited. He was generationally unemployed and uneducated, his parents leading by example. The only hope for him was to leave the area, find himself a good family, re-engage with his education. She had already passed his details on to the local church and welfare services, but she knew they were inundated with worthier persons. And besides, she had three grandchildren, the eldest approaching school age, and she wanted to spend time with them, not to be a nursemaid to someone else’s child, knowing full well that at the end of the day he would return to the negative influence of his family and friends. And even if Ralphie married, it would be the repeating cycle in that he would become the uncaring parent, possibly someone who would take a belt to the child.
‘Do you want another Big Mac?’ Wendy asked.
‘My friends reckon I’m foolish talking to you.’
‘Do you?’
‘Not if you feed me and give me some money.’
Wendy left the table and went and ordered another Big Mac, bringing it back after a few minutes. ‘Now, what have you got to tell me?’
‘And the money?’
‘Tell me what you know first.’
‘Sal, it was the week she died. She was in a good mood, talking about this man and how he was going to take her away from here, put her on a pedestal.’
‘Do you know what a pedestal is?’
‘Not really, but Sal thought it was special.’
‘It is, but who was this man, and why?’
‘That’s it. The one I saw was tall and slim, but that’s not how she described him to me.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She said he was the same height as her. And she didn’t say he was slim.’
‘But she was sleeping with Becali, the man you saw.’
‘I’m certain of that, but I told you before that Sal made extra money.’
‘You told me that Sal was keen on Becali?’
‘I did, but I also told you about the face he pulled when he let her off that one time.’
‘Can you be certain that it was Becali she was keen on?’
‘Maybe I didn’t hear right, and sometimes I’d tell her to slow down, but if she’d seen a celebrity, she’d not stop going on and on. I belong around here, so did she. It’s okay to dream, but that’s all it is.’
Wendy knew that she could have told him that life was what you made of it, but she did not, she had more pressing issues to deal with. If Sal Maynard did have another man, then who was he and where was he?
Yet again, the young woman had been thrust front and centre into the investigation. Not that she was guilty of any crime, but whatever she was, she was dead because of it.
Ralphie, his meal eaten, cycled away, fifty pounds in his back pocket. She had no intention of contacting him again unless it was vital. She sat at McDonald's for another ten minutes going through what he had said, wondering about the truth of it, and how to find Sal Maynard’s mysterious admirer. She realised that it was not going to be easy.
***
Nicolae Cojocaru did not regard the presence of the two police officers as anything more than an inconvenience. In the past, back in Romania, if an officer of the law had not succumbed to gentle persuasion, either financial or with a gift, a car, a woman, then that officer had been sidelined or removed from circulation permanently. In the old country, when he had been a man of note, the bribes had been extortionate, and there was always a senior officer who would deal with a recalcitrant lower rank. In some ways, the gangster missed the old days where everyone and everything had a price or a solution. His recent trip to Romania had shown him that he was no longer a significant player and that a young class of villains had taken over. Even if he had wanted to go back, he couldn’t, not without committing himself to violence and a large capital outlay to secure allegiances, to re-establish himself.
And now, back in England, two men who were incorruptible, two men he could not remove.
‘Stanislav Ivanov is still in a medically-induced coma,’ Isaac said.
‘What has that to do with me?’
‘You visited him in the south of France,’ Oscar Braxton said.
‘Did I?’
‘Are we going to go around in circles on this?’ Isaac said. The three men were meeting in a restaurant in Notting Hill, at Cojocaru’s suggestion.
‘I’m not sure what you mean,’ Cojocaru said. He leant back in his chair, stifling a yawn.
‘Are we keeping you up?’
‘Busy night.’
‘Celebrating that Ivanov is in the hospital?’
‘How many times do I have to tell you that the man does not interest me?’
‘We know the truth, even if you continue to deny it. We know that you were picked up in a car belonging to Ivanov at Marseilles Airport and that you entered the man’s villa. Antonescu never left there. We believe he is dead.’
‘You’re living in a fantasy world,’ Cojocaru said. He looked away and beckoned the waiter.
‘A whisky for me,’ he said. ‘How about you two, or are you on duty?’
‘I’ll take a
