Berrin finished writing in his notebook and looked up. ‘Neil Vamen’s married, isn’t he?’
McBride shrugged. ‘Yeah, he is, and his missus is a looker too, but you know what blokes are like. Especially ones with money. Everyone knows he plays away from home.’
Berrin looked across at me, waiting to see what came next. It was difficult to know what more we could ask McBride, or whether what he’d told us was enough to get him off the hook.
‘One more question,’ I said. ‘Who did you buy these drugs from?’
McBride sighed, looked pained for all of about one second that he was about to betray someone, then gave us the name of a fairly well-known local dealer. I knew immediately he was lying. The drugs had almost certainly come from somewhere within Stefan Holtz’s organization. It was rumoured that Holtz himself strongly disapproved of drugs and, unlike many underworld figures, had never touched them himself. However, his people were responsible for importing one hell of a lot of the cocaine that passed through London every year, so his personal stand clearly didn’t prevent him helping to ruin the lives of plenty of other people.
I leant over, picked up the plate of dope and the individual wraps, and stood up. ‘If you hear anything, anything at all about the murder of Shaun Matthews, I want to hear about it.’ I handed my card to McBride who accepted it with a relieved expression on his face.
‘Course I will,’ he said. ‘Thanks.’
‘Where’s the toilet in here?’ I asked, walking out of the room, with Berrin following.
‘It’s just on the left. What are you going to do with the gear? I’ll give it back, but the thing is I haven’t paid for it yet.’
I went up to the dirty-looking bowl and emptied the plate into the water, before chucking down the wraps. I gave it a healthy flush and watched as most of it disappeared.
‘Don’t take the piss, Mr McBride,’ I told the distraught-looking doorman as we left his flat. ‘We’ve done you a major favour here.’
When we were back in the car, Berrin gave me a worried look. ‘Was that such a good idea, Sarge? You know, letting him off like that. We could have got a lovely little collar there.’
‘And it would have just bogged us down in paperwork, and wouldn’t have done anything to hinder the Holtz supply chain. Sometimes you’ve got to let the small fish go so you can get hold of the big ones. But do me a favour and don’t say anything to anyone about it.’
‘Course not. Do you think it was worth letting him go like that, though? Did we get enough out of him?’
‘We’ve got other people with motive now, so it’s putting us further forward.’
‘All we’ve got to do is find them.’
‘That, my friend, is what it’s all about.’
Iversson
It was three o’clock in the afternoon when I buzzed Joe up and led him through to the lounge. It was a stinking hot day and all the windows were open. Outside, the traffic rumbled endlessly past.
‘Nice place for a hideout,’ he said, dropping on the floor a bag containing belongings he’d picked up from my flat. He sat down in one of the leather chairs, and put the four-pack of beers he’d also brought down on the glass coffee table. I went and got a couple of glasses and emptied the contents of two of the cans into them. ‘So, where’s the girl?’
‘She’s gone out,’ I said, sitting down opposite him. ‘She’ll be back later.’
‘And how long’s she going to let you stay here for? I mean, she doesn’t even know you, does she?’
‘I told you, I went to school with her.’
‘But, Max, you’re not eighteen. That was a long time ago now. You haven’t seen her in, what? Twenty years.’
I took a drink from my beer. ‘Not that long.’
‘But long enough. You’ve got to be careful. Time changes people. She might just run to the law.’
‘She won’t.’
‘Well, either way she’s going to want you out of here pretty soon, isn’t she?’
I nodded, not liking to think about that. After the sexual athletics of the previous night, I was in no hurry to go anywhere. ‘I suppose so.’
‘So we’ve got to discuss what you’re going to do. The police came round to see me this morning, asking about you. Questions like, what were you doing driving a car riddled with bullets? And why were you so keen to make a break for it when you were stopped for questioning, smacking two coppers in the process? That sort of thing.’
‘What did you tell them?’
‘What do you think? I didn’t tell them anything, just said I’d always thought you were pretty straight, and that I didn’t think you were involved in anything untoward.’
‘Do you reckon they believed you?’
He shrugged. ‘Difficult to tell. I think so, but you never know. It helps that you’ve never been in trouble before. But they’re definitely looking for you, Max, and that’s not good.’
‘You don’t think they followed you here, do you?’
He shook his head. ‘No, I was careful. Anyway, at the moment you’re probably not a big enough fish to waste that many resources on. I mean, there’s still no proof you’ve actually done anything other than deck a couple of coppers.’
‘Fowler bled over the back seat when he died. Not much, and I gave it a fair old scrub afterwards, but one of the coppers spotted the stain when they stopped me. I don’t know if they can trace it back to Fowler or not. What do you think?’
He pondered that one for a few moments. ‘I doubt it. If they don’t know who Fowler is and they haven’t got a blood sample of his, then I would have thought you’re in the clear.’
I took another drink from my beer. It was going down well. ‘What a fuck-up,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘So did you get anything on that bastard Tony? Anything that might explain what
