‘You offer him a cup of coffee because you’re having one yourself. You phone through to me in reception, and I go and make it. Now, where’s your coffeemaking equipment?’
‘That door behind you goes into a kitchen. All the stuff you need’s in there.’
‘Fine. I’ll bring it down, and we’ll take it from there.’
I couldn’t help thinking what a mistake I was making getting involved in such a hastily planned murder. Some time soon my luck was inevitably going to run out.
Raymond appeared to read my thoughts. ‘All this’ll be over soon, Dennis. Then we can get back to making money, pure and simple.’
I nodded, taking a drag on the cigarette. ‘I’m thinking … after this I might do what my driver’s doing – you know, take a long holiday somewhere. Maybe even permanent.’
‘The crime figures’ll go up without you, Dennis.’
I managed a humourless smile. ‘Somehow, I don’t think so.’
The sound of wheels on gravel outside stirred me from my thoughts.
‘He’s here,’ Raymond said, looking out of one of the lattice windows. ‘I’ll get down to my office.’
I straightened my tie, feeling almost like a new guy on his first day in the office, and put out the cigarette.
A few seconds later the buzzer went and I leaned down to the intercom speaker and asked, in as grave a voice as I could muster, who was there. I’m not a bad mimic, and it came out pretty well.
A flustered voice asked for Raymond. ‘We are closed at the moment, sir,’ I told him.
‘He’s expecting me. My name’s Barry Finn.’
I told him to hang on while I checked with Mr Keen, sat there for a few seconds, then came back on the line. ‘Please come in.’ I pushed the small red button on the intercom, which I assumed released the lock and was pleased to find out that it did. That could have fucked things up, if I couldn’t even open the door.
Barry Finn was slightly older than I’d expected, about thirty, no more than five feet seven tall with a mop of dirty blond hair. He had the pinched, wary features of a small-time villain and his eyes were darting about in overdrive. Just like Len Runnion’s always did. This was a man carrying a lot of weight on flimsy shoulders. Immediately I knew Raymond was right to want him out of the way, although it didn’t say much about his judgement that he’d used him in the first place. Still, maybe you could have said the same about mine.
I gave him a stern, headmasterly look and pointed him in the direction of Mr Keen’s office. He didn’t say a word and took off down the hall. It felt strange knowing that he only had a few more minutes of life left in him, and a bit sad to think it was going to be spent worrying about something he could do nothing about.
Now it was time to wait. Raymond, however, was not hanging about. Within two minutes he phoned through, gruffly telling me to get him a coffee, not bothering to say please. I was glad then that I wasn’t a full-time employee of his. He had the sort of brash attitude with his staff that gives capitalism a bad name.
I checked the gun for the second time since sitting down and took the safety off before replacing it in the waistband of my jeans. Then I went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. While I was waiting for it to boil, I gave the place the once-over. I’ve never been in an undertakers’ kitchen before, and wasn’t sure what to expect. Maybe a few jokey pictures of the employees posing with the corpses, or some coffin-shaped fridge magnets. But there was none of that. Everything looked depressingly normal. Clean and tidy as well. Scattered about the walls were postcards from various far-flung destinations. One was even from Dhaka in Bangladesh, which struck me as an odd destination to spend your holidays. The photograph was of a toothless, bare-footed rickshaw driver smiling at the camera. I took it off the wall and saw that it was from Raymond. He said that the weather was too hot and he was looking forward to getting back. If the photo on the front was the best the Bangladeshi tourist industry could do, I couldn’t blame him.
The kettle boiled and I poured Raymond’s coffee, substituting the two sugars he’d ordered for salt, just so he’d know I wasn’t his skivvy. I found a battered Princess Diana memorial tea tray, put the cup on that, and headed off down the hall.
To keep up the ruse, I knocked on the door and waited until I was called in, which took all of about a second.
Raymond beamed at me as I stepped inside and Barry looked round quickly, just to check that everything was all right. ‘Ah, thank you, Dennis. Just what the doctor ordered. Are you sure you don’t want one, Barry?’
Barry shook his head, but didn’t say anything.
I walked over and Raymond took the cup from the tray, managing a brief thanks. He turned back to Barry. ‘So don’t worry about it,’ he told him. ‘It’s not going to be a problem.’
Still holding the Princess Diana commemorative tea tray, I reached down and pulled the gun from my waistband.
Barry must have sensed I was still in the room. As Raymond continued to gabble, he turned round at the exact moment I raised the gun. The wrong end of the barrel was only three feet from his head.
His eyes widened and his mouth opened. Before he could say anything, I pulled the trigger, wanting to get this over with as soon as possible.
But nothing happened. The trigger didn’t move. I squeezed harder. Still nothing. The fucking thing was jammed.
‘Don’t kill me! For fuck’s sake, don’t kill me!’
The words were a frightened howl, and it struck me then that it was the first time anyone had ever had
