Irritated with myself for not taking a risk earlier, I stifled a yawn and tossed down my cards. ‘I fold,’ I announced, with more drama than was probably necessary. ‘I shall leave the two of you…’ I paused ‘…adults to continue without me.’
Valerie crowed in mock triumph but I didn’t miss the flash of disappointment in her eyes. All the same, I stood up and exited the room, leaving the pair of them to play on.
I’d barely reached the end of the corridor when Valerie’s cry of fake glee changed to one of obvious despair. I smiled slightly to myself. I could have ended the evening in almost complete penury; that it had been a near miss could be counted as a success.
I blew my hair out of my eyes, shoved my hands into my pockets and strolled out into the chill night. I’d barely gone ten yards when a darkened figure appeared from one of the shadowed alcoves built into the wall on my left. For the briefest instant my mind froze with sudden fear, despite the odd self-defence class I’d taken and the tiny pepper-spray canister I had attached to my keychain. Then he spoke and I realised I was in even worse trouble than a would-be mugger could present.
‘Charley. Charley, Charley, Charley,’ he tutted.
I sighed. ‘You can say my name as many times as you like, Max,’ I told him. ‘I’m on my way home and I’m not stopping for small talk.’
He stepped forward, the orange glow from the street lamp illuminating his face. Max was a handsome bastard – and he knew it. Dirty blond hair tied up in an artless man bun gave the impression that he’d spent no more than a few seconds on it when in reality it was more like hours, a trim beard and a golden tan. He looked pretty and gormless. Unfortunately, he was anything but.
Mock amusement flitted across his face and he pushed his hands into pockets as if to suggest this was a casual meeting and he hadn’t been waiting out here for me. ‘It’s not small talk I’m after, Charley. You know that.’
I matched his relaxed stance, doing everything I could to ignore the thrumming of my heart against my ribcage. ‘All I know,’ I said, ‘is that it’s late and I have to be at work in a couple of hours. The police are quite careful about time keeping. If I’m late, they’ll notice.’
He moved closer, his breath clouding in the air and the stink of tobacco coming with it. Everything Maximillian Stone did was calculated, including using both his height and weight to loom over me. I’d like to have pretended it didn’t bother me and that I wasn’t in the slightest bit intimidated but we both knew that wasn’t true.
‘You drop the pigs into conversation like you’re the fucking Met Commissioner instead of being their skivvy,’ he said.
I tossed back my hair and sniffed. ‘If you’re trying to make me embarrassed about the fact that I’m a cleaner, you’re going to have a work a bit bloody harder than that. I like my job. I’m proud of it.’ I curved my lips into a tight grin. ‘And skivvy or not, I know everyone on that force by first-name terms.’ I held up my hand and crooked my little finger then pushed myself up onto my tiptoes and lowered my voice to a whisper. ‘That’s all it takes to get them running to my side, Max. They like me, you see. A concept I imagine you’re unfamiliar with.’
‘I like you.’ It was quite impressive how slimy he managed to make those three little words sound.
‘Yeah,’ I said, hoping that I could goad him into leaving me alone. ‘But I don’t think there’s anyone who would say the same about you.’
My ploy worked – up to a point. Max pulled away from me, folding his arms tightly across his chest. He didn’t leave, however. ‘You’re the one who hangs around illegal gambling dens, Charley. I wonder how your buddies in blue would feel about that?’
I seriously doubted any of them would care much unless I rubbed it in their faces. All the same, it wasn’t a theory I particularly wanted to test. I reached into my pocket for the only thing I knew that could get Max off my back. When I thrust the wad of crumpled notes towards him, though, his lip curled disdainfully.
‘That’s not enough.’
‘That’s all I’ve got.’ I wasn’t even lying.
He regarded me silently for a moment. ‘This is what happens when you stick your neck out for others,’ he said eventually. ‘You shouldn’t have meddled in the first place. Now you’re in deep shit and, unless you find a way to pay me off, it’s only going to get deeper.’ He peered at me owlishly. ‘We can still come to a different arrangement. It doesn’t have to be … financial.’
I lifted my chin. I wasn’t cowed. Not completely. ‘By my reckoning, I still have ten days left. You’ll get what’s owed to you.’
Max let out a low laugh. ‘Oh, of that I have no doubt.’
I stepped to the side to move past him. He thrust out an arm, barring me from leaving. ‘If you think I’ll treat you differently because you’re a girl, you’re being naïve. You agreed to take on Christopher Rider’s debt. Non-payment means you’ll be treated with the same … regard that he would have been.’ He dipped his head towards me so I could smell his stale breath. ‘There’s no room for heroes in this world.’
A sour taste of bile rose up in the back of my throat. I
