‘Mr Nott?’ said a voice at my back.
I froze, staring down at the ice. A pale flash of blue, somewhere out there. I turned.
‘John Merrial.’ The man put his hand out. I shook it.
His face was slim, almost delicate, close up. He looked slightly sad and infinitely wise. His eyebrows were thin and very black, lips thin and very pale. Eyes bright blue. Contained by the coat, the scarf and the fur hat, his face looked unreal somehow, like something two-dimensional seen upon a screen.
‘Hello,’ I said. My voice sounded very small.
‘That was my wife there; in blue,’ he said. His voice was quiet. Almost accentless. I saw a massive blond head over the crowds behind him.
‘Very good,’ I said, gulping the words. ‘Isn’t she?’
‘Thank you, yes, she is.’ He narrowed his eyes. ‘I think we were both at a party Jamie Werthamley threw, weren’t we? Back in the spring. Limehouse Tower. We were never introduced, but I think I saw you, now you’ve been pointed out to me.’
‘I believe we were,’ I said. I’m fucking your wife, I’m fucking your wife, I’m fucking your wife, I kept thinking, some suicidally insane bit of my brain wanting to blurt it out, to just say it, to get this over with, to make the worst that could happen actually happen and not have to keep imagining it.
‘How is Jamie?’ He smiled.
‘Fine. Last time I saw him.’ Which was at that same party, come to think of it; the party where I met your wife and snogged her and felt her up and agreed to this patently suicidal affair in the first place.
‘Good. Pass on my regards, will you?’
Oh, you mean you’re not going to kill me right now? ‘Ah, happily. Certainly. Yes.’
He looked past me, out to the ice. ‘My wife listens to you on the radio,’ he said.
Yes. And that hand you just shook has been inside her sweet cunt. See this tongue, these lips? Think of her ears, her nipples, her clitoris. ‘Really? I’m, I’m very flattered.’
He gave a thin smile. ‘She doesn’t want me to ask you this, but I know she’d be very happy if you played a request for her sometime.’
‘Well, we don’t really do requests,’ I heard some fuckwit part of my brain say.
What?
‘Oh,’ he said, looking down for a moment.
Was I fucking crazy?
His coat looked thick and very dark and glossy.
Did I really want to die that fucking much?
He wore narrow, black, highly polished brogues and very fine black leather gloves, though he’d taken off the right one to shake my hand.
‘But,’ I said, clapping my hands together and smiling. ‘For… for…’ For somebody I’m shagging the fucking arse off for hours on end whenever I get the opportunity. ‘For a friend of Sir Jamie’s, and… and for such a beautiful, ah, ice-skater… I think we can make an exception.’ I nodded. Merrial was smiling now. ‘In fact I’m certain we can,’ I told him. Because you see I have absolutely no principles whatsoever, when it comes right down to it, and I’ll do anything – anything at all – to save my miserable, lying, hypocritical hide.
‘That’s very kind, Mr Nott,’ he said evenly. ‘I appreciate it.’
‘Oh, ah, not at all.’ I love doing favours for people I hate.
He twisted from the waist about two degrees as he said, ‘Here’s my card.’ And the big blond guy with the metre-wide shoulders was suddenly there at Merrial’s side and presenting me with a plain white business card, which I took quickly so they wouldn’t see my trembling fingers. ‘Call me if I can ever do you a favour.’
‘Ah, right.’ Well, you could die conveniently. How about that? I put the card in a pocket. ‘Thank you.’
Mr Merrial nodded slowly. ‘Well, we have to go now. Good to meet you.’
‘And you.’ You fucking nasty murdering gangster bastard.
Mr Merrial turned to go, then stopped. ‘Oh,’ he said. He smiled his blade-thin smile again. Fucking hell, you crime lord cunt, I was just about getting my jangling nerves back into some sort of order and now you’re giving me a fucking Colombo moment? ‘I should tell you her name, shouldn’t I?’ Of course you shouldn’t, you dickhead, there’s no fucking need; it’s Celia. Ceel. Babe babe babe sometimes when I’m coming deep inside her.
‘Oh! Well, yes, it might help.’
‘It’s Celia Jane.’
‘Celia Jane?’ I blurted. Well done, Kenneth, put plenty of emphasis in there. Clearly you do still want to die.
He nodded. ‘Celia Jane.’ He reached out and patted my elbow once before turning away.
They moved off through the crowd, the blond dude leaving a spacious wake. Celia – sorry; Celia Jane – left the ice at one of the rink’s access points and they met her there. The blond guy produced a coat and a pair of shoes for her. She didn’t look at me and she held on to her husband’s arm while she changed from the skates to the shoes. I wiped my eyes with my hands. When I opened my eyes again, Mr and Mrs Merrial and their bulky minder had gone.
I was still shivering when Jo arrived back with two little polystyrene cups of steaming mulled wine.
‘Here. Look like you need it, too. You’re very pale. You okay?’
‘Just fine. Thanks.’
‘You fuckin spoke to the guy? He shook hands wif you?’
‘His wife’s a fan.’
‘What of? Knee-cappings?’
‘Of mine, you buffoon.’
‘You’re fuckin kiddin me, man!’ Ed’s voice went very high; the speaker in my mobile struggled to cope.
I filled in the details of meeting Mr M at Somerset House.
‘Aow yeah; they used to register stuff there, didn’t they? Burfs and marriages. An defs.’
‘Yeah, well, now it’s got an artificially cold heart and that’s where I bumped into him.’
‘An you’re goin to play his missus a record?’
‘Damn right I am.’
‘Sweet, man! An he says now he owes you a favour?’
‘Well, that’s what he implied, but-’
‘Ask him to find out who’s got it in for you, then. Fuckin ell, dedicate a whole show to his bitch an he’ll fuckin rub them out for you as well.’
‘I think that might be a little excessive.’
‘He’s an excessive geezer, mate.’
‘Yeah, well, I think I’ll keep him well away from whatever messes I’m already in.’
‘Wisdom, Kennif.’
I drummed the fingers of my left hand on my right arm. I was standing on the deck of the Temple Belle, looking out at the dark waters. Jo was below, opening some Korean take-away containers just delivered from a restaurant in Chelsea. I’d felt I just had to tell somebody at least something of what had happened that afternoon, and Ed had been the obvious choice. ‘Or do you think maybe I should ask him for help?’ I said. ‘I know he’s a villain but he did seem quite friendly; helpful, almost. I mean, maybe-’
‘Na, I don’t really fink you should. I was kiddin. Just you keep your skinny white ass away from people like that.’
‘You sure?’
‘I’m sure, man.’
‘Yeah, but he didn’t seem that bad, I mean-’
‘Listen. I’m gonna tell you sumfink about your Mr Merrial.’
‘What?’
‘It’s a bit orrible, but I fink you need tellin.’
‘What, then?’
‘Right.’ I heard Ed take a deep breath. Or possibly a toke. ‘He’s got this really big fucker works for him, right? Blond geezer built like a fuckin nuclear bunker.’
‘I’ve seen him. He handed me Mr M’s card this afternoon.’
‘Right. Well, this is wot I heard from somebody wot was there when this appened once. When Mr Merrial wants to find sumfink out from somebody wot does not want to tell him, or if he’s upset wif somebody, right, he has them tied to a chair wif their legs straight out an their feet tied to another chair, and then the big blond guy comes an sits on their legs an bounces up and down wif increasin force until either they talk or their knees bend the wrong way and their legs snap.’