They stopped laughing when he effortlessly slashed the main riff from ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. His crow face impassive, Nils put the Fender back in its stand and turned his attention to the bass guitar.
Same routine. Bend, butt crack reveal, tune and then play a riff that was so good it was identical to the record. This time it was the bass line to ‘Going to a Go-Go’ by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles.
After tuning the guitars, Nils stood at the side with someone young enough to be his granddaughter. She was wearing a cowboy hat, mini-skirt and cowboy boots. The band slouched on stage to whoops from the crowd. They were around thirty years younger than Nils, closer to the age of the youngest members of the audience, and he watched over them with a slightly bored, paternal air as they picked up their instruments and began their first song.
Then he headed backstage with the girl. I followed them.
The changing room was a windowless cube that was stained with the inane graffiti of half a century. Nils and the girl in the cowboy hat were sitting on a couple of boxes as he chopped out lines of white powder on a cracked CD.
‘Police,’ I told the girl, showing her my warrant card. ‘Time for bed.’
She was gone in a moment, getting out of there so fast she almost lost her cowboy hat.
I stared hard at Nils.
‘How old was she?’ I said.
‘Come on,’ he said, his voice coarsened by half a century of cigarettes, spliffs and goodness knows what. ‘She’s on a gap year, Max. Consenting adults and all that.’ He stared wistfully at the door. ‘Great veins,’ he sighed. ‘The plump blue veins of extreme youth.’
‘You’re not still shooting up, are you?’
‘I stopped,’ he said emphatically. ‘No more needles.’
But I saw that he missed it. They always missed it.
‘Just this now,’ he said, indicating the white lines on the CD. ‘And strictly up the hooter.’
‘And you’re still a roadie,’ I said.
‘Guitar technician. Roadie sounds so derogatory.’
‘We’re looking for that weapons dealer, Nils. Ozymandias.’
‘I thought you might be. Ozymandias is not in his flat on the Elphinstone Estate. Hasn’t been seen for weeks.’
The Elphinstone Estate is the closest my city has to a no-go zone for the law. A semi-derelict collection of flats that were built in the Sixties, property developers had been trying to pull it down for years but some of the residents steadfastly refuse to move out. So do all of the gangs that run their small businesses from the Elphinstone Estate. Nils had been a regular at the Elphinstone’s shooting galleries for decades. He still scored his white powders and puff there, and knew all of the dealers and their clients, which was what made him one of my most valuable Criminal Informants.
‘Yes, Nils. We know Ozymandias is not home. We looked.’
‘Of course you did. Sorry.’
‘And we know his real name. It’s not Ozymandias, is it?’
‘Probably not.’ He indicated the white lines. There was a rolled-up fiver in his hands. He licked his lips. ‘Do you mind if I … ?’
I nodded.
‘I mind,’ I said, picking up the CD case, being careful not to spill the white lines. ‘But we don’t know where he’s gone. And we don’t know if he really sold two Cetinka hand grenades to the Khan brothers. And if he did, we don’t know what happened to them. So we urgently need him to help with our enquiries, Nils. Where the hell is he?’
‘Who knows? He could be fermenting civil war in the Crimea or he could be doing Spice in Ibiza. Ozymandias comes and goes. A free spirit.’
‘That’s not good enough.’
‘Look – I told you what I heard. One of the little boys on the estate – some pound store gangster who wants to go out in a blaze of glory, just like a rap song – was talking about buying a couple of hand grenades from Ozymandias. Grenades up the ante, right? Better than a gun. Big status in the gangs. He bought a couple – they were the two you dug up from that park. Lucky it was you that found them and not some little kiddy who just wanted a ride on the swings and roundabouts, right? What does this do, Mummy? And someone asked the little pound store gangster who else was serious enough to be in the market for grenades and he said he heard they were bound for a couple of brothers just back from their jihad holiday in Syria. And my hot tip led you to the Khans, didn’t it?’
‘But not to the grenades, Nils.’
‘That’s not my fault! Look, in the past Ozymandias has gone out east when it got too hot at home.’
‘Essex?’
‘Bangkok. Pattaya. Manila. Saigon. But he’ll be back when he runs out of money. Probably. And I’m sure those grenades are going to turn up, Max.’
I gave him back his drugs.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘That’s what I’m afraid of.’
Saturday afternoon was party time.
I had been careful with my driving, making sure that I arrived on the wide, tree-lined street exactly five minutes after the assigned pick-up time, just late enough to not have to wait around outside.
It was one of those rich suburbs that make the city seem light years away, a neighbourhood where it was impossible to believe that anything bad could ever happen.
There were balloons on the door of the house where my ex-wife lived with her new family. Not so new now, I reminded myself.
I left Stan in the passenger seat, whimpering in protest at the outrage of being abandoned alone in the car in this weird-smelling place with its mown lawns and clean pavements.
But my ex-wife really hates dogs.
I took a breath and rang the bell, steeling myself for the sight of Scout unhappy and isolated and tearful surrounded by children half her size, ready to scoop her up and run for home.
But the door was opened by the new guy – how many decades would have to go by before I stopped thinking of him as the new guy? – and I immediately saw that Scout was having a good time.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, laughing and happy, a slightly torn paper party hat on her head, while four-year-old boys and girls milled around her in all their jelly-smeared, sugar-crazed anarchy, waiting to be taught some complicated hand-clapping game that only this big girl knew.
At seven Scout was a few years older than the birthday boy – I realised I should try to remember his name – and his little pals, but just one look told me that all my fears had been unfounded. Scout had enjoyed the party. More than this, thanks to her sweet nature and kind heart, she had been the star.
Anne stepped away from a group of parents drinking something bubbly and approached me. She was still a stunning woman – tall, dark, with an understated exotic look that made you think she could come from anywhere in the world. She had once been a model but it had not worked out. It’s a hard old game, looking good for a living.
‘Max,’ she said.
How many nights had we slept side by side? More than a thousand. And now we did not know each other at all. Now she had this other life and I had my own life too. Once she had been closer to me than anyone in the world and now she was this beautiful stranger. I would never get used to the distance between us. It would never seem normal to me.
‘Scout’s been so great with the little ones,’ she said. ‘It’s been hilarious.’
So great, I thought. It’s not enough being simply great. It has to be so great. And why was it hilarious?
Who was this woman?
We exchanged pleasantries and platitudes and I forgot what they were the moment they were out of my mouth. A group of adoring sprogs trailed Scout to the door.
My daughter was smiling – a broad, open beautiful smile.
Stan was still having a moan in the car.
But then nothing upset him like the thought of our pack falling apart.