Twenty-two
I watched Sam leave the club, feeling a certain sense of relief as he cleared the front door without any apparent attention from Angelo or the rest of the security crew. I wasn't aware until he'd disappeared from view that I'd been holding my breath.
I picked my way back upstairs, feeling as though I'd got a neon sign over my head announcing my intentions. I suddenly couldn't think how to act natural, relaxed. My movements felt jerky, lacking in coordination, and I'd begun to sweat.
My nerve almost failed me. I stopped climbing on the next floor, breaking off my ascent to needlessly check round the bar area and washrooms. I glanced at my watch. When had Sam left the club? I cursed the fact I hadn't made a note of the time. How long would it take MacMillan's men to get here? More to the point, would they come at all?
Either way, I had to find that proof.
Unable to put it off any longer, I hit the stairs, reached the top level. I paused there for a while, peering over the balcony down to the floor below. I caught a glimpse of Len marching through the crowd, but he didn't look like a man in pursuit.
Even so, I couldn't help but wish he was further behind me.
I observed the gents' washroom Sam had indicated for a few minutes, mentally counting people in and out. When I reckoned it was about empty, I pushed myself upright away from the rail, and covered the distance to the door.
It was instinct to glance furtively round me before I went in, but I forced myself not to do it, not to look as if I was doing anything out of the ordinary. If you've got enough front, you can get away with anything.
Inside, the gents' was larger than the ladies' washroom on the same floor. The walls were completely covered with dark blue tiles, lit by low voltage spots sunk into the ceiling. I walked quietly past a row of uninhabited urinals to my left, with sinks beyond. Two big square pillars spaced along the centre line of the room helped support the roof. I checked carefully that there was no one lurking behind them.
There were no cupboards under the sinks, and no obvious breaks in the grouting round the tiles to suggest a hiding place. I thought of the ceiling, but when I looked up all I saw was solid textured plaster. No lift-out panels. Besides, there was no overall lock on the door to the gents', and I didn't think Len would want to be so exposed if anyone came in unexpectedly.
To my right was a row of numbered cubicles. They looked much more promising. I made my way along them, pushing the doors open carefully as I went. The cisterns were all enclosed in the tiled wall behind each toilet bowl. Just above, though, was an access hatch about eighteen inches square. I was sure I was getting warmer, but I could tell by the layers of undisturbed paint that this one probably hadn't been removed since the club was refurbished.
I tried the next, but that was the same. I was halfway along the row when the cubicle door nearest to me opened and a man walked out. I had to bite down hard on the startled shriek that nearly burst from my lips. To be fair, he looked as surprised as I did.
“Are you in the wrong place, or am I?” he asked.
I tried a casual smile. “Just a security check,” I told him as cheerfully as I could. “Wouldn't want you walking out of here with anything unsecured, now would we?”
He left quickly with a worried expression and I swore under my breath. If he went and complained to Len or any of the staff about them sending a woman in to check the gents' I was going to be in deep trouble.
I quickened my step. It wasn't until the last cubicle that I saw what I was looking for. I dodged into it quickly, shooting the bolt across behind me. The bolt was a flimsy-looking affair. A hefty shoulder to it would have popped the mounting screws from their chipboard holes like a fat man's shirt buttons, but it was better than nothing.
This time, in contrast to the bolt on the door, the panel on the back wall was held in place by a heavy duty lock. It didn't strike me as the type that could be picked easily, even if I was equipped or qualified to try. Without the right key I was going to be knackered before I began.
The smell from the toilet was making me feel vaguely sick, but maybe I would have felt that way in any case. I knew Marc had the cleaners round regularly, and wondered what it was about the male diet that could reek so badly at the other end. Perhaps, in prehistoric times, they'd used it to mark their territory, like tomcats.
I pulled my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and pondered over which of its attachments would be best suited to the job of breaking and entering. Unfortunately, that was one purpose for which the Swiss Army didn't seem to have designed a specific tool.
There was a short, narrow blade on the back of the knife that I think is for cleaning mud out of the tracks of your hiking boots. It looked sharp and pointed enough for me to be able to use it to make an initial hole in the door just above one of the hinges. I hesitated a moment before digging it in, tapping the panel lightly with my knuckle. If it was made out of metal I wasn't going to be able to do more than scratch the surface. All that would do would be to alert Len that someone had cottoned on to his stash.
Oh, to hell with it! With a deep breath I carefully lined the blade up with the hinge and leaned my weight into it. It actually sank in much easier than I was expecting. Despite the valuable nature of the contents, the door was only made from bog standard eighth-inch plywood.
I quickly replaced the tread scraper with the shorter of the two knife blades, cursing the fact I hadn't bothered sharpening either of them for months. In the end, the slightly serrated edge of the nail file proved to be the most effective.
Even so, it was slow work. Every time someone came in to the washroom I had to stop, tensing myself into silence and praying that no-one would get inquisitive enough to peer over the top of the partition from the next stall. I wished I'd had the forethought to scribble “Out of Order' on a sheet of paper and stick it to the outside of the cubicle door.
The earpiece of my radio crackled a few times, but fortunately it was other instructions for other members of the security brigade. Nobody, it seemed, needed my services for anything in particular. Good. As long as no one knew I was missing, they wouldn't be looking for me.
I worked on frantically, scuffing and scraping my hands on the rough edging I was opening up. My finger ends, still sore from my Spiderman impersonation down the wall of my flat, soon started to bleed. I mopped them up with loo roll from the dispenser and kept going.
I had made a hole nearly two inches long running down next to one hinge, but the panel was being surprisingly stubborn about giving way completely. It wasn't big enough to get my shoulder to, and the cubicle was too small and too awkward a space to kick at it with any degree of success.
I knew if I punched it, I was just going to break my knuckles. I couldn't afford to risk an injury. At the back of my mind was the knowledge that, if Len discovered me here, doing this, I was going to need to be very much intact to stand any chance of holding him off.
Although I was waiting for it, when the call came over the radio, it made me jump.
“It's the police! We're being fucking raided!” Angelo's voice, crackling with sheer rage. “Len, go to seven, mate! Go to se—!” His transmission was abruptly chopped off. I could just imagine the reason for it.
I fumbled with the bolt on the door. The last thing I wanted now was to be trapped in an area too small to defend myself. The bolt stuck and as I tugged at it I was rocked by a moment of sheer panic.
I stopped, took a breath. Calm down, Fox! I couldn't let my fear incapacitate me. I let go of my anger, my fright, breathing out fully. If I wasn't calm and focused, I was nothing. I tried again. The bolt slid straight back without resistance.