I whispered, “Oh shit.”
It was a gun.
In the gloom of the footwell, it gleamed dully, a blue-black semiautomatic. Hesitantly, I picked it up, weighing the cold heaviness of it in my hand, smelling the sheen of gun-oil like some half-remembered brand of scent.
Just for a moment my imagination moulded it into the FN that Nasir had used that night at the gym, but then sense kicked in, and I realised this was different. There was no hammer at the back of the slide and that jogged distant memory banks. A Glock, Austrian made.
What the hell was Sean doing with a handgun under the front seat of his car?
Numbly, I operated the release for the magazine. It dropped smoothly into my hand. The first snub-nosed round was clearly visible wedged up against the top lip of the mag. When I thumbed it out into my palm, the next one sprang up to take its place. Standard full-metal-jacket ammunition, definitely not a blank.
Suddenly, my carefully worked-out plan of pumping Sean gently for information over the course of the evening shattered around me. I’d been trying not to acknowledge the possibility that he could be in this much deeper than he seemed. Now it was drowning me.
“Oh Jesus, Sean,” I muttered. “What the hell are you up to?”
Sean! I flicked my gaze up again, but still he was out of sight. Quickly, I rammed the round back into place, feeling the resistance. The spring at the base of the magazine must have been wholly compressed. A full load.
I slotted the magazine back into the pistol grip and pushed it home firmly with the flat of my hand. It seemed like a hell of a long time since I’d handled firearms, but the drills drummed into us on the ranges meant it was done on a reflex, even under the shadowed streetlight. I actually had to stop myself snicking back the slide to chamber the first round.
I looked up again and this time a dark figure rounded the corner by the row of shops. I grabbed my keys and slid back up into my seat. Instinct made me shove the Glock into my inside pocket, hoping the bulk of it wouldn’t pull the jacket noticeably out of line.
Sean opened the jeep door and climbed into the driver’s seat. I blinked as the interior light came on, tried to act calm and casual.
He reached for the ignition key, then paused. “Are you OK?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I said, smiling, lying through my teeth. “I’m fine.”
***
Sean drove down onto St George’s Quay as though he knew the way. I waited for him to ask for precise directions, because my place is above a cheap carpet wholesalers, and doesn’t follow any numbering pattern recognisable in the modern world, but he pulled up right outside. I felt a cold finger of suspicion trip down my spine.
How did he know where I lived? He couldn’t have been following me, because I’d hardly been back to the flat since Pauline had gone away, and that was before Sean turned up on the estate. Or was it?
When he switched off the engine I opened my door and forced another smile. “Come on up, if you like,” I said. “This won’t take long.” I hope . . .
He followed me up the wooden staircase to the first landing, and waited for me to unlock my front door. I flicked on the lights as we moved inside.
“This is quite a place you’ve got here,” Sean said, looking round as he moved further into the living room.
While his back was towards me, I pulled the Glock quietly out of my jacket pocket, bringing it up level with my right hand even as I worked the slide with my left. My movements were a little jerkier than I would have liked, but it was an old rhythm. One I hadn’t danced to for years.
As Sean caught what must have been to him the familiar sound of the mech working, he stiffened, then started to turn round very, very slowly. All the while he sensibly kept his hands where I could see them, fingers outspread.
Finally, when he was staring narrow-eyed into the muzzle of his own gun, he said calmly, “Well, Charlie, I don’t suppose you’d like to tell me what this is all about?”
I ignored him, concentrating on keeping the sights of the Glock steady and lined up on a point about two inches down from his Adam’s apple. “On your knees first, Sean,” I said, and my voice was cold. “You know the drill. Hands linked behind your head, feet crossed at the ankles.”
I almost missed the look of surprise that passed over his features. It was chased on by anger that left just a trace of bitterness behind. “You really don’t trust me at all, do you?” he murmured, not moving.
“Come on, Sean,” I said, shifting to a standard double-handed grip. “You always got the better of me when we went hand-to-hand. I’d like you on your knees if we’re going to talk.” When still he hesitated, I added dryly, “Even this far out of practise I can slot you from here without thinking about it, and I don’t have any curious neighbours, so make your mind up.”
I don’t suppose either of us believed for a moment that I was actually going to shoot him dead in my own living room, but I kept my face just neutral enough for there to be a sliver of doubt.
He allowed himself a half-smile that lapsed into a grimace, then he finally complied, playing the game. He laced his fingers together behind his neck once he was down. “I take it that is my Glock, by the way?”
I nodded. “Under a car seat is really not the best place to keep a loaded handgun, you know. Anyone could come across it, and then where would you be?”
He smiled again, rueful this time. “Ah, well, I only put it there when I picked you up this evening,” he admitted. He had the grace to look a touch sheepish. “Since that trouble at Attila’s I’ve been carrying it tucked into the back of my belt, but I didn’t want to risk you finding it there.”
I raised an eyebrow at that, battled with a smile and only just beat it. “And just what would I be doing investigating any part of your trousers on a first date?” I demanded. “Taking a little for granted there, aren’t you, Sean? Have you forgotten the lovely Madeleine so quickly?”
“Hardly our first date, now is it, Charlie?” he said softly. “We go back a long way.”
I didn’t want to think about that one. It brought back too many old memories. Some of them I was so very tempted to refresh. “And Madeleine?” I prompted.
“Ah yes, the lovely Madeleine,” he said with a certain amount of dark relish, then grinned suddenly. “Not jealous, are you, by any chance?”
“I don’t have the right to be jealous,” I pointed out levelly, “But by the looks of it she does. If that’s how you treat your women these days, I don’t want to get involved.”
He nearly flinched. The smile blinked out like an extinguished light. “Madeleine is camouflage,” he said bluntly. “On the rare occasions I come home my mother loves to matchmake. Madeleine works for me, and when I need her she’s happy to keep the heat off my back. She’s living with a West Indian chef who’s six-foot five and would gut me like a trout if I laid a finger on her. There’s nothing sexual going on between us, and there never has been. OK?”
I thought for a moment he was going to declare that he never mixed business with pleasure. If so, I could have called him an outright liar without fear of contradiction. Perhaps that was why he didn’t bother.
I swallowed. “You wanted to talk, Sean, so let’s talk,” I tried instead. “Nasir Gadatra. Remember him at the gym with your baby brother? You go after him across that waste ground and next thing I know his body’s turned up dumped in a skip in Heysham, shot dead with a nine millimetre semiautomatic. Like this one.”
Sean nearly laughed out loud. “You don’t seriously think I killed him, do you?” He sobered fast when he saw my face. “My God, you do,” he added. “So that’s what this is all about.”