The hand is removed from Ron’s mouth, and strong arms help him up from the floor. ‘Upsy-daisy, old fella. No sudden moves, no noise.’
‘Sudden moves?’ says Ron. ‘I’m nearly eighty, mate. You proud of yourself?’
‘Stop moaning,’ says the man. ‘I’ve seen your son box. I was taking no chances.’
A light is flicked on, and Ron takes a look at the man. Late forties, polo-neck top under a dark suit, gold chain, thick, dark hair and blue eyes. Handsome bugger. An enforcer for Dom Holt? Looks too rich. The man motions for Ron to take a chair, and then sits opposite him.
‘Ron Ritchie?’
Ron nods. ‘You?’
‘Mitch Maxwell. You know why I’m here, Ron?’
Ron shrugs. ‘You’re a psychopath?’
‘Worse than that, I’m afraid,’ says Mitch. ‘Someone has stolen something from me.’
‘I don’t blame them,’ says Ron. His hip is beginning to ache. The sort of ache that is not going to disappear by morning. ‘You work for Dom Holt, is it?’
Mitch laughs. ‘Do I look like I work for someone?’
‘Everybody works for someone,’ says Ron. ‘Only a weak man pretends otherwise.’
‘Mouthy little sod, ain’t ya?’ says Mitch. ‘Typical West Ham fan. Dom Holt works for me.’
‘Does he? Tell him he owes me three grand for the Daihatsu.’
‘Mr Ritchie,’ says Mitch, ‘on December 27th a little box, absolutely stuffed with heroin, was delivered to your mate Kuldesh Sharma. By the next day, the box, the heroin and your mate had all disappeared. Now your mate has turned up, bullet through the skull, terrible shame, but my heroin is still nowhere to be seen. We smashed his shop up, and nothing. So maybe you know where it is? Kuldesh had it all day. Maybe he brought it over here, eh? Asked his mates to look after it while he tried to pull a stroke?’
‘Not my mate,’ says Ron. ‘Heard of him, but never met him.’
‘You heard he died though? You accused Dom of killing him?’
‘Yup,’ agrees Ron. ‘Makes sense, doesn’t it? Scumbag heroin dealer gets ripped off. Then kills the person who ripped him off. No offence to your mate, could have been you too. You look like the type.’
The hip is starting to throb now. Ron has no intention of showing his pain.
‘People get killed,’ says Mitch. ‘But the heroin’s still missing. And I need it quick.’
‘So you broke into my flat?’
‘Put yourself in my shoes, Ron,’ says Mitch. ‘A perfectly normal consignment of heroin enters the country in a small box in the back of a lorry. It goes missing. A couple of days later you pay my offices a visit. Jason Ritchie’s dad, so I’m going to take an interest. Then I hear one of Connie Johnson’s buddies is involved, and there’s an old woman with a gun. What would you think?’
Ron smiles. ‘You think Kuldesh gave us the heroin before he died?’
‘It’s a theory,’ says Mitch. ‘Until you prove otherwise.’
Ron leans forward, careful not to wince. He rests his chin on his hands. ‘You free for the next couple of hours?’
Mitch looks at his watch. ‘My son’s got street dance before school, but you’ve got me till then.’
‘I’m going to make a couple of calls,’ says Ron. ‘Get my friends over here. See if we can’t work this out.’
‘Can I trust them?’ says Mitch.
‘No,’ says Ron, picking up his phone and dialling. ‘Can we trust you?’
‘No,’ says Mitch.
‘Well, let’s make the best of what we have,’ says Ron, waiting for his call to be answered.
He is ringing Elizabeth first. He has to. If he rings Ibrahim first, she’ll find out and there’ll be hell to pay. ‘Liz, it’s Ron, pop your shoes on and come round to mine. You OK? You sure? OK, I believe you, millions wouldn’t. You ring Joyce, I’ll ring Ib – yeah, I probably would bring a gun.’
He ends the call, and dials Ibrahim.
‘Whisky?’ Ron asks Mitch. ‘While we wait?’
Mitch nods and stands. ‘I’ll get it. You need something for that hip?’
Ron shakes his head. He obviously wasn’t hiding it as well as he thought. Still, he’s not going to give Mitch the satisfaction of knowing he’s hurt him. ‘I’ll walk it off.’
Ron’s call connects. ‘Ib, it’s me. Me. Ron. Who do you think’s going to ring you at this time of night? Meghan Markle?’
‘I can usually get heroin,’ says Mitch. ‘If you ever need it.’
25
Mitch would rather be talking to Luca. Rather be fending off blows from a broken pool cue in an underground hangar. You know where you are then. You know the rules. But here he is, in the dead of night, in a comfortable armchair, drinking good whisky with four pensioners.
There’s no doubt about it, Mitch is out of his comfort zone.
His plan had been so simple. Scare the living daylights out of this Ron Ritchie guy, then torture him until he told him where the heroin was. But that’s not how things were working out. The woman with the gun appears to be their ringleader. Elizabeth, she’s called. The gun doesn’t scare Mitch, but she does. He’s seen that look in the eyes of a few people over the years. Most of them now dead, in prison or in big villas with high fences in Spain.
‘Are you proud of the way you make a living?’ Elizabeth asks.
‘We’re not here to talk about me,’ says Mitch.
‘If you break into someone’s house at midnight, it’s probably polite to answer a few questions. A common courtesy.’ This was the guy who introduced himself as Ibrahim. The one who works with Connie Johnson. He is taking notes.
‘It’s a bit grubby, isn’t it? Heroin dealing?’ This is Elizabeth again, her gun on her lap. What’s her story? Mitch knows everyone in the business, but he doesn’t know her.
A smaller woman, in a green cardigan, leans forward. ‘Mr Maxwell. We didn’t ask you to come here. That was your choice.’
‘Quite so, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘You beat up our friend –’
‘He didn’t beat me up,’ says Ron.
‘Well, let’s see if your GP agrees with that tomorrow,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Now, you’ll notice, Mr Maxwell, we don’t give two hoots about how tough you are; we’ve dealt with an awful lot worse than you.’
‘You are barely top ten,’ says Ibrahim. ‘And, believe me, I have a top ten.’
‘If I might make an observation, it seems we have a common goal, Mr Maxwell,’ says Elizabeth. ‘We want to find out who killed Kuldesh, and you want to find your heroin. Correct?’
‘I want my goods back,’ says Mitch. ‘Need my goods back.’
‘Oh, God,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Spare us the euphemisms; we’re not children or police officers. Call heroin heroin.’
‘I need my heroin back,’ confirms Mitch. ‘It’s in a little terracotta box, it’s worth a lot of money, and it’s mine.’
‘Morally you must find heroin dealing unsettling?’ says Ibrahim.
‘Says the guy who works for Connie Johnson,’ counters Mitch. ‘Listen, I have a simple question before we go any further. Who are you?’
‘I’m Joyce,’ says Joyce.
‘And we are all friends of Joyce,’ adds Ibrahim. ‘So, with that cleared up, let us ask you a few more questions, just so we can get to know you a little. So we feel we can trust you.’
Mitch throws his hands up. ‘Go on, then.’
‘Are you proud of being a heroin smuggler?’ Elizabeth asks him again.
‘I’m proud of my success,’ says Mitch, realizing he’s never really thought about this before. ‘But, I guess, no. I just fell into it, and then I was good at it.’
‘You could do something else?’ suggests Joyce. ‘IT?’