‘I bet they’re not.’
‘When he talked to me he said they’d given him three days to come up with one or the other. The club or the money. He told me that even if he handed over the deeds to Arcadia, he still reckoned there was no guarantee they wouldn’t break his legs for fucking them about. Or even kill him. He said that if he was going to go and see them, then he wanted back-up, but didn’t know where he was going to get it from. He didn’t know who out of the door staff would stand up for him and wasn’t going to count on any of them. So he asked me if I knew of anyone independent, some security company who could be relied upon to provide him with a decent escort.’
‘Why did he ask you?’
She shrugged. ‘I don’t think he knew where else to turn. We’ve worked together a while and I think he trusted me.’
I finished my coffee and put it on the glass coffee table next to me. ‘And you said you’d see what you could do?’
She took a pack of cigarettes out of her handbag and offered me one. It had been a month since I’d quit but for the last few hours I’d known it was never going to last. The way things were going, living to a ripe old age with healthy lungs was the least of my concerns.
‘Cheers,’ I said, and took one.
She lit it for me with a thin black lighter, then lit her own and sat back in her seat, crossing her shapely legs and blowing smoke towards the ceiling. The dress rode up provocatively and I tried hard, but without much success, to ignore it. ‘What choice did I have?’ she asked. ‘I didn’t want to get involved, course I didn’t, but he’s been good to me since I’ve been working for him, and the least I could do was try to help out. So I spoke to Johnny and he spoke to Roy and it sounds like he put Roy in touch with you. I’m sorry about what happened but, you know, I had no idea it would end like this.’
‘Forget it. It wasn’t your fault. But I’ve got to be honest with you, there’s a serious ring of bullshit about what he was telling you.’
‘Look, I-’
‘Yeah, I know, I know. You’re telling me the truth.’
‘I am.’
‘I’m sure you are, but there’s got to be a lot more to it than that. If Fowler was carrying the deeds to the club in the case he took to that meeting, then why kill him before he’s signed them over? And, in fact, why kill him at all? Particularly when he’s got people with him. There’s a lot of unanswered questions.’ I was silent for a moment. ‘But at least there’s one you can answer.’
‘I’ve told you, Max. Don’t get involved. It’s not worth it.’ She stared me down as she spoke, in the way my mum used to do. The expression said: Don’t argue. I thought she’d have probably made a good Miss Whiplash, and a lot of judges and politicians would have paid good money to be dominated by someone as good-looking as her, but I really wasn’t in the mood to be told what to do.
‘I want to know who killed my friend, Elaine. And who tried to kill me.’
‘Why? It won’t help you. I promise you, there’s nothing you can do.’
‘Just tell me.’
She stared straight at me. ‘The Holtzes.’
That stopped me dead.
‘You know who they are, don’t you?’
‘Yeah, I know the Holtzes.’
Everyone who was anyone in that part of town knew the Holtzes, or who they were anyway. Led by their reclusive founder, Stefan, who was now on the wrong end of middle age, they were one of north London’s premier crime families, rulers of a criminal empire that was worth tens of millions. And evil bastards, too. Word had it that they’d been involved in dozens of murders as they’d fought to stay at the top, but, even after years of police attention, they remained intact. If anyone could have staged what had happened the previous night, it was the Holtzes.
Elaine sighed. ‘So, now you see why I said don’t get involved.’
‘Jesus,’ I said, as reality sank in. ‘No wonder I almost got killed.’
‘I didn’t mean to make you a part of it,’ she said defensively. ‘I didn’t know it would be you, and I honestly didn’t think that they’d stoop to killing him, or your friend.’
‘It’s the Holtzes, for Christ’s sake. They’re capable of anything.’
She shook her head wearily. ‘Fuck, what a mess. What the hell am I going to do now?’
‘Keep quiet about it. That’s the best thing. If they find out you knew too much about what was going on, well …’ I tailed off, knowing I’d made my point. ‘Anyway, I’m the one who’s got things to worry about. Not only am I on the run through no fault of my own, I’m a witness, too. I saw two men die. The law are going to be very interested in getting me to talk. The Holtzes are going to be very interested in making sure I don’t.’
‘But you couldn’t pin anything on them, could you? It was your friend, Tony, who did the actual shooting, so he’s the only one who could actually get in any trouble.’
‘Maybe, maybe not. The thing is, they might not see it like that. Especially if the coppers manage to trace the blood on the back seat of my car back to Fowler. If that gets public then I’m going to be on the Holtzes’ hitlist, aren’t I? As well as everyone else’s.’
We didn’t speak for a few moments. She sat there, watching me now, puffing on her cigarette. It was difficult to tell what she was thinking behind the dark eyes.
‘I feel partly responsible for what happened,’ she said eventually. I didn’t bother telling her that she was partly responsible. At that moment I needed all the friends I could get. ‘You can stay here for a couple of days if you want, until things die down.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘I appreciate it.’
‘Do you want a drink? A proper one?’
‘Yeah, I think I need one. What have you got?’
‘Most things. What do you want?’
‘A brandy, please. And a beer, too, if that’s all right.’ I thought that I might as well take advantage of the hospitality on offer, not sure how long it was going to be lasting. She didn’t look like she’d taken offence and smiled as she got up and kicked off her shoes. Her toenails were painted a bright red, which they always say is a sign of passion. I began to stop thinking about my current woes and instead concentrated on more immediate possibilities.
She went into the kitchen to make up the drinks and I took my shoe off and casually followed her in. ‘You’re looking really good, you know,’ I said, thinking that I was going to have to buy a book on chat-up lines or at least put more thought into them. The thing is, I’ve always been a man who preferred the more direct approach. If I thought I was in with a chance — and to be honest with you, I reckoned Elaine owed me one — I tended to go straight in for the kill.
‘Thanks,’ she said, pouring the brandies. ‘You’re not looking so bad yourself. You seem to have improved with age.’ She gave me a quick once-over, like she was checking out a dress. ‘You’ve bulked out as well. It suits you. You were always a bit too skinny in school.’
Cheeky mare.
I took the brandy with one hand and moved the other round towards her shapely rear, thinking that I was taking a bit of a risk here, since she didn’t seem like the sort of person who’d suffer unwanted attentions in silence, and if she kicked me out I really was bolloxed because I had pretty much nowhere else to go. But as the hand made contact, and I gave the left cheek a gentle stroke, she shot me a look that said that after all the fucking mishaps of the day — and by God there’d been a few — I’d finally struck gold. Our lips met Mills and Boon style and her fingers crept up my inner thigh.
Not everything had changed since school, then.
Saturday, fifteen days ago