Harper’s coffee arrived and he waited until Nok had walked back to the bar before speaking. ‘You knew about that?’
Button shrugged. ‘What I know or don’t know isn’t the issue. But you would have happily shot him and buried him in the New Forest, correct?’
‘I thought he deserved it,’ said Harper. ‘Turned out I was wrong. Does Spider know that you know?’
Button ignored the question. ‘And your competitors, they deserved it?’
‘What do you want from me?’ asked Harper. ‘Why are you here?’
Button sipped her tea, then carefully put her cup back on its saucer. ‘Sometimes, Lex, when I’m working in the cracks, I need something taken care of. Or someone. And I rather think you might be able to help me with that.’
Harper leaned towards her and lowered his voice. ‘You want someone killed, is that it?’
Button chuckled softly. ‘Not right now, no. But in the future …’ She shrugged. ‘Who knows?’
‘You’re offering me a job?’
‘With a salary and benefits?’ She shook her head. ‘No. But the occasional contract.’ She smiled. ‘Such a strange word, that. Contract. So businesslike and yet at the same time, so Sopranos.’
‘This is what Spider does for you, is it?’
She shook her head firmly. ‘Spider sees himself very much as the wearer of a white hat, and unless his opponent has a black hat he’s very uneasy about crossing that line. But you, Lex, you’re very much in the grey area, aren’t you? One of your competitors who is no longer with us, he was a friend for a long time. A childhood friend, in fact. But that didn’t stop you, did it? You’ve got a talent, Lex, and it’s a talent I would like to make use of.’
‘And what do I get out of this? If I agree?’
‘Money, of course. Though looking at your financial situation, that’s not much of a carrot, is it? You’re a very rich man, Lex. Well done, you.’
Harper nodded and couldn’t help grinning. The conversation was making him very uneasy but there was no getting away from the fact that Charlie Button was charming and attractive. ‘I get by,’ he said.
‘What I can offer you is an assurance,’ she said. ‘A sort of “Get out of Jail Free” card, if you like. If you do accept my offer, you will never be bothered by any of the agencies that I’ve mentioned. You’ll never be stopped at an airport or pulled over by the police or have the taxman trawling through your records. You enjoy being the grey man, Lex, and you’ve very good at it, but I could help you become the invisible man, pretty much.’
‘And all I would have to do is the occasional job for you?’
Button smiled but didn’t say anything. She sipped her tea again.
‘I’ll need some time to think it over,’ said Harper.
‘That’s OK, I still have to finish my tea,’ said Button. ‘But when I get up from this table I need to know whether you are accepting my offer or not.’
Harper looked at her for several seconds. ‘Where’s the stick?’
‘The stick?’
‘I see the carrot. What’s the stick? What will you do if I don’t agree?’
Button smiled sweetly. ‘I hadn’t even considered a stick, Lex.’
‘You just assumed that I’d do what you want?’
‘Most people do, Lex. Sooner or later.’ She sipped her tea and smacked her lips. ‘You know, I’m genuinely surprised at how good the tea is here. It really is quite delicious.’
About the Author
Stephen Leather is one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers, a Sunday Times top ten bestseller, and a top ebook bestselling author. Before becoming a novelist he was a journalist for more than ten years on newspapers such as The Times, the Daily Mail and the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong. He began writing full time in 1992. His bestsellers have been translated into more than ten languages. He has also written for television shows such as London’s Burning, The Knock and the BBC’s Murder in Mind series and two of his books, The Stretch and The Bombmaker, were filmed for TV.
You can find out more from Stephen’s website www.stephenleather.com, his blog www.stephenleather.blogspot.co.uk and can follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/stephenleather.
Also by Stephen Leather
Pay Off
The Fireman
Hungry Ghost
The Chinaman
The Vets
The Long Shot
The Birthday Girl
The Double Tap
The Solitary Man
The Tunnel Rats
The Bombmaker
The Stretch
Tango One
The Eyewitness
Hard Landing
Soft Target
Cold Kill
Hot Blood
Dead Men
Live Fire
Rough Justice
Fair Game
False Friends
Nightfall
Midnight
Nightmare
Nightshade
Copyright
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Hodder & Stoughton
An Hachette UK company
Copyright © Stephen Leather 2013
The right of Stephen Leather to be identified as the Author of the Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
All characters in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library
ISBN 978 1 444 73655 7
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