Cobweb (25 page)

‘Are you
sure
it's him?'

‘No, because everyone changes as they age and the picture we have is twenty years old, showing a man with thinning hair. This one's bald, or shaven-headed.'

‘Tanned, fit-looking and not a wrinkle even though getting on for sixty?'

‘That's right.'

‘You've always been good at faces.' I looked at him and he gazed soberly back. ‘This will have to be handled very carefully,'

‘Yes, we have to prove it's Brocklebank – he's calling himself Rex King, by the way.'

‘How tedious of him.'

‘Oh, we're not talking about an educated man. We must prove it's him while bearing in mind that he's dangerous – who else could have planted that gizmo in his flat?'

‘He used to boast that he could kill anyone, anyhow. Did you book the table in the name of Vernon Studley?'

I got a wolfish grin. ‘Too right.'

‘So we wait a while. If nothing happens, what then?'

‘We stir things gently, what else?'

That probably meant start a small war.

At the arranged time – eight thirty – we went through into the restaurant – artificial palm trees, blue-plastic water cascades falling into plastic-lined ponds with plastic fish in them – which was very busy and where another party was in progress, a retirement one by the look of the ages of those attending. But it was no less noisy for that and in the middle of the main course a woman, loud- and foul-mouthed, obviously sloshed, celebrated herself right off her chair into an elaborate, and again artificial, floor-standing flower arrangement. Every which way, red knickers and all, she was resurrected, placed inert on a chair and discreetly lugged away by her male companion and members of staff, presumably to a taxi.

‘Go on, you're not Ingrid Langley tonight,' Patrick said, eyes sparkling and perceiving that I was struggling to keep a straight face, adding lugubriously and none too quietly, ‘After all, the old cow might be stone dead.'

So, regrettably, we both howled with laughter, thus earning the repugnance of the entire assembly. One member of the party was all ready to come over and remonstrate with us but was pulled back into his seat by his companions.

Good: we looked the part, then.

Exercising caution in case there was trouble, we ate lightly and sparingly – which was a shame, as the food was surprisingly good – and drank only water. Afterwards we were asked if we would like to have our coffee in the lounge. This turned out to be a smaller side room situated some distance down a corridor in the hotel sector that had a real log fire. We were the only occupiers.

The waiter had set the coffee things down on a table near the fire and I gravitated over to it while Patrick prowled around the room – something he always does when in strange surroundings but already suspicious because of the lack of others present. I poured the coffee and he wandered back.

‘I could do with a fag,' he said. ‘Left 'em at home.'

The obvious telling of lies is one of our warning codes. Had he spotted some covert surveillance?

‘Go and buy some at the bar, then,' I snapped pretend-bad-temperedly.

He sprawled into an armchair. ‘Nah, can't be bothered. Time I gave up.' His gaze fixed upon the coffee. ‘Come on then, girl – two sugars.'

I duly spooned them in. He does not take sugar now, so this was a message to me that he had no intention of drinking it. Hairs stirring on the back of my neck, I therefore knew I must not drink mine either, but behaved normally, passing his across, sugaring and stirring mine for something to do. I knew Patrick was armed, but circumstances had changed. We no longer worked for MI5: there were different rules of engagement now and firearms could not be used unless the situation became really desperate.

A couple of minutes later the door opened and a man entered. He was bronzed, fit-looking, with not a wrinkle, and had the rapacious demeanour of a healthy pack of hyenas. If this was not Clem Brocklebank – despite the shaven head there was a very strong likeness to the picture we had deliberately left behind – then I would go home and knit dishcloths for the rest of my days.

‘You're Studley?' he said, coming over to us.

Patrick, who was already on his feet, eyed the incomer up and down and delivered the necessary time-honoured response. ‘Who's asking?'

The other smirked and held out a hand. ‘Rex King. I own this place. This is one of my private sitting rooms.'

Patrick ignored the hand. ‘Have we spat in an ashtray or something?'

‘No, not at all. No, I read about you in the paper and I believe we have something in common.'

Again Patrick looked the man up and down, only incredulously this time. (He
was
once offered a part in a film.) ‘Really?' he drawled. ‘OK, you can join us,' he went on say as King seated himself. He affected to notice me. ‘This is my friend Sapphire.'

Sapphire simpered suitably.

‘Aren't you going to drink your coffee?' King wanted to know.

‘It's got a funny smell, as though someone's shat in it,' Patrick said.

‘Shall I get you some more?'

‘No, thanks. And I don't like being on surveillance cameras while I'm drinking it.'

King shrugged. ‘I understand you're hoping to gain a hold in this area.'

‘What if I do?'

‘You won't be able to do anything without my co-operation.'

‘How's that?' Patrick asked, all innocence.

‘I run things around here. Not obviously, and the cops don't have a clue about me, but what I say goes.'

‘You talk like the soundtrack from an old B-movie,' he was told.

I thought that King was also taking a terrible risk. Was it as I thought and he was desperate to parade himself in the criminal underworld – was fed up with not being, as he put it, obvious?

The bonhomie started to slip away. ‘I can't say that I've ever heard of you,' he said. ‘And I thought I knew all the big names in this game.'

‘You're still reading it from a script. That's because Vernon Studley's not my real name. It even said that in the local rag.'

‘OK, I believe you. I can offer you a lot if you agree to certain conditions.'

‘Call you sir, you mean?' Patrick said with a sneer.

King sat forward suddenly. ‘Don't play around with me. People who do or who get in my way don't get very far. I don't involve others to tell tales either. I deal with things – personally.'

‘That sounds like a threat.'

‘Take it any way you like.'

Ye gods, they still sounded like an old Al Capone film.

‘Your conditions then are what?' Patrick enquired heavily.

‘How many can you call upon?'

‘Any number. But I don't go around with a pile of hangers-on. That's messy and unprofessional.'

‘No boys to watch your back?'

‘No, I watch my own back – unless I'm actually on a job.'

‘I watch his back,' I said.

King chuckled indulgently. ‘OK, darlin'.' To Patrick he said, ‘You put some of your men under my control when I ask for assistance.'

Patrick appeared to think about it. Then, ‘Agreed,' he said reluctantly.

‘I take a share of your proceeds if I'm going through a thin patch.'

‘No. You're not living off me. No one lives off me. Besides, you've got this dump.'

‘In return for which I give you a take when I get a good run of money.'

There was a short silence and then Patrick said, ‘A bloke calling himself Jo-Jo offered me a similar deal quite recently. I arranged for the police to raid his place.'

‘Jo-Jo!' King whooped. ‘He was one of my errand boys – a nobody and turning into another nuisance. You did me a favour – unless he decides to bleat, of course. But I doubt it; he'll want to keep his head attached to his shoulders.'

‘Whatever you say the cops aren't going to stay asleep for ever and any arrangement we make might only be short-term. No, I'd rather stay independent and go hungry – only I won't.'

King relaxed back in his chair. ‘The cops who aren't asleep tend to have … accidents.'

‘Is that what you meant when you said you deal with things personally?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'm impressed,' Patrick whispered, and the other man's eyes glowed.

‘Hear about a DCI whose car went off a motorway bridge earlier in the year?'

‘No.'

‘Name of Harmsworth. He was becoming a real nuisance, so I got rid of him.' King's hand went into his pocket and I saw Patrick go as taut as a bowstring. ‘There you are. I brought it specially to show you. That's his watch. I always take little keepsakes.'

It lay there, in the palm of his hand, the wind-up watch from the RAC, the hands stopped at two thirty-five. Then King's fingers closed over it possessively.

‘And his sidekick,' King continued, ‘– although he might not have been really on to me, I just got in the mood to take control of the local filth. I took the computer that time – thought there might be useful stuff on it. One of my staff is a real geek with computers and hacked into it, but it was all rubbish – his holidays and plants and notes on growing veg and things like that.'

Patrick shrugged dismissively. ‘I can only remember something about an MP meeting a messy end somewhere in the sticks out here. Was that you too?'

King laughed, genuinely amused. ‘God, no. He was knocked off by a junkie desperate for a fix. Why would I want to kill one MP? – they're all a waste of space, so once started you'd have to take out the lot.'

‘Well, you might have got in the mood to take control again,' Patrick said, the irony in his tone utterly lost on the other.

‘No, it's got to be really
useful.
To me. My time's valuable. That's why I'm talking to you now, so I don't meet you one night when you're least expecting it to settle things in more unfriendly fashion. Be warned, though: I don't do things in obvious ways; I leave little souvenirs of my own as I move through life to teach people to stay away from me.'

‘You're thinking about the future,' Patrick observed grimly. ‘Say things like that and you won't have a future.'

I thought it about time that a girl like Sapphire would start to lose her nerve. ‘Don't talk of killing,' I pleaded. ‘Please settle things nicely.'

Predictably, they both totally ignored me.

‘All the staff here are my trained bodyguards,' King said, not taking his eyes off Patrick for a moment, ‘– men and women. I only have to shout.'

‘You're all talk and you'd be dead before you shouted,' Patrick said in a flat whisper.

‘A man was found hanged in the nick a few days ago,' King said. ‘Did you hear about that or don't you ever read the bloody papers or switch on the TV?'

‘I heard about that,' Patrick acknowledged.

‘He helped me with the Harmsworth job and was just about to tell the story to the cops.'

‘You went in the nick and killed him?' was the astonished question.

‘Not me, no. That would have been too risky. I had a snout who worked in the canteen. He fed me all the gossip, stuff he overheard them talking about. He was a good boy and badly needed money after losing on the horses. Funny, it was tips I gave him too. He was quite happy to string up a little rat for a bonus. His problem was that he kept asking me for more. Got a bit shirty about it. So he went for a little swim in the river. Pity, really; the bugger couldn't.'

Patrick stood up. ‘No, I've decided that I'm not impressed after all. A cop's car goes off a bridge and you – some shitty little hotel-keeper – are the big mafioso who killed him and then got rid of his helpers. Crap. You're a liar.' Turning to me he said, ‘Let's go home.'

King shot to his feet. In doing so he must have pressed a hidden alarm button, for the door burst open and four armed men ran in.

‘It's your last chance!' King shouted. ‘D'you want in under my control, or not at all?'

‘Balls,' Patrick said. ‘You're a complete amateur.'

I reckoned he had red-ragged the bull quite enough, gambled on King not wanting a full-blown shoot-out within the hearing of what were presumably ordinary members of the public and proceeded to scream the place down.

King rushed over to silence me; I endeavoured to kick him in the very last place he would want that to happen, but my skirt was too tight, so I only got him on one knee. I fled and we commenced to play dodgems, he limping, around the armchairs and sofas with which the room was lavishly provided. Out of the corner of my eye I could see that the men had moved in on Patrick with a view to bludgeoning him to the ground with their gun butts. A deadly ballet ensued during which he floored two of them but the others cornered him, only stopping short when they saw the knife in his hand and he sprang the blade. They backed off.

‘Shoot the bastard!' King bellowed, lunging at me again.

I shied like a horse, spun round and clumped him across the throat in a fashion guaranteed to silence and then was knocked flat by someone in full flight in reverse who had decided to disobey his order and save his own skin instead. Someone else made a weird squawking noise – of terror, probably. Seconds later I was yanked to my feet. They did not appear to touch the ground until I was outside the door.

‘Run!' Patrick said – quite unnecessarily, as it happened.

Pursuit was right behind us.

We tore down the corridor and very quickly found ourselves in the main foyer, where there were several people, including a rotund man who had just entered through the swing doors and now jigged this way and that attempting to bar our way.

‘Hey, hey!' he bawled over our heads. ‘Hey, Rex! D'you know this man's a cop?'

It was Theodore du Norde.

As innocent bystanders fled, he got his revenge, aiming a kick at Patrick when he had been overwhelmed by at least eight of them and lay on the floor. It took him on the side of the jaw and he became very still.