A Good day to die

'It didn't work.'

'And I'm sorry about that, but I did it for your own good. All right? And I'm going to tell you this for your own good, too: get the fuck out of there. Get on a plane and get back here. While you still can. Because otherwise you're gonna get into stuff you really don't want to.'

'Like what?'

'Just do it, Mick. Not for me. For you.'

And he hung up before I had a chance to say anything else.

I shivered. The cold was beginning to bite. For some reason, I felt guilty for being angry with him. He'd played the injured-innocent card like he played most situations in his life: with just the right amount of acting skill to sound genuine. He was right, too. I was getting myself into a dangerous situation. But there was no way I was changing course now.

Not before I'd even started.

14

The Ben Crouch Tavern was a big pub with a black wooden frontage about fifty yards east of Oxford Street. A chalkboard sign outside the door said that they served Monster Burgers, and a plaque pinned to the wall above it said 'Prepare to sample the eerie atmosphere of Ben Crouch', whoever he was. Scary.

Inside, it was dimly lit, and all the furnishings, including the wooden floor, the array of beams and pillars and the steps leading up to the open-plan balcony above my head were painted the same black as the frontage. A bar on the opposite wall ran the whole length of the pub, and there were a few stone gargoyles up amongst the bottles of spirits, but this was about as eerie as the atmosphere got. The place was crowded, but rather than the legions of the dead, the clientele consisted mainly of large groups of very loud students, and only the occasional refugee from the Rocky Horror Show. The area in front of the bar was packed, which is always a bad sign for the ageing drinker, and the buzz of conversation and clinking of glasses was so noisy that it almost drowned out the music – a song from the Eighties which was either the Mission or the Jesus and Mary Chain.

I stood near the entrance for a few moments, wondering how the hell I'd find a red-haired girl of thirty-one I'd never seen before, when I felt a tap on the shoulder.

I turned round and looked into the smiling face of a very attractive young woman with soft, elfin features and a fine head of curly reddish-blond hair that fell down over her shoulders with the casual finesse of a fashion ad. She was quite a lot shorter than me, probably no more than five three, and dressed in an expensive-looking nubuck jacket and jeans, with a dinky red handbag hanging jauntily from one shoulder. She had a cigarette in one hand but no drink that I could see, and I would have put her at twenty-two or twenty-three if it wasn't for the eyes, a striking mixture of hazel and green, which betrayed a definite maturity. This was a girl who probably wanted you to take her lightly but knew you'd be making a mistake if you did so. Like a lot of journalists, really, and more than one or two coppers.

'Mr Kane?' she enquired above the noise.

I put out a hand and she took it. 'How did you know? Do I really look that out of place?'

She smiled broadly, showing deep dimples. 'You want me to answer that?'

'Probably not.' I gave her one of my old rueful smiles that years ago used to really get to the ladies.

'It's not that. It's just you do actually look like you've been beaten up. But you didn't tell me you'd be wearing glasses,' she added.

I hadn't known myself until an hour or so back, but had decided to put them on just to add a little to my disguise. It pays to be careful when you're in the vicinity of journalists.

'I've only started wearing them recently,' I answered, 'so I tend to forget. Anyway, I'm pleased to meet you. I thought your articles were very interesting.'

'Do you want to go somewhere else?' she asked, moving close enough so that I could smell a subtle dab of perfume. 'There's no way I can make myself heard in here.' Which wasn't strictly true. Her voice, though not loud, was strong and clear, the northern burr less obvious now than the fact that she'd obviously been educated at a school considerably higher up the educational scale than the one I'd spent my youth in.

To our left, a table full of drunken students were doing an atrocious version of some rugby song, banging away on the wood with open palms in an effort to find a rhythm. It was fair to say they weren't succeeding.

I nodded. 'Sure, lead the way.'

We stepped outside into the relative quiet of the night and walked across the road to a smaller, less crowded pub on the corner. Emma found a space at the bar, and I asked her what she wanted.

'A bottle of Beck's'll be fine, thanks.'

I got the barman's attention and ordered her Beck's plus a pint of Pride for myself, not knowing quite what to expect. It had been three years since I'd drunk English bitter and I wasn't sure whether it was going to taste like nectar or warm piss.

'So, how come we met in that other pub?' I asked as we found a spare table in the corner, a good few feet away from the nearest customers. 'Were you checking me out to see if I was worth talking to?'

'I didn't know you from Adam,' she said with a smile. 'What did you expect?'

I took a sip from my drink. First impressions were veering towards warm piss. 'You still don't know me from Adam.'

'That's true, but I watched you when you walked in and you seemed genuine enough. I can usually tell, I meet plenty of people who aren't. If you'd looked too shifty, I'd have just slipped out of there and you'd never have realized.'

'Fair enough,' I said, thinking if only she knew the truth.

'How did you manage to get beaten up?' she asked, changing the subject as she slipped a notebook and pen out of her handbag. 'What did you find out?'

'Well, first off, let me say this. I want you to help me, and I want to help you, but can you do me a favour and keep what we find out of your articles until we've got somewhere?'

'Why?'

'I've got a feeling that the last article you wrote was right – that there's more to this case than meets the eye. I just want us both to be careful, that's all.'

She nodded. 'OK, but if I turn up something that's a real scoop, I might have to change my mind. I don't want to be at the North London Echo all my life.'

'I understand, but please tell me if that's what you're going to do, all right? At least so I know.'

'Sure.' She took a pack of Marlboro Lights and a cheap lighter out of the handbag. 'Do you smoke?' she asked, pointing the nearly full pack in my direction. One of the cigarettes had been placed upside-down, with the tobacco end sticking out.

I told her that I didn't any more, but didn't mind if she did. Then I asked if she'd put the cigarette upside-down in the pack intentionally.

'Apparently it brings you luck,' she said, lighting up. 'I've always done it.'

I nodded. 'My first girlfriend always used to do it too. She wouldn't even accept a cigarette from someone whose pack didn't have an upside-down fag in it. A lot of people used to do it in those days.'

'And did it bring her luck, your girlfriend?'

'She ended up falling in love with a representative from the Seventh Day Adventist Church who knocked on her door one day when she was a student. She became a born-again Christian, and ran off with him to America. My brother told me that she's had five kids. I don't know if you'd class that as luck or not.'

'Not five kids. Not for me, anyway. But I suppose it depends which way you look at it, doesn't it?'

'Exactly.'

She puffed lightly on her cigarette, taking care to blow the smoke away from me, and I took the opportunity to look at her more closely. She wasn't wearing any make-up, and didn't need it. Her skin was soft and pale and there was a cute smattering of freckles the same colour as her hair running across the top of her nose. But it was the eyes that held my attention. They stood out, not only because of their perfect round shape and unusual colouring, but because they seemed so full of life. Emma Neilson was the sort of girl who could turn heads. I don't think she was classically beautiful – some of her features, like her nose and cheekbones, weren't delicate enough for the rest of her face – but she had a real spark about her, and I'd have bet money she could wrap all but the hardiest of men round her little finger.