There were more houses, then some lock-ups, and then a corner shop. The street met another one at a T-junction, and he made the junction just as four figures came cautiously out of Capaldi’s building. One of them pointed at him, and another raised a pistol. It could have been anything, airgun, starting-gun, even a water pistol. Hoffer wasn’t taking any chances.
As far as he could aim, he aimed over their heads, but not so far over their heads that they’d think he didn’t mean business. A couple of them dove back indoors again, but the one with the pistol kept cool and fired off two shots. The first hit some harling on the wall of the corner shop, while the second went through its display window, leaving large radial fractures around the hole.
‘Fuck this,’ said Hoffer, letting off a couple more and not caring where they went. He turned the corner into the new road, ignoring the people who were coming to their windows and doors. They seemed to go back inside pretty damned quick, but at least they came to look, which was more than would’ve happened in New York. At the bottom of the street, he saw a busy well-lit road, buses passing along it. He thought he recognised it from the cab ride. He kept turning around, but no one seemed to be following him. He knew they’d probably get a car first and follow him in that. Gun-toting drug dealers were so lazy these days.
‘Damn,’ he said, ‘I could do with some dope, too.’ Maybe they’d sell him some before taking off the top of his head. He’d known dealers kill their victims by ODing them. Well, let them try that trick on him with a mountain of opalescent coke, he’d put them out of business before he died.
He’d tucked the gun into his waistband and closed his jacket. He wasn’t running any more, just walking very briskly. There were sirens ahead. Yes, he’d passed a police station on the way here. He walked into a pub as the sirens approached, looked around the interior as though searching for someone, then stepped out again when the sirens had passed. There was an Indian restaurant coming up. It was curtained from the road, nobody could see in or out.
If he kept moving, someone would stop him, be it police or irate dealers. There were no cabs to be seen, and the buses didn’t move fast enough to be havens. He could walk, or he could hide. And if he was going to hide, why not hide somewhere he could get a meal and a drink? He pushed open the door of the Indian place and found another door which he had to pull. The restaurant was quiet, and he got the table he asked for: in a corner, facing the door. Anyone coming into the restaurant had to close the first door before opening the second. For a second or two, they’d be trapped between the two. He’d be able to pick them off while still spooning up the sauce, like a scene out of The Godfather.
‘Quiet tonight,’ he said to the young waiter.
‘It’s always quiet midweek, sir.’
After the meal, he had a couple of drinks in what seemed to be an Irish bar, not a coloured face in the place. There was a sign on the door saying SORRY, NO TRAVELLERS. He almost hadn’t gone in, but then the barman explained that it meant tinkers, gypsies, not visitors. They all had a good laugh about that.
He took a taxi back to Capaldi’s flat and made the driver go straight past it. Now that he thought of it, Capaldi would be long gone. He might not come back till all the heat had died. He might never come back at all. He’d either talk to Hoffer, and the D-Man would kill him, or he’d stay quiet and Hoffer might kill him. It wasn’t much of a life, was it?
‘Piccadilly Circus, please,’ Hoffer told the driver.
‘You’re the guv’nor.’
It was unfortunate they’d been interrupted. All Hoffer knew now was that the D-Man had stayed in town after the assassination, when normally he’d have taken off. Why? That was the question. What was there for him here?
The tip-off, it had to be the tip-off to the police. The assassin was mad about it, and maybe he was going to do something about it. He’d be tracking down his paymasters. He’d be seeking out whoever set him up.
‘I’ll be damned,’ Hoffer said to himself. At this rate, even in a city of ten million people, they might end up bumping into one another by accident.
He spent the rest of the drive wondering what his opening line would be.
12
Bel and I sat waiting for our meeting with Joe Draper. His production company had a set of offices on the top floor of a building near Harrods. We’d arrived early so Bel could do some window-shopping. I offered to buy her anything she liked, but she shook her head, even when I said I’d dock it from her pay.
Actually, we hadn’t stayed long in the store. She’d looked a bit disgusted with it all after a while. She’d hooked her arm through mine as we’d walked to Draper Productions.
‘Relax,’ she’d told me.
We’d spent last night in bed together, Bel asking questions about my life, and me deciding how to answer them. I’d deflected her for a while by talking about guns. She knew a lot about guns and ammo, but that didn’t mean she liked them. They scared the hell out of her.
Now we sat in Draper’s offices, pretending to be CID. We were wearing the same clothes as yesterday, down to the black leather gloves. We weren’t leaving fingerprints anywhere. Bel flicked through a trade mag, while I watched Teletext. There were three monitor-sized TVs in reception, all with the sound turned down. One of them was showing a looped montage of recent Draper output. The secretary kept deflecting calls to Draper’s assistant.
‘I did that,’ I said. Bel looked up from her magazine. Teletext was running a news page, all about how two East European countries were about to close their shared border. Tensions had been high between the neighbours since the break-up of the Soviet Union, but a recent perceived assassination attempt on a diplomat based in London had brought things to a head.
‘Maybe you should do something about it,’ she whispered. The whisper wasn’t necessary, the secretary having put on headphones so she could start some audio-typing.
‘Like what?’
‘I don’t know, own up or something, say the diplomat was never your target.’
‘But that would mean telling them who my real target was. I quite like it that they’re not sure.’ I was smiling, but Bel wasn’t.
‘You could start a war, Michael.’
I stopped smiling. ‘You’re right. Maybe I could offer Draper the exclusive.’
She slapped me with the magazine, then went back to reading it. Teletext flipped to its News Directory. There was some story near the bottom about a shoot-out on a north London street. It was coupled with another story, some get-tough-on-drugs speech the Home Secretary had made. I didn’t think it meant anything, but I got up and went over to the secretary. She stopped her tape.
‘Yes?’
‘Do you have a handset for the TV?’ She looked disapproving. ‘I don’t want to change channels, I just want to check a story on Teletext.’
Without saying anything, she opened a drawer and brought out a couple of remotes.
‘One of these has Teletext,’ she said, restarting her tape.
‘Thanks a million,’ I muttered. I aimed one of the remotes and pressed three digits. Up popped the story. There was a bit about the Home Secretary first, then a slim paragraph about gunshots fired in a street in Tottenham. It was the street where Harry the Cap lived. Maybe some people believe in coincidence. I’m not one of them. I knew Hoffer was getting too damned close.