For the first time Jimmy Shaw was experiencing the sordid lifestyle of his minions. People he had hired to do his dirty work in a dozen cities around the globe. Men he didn’t care about or even think about. People paid, chivvied, threatened and cheated into line. Old lags, youngsters fresh off the streets, men who had fallen on hard times and into harder circles. People as remote from him as a maggot on the end of a fisherman’s line. And now he was one of them. But not quite … Breathing heavily, air thick as soup in his lungs, Jimmy Shaw’s voice was strained when he answered his mobile.
‘Hello?’
‘Shaw? It’s Dwappa.’ The African’s voice was flat, without emotion. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘You’re killing me.’
‘Yes, I am,’ Dwappa agreed. ‘Which is why you have to get back to me soon. With the skull.’
‘I’m on to it.’
‘You know where it is?’
Shaw kept staring at the lighted hotel window, then wiped his forehead with a handkerchief. As he moved, he could smell the stench from his other hand and a burning sensation creeping up the veins of his arm. But his plan was still there, slipping through the miasma of his sickness.
‘What if I die before I get the skull?’
‘You won’t.’
‘What if I do?’ Shaw persisted. ‘You’ve poisoned me, you fucker, what if I don’t get back to you in time?’
‘You want to live, don’t you?’
Shaw was sticky with sweat, matter collected at the corners of his eyes. ‘What if you’ve tricked me?’ he said, his voice harsh. ‘What if you can’t cure me? What if I get back to London, give you the skull – and I still die?’ His cunning was automatic, vicious. ‘I’ve been thinking about that. And wondering – what’s to stop me getting the skull for myself and selling it to someone else?’
Dwappa kept the surprise out of his voice. ‘By your reasoning, you’d still die.’
‘But you wouldn’t get the skull, would you?’ Shaw remarked, coughing and then spitting into the gutter. ‘You see, I’ve been thinking about it, Dwappa, and I think that if I return with the skull you won’t let me live anyway. Why should you? Why should you pay me when you can just wait for the poison to finish me off? No fee, no witness.’ He was still watching the lighted hotel window, dangerous and desperate.
‘I’m the only one who can save you, Shaw.’
‘Well, be that as it may, I’m the only one who can get the skull. So, you see, I want a new arrangement.’
Wrong-footed, Dwappa hissed down the line: ‘What new arrangement?’
‘I want my fee now—’
‘Hah!’
‘I want the money now, Dwappa,’ Shaw warned him, thinking of Gabino Ortega, ‘or I sell the skull to someone else. You won’t get it—’
‘If I don’t get it, you’ll die.’
‘My life for the skull.’
Dwappa took in a breath. ‘It was always your life for the skull.’
‘Pay me my fee in advance and I’ll deliver,’ Shaw replied steadily. ‘I’ll send details of the bank account to pay the money into, then wait till it’s cleared. Then I’ll come back with the skull.’
‘What’s to stop me killing you then and retrieving the money?’
‘You think I’d leave it in an account you had details of?’ Shaw countered. His brain was working fast although his breathing was becoming more laboured with every breath. ‘Soon as I get it, I’ll move the money on to somewhere you can’t find it. Fuck, the Inland Revenue and the police can’t find it, so you’ve no chance. That’s what I’m good at – leaving no paper trail. You won’t get the money back, Dwappa. And if you let me die, you lose the money and the skull. You pay me in advance, you cure me, and you get the skull. It’s simple.’
He was gambling with his life and he knew it. Dwappa was the only person who could save him, but only if forced to do so. It was in Dwappa’s interests to keep him alive, not kill him. Shaw knew how the African’s mind worked and Dwappa certainly wouldn’t let him die when he’d cheated him. He would come after Shaw instead. After Shaw and the money.
But he would worry about that later. From a distance.
24
When Ben finally arrived in Madrid it was late at night. And hot. Exhausted and unshaven, he caught a cab to the Hotel Melise, half running into the lobby towards the Reception area.
‘I’m Ben Golding. My brother’s staying here. Dr Leon Golding?’
The tired night porter looked at the reception book wearily. ‘Oh yes,’ he said in heavy accented English. ‘In room 230. Second floor.’
Hurriedly, Ben walked to the lift, then decided against it and made for the stairs. Climbing as fast as he could, he came to the second floor and checked the room numbers, taking a right turn at the end of the corridor. Finally, he found room 230 and knocked.
‘Leon, it’s me, Ben. Let me in.’
There was no answer. He knocked again. ‘Leon! Wake up! It’s me. Open the door.’
Again, no answer. Uneasy, Ben tried the handle then turned it, the door unexpectedly opening. Slowly he walked in, flicking on the light and catching his breath. The bed was crumpled, sheets scattered, a chair overturned.
‘Leon?’ Ben called out, looking round the room. ‘Leon?’
Warily he pulled back the blind and glanced at the balcony. Unlocking the French windows, he walked out, then moved over to the edge and peered down, relieved to see nothing lying on the hotel forecourt below. His nerves on edge, he turned back into the room and relocked the windows, his body straining for any sound or movement.
‘Leon?’ he said again, jumping as the air conditioning kicked in, the fan overhead beginning its queasy swirl into the hot air.
Panicked, Ben looked around the room once more. Maybe Leon – despite all he had said – had just gone out? Maybe it had been his brother who had made the mess in the room. It wasn’t beyond him, in his present mental state. Whatever had happened, there was nothing more he could do except wait. He wouldn’t jump to any sinister conclusions, he would just wait until his brother got back …
Moving into the bathroom, Ben bent over the washbasin and ran some cold water, closing his eyes and splashing it over his face. Behind him, he could hear the fan whirling and the soft creak of the bathroom door swinging closed. Reaching for a towel, he dried his face and then opened his eyes.
In the mirror he could see the room reflected behind him – and the body of his brother, face bloated, tongue black and protruding, hanging suspended behind the door.
25
London
Moving down the backstairs of Mama Gala’s shop, Emile Dwappa paused, listening. Beyond the curtain which separated the shop from the back rooms he could hear the fat woman laughing with a customer, his gaze flickering towards the tamarin monkey in the cage at the foot of the stairs. The animal stared at him, its pale eyes unblinking, as Dwappa reached for a piece of apple on the cage floor. At once the monkey scuttled to the back of the cage, hunched in the furthest corner, as Dwappa held out the fruit between his thumb and forefinger.
Immobile, the monkey regarded him. Only yards away the snakes uncurled themselves, one slinking towards the glass and raising its head. Dwappa kept holding out the fruit, and a moment later the monkey rushed towards him, grabbing for the slice of apple.
‘What you doing?’ Mama Gala said, walking through. ‘I don’t want the monkey feeding.’
Ignoring her, Dwappa let the animal take the apple, Mama Gala making a snorting sound as she glanced upwards.
‘You haven’t left that woman upstairs, have you?’ she went on. ‘I don’t want her here. Always stoned, always stumbling round. She’s no good to you – you should get rid of her.’
‘Maybe I should get rid of you.’
Her fat hand went out and patted Dwappa’s cheek in mock tenderness.