‘That’s very kind of you.’
The waiter left.
‘With the one condition . . .’
Here we go, Carlyle thought, downing his coffee in three quick gulps.
‘That my client is properly looked after.’
This is not some fucking contract negotiation, Carlyle objected silently. He placed his demitasse on the saucer and looked Blitz squarely in the eye. ‘Did he do it?’
Blitz didn’t blink. ‘No,’ he said evenly, ‘of course not.’
‘There’s no problem then. Tart battered by nobody. End of story.’
Blitz sighed. ‘You don’t know, do you?’
Obviously not. ‘What are we talking about?’ Carlyle asked, trying to sound nonchalant. ‘Known unknowns or unknown unknowns?’
‘Fucking coppers.’ Blitz tutted. ‘The dead girl – don’t you realize who she is?’
‘Was.’
‘Whatever,’ Blitz snorted. ‘Don’t you know who she was?’
TWENTY-THREE
Sitting in the back of a black cab, Carlyle looked morosely at the line of traffic crawling up Tottenham Court Road. The taxi meter had already ticked up to £8.60 while covering a distance that he could easily have walked in less than two minutes. The taxi driver, happily listening to the usual procession of morons on a TalkSport radio call-in show, whistled to himself, secure in the knowledge that he was on for a bumper fare.
Carlyle shifted somewhat uncomfortably in his seat. His best guess was that he had something in the region of £3.50 on his person. Presumably Clifford Blitz, who’d already coughed up for their snack in the Light Bar, would be solvent enough to pay. After all, the inspector thought, he can always write it off against his tax bill.
Blitz ended a phone call and opened the window on his side of the cab a couple of inches.
‘Where are we going?’ Carlyle asked.
‘A safe house,’ Blitz said. He pulled a Romeo y Julieta Churchill out of the inside pocket of his jacket and stuck it in his mouth.
The driver eyed him warily in the mirror and pushed the button on the intercom. ‘Sorry, sir, no smoking in the cab.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Blitz told him. ‘I won’t light it until I get out.’
‘Why do you have a safe house?’ Carlyle asked.
‘It’s a place that I use to stash clients in when they’re in trouble. Everyone thinks they’re off in rehab in the countryside or have done a runner to the Seychelles, or wherever, when in reality they’re here, hiding right under the noses of the newspapers.’ He gave Carlyle a stern look. ‘This is all confidential.’
The cab edged forwards another ten yards.
The meter now read £10.20.
Carlyle gazed aimlessly out of the window. ‘Of course.’
‘You should really be wearing a blindfold.’
‘We have a deal. I keep my deals.’
Blitz clamped the cigar more firmly between his teeth. ‘We’ll see.’
‘Yes, we will,’ Carlyle replied. ‘My view is that you give someone the benefit of the doubt to start with. If people don’t live up to their word, that’s it.’
Blitz grunted something that could have been agreement or disdain.
‘You let me speak to Gavin Swann and-’
‘He won’t be arrested,’ Blitz interjected.
Carlyle nodded. ‘Nor will he be taken back to the station for further questioning. The conversation will not be a formal interview, nor will it go into the official police report at this time.’
Unclamping his jaw, Blitz pulled out the cigar and waved it at Carlyle. ‘And you won’t say anything to the papers!’
‘I don’t deal with journalists,’ Carlyle said firmly.
‘Yeah, right,’ said Blitz, with feeling, as he stuck the Romeo y Julieta back between his teeth.
‘I will carefully pursue the various lines of enquiry that need to be checked out, and when-’
‘If.’
Carlyle smiled. ‘If I need to speak to Mr Swann a second time, I will come through you.’
‘Good.’
Finally, the traffic eased and they accelerated across the Euston Road, heading towards Camden.
‘Thank God for that,’ Blitz sighed. ‘It should take about ten minutes from here.’
Carlyle felt his phone go off. No number was displayed but he had a sixth sense that it was Simpson and slipped the phone back into his jacket.
‘Hiding from the boss?’ Blitz grinned.
Carlyle shook his head. ‘How long have you known Swann?’
‘Gavin? Donkey’s years. I first saw him playing on Hackney Marshes when he was eight. The little bugger was brilliant – scored six goals in a single game. It was obvious he was going to be a top player.’
Carlyle knew a well-rehearsed spiel when he heard one but he nodded amiably.
‘I signed him on the spot,’ Blitz continued. ‘Since then, I’ve been taken to court three times, been banned by those numpties at the Football Association twice, and fined a total of a million and a half quid.’
‘Blimey!’ said Carlyle, turning up the fake empathy as high as it would go.
‘I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve been sent bullets through the post,’ Blitz said smugly. ‘One time I was actually shot at but, through it all, I’ve still held on to my client.’
‘You must have made a mint.’
‘I’ve done all right,’ Blitz reflected. ‘I remember one meeting at a hotel at Heathrow. There was a Gola holdall with two million quid inside. It was sitting on the bed, next to a piece of paper and a pen. The bit of paper had just been torn from a lined notebook. On it was three lines of handwritten scrawl. It was supposed to be a contract with me signing over Gavin to this other agent, a twat called Marcus Angelides. Angelides was clearly scared shitless. I don’t know what he thought I would do to him. He was there with two Belgian cage fighters as muscle. He nodded at the bit of paper and said, “Sign it, take your money and fuck off”.’ He shook his head, smiling at the memory. ‘It was all in the papers.’
Knowing better than to spoil the moment, Carlyle waited. Reaching Camden tube, the cab took a left, heading towards Regent’s Park.
The meter now read £25.
‘So I looked him in the eye,’ said Blitz, as they turned into Gloucester Avenue, ‘and said “Marcus, you know I’m not going to sign that; don’t be so fucking stupid.” I knew that Gavin was going to be worth a hell of a lot more than that over the next ten years. I accepted that I might have to take a shoeing there and then but it would be worth it – as long as they didn’t actually kill me.’ Leaning forward, he rapped a knuckle on the glass window behind the driver’s head. ‘Anywhere here’s good – thanks, mate.’
Carlyle watched relieved as Blitz took out his wallet and removed a pair of crisp £20 notes to pay the fare.
‘How did you know that they wouldn’t kill you?’ he asked as the driver pulled up at the kerb.
‘I didn’t,’ Blitz shrugged. ‘But I had to take a punt, didn’t I? In the end, I didn’t even get thumped.’
‘So those weren’t the guys who shot at you, then,’ Carlyle asked, amused.
‘Nah. That was someone else. This time round, with the cash in the bag, it was just a lot of swearing and posturing. But that’s what you have to expect in this game.’ The driver stopped the meter at £27.80 and slid open the glass partition. Blitz slipped through the cash. ‘Thanks mate,’ he said cheerily. ‘Keep the change but give me a couple of blank receipts.’
‘I thought she was just some slapper.’ Slumped in a chair at the kitchen table, Gavin Swann looked down into his mug of tea. He was wearing jeans and a blue T-shirt with the legend BENCH emblazoned across the chest in white lettering. On his chin was a couple of days’ stubble, but he looked alert and relaxed. ‘Kelly brought her.’
Carlyle noticed the slightest grimace from Blitz. ‘Kelly?’