The Murder Exchange (20 page)

'Where else did you go, then?'

'I did six months in the Congo, three months in
Colombia, and a few weeks in Liberia.'

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'What was it like? Was it fun?'

I shook my head. 'Not really. Most of the time we
were boiling alive in the jungle, getting constantly
attacked by all kinds of horrible insects and never
knowing what kind of tropical disease we might
pick up. The most exciting part was when we
actually saw some action, but it didn't happen very
often.'

'It still sounds better than what a lot of people do
to earn their living.'

'It was better than selling double-glazing, I'll
give you that, and I suppose it was a bit of an
adventure getting the chance to finally use all my
training in a real-life situation, but the reality was a
lot more boring than the expectation.'

'It always is, Max. Haven't you noticed that yet?'

1 suppose so, but the money wasn't that much
good either. Everyone thinks mercenaries earn an
arm and a leg, but if s nothing really. Especially when
you think how much you've got to risk. Joe felt the
same way, so we decided to set up the company.'

'What's it called?'

'It's not my name, honestly. It's his.'

She smiled. 'Go on, what is it?'

Tiger Solutions.'

Her laughter bounced off the walls of the bedroom.
'What the fuck sort of a name is that?'

'A bad one, but Joe wanted it and I couldn't think
of anything better, so I didn't bother to argue.'

'Max, anything's better than Tiger Solutions.
What sort of solutions does a tiger offer anyway?'

'I don't know. Fearsome ones?'

She continued laughing and I chucked one of the

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pillows at her. It bounced off her head and landed
on the other side of the room. 'If you ever meet Joe,
you have a go at him about it. I swear it had
nothing to do with me.'

We were silent for a few moments, and even
though I didn't want to have to say it, I knew there
was no point putting it off. 'Look, Joe gave me some
money so that I could get out of town for a while,
enough to keep me going for the foreseeable future.
So I can be out of your hair by tomorrow.'

She smiled at me. 'You don't have to go yet, Max.
I like the company.'

'I appreciate it, but you've done enough for me
already, and we can't carry on like this for ever. I've
got to go out and get some fresh air fairly soon
otherwise I'll go stir crazy.'

She put her hand on my arm. 'You go when you
want, but not before. Not on my account. It's no
problem for me, you being here. Honest.'

Well, there was no way I was going to argue. Not
with the sort of accommodation I was getting. So I
gave her my best smile and said that, OK, maybe
I'd stay a couple of days longer. At that moment,
the phone rang out in the hall and she jumped
off the bed. I watched as she went out the door, her
rear waggling seductively. There was a little red
devil complete with trident tattooed on the right
cheek. He was grinning. So was I.

When she came back a few minutes later, she told
me that it had been the club on the phone. 'I've got
to work tonight,' she said, getting back on the
bed. She lit two more cigarettes and passed one
over. You get my drift about the standard of

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accommodation. Naked women even firing up
your smokes for you.

'Again? Haven't they heard of workers' rights
down there? You need a night off occasionally.
Can't you throw a sickie?' I remembered how bored
I'd been the previous night. For some reason, Elaine
didn't have Sky, which had severely limited my
options. The high point had been Celebrity Stars in
their Eyes, if you can call some bird who used to be
on EastEnders massacring my mum's favourite
Patsy Kline song a high point. It wasn't an
experience I wanted to repeat.

'You know as well as I do that it's a difficult time
at the moment, Max. Perhaps in a couple of days.'

'What's going to happen at Arcadia? Now that
Fowler's not coming back.'

'It's all pretty much up in the air at the moment,
especially as everyone thinks he is coming back,
except me, you, and the people who had him
killed.'

'Is there any sign of the Holtzes yet?'

'No. I don't think we'll see them for a bit. Not
with the police still sniffing around asking
questions about the doorman who got poisoned.'

'Well, they're going to start coming out of the
woodwork pretty soon. Blokes like them aren't
the sort to be hands-off about a big investment like
the Arcadia. So when they do, make sure you watch
yourself.'

She sat up and eyed me coolly, like it was me
who ought to be watching myself. 'It's nice to know
you care, Max, it really is. But you don't need to
worry about me. I know what I'm doing.'

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Elaine was a feisty lady and definitely not someone
to be messed with, but at the same time her
words didn't do much to reassure me. I remember
the American commander of another mercenary
unit in Sierra Leone saying exactly the same thing
just before he disappeared into the jungle on a one
man reconnaissance near the diamond fields of Go.

The next day an RUF patrol ate him.

In the end the weather was too decent to be
indoors, especially as I hadn't set foot outside
Elaine's apartment for getting on for forty-eight
hours. Joe was right: I probably wasn't the Old
Bill's top priority. Yes, I'd slapped a couple of them,
plus got one inadvertently pissed on, but people do
that to them all the time. It's all part of being a
copper, getting slapped in the line of duty. It's like
soldiers - it's what they join up for. The action and
all that shit. Granted, they were probably looking
for me, but I didn't think my crime was so heinous
that they'd be scrambling the helicopters and
plastering up the Wanted: Dead or Alive posters
just yet, so that afternoon we went out for a stroll
round Clerkenwell, arm hi arm like true romantics,
taking in the sun and the warmth, enjoying it the
way the tourists do.

On the way back to the apartment we stopped at
an Italian deli and I bought some ingredients:
anchovies, black olives, fresh oregano, canned
Italian tomatoes and, most important of all, a six
pack of bottled Peroni. I found some spaghetti in
Elaine's food cupboard and, after a bit of exercise of
the bedroom variety, cooked us both a pasta dish

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my ex-wife had taught me to make years back on
one of the few occasions we'd been talking.
Puttanesca. Whore's spaghetti, the fiery sauce
unfaithful Latin wives would make for their
husbands because it tasted like it had taken hours
to prepare when in reality you could knock it
together in twenty minutes, leaving yourself ample
time for an afternoon's shagging. Perhaps she'd
been trying to tell me something.

Elaine had to be at the club at nine-thirty, and
before she went I told her I'd feel happier if she left
the place, which I know was a bit cheeky, given the
fact I hardly knew her, but to be honest with you I
was beginning to think that maybe something
could come of this.

'You're a talented woman,' I told her, assuming
that she was. 'You know how to run a place. Why
don't you look for a job somewhere else?'

She stopped in front of me and gave me a look
which said: Don't push your luck, sonny. In the
heels of her black court shoes, she was only an inch
below me in height. 'I hear what you're saying,
Max, and I will leave. But it'll be in my own time.
Understand? I'm a big girl now, I can look after
myself. Thanks for the concern, but save it for
people who really need it.'

Which was telling me.

After she'd gone, I sat demolishing the Peroni
and trying desperately to find something decent to
watch on the TV, which, not for the first time,
turned out to be a fruitless task. I ended up watching
a programme about a family of chimpanzees
living in the African jungle. It all started off quite

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nicely as well. The chimps were messing about,
grooming one another and generally acting all cute
like they do in the zoo, and I was even musing
about what a nice, laid-back life it would be being a
member of the ape fraternity when all of a sudden
everything went a bit mental. A friendly-looking
gibbon appeared up in the trees near the chimps'
camp, and one of them spotted him. Well, the next
second the whole lot of them were howling and
shrieking like a bunch of Millwall fans on angel
dust, and before I had a chance to even work out
what was going on, they were charging after him
through the undergrowth, much to the excitement
of the breathless narrator.

After a dramatic five-minute chase they cornered
him up on one of the branches, and then, to my
horror, ripped the poor little sod apart, disembowelling
him with their bare hands while he
stared mournfully up at them. They then began to
eat him alive, as casually as you like, which to my
mind was really quite disgusting. Especially as it
was on TV when kids could be watching. And to
think these beasts are meant to be our closest
relatives.

One of the chimps was staring cockily at the
camera while he munched on a hefty piece of
gibbon offal, and I got a nasty sense of deja vu because he really reminded me of that treacherous
toe-rag Tony, sitting up there like he owned the
place with what looked suspiciously like a smile on
his face.

Maybe the bastard had been reincarnated.

I switched over at this point, having no desire to

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get into a staring match with a familiar-looking
monkey, and cracked open another Peroni. It made
me wonder what I'd have been doing that night if I'd
never agreed to take on the Fowler contract. Probably
sitting alone at home watching something a lot better.
Life would have been a lot easier, that was for sure,
but then again it would also have been a lot more
boring. And sometimes that's worse.

What I didn't know then, though, and what I do
now, is that my troubles were only just beginning.

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Monday, thirteen days ago

Iversson

I was woken up by a faint sobbing, almost like a
kid's. My eyes snapped to attention and surveyed
the room. It was dark, but the light from the street
shimmered through the window, providing a
murky orange glow, and I could make out a figure
at the end of the bed. It was Elaine. The clock on the
bedside table said 1.25.

I sat up, fumbling for the switch on the bedside
lamp. 'Elaine? What's happened?' The light came
on and I inhaled sharply, squinting against the
brightness. Her make-up had run where she'd been
crying and there were the beginnings of a bruise on
her right cheek, just below the eye. The low-cut
black blouse she was wearing had a tear in it that exposed the top of her bra, and it looked like an
attempt had been made to rip it off which
hadn't fallen too far short of success.

She looked at me, trying to maintain some sort of
dignity, but the effort was too much and she began
to cry again. 'Oh, Max ...'

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Confused and worried, I jumped out of the bed
and took her in my arms. 'Elaine, what's
happened?'

For a while she didn't say anything, just sobbed
quietly against my chest, and I let her get it out, not
wanting to hurry her. Finally, she lifted her head
and turned away. 'Leave it, Max. Please. I'll be OK.'
She took her top off with her back to me - the first
time she'd done that - and threw it in the corner
before unclipping her bra.

'Elaine, tell me, please. You can't just come in like
this and not let me know what's up. Has someone
hurt you?' I went over and put my hands on her
shoulders, rubbing them gently as I tried to relax
her. 'Come on, tell me.'

'I can't/ she said, still keeping her back to me. 'I
don't want you to do anything stupid.'

It was a bit late for that. The last four days had
been one stupid thing after another. But I didn't say
this, knowing that patience alone would get it out
of her. 'Do you want a drink? A brandy or
something?'

She nodded. That'd be nice.'

I went through to the kitchen, found a bottle of
brandy, and poured her a generous slug. I poured
myself a glass of water.

When I returned to the bedroom, she was sitting
on the edge of the bed in her dressing gown. She'd
stopped crying and appeared to have calmed down
a little. 'I'm sorry about that/ she said, and thanked
me as I gave her the drink.

I sat down on her dressing-table chair so that
we were facing each other. There's no need to

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apologize/ I said quietly, 'but I want to know
what's happened. Please.'

'Why? It won't do you any good.'

'I'll be the judge of that.'

She stared at me for a long moment, and I
thought then that even upset and humiliated she
looked beautiful. And vulnerable. For all her tough
exterior, she bled just the same as anyone else. 'Just
tell me, Elaine,' I said again.

She exhaled for what seemed like a long time,
then looked up at the ceiling. 'Krys Holtz came to
the club tonight.' I felt something strong in the pit
of my stomach, unsure whether it was fear or anger,
thinking that it was probably both. 'He asked to see
me in the office that Roy used to use. When I got in
there he started questioning me about the accounts,
about how much we were taking, where the money
was going, and all that. He seemed to think I knew
all about the dealing that went on there. I told him
that that side of it was nothing to do with me, and
gave him all the paperwork. I didn't like his
attitude. He was treating me like some sort of third
class citizen. I'd heard he was a real bastard but I
didn't expect him to be quite so fucking out of
order. He kept calling me "hired help", and then,
when I couldn't tell him what he wanted to know
about the dealing, he told me I was a lying bitch. He
said that we'd all been cooking the books down
there. Roy, me, and Warren Case, the bloke who
supplied the doormen.' She was fiddling intently
with a ring on her index finger as she spoke, and
shaking her head. Finally, she looked me right in
the eye. 'You know me, Max, I don't like being