The Murder Exchange (9 page)

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a few minutes since I felt confident that if he didn't
have anything to hide, he'd return there sooner
rather than later. If you're in the nightclub business,
you don't trust other people to look after your investment for too long, not if you want anything
left at the end of it.

Four hundred yards up the Holloway Road, just
past the Liverpool Road turning, the traffic slowed
H^ht down as a large group of maybe twenty-five
or thirty people standing outside a pub suddenly
spilled out into the road. Seconds later there were
shouts and the sound of glass smashing, and a
group of five of them split off from the rest in
what looked like a wild dance. Others ran over to
nile in and the whole scrum of them lumbered
_.Uj the middle of the road, breaking apart and reforming
as half a dozen individual battles were
fought, oblivious to the cars driving by. A bottle
sailed lazily through the air, bouncing off the
roof of the vehicle in front of us before ending up
unbroken in the bus lane on the other side of the
street.

'Fucking kids,' said the taxi driver in a voice that
was half-snarl, half-sigh, as the group, most of
whom looked no more than twenty, swirled back
towards the pavement. One of them went down,
putting up his arms in a vain effort to protect himself
as he disappeared beneath a rapid-fire welter of
kicks from at least three others. A girl screamed
something unintelligible and rushed out of
the watching crowd to intervene, wading into the
kickers, handbag aloft. The one on the ground,
sensing an opportunity, jumped to his feet and got

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out of the firing line. He was holding his head and
bleeding from the nose.

The taxi driver accelerated and we left them
behind to their fighting. 'Fucking kids/ he said
again. "They get worse and worse.' I nodded and
mumbled something in reply, thinking that that
was the thing with London. One minute you were
drinking in the ambient atmosphere of a laid-back
summer evening, the next you'd stepped unwittingly
into an ugly battlezone. I suppose that's
why some people like it so much. The variety.

There was a long queue of revellers, mainly
under-twenty-fives, snaking back along the street
from the entrance to the Arcadia. I got the cab to
stop directly outside, paid the driver in full, and
tipped him a quid. 'Enjoy yourself/ he said, with a
wave, as he drove off. Probably about ten years too
late for that, I thought, but you never knew.

I walked to the head of the queue where a group of
four male and one female door staff were frisking the
waiting punters. One of them turned to me as I
approached and gave me the same sort of funny look
the cab driver had, like what on earth was a bloke in
his mid-thirties in a suit he looked like he'd been
wearing all day doing coming to a trendy joint such
as this. Teah?' he said, by way of greeting.

I produced my warrant card and thrust it in his
face. 'Police. I'm here to see Mr Fowler.' I was
getting deja vu now.

He inspected the card, then looked back at me. 'I
don't think he's here tonight/ he said.

'Well, Miss Toms'll do/ I said, and walked past
him.

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There was a line of four further doormen in the
foyer just inside the main entrance and I walked
past them, showed my warrant card to a very thin
young lady with big hair at the desk, and asked her
to phone up to Fowler. She reiterated what the
doorman had said about him not being in, but I
insisted. She let the phone in his office ring for
about thirty seconds before telling me he wasn't
there. Next she tried Elaine Toms, who apparently
was in, but wasn't answering either. I had no great
desire to enter the club proper but it didn't look like
I was going to have any choice. I thanked her and
headed through the door in front of me.

The place was heaving, as befitted a Friday night,
with the majority of the youthful crowd packed
onto the dance floor. The music was loud, repetitive
and boring, the kind my daughter's thankfully too
young to like. At the bar at the far end, I noticed a
few older people, mainly men in their thirties, and
even one or two in their forties, clustered together
against the noise. Some of them were wearing suits,
though none of them looked like office workers,
and I wondered who they were.

My eyes drifted along, then stopped dead.
Someone looked familiar. I walked nearer, maneuvering my way through the crowd until I
was only about ten yards away. Now I was
absolutely sure. No doubt about it. I'd seen his
photograph four hours earlier, after it was faxed
over by his old regiment. The man in front of me,
drinking a bottle of Becks and looking like he
owned the place, was Max Iversson, the fugitive
half the station was looking for.

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Iversson

There was no way I was queueing to get into **.

Fowler's place. There must have been two hundred W

people standing there like lemons while they

waited for the doormen to give them the sort of 11

attention my ex-missus used to give me when she'd ^
drunk too many white wine spritzers. But who

wants it off some bald bloke with no neck? Not me, -

3>Sfc

that was for sure. I thought about heading straight
to the front and saying I was mates with Elaine but,
to tell you the truth, I didn't really want to draw
attention to myself, not now I'd suddenly turned
into the Fugitive. So I headed round the back,
jumped over the locked gate that led into the staff
car park, and scanned the deserted rear of the
building for any sign of an entrance. It took all of
about three seconds for me to spot a window
slightly open on the ground floor, about a foot
above head height. It wasn't much of a size but I'm
quite a slim lad so I was confident I was going to get in. I hauled myself up with one hand while
using the other to flick off the latch and open the
window up fully. At the same time, I heard the unmistakable
sound of piss hitting urinals and, as I
poked my head inside, I saw a row of three blokes
staring up at me as they deflated their bladders.

'Evening,' I said with a ready smile, trying hard
to wriggle through the gap. Tou couldn't give us a
hand, could you?'

The bloke nearest me, a young student type
about twenty or so, looked shocked but nodded
anyway, re-deposited himself in his trousers, and

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grabbed hold of my nearest hand, giving it a feeble

tug
'Come on, boy, put some welly into it. You

couldn't even give yourself a hard-on with a grip
like that.'

He tried again and, after a few grunts and groans
of effort, managed to pull me in, with me landing
on him a fair bit harder than I think he was expecting,
i thanked him as he got unsteadily to his feet
and, ignoring the strange looks coming from the
other blokes in there, headed out of the door and
into the club, recoiling momentarily from the wall
of sound that hit me.

I scanned the room for Elaine, not sure I'd even
n-v.'otrm/e her after all this time, but couldn't see
any sign of her. Mind you, I couldn't see a great
deal among the buzzing crowd. I took a brief
moment to admire a few of the scantily clad young
females who seemed to be in abundance, then
fought my way to the bar and waited for a space to
open up, before ordering myself a beer from one of
the harassed-looking bar staff. When it came about
two minutes later, it cost me three quid. Three quid
for a lousy bottle of Becks. If it was true that people
were fighting for ownership of this place then it was
no wonder. The money being turned over must
have been incredible. I took a sip from the bottle
and turned away from the bar, finding myself spme
space near the dance floor.

Which was when I saw her, walking purposefully
in my direction while talking to one of the
doormen, a stocky bloke who was striding fast just
to keep up with her. I recognized her instantly.

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She'd changed quite a lot from school, as you'd
imagine - I mean, it had been a long time - but it
wasn't so much in the look. It was more the poise,
the way she carried herself. Back then she'd been
attractive, with lovely big brown eyes and a good
body, but she'd never really made the best of it,
probably because she hadn't really needed to. Now
she looked hot, the type of woman most blokes are
immediately attracted to because they know without
a second's doubt that she'll be a demon
between the sheets. She was wearing a black
cocktail dress which matched her long curly hair
and high-heeled court shoes. I wondered then
whether that hound Johnny had slept with her
more recently than school. If he had then he'd been
a lucky man.

She turned away from the doorman as the two of
them reached the bar and our eyes briefly met.
Although she was still a few feet away and there
were a number of people in between us, I saw an
immediate flicker of recognition pass across her
face. She stopped for a moment, then looked at me
quizzically before approaching.

*Max? Max Iversson?' she shouted above the
noise, walking up to me.

I got a glorious scent of musky perfume and
warmth as she came up close. I tell you this, I
wanted to have this woman before I'd even opened
my mouth. She might have started off the chain of
events that had almost had me killed but I'd
suddenly become a man who was willing to forgive
and forget.

'Hello, Elaine,' I said as coolly as I could manage.

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'Long time no see. How are you? You look good.' I
gave her a smile.

She smiled back. Tm well. You?'

'Yeah, not bad, not bad,' I said, my mouth almost
in her ear. I was only going to be able to keep up a
conversation with this amount of background noise
for so long.

'Christ, it's a bit weird running into you like this.
The last I heard you was in the army.'

'I did ten years, but I finished a long time back.
You know how time flies.'

Too right. So you're still local, then? I haven't
seen you in here before.'

'No, it's a little bit young for me, to be honest. It's
my first time.' And my last at these prices, I
ihought.

'So what brings you in here? On the pull, are you?'
She grinned.

'Well, I came to see you, actually.' She looked
surprised. 'It's about Johnny Hexham.'

The surprise turned to concern. 'Johnny? What
about him? He's all right, isn't he?'

'Oh yeah, he's fine.' That bastard was always
fine. 'At least he was when I left him earlier. Look,
Elaine, I know it's an odd request, but I need to talk
to you fairly urgently and it would be a lot easier if
it wasn't here.'

The concern now turned to suspicion. This was a
woman with a speedy turn in facial expressions.
'Look, Max, I'm running this place pretty much on
my own tonight, so if you've got something to
say--'

'I own a company that provides security. A few

85

days ago you asked Johnny to put someone you *
know in touch with a company like that.'

She clicked. 'Oh shit. And yours was the company?'

'Correct.'

'So where's Roy? I haven't seen him all day. Do
you know what's happened to him?'

That's what I've got to talk to you about. But I
don't want to do it in here. Is there any way you can
get out and we can go somewhere a little more
private? And a bit quieter?'

She thought about it for a moment, then nodded.
'I'll see what I can do. Wait here. I'll be back in a
minute.'

I nodded and stayed where I was as she turned
and disappeared into the crowd. While she was
gone, a kid of no more than eighteen, out of his
head on something, walked into one of the pillars »
that bordered the dance floor and knocked himself "'"*
out. I watched as people stepped over him like he
wasn't there until eventually a couple of his mates
turned up and, laughing, dragged him away. Then,
a few yards beyond them, I saw a bloke who looked
well out of place. Mid to late thirties, scruffy suit,
thick black hair; to be honest with you, he looked a
lot like Columbo in his early days and, like
Columbo, I knew straight off he was a copper. He
was talking into a mobile phone and watching me
at the same time. Our eyes met and I knew he was
on to me, though Christ knows how. It was time
once again for quick thinking. If he was in here,
there could be more of them out front, making it too
risky to go out that way.

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I turned and, as casually as possible, headed back
in the direction of the toilet, speeding up the
moment I'd pushed through a large group of girls
out on a hen night.

Gallan

As soon as I saw him, I knew I had to act fast. I
didn't have a clue what he was doing there but
he didn't look like he fitted in, and he was on his
own. All that, however, was by the by. The most
important thing was that he stayed put until reinforcements
arrived. I pulled the mobile from my
lacket pocket and called the station, at the same
time moving slowly towards a pillar by the dance
floor where I could keep an eye on him without
attracting attention. I was bumped by a young
bloke pushing past me and I turned and gave him
a look, not that he even saw it. He was already ten
yards further on. Cheeky little bastard. Dispatch
picked up and I informed them loudly of my
position and the fact that I was within thirty feet of
a wanted man and needed back-up. I needed to
repeat myself twice above the noise, and when I
looked back towards Iversson I saw that he'd
spotted me. He turned and walked away and I
followed rapidly, telling Dispatch that he was on the
move. 'Get here fast, I don't fancy tackling him on
my own. Not after what happened this afternoon.'

Iversson disappeared into the toilet and I broke
into as close a run as the crowds would allow,
unsure how I was going to handle this. I didn't

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1

want to corner an ex-para in an enclosed place and
present him with no option but to fight. I'm not as
young as I used to be, or as fit, and the reason I'm a
detective is that I like to detect rather than get
involved with all the physical stuff. Plus, I knew I'd
lose. But I wasn't going to let him go either. Not
after he'd put two of our uniforms on the sicklist.