‘First off,’ I said, ‘take precautions. Double your protection. Skip the barber’s, or choose somewhere else. Avoid all the places you normally visit. Vary your routine.’
‘Run scared?’
‘Lay low.’
‘I have my men,’ China said. ‘They will protect me.’
‘Not against a determined killer.’
China flashed a rare smile. ‘Could you take me if you wanted to?’
‘You know I could.’ No point in lying. ‘Someone with less experience might not find it so easy, but it’s not a risk worth taking.’
China lowered his eyes, took another pull of his drink. ‘And while I’m lying low, what are you going to do?’
Search for McCallen. ‘Warn Daragh Dwyer and shake some trees.’
‘Think someone is out to avenge Billy?’
‘Looks that way. I don’t know for sure. You knew Billy better than me.’ Which wasn’t strictly true, but China was more connected to him in a business sense. ‘Was there anyone close – an associate, maybe?’
China shook his head.
‘A mistress?’ I was throwing a line, hoping it would find purchase.
‘Billy believed in family, wasn’t the kind of man to put it about elsewhere. As for Justine and the kids, they were kept right out of his dirty little deals. Last, I heard, they’d fucked off abroad.’
‘Brothers and sisters?’
‘None.’
‘Back to contacts and colleagues then.’
‘You know as well as me, Hex, that at the finish there’s wasn’t a man left standing who’d defend him.’ No surprise. That’s what happens when you want to trade in ethnic-specific bioweapons.
‘What happened to his assets? I said.
‘Billy was one clever bastard. Anybody trying to get their paws on his estate would have better luck breaking into the Kremlin.’
‘Somebody must have profited,’ I pointed out.
China shrugged. ‘Nobody I know got their paws on it. ’Course, plenty have moved into the power vacuum he left behind.’
China included, I thought. ‘What about the cops?’
We exchanged glances. It was well known in our circle that the Assets Recovery Agency was slow, unfocused and cumbersome. We both knew of instances where criminals hung onto their ill-gotten gains, mostly because they had the best lawyers money could buy.
‘Had a crack at it, no doubt,’ China said. ‘Mind, you know Billy …’
‘Coppers on his payroll?’
China nodded. ‘High up the food chain.’
My mind flashed to Michael Berry, a former police officer, destined for stardom with the Met. Bent as they came, he had murdered my mother and I had murdered him. China was still talking.
‘The house was rumoured to have been sold to some charity, although, for all I know, it was another of Billy’s clever ploys to keep it in the family. Wouldn’t surprise me if Justine and the kids were still living there.’
It was a question I should have put to McCallen. I felt as if I were driving I were driving a fast car down a motorway in fog. China’s eyes were like stone. I knew then that I’d failed to convince him that I had his best interests at heart. He knew I could be slippery.
‘I’ll take your advice,’ he said slowly. ‘Double up my manpower, lay low, but only for a short time. Man like me can’t afford to look soft. Brings more trouble than it’s worth. In the meantime, you do your digging – discreetly, mind.’
‘Of course.’ I made to get up. China’s dead eyes told me to stay put. I did.
‘Need to sort out another bit of bother.’
‘A bit of bother’ could only mean one thing. It seemed a poor description for a systematic regime of assassination, but I said nothing and listened.
‘I’ve got a decent bit of business going in the mule industry. You know what I’m talking about, Hex?’
I nodded. A mule meant ‘body packer’, someone who swallowed and smuggled narcotics. Mules coming into the UK often arrived from countries like Jamaica and St Lucia.
‘A human stomach can hold up to half a kilo of cocaine,’ China said, uncommonly animated, ‘a nice, neat, no-risk method of delivery.’
No risk to the importer, high risk to the mule. I didn’t trouble to point this out. Half a kilo could involve around sixty to a hundred pellets in tiny packages; one of those bursts and you’re dead. A massive heart attack is not a pretty way to die.
‘Except someone is pissing on my patch,’ China said.
Realising where this was going, I maintained a neutral expression and wiped my Fuck, I’m outta here reaction.
‘I’ve got a proposition for you,’ he said, dull-eyed and deadly.
I didn’t respond.
‘You’re the best man to take care of it. I’ll pay you the going rate, of course.’
‘Wouldn’t my time be better spent finding out the identity of the man who tried to kill you, Mr Hayes?’ To kill McCallen and possibly me, I thought.
Light flared in his eyes. ‘A man of your obvious talents can surely combine a little detective work with a hit. I’d ask one of my own but, like you said, I need to double my protection, so I’ve no man to spare, unfortunately.’
Wily bastard. China was doing his best to deflect any possible attempt he still thought I might make on his life at the same time as getting me to do his dirty work for him. ‘What about Lester?’ – a freelancer I knew China used from time to time.
‘Lester Marriott?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Inside Belmarsh on a twenty-year stretch. Hadn’t you heard? Unlike you to take your eye off the ball.’ He frowned big time. The implication was clear. He thought I was deliberately playing dumb. Looking apologetic, I did my best to convey that I was giving his proposal serious and deliberate consideration. Another thought flittered into my mind, and as quickly flittered back out again. ‘The target, who is he?’
‘She.’
A dark memory rose up and threatened to maul me. A woman’s death had been the start of it all with Billy when an unknown client had booked me to kill a female scientist. Someone beat me to it, thank Christ, but little had I known at the time the nightmare that would ensue. It would have turned a lesser man’s guts to mush. ‘I don’t kill women. Sorry.’
‘Consider it a test of loyalty.’
I didn’t move a muscle and continued to stare him out.
China leant forward. The leather squealed. ‘Need I point out that I have three armed men a couple of metres away. One order from me and …’ He raised his arm, fashioned his hand into a gun, index finger extended, and silently mouthed ‘Bang.’
He had the bite on me, and I had no choice but to accede to his request. ‘Tell me who she is and leave the rest to me.’
‘Good boy,’ China said with an empty smile. ‘A French bint. Travels a lot. In and out of airports more times than a priest buggers a choirboy. In her spare time she runs orgies for the idle rich. Her name is Simone Fabron.’