I walked out onto the street on leaden legs, no oil in the joints. Simone Fabron, sex party girl by night, drug dealer by day, a perfect combination of business and pleasure. I should have worked it out before. Foreign travel, minimal luggage, sex and drugs and rock and roll, what was I thinking? Lust had blinded me and blunted my senses. It was no coincidence at all that she’d picked me up in a cocktail bar in Cheltenham. I wondered if she had any idea that China wanted her out of the way.
To pull a fast one on a man like China Hayes was beyond dumb. Even on a brief acquaintance, Simone struck me as intelligent and streetwise. She did not fit into the usual specification of the people I had removed – nasty, ruthless players with plenty of blood on their hands. This aside, I did not know her, no more than she knew me. I had to smile. As much as I’d been eager to head her off from scrutinising me too closely, she’d been doing exactly the same. Two of a kind, we were equals and certainly more similar than I imagined. It made me wonder whether China Hayes had another more nefarious reason to want her dead.
Maybe she’d double-crossed in love. Involuntarily, I shook my head. Simone having sex with a guy like Hayes curdled my insides. If, however, she was running a drugs outfit all of her own, I needed to know if she was part of a bigger picture involving McCallen.
Overnight Fabron had risen to number one spot in the suspect stakes with regard to the pot shot at me, McCallen’s mysterious disappearance and now the attempt on China’s life, but how she fitted and why still escaped me. Besides, on the evening the brakes were tampered with and China’s car hit a tree, Simone was preparing for the party, or was with me in another part of the country. If involved – and it was a fairly big ‘if’ – in the vengeance-for-Billy scenario, she had to be an accomplice with someone else jerking her strings. But that didn’t make sense either. Fabron did not strike me as the kind of girl who got pushed about by anyone. Moreover, she’d had ample opportunity to entrap me and yet, apart from a few bruises in the throes of passion, I’d escaped unscathed.
Whichever way I viewed my current predicament, it left me with a headache. I had no intention of killing her, or anyone else. That way lay the road to certain destruction.
Unless McCallen was dead and Simone instrumental in her demise.
I headed towards the Tube station, intending to take the circuitous route to Kilburn where Daragh Dwyer hung out. The air smelt of old snow and dampness. Light fast faded in barren-looking streets. People skidded and scurried through the cold, eager to get inside and into the warm. It probably explained why I noticed the two guys walking towards me, heads down, collars up, hands in pockets. They might have been office workers, but the way they walked, beat time together, flagged up that they were not. About to cross quickly to the other side, my boot slipped in the slush. As I stumbled, they came at me as one.
From my crouched position, I punched upwards into the nearest guy’s solar plexus, felt the breath surge out of him as he collapsed in agony. The other guy, big and mean, grabbed hold of my jacket. Both his arms encircled me, pinning mine to my sides. I grunted and strained upwards and out, lashing my head back, trying to break his hold. His grip was like iron. I bent my knees, curved my body forward, hoping to throw him off balance. I weighed heavier than I used to, over two hundred pounds, but almost collapsed under his weight. Thinking I might hit the deck and roll him, I heard a man’s shout and footsteps. Next, a scuffle, and I was abruptly released and thrown clear. Hands flat to the pavement, face in the dirt, soaked through with wet snow, I lifted my head to thank my rescuer. It gave him enough time to slip a sharp into my neck and empty the contents of a full syringe.