‘Come on,’ the long-haired man with the bandana said, glancing over his shoulder. ‘Pay up.’
He held a trembling hand out to Elvis. A potato peeler in the other. His amber-stained fingers were just the hors d’oeuvres for a main course of filth. His informant had clearly been sleeping rough, of late. A blackened, flaking thumbnail was just visible, suggesting that his kidneys were failing. He had almost certainly been hitting the bottle.
‘What’s wrong, Sepp? You look like a man who’s feeling the heat.’
Sepp pulled his mirror shades off to reveal blurry, bloodshot eyes that were almost hidden behind red swollen flesh, as though some child had been tasked with creating a man from Plasticine and crayons. ‘Look, Dirk. I told you what you needed to know. The Rotterdam Silencer is running this place again, now that The Duke is under lock and key.’
‘You told me something I already knew, but I still gave you some cash, as a gesture of goodwill. Why should I pay you again if you’ve got nothing?’
‘The information I gave you has landed me in a pile of steaming shit and I need to get out of town. Okay?’ As if to corroborate what he was saying, he glanced over his shoulder again. Put the glasses back on with an enigmatic air, his hands shaking like a man who needed money for supermarket-brand vodka far more than a train ticket out of town. ‘Seriously. These guys don’t fuck around.’
Elvis shrugged. ‘I don’t have any more than the fifty euros I already gave you. Sorry. I can’t give you money from my own pocket because I haven’t got any.’ Eyeing his surrounds, Elvis suddenly realised that meeting his informant down a seedy, grimy back alley where there were no overlooking windows was not the smartest idea he had ever had. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said. ‘It’s Saturday. I’ve got personal stuff. I’ve got to be somewhere.’
Sepp grabbed his arm with a dirt-ingrained claw. His grip was surprisingly strong. ‘I’ve seen you with your fag boyfriend,’ he said. ‘I’ve been watching you.’
Elvis felt the blood drain from his face. The prickle of panic in his lips. ‘What do you mean, my fag boyfriend? That’s not a very nice thing to say. And what the hell do you know about me? Maybe I was working a case. Now, get your hand off me, because you’re assaulting a police officer and I can arrest you for that.’ He tried to shake the informant off. Started to reach inside his jacket for his service weapon, grappling with anxiety that this might turn nasty and indignation that this washed up old ex-con had been stalking him.
Too late.
‘Get your hands in the air, pig!’ Aman’s voice. Shouting. Standing directly behind him. Elvis felt something cold and sharp dig into his back. ‘Or I’ll cut your spinal cord.’
The slack-faced terror on Sepp’s face told him half of what he needed to know. The reflection of the three man-mountains, standing directly behind Elvis, in his mirror shades told him the rest.
Sepp turned and started to sprint down the alley, leaving Elvis with his hands uselessly in the air, wondering how the hell he could fend off an assailant he couldn’t even see.
‘Don’t even think about it,’ his attacker said, as the other two men pelted past him, scrambling to turn left at the end of the alley in pursuit of the surprisingly agile old ex-con.
‘Who are you?’ Elvis asked, wondering what the nursing staff would think if he didn’t show for his evening visit. ‘I’m a police officer, you know. If you harm me, it’s an arrestable offence.’
‘Oh, I fucking know that,’ the man said.
There was a scuffling sound as the man shifted position behind him. Without warning, the blade in his back was gone, replaced by a garrotte around his neck.
Elvis gasped for breath, feeling the wire eat into his flesh. He tried to speak but could only struggle, his feet jerking to and fro uselessly as the giant behind him lifted him from the ground. The dank walls of the alleyway seemed to be encroaching, folding inwards in an effort to smother him. He closed his eyes, thinking of nothing but survival and the irony that his mother may yet outlast him. Lights flashing behind his eyelids. Dimly aware of Sepp being dragged under the arms back down the alley by one of the men, his head hanging low; greasy hair sweeping the floor. Clearly out cold.