The Spaniards Inn, ‘perched on the edge of Hampstead Heath and oozing history’ according to its website, was famous, although I’d never been there. The city north of Marylebone Road, and Hampstead especially, didn’t attract me. Too many posh accents and posers. In the early days, Danny had taken me up West to remind us how the other half lived – the paid-up members of the Lucky Bastards Club he was so fond of pouring scorn on. If it had been anyone other than Oliver Stanford I wouldn’t have come. But the tone in his voice had been miles away from the superior attitude and the smug look I’d disliked immediately above the King Pot.
On the phone, the detective chief inspector’s words were as dry as fallen leaves. Not unusual for him; he couldn’t help himself. Being the boss, barking out orders his minions weren’t in a position to question, was the role he was born to play. His idea of a team game would be everybody doing what he told them. In another life, him and Danny might’ve been mates.
Arseholes in arms.
‘We need to talk.’
No introductions. No small talk. Assuming what was important to him was important to everybody else. Vintage self-important bastard. I was wrong; he hadn’t changed.
‘Do we?’
His tongue clicked against his teeth and he let the sarcasm pass him by.
‘Listen, Glass. I don’t like making this call any more than you like getting it. But we really need to talk.’
I borrowed Danny’s approach and treated him like a precocious child who deserved a good slap and was going to get one.
‘Heard you the first time.’
‘Then you agree?’
‘Agree with what?’
‘You’re not blind, you see what’s going on.’
‘Why would I discuss any of it with you?’
He swept my obdurate response aside. ‘I’m serious. We’ve both got a stake in this. Seven o’clock, The Spaniards Inn. Will you be there?’
Asking not telling. I wondered how it made him feel.
‘No, I won’t.’
He tried and failed to keep his disappointment out of his voice and stay in control.
‘Why not? Why not, for Christ’s sake?’
‘Because you work for us, not the other way around. Or have I got that wrong, Oliver?’
Straight out of the Danny Glass instruction manual on how to deal with jumped-up coppers. Stanford exhaled deeply into the phone. I was trying his patience and enjoying it, and, for some reason, he was putting up with it. ‘You’re spending too much time with your brother. You’re starting to sound like him.’
‘If that’s supposed to be a compliment, try again.’
He returned to his point. ‘Will you be there or not? It’s important.’
‘Yeah, you said. Tell me more.’
The detective allowed his frustration to show.
‘Not making it easy for me, are you?’
‘Was I supposed to? Sorry, Oliver. Give me more or fuck off out of it, how’s that?’
Stanford remembered he was a senior officer in the Metropolitan Police and asserted himself. ‘Not until we’re face to face. Seven o’clock in the beer garden.’
The line died in my hand.
I’d left Mandy sprawled on the floor with a pen in her hand and her red curls tucked behind her ears, surrounded by leaflets with London Tourist Board on them, agonising over an itinerary for Amy.
‘Madame Tussauds would be good, wouldn’t it?’
I didn’t answer. She didn’t notice. Her preoccupation was easy to understand – her daughter was the most precious thing in the world. Twice recently, I’d found Mandy by the window in the small hours, hugging herself, staring into the night. At first, I’d assumed it was the experience with the thug from the pub. That wasn’t it. Giving up her little girl had been a life-altering moment she’d do anything to change.
While Mandy struggled to shoehorn the Planetarium or a Harry Potter tour into her plans, I looked up the pub up on the Internet. At one time, The Spaniards was the go-to boozer for robbers and highwayman: I’d fit right in.
Instead of driving across the city I took the Northern Line to Hampstead and walked the rest of the way. I was early and killed time on Parliament Hill. An end-of-day golden haze had settled over the city skyline. Behind the jagged silhouettes of the Shard and the Gherkin, St Paul’s Cathedral and the Palace of Westminster, the horizon was on fire.
Spectacular. But Stanford hadn’t dragged me up here for the view.
The beer garden was busy. In the shade, a crowd gathered round a TV showing the tennis. Stanford was sitting by himself under a red umbrella with Pimm’s No 1 on the canopy, holding what looked like a whisky and ice in his manicured fingers. At the next table, a group of five young men with Australian accents laughed loudly at something one of them said and Stanford glanced brief disapproval in their direction before bringing his attention to me. His expression didn’t alter apart from an almost imperceptible upturn at the corners of his mouth – his inner-smug-fucker staging a comeback.
He raised his hand in the air, sipped his drink, made a stab at being pleased to see me and failed. But the anxiety I’d heard on the phone was missing; Stanford made me wait. Finally, he said, ‘Your brother has become a problem. I expect you’ve noticed.’
‘Told you in the King Pot, I don’t have a brother.’
On the TV, the fourth set was going into a tiebreak; the people watching leaned forward, playing every shot with their favourite. The Aussies spoiled it by picking that moment to leave. Still noisy. Still laughing. Big-boned suntanned guys who’d never done anything quietly and couldn’t if their lives depended on it. Stanford waited until they’d gone.
‘Then, I was right. We have something to discuss.’
‘What do you want?’
The policeman took another sip of the whisky, his brilliant-blue eyes unblinking, more than likely a technique he used to frighten his subordinates. It wouldn’t work on me.
‘To find a way forward. Common ground.’
‘Common ground? You and me? You’re talking to the wrong Glass. It’s Danny you should speak to.’
Mentioning his name brought a reaction: the edges of his mouth turned down as if somebody had swapped the Scotch for pond water. ‘That wouldn’t be…’ he searched for the appropriate word ‘… productive.’
His mannered approach irked me. ‘Say what you’ve got to say or I’m off. You don’t like Danny Glass. Not exactly an exclusive club.’
He corrected me. ‘You misunderstand. The relationship I have – had – with your brother was never dependent on approving of what he did. Liking him never came into it. It’s simply a question of being able to do business. And I can’t. Not any more. I’d assumed you’d have reached the same conclusion.’
My response was as uncooperative as I could make it.
‘So, don’t.’
Stanford smiled a small patient smile, realised how the conversation was going to go and launched into a history lesson for my benefit. ‘In life we don’t always get to choose our bedfellows. In the beginning, working with Danny made sense. Thanks to you, Albert Anderson was off the board and south of the river was up for grabs. It could’ve been one gang war after another with people trying to make a claim. Chaos, in other words. No winners and a lot of losers, on the front page of every newspaper in the country. Danny stepped into the breach. Actively enabling him was in the public interest. I’d probably do it again.’
A waitress arrived at our table and he stopped talking. When I’d ordered, he went on.
‘That was my first mistake.’
Said almost wistfully.
‘Anderson’s organisation had lost its leader and was in disarray. I’d expected a short sharp exchange. The outcome should never have been in doubt. For reasons I still can’t fathom, your brother—’
‘Told you before. I don’t have a brother.’
‘Quite… decided not to move then. And that’s why we find ourselves where we are.’
‘I’d be lying if I said this was interesting. Get to the fucking point, if there is one.’