by KJ Griffin
***
London: October 15 11:00 a.m.
As he had done every Wednesday morning for the last six weeks, Dave Lohman met the smartly dressed Ramli, Saeed, in Green Park. The weather was fine and mild. Kids who should have been at school and office workers who should have been in the office were out in the sunshine, flaunting their truancy across the park.
Lohman didn’t know anything about the Arab other than his name, but Neil Smedley had said that he was one of the ‘good guys’, and that was all that counted. And the cash incentives were bloody generous, too.
A veteran busker, Lohman had to chuckle at the number of guitars he seemed to be getting through all of a sudden, as he strummed a living around the West End tube stations. But that didn’t matter because Saeed was a generous patron of street art. Every Wednesday the Arab turned up with an envelope stuffed with cash and another large guitar case waiting on the park bench beside him. This week was no exception.
‘Good morning’ seemed to be as far as the Ramli’s English went. The Arab said it, Lohman repeated the words and the two men smiled at each other. Lohman sat down beside Saeed on the park bench. Saeed got up and left, walking westwards towards Mayfair.
A couple of minutes later Lohman was also on his feet, the shiny new guitar case tucked incongruously under the arm of his shabby jeans jacket. He cut southwest towards Hyde Park corner and then on to Victoria Station, where he hurried down to the Underground, coming out on the eastbound platform of the District Line.
At the end of the platform he knocked on the door marked ‘Staff Only’.
The West Indian greeted him familiarly,
‘Hey Dave! Same again, man?’
‘That’s right, mate,’ Lohman grinned, handing over the case and a thick wad of fifty-pound notes. Just as he didn’t know where Saeed got the cases came from, Lohman hadn’t a clue who the West Indian passed them on to, or where they ended up. But Smedley had said it was for a good cause and he trusted Neil. So who gave a shit?