‘Nothing.’
Not a wrinkle. Not a flicker of doubt in his eyes.
‘Right. Which is why I’m thinking that some other bastard slipped you something else. It’s the only explanation there can be.’
‘But who? When?’
‘That condom on your floor . . . Mickey said after you were drinking with him in the Albion he thought you might have been heading off to meet someone – some girl.’ The kind of new girl on the block you liked helping break in. Frankie shivered with revulsion. No point in bringing that up now, though. Neither the time nor the place. He’d fucking have words with him when he got back home.
Something about Jack’s expression, it had changed.
‘What is it?’ Frankie asked. ‘You remember something?’
‘Yeah. I think so. But . . .’
‘What?’
Jack growled, clawing at his hair, like he might somehow drag the facts from his head by force.
‘It’s so fucking hazy, but Stav . . . I think it might have had something to do with Stav . . . I can almost see his face . . . yeah, I reckon I might have gone over to his . . .’
Stav Christoforou. One of Jack’s newer associates. Frankie had had the dubious pleasure of meeting him a couple of times when Jack had brought him into the Ambassador.
‘He work for Riley?’ Frankie asked, doubting it. Riley at least had standards. He liked his boys to dress smart. Whereas Stav Christoforou was a scruffy bastard, all trainers and hoodies and always in shades, whatever the weather, no matter if he was inside or out.
Jack said, ‘No . . .’
But he looked evasive, like something was up.
‘So who does he work for?’ Frankie asked.
‘Mo.’
‘Mo Bishara?’
Jack nodded.
‘Doing what?’ Frankie asked. ‘Dealing?
‘Yeah, out at his mother’s old place. He runs a kind of a club. You know. A shebeen.’
‘And that’s where you reckon you might have gone, is it? After leaving the Albion.’
‘I dunno. But yeah. It’s possible. I mean, I think so. I think earlier on, that afternoon . . . he might have rung me. Said he had some bird he wanted me to meet.’
Not just dealing then, pimping.
‘But Jesus, Frankie, I can’t even remember if I even went there or not.’
He went quiet then. Just sat there. A horrible, pained look on his face. That was it. Frankie knew it. That was all he had to give.
‘The old woman,’ he then said, looking up, his lip trembling, ‘is she . . .? Has she come round?’
‘No.’
‘Fuck.’
Frankie heard Jack’s knuckles crack, he was bunching his fists so hard.
‘It’s not your fault,’ Frankie told him. ‘She might still be OK.’
‘It’s not that,’ he said. ‘I don’t give a fuck about her. I mean, I do. Of course I bloody do. But . . .’
‘But what?’
‘But if she woke up, then she might be able to tell them. That I didn’t do it. To finger whoever the bastard was that did.’
Frankie was still hoping the same thing too.
‘Well, let’s just keep out fingers crossed that she does, all right,’ he said. ‘And, in the meantime, I’m gonna go and have a chat with your mate, Stav.’
30
A quick call to Mackenzie Grew had pointed Frankie in Stav’s direction. At the end of their little chat, Mackenzie had cracked some joke about how quickly Frankie had lowered his standards. Frankie hadn’t got it at the time. He did now.
The basement of Stav’s place off Portobello Road was a prize-winning shit pit. A world-a-bloody-part from Riley’s bordello over on St James. Mackenzie had told Frankie this was the same house where Stav had grown up. Where his strict, rich Greek Orthodox mum had lived out a saintly existence, before carking it from cancer a couple of years back.
Well, bloody hell. The old bird would be turning in her grave if she could see it now. Or smell it. It reeked. And not of anything so traditional and tasty as moussaka or kleftico. More like the sour death stench of crack, hash and piss. Smoke curled and candles flickered, casting twisting shadows on the mildewed walls.
Tip-fucking-toe. Frankie trod carefully, as he headed for the back of the room. Christ knew how many needles were lying around. Junkies and caners were muttering and tweaking all over the shop, rolling, cutting, burning, toking and snorting, draped over tattered, stained sofas and chairs, or just lying plain fucked-up and passed out on the floor.
Spliffs and pipes crackled and glowed. Faces peered out at him like ghouls. Thank God for the thrum of drum and bass. Meant he could ignore the voices calling out to him, begging him for fuck knows what. He pulled his hood down lower over his brow. Good job he’d worn his trackie, not a suit. These wasters would have skinned him alive.
He moved on into a short, stinking corridor, passing gaping dark doorways on his left and right. A shit-spattered toilet. A well-monged couple fucking in a bath. A half-naked geezer unconscious in a corner, vomit hanging from his chin.
A bare bulb lit the stairs leading up at the end of the corridor. Frankie took them two at a time, hairs standing up on the back of his neck, shivering at what he’d left down there behind him. Don’t you run, you fucking pussy. But, fuck, it was tempting. Felt like he sometimes had as a kid late at night, terrified on the way back from the khazi that a witch might be racing up behind him to scrag him with her claws.
A gum-chewing heavy stood watch with a radio and a three-foot-long South African baton-torch by the reinforced steel door at the top of the stairs. Frankie lowered his hood. Let the fucker see his face: filth-free and clean-shaven, skin that had seen a vitamin in the past year, not like those yoghurt-skinned ghosts downstairs.
‘You friend of Mr Riley, yes?’ Accent was Russian or something. Looked like he could handle himself. A brick shithouse with bloodshot eyes.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
Was what he’d told the goon on the door outside, who must have radioed ahead. His connection with Riley . . . Frankie figured it would give him some protection at least. Even if Stav worked for Mo and not Tommy, he’d still not cross him, not unless he was given no choice.
‘We have no weapons policy. To make sure no trouble. Yes?’
Was this geezer going to finish every fucking sentence with the word yes?
‘Yeah, sure. Whatever,’ Frankie said.
He let the fucker frisk him down. Speedy. Professional. Like a cop. Probably what he’d once been back in whatever country he’d come from.
‘Second door on the right, yes?’ said the gorilla.
‘Cheers.’
Frankie walked on past him into another corridor. Better lit. Actual electrics instead of bloody candle power. Less of a stink too. Thank god. Cleaner as well, but not much. What had probably once been lush thick red carpets were stained and patterned with cigarette burns and what he hoped were just food stains. Gang tags littered the flowery wallpaper. A spray of blood too. Weirdly almost the exact same shape as Italy. Quality.
Beats. A hubbub of voices. First door he passed on the right was the shebeen Jack had mentioned. A bar, people getting hammered. A classier version of what was happening downstairs.
The second door on the right led into a big ground-floor living room with a bay window. Hard to guess whether it was at the front or back of the building. A bunch of welded stainless steel panels blocked the view.
Spliff smoke hung heavy in the air. A motley crew of scowling hoodies and hard-looking girls sprawled on sofas and chairs in front of a giant TV. Sonic the Hedgehog was chiming his way through a maze of rings. Most of the girls were transfixed. The guys, though, they watched Frankie. Clear from their nasty little piggy eyes that they already knew who he was. Why he was here. Because of Jack.
Stav. He was slouched on a sofa a little apart from the rest of his crew, a copy of the Racing Post spread out on his lap.
‘You,’ he said, sta
ring at Frankie from behind a pair of Ray-Bans.
Shades. At night. What a dick. Had lost weight since Frankie had last seen him. Too much fucking coke.
‘Yeah, me,’ Frankie said.
‘So I hear you’re rolling with Riley now? That how it is?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Sorry to hear about your brother.’
The way he said it. Like Jack was dead. He didn’t look sorry. Didn’t look like he gave a shit. Frankie felt the urge to just pick him up and lay into him. Use his boots and fists to find out what he needed to know.
Forget it. Keep calm. Stav might be a dick, but this was his place. Mess with him here and Frankie doubted he’d make it out alive. Who knew what kind of weaponry these toe-rags were packing? Or that Russian outside. Fact was, he had to play this smart. Even threatening Stav could get him in all kinds of grief.
‘He doing all right?’ Stav asked.
‘Holding up just fine.’ He scoped the room again. Two of Stav’s boys were up on their feet, still watching him. ‘He used to like it round here, didn’t he?’ Frankie said.
‘Sometimes . . .’
Frankie let the silence hang. See if Stav would give anything away. Like, had Jack come here that night? And for what? To meet some girl? But all Stav did was smile.
‘So what can I do you for?’ he said.
‘I’m looking for a girl.’
‘Ah.’ Another smile, stickier somehow. ‘Then you’re in the right place.’ He stretched out his long, tattooed arms along the back of the sofa, palms up, in some kind of cheesy mi casa es tu casa gesture he must have pilfered off some gangster show on TV. Meaning what? That all the women in here were for hire? Were they all pros? Hard to tell. Another difference between Riley’s place and this. The girls here were wasted. Half of them looked sick too, with God knows what. Had Jack really come here? For that? How could he have been so fucking stupid? Frankie kicked himself again for not having kept a closer eye on him. His responsibility. He’d let him down. Fucking wouldn’t again when he got him out. Would get him back to who he was. The nice kid he’d once been.
‘Oi, you. New skank. Keira,’ Stav shouted across at the last girl Frankie had looked at.
‘What?’ She turned round, a cigarette drooping from her mouth.
‘Show him your fucking tits.’
‘Ha, ha.’ She shot him a look of disgust, chewing hard on her gum, taking a drag on her cigarette and funnelling smoke in his direction.
‘Do I look like I’m fucking joking?’
Stav’s hand darted into a takeaway tin on the sofa beside him. He snatched out a pork ball or something horrible like that and chucked it at her, just missing her head. She hissed something under her breath.
‘It’s all right,’ Frankie said. ‘I don’t— ’
‘No, it’s not fucking all right.’ Stav was already up. ‘Fucking do it, bitch,’ he said.
For a second, she looked like she was about to tell him to fuck off. But then something in her just wilted away. She started to pull up her T-shirt.
‘With a fucking smile, skank, like you fucking mean it,’ Stav told her.
She smiled at him like she wanted him dead.
‘Not me, you fucking slag,’ he snapped. ‘Him. The guy who’s about to decide whether he’s gonna take you upstairs and fuck your brains out or not.’
She turned her dead smile on Frankie. Her eyes were dead too, black make-up making them look like the sockets of a skull. She pulled her T-shirt up all the way up to her neck. Tattoos. No bra. The hoodie standing next to her reached round and gave her a good, hard squeeze. Stav laughed like it was the funniest joke in the world.
‘What do you reckon, then?’ he asked Frankie, sniffing, sitting back down, and taking a slurp from his bottle of Sol.
‘It’s a particular girl I’m after,’ Frankie said.
‘Oh, yeah?’
The T-shirt girl rolled her eyes and pulled her top back down, before slumping on the sofa and staring vacant-eyed up at the screen.
‘The last time my brother was here . . . the night he got arrested?’
Stav’s face gave nothing away.
‘. . . it was to see one of your girls . . .’
‘Says who?’
‘Says him. He told me you called him. Told him there was a new girl he might like. Fresh . . .’
The first sign of surprise on Stav’s face. He tried to cover it up by lighting a cigarette.
He mumbled, ‘So?’
So he had called Jack. Meaning Jack probably had come here.
‘So who was she?’ Frankie said.
Stav shrugged. ‘Just some bitch. I don’t even remember her name.’
You fucking liar. Frankie looked around. ‘She here now? Don’t worry,’ he added, pulling out his silver billfold and leafing through the notes, ‘I’m happy to pay for her time.’ Nice and loud, so everyone could hear.
‘Nah. She moved on.’
Moved on or was sent on? ‘Where?’ asked Frankie, still slowly flicked through the bills. ‘’Cos I’m happy to pay for that information too.’
‘How should I fucking know?’ snapped Stav. ‘Or fucking care? I don’t remember your brother being here that night. I don’t remember nothing like that at all. Now, you spying or buying, bruv?’ he said. ‘Because this here’s a place of business and if you got no real business being here then it’s time you were moving on.’
Finally, he took his shades off and stared at Frankie. Had eyes like piss-holes in the snow.
‘No, bruv,’ Frankie said. ‘I’m done.’
31
Instead of heading for Ladbroke Grove tube, Frankie crossed over into Portobello Road. The pink evening sky was darkening into blood. A reek of rotting fruit and veg. The pavements were slippery with it. Bins overflowed with polystyrene and cardboard packaging. The last of the market stallholders were packing up and the tourists and shoppers were traipsing back up towards Notting Hill. Taking their places were drinkers, dealers, and teenage gangsters, criss-crossing between the pubs, hissing past on BMXs, running errands between the bookies, bars and estates.
Time for some neck oil. Then some grub. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten. His stomach growled as he passed the S&M café, which served up sausage, mash and gravy in a hundred different ways. Tasty. A quality joint. Maybe later. A drink first. Or three. To calm himself down. Let himself think.
He thought back to Stav’s, to those people, those ghosts, as good as dead al-fucking-ready, down in that basement. He glanced back over his shoulder, suddenly getting the idea he was being followed. But the only people he saw were a couple of dealers standing sentry outside a barber shop and a hooker silhouetted in the piss-yellow light of a streetlamp.
Paranoia. No one who looked like Stav or his heavies. No one who might have followed him from Stav’s with thoughts of giving him a shoeing to warn him off, or relieve him of his wedge.
But something back there was fucked up, all right. Because for a lowlife heel like Stav to turn down money in exchange for information, well – Frankie couldn’t help thinking, as that Russian gorilla had marched him back out onto the street – it meant someone was either paying Stav to button his lip, or else had put the frighteners on him. Big style.
But why? If Jack had gone there that night to meet a girl, then why was Stav pretending he hadn’t? Because he didn’t want his business getting mixed up in some murder enquiry? Fair enough. Or because he, or some other wanker he knew, had been involved in helping set Jack up?
Frankie ducked into the First Floor bar, an old haunt. Him and some of his old mates had used to come here drinking and hanging out and scoring dope off street dealers when they’d still been at school. Had ended up being ripped off more often than not. He remembered how he’d once bought an eighth of ‘Moroccan squidgy’, only to discover when him and his mates had tried smoking it that it was Branston fucking pickle. What a tool.
The First Floor had been tarted up since his la
st visit, mind. A posher clientele in here tonight. Notting Hillbillies. Even a couple of yanks if his ears weren’t deceiving him. The old Notting Hill melting pot, eh? That much at least hadn’t changed.
He ordered a pint. Then another. Passed the time of day with the barman, who recognised him from back in the day. But other than that he was glad to see there was no one else here he knew. Just as well. Not in the mood for idle chitchat. Couldn’t stop thinking about what he’d just found out. Or not found out, which was probably a whole lot nearer the truth. He still didn’t know where this girl Stav had put Jack in touch with was. Didn’t even have a name.
Stav must know. So get hold of him on his own, like he had done Mo? Have a word. Make him talk. Or not. Because there was a big problem, wasn’t there? Stav’s connection to Mo. Pull the same masked vigilante stunt on him and the chances of the two of them not putting two and two together and making Frankie were pretty fucking slim. Sooner or later they’d work out they’d been attacked by the same man. Demanding the same fucking information about what had happened to Jack. And after Frankie’s unmasked visit to Stav just now demanding the same, only a matter of time before they pinned it on him.
So if terrifying the girl’s name out of Stav wasn’t an option, what was? Should he call Sharon? Tell her that Stav had put Jack in touch with some girl? Maybe the same girl who might have been the cause of that condom on Jack’s floor? But what would be the point? What would that prove?
He drained his pint and headed back outside. Set his sights on the next pub along Portobello Road. Another old favourite. The Castle. Nearly empty inside. Still scruffy as fuck. Nada gentrification in here. Just a couple of lads playing darts. A girl on her own at the bar. She gave him a smile as he ordered another pint and a whiskey chaser. She was dressed down, scruffy, but when she asked him for a light, her accent gave her away.
He smiled back, watching her inhale. He’d once gone out with a girl like her, a trustafarian called Devina who’d lived in a house in Chelsea. A whole fucking house to herself, mind, that her banker daddy had bought her. They’d not gone out for long. She’d just been slumming it. Had liked the idea of him being a convicted gangster’s son more than she’d liked him for himself. He’d heard she’d since married an army officer and was living in Dubai.
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