by Hatchett
Issy and Gina called for a Lynx to pick them up to take them home.
78
Day 15 – 22:30
Hilton Hotel, Heathrow
Issy, Gina and the other Leaders were all standing around by the corner of the bar in the Hilton Hotel, drinking and celebrating the demise of Mamba and Ahmed. A selection of Mamba’s possessions which had been brought back by Don had been placed on the bar for people to see.
Issy and Gina had got back a few hours earlier and had taken some time to shower and change before meeting up with the others. They had made sure Ayla was settled into one of the secure rooms in Terminal 3; they wanted her to have a nice long wait to let her imagination run wild before they started questioning her the following day.
“Great job, ladies,” Jack advised, and another toast was made.
“We’re not certain yet,” Issy cautioned, “and anyway, I don’t know why we’re celebrating when we’ve lost nine of our team and another sixty-odd in Stepney.”
Jack nodded ruefully. “You’re right, but we still need to celebrate our successes and, at the same time, remember our fallen colleagues and friends.”
“Quite right,” agreed the Major, taking another drink.
“Look at this,” Bear said from behind Issy, “his Pub Guide was a bit out of date; 2012!” The others laughed.
Andy sidled up to Issy. “You OK?”
“I will be. Just tired and I want to be certain, that’s all,” she replied.
“Issy, you can’t let what happened with the armoured truck make you second guess everything. You saw him in the boat, he entered the tunnel and was killed the other side. We have both bodies. We have his possessions. What more do you want?”
“DNA test?” she suggested.
Andy laughed. “You wish! Didn’t you recognise the bodies?”
“Nope. They were too badly disfigured, but I didn’t really know what either of them looked like anyway. Just a fuzzy aerial shot of Mamba when he was looking up at the sky. Which reminds me,” Issy turned to look around the group. “Daniel? Got a mo?”
Daniel excused himself from Gina and walked across to Issy.
“Yes, Issy? What can I do for you?”
Issy pulled her phone from her pocket and clicked on the pictures she had taken. “Can you tell me if you recognise these.”
Daniel took the phone and looked at the first picture before swiping the screen and looking at the second picture. “Honestly?” he asked.
“Of course,” Issy replied.
“Two dead bodies.”
“I know that,” Issy replied, laughing.
“You want to know if it’s Mamba and Ahmed?”
“Got it in one.”
“Well, sorry to disappoint, but they are so disfigured they could be anyone. I doubt even Isaac, Zak or Grace would recognise them.”
“Talking of them, how are they?” Issy asked.
“Well, as I’m sure you can imagine, Isaac and Zak are pretty cut up about Samata, but I’m sure the latest news about Mamba will put a smile on all their faces.”
Daniel wandered back towards Gina.
“Fancy an early night?” Andy asked with a grin on his face.
Issy smiled. “Not yet. First…”
Issy cut her comment short as she saw Ben Maynard, Head of Heathrow Medical, enter the lounge and head in their direction.
“Hi Ben,” Issy said as she approached him. “Any news?”
“Yes, hold on, let me get a drink.” Ben went to the bar and ordered himself a beer before returning to the Leaders. He was still wearing his white coat and it was clear he’d just come from examining the bodies, judging by the smells still lingering around him.
“Hello Ben,” Jack said, “what can you tell us? Good news I hope?”
Ben swallowed a mouthful of beer. “Yes, I thought you’d all want to know as soon as possible. Well, I can confirm that the two bodies brought in were both male, both black, one was about six feet tall and the other a few inches taller. Both appear to be in their late twenties, early thirties. I have a few more tests running, just to be absolutely sure, but based on what I have so far, and bearing in mind the circumstantial evidence found at the scene, I would say you have finally got the two people you were after. Cheers!” Ben finished his beer in one and turned to go back to work.
There were cheers and the clinking of glasses. Even Issy smiled as she was patted roughly on the back by Irish, almost spilling her coke.
“Finally!” the Major stated. “Maybe now we can get back to securing what we have, expanding and savings more lives.”
“Hear hear,” Jack agreed.
Issy finished her drink and placed the glass on the bar. “Night all,” she called, “I’m having an early one, bit knackered to tell the truth.”
There was a cacophony of ‘night Issy’, ‘sleep well’ and ‘see you tomorrow’.
Andy quickly finished his beer, ready to go with her. “No, you stay Cowboy, and enjoy the evening. I’ll catch up with you later,” Issy advised, as she turned to leave.
“Wait a minute,” Andy said, and Issy turned back to face him.
“We haven’t had our cockney rhyming slang ‘quote of the day’.”
Issy smiled. “I’ve forgotten where we’ve got to. Let me think…OK, I’ve got one. Appropriate if you think about earlier. Here we go, ‘nice legs, shame about the boat.”
Andy paused, thinking it through. “Right…it’s got to be the ‘legs’ bit so what rhymes with legs…? Eggs, kegs, pegs, segs…”
“No.”
“What do you mean ‘no’.”
“You’ve forgotten already,” Issy explained. “With cockney rhyming slang, the primary word rarely rhymes, it’s the second word which rhymes, and it’s usually omitted from the sentence.”
“Right! So, what goes with legs then rhymes? Legs akimbo? No wait, ‘legs eleven’ means ‘heaven’, so the sentence would be ‘nice heaven, shame about the boat’. Nah, doesn’t make sense!”
“That’s because you’ve got the wrong word.” Issy explained.
“OK, ‘legs eleven’ equals…”
“No, it’s not ‘legs eleven’.”
“OK, legs…”
“No, it’s not ‘legs’. You’ve obviously got a thing about legs.”
“How’d you guess? Anyway, I give up! Give me a clue.”
“The word you’re looking for is ‘boat’.”
“OK, boat. What goes with boat? Er, boat dock? Equals ‘cock’. That would mean the sentence is ‘Nice legs, shame about the cock’. I can’t see a woman saying that to a man! Even for someone as coarse as you!”
Issy started laughing. “You might say it to a Thai lady-boy!” she pointed out and started laughing even harder. “Trust you to develop a whole new phrase!”
“OK, what is it? I give up,” Andy advised.
“The ‘boat’ in the sentence stands for ‘Boat Race’, after the famous annual boat race between Oxford and Cambridge universities. So, ‘Boat Race’ equals ‘face’, so the real meaning would be, ‘nice legs, shame about the face’. In this instance, it’s not very PC; it’s the sort of thing blokes might say when they’re talking about which birds they’ve got their eye on when they’re on the pull. But, as long as you remember ‘boat equals face’ then you can use ‘boat’ in any sentence instead of ‘face’, like ‘he just got punched in the boat’.”
“You cockney’s are weird. ‘Boat Race’, ‘birds’, ‘on the pull’? Everything you say is like talking a different language and yet you call it English!”
“Could be worse. You could call a tap a faucet.”
“Touché!” Andy acknowledged.
“Anyway, that’s what you love about us Brits,” Issy suggested.
“Not the only thing,” Andy added with a leer.
“Have another beer to cool yourself down, Cowboy. I’m off to bed – alone!”
Issy patted Andy’s arm gently and headed for her bedroom. She couldn’t remember
the last time she’d had a decent night’s sleep and she was hoping, no praying, that tonight would be different.
The End
Author’s Note
As always, I hope you enjoyed the book.
I know there are some readers out there who have been waiting patiently for me to finish this one. I missed my original timescale (my bad) and that’s all down to finding the time to do the checking, corrections and changes that I needed to make whilst still doing the day job. Oh, and the school holidays! The reviewing part of the process takes far longer than you would think.
Anyway, I sincerely hope it met your expectations. I certainly enjoyed writing it; who wouldn’t with a nasty piece of work like running Mamba around causing mayhem in an already chaotic world, where there are no real boundaries to what he can get up to?
If you did enjoy the book, I would really appreciate positive feedback on the Amazon site. I do read the comments (more than once!) and I do take note and encouragement from what is said. I think it also has a real impact on the success of the book – other people do read the comments as well!
When I released the first book in the series (my first ever book), I really didn’t know what to expect. If I’m being honest, I was dreading negative feedback; it would have killed the book and probably killed off the series before it had really started.
Well, we’re at number 3, so that’s obviously positive and I’ve now got to decide what comes next…
*****
You can keep up to date with what’s happening by following me as an author on Amazon. You are also welcome to leave further feedback on my blog, join a conversation, ask questions, provide suggestions and get up to date news on future books:
https://zerealhatchett.blogspot.co.uk/
Or if you have something you wish to say, but don’t want to share with everyone, you can contact me direct:
[email protected]