11:59

by David Williams

  “All right, darling?” Geordie voice, smoky, strawberry blonde straggle, very short black dress under an open coat, freckles on her cleavage as she leans into the car. “After some fun?”

  “I’m… I’m just looking for someone.” (Why am I so scared?)

  “I know that, lover. Howay, let’s go for a little drive and we’ll talk about it.”

  “Oh no, I’m…”

  But she has already opened the door wider and is about to duck in beside me when she suddenly stops, stares wide-eyed into the car and pulls back with a scream that goes through me.

  There’s a commotion on the kerbside, girls running up ready to protect one of their own and I’m saying, “What? What?” in a daze when the crowd parts to let a bigger dark shape come through. The first I see is a thick gold ring on black knuckles round the top of the passenger door, all but ripping it off as a huge bullet head fills the space and thrusts itself at me.

  “What the fuck?” he’s snarling, and even as I’m pressing myself terrified against the driver’s door there’s a part of me registers who this is. It’s the guy that threw the girl into the back of the BMW.

  “I never touched her… honest,” I say, the last part coming out like a frightened kid in the playground. “She just started screaming.”

  “What the fuck?” Bullet Head says again, only this time it’s directed outside the car. Strawberry blonde is sobbing, propped up between two other women. She flinches at the question, then points past him, down to the floor-well.

  “There’s blood, look. Massive blood stain. He’s done somebody in or summat.”

  Bullet Head looks down where she’s pointing, and so do I, until he glares at me again and I shrink back into my seat. “It’s not blood, it’s wine,” I say, weakly. “Red wine. A whole bottle got spilt.”

  The black guy stares suspiciously for several seconds, his eyes pinning me like a butterfly, before he rocks back slightly and ducks his head below the level of the passenger seat, his knees tucked between the sill of the car and the kerbside. I have an urge to smash him over the head with a spanner and drive off with his body trailing out of my doorway, except that I don’t have a spanner or the guts to do it. Instead I wait while he sniffs at the mat as if it has a line of coke on it, then he licks at his fingers, rubs at the stain and licks his fingers once more. He should look ludicrous but in my eyes he’s a tiger at a watering-hole, ready to spring at the intruder, being me.

  The tension around him eases as a broad grin, not a snarl, breaks across his face. Something is released in me too and I’m pathetically ready to share his amusement till he straightens up and casually cuffs the sobbing woman hard across her breasts with the back of his hand. “Bitch-fool-fucker.”

  As one, the girls move a step away from him, giving Bullet Head room for a swaggering pace or two along the kerbside, straightening the cuffs of his Italian leather. Then he drops his shoulder and lowers himself into my passenger seat, closing the door behind him. “Emmanuel,” he says affably, offering his hand in such a way that I feel bound to take it. I notice two things about him now that I missed in my panic earlier. That he has half a gold front tooth, and that his accent is some brand of African (Nigerian, maybe, remembering what the barman had said), not English.

  “OK, let’s drive down the road, get a little peace, mister. What’s your name, sir?”

  “Oh, it’s… Oliver,” I say, alarm starting to rise again at the thought of having this bloke next to me down a dark road, but doing his bidding anyway, since not to would very likely turn out worse.

  “Oliver, good,” he says, though whether he means Oliver is a good name or that I’ve done well to think of an alias so quickly is left hanging. He studies the floor beneath his feet and starts to chuckle. “You like red wine, Oliver. You like red wine, eh?” and he points to the floor in case I’m in danger of missing the joke.

  “I do, yes.”

  “And what else do you like, Mr Oliver? You like girls, yes?”

  “Well…”

  “Of course. Everybody likes beautiful girls. Jiggle jiggle jiggle.” He cavorts with his pelvis on the seat and sniggers in a surprisingly unhard manner, looking at me sideways, expecting me to join in. I offer him a placatory smile.

  “Just pull up here,” he says in a friendly tone as if I’m his favourite taxi driver. My heart thumps. This is the darkest part of the roadside, directly under the one lamp post that is not showing even the weak orange light the others have on offer. The bulb must have burnt out or been deliberately broken. Why here?

  As we come to a stop Emmanuel turns to me, softly touching his palms together with reverent enthusiasm. “Such beautiful girls I have for you, Oliver. I can give you anything you want. Me and my associates. You like exotic girls?”

  “Ermm…?”

  “Beautiful black ebony girls. Chinese girls. Anything. Young girls you’d like, maybe? Tight virgin girls? Yes, Oliver?”

  I can’t think of anything to say. Well, let’s admit it, I’m too scared to speak right now. The heels of my hands are pressing against the steering wheel and the only thing I do by way of response is push harder against them, stretching my fingers out. It’s meant to suggest rejection, but it comes out as a sort of shrug that could mean anything.

  Emmanuel reaches in his coat pocket and I shrink back, expecting a gun or a knife. But it’s a packet of cigarettes. He flips the top and offers me one the way you do with condemned men. I shake my head and he takes one for himself, pressing the cigarette lighter button next to the gear-shift, and as he waits for it to pop says, “Nice car. What sort of car is this?”

  “Audi. TT coupé.”

  He nods approvingly, pauses to light up with the glowing cigarette lighter, and returns it neatly into its hole. “Good cars.”

  We sit in silence for a while as Emmanuel enjoys his smoke, then he says, “What do you do, Oliver?”

  “Sorry?”

  “What is your job?”

  “Oh. I’m a radio… ographer.”

  “What is that, radio-ographer?”

  I have a moment of blind panic, absolutely unable to think, but somewhere in my brain a survival nodule flickers. “Oh, X-rays, that sort of thing. Mainly just X-rays.”

  “Very important job.” He nods approvingly again. “In a hospital?”

  “That’s it, yeah.”

  “Hmm.” Emmanuel sucks on his cigarette, then says, “Do you use drugs?”

  I look at him for the first time since we stopped, genuinely confused. “Do you mean, in my work? Or… socially?”

  Emmanuel laughs out loud, rolling his head back against the seat. He touches me on the shoulder, flicking cigarette ash down my sleeve.

  “I can get you anything you want, Oliver. No problem. Just ask Emmanuel. I’m your happiness doctor.” Another chuckle. “No prescription required. So…” He sits forward in his seat and places his hands together, consultation mode. “What can I get you today, sir?” and laughs immediately afterwards so that I’m not sure if he expects me to answer, until he raises his eyes to look at me, nodding slightly, so I guess he does.

  “Nothing, thanks,” I dare to say at last.

  “Nothing?”

  “Well no, not really.”

  He draws on his cigarette and slowly exhales in my general direction. I try not to cough, staying polite. “What are you doing round here, Oliver? Window shopping?”

  “No, just … curious.”

  “Don’t you like my girls?”

  “No, well, yes. But I’m… just on my way home. My… wife will be wondering where I am. Maybe another night.”

  “Another night, yes. But what about tonight? Short time, forty pound. Very satisfying, and you’ll be back to your wife in no time. I’ll call Susie over here right now.” He pushes at the button on the door sill and makes ready to poke his head out as the passenger window rolls down.

  “No.” Desperate to restrain him, I pluck at his arm (dismayed by the firmness of the muscle there) and he tu
rns to look at me with a flicker of that earlier menace. I show him both palms, backing off, but still saying, “No, really. I mean, I do have to go now.”

  He settles again into his seat, narrowing his eyes, then throws what’s left of his cigarette out onto the dark pavement before hitting the button to close up the window. He stares at me coldly, flaring his nostrils in a deliberately hostile, distinctively African signal, and razor-precise in his English.

  “You are wasting my time, Oliver. Time is money, you know that?”

  “I appreciate that. Look…” I search clumsily in my trouser pocket while he watches, and manage to locate a note. “Here’s twenty. Would you mind giving that to… Susie, is it, for her trouble, and say sorry from me?”

  He takes the note from my fingers and stuffs it into an inside pocket without speaking, still with his eyes on me. Not for the first time tonight I’m thinking, what the hell am I doing here? Where’s it going to end up? I decide I have to play honest john.

  “Listen, Emmanuel,” I say. “This isn’t really my thing, you know. I mean, picking up girls off the street…” His eyes narrow again. “Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with it, don’t misunderstand me, just… you know, for me.”

  He considers me carefully, as if weighing up whether I’m worthy of receiving his knuckles against my jawbone, then his face relaxes and I see that glint of gold tooth in the gloom.

  “No problem, Oliver,” he says. “You are a very respectable man, I can see that. I like that. Me too. I am not a corner boy, Oliver. You think I’m a corner boy?”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about, but I’m guessing the answer is no, so I shake my head.

  “Right. I’m the man. For you, I have just the thing.” His hand slips inside his jacket and comes out again with a white card, like a business card, which he starts to hand over, then draws back momentarily.

  “This is a secret place. Can I trust you to keep a secret?”

  I nod and he completes the handover with a ceremonial flourish. I can’t read what the card says in the dark, but to convince him I’m treating it with respect and discretion I take out my wallet to store it carefully, though with a frisson of anxiety when I notice his eyes on my thin sheaf of credit cards. I put my wallet away quickly and Emmanuel leans towards me, confidential.

  “The best. The very best girls. Not like these whores on the street.” He tilts his head in a gesture behind us and sneers. “We just have to keep ‘em in line you know, or they’re bad for business. But this is not a place for you, Oliver, you should not be on these dark streets. No. Nice man, nice car, respectable job. You need to be safe, understand what I’m saying?”

  I nod, praying for the lecture to stop so I can get out of here pronto.

  “You go to that address. You ring the buzzer and wait. When they ask tell them Emmanuel sent you. Be sure to say Emmanuel sent you.”

  “Absolutely,” nodding again, willing Emmanuel to fuck off out of my car.

  Which he finally does, but not before he shows me his left hand. He flicks the interior light on above the mirror and spreads his fingers out in front of me. “What do you think, Oliver?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Three months ago I broke my hand, I think I broke it.”

  “Aha.” I can guess how.

  “Do you think it has healed properly? In your professional opinion. It’s still giving me pain. Especially when it’s cold.”

  “I’m not really a doctor. If you’re concerned, you should make an appointment…”

  “But that’s the problem, you see. When you don’t have the papers. I couldn’t even come to get an X-ray from your good self, Oliver. Maybe you could sneak me in some time, eh, after everyone has left?”

  I’m going Christ almighty inside, fighting to stay calm on top. “Well, I’m not sure… Let me have a closer look.” I take his hand gingerly in what I hope is a suitably medical way, and make a show of inspecting closely, trying to control my own shaking fingers. “Oh, yes, it’s fine. We don’t really do much to treat breaks like this, they usually heal themselves eventually.”

  “What about the pain?”

  “That’s natural, in the cold. Have you thought about wearing gloves?” He glances sideways, suspecting me of winding him up. “For support as much as anything,” I go on. “That’s what we usually recommend… in cases like this. You’ll be fine. No need to come in.”

  Emmanuel’s face splits into a grin and he slaps me hard on the shoulder with his other hand. “Thank you, Oliver. You’re a good man. A real good man. But you’re not a ray… what was that you said?”

  “Radiographer. No, really, I can assure you…” the panic erupting in me again.

  “You don’t fool me, Oliver. You are a proper doctor, I can tell. And a damn good one too, ha!” He slaps me on the shoulder again as he propels himself out of the passenger door. He pokes his bullet head back into the space he’s just left and says, “Don’t worry, your secret’s safe with Emmanuel. Guaranteed.” With that he closes the door and swaggers back along the pavement to his harem.

  I sit stunned for several minutes, with nothing going on in my head but the slogan from the Premier Inn sign, A good night guaranteed.

  I snap out of it when another car goes by, my strawberry blonde acquaintance in the front passenger seat. She waves at me briefly as they pass. I’m friends with a tart and a pimp already. I look away, embarrassed, and my eye is caught by all the numbers on the dashboard clock flipping in that moment from 11:59 to 00:00. I have to get out of here. I don’t want to double back past the working girls up the road, so I carry on the way I’m facing, assuming that I’ll eventually be able to turn right and find my way to the other side of the railway station.

  It comes as a surprise, even for one supposedly familiar with the city, how quickly I’m back to driving under properly-illuminated street lights, with ordinary buses and people going about their business on wide pavements. I feel as if I’ve been a world away from it all, disconnected, but I was just around the corner from this everyday stuff. In less than two minutes I’m turning into the road leading to Springhill Gate and it’s there I notice that I’ve forgotten to switch off the interior light that Emmanuel had flicked on to show me his hand. As I reach up to turn it off I glance in the mirror, and start when I see there’s a police car following close behind.

  Christ, how long has that been there? Am I being tailed, or…? Maybe they’ve followed me all the way from behind the station. They could be running my number through the national computer right now. Get a grip, maybe they’re just in the line of traffic, nothing to do with me. What about my interior light, is it an offence to have that on when you’re driving? Well, I’ve turned it off now, so why don’t you go away and catch some real criminals? There’ll be plenty of drink drivers, this time of night, go and nab one.

  Now I’m calculating how many drinks I’ve had over the last few hours. I can’t be over the limit. Just that dodgy Guinness in the dodgy pub. And the little bottle of Macallan – that was tiny. Mmm, the two San Miguels before I came out, but that was ages ago, and even longer since I had the beers in the pub with Ollie after we’d been to the library. How long do these things stay in the system?

  I’m almost to the point where I need to be turning off to get back to Prince Albert Road. What if they keep following me? What if they wait to watch what I’m doing when I stop outside Amina’s place, or they come over and question me? How can I explain why I’ve parked up there?

  I can’t take the chance of being caught out like that so I drive straight by the turn and carry on past The Gate. I glance in my mirror again and see the police car turning right towards Prince Albert Road. That’s ironic. They obviously weren’t following me at all, but if I had taken the turn and seen them do the same I would have had a seizure.

  I’m too spooked to turn back. In any case I’ve been away from Amina’s house for over an hour. There could have been all sorts of comings and goings that I know n
othing about, so as an exercise in surveillance this evening has been more or less futile. I suppose I’ve learnt something tonight, mainly to stay away from street girls, but as far as solving the mystery of Hassan Malik and his widow is concerned I’m not much further forward.

  V

  To be honest I’d anticipated another night of bad dreams after my encounter with Emmanuel, but surprisingly I sank into a deep and untroubled sleep not long after I got back to the flat. I might have enjoyed it for a few extra hours but for the damn phone ringing first thing in the morning.

  The call is from work, Neville Crawcrook’s office. Not from Neville in person of course, who’s too self-important to use the telephone except for ingratiating himself with Group directors. It’s from his secretary (sorry, PA) Kirsten who says in her matter-of-fact way, “Marc, you need to clear your diary for a meeting in Neville’s office at eleven fifteen this morning.” Despite keeping as much distance between himself and his employees as possible and displaying all the mannerisms of a pompous prick, Neville, being in the media, insists on everyone calling him by his first name.

  “I’m off sick.”

  “So I understand, but apparently your presence is required.”

  “What’s the meeting about?”