“What?”
“The drugs they supplied.”
“But—”
“I don’t give a damn about the drugs. That’s not what I’m here for. You can carry on getting high if that’s what grabs you. Just tell me what you know about the two Maoris.”
The girls emerged from the pool, squealing like cats, and rubbed their hair with towels. The taller of the two ran under a palm tree.
Osborne was losing patience. “Are you going to spit it out or do you want me to beat it out of you?”
There was barely five years between them but they didn’t share the same vision of the time they had left to live. Osborne clenched his fist.
“Mostly cannabis,” Julian admitted. “Their coke’s lousy.”
“Datura?”
Julian nodded.
“How long have they been supplying you?”
“About three months.”
So the Maoris were supplying both of them.
“They were at the party,” Osborne said. “Why?”
It was increasingly hot on the terrace.
“I’d passed on an order.”
“Was Ann in on it?”
“I have no idea.”
“You just told me the opposite, asshole. Ann was high on datura on the night of the party. Were they the suppliers?”
Osborne was deliberately asking questions he knew the answers to, in order to catch him out.
“Er . . . yes.”
“How did you meet them?”
“At a party.” Julian seemed to have shrunk in his seat. “I’d lost my old suppliers at the time, they gave me some good grass to try, I took some and that was it.”
“Whose party was it? Who invited them?”
“I really don’t know! The friend who was giving the party didn’t know them, they must have been friends of friends, there were a lot of people there and—”
“What was the name of this friend?”
Julian was getting out of his depth. He grabbed his colored cocktail to create a diversion. “I can’t remember, I swear. It was a long time ago and—Ow!”
With a well aimed kick, Osborne had knocked the cocktail from his hand. The glass smashed on impact, tearing his palm before scattering on the terrace. Julian looked at the cut and made a face.
“Joke’s over, buddy boy,” Osborne growled. “Ann Brook was murdered and I have good reason to believe that your dealers were involved. So you see the kind of shit you’ve gotten yourself into. Now tell me what you know before I grab you by the balls and haul you down to headquarters for questioning, and believe me, you won’t know what hit you. I want the names and phone numbers of the two tattooed guys.”
Julian was stifling in the sun. “I only know their first names,” he said, pressing his wounded hand. “Jesse and Stephen.”
“Describe them to me.”
“Well . . . ” Julian pretended to make an effort. “I think they’re brothers, they look very much alike: two big guys with small heads, and small eyes too.”
That triggered a memory in Osborne: the doorman at the Phoenix.
“How did you get hold of them?” he asked, eyes still fixed on Julian.
“I didn’t, Ann did.”
Drunk as he was, Julian Long seemed sincere. It must have been the first time. Osborne groaned—the Phoenix. He really must have been high as a kite not to make the connection.
“How did they contact you?” he insisted, holding in his anger. “Through the Phoenix? If you tell me you don’t know it, I’ll drown you in the pool.”
Julian nodded. “I think that’s it, yes.”
“Do you go with her to the club?”
“No,” he said, startled. “Getting groped in a dark corner isn’t really my thing. I swear.”
