“Where’s that?” Mickey asks. “Up north?”
Steve nods, hoping it is. “It’s not exactly Dubai.”
“Nowhere is,” says Mickey. “This place reminds me of those days back in Essex, see? Everybody’s at it all day long. Speedboats and hot tubs and God knows what. Money coming out of their arses, the lot of them. So I don’t ask, you know? Maybe it’s all legitimate.”
“But Rob Kenna’s just a DJ?” Steve says.
Mickey holds up his hands. “Who knows? None of my business. I like playing golf with the fella. But one day he won’t be there anymore, I know that. We used to play with a lad called Big Frank, a fruit-and-veg importer; they found him dead in Colombia. Perhaps he was out there picking bananas? For a while there was a lad called Gomez, and he sold cars, until he ended up in the boot of one in a quarry in Kent. Not so long ago there was Davey: he got killed somewhere; they never found him. They come and go. Are you really in the scented-candle business?”
“ ’Fraid so,” says Steve, forcing himself to look at the naked Cockney, as if being in a sauna was the most natural thing in the world. And, just then, something rings a bell deep within him. What is it?
“Heroin on the side?” asks Mickey. “People trafficking?”
“Just candles,” says Steve.
“You’re one of the smart ones, then,” says Mickey. “Take a good look around Dubai: there ain’t many of us left.”
Mickey would have made a good cop. Cops weren’t allowed tattoos in Steve’s day, though. Changed now—tattoos, beards, the lot.
How to finesse this? Steve needs to speak to Rob Kenna. And it has to be an “accidental” meeting, an introduction from an old friend. But is Mickey Moody too wily for all that? He needs a bit of peace and quiet so he can talk this whole thing through with Debbie.
“You okay there, fella?” Mickey asks.
“Sorry, miles away,” says Steve. “Is your wife still alive, Mickey?”
“Died,” says Mickey. “Cancer, five years back.”
“Sorry,” says Steve. “Same boat.”
Mickey nods, then looks toward the door as if making sure no one is about to come in. “You ever talk to her?”
Steve also looks at the door, then back at Mickey. “All day, every day. You?”
“I was talking to her when you walked in,” says Mickey. “I was telling her about the putt I made on the eighteenth.”
Steve smiles. “Sorry to have interrupted you.”
Mickey smiles too. “She don’t mind. She loved a scented candle. Don’t believe in them myself, no offense.”
“What does she make of Rob Kenna?”
“Thinks he’s a wide boy,” says Mickey. “Tells me to steer well clear. Jabbers away.”
You see, Debbie, Steve thinks, it’s not just me. I’m not the only mad one.
And then he realizes what the ringing bell is.
“You’re talking to your wife now,” says Mickey. “I can see it.”
Steve nods.
“She telling you to whip your shoes off?”
Steve laughs. That’s exactly what Debbie would say. But what Debs is actually saying, right this very second, is You clever bugger, Steve. You know who François Loubet is, don’t you?
Steve closes his eyes and smiles because, yes, he does know. He’ll need a bit more evidence, sure, but at least he knows exactly what’s happened now. He can’t wait to tell Rosie and Amy, and work out what on earth they’re going to do next.
Steve kicks off his shoes and peels off his socks. Feet as naked as the day he was born. Let no one say he doesn’t know how to celebrate.
“That’s the stuff,” says Mickey.
91
“I can call the police,” says Susan to Jeff. “Or you might prefer to deal with this yourself?”
Amy wishes she was back in that car boot, curled up. What’s her play here? She goes through Jeff’s checklist. Point One: Assess the situation. Point Two: Assess your strengths. Point Thr—
Jeff pulls a gun from his jacket and points it at Amy. So much for the checklist. Amy immediately does the same.
Susan Knox eyes them both.
“Okay, children,” she says. “I’m calling the police.”
“No,” say both Amy and Jeff, guns trained on each other.
Get out of this one, Amy.
“Put the gun down, Amy,” says Susan.
