NATIONAL TREASURE by Barry Faulkner (life books to read .TXT) 📗

with a head-height glass window led into a room full of beer kegs and boxes of bottled drinks and bar snacks; I must be behind the bar. A door led off to the right, and by the sound coming through it must lead into the bar. Another door on the opposite wall must be for deliveries. I pushed on the security bar, opened the door slowly and stepped out into a side alley; it was wide enough for delivery vehicles. To the left the alley ended with a wall, high with razor wire on the top; to the right the alley skirted to the end of the building and came out on a side road. I speed-dialled Gold.

‘You out?’ I asked.

‘Yes, sounded like you were having fun. Any survivors?’

‘They weren’t very helpful.’

‘No survivors then.’ She knows me so well.

‘You in a motor?’

‘Yes, where are you?’

‘First left past the club, with the club on your left.’

‘Okay.’

Click.

I hurried to the end of the alley and stood against the wall in the dark. Gold was there almost as soon as I was. No lights. I jumped in and we drove away.

‘Home?’ she asked.

‘I think so.’ I brought her up to speed on what I’d found out on the way.

    CHAPTER 6

The next morning I left Gold at the front door to Harry’s office to tell anybody coming in from the street that it was closed for the day. The secretary looked halfway between disappointed and bemused that I didn’t offer a sexy quip on my through reception to Harry’s office. I stopped at his door and looked back at her. ‘No calls, he’s in conference.’

Harry looked surprised to see me.

‘Ben?’ he asked as he took a pull on one of his large cigars in his hand. ‘Everything okay with Marcia? Nasty state of affairs being attacked in your own house. How’s she doing?’

A look of perceived fear crossed his face when I didn’t take a seat and carried on round his large desk and stood very close beside him.

‘She’s okay. Want to tell me about Randall and Bogdan?’

‘Who?’

Harry’s mind must have been turning over at warp speed trying to work out what I knew and how to answer me. I didn’t wait for it to settle. I snatched the large cigar from his hand, pushed his chair so it turned him to face me, held him steady by his tie and stubbed the cigar a few times on his forehead, sending burning tobacco flecks down his face, settling on his large neck. He squealed like a stabbed pig.

‘Randall and Bogdan,’ I asked again, and stubbed again. I was quite enjoying it – maybe I should get counselling?

‘Okay, okay!’ He was flapping his hands in surrender. I let go and sat half sideways on his large desk silently waiting, blowing softly on the cigar end to keep the leaves smouldering. ‘When Marcia married Randall, he pressured me into helping get some drugs into Europe – started off small and then grew. I wanted out, but he threatened to tell the press and involve Marcia if I didn’t go along with it. He introduced Bogdan to me as his partner. Everything went out inside the stage kit on the European tours.’

‘You changed Marcia and Randall’s Wikipedia entries after he died.’

‘They updated it about his death and drug dealing, so I took anything about Marcia being his wife out of it, and I took anything about him out of her’s – the media would have had a field day. With no divorce, to all intents and purposes they were still married. You can imagine the press feeding frenzy, she’d be ruined.’

‘And you carried on with Bogdan.’

‘I didn’t have any choice, Ben. He could have me arrested and ruin my business with one tip-off to the police. People like him have friends in the law.

‘So you knew that Bogdan has Janie all along.’

‘Yes, he told me – he says Randall owes him back the money for the deal the police stopped, and Marcia must have it. I told him she’s not involved, but he won’t listen – says she’s Randall’s wife, so she must know where it is.’

‘He won’t trouble her again. He’s dead.’

‘What?’

‘And you haven’t seen me.’ I got off the desk. ‘You hear me? You haven’t seen me.’

‘Yes, yes.’

 I left his office. The secretary looked at me.

‘Everything all right?’

‘If you’ve got anything for skin burns, he could use it.’

  ***********************************

Gold dropped me back at home; I didn’t want to go to the office as that’s the first place the police would come looking. I’d be on the Bucharest Club CCTV, so no point in denying I was there.

Home is one of those converted warehouse executive apartments off the York road with views of the Thames that I bought when I left the Met. It’s serviced and has door security officers, so nobody gets in without the okay from a resident. My apartment is pretty basic: lounge, kitchen and bedroom, with balcony looking over the Thames. As far as the council rates department are concerned, my name is George Hadlow, a name I got off a gravestone in a Great Plague cemetery in York Road; a friend of a friend of a friend made me up the appropriate ID, and that was it. So anybody trying to find where I live hits a wall. I have no home address.

I rang Marcia Johnson. She was okay; a neighbour had come in for the afternoon and chatted, but not about Janie she assured me. I told her she’d not be getting any more nasty visitors and to blank all contact with Harry Cohen, I’d explain why when I saw her. She didn’t seem surprised. Perhaps she knew more than she was telling me?

I rang the air charter company