‘You betcha.’
‘I’m on my way now. We’ll get into a good mood, then we’ll party.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Lots of fun.’
‘A whole lot.’
The telephone clicked.
As North replaced the receiver he couldn’t help thinking that it was all getting too much. Jay kept wanting more and more. When they’d first arrived in London, the entertainment had been just like in New York: once every couple of weeks; discreet; controlled. All expertly handled through a contact from New York, someone they could trust. But then the contact had moved out of town. North had been on his own and he’d had to find a new source. That meant taking risks, and he hated taking risks about this.
Jay knew, of course, but he didn’t seem to care. He just kept wanting more: every week, then twice a week. It had turned into a major logistical nightmare. Then there were the drugs. They’d always been part of it, but now it had become every time. It would have been bad enough in New York but here it was much worse because he didn’t know his way round town; he didn’t have the same network. He couldn’t just pick up the phone to one of his fixers and have things done. And having things done, Elliott North knew, was the only reason Jay Strauss hired him.
13
‘Judith,’ there was relief in his voice, ‘
am I glad to get you!’
‘Where are you calling from?’ She was suspicious.
‘Bernie’s.’
‘OK,’ she exhaled a cloud of cigarette smoke as she made towards the door of the pub, mobile clutched to her ear.
He glanced round Bernie’s study, at the wood shelves and leather-topped desk, the green curtains drawn round the bay window. There was a reassuring affluence, a well-heeled, ordered calm about the place which he very definitely needed right now – along with the Scotch, which glowed in the cut-crystal tumbler in front of him.
When he’d arrived, nerves still jangling from his discovery earlier that evening, Bernie had immediately prescribed a generous helping of Glen Morangie. He had wanted to keep quiet about it all until he decided what to do. But he couldn’t pretend to Bernie and Trisha, they’d seen how rattled he was. So he’d sworn them to secrecy and told them he was being followed; he didn’t know who by. They had been aghast; wasn’t it just a coincidence? He’d convinced them it was not. Why else had he sneaked over the back fence of his own house to get here?
They’d been even more startled when he announced he needed to get hold of Judith; did they have her mobile telephone number? They looked bewildered – after all the petulant hostilities over the past few years, what on earth was going on? Sidelong glances had been exchanged as he left the room. But from the moment he’d arrived home that night, he had known he had to make the call. Right away. From a safe place.
‘About last weekend,’ he said now, ‘we’ve got to talk.’
‘We do?’
‘I know I was … sceptical about what you were saying—’
‘Don’t you mean incensed?’
‘But a lot has happened.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
There was no avoiding her distrust. ‘No, really. It has. I’m not so sure any more. Not so sure about anything.’
The only response from the other end was the sound of her dragging on her cigarette, before another long exhalation. Then she said, ‘Well, sorry not to be bowled over by the idea of a chinwag, but for all I know you could be at the office recording everything I say. This could be a set-up.’
‘But it isn’t. Look, Judith,’ his tone was authoritative, ‘there’s no time to be precious. I can understand how you feel, but believe me, I’m not playing games. The fact is, you and I are both in serious danger right now.’
‘Why should you be?’
‘I’m being followed.’
‘Oh, really?’ she seemed unconvinced.
‘I was tailed home from the office tonight. The point is, I don’t know how long it’s been going on. They could have seen us together on Saturday.’