Private London (Private 4)

‘Mineral water for me,’ he said. ‘Ice, no slice.’

‘You’re going to need a straw to drink it through the face cast, motherfucker!’ said the first goon.

‘It’s okay, Ralph – this man is known to me,’ said Ronnie Allen.

Ralph, for God’s sake. Seems even meatball-headed thugs had designer names now.

Ronnie Allen was sitting with Brendan Ferres. Another dark-suited man with an extremely glamorous blonde was sitting opposite them. I didn’t know the other man. He was in his late forties, with sleek silver hair, and was wearing sunglasses. I didn’t know his companion either but she looked like she had been poured into her cream-white dress and was nearly spilling out of it.

Ronnie Allen himself was a small man, five seven at a push, with cropped grey hair and amused eyes. Apparently they stayed amused even if one of his associates was taking a baseball bat to someone’s knees, or a blowtorch to their bare feet.

I flashed a smile at the blonde woman. ‘Sorry to interrupt your evening,’ I said.

‘Spit it out, Carter. I’m in a business meeting,’ said Allen.

‘Hannah Shapiro,’ I said simply.

‘Never heard of her.’

‘She was kidnapped last night.’

He shook his head, genuinely puzzled as far as I could tell. ‘The fuck has that got to do with me?’

I pointed a finger at Brendan Ferres. ‘Little Boy Blue here was seen at the premises shortly before she was taken.’

Allen looked over at Ferres who shrugged. It was like a bison rolling its shoulders. His cold, piggy eyes weren’t amused. They were full of hate. I managed to stop my knees from knocking as he glared at me.

‘I ain’t got a clue what he’s on about, Ronnie,’ he said.

‘Chancellors University. Yesterday afternoon. I take it you weren’t there getting a thesis marked.’

He ignored me and turned to his employer. ‘How about I just bounce these bozos out and teach them some manners?’

‘How about you just answer the question?’ Allen replied rhetorically.

‘What, I have to answer to some pansy-assed window peeper now, do I?’

‘No, Brendan. You answer to me.’

He said it quietly but Ferres got the point. He shrugged

‘Okay. It’s just business. One of the guys there at the college … we have dealings with him. I don’t know the first flying fuck about some cooze being kidnapped.’

Allen turned to me and flashed me a quick smile. ‘That answer your questions, gentlemen?’ he asked without a hint of irony.

I nodded. I didn’t get the sense he was lying.

‘That’s good, Mister Allen,’ I replied, showing him the respect he expected. ‘But if I find out King Kong Junior here had any hand in it, I will come back and put him in the ground,’ I said, showing a little less respect.

Brendan Ferres would have leapt up but Allen put a quiet hand on his knee and he stayed put. If looks could kill I’d certainly have been dead by then. I returned his look, letting him know I meant every word.

‘You let this man come into your place of business and talk this way?’

It was the silver-haired man speaking. He had an American accent – the East Coast, if I was any judge. Italian-American at that. His suit was hand-cut and he wore a watch on his wrist that I reckoned cost more than the Jaguar my mate Gary Webster had squirrelled away in his lock-up. The theme tune of The Godfather played in my head and I deduced he probably wasn’t here as a food critic for the Washington Post.

‘Someone took a baseball bat to my god-daughter’s head when the girl was taken,’ I said by way of explanation.

‘Family is very important,’ said Ronnie Allen.