Private London (Private 4)

She stood up and left and I turned to Sam. ‘Why don’t you and I go and have a word with Brendan Ferres and his puppet master?’

‘That wise? Before we know what the deal is?’

‘Probably not. But we’re going to do it anyway. Let’s kick the apple tree a little, see what drops,’ I said.

Then all hell broke loose.

Chapter 41

THE DOOR FLEW open and a flustered Lucy hurried in.

‘Sorry, sir, there was nothing I could do,’ she said.

Following in behind her was my ex-wife, DI Kirsty Webb of the Metropolitan Police, and several of her colleagues in smartly pressed blue uniforms.

‘Dan Carter,’ she began ominously. ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of interfering with the course of justice.’

‘You are shitting me,’ I replied.

She gave me a pointed look of the kind that I remembered only too well. ‘You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

Kirsty waited for me to come back with a smart remark. I didn’t give her the satisfaction.

She nodded to one of the burly uniformed officers. ‘Cuff him, George.’

I held my hands out and smiled sweetly at her as the cop slapped the cuffs on my wrists.

‘What did I do? I forget it was our anniversary?’

I couldn’t help myself.

‘Take him down the nick,’ she said tersely to George. ‘Make sure he doesn’t fall down too many stairs.’

Chapter 42

HALF AN HOUR later I was in a holding cell.

It was painted a sickly pale lime green. An inset concrete bed with a thin pallet on it. No windows. I had checked the door – it was locked.

Kirsty hadn’t said a single word to me on the journey over. It would have been hard to – she’d been travelling in a separate car. I had been bundled unceremoniously into the back seat of a modified Range Rover with caged partitions. It felt like I’d been picked up by the police dog-handling unit. Maybe I had been.

I’d taken my jacket and shirt off. Kept my white cotton T-shirt on to spare the blushes of any visitors, and was doing press-ups. I had done about a hundred and twenty when I heard the viewing hatch slide open and a voice announce, ‘You got a visitor, Carter.’

I got a faint hint of perfume, something floral and musky, and considered moving on to finger-and-thumb press-ups, but thought better of the idea.

Was I any fitter now than I’d been before an Iraqi roadside bomb and a couple of well-aimed insurgent bullets had seen me hospitalised for two months all those years ago? The truth was that I probably was.

I didn’t take my immortality for granted any more, that was for damn sure. And I kept my body in as fit a condition as I could manage. Doing press-ups in the cell gave me something to do other than think of Hannah and Chloe. Didn’t work, but when you get dealt a crap hand you’ve got to play it the best you can.

The door opened and I stood up.

It was Alison Chambers. Black suit, white silk blouse. Her make-up perfectly applied and the perfume as heady as that from a field of poppies.

‘What the fuck have you done now, Dan?’ she said, kind of spoiling the

moment.

I shrugged as the thickset uniform shut the door on us. ‘I’m sorry. I can’t offer you tea,’ I said as I sat down on the pallet and patted the space beside me for her to join me.