‘Yeah.’
We drive back in near silence. The one event en route is a phone call from an unknown number.What the hell?I think, and accept. ‘Hello?’
‘Hello, boss, Mr Toad’s Motors here!’
‘Tariq?’
Tariq is fifteen years older than me, far wealthier, and has had a truly extraordinary life that he’s told me about onseveral occasions, but despite all that he still calls every one of his customers ‘boss’.
‘That’s it, Mr Al. Listen, I got some news. We’ve had someone snooping around looking for you.’
‘Who?’
‘Couldn’t say, boss. ’E was big, though. Big nasty fucker, you know what I mean? White man, looks like he got a bowling ball for a head. Two little eyes, one mean mouth, rest of him shiny and hard.’
‘When did he come by?’
‘Half-hour ago, maybe. He said he wanted to find out who rented this van from me.’
‘Did you tell him?’
There is a loud, long burst of profanity at the other end of the line. ‘Forgive me, Mr Al, but I wouldn’t be Mr Toad if I was shopping you all up every time someone asked a question, would I? I told him that van was nicked three weeks ago by some scumbag junkies we got round here.’
‘Thanks, Tariq.’ I had a hunch he was reliable, but there’s nothing like proof. ‘Is he still there?’
‘Nah. But I’d leave the van somewhere if I was you. Just ditch it, scratch it up a bit, whatever. Tell me where you left it, I’ll get the boys to pick it up like we just found it dumped somewhere. You know? Scatter a few needles round if you got any.’
‘Thank you so much, Tariq.’
‘My friend, it’s a pleasure.’ And then, because he is an entrepreneur to his core, he extracts another £200 from me for the recovery and repairs.
I tell the others the bad news. The bonus bad news, of course, is that now we have to park at least a mile away from our destination and walk the rest of the way back to Balfour Villas. I trust Tariq implicitly, but there’s no way I’m telling him where we’re staying.
We ditch the van on Warwick Avenue, and get a black cab across town. Then we break in all over again, and despite the shortcuts we left for ourselves, there’s a palpable weariness about the way we do it. Sleeping in a van will do that to you. My spine feels like a broken accordion.
Once we’re in, Elle volunteers to make a round of teas, and then we flop in the cavernous front parlour, all on different sofas.
We’re all a bit shaken, to be honest. I know I come across cocky, but I’ve never seen anyone killed before. I’m a housebreaker, not a mobster. That moment – the moment of actual system shutdown, where Sausage Fingers’ eyes filmed over and his huge body became just athing– it’s been living in my head rent-free, as the kids say, all last night and most of today. Living rent-free. Ha ha. That’s how we got into this mess. I think I might be cracking up.
Em opens the batting. ‘So, the situation is this: we are the sole almost-witnesses to a murder that happened last night, of a man who’d just been threatening us, in a home we shouldn’t have been in.’
‘Yes.’
‘In the course of leaving, we left behind at least three incriminating pieces of evidence that we’d been there that night.’
‘Those are only the ones we thought of, but yes.’
‘And now we have inadvertently introduced ourselves to the police investigating the murder …’
‘Excuse me,’ I said. ‘We agreed that trying to get the camera back was a good idea at the time. I didn’t hear any objections from you three.’
‘… and are apparently being tracked by a third party, if not the actual killer himself, who would not appear to have our best interests at heart.’
‘Yeah.’
Jonny chips in. ‘Whoever he is, this guy seems pretty good at tracking us down. We’ll be sitting ducks for him if we stay here.’
‘Maybe,’ Em concedes. ‘So we probably shouldn’t stay here indefinitely.’
