Page 69 of Crave

I winked, pulling away from the curb. “You worry a lot for someone who just broke about three public decency laws. What’s the sentencing on that, then, Master of the Law?”

Tristan flushed, a faint pink cutting through the rain-damp chill. I chuckled, shifting gears, letting the city swallow us again. The roads were near empty, slick with reflected light. My playlist hummed low through the speakers. Easy, wordless, filling the silence we didn’t bother to break. What was there to say, anyway? The truth sitting between us didn’t survive small talk. And when I pulled up outside his place in Clerkenwell, he didn’t move right away. He stared out the window.

“Is he…” He turned back to me. “Okay?”

I met his eyes. “He’ll live. That’s the point.”

He nodded, as if that meant something. Maybe it did. And I thought that would be it. Him leaving, door shut, moment done. But then he leant across the seat and kissed me. Soft. Unplanned. Dangerous in a way bullets were.

Yeah, it left a flutter. Maybe even a smile I pretended wasn’t there.

So I fished out the phone. The incriminating one. “Here. Take it.” I could’ve got Tariq some cash for that, but I let Tristan do whatever he wanted with it for some absurd reason that had nothing to do with how this felt like a farewell.

He hesitated but eventually took it. “Thanks.”

“See you around, Tricky.”

I didn’t know if I would, but he smiled anyway. Then he was gone, walking up the steps, unlocking his perfect little door. He turned around once, our eyes met, then he went inside and closed the door. I waited until the light came on inside before I exhaled.

That was it.

The end. Or what passed for one.

I drove back to Hackney, parked up by Smoky Joe’s, dropped the seat back, and closed my eyes, waiting for the shutter to roll up and the next problem to begin.

* * * *

It began with knuckles rapping on my window.

Joe.

I lifted my head and wound the glass down. “Cormac here yet?”

“Yeah.” Joe tipped his chin towards the caff. “Inside. Look sharp, bruv. He’s out for blood.”

I scrubbed my face with the heel of my hand, pushed myself up, and shoved the duffel under the seat. Then slid the cash I’d come by yesterday into my jacket and walked into the heat. Lennon brushed past me coming out with a coffee and a bacon roll and it made me stop for a second. Made me think. Feel like the low-life he saw me as.

But I still tried with a, “Hey.”

Lennon glanced at Cormac’s corner. “Be fucking careful, Rich.”

I shrugged. “Yeah. I will. You too, Len.”

The doorbell spat me back into the same stink of grease, fryer oil, and overboiled kettle steam. I slid into the plastic seat beside one of Cormac’s heavies, opposite the man himself, his other flank occupied by another slab of silent muscle. The three of them crowded the table so tight it felt as if the plastic might warp. Cormac O’Rourke didn’t look up when I sat. Didn’t need to. He had the presence of a man who owned every inch of any room he was in, even this cheap café with its flaring strip lights and sticky floors. He worked the place into his orbit just by breathing.

He had a full English spread in front of him, greasy and steaming. A chipped mug of tea sat untouched, gone cold. His hair was iron-grey, cropped tight, and his beard was rough and patchy, red still clinging stubbornly at the roots like old bloodstains. His eyes were the worst part. A washed-out blue, the colour of a winter sky over a graveyard. Sharp enough to assess you. Empty enough to forget you. And covered by those stupid thick-framed glasses that made him look…harmless.

He was anything but.

“Razor.” He stabbed a fork into a black pudding then shoved it into his mouth, greying red stubble around chapped lips.

“Cormac.” I kept my voice even.

Joe dropped a mug in front of me as if handing over a shield. But Cormac knew the rules in here. As did I. No weapons. No fists. A place to talk. Save the violence for outside. No one wanted the filth coming in here unless they were as bent as I was.

To try to smooth things over, I fished the envelope out and slid it across the table. “From last night.”

Cormac opened it, glanced at the notes, then laughed. “You went on a walkabout for a measly grand?”