For The Death Of Me

33

I was still thinking about Marie when Dylan and I met in the foyer at five thirty, as arranged. I went through the check-out procedures and paid the bill. Then we dumped our cases with the valet, who would look after them till ‘Go to Changi Airport’ time. I’d arranged for Hertz to collect the car.

We were waiting to cross Bras Basah Road, heading for Raffles, when my mobile sounded. It was Ricky Ross.

‘Can you speak?’ he asked, as the green man showed.

‘Yes, but it’ll be cooler once I get into the shade.’

‘What time is it with you?’

‘Tea time.’ I stepped into the shadow of Raffles and leaned against the wall. ‘Do you have something?’

‘Too right. This guy you met, his real name’s Sammy Goss and he is well and truly on the run. He did indeed leave Scotland eight years ago, but not from Maryhill. He escaped from custody on his way to a committal hearing; he was due to stand trial on two counts of murder in Glasgow, and after that he was going to London for a third. All three of them were gang-related.’

‘Any Chinese connections?’

‘Why do you ask that? As it happens, two of the victims were Chinese. The London case was a guy who’d upset some people in Chinatown. When Goss was picked up in Glasgow, the gun he’d used in one of the killings there was matched to that one.’

‘What did he use in the third?’

‘A knife. He was linked to several other hits, but those were the only ones they could proceed on. Are you telling me he’s in Singapore?’

‘Not any more.’

‘Oz, I’ve pulled some strings for this information. The people I’ve talked to want to know why I’m asking.’

‘Tell them to cross him off their list. He’s dead.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I have the word of a reliable witness,’ I told him. ‘It seems Sammy underestimated somebody and took one in the back of the head.’

‘Will the Singapore police confirm this?’

‘It happened in Malaysia, not Singapore, but nobody’s going to confirm it, because there isn’t going to be a body.’

‘Fucking hell, Oz,’ Ricky gasped, ‘what have you got yourself into?’

‘Nothing at all. I’m catching a plane in a few hours and I’m heading back home, clean as a whistle. Did Goss have any family? He told me he had a mother, a sister and two nephews and that he went home every couple of years or so.’

‘He was kidding: his father died in a pub fight twenty years ago and his mother boozed herself to death. No sister, only a granny; the police check her out every so often, but he’s never shown up there. Do you know who killed him?’

‘You didn’t ask me that; just tell your former colleagues on the quiet that they can stop staking out his granny’s. If they ever see anything of him again, it’ll be in a can of fucking tuna.’

‘You wouldn’t like to tell me what brand, would you?’

‘That’s a hard one. If you like the stuff, I’d build up a big stock now, if I were you, before Sammy’s had time to get into the human food chain.’

‘Jesus, Oz. You definitely hung around with Dylan for too long, d’you know that?’