Private London

Chapter 109

The Enforcer could open triple-locked and bolted doors. The trunk of a BMW was no match. The lid flew open and an alarm started shrieking.

We were in the car park at the back of the Turk’s Head, up the road a half-mile or so from where we had watched Laura Skelton being driven away into a whole new world of misery.

Del Rio was leaning, in his normal casual style, against the brick wall of the pub, his gun held alongside his leg, watching the back exit.

A short while later a stocky man came through the door, some five foot nine inches tall, barrel-chested and with a neck about twice the size of mine. He was carrying a set of car keys in his hand.

‘The fuck you think you’re doing?’ he said to me, not quite believing what he was seeing. His eyes bulging like a pug’s on steroids. He pushed the key fob to turn the alarm off.

‘He said it was okay,’ I said and pointed to Del Rio who was now pointing his gun at the bull-necked man.

‘You know whose car that is?’

I nodded. ‘We were invited.’

The man looked at Del Rio, his hand twitching. The bulge under his jacket showed he was carrying. I guess he was weighing up the odds.

‘I wouldn’t,’ said Del Rio.

The man held his hands up and let Del Rio take his gun off him.

‘No one’s going to spank you for this,’ I said to the heavy. ‘We take full responsibility.’

He glared back at me and then smiled. It was not a pretty sight. ‘Fuck you,’ he said. ‘It’s your fucking funeral.’

I reached into the boot of Brendan Ferres’s BMW and pulled out the baseball bat that I was pretty sure I would find there.

Showtime.