When the phone call came it was hardly a surprise.
‘Be in London tomorrow, you’ve a room booked tonight in the Hilton on Park Lane. You’ll be away for a while — make arrangements.’
Click.
And so I went. Martin was nowhere to be seen and I went alone.
I’m not a fan of London. Never have been. Too many people, too little space and it takes hours to get out of the bloody place to somewhere less crowded. Then again I’ve mates who swear by the place. Love it. Plenty to do. Plenty to see. Plenty to eat. A real buzz.
I just don’t like it.
Full stop.
The Hilton was stuffed to the gunnels with Yuppies — the real deal. Early adopter mobile phone freaks. Filofax. Power suit. Braces — the whole Wall St thing in one lobby. I almost felt like I had to miss lunch to fit in.
I sat at the bar after unpacking and hated it. Sterile decoration and the yuppies got on my tits. I slipped out, glad to be free of the smell of leather and sweat. I found a small pub in the backstreets and drank myself into a good mood and then drank myself into a shit one.
I woke up the next morning with a hangover and no sense that I had earned it.
A London suit appeared around twelve and insisted I join him on a little trip north. The Ford Sierra we travelled in was clapped out and smelled of beer and curry. I was pushed into the back seat and any notion that I harboured of being treated with some decorum, given my track record, was beginning to diminish.
We crawled through the London traffic and slogged our way onto the North Circular before cutting into the back end of Highgate and into a run down council estate. The car stopped and an outstretched finger pointed to a door that looked like it had been firebombed. The house it served didn’t look much better.
I tell you now I was nervous. I was beginning to think that this was looking like my exit interview as opposed to promotion. I walked up a path strewn with empty cans of Tennent’s Super and began to rack my brains for the deals I had done over the last few months. For all the money I had salted away on the side, I could think of nothing that warranted a kicking — or worse.
Before I got to the door it opened. Another suit grabbed me by the arm and pulled me in. The door slammed behind me, and it was hard not to think of a condemned man being led from his cell.
The hall was stripped of wallpaper and carpet and the sole light bulb in the ceiling was either off or didn’t work. A door at the far end of the corridor opened and warm light flooded the space. I was pushed from behind and entered an altogether different world.
The occupant was obviously used to the double take that visitors went through and gave me space to let my jaw hit the ground.
Far from the expected hovel, the space around me would have graced a stately home and not put it to shame. The walls stretched double height around me and the floor space ran to the size of a basketball court. It reminded me of David Read’s gaff but far nastier on the outside and far grander on the inside.
Furniture was strategically placed amongst a full gambit of statues, display cabinets and paintings mounted on easels. The carpet was so thick that it threatened to suck the shoes from my feet and the room gave out an odour that would have been at home in a Chinese opium house a hundred years ago.
Near the far wall, behind a desk with a stone top that looked like it had been hewn from Mount Everest, sat a man. His head was bent down reading a sheaf of papers in front of him. He grunted and the two suits behind me left.
Thirty seconds silence followed.