The single light above the door told me I had arrived at the right place. I walked up to it, paused, took a deep breath and knocked on the imposing double door that guarded the entrance.
High up in the wood a small shutter slid back and a pair of eyes looked down on me.
‘Mr Read, please.’
I said it in a whisper but it was enough. The left hand door swung open and heat and light spilled onto the street.
‘And what would a little gob-shite like you be wanting with Mr Read?’
The doorman was decked out in a royal blue overcoat that struggled to keep his muscles in check. This was no polite club steward. This man was a human blockade.
‘Tell him that someone is going to do his house over.’
The blockade cocked his head and vanished.
I tell you now that I wanted to run. With every bone in my body I wanted to sprint down that street and let the night swallow me up. I’ll also tell you that had I done so I would have been dead in twenty-four hours and you wouldn’t be here listening to this.
Two men in dark suits appeared in the doorway and, without stopping for a by your leave, stepped onto the pavement, lifted me bodily by the armpits and whisked me along the road and into St Andrews Square.
They hauled me round the church that sits in the centre of the square and into the shadows beyond. I was dumped to the ground and one of the men kicked me in the thigh.
Just making his point.
I lay on the cold pavement and waited. I knew better than to ask any questions. Questions led to pain.
I looked up at the church and from the back end of my mind I remembered being told that Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army had encamped around the church’s walls after the disastrous invasion of England in 1745. I think I knew how he felt.
The two suits lit up cigarettes but said nothing and I watched as the crappy street lighting played games with the smoke.
I heard footsteps and a heavily over coated man rounded the corner. He was stocky and walked with purpose. A man used to getting his own way in life. The two suits parted and he walked up to me.
‘Stand up.’
I did as I was asked and he turned and told the suits to take a walk. Obviously I was no threat.
‘I’m here. Talk.’
I launched into my story. Disjointed and without purpose he looked bored until I told him about my break in to his house and his eyes darkened. I told him I had taken nothing and seen nothing. His eyes dropped another shade. He didn’t believe me.
I told him where I had got the info on the house and I told him I was in the shit however this played out.
‘How did Rachel Score know that I wouldn’t be home tonight?’
I shrugged.
‘How did you know to find me at the club?’
‘I didn’t but I knew your dad used it. If you hadn’t been here I’d have left a message for you to contact me.’
He laughed. It sounded odd in the dark. But I could see his point. Me leave a message for him — good joke.
‘So why don’t I just get my friends to teach you to swim with a chain round your legs?’
I tell you my heart was racing at twenty to the dozen and then some. I had no plan other than to offer up Martin and Rachel in return for my safety.
‘Because if I hadn’t come here Martin would have done over your house. Still might.’
He looked at me. The way a boy looks at a bug just before he squashes it. He shouted back to one of the suits for a cigarette and, as he lit up, he never let his eyes stray from mine.
‘Your not as daft as you look,’ he said. ‘Any other boy would have either trashed the house or run. But you figured you were dead meat either way. Not bad. What did you see that told you not to fuck with me?’
I didn’t want to talk about the chest but I did. As soon as I saw it I knew that Read was not someone to mess with. There was serious shit in that chest and that meant someone who was a lot heavier than Martin and I. Much heavier.
He blew out a cloud and threw the butt to the ground.
‘Tell you what. I’ll give you one chance to make good. Fuck up and you’re history.’
He told me what to do.