‘Sitting watching those lunatics stuff their faces, while my stomach was turning inside out.’
He shook his head. ‘Ballamara’s own boozer, and he didn’t even treat you?’
‘Actually he offered to. But I hardly felt like eating, did I?’ Her voice hardened. ‘Not knowing what was going to happen to me and all that! You are going to keep me a bit more informed from now on, yeah?’
‘Sorry to leave you sleeping, but you had to stay behind as a kind of insurance – to convince them I’d come back.’
‘I wasn’t convinced you’d come back, never mind them.’
‘Then you don’t know me very well, do you?’
‘Anyway, the answers are “no” and “yes”,’ she said sullenly.
‘Uh?’
‘No, I haven’t had any breakfast yet, and yes, I do want some.’
‘Okay.’
They dismounted the train at Bank, and rode into the West End via the Central Line, where they found a small diner. Heck ordered scrambled eggs, toast and coffee. Lauren had pancakes with syrup.
‘The team we’re looking for call themselves the “Nice Guys”,’ he said while they ate. ‘But I don’t know too much more about them.’
Lauren glanced up, her mouth full and cheeks bulging. ‘They’re the kidnappers?’
‘It’s possible. They were mentioned in Deke’s ledger. Whoever they are, it looks like they paid for the job he did on O’Hoorigan. Not to mention a few others.’
‘What did you do with the ledger?’ she asked, suddenly noticing its absence.
‘Parcelled it and posted it.’
‘Where to?’
‘My home address – safest place I could think of.’
‘I thought you said your lot would be sitting on that address?’
‘They’re only looking out for me. I doubt they’ve got a warrant to check the mail yet.’
Before she could ask him anything else, the blue phone rang. Heck glanced at the number on its tiny screen.
‘Ballamara already?’ she wondered.
He shook his head, before answering. The following conversation was mumbled and inaudible to Lauren, even though she was only on the other side of the table. When Heck eventually hung up, he was frowning – partly with concern, but also with puzzlement.
‘It’s a bloody good job we’ve got twenty grand to spend,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a hell of a taxi drive coming up.’
Heck didn’t want the taxi dropping them off in the exact spot in case ‘things turned nasty’. So instead they jumped out in Allhallows-on-Sea, which was little more than a rural hamlet with a few holiday homes dotted around it, but busy enough in August for them to arrive unnoticed. Once the cab had set off back, they walked, leaving the village and heading along a coastal road that led into what seemed like an infinite distance.
‘What do you mean “in case things turn nasty”?’ Lauren asked.
‘Dunno.’ He shrugged. ‘I’m getting less and less sure about this as the day goes on.’
It wasn’t just the stiff sea breeze that was making him uncomfortable. A good thirty miles from London, they’d alighted on the northern edge of the Hoo peninsula, and were now surrounded on four sides by salt marsh and mud flats. When they finally stopped at the lone payphone that McCulkin had specified to Heck, the only buildings in sight were a few weather-boarded boathouses down at the edge of a narrow creek. Gulls and other seabirds swooped noisily, unaccustomed to the arrival of strangers in this remote place.
‘This isn’t exactly the normal spot for a rendezvous of this sort,’ Heck said.
‘Who is it we’re hooking up with?’
‘Now that we haven’t got some eavesdropping cabbie to report back on us, I suppose I can tell you.’ So he did – about McCulkin, and the agreement reached with him. As he spoke, they proceeded down a path that circled round the derelict boathouses and ran for hundreds of yards along a low dyke.
‘Okay, so this McCulkin is your grass,’ Lauren said. ‘Is he reliable?’
‘He has been up until now.’
‘But there’s still something about this you don’t like?’
‘It’s always good to exercise caution, but this …’ Heck indicated the desolation around them. ‘This smacks of overkill to me.’
They were on the north Kent coast, a scenic but notoriously bleak and empty district. Somewhere ahead of them, still a couple of miles off, was the Thames estuary. On the far side of that sat the massive petrochemical complex at Canvey Island. There wasn’t likely to be anyone closer than that – at least, no one engaged in legitimate business.
‘If we’ve got reservations about this, why are we keeping going?’ Lauren asked.
Her own reservations owed more to the gradual sinking of the dyke and the disintegration of the footpath. It was still vaguely visible, beaten through the weeds and tussock grass, winding gamely on ahead, but it was now requiring them to skirt around ponds and leap over ditches. The creek they’d spied was a dozen yards to their left, but was broadening out and filling with water; its banks looked dangerously swampy.
‘Because we haven’t really got any choice,’ Heck said. He grimaced as his foot plunged to the ankle and spurted brackish water up the back of his jeans. ‘All I can say is – the bastard had better be here, or I won’t be impressed.’
The path turned west and they followed it for another mile before it brought them down into a shallow bay. The Thames now lay in front of them, though they didn’t feel that they’d arrived on a riverbank so much as at a point where land ended and the sea began. From this last piece of soggy ground, they could see clear across to the Canvey Island oil and gas terminals and, looking east, to the distant open spaces of the North Sea.
Heck checked his watch; it was five past three, which meant their contact was late.
Almost on cue, they heard the throb of an approaching engine and, glancing left, spotted a small outboard chugging towards them with a solo figure at its helm. It was McCulkin, still dressed – now incongruously – in his overcoat and cap, which had somehow remained on his head despite the coastal wind. He cut the motor about thirty yards from shore and let the vessel glide the rest of the way in, though he stopped it with a paddle ten yards short.
‘Can’t risk letting it run aground,’ he shouted. ‘Sorry, you’re going to have to get your feet wet.’
‘Bit off the beaten track, aren’t we?’ Heck called back.
‘Yeah, but I knew you’d find me okay. You never disappoint, Mr Heckenburg.’
‘I don’t see any sea fort.’
McCulkin pointed. ‘Just round that headland.’
‘Sea fort?’ Lauren asked.
‘Who’s she?’ McCulkin said.
‘A friend.’
Heck waded out, Lauren following, which was difficult with the river bottom deep in soft, slimy sediment. When they reached the boat, McCulkin had to help them aboard.
‘Your friend?’ he said testily. ‘This