I said nothing. I was busy trying to prevent my gag reflex from going into overdrive. The bathroom floor was covered with filthy water, loo roll and stools the size of elephant shit. Iffy for a couple of days was code for a week. It also told me something else. Nobody could have taken a bath or shower in that time.
‘Where’s Gonzo and Jack?’ I snapped as I waded in.
‘In bed.’
‘Get them up.’
The note of warning in my voice had the required effect. Startled, Dan disappeared as I pushed a plunger into the toilet bowl and created a seal. Working it gently up and down to start with, I then tried a more vigorous approach, pushing the plunger and letting it suck back up in a monumental effort to dislodge whatever was causing the obstruction.
Two sets of sleepy eyes appeared at the doorway, a general fug of unwashed youth melding with the odour of faeces. Nice.
‘Man,’ Jack said, lazily scratching an armpit. Gonzo didn’t say a word, just stood slack-jawed, as though an alien had appeared in his midst.
‘Go to the kitchen,’ I said. ‘Fill up a bucket of hot water and put two parts disinfectant in it. Bring it back with a mop. Either of you own a pair of flip-flops?’ Of course they did. Teenage boys spent their entire lives in them even when it was snowing.
‘Yeah. And?’
Gonzo’s upward inflexion and dismissive delivery suggested that he thought me cracked. I fixed him with a particularly menacing expression from my repertoire. ‘Get them.’
Both lads gawped at each other and shambled off. I continued working the plunger. Nothing budged. Time for the snake.
Dan had reappeared at the doorway and I asked him to pass me the drain snake, a wire coil with a corkscrew tip. On a previous occasion, I’d used a wire coat hanger and dislodged a hairbrush. If the snake failed, I’d have to remove the toilet, not something I was keen to do.
Feeding the snake into the opening, I wiggled it around the S-bend, the place where most blockages occur. Sure enough, and with a sense of eureka, I bumped up against something spongy, like a cushion or piece of foam rubber. Twisting the coil, I drilled in, gained purchase and yanked, the accompanying sound of water draining assuring me I’d literally hit pay dirt.
A plunge bra with enough padding to guarantee the appearance of a 38DD clung to the end of the snake. ‘Yours?’ I said, looking at all three youths.
‘Fuck,’ Dan said, clearly lost for a more articulate response.
‘Must be Mandy’s,’ Gonzo said.
‘Yeah, but how did it get there?’ Jack laughed, the others joining in, doubled up and helpless.
I didn’t see the funny side. ‘Perhaps you’d like to tell her that real tits are nicer than fake.’ With this, I sloshed out of the bathroom. ‘Over to you, big man,’ I told Gonzo as I pulled off my boots. ‘In there with the mop and bucket.’
‘Aw shit, man.’
Resisting the temptation to come back with a laconic response, I threw my next order at Dan and Jack. ‘And you two needn’t stand around pissing yourselves. You’re on washing-up duty.’
It took them the best part of two and a half hours, and only because Gonzo’s mother turned up and helped. Wondering about what my life had become, I drove back home feeling grim and flat, like a puppet with its strings cut. In an attempt to bat off a fresh wave of utter pointlessness, I took another shower, cracked open a cheeky beer, and resumed reading. Big mistake. Everything about Chester Phipps’s death bothered me.
In common with most ‘big men’, Phipps was into security. He had a couple of bodyguards with him at all times. He rarely drove, preferring a trusted driver. His food was checked. He never went anywhere without having the location swept for listening devices, weapons or explosives. A man rarely alone, the only exception was when he was screwing, which Phipps, again in common with the breed, did quite a lot. He oozed a rare, potent mix of sexuality and intelligence that women found bewitching. The fact he was also extremely dangerous added to the allure. Notwithstanding this, he always had a man posted outside the door of every place where he hung his hat. So how come he’d wound up alone in his car with a bullet in his temple? Surely, in the wake of Billy’s demise, a guy like Phipps would take special measures? The more I thought about it, the less sense it made. In the old days, I’d have asked around, but that time was past and I couldn’t afford to take a risk. And that was the problem with my life. Deprived of danger, I ceased to be.
I made myself a sandwich and ate it while reading the business section. I washed up the plate, set it on the drainer and considered any number of tasks that could gainfully engage my time. Maybe I’d go for a walk, catch a film, prop up any one of a number of bars and play anonymous.
I did none of these things.
I picked up the phone and punched in McCallen’s number.
‘Are you in trouble?’
‘Part of the job description.’ Her flippant response did not answer my question. If she wanted me to play ball, she’d have to do better.
‘I can’t help if I don’t know what I’m dealing with exactly.’
Nothing gave. Maybe she was thinking. Maybe she was asleep. I tried again.
‘You implied that Lars was threatened. Like to explain?’
She paused, as if weighing up how much to divulge before taking the plunge. ‘He thought he was being followed and believed that his phone was tapped. Someone broke into his house in London.’
‘Little things.’ I hoped to get a lot more out of her now that we were safely separated by a telephone line.
‘I reckoned he was paranoid. It happens sometimes when assets lose their bottle.’
‘But he wasn’t.’
‘No,’ she said quietly.
‘Anything else you’d like to tell me?’ Confess to, admit to, and tell the truth about, I thought.
‘Someone tried to push him underneath a train on the Underground.’
Breath ripped out of my lungs. I wanted to ask her to repeat what she’d said, but I didn’t need to. I’d heard it right the first time. The train trick was the same method I’d used to kill Billy Squeeze. McCallen knew this. I thought she might openly say so. She didn’t. Was someone imitating my methods? Was I seeing patterns and connections that didn’t exist?
‘Did he see who it was?’
‘It happened too quickly. A commuter grabbed him and undoubtedly saved his life. It really put the wind up him.’
And me. This piece of news demanded a step change in my thinking. I wondered whether to tell McCallen about Chester Phipps. McCallen was still speaking.
‘Afterwards I couldn’t shake Lars off. He was becoming a liability.’
Hardly the odd phone call, I thought, remembering our previous conversation. ‘Remind me of the timeline again.’
‘From the end of January until a few days before he died.’ Which wasn’t what she’d originally told me. I almost missed what she said next because I was too wrapped up in the Billy death scenario. ‘We spoke often on the phone. I met him in person twice.’
‘Where?’
‘Remote locations. He insisted on it.’
‘You should have cut off all contact.’ Basic