Simon Kernick - The Murder Exchange

I turned and, as casually as possible, headed back in the direction of the toilet, speeding up the moment I’d pushed through a large group of girls out on a hen night.

Gallan

As soon as I saw him, I knew I had to act fast. I didn’t have a clue what he was doing there but he didn’t look like he fitted in, and he was on his own. All that, however, was by the by. The most important thing was that he stayed put until reinforcements arrived. I pulled the mobile from my jacket pocket and called the station, at the same time moving slowly towards a pillar by the dance floor where I could keep an eye on him without attracting attention. I was bumped by a young bloke pushing past me and I turned and gave him a look, not that he even saw it. He was already ten yards further on. Cheeky little bastard. Dispatch picked up and I informed them loudly of my position and the fact that I was within thirty feet of a wanted man and needed back-up. I needed to repeat myself twice above the noise, and when I looked back towards Iversson I saw that he’d spotted me. He turned and walked away and I followed rapidly, telling Dispatch that he was on the move. ‘Get here fast, I don’t fancy tackling him on my own. Not after what happened this afternoon.’

Iversson disappeared into the toilet and I broke into as close a run as the crowds would allow, unsure how I was going to handle this. I didn’t want to corner an ex-para in an enclosed place and present him with no option but to fight. I’m not as young as I used to be, or as fit, and the reason I’m a detective is that I like to detect rather than get involved with all the physical stuff. Plus, I knew I’d lose. But I wasn’t going to let him go either. Not after he’d put two of our uniforms on the sicklist.

I pulled open the door to the toilets four seconds after he’d gone inside, turned left, and headed into the urinals area. There were half a dozen people in the place, all relieving themselves, while at the far end of the room in front of an open window was Iversson. He looked like he was just about to jump up and try to get out through it. Eight yards separated us.

He turned and saw me and I put my hands up to indicate that I wanted things to end peacefully, which I did. ‘All right, police. Come along now, Max.’ And then, of course, the standard police cliche: ‘You’re in enough trouble as it is without adding resisting arrest to the charges.’ I took a couple of slow steps forward, careful not to agitate him.

Iversson nodded and added his own cliche: ‘It’s a fair cop, guv,’ he said, taking a step towards me. Then, without warning, he grabbed an unlucky punter by the back of his shirt and flung him bodily in my direction. The poor sod was still in the process of taking a leak and I had to jump out of the way to avoid the spray, sliding over in a suspect-looking puddle as I did so. I banged my right knee jarringly hard and the mobile flew out of my hand. Iversson immediately turned, heaved himself up to the window with an agility that made me look even more like a Keystone Kop, and began squeezing himself through.

The bloke he’d pushed at me was first to react. Putting himself away amid a welter of curses, he turned, ran up to the window, and grabbed one of Iversson’s flailing legs with both hands. It was a stupid move. The other leg bent, tensed, then lashed out, all in one split-second movement, striking the bloke in the side of the temple and sending him crashing into the communal urinal. His head hit the wall with an angry thud. Iversson’s legs then began to disappear like spaghetti being dragged into a giant mouth. Ignoring the mobile phone, I jumped to my feet and ran towards them, managing to grab hold of one of his shoes just as it started to go out of the window. It came off in my hand and I was suddenly left standing looking at a fashionable-looking khaki moccasin while he made good his escape. I heard him land on the other side, then get to his feet and start running, impaired but hardly disabled by the fact that he now only had one item of footwear.

I looked at the semi-conscious bloke moaning on the floor, then at the handful of other punters who stood watching me in slightly amused silence, then finally at my watch.

It was twenty to twelve. Way past my bedtime.

Iversson

I was waiting when she arrived back at her Clerkenwell apartment. I watched her get out of the taxi and pay the driver from across the street, then as he pulled away and she turned towards the entrance, I crossed the road and jogged up behind her.

‘Elaine.’

She turned round quickly, saw it was me, and narrowed her eyes. ‘Well, well, well. The wanderer returns. What happened back there? You didn’t tell me the police were after you.’

I stopped in front of her. ‘I couldn’t tell you anything in there. It was too bloody loud.’

‘You’d better come in,’ she said, fishing in her handbag for a key. ‘I think we’ve got a fair bit to talk about, don’t you?’

‘You can say that again.’

‘How did you find out where I lived?’ she asked when we were inside her first-floor apartment.

‘You’re in the phone book,’ I told her.

‘So are plenty of other people with the name Toms,’ she said, leading me through to a nicely furnished lounge with comfy-looking black leather chairs. She slung her jacket over one of the chairs and turned to me, waiting for an answer.

‘Not as many as you’d think. I narrowed it down to five, then phoned Johnny Hexham. He said he thought you lived in Clerkenwell and there was only one E. Toms in Clerkenwell. Maybe you should think about being ex-directory.’

‘I’ll bear it in mind.’ She looked down at my dirty sock. ‘I won’t ask,’ she said.

‘The police. They don’t just want collars any more. They want everything.’

She smiled. ‘Do you want a coffee?’

‘Yeah, please.’

Five minutes later, when we were sitting in the leather chairs facing each other, she asked me what had happened with Fowler, and how come the police were after me. There was no point holding back, not if I wanted her to open up to me, so I told her everything, bar the bit where I shot Tony, which she didn’t really need to know. In the account I gave Tony escaped and I never saw what happened to him.

She sat back in her chair and rubbed her hand across her temple. It was a gesture vaguely similar to one of Fowler’s. ‘Shit,’ she said, which just about summed it up. ‘I can’t believe it. Dead. Poor old Roy.’ Which I thought was a bit rich. Fowler had asked for it, I hadn’t.

‘What happened after I got out tonight?’

‘Two vanloads of Plod turned up, and this detective who was already in there, the one chasing you, he started asking me a load of questions about what you were doing there.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘I said I didn’t have a clue who he was talking about. He didn’t push things.’

‘So, who are the people Fowler was having trouble with? I think I owe them after what they’ve done to me and one of my best employees.’

She leant forward and gave me a cold stare. ‘Max, I’m telling you now. Do not get involved. Consider yourself lucky you’re still in one piece and leave it at that.’

‘Just tell me, Elaine.’

‘You don’t want to know. Honestly.’

‘I’ll be the judge of that.’

She paused, then, seeing that I wasn’t going to give up, started talking. ‘Roy’s been under a lot of pressure lately and he’s fallen in with some of the wrong people. He was getting into debt with the club.’

‘How did he manage that with those prices? I’d have thought he’d be a millionaire.’

‘He’s a big spender and he’s got a nasty coke habit that’s been eating away at his finances. Anyway, he started borrowing money from people he should have kept well away from, and it didn’t take long for them to start calling for their money back. And that’s when he really fucked up. He allowed them to start dictating to him how he should do business. They wanted to sell their drugs in Arcadia with Roy overseeing things.’