E. Seymour - A Deadly Trade - A gripping espionage thriller

I headed back to the lock-up, exchanged my scruffy jacket and jeans for a navy Italian single-breasted suit and camel-coloured overcoat and, to hide my battered features, wrapped a fine Morino woollen scarf around my neck and chin, and topped it off with a trilby. I resembled a character from a romantic wartime novel, fine for the environment I was about to inhabit. Next, I selected a worn leather briefcase, one of my favourites, containing another set of I.D. plus a change of underwear and enough euros to bribe the most reluctant customs officer. I wanted to take the Colt accessory and spoil of war. Out of the question. Yakovlevich would never sanction it. I’d have to travel clean and pick up a weapon, as usual, at the other end.

My thoughts centred on blackmail, close country cousin to bribery and extortion, and blood relatives within the great family of organised crime. How and who had blackmailed Wilding? These were questions I wanted to pose to Wes, preferably with my hands around his neck. Flakier by the hour, Wes was starting to look less like a loosely involved link man and more like an integral player. Time I found out what Wes was really up to.

There’s a gentlemen’s club in Pall Mall populated by arms dealers, spooks, criminals and oddballs. Eclectic best describes it, and exceptionally discreet. It opened its doors at lunchtime and, in spite of my wanted status, I paid it a visit.

I was hoping an American called Ron Tilelli would be at the club. Tilelli had taken British citizenship a decade or more before. A driver for various watering holes, ironically one with a drink and gambling habit, he was a happy combination for me because it made him highly corruptible. Word on the wire said that several intelligence agencies had him in their pockets – another reason for having a chat. I wasn’t sure how true this was. Filled with enough sour-mash whisky, Tilelli could make some fairly extraordinary claims. I’d learnt over the years, however, that even the most unlikely stories contain grains of truth.

The club was decked out like an old country hotel with wood-panelled walls, tartan-patterned upholstery, and distressed-looking leather sofas the colour of old cognac. An overweight golden Labrador snoozed by the fake, but no less convincing, gas log fire. An assiduous Polish waiter took my coat and drink order.

Tilelli had a regular spot in one corner, the equivalent of the foreigner erecting his windbreak on a particular stretch of sand and marking out his territory. A bear of a man, with a mop of sandy-coloured hair, his face a mesh of thread veins in which small light-brown eyes sat like pebbles. He had a raucous laugh and Tilelli laughed a lot. It was one of the things I liked about him. The opposite of me, he was a glass half full merchant.

Tilelli held court with his usual flair, this time and to my relief he imbibed coffee. Around him, a coterie of hangers-on, or liggers as I sometimes described them. It included one man with whom I’d regularly done business. I called him Guy. Small, dapper, shiny-shoed, he looked more financial advisor than small arms dealer. He met my eye, winked and moved away. The others, whom I didn’t recognise, took one look at me and fled as though they had the Grim Reaper stalking towards them. In a sense, I suppose that’s exactly what I was. Tilelli stayed put, met my gaze with a smile. We got on as well as I get on well with anyone.

‘Hex,’ he said, clapping me on the back. People called me Hex because it had connotations of witchcraft. Considered first-rate at what I did, I was clearly no magician. ‘Good to see you,’ Tilelli enthused. ‘Say, what happened to you?’

‘A minor collision with a door.’

Tilelli was shrewd enough to accept my poor excuse. ‘Drink?’

‘Got one, thanks.’ I tipped my head in the direction of the approaching waiter who put a tray on the highly polished table in front of me. Bombay gin, plenty of ice, tonic, and a slice of lime. Tilelli leant forward, swooped up the bill in his big, fleshy fingers, handed it to the waiter.

‘Put it on my tab,’ he said.

‘Certainly, sir. Are you eating with us, gentlemen?’

‘Not me, thanks,’ Tilelli said, patting his stomach, the buttons under considerable strain.

‘No,’ I told the waiter who disappeared with the speed of a greyhound. Perhaps he, too, was scared of me.

I thanked Tilelli for his generosity. ‘My pleasure,’ he said graciously. Nothing in his bearing suggested he associated me with the man wanted by MI5. I wasn’t surprised. It was a rubbish picture. ‘How’s tricks?’ he said.

I smiled, ‘Average.’ Tilelli didn’t expect a rundown of my latest business ventures no more than I expected him to tell me whose payroll he was on. I had, however, revealed in one single word that all was not quite as it should be. Tilelli picked up on it.

‘There’s a lot of frightened folk out there and when folk get frightened they make mistakes and then those mistakes need taking care of.’

I nodded sagely. ‘Any folk in particular I should know about?’

‘Just making a general observation.’

He was right. Tough times usually meant an increase in my line of work.

I said, ‘Seen Wes lately?’

Tilelli frowned. ‘Not for a while.’ He didn’t ask me why I asked. Wouldn’t have been sensible or clever. Why? Was not a question to which I responded with warmth. ‘I heard he was banging some older broad,’ he added.

‘Wes would bang his own sister if he had one,’ I said, to which Tilelli hooted with laughter. ‘Any idea which outfit he’s operating for right now?’

Tilelli shook his head disappointed he couldn’t help. ‘Like I said, I haven’t seen him in a while.’

‘Nothing about him on the wire?’

Another shake of his head followed by another gulp of booze.

I followed his lead, took a pull. Terrific. The coniferous tang of gin drowned my nausea. Nothing, however, obliterated a sudden vision of mass casualties, the morbid results of a vicious dirty bomb.

‘You all right, Hex? You look a little haunted, if you don’t mind my saying.’

I flashed an easy smile. ‘I’m good. Tired, that’s all.’

‘Doing nothing sure is tiring,’ he snorted, taking out a silver hip flask. He unscrewed the top and poured a slug of booze, presumably brandy, into his coffee cup. ‘Damn cold out there,’ he said as if by explanation.

I leant forward, dropped my voice several notches, baritone to bass. ‘I’m looking for a guy. He carried out a hit two nights ago.’ As soon as the words left my mouth I wondered why the man in the alley hadn’t presented himself to me as a potential candidate. Just because he’d questioned me about the hard drive didn’t exclude him. Maybe he’d killed Wilding but some other party had stolen the information. Then I contrasted the crass, brutish attempt of my attacker to the neatly conceived and slick execution carried out by the assassin: no comparison.

‘This guy,’ Tilelli eyeballed me, ‘Is he pissing on your patch?’

My answering smile was without mirth. I flicked an imaginary mark from my trousers, deliberately suggesting that I wanted to flick the guy who’d rained on my parade out of existence.