‘Why?’
‘Because when I came to pick you up at the barn after the fight he looked at me as if he knew me, but I have never seen him before in my life.’
‘And BJ? You think he’s involved too?’
‘If you were out, he could move in and claim your territory, right?’
He nods slowly. I open my mouth to say something else, but he puts a finger against my lips. ‘Don’t say anything for a while.’
We sit staring at each other, trying to insert some normality into the scene we find ourselves playing.
Finally, he says, ‘Don’t tell anyone what you just told me.’
I nod.
‘Promise me, Lily. You are making some very dangerous accusations. These people are lethal. You don’t know the way they think. The question of honor is not taken lightly in our community. You have to promise to stay out of this. You’ve told me and you must trust me to sort it out, OK?’
‘OK, I promise,’ and that should have been the perfect time to tell him that I am still an undercover agent—not trying to trap him, but trying to help him. But I don’t because I know he will try to stop me and I don’t want to be stopped. I want to get to the bottom of the truth. I have been led by the nose too long.
Later I will regret my silence.
Chapter 54
Lily
‘I am bored with all the restaurants I know. Take me somewhere authentic, but Chinese obviously,’ Melanie says after we do our nails.
The only restaurant that immediately comes to mind is the one that Robin once took me to. Even though the service was just shy of surly, the food was surprisingly good. We take a taxi to Soho and go into the restaurant. Like most Chinese restaurants the air conditioning is turned up too high. We are met at the till by an unsmiling waitress and briskly shown to our seats. A laminated, slightly sticky menu is thrust into our hands.
‘You want drink?’ she asks while noisily clearing away the extra table settings.
We order Chinese tea.
Melanie raises her eyebrows. ‘Already I am impressed,’ she says sarcastically.
‘We Chinese, we tend to be a bit abrupt, but don’t worry—the speed and taste of our food will make up for it,’ I say in a heavily accented voice.
Melanie laughs but true to form the food arrives with impressive speed. The crispy Peking duck is so delicious Melanie eats more than I have ever seen her eat. Afterwards the egg fried rice, sea bass steamed with ginger and onions, cashew nut prawns, and a mixed vegetable dish arrive piping hot and go down quickly, too. We are nearly finished with our meal when Melanie suddenly chuckles quietly.
‘What?’ I ask her.
‘This is what I love about dancing. You meet all kinds of people without their masks. Don’t look now but the guy that has just come in used to come into Miss Moneypenny.’
I know that name. It is another gentlemen’s club and if I am not mistaken it belongs to the Pilkingtons.
‘Oh yeah?’ I say casually. ‘What’s so special about him?’
‘Well. He’s arrived here with a policeman and they look really chummy so it’s obvious he must be some kind of undercover cop too, but you should have seen him at the club. He has a taste for cruelty. He went for the dancers who were turning tricks on the sly. Once he took a girl home, and she never turned up for work the next day. We never saw her again while I was there. There was something fishy going on too. All the girls were talking about it. We all knew it was not right.’
My eyes widen with shock. ‘What do you mean?’
‘She was Romanian. No family. No relatives. Just disappeared. One moment she says, “Bye, see you tomorrow,” and next minute she’s gone without a trace. Management should have called the police. He was the last one to see her. But nothing happened. And now I know why. He is the police. Another time he beat a girl real bad. I heard that she was asked to leave! I didn’t stay after that. Bad vibes, man.’
I feel a ripple of disgust go through me. There is a dirty cop behind me. ‘Who runs that club?’
‘You were talking to him yesterday. That slime ball, Tommy.’
I sit frozen. ‘Right,’ I say slowly. ‘Can he see us, Melanie?’
‘OK, he’s looking at the menu. Quick, turn around and look now. He’s the one in trendy yellow designer gear.’
I glance around as casually as I can and my limbs turn to water. I turn back quickly and look at her in shock. ‘Are you sure, Melanie?’
‘Of course I’m sure. I could never forget that bastard. All the girls were scared of him. It was as if he was the boss.’
‘Does he know you?’
‘I wouldn’t have thought so. I’m not his flavor. He likes Eastern European girls, blondes.’
Her eyes narrow. ‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. Do you know him?’
I meet her gaze with a frown. ‘Yes, I do, but I can’t explain just yet.’ I take a deep breath.
‘Bejesus. You’re mixed up with him.’
‘Not in the way you think. Look, do you mind if we slip out through the back way? I don’t want him to see me.’
She shrugs. ‘OK.’
I call for the bill. While my credit card is being processed by the machine I look up at our unsmiling waitress. ‘My ex-boyfriend has just turned up and it could be trouble for me, can I please leave by the back way?’
‘Cannot. Regulations,’ she says shortly.
I take a ten pound note out of my purse and put it into the tray. Her eyes slide down to it.
‘I show you the way.’
At a dirty black door she turns to me. ‘You come again,’ she says with a smile and shuts the door in our faces.
‘Come on, Mel,’ I say pulling her away. As we hurry away my mind is whirling like crazy. The truth is I am actually frightened. I have the sensation that the ground I thought I was standing so securely upon has turned into quicksand that is sucking me up. Two streets away we hail a cab and I say goodbye to Melanie.
You know what kind of people become undercover officers? People who want to hide under a different skin, unhappy people, people with low self-esteem. On one hand I hate the people that I am supposed to be trapping; in another sense I become them and secretly envy them and their glamorous lifestyles.
I can hardly bring myself to believe that the man Melanie is talking about is Robin. That… That Robin is a bent cop.
Instead of getting another cab for myself I walk aimlessly along the street. I need to think. I know I need to arrange a meeting with Mills in the safe house, but I also know that whistleblowers in the force are not lauded and promoted but disappeared. Anyone who raises issues and problems becomes the problem. And it is doubly dangerous to be the problem of such an ambitious man as Mills. He wants Jake’s head on a platter, not Robin’s. So I need to protect myself.
I look at my watch. Jake isn’t expecting me for a while yet. By leaving the restaurant via the back entrance we would have lost the tail Jake has on me. I disappear into the Tube and get out at Green Park. I exit and hailing a cab ask him to take me to Lea Bridge Road.
Ten minutes after I walk into Lorraine Electronic Surveillance I leave with their smallest audio recorder, a nifty device no bigger than a USB stick, but one that is powerful enough to clearly pick up sound at up to twenty-five feet. It also has a twelve hour record time and is sound activated, so will only begin recording when it hears something.
Then I call the number Mills gave me. To my surprise it is not a telephone operator who will pass on the message but Mills who answers. Our conversation is brief and to the point.
Tomorrow at noon.
Then I catch a cab back to Jake’s home. Before Jake comes home that evening I book a rental car and have them park it in a car park that I specify. I pay for a courier to pick up the keys and drop it off to me inside the hour.
Then I sit down and plan my meeting with Mills. When Jake comes home he finds me cooking, a bottle of wine open, me on my second glass, the music so loud I don’t hear him come in.
&nbs
p; He leans against the doorway watching me.
I grin and point to his glass of whiskey. He picks it up and comes toward me. ‘I didn’t know we were having a party.’
‘I have an Irish joke for you.’
He groans.
‘No, no, it’s really good.’
‘Go on.’
‘There’s an Englishman, a Scotsman and an Irishman all talking about their teenage daughters. The Englishman says, “I was cleaning my daughter’s room the other day and I found a packet of cigarettes. I was really shocked as I didn’t even know she smoked.”
‘The Scotsman says, “That’s nothing. I was cleaning my daughter’s room the other day when I came across a half full bottle of vodka. I was really shocked as I didn’t even know she drank.”
‘With that the Irishman says, “Both of you have got nothing to worry about. I was cleaning my daughter’s room the other day when I found a packet of condoms. I was really shocked. I didn’t even know she had a cock.”’
Jake laughs and so do I.
That sets the tone for the evening. It is irreverent. We eat with our fingers and laugh a lot. I totally forget about Mills and what I have to do the next day.
Afterwards, Jake makes me wear a pair of my shoes from my dancing days and do a strip tease for him. Tipsy and laughing I start undressing. It is only a game. It is to put the night to bed.
But when I look into his darkened eyes, my mouth makes a purring sound and my sex swells, hot, wet and aching.
Jake
She seems different tonight, her face is flushed, her lips parted. Sweat dampens her naked skin. She is wild for it, in that desperate way that people have on the last day of their holiday. She grinds her bare ass against my erection and I groan and catch her by the waist, holding her tightly. She wriggles away. I let her go. She comes back like a carefree butterfly.
I watch her push the globes of creamy flesh close to my face and shimmy hard so all her flesh quivers and shakes. That heady, sexy as hell scent of her fills my nostrils and I feel myself losing control. My breathing becomes shallow, my heart races. Your time running around naked and free is nearly over, my love. She turns around to face me, her legs apart. Her folds are swollen and protrude invitingly out of her sex lips.
‘Undress,’ she orders, in a deep silky voice, utterly unaware of how improbable she sounds giving orders when her bits are protruding or how little time is left for her to play the tease. She’s everything I’ve ever wanted.
My eyes never leaving hers, I tug off my clothes in double quick time. She spins around in a deft lap-dancer move and, pushing me down on the sofa, she moves upwards, and with her thighs wide open she begins to lower her sticky sex into my mouth. I watch it come down, the puffy lips oozing and glistening with raw sexual need, her hole gaping and begging to be filled.
Like a hungry man I swoop upwards to meet it on its way down to me. With her hands flat on either side of my hips she leans forward and slips her warm, open mouth over my engorged dick. The glaze of sweat makes her nipples slide against my body.
I hear the sound of her heart beating faster as her breath rasps with excitement. I lick and suck and fuck her with my tongue until she comes with a force that shakes her to her very core.
I spread her legs wide and look at her. Her gorgeous hair is tangled and spread across the sofa. Slowly I let my eyes travel down to her sex, open and ready for me, and I feel that wild, relentlessly primitive urge to possess and brand her. To mark her as mine. If I was in one of those tribal societies where they ink their women to mark them as their property I’d be right there inking her whole body so there is no mistaking what is mine.
Putting my hands on either side of her I mount her. Her mouth opens into a slack O. It gives me immense pleasure to know that the thick, mushroomed head of my cock is stretching her to unbearableness. She locks her legs desperately around my hips to keep me there. Just the idea of her underneath me, helplessly swallowing my cock into her body, excites me and I pound her hard until I explode inside her, my cock pushing so deep into her that her body buckles and shudders.
For a few seconds I stay inside her while she milks the cream of my body with her own. And during that time I sense her as if she is a part of my body, her heartbeat, the flow of blood inside her veins, the increased heat rising off her skin, and the lift and fall of her chest. The sensation is unfamiliar, but strangely beautiful. For a long time I watch the moonlight come in through the window and throw its blue light on her cheek. I want to protect her from anything and everything that could possibly hurt her.
Quote
How foolish I was to think
That I could catch a butterfly?
—Butterflies, Shiv Kumar Batalvi
Chapter 55
Lily
At twelve I take a cab and direct it to an Indian restaurant in Notting Hill. I go into the restaurant, slip the waiter a twenty pound note, and he gladly escorts me out through the back door. I walk quickly along the back street, take a left and walk up the road to the NCP car park. Inside, I keep pressing the key remote in my hand until a car lights up and clicks open.
I get in and drive to the safe house, where I find a parking space, pay the parking charge and get out, locking the car. It is a small building of six flats in a quiet street. At lunchtime hardly anyone is around. I access the apartment block through the street entrance and climb briskly to the second floor. My heart is thudding hard, but I am not in a panic. I know I haven’t done anything wrong. I think I am more bemused than anything else.
I check the concealment of my recording device—all seems well—turn my key in the door, and push. Inside, I’m met by the strong, disagreeable smell of cigar smoke. As soon as I close the door I can see up the hallway and into the living room. DS Mills is lounging on a sofa with his feet up on the coffee table. He is sucking on a cigar and holding a large goblet of brandy in his hand.
He looks at his cigar. ‘You are late,’ he says.
I glance at my watch. ‘By a minute, Sir.’
‘Arrive before I do, in future. I’m a busy man.’ He gestures condescendingly with his finger to the sofa opposite him. ‘Sit down.’ Even beyond the office environment, his arrogance is breathtaking. I’ve heard that he is married, but I can’t imagine the state of the long-suffering wife sitting at home waiting for him. I do as I am told.
‘Spit it out then. What’ve you got for me on Eden?’
On the way here I’d thought of all the different ways I could tackle the subject with Mills, but face to face there is no easy way, so I just blurt it out.
‘The information I have is not about Jake, Sir. It’s about Robin.’
Mills’ eyes narrow dangerously. He carefully places his cigar to rest on the side of his ashtray, and asks coldly, ‘Is this some kind of bullshit joke, Strom?’
I stay strong. ‘I’m afraid not, Sir. I have information that Robin has been seen in the Pilkingtons’ clubs and I believe he might even be working with or for them.’
‘You want me to believe this ludicrous accusation verbatim because?’ His sarcasm and irritation are obvious. He gets up onto his feet and walks around the sofa.
‘I trust the source, Sir.’
‘I’ll be the judge of that. Who the fuck is your source?’
‘A dancer from the club. She’s seen Robin and Tommy Saunders, Billy Joe Pilkington’s number two man, together at the club a few times. That is highly irregular and should be looked into.’
‘A dancer?’ he scoffs.
I swallow hard and sit upright. ‘My duty is to put out any information I uncover so that any future investigations can be informed by it.’
‘Robin can visit any damn club he wants. It’s not against the law.’
I flush. ‘My instinct tells me something more is going on, Sir. The dancer made some serious accusations. A girl he had gone out with went missing.’
‘Do you think I’m going to take the word of some anonymous, two bit stripper over one of my best men?
Have you and Eden cooked this cock and bull story up to save his ass?’
‘That’s not fair, Sir,’ I snap back. ‘I followed your instructions to the letter. No one, not even Jake Eden, knows about our arrangement.’
‘I can’t believe you dragged me up here for a bit of stripper gossip.’
‘Have you got a magic crystal ball, Sir? Do you know exactly what is happening at all times and you never ever get anything wrong?’
He glares at me warningly. ‘Watch yourself, Strom, I’m your commanding officer.’
But at this point I don’t give a fuck anymore. He is just a bully. And I don’t care if I never work in the force again. ‘I’m just curious why you would not be even slightly intrigued as to why Robin might be fraternizing with well-known gangsters.’
‘What are you implying, Strom?’ Mills stops suddenly in my face. His face looks like it might explode among the bulging veins.
I remain outwardly calm and smile. ‘I’m sure you can deduce the implication yourself, Sir.’
My sarcasm causes him to erupt violently. He thrusts a finger in my face. ‘I’d be very careful, if I were you. You’re walking on extremely thin ice.’
‘I’m not afraid of you. I haven’t done anything wrong. Yes, it was a lapse of judgment to sleep with my target, but I confessed, and offered to resign.’
Suddenly, like a bolt of lightning, out of nowhere, it comes to me. I see it clearly, the thing that had eluded me all this time, the thing that I had missed. I stare at him with shocked eyes. My eyes are riveted on him, equal parts fear and disbelief. My voice is a whisper. ‘You showed no curiosity or surprise about the shipment coming in on the sixteenth. You knew about it before I told you, didn’t you?’
He sighs. ‘You stupid, stupid bitch. All you had to do was open your fucking legs and distract Eden while we laid our plans. But you couldn’t just do that, could you? Oh no, you had to be a little Miss Marple, running around poking your fucking nose into things that have nothing to do with you.’
The Heir: A Contemporary Royal Romance Page 46
