‘So, Novakovic.’
‘Yeah, Novakovic,’ said Dan, repeating the name like it was a toast. ‘How’d you get the lead on him anyway?’
‘I called in on Lo Bello, asked him who might do a job like that in London.’
‘He mention me?’
Lucas smiled, amused by Dan’s vanity. ‘In passing. We both concluded this was probably a bit low-rent for you.’
Dan laughed, ‘I can’t believe you actually know Lo Bello—that’s so cool.’
‘I used to know everyone.’ He wanted to add something about it all being a long time ago but held his tongue, saying instead, ‘So where is our friend Novakovic?’
‘Under our noses. West London, room in a house with a load of other Balkan boys, most of them illegals. Could be unpredictable, so I was thinking I’d pick you up around four this morning, get in there while they’re all in bed.’
‘Sounds good.’
The waiter put their drinks down.
‘Thanks, Rico.’ Dan picked up his glass and said, ‘Good health, and good to have you back in the game, mate.’
Lucas raised his glass too but said, ‘I’m not back in the game.’
Dan smiled, disbelieving, but became distracted by the honeyed scent of the whisky in his glass. And why should Dan believe him? Lucas was here and he’d killed people that summer and had implicitly agreed to kill another. The only extent to which he wasn’t back in the game was his own fragile conviction that he’d finished with it.
‘So what have you been up to?’
‘Not much. I run in the summer, ski in the winter. I read, I think.’
‘Dangerous,’ said Dan. He looked intrigued. ‘Don’t you miss it, though? I mean, what happened in Italy—didn’t it give you that buzz again?’
‘A little.’ He thought back but there was no adrenaline in the memory of it, only the torment of Ella Hatto and the strangely intertwined thoughts of Paris and Madeleine and Isabelle. ‘I saw my daughter this summer.’
Dan put his drink down, shocked, saying, ‘Jesus! I didn’t know you’d been married, but a daughter!’
‘We weren’t married, and when I say I saw my daughter, I don’t mean I met her. I just saw her.’ He smiled, thinking of her sitting in that cafe. ‘But no kidding, Dan, it gave me more of a buzz than anything I’ve done in the last twenty years.’
Dan nodded. ‘I bet.’ He seemed deep in thought for a while, then, ‘You know, this business tonight, I can handle it on my own if you want.’
‘No, this job’s personal; I want to see it through.’ He knew that was a lie, though, and that if Madeleine had reacted any differently he probably wouldn’t have been there.
Dan picked him up at four and they drove out of central London, passing a steady flow of light traffic until they got out into the scruffy western no-man’s-land where rows of old houses were divided into bed-sits and individual rooms, crammed with immigrants and asylum-seekers, the underside of the melting-pot.
As Dan parked, he said, ‘Our man’s in the middle room on the ground floor.’
‘Makes life easier.’ Lucas attached his silencer and added, ‘Remember, though, I don’t want anyone getting hurt.’
‘Are we included in that?’ He smiled and got out of the car.
There was a mattress in the small front yard and the smell of rotting food. The house looked like it needed some work, even in the forgiving glow of the streetlights. He’d done business over the years with the people-smuggling rackets and he couldn’t believe this was what the immigrants were all so desperate to reach.
Neither of the doors posed a problem and the house remained darkly silent and stifled as they moved swiftly from the street door and into the bedroom. Dan turned the light on, but Novakovic came around only as Lucas put the gun to his head, and even then, managed little more than a drowsy downbeat acknowledgment.
Dan threw off the duvet and gestured for him to sit up. Lucas backed away slightly with the gun and Novakovic sat up, naked, sinewy and powerful. But when Dan asked him quietly where his gun was he pointed languidly at a chest of drawers.
Dan dug around in the top drawer and took out a couple of guns. Lucas glanced around the rest of the room, surprisingly tidy given there was so much crammed into it. It was bare of any personality, though; no books, posters, nothing to hint at the kind of person he might be.
And considering he was developing something of a reputation, Lucas had to wonder what kind of fee he commanded. After all, he’d been called in to do a job like the Hattos and yet here he was living in one cramped room in a slum of a house. It made him pity the guy, whatever his motivation.
‘Okay, let him get dressed. I’ll keep a watch at the door.’ Lucas stepped out into the hall, closing the bedroom door behind him.