Kitabı oku: «Games with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller», sayfa 2
‘The money’s in the car,’ I shout.
Wind gasps, water splats.
I make out the black canvas ransom bag at the foot of the cone, empty, deflated, expectant. I palm it open, rummage until I feel a single sheet of paper in the base. I take both to the car. Sliding into the back seat next to the cash, I lock the doors, switch on my torch and, as instructed, transfer the daintily-wrapped parcel of cash into his bag. Somehow, he must have guessed that we’d plant some sort of a tracking device in ours. ‘Ah well,’ I soothe my pogoing heart. ‘I should be dumping it soon and getting the hell out of here.’ The note, stencilled in black capital letters, has other ideas. I read it aloud:
Go back to Underhill Lane.
Turn left towards Ditchling village.
Phone box 1.5 miles on left.
Message B taped under shelf.
My tired brain grapples with these latest commandments. To collect his money, the kidnapper needs to be at the end of this ransom trail. That means he can’t be here. Adrenaline zaps off like a light. All life leaves me, clenched muscles melting to jelly.
‘This is good news,’ declares Crossley, sounding like a local radio DJ relinquishing his star prize. ‘We should have no problems with radio signals at that end of Underhill Lane, so we can resume full surveillance. I’ve got an officer on standby briefed and ready to take over from you before then, Donal. You’ve had more than enough excitement for one night.’
‘I’d like to see it through to the end, sir,’ I say, solely because I expect that’s what any decent cop should say.
‘I admire your pluck. Give me ten minutes to get the lead surveillance team into position at the next phone box. Then I’ll be en route with your replacement. Your night is nearly over, Lynch. Good work.’
‘Thanks be to God,’ I mouth, and set about turning the car on the narrow track.
I crawl back towards the overgrowth of Underhill Lane. As I slip into the hedgerow tunnel and radio silence, I help myself to a ‘Thank fuck that’s over.’
Out of nowhere, a red Stop sign appears, blocking the route.
‘What the fuck?’ I protest to no one.
I ease the car closer, spot a square of white card beneath the circular sign. I squint and recognise more stencilled instructions
‘Sir. Sir can you hear me?’
I know he can’t.
My heart revs hard, a pang of sickening realisation sending bile north. I swallow the burn and fight to breathe against that re-clamped chest. The kidnapper sent the cavalry east almost ten minutes ago, and stayed right here. For me. This is his sting-in-the-tail twist. He’s got me precisely where he wants me now, all alone, no back-up, no comms, no hope of rescue, flush with 175 grand.
Shit.
My only way out of this is to do what he wants. I get out, read the instructions.
On wall by painted cross find wood tray.
Do not move tray, sensor attached.
Place money bag on tray.
If buzzer does not sound leave money there.
Remove Stop sign in front of car and go.
He’s watching me. I know it. And he’s killed before. Seven years ago, he kidnapped and murdered Suzy Fairclough. What’s another life sentence to him? I’m totally dispensable.
I remember Crossley’s request that I pick up anything on the trail that may prove evidential. Good little soldier to the end, I remove the cardboard bearing the instructions, take it to the car and read the contents aloud twice, hoping against all common sense that they can hear me.
They can’t fucking hear me! He’s selected this spot for that very reason. And I’m not hanging around for five minutes to confirm it; not with 175 thousand in hard cash! He might lose patience and whack me.
I grab the money bag, walk over to a four-foot wall. Above a white painted cross, a wooden tray sits on a bed of sand. About 30 feet below, I can make out some sort of lane, maybe a disused rail line. A few feet to my right, an oblong metal box must be somehow connected to the tray’s sensor.
Good God, I am so out of my depth …
Somehow, I’ve got to lower this hefty bag of cash onto the tray without tripping the alarm. Face screwed into a tense ball of dread, I lift the bag and lower it slowly, painstakingly, ion-by-quivering-ion onto the tray. It sits, rests, no alarm.
I wonder why I’m standing here and turn to leave. As I remove the Stop sign from the middle of the lane, the tray scrapes the side of the bridge on its way down, courtesy of his improvised pulley system. He’s below, collecting his winnings.
I’m just yards away from the most wanted man in Britain.
Fuck it, I think. I ‘ve got to do something.
Chapter 3
Underhill Lane, East Sussex
Wednesday, June 15, 1994; 21.50
We know nothing about this bastard. I need to spirit over to that bridge, at least get a visual. I pad and wince in turn, Bambi on ice, gripping that metal Stop sign like a lollipop lady in a tornado. If I can bounce this hunk of rust off his bonce, he won’t be going anywhere.
Oh my God!
There he is below, shovelling spilled bricks of cash into the bag. I raise the metal pole to my chest. If I press Go on this Stop sign, he ain’t going anywhere …
He may have an accomplice ready to kill Julie if anything goes wrong …
If he’s operating alone … we’ll never get a better chance.
The money will not be collected by me, but by a young male who parks up in a nearby lovers’ lane …
Damn it! I can’t be sure that’s our man. I need to find a way down there, grab whoever it is and hold him here until back-up arrives.
No heroics … It’s all about getting Julie back, alive.
What do I do? How I crave a working radio, a direct order.
Below, I hear the splutter and tinny whine of a 50cc engine spurting into life. Good God, he’s wheezing off into the night aboard a ‘nifty 50’ scooter with 175 grand. And I’m the only one who knows. I’ve got to find Crossley.
I dump the Stop sign, dive into the car, gun the engine and floor it east as fast as the lane’s laddered surface will allow.
After a couple of bends, fast-approaching headlights ignite the hedgerows. I screech to a halt. Crossley and DI Mann spring out before their oncoming car even stops.
‘Where the hell have you been?’ demands Crossley.
As I jabber my story, they inspect me in wide-eyed disbelief.
‘Why didn’t you call back-up?’ barks Crossley.
‘The radios aren’t working down here, Guv. You know that.’
‘Dear God,’ spits Crossley. ‘You’ve let him get away.’
‘You said no heroics …’
He turns to his number two. ‘Peter, get back-up there, radio all units that he’s travelling south from Underhill Lane on a scooter or in a vehicle large enough to carry a scooter. Lynch, take me to the bridge.’
Right on, right on, I manage to stop myself singing as I jump into my car and grab the seat belt.
‘Just drive,’ he snaps.
‘Sir, I can’t turn here …’
‘Reverse for Christ’s sake.’
Every male cop on the planet thinks he’s Damon Hill. Some, like Crossley, even own special leather gloves for the task which, when they’re not driving, they dangle on their belts like spare penises. Alas, I’m less Damon Hill, more Benny, especially going backwards.
‘Swap!’ cries Crossley and I’m out of that driver’s seat before he’s spat the ‘p’.
Crossley throws himself in, flings one elbow over my passenger seat. Palm-steering, he roars off backwards, beaching my poor car into every coccyx-crunching pothole along the way. My anger rises in tandem with my rev counter.
Over mashing metal and screaming suspensions, I shout: ‘Why are you pissed off with me? You specifically said no heroics.’
‘And I specifically instructed you, over and over, that you have a surveillance team in front and behind you that needs to know his every instruction.’
I don’t get it but why distract him now, when we’re careering backwards towards a brick wall in my beloved old banger? After a totally unnecessary handbrake turn, I’m tempted to request his insurance details. Instead, under orders, I perform a walk-through of the drop. I show him the stencilled message and the sensor on the bridge, which he goes over to inspect.
‘Sensor?’ he scoffs. ‘It’s a concrete block painted silver.’
‘Yeah, well I can see that now sir, with the headlights shining directly on it. They weren’t when I was last here.’
We find a way down to the disused railway line where, mercifully, at least the pulley-driven wooden tray and scooter tyre marks are real. Overhead, cars pull up, resigned. Scapegoat grumblings. Yes, he’s vanished into that great black rural night, but I did everything I’d been told to do.
I follow Crossley back up to the bridge, where they turn to face us as one.
‘He’s long gone,’ spits DI Peter Mann, his eyes not leaving Crossley’s. ‘We should’ve put one of us up front as soon as we got out here,’ he rants. ‘It’s pitch bloody black. Kipper was never going to identify the delivery man.’
‘We didn’t know that,’ says Crossley, firmly. ‘We didn’t know a lot of things, Pete. Like the fact he’d take us somewhere our radio signals don’t work.’
DI Mann switches his glare to me, full-beam. ‘Why the fuck didn’t you run back to your rear surveillance team? You could’ve shouted at them, they were that close.’
‘We were 100 yards behind you,’ chimes in a moustachioed man I’ve never clapped eyes on before. ‘You’re supposed to brief us after every instruction. You could’ve walked to our car. What were you thinking?’
My brain’s flailing. The radios were down. I didn’t know how close the rear surveillance officers were. I couldn’t see them. Anyway, what could they have done? Any attempt to pursue the suspect would’ve put Julie’s life in danger. That was the deal, right?
DI Mann’s head wobbles in contempt. ‘Your fuck-up has cost us vital minutes. You’d best hope it hasn’t cost Julie Draper her life.’
Involuntarily, my eyes clench shut. Please, please no. What have I done?
Crossley dry-coughs back control. ‘Let’s save the post-mortem for tomorrow,’ he snaps, checking his watch. ‘If you’re quick, the Lamb in Pyecombe should still be open. Go get a drink and calm down. I’ll wait here for forensics.’
Off they shuffle, muttering bitterly. I’ve never needed a pint so badly in my life, even if I have to toothlessly slurp it off the lino once they’re done kicking the shit out of me, so I follow at a distance.
DI Mann spins around: ‘Where do you think you’re going?’
I slouch back to Crossley.
‘Don’t bother coming in for a couple of days Lynch, give me a chance to sort out this mess …’
‘Hands up, Guv, I forgot about the vehicle behind me. But what would my alerting them have achieved? Their radios weren’t working either. And it’s not like they could risk chasing him.’
He rubs his face vigorously with his open palms, as if clearing it of live scorpions.
He sighs hard: ‘I thought I’d spelled it out to you.’
His hands drop and his eyes look up to the heavens.
‘All that space-age tech up there, and I’ve got the village idiot down here.’
‘Now hang on just a minute there, Guv …’
‘I told you about your number one priority, Lynch, keeping your surveillance teams informed of each fresh instruction. Above us is a chopper with state-of-the-art thermal imaging, infra-red, you name it. Seventy-five grand to scramble. Ten grand an hour to fly.’ He turns to me. ‘I redirected the lead surveillance team but the rear one was still behind you and in direct contact with that chopper via satellite phone. I told you they were constantly in touch. I told you, if nothing else, make sure your surveillance teams are privy to his latest instructions.’
‘But my radio went down.’
‘Had you gone to the rear surveillance team, on foot, that chopper would now be covertly following whoever picked up the money, and only we would know. Instead, we’ve lost the money and we’ve lost him.’
An icy snake of terror unfurls inside me. ‘Shit. What have I done.’
‘I tell you what you’ve done,’ snaps Crossley, voice cracking, eyebrows arched to breaking. ‘Whoever kidnapped Julie has got his money, so he has no further use for her now. He can’t risk freeing her because of what she might be able to tell us about him.’
His upper lip stiffens, reining in his swelling emotions.
‘He has to kill Julie now,’ he states flatly, as if passing sentence himself.
Chapter 4
Green Lanes, North London
Thursday, June 16, 1994; 02.30
Had the shonky Shiraz bottles I’d unearthed from some dodgy all-night spieler in Haringey not required two fully engaged man-arms to uncork against a solid surface, I’d never have spotted Zoe’s note on our kitchen table.
Written at some point yesterday, it reads: Me and Matt gone to mum’s. Thought you could use a night off, Zoe x
What a selfless, thoughtful act, you may think. But you don’t know a sleep-deprived mum. And you aren’t competing in the Martyred Parent Olympics (so-called because it lasts four years and, unless you imbibe massive quantities of illicit pharmaceuticals, you’ve no chance of winning).
What the note really means is: ‘It doesn’t matter how late you’ve been working, this is going down officially as a night off for you.’ I’ll be made to pay, of course; she’ll yawn pointedly all day tomorrow, slam anything slam-able and consistently ring friends and family to update them about the latest phase of her toootal exhaaaaustion.
Aged twenty-two months, Matt still wakes five or six times a night – every night. Having an insomniac stepdad helps. I’m always on hand to slurp drinks, binge Babybels and loop Pingu. Thrillingly, at least for me, Matt’s taken to calling my name when he wakes, or at least his version of Donal. ‘Dong, Dong, Dong,’ he chants. Who he doesn’t call for is mum, because mum minus sleep equals Crazed Harridan.
I’m ‘Dong’ because Matt isn’t my biological son. His ‘real’ dad, Chris, is a fugitive from fatherhood somewhere south of the Equator. A posh, feckless surfer-raver type, he fled as soon as Zoe fell pregnant – leaving the way free for my uncharacteristic crime scene seduction.
Yes, we met over a dead body! Zoe is a rising star in forensics who, somehow, failed to spot the clues to my myriad flaws. She agreed to go out with me, and it soon became clear why; her morale had hit rock bottom. She’d convinced herself that ‘no man would want me, not now I come with a baby.’
I wanted her with all that I had. When I got to know Matt, I wanted him too. For the first time in my life, ever, I let instinct override indecision, seized the moment, got the girl! A few months later, we bought this place and I’m still in utter shock, clinging onto the cliff-face of overnight fatherhood. But I wouldn’t change a thing.
Being a dad is quite a responsibility, and not one I’m taking lightly. Not only have I reduced my nightly quaffing to two bottles of Shiraz, I only buy the stuff that’s less than 14% proof. Well you do anything for your kids, don’t you? And Matt’s my son now.
A few weeks back, Zoe caught us partying at 3am and announced her ‘gravest fear’ – that Matt has inherited my insomnia. I had to remind her that this is impossible – we’re not flesh and blood – then hated her for appearing so patently relieved. I let it go because we never row in front of Matt, which means we never row. She seems to spend every second of her child-free leisure time avoiding me. Seriously, she’s either out with her girlfriends, at her mum’s or collapsed like a capsized Alp in bed, clad in those massive off-white ‘comfort’ knickers, previously used to hoist the Mary Rose.
I know we’ll get back to how it was. Of course we will. Once we get over the exhaustion. And the constant illness. And the lack of money.
No wonder Crossley’s call last week had come as such a shot in the arm. How I’d craved the chance to get drafted onto a ‘live’ investigation squad, make a good impression, become a fully-fledged detective constable and prove all my doubters wrong.
All I had to do was not fuck up …
What a selfish prick, I scold myself. The only thing that matters right now, after my potentially fatal blunder, is that Julie’s okay. My insides wince, cowering from those stabs of raw, primeval terror. My stressed temples buzz, as if planted against the window of a speeding train. A low electric hum grows louder in my ears, until it whines like the world’s largest mosquito. My vision flickers, causing objects in the room to float in different directions, as if something telepathic is breaking through.
My God, Julie?
Somewhere close by, a church bell clangs, over and over, louder and louder. I can see it’s driving those ravens wild. They smash into the sitting room window – thump, thump, thump – flinging themselves against the glass with all of their might.
They’re inside now, flapping close to my face. I can’t scream or turn away or raise my hands. I can’t move a muscle! All I can do is scan their beady green eyes. I remember suddenly their collective term: An Unkindness of Ravens. And this lot look especially unkind. One launches, pecking at my face savagely. The others join in; a greedy, feeding frenzy. I scream as they pick and pull and gouge at my eyes until all goes black.
I’m suspended in the air now, looking down. The ravens are yanking off bits of Julie’s face and body, then flying off, tiny fish flapping in their mouths. I’m holding a metal crook. I should be beating the birds away. But I don’t.
I’m lying down again. Julie appears above me, eyes wild with hate, face tattered and torn like bloodied tissue paper. She holds the silver block directly over my face, but I see another man’s bearded face in the reflection. Who is he? Please don’t drop it, I beg her. Please.
The reflection in the block is me. I smile just as the head of an axe plants itself into the left side of my face, slicing into my cheekbone, above my ear. Indescribable, ringing pain springs me to my feet. I’m screaming, clawing at the axe. But it’s not there.
‘Oh my God,’ I hear myself scream. ‘Julie Draper’s dead.’
Chapter 5
Green Lanes, North London
Thursday, June 16, 1994; 11.00
‘Morning has fucking broken,’ warbles Fintan, my older brother, yanking open the sitting room curtains. Why did I ever give him a key?
I scrunch my dry eyes against the searing white, but the glare scores my sight, summoning splodges and a pulsing star-scape. My day of destiny is here. No doubt Commander Crossley’s already in his office, knotting the rope and oiling the trapdoor. Well someone will have to pay for last night’s cock-up. I’m low-ranking police plankton with an already sullied disciplinary record; he couldn’t have hand-picked a more ideal scapegoat.
I suspect Fintan has already heard all about last night from his fathomless pool of ‘police contacts’. That’s why he’s here, the diabolical cock, to get the inside story. It’s this level of conscience-free cunning that has propelled him to the role of chief crime reporter at the Sunday News, the youngest in their history.
‘Why can’t you warn me before you turn up,’ I croak. ‘You know, like a normal person?’
‘You could’ve done with some of that last night,’ he beams, eyes alive with mischief. ‘Warning, I mean.’
I groan instant and complete surrender, but my own personal Josef Mengele hasn’t even got started.
‘I hear you literally presented the cash to him, on a tray, like some silver-service waiter,’ he mocks in fake shock, shaking his head out of the sheer orgasmic schadenfreude of it all.
‘You’ve taken such a keen interest in this case, Fintan. Especially since they imposed a media blackout.’
‘Good job you’ve got that to hide behind. I can see the headline now: “Bungling cops lose man, money and poor Julie”. There’d be an outcry.’
‘You and your journo pals would whip up an outcry, you mean. Who uses words like ‘bungling’ in real life anyway?’
He’s off on one of his streams-of-tabloid-consciousness. ‘We’d have to describe Julie as “pretty” of course, which is a bit of a stretch, wouldn’t you say, Donal? She reminds me of Linda McCartney, if she hadn’t married a Beatle or given up the sausages. But we can’t call her “lumpen and pasty”, can we? She is the victim, after all. I tell you what though, photos of her make me want to stand on my head while chewing a sack of raw vegetables …’
‘Jesus, Fintan! Have some respect …’ I stop myself, but not quickly enough for old Donkey Ears.
‘You were gonna say “for the dead”, weren’t you?’ he says, turning towards me, nostrils almost winking. ‘What do you know? Have they found her body?’
‘No. I mean we don’t even know she’s dead. I’m just assuming the worst, now he’s had his money. What use is she to him now?’
My voice cracks, straining to contain that geyser of inner terror. What if my stupidity last night led to Julie’s murder? How am I supposed to cope with that? Live with that? I screw the lid down tighter. I know she’s dead because she came to me last night. That’s how this cursed bloody condition works. But I don’t know how or when she died. There’s still a chance he killed her before the ransom drop. That would mean her death is not my fault. It makes no sense at all but, for now, I’ve got to cling to that flimsy hope …
I scold my emotions for running ahead of the facts. All I know for sure is I must have got close to her dead body at some point either before, during or after last night’s ransom drop. That’s the only time the dead play their games with me … when I’ve been physically close to their recently slain cadavers. Poor, poor Julie …
Fintan recognises my pain and changes tack. ‘I heard you got a lot of stick. Don’t feel bad. Crossley should never have put you in that situation, not with your lack of experience.’
‘Gee thanks, Fint, for such a typically back-handed show of, er, support.’
‘It’s not just your fault, Donal. The kidnapper outsmarted you all.’
‘The worst thing is, Crossley just stood there and let them slag me off. After I’d risked my neck for him. Then he told me not to bother turning up for work until he tells me otherwise.’
‘That’s the British upper classes for you, Donal. They see the rest of us as grateful Sherpas, bred to do the heavy lifting that carries them to glory. Now hose yourself down or something so I can take you out in public. Then I’m going to make you eat a solid before flies start circling your eyes.’
‘Don’t spend the day trying to wheedle info out of me, Fintan.’
‘You affront me, Donal. You really do. I come here to offer nothing more than comfort and cheer after your latest dismal and abject humiliation, and this is the thanks I get. Why do you always assume there’s an angle? Jeez. I’ll be outside having a fag.’
With Fintan, there is always an angle. Having arrived here in London from the Irish Midlands a few years before me, he sees himself as my protector, especially now Mam is dead. But Fintan is always a journalist first, my brother second and would sell my arse for a scoop without even realising he’s done wrong. Zoe thinks he’s warped, manipulative and amoral, which, most of the time, is hard to dispute.
I shower, dress and catch up with him at the garden gate, where he wheels around theatrically to present a sporty black Porsche convertible, roof down.
‘Where in the name of God did you get that?’
‘There’s a new rich kid on trial on the showbiz desk, son of an earl or a duke or something. Nice enough fella, but thick as pig shit, of course, and hopeless. But the editor thinks he’ll get us into places we’ve never managed to penetrate before, and he’s usually right about these things.
‘Anyway, young Jamie Benson-Smythe finds it all frightfully exciting, especially crime and investigations. The fucker had the gall to march over and announce that he plans to get my job! Any other newbie would be thrown out on his ear for a stunt like that, but not Jamie.’
I’ve had my fair share of toffs at work and nod. ‘They just have this unshakeable self-belief.’
‘Wouldn’t we all, if we never had to worry about paying the rent? Anyway, I don’t blame them for making the most of their advantages. What really bugs me is the way the English middle classes unquestioningly defer to them, bowing and fucking scraping. It makes me almost like the French.
‘So, yesterday morning, I bump into the jumped-up little fucker while he’s parking this up at work. I tell him I need a smart motor for a big undercover job, and he just hands me the keys.’
‘Poor guy. You commandeered his car.’
‘Hey, Jamie’s thrilled, feels like he’s already contributing,’ says Fintan, getting into the driver’s seat.
‘What if it rains?’
‘What if it rains?’ he whines, mimicking me. ‘We put up the bloody roof.’
In heaving North London traffic, we barely make it above ten miles per hour. Each gossamer graze of pedal elicits a thunderous roar, earning us looks ranging from mild irritation to unabashed hatred.
‘We need to get out of town,’ I say, suddenly seeing an opportunity to act on last night’s encounter with Julie. When the dead come to me, I can’t just ignore them. Julie needs me. And, after my schoolboy error last night, I owe her. ‘Why don’t we head to the South Downs? I know some great pubs around there.’
Fintan grins. ‘First we’ve got to pick up our smoking-hot dates.’
I groan.
‘Models, Donal. And I’m not talking unemployed nail bar assistants here. Real models. I knew you wouldn’t come if I told you.’
‘In case you hadn’t noticed, Fintan, I’m in a relationship.’
‘Yeah I saw her note on the kitchen table this morning. Good old Zoe, if she can’t dump Matt on you, she dumps him on her mum.’
‘She doesn’t dump him on anyone. It’s a long day looking after a kid. She craves a bit of adult company in the evening. What’s wrong with that? You’ll see one day.’
‘From what I see, Donal, you’re in a job share. From what you sometimes let slip, I sense it’s now a sexless, joyless job share at that. You told me yourself that even her mum labelled it a failed relationship.’
‘That doesn’t give me a licence to go running around with other women.’
‘We’re just having a bit of craic, Donal. To quote Loaded magazine, “life, liberty, the pursuit of sex, drinking, football and less serious matters”. The thing is, bro, she’s turning you into one of those lonely married men. You know, first you don’t have time for friends, then you can’t find time for hobbies. Next thing you know, you’re a bonded slave reduced to work and childcare. The irony of it all is that your women end up hating you for it. And you’re not even married.’
I turn to him, shaking my head in disbelief.
He grins: ‘You can be my wingman then, okay?’
‘I don’t see that I’ve got any choice. So where did you meet two models?’
‘Sandra’s photo casebook. You must have seen it? Tania and Ellen are the paper’s biggest stars now.’
‘I must never have made it that far through your esteemed rag.’
‘Every week, it features a letter from the problem page, but told as a picture story. It’s always a raunchy storyline about threesomes and secret affairs so that Tania and Ellen can act their little hearts out in their undies. As Sandra herself puts it, something for the girls to read, and the boys to look at.’
‘Never underestimate the intelligence of your readers eh? I can’t believe any woman would actually read your newspaper.’
‘Don’t be such a snob, Donal. And a killjoy. What harm is it doing anyone?’
He pulls up at a smart art-deco block near Angel tube station and beeps the horn. Two skinny women dodder out, all big shades, fake tits and tan, and real attitude. Even from this distance, I can tell they are way out of our league.
‘And I suppose these cardboard cut-outs are now eyeing Hollywood stardom?’
Fintan waves to them, muttering under his breath: ‘Funny you should say that. They can’t wait to meet a heavyweight TV drama producer. Like you.’
I groan loudly. ‘There’s no way I can pull that off …’
‘It’s the only way I could get them to come. Just use words like “rushes” and “the cutting room”, you’ll be fine.’
‘Jesus.’
‘What do you think of the wheels, ladies?’ he bawls.
‘Like, what if it rains?’ says Ellen.
‘Like, we put up the roof,’ snaps Fintan. ‘God that’s exactly what my brother Donal here said. Talk about glass half-empty.’
‘What you mean he’s a pessimist?’ says Tania.
‘No,’ says Fintan. ‘I mean he’s a roaring alcoholic.’
That gets a good laugh.
‘Donal knows a nice pub near Brighton and he’s going to treat us to lunch. You good with that, girls?’
‘Yay,’ they coo as I give Fintan the eyeball and mouth: ‘You’re fucking paying.’
We roar off for all of 50 yards before getting snarled up in yet more traffic. Fintan somehow manages to trump the awkward silence with a truly cringeworthy question. ‘So, ladies, what do you look for in a man?’
‘Vingt-cinq,’ purrs Ellen and they cackle hard.
Schoolboy horrors come flooding back; the wink-and-elbow language of cruel-girl delight.
Ellen finally composes herself. ‘We were at this party in Paris a few years back, this really sexy guy sidles up to me and whispers “Vingt-cinq” in my ear. I’m thinking twenty-five? Well he might be talking about his age …’
More cackling.
‘Then he says in the sexiest French accent I’ve ever heard, “Not ma age. My size. You don believe me?” And I say, frankly, no. I mean a twenty-five inch penis would be some sort of world record. So, he gets his friend over …’
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