‘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.
TWELVE
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 aimless
ly 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.
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.”