so, anything serious would likely have got back to Guy sooner or later.
“She obviously meant something to you,” said Claridge.
Shelley nodded. Yes, she did. But in that moment he was mainly thinking, Why, if she was a user, didn’t she just use smack to check out?
CHAPTER 6
TWO DAYS LATER, Shelley found himself in the living room of the home of a thirty-something actor in Berkshire, having completed the first phase of the one and only job on his books by safely delivering a supposedly top-secret script.
“So you’re the SAS man, are you?” the actor said, leading him into the house. He wore jeans and a tight T-shirt, his hair shaved in a number two or three. He stared hard at Shelley. “You don’t look much like an ex-SAS man.”
“And how do we normally look?” asked Shelley, feeling old and out of shape, and also thinking the guy was a weapons-grade arsehole.
“I don’t know,” laughed the actor, dropping onto a large sofa and propping bare feet on a glass coffee table before pulling the brown envelope onto his lap, “like Jason Statham, I suppose. You’re more stylish than I expected.” He pointed to Shelley’s boots. “Nice Red Wings, by the way.”
“Thank you.”
The actor cocked his head. “What’s that accent?”
“My accent?”
“Yes, what’s that? Where are you from, originally?”
Shelley shrugged. “Originally? Limehouse.”
“Limehouse in London?”
“Yeah, Limehouse in London.”
“Do you work out?”
“Not as much as I should,” said Shelley, thinking of that rarely used gym membership. “I stay mobile, that’s the important thing.”
“I stay mobile,” repeated the actor, trying to approximate Shelley’s rasping voice. “That’s the important thing. Limehouse. In Lahndahn. South of the river. Do you smoke?”
Oh, Christ, you’re a dick. “No, mate, no, I don’t.”
“You sound like you smoke.”
“Look, mate—” started Shelley, and then, belatedly, feeling like a man who’d only just understood the punch line to a bad joke, he realized why he had been asked to do this particular job. It wasn’t just a delivery for this guy. It was research. “Don’t tell me,” he sighed, “your script involves an ex-SAS man.”
Grinning, the actor gestured with the envelope. “I hope you haven’t had a peek.”
Typical. Guys like this thought the world revolved around them; they couldn’t imagine it any other way. “It was sealed,” said Shelley. “It’s still sealed. I didn’t look at your script. That’s your job. I’m just supposed to wait while you read it and then return it.”
He swiped the hat from his head and began to shed his woolen overcoat, indicating an armchair, all black leather and steel tubes, the kind that was popular in the 1970s but must have come back into style. “If it’s all right with you I’ll take a seat while you get on with it.”
“Mi casa su casa,” quipped the actor, and Shelley sat down in order to wait.
He was sitting watching the actor—who read his script while at the same time being supremely aware of Shelley’s presence, as though the process of reading the script was in itself a performance—when his phone buzzed. Claridge. Shelley excused himself and moved out of the living room to a quiet corner of the house.
“Good to see you the other day,” the MI5 man said. “I hope I was of some use.”
“I guess,” said Shelley, who still hadn’t decided what, if anything, he planned to do with the information he’d been given. It was like some bad movie tagline: he’d gone to Claridge in search of answers but all he’d got were more questions.
“Something else has cropped up since we spoke,” said Claridge. “I left a flag on the file and an old friend got in touch to let me know there’s been a development. Two developments, to be exact.”
“Fire away.”
“Well, the first thing is that you’re not the only one who’s been making inquiries about the death of Emma Drake. Don’t ask me who, I don’t have names. All I know is that, according to my contact, interest has been shown by party or parties unknown.”
Bennett, perhaps? thought Shelley. Was that it? Was Bennett doing investigative work for Drake? Could be, although an ex-Para wasn’t the first person you’d call on to do some detective work. Not unless there were other, related, duties you wanted performed.
“Right. I see. And this third party, are they being supplied with information?”
“That I couldn’t possibly say with any degree of authority. Ask me what I think, however, and I’d say yes, because . . . well, why not?”
“Okay. Well, thanks for that. And what’s the other thing?”
“The cops are working on a