Killer Instinct (38 page)

I kept my eye on Angelo as much as I could, but he barely shifted from the door, apart from a couple of short breaks. Well, I suppose you can't crack heads all night without a rest.

Just when I was starting to think I was utterly wasting my time, that I'd dragged Sam out on a wild goose chase, he brushed past me deliberately in the crowd.

“Bingo,” he muttered out of the side of his mouth.

I fought hard not to show any reaction to the news, just followed him casually into a quiet corner.

“What?” I demanded. “What's happened?”

He looked around, then fished a couple of tablets out of his top pocket. Small round, white pills, slightly bulbous on the sides, without sharp edges. There was an impression stamped into them, but the meaning wasn't clear. It didn't take a genius to recognise Ecstasy.

“Where the hell did you get those?”

He smiled at me. “I have to admit it's a slick operation,” he said smugly, basking in the fact he'd got my full and undivided.

I rolled my eyes. “You're the one who's going to need an operation unless you tell me who dealt you those,” I growled.

Sam, however, wasn't to be deflected from his moment of glory. “You see, they take anything you try and bring in with one hand,” he said, “and sell you something else with the other hand. Very neat.”

“Sam—” I warned.

He must have seen the glint in my eye, because this time he cut to the important bit. “The bald-headed bloke on the door took my own stuff off me, then one of the other penguins sidled up to me and offered me something for the weekend,” he explained.

“Just like that?” I asked, my face blank with something approaching disbelief. “He offered you drugs right there in the middle of the dance floor?”

Sam gave me an old-fashioned look. “No, not just like that,” he said. “He made some casual remark about me looking like the type of bloke who wanted more than a quick drink in a place like this.” He laughed. “To start with I thought he was offering me a woman.” He flashed me a quick grin and I realised that to Sam, this was all an adventure. A game. He hadn't seen first-hand what the penalties were for losing.

Terry had, though. Seen and suffered them. I came down hard on that line of thought. It was too dangerous to my resolve.

“And?” I prompted now, sharply.

“Well, we went up to the gents' on the upper dance floor, and by this time I was thinking, no he isn't going to offer me a woman, he's going to offer me a rent boy.”

He paused for me to make the appropriate response to his mind-bendingly funny joke. I glared at him in the sort of silence that has rocks in it.

He swallowed and went on. “Anyway, once we're inside he asks me what I want, tells me how much it's going to cost me, and shoves me in to one of the empty cubicles. He tells me to stay put for a minute – and it was only a minute – and when he comes back and opens the door, there they are. Cost me a packet – about twenty percent over market value, I reckon, but then I suppose they have got a bit of a captive audience.”

“How come you're such an expert on Ecstasy prices all of a sudden?” I challenged.

He grinned at me again. “Come on, Charlie, I work at the university. The place is crawling with students. You work it out.”

“So who was it?”

“Well, we didn't exactly swop names and addresses so we could send each other Christmas cards,” he said with a sarky tone to his voice.

I wanted to scream at him, but settled for grinding my teeth instead. “OK,” I said with remarkable calm, “tell me what he looked like!”

Sam shrugged. “Like a bouncer. I don't know – a big bloke in a dinner suit.”

Terrific. That description fitted most of the lads working security. “But not the same one who was on the door?”

He shook his head emphatically. “Oh no, definitely not.”

Not Angelo then. Christ, just how many of them were in it with him?

“Can you point him out to me?”

Sam grinned again, said no problem, and we moved back towards the main body of the club. I'd already got a sneaking suspicion about who he was going to tag, but I needed to have it confirmed.

It didn't take us long to find him. We were moving along one of the galleries when Sam nudged my arm and pointed down to the next level where one of the security men was leaning on the rail, watching the milling clubbers below him.

“There you go,” Sam said. “That's the feller.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, not really doubting him, but wanting to be dead certain.

“Absolutely,” Sam verified. “Why – who is he?”

“That,” I said grimly, “is Len, who's head of security. He's the one who's supposed to be in charge of keeping the drugs
out
of this place.”

I suppose, really, I should have known. Only the previous week Len had told me of his involvement in a roundabout sort of a way. “Nothing –
but nothing
– goes on in this club that I don't know about!” he'd said. “Clear?”

Oh yes, it was clear now. He and Angelo were in it together. In it up to their necks. In it plenty deep enough to resort to murder to keep Terry from exposing their activities. And to have me worked over as well.

So where did Susie and the rest fit in? Maybe they were just a diversion – a little side-line that Angelo was running for his own amusement.

I couldn't prove any of that. Not without the forensic evidence that was out of my reach. For now, the drugs would have to do.

I pulled Sam away from the balcony rail, so we were out of Len's possible sight.

“Listen, Sam, I want you to get out of here – right now,” I said, trying to get urgency across to him without the fear. I fished Superintendent MacMillan's card out of my pocket and slipped it into his. “Call MacMillan, tell him about the drugs. Tell him if he wants to catch the guy he's after for the murders he needs to come down here mob-handed. Tell him,” I added, taking a deep breath, “that I'm going to go and try and find those drugs before Len or any of the others has a chance to destroy them.”

Sam took all this in open-mouthed, but wisely decided against long questions. “OK,” he said. “I've borrowed a mate's car tonight. It's only a shitty old Peugeot, but he's left his mobile phone in the glovebox. I'll call ’em from the car park.”

“Just make sure none of the security lads see you doing it then,” I cautioned.

He sobered when he realised there wasn't a hint of humour in my voice, then nodded, swallowing, and started to turn away.

“Oh, and Sam?”

He paused, turned back. “Yeah?”

I mustered a smile that didn't reach my eyes. “Tell MacMillan he'd better hurry.”

I watched Sam leave the club, feeling a certain sense of relief as he cleared the front door without any apparent attention from Angelo or the rest of the security crew. I wasn't aware until he'd disappeared from view that I'd been holding my breath.

I picked my way back upstairs, feeling as though I'd got a neon sign over my head announcing my intentions. I suddenly couldn't think how to act natural, relaxed. My movements felt jerky, lacking in coordination, and I'd begun to sweat.

My nerve almost failed me. I stopped climbing on the next floor, breaking off my ascent to needlessly check round the bar area and washrooms. I glanced at my watch. When had Sam left the club? I cursed the fact I hadn't made a note of the time. How long would it take MacMillan's men to get here? More to the point, would they come at all?

Either way, I had to find that proof.

Unable to put it off any longer, I hit the stairs, reached the top level. I paused there for a while, peering over the balcony down to the floor below. I caught a glimpse of Len marching through the crowd, but he didn't look like a man in pursuit.

Even so, I couldn't help but wish he was further behind me.

I observed the gents' washroom Sam had indicated for a few minutes, mentally counting people in and out. When I reckoned it was about empty, I pushed myself upright away from the rail, and covered the distance to the door.

It was instinct to glance furtively round me before I went in, but I forced myself not to do it, not to look as if I was doing anything out of the ordinary. If you've got enough front, you can get away with anything.

Inside, the gents' was larger than the ladies' washroom on the same floor. The walls were completely covered with dark blue tiles, lit by low voltage spots sunk into the ceiling. I walked quietly past a row of uninhabited urinals to my left, with sinks beyond. Two big square pillars spaced along the centre line of the room helped support the roof. I checked carefully that there was no one lurking behind them.

There were no cupboards under the sinks, and no obvious breaks in the grouting round the tiles to suggest a hiding place. I thought of the ceiling, but when I looked up all I saw was solid textured plaster. No lift-out panels. Besides, there was no overall lock on the door to the gents', and I didn't think Len would want to be so exposed if anyone came in unexpectedly.

To my right was a row of numbered cubicles. They looked much more promising. I made my way along them, pushing the doors open carefully as I went. The cisterns were all enclosed in the tiled wall behind each toilet bowl. Just above, though, was an access hatch about eighteen inches square. I was sure I was getting warmer, but I could tell by the layers of undisturbed paint that this one probably hadn't been removed since the club was refurbished.

I tried the next, but that was the same. I was halfway along the row when the cubicle door nearest to me opened and a man walked out. I had to bite down hard on the startled shriek that nearly burst from my lips. To be fair, he looked as surprised as I did.

“Are you in the wrong place, or am I?” he asked.

I tried a casual smile. “Just a security check,” I told him as cheerfully as I could. “Wouldn't want you walking out of here with anything unsecured, now would we?”

He left quickly with a worried expression and I swore under my breath. If he went and complained to Len or any of the staff about them sending a woman in to check the gents' I was going to be in deep trouble.

I quickened my step. It wasn't until the last cubicle that I saw what I was looking for. I dodged into it quickly, shooting the bolt across behind me. The bolt was a flimsy-looking affair. A hefty shoulder to it would have popped the mounting screws from their chipboard holes like a fat man's shirt buttons, but it was better than nothing.

This time, in contrast to the bolt on the door, the panel on the back wall was held in place by a heavy duty lock. It didn't strike me as the type that could be picked easily, even if I was equipped or qualified to try. Without the right key I was going to be knackered before I began.

The smell from the toilet was making me feel vaguely sick, but maybe I would have felt that way in any case. I knew Marc had the cleaners round regularly, and wondered what it was about the male diet that could reek so badly at the other end. Perhaps, in prehistoric times, they'd used it to mark their territory, like tomcats.

I pulled my Swiss Army knife out of my pocket and pondered over which of its attachments would be best suited to the job of breaking and entering. Unfortunately, that was one purpose for which the Swiss Army didn't seem to have designed a specific tool.

There was a short, narrow blade on the back of the knife that I think is for cleaning mud out of the tracks of your hiking boots. It looked sharp and pointed enough for me to be able to use it to make an initial hole in the door just above one of the hinges. I hesitated a moment before digging it in, tapping the panel lightly with my knuckle. If it was made out of metal I wasn't going to be able to do more than scratch the surface. All that would do would be to alert Len that someone had cottoned on to his stash.

Oh, to hell with it! With a deep breath I carefully lined the blade up with the hinge and leaned my weight into it. It actually sank in much easier than I was expecting. Despite the valuable nature of the contents, the door was only made from bog standard eighth-inch plywood.

I quickly replaced the tread scraper with the shorter of the two knife blades, cursing the fact I hadn't bothered sharpening either of them for months. In the end, the slightly serrated edge of the nail file proved to be the most effective.

Even so, it was slow work. Every time someone came in to the washroom I had to stop, tensing myself into silence and praying that no-one would get inquisitive enough to peer over the top of the partition from the next stall. I wished I'd had the forethought to scribble “Out of Order' on a sheet of paper and stick it to the outside of the cubicle door.

The earpiece of my radio crackled a few times, but fortunately it was other instructions for other members of the security brigade. Nobody, it seemed, needed my services for anything in particular. Good. As long as no one knew I was missing, they wouldn't be looking for me.

I worked on frantically, scuffing and scraping my hands on the rough edging I was opening up. My finger ends, still sore from my Spiderman impersonation down the wall of my flat, soon started to bleed. I mopped them up with loo roll from the dispenser and kept going.