The Drop

downstairs. He saw me, flushed and immediately looked away, keeping his gaze fixedly towards the front door. He left as quickly as he could without actually breaking into a run. Nadia, back in her black cocktail dress, was right behind him. She was quite an attractive woman for her mid-thirties and she’d kept her figure, judging by what I’d seen earlier.
    ‘You certainly put him off his stride,’ she said.
    ‘Sorry I made you work for it,’ I told her.
    ‘He got there in the end but I’d be surprised if he ever showed his face round here again.’
    ‘Believe me Nadia, it’s not his face I’ll be trying to banish from my dreams.’
    She thought about that for a moment, then cackled like one of Shakespeare’s witches before leaving us to it.
    ‘What happened there then?’ asked Finney.
    ‘I accidentally burst in on them while she was pulling him off.’
    ‘You prat,’ said Finney.
    ‘I don’t know,’ I told him, ‘I reckon it was a blessing in disguise.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Don’t watch the local news do you?’
    ‘Never,’ he said.
    ‘That was Councillor Jennings,’ I said. It was always good to have a couple of friendly councillors on your books, ‘and I have a funny feeling that, after today, me and him are going to be the best of mates. Particularly when I tell him about the camera and the two-way mirrors.’
    ‘We haven’t got a camera and two-way mirrors,’ said Finney, ‘have we?’
    ‘No,’ I admitted, ‘but he doesn’t know that.’
    Maggot was actually physically trembling. He couldn’t tear his fearful eyes away from Finney and I figured I’d get more out of him without our enforcer’s malevolent presence.
    ‘Finney, you know that pub on the corner?’
    ‘Aye.’
    ‘Why don’t you go and have a pint in it?’ he frowned at me like I was trying to hide something from him, ‘I think you being here is making it hard for our good friend Barry to express himself.’
    Finney wordlessly accepted the logic of this. He rose to his feet but couldn’t resist suddenly pulling his arm back and pretending to throw a punch into Maggot’s face, stopping the blow almost as soon as it had started. The pretend punch still made Maggot jump like a cat that’s been shot with an air rifle. Finney laughed and wandered down the corridor whistling ‘we’ll meet again’. I waited till he had left.
    ‘Right Magg… Barry,’ I said, ‘I just want a little word about Geordie Cartwright.’
    ‘I told him everything I know,’ he nodded at the door Finney had disappeared through, ‘which was fuck all by the way! I don’t know anything about Geordie or what he was up to. If I did, do you think I wouldn’t tell him? He’s a fucking animal! Do you know what he did? He’s only come at me with me drill. I was in my own garage, minding my own business and he comes in, takes my drill off me and starts waving it in my face. He had me pinned to my workbench and he said he was going to drill right through my head unless I told him where Geordie Cartwright is. I said “I don’t know where Geordie Cartwright is”, and he did this!’
    He jabbed a finger at the little red welt on his forehead where Finney had let the drill bit glance against Maggot’s skull. Most people wouldn’t be capable of such an act, because they’d be too worried their hand might slip and the drill would go right into someone’s brains but not Finney. His hand was steady because he didn’t care two fucks if it slipped and killed Maggot.
    ‘I believe you don’t know anything about Cartwright’s disappearance Maggot. If I had a drill shoved in my face I’d tell Finney the truth too. I believe you. I just want to know if you had any contact with him before he disappeared, that’s all.’
    ‘No, well no, not really.’ He stammered.
    ‘No, well no, not really,’ I mimicked, ‘meaning yes you did. Look Maggot, I’m not as daft as I look and I know there’s probably stuff you are too shit-scared to admit to Finney, in case he tries to drill you a new pair of nostrils, but this is me. I don’t work like that. What you say to me stays with me and nobody needs to know it came from you, okay? But if I find you are holding out on me I will tell Finney to go round to your house and turn you into a colander. Now where was it and when?’
    Maggot put a hand to his injured forehead and instinctively rubbed the red spot there, ‘a few days ago. I only saw him around that’s all.’
    ‘Where and fucking when, you