A Good Day To Die by Simon Kernick Read Free Book Online Page A

all done.'
    He nodded appreciatively. 'Good. Now we can get back to running this place. Did you get rid of everything?'
    I told him I had and he asked me whether it had been in the place we'd discussed.
    I nodded.
    'You did a good job, Mick,' he said, calling me by my nickname, and sounding not unlike a man I used to do work for back in London. 'And it's going to tide us over for a long time. We won't have to do it again.'
    I felt like taking him up on the 'we' bit, seeing as he hadn't done a lot, but I didn't bother. I was too tired for an argument. 'When are we going to get the balance of the cash?'
    'As soon as he's seen the photos. You took 'em all right, yeah?'
    I nodded and he reached over and picked up thecigarettes, watching me with an expression that might have been sympathy. 'It's all over now. You can forget about it.'
    I shook my head. 'It's not over, Tomboy. Billy Warren wasn't who he said he was. He was Billy West, a villain I had dealings with back in the old days. You must have known him. You knew every villain round our way.'
    He scrunched up his face into an expression of acute concentration. 'The name rings a bell,' he said after a pause, 'but I can't picture him. It must have been after my time.'
    'It wasn't. I hadn't seen him in at least ten years before today.'
    He shook his head. 'Nah. Like I said, the name rings a bell, but that's it. I honestly don't remember him.'
    I wondered why he was lying. Tomboy had known every villain on our patch, most of whom he'd put behind bars with his information, but if he had known Slippery Billy he wasn't saying, and I decided to let it go for now. 'Anyway, Billy West was also a shooter on the side. He'd moved into that line of business recently, and the last job he did, the one that brought him over here, was Asif Malik.'
    'The two-man hit in the cafe?'
    'That's the one.'
    'Shit, how's that for a coincidence?' He shook his head, looking suitably taken aback. I decided hecouldn't have known about Slippery's involvement in Malik's murder, otherwise he'd never have let me near him. Tomboy had never known Malik, but he knew he'd been my partner and was a man I'd liked and respected. 'I'm sorry about that, Mick. Or maybe I'm not. At least it gave you a reason to sort him out.'
    'Who's Les Pope?'
    Tomboy sighed and lit one of his Marlboros. 'I was afraid you'd ask that. Why do you want to know?'
    'I'm interested,' I told him. 'Apparently, he was also the man who set up the Malik job.'
    I thought he'd resist telling me too much, but I think he saw in my expression that I wasn't going to be fobbed off. 'He's a lawyer.'
    I managed an empty laugh. 'Well, there's a surprise.' So at least Slippery Billy hadn't been lying about that. 'Go on.'
    'He does defence work as a solicitor, and he knows a few bad types, but he's always kept his nose clean, so he's never really received much attention from the law. He's also well-spoken and well-educated, which helps.'
    'How do you know him?'
    'The usual. He defended me on a couple of cases years ago, before I knew you. We kept in touch, and I did a little bit of work for him now and again.'
    Just like Slippery had. 'What sort of work?'
    'The illegal sort. Providing other clients of hiswith alibis, helping them out of binds. Nothing too serious, but put it this way: he's not the sort of geezer I'd like to mess with. He knows people who could make life very difficult for you if they wanted.'
    'The sort who'd pay to have people killed?'
    'I suppose so, although I've got to admit it was a bit of a surprise when he rang me out of the blue last year about our man in Manila.'
    'He'd never asked you to get involved with anything like that before?'
    'No, course not.'
    I wasn't sure I believed him. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed odd that Les Pope would have asked Tomboy to help commit murder on two occasions in the space of a year, unless he knew something about his former client that made him confident he'd go along with it. I think