The Charlie Cobb Series

Chapter 16

16

I stand with Mandy inside the massage parlour reception. She pulls on a silver puffer jacket with a fake fur hood. She has a key to the steel doors in hand. I look at her face. Eyes lit a turquoise-blue by the fish tank.

“What?” she says. "Something on my face?"

“Once I get the kid safe, I’m gonna have to leave.”

"And?" Mandy says.

I grab her and plant one on her lips. Like kissing a dead shark. I let her go.

She pulls a face. “What was that for?”

“Just checking something,” I say.

“Well here,” she says, grabbing the last remaining mint from a bowl and handing it over. “You need it more than me."

I suck on the mint. “Wait a few minutes before we leave,” I say. “We’re going right. So you go left.”

She nods. “What do I tell Cassie?”

“Tell her . . . I dunno. Tell her I’m trying.”

Mandy lifts her eyebrows to the ceiling. I push the kid up the steps and pull the steel door open. I look around. It’s cold. My breath fogs the air. No sign of cops. The whole town bright with neon signs, but low on people.

I give Mandy the thumbs-up and we split.

“Walk natural, but keep your head low,” I say as me and the kid move along the street.

We’ve got a five-minute walk ahead of us. Out of China Town. Across Portland Street, to a multi-storey car park tucked away behind an office tower. Somewhere the searchlights and thermal imaging won't find us.

I keep a discreet hand on the kid’s elbow as we pass by a strip club. It's quiet in the early hours. So quiet I hear the faint buzz from the horizontal pink neon sign outside. Two sumo-shaped bouncers stand on the door. They look tired.

We’re just heading past the main square in China Town, when I hear squealing tyres and the sound of V6 engines.

As we cross the road, I see bright headlights converging on us. From the left, the right. Three BMW saloons screeching to a halt. The doors fly open and big guys in dark jackets and hoodies jump out. Freddie and Frogger too.

“Bollocks,” I say, stopping the kid in his tracks. “Run.”

I turn and push along into a sprint. We double-back, Rudenko’s men catching up. Pumped up. Tooled up.

The only place I see open is the strip club.

The bouncers are already shitting their black pants, shutting the doors. I run full-pelt and shoulder barge my way in before they can lock us out. I force my way through. The bouncers try and push me back. I nut one of them hard and grab an empty beer bottle left on a ledge. I smash it over the other bouncer’s head. It buys me a second to drag the kid in behind me.

But there’s no time to lock the doors. The charging pack are right up our arses.

I run the kid down a short flight of stairs and straight past the window where you’re supposed to pay for entry.

Into a large room bathed in pink and purple light. Crystal balls hanging from the ceiling. A series of circular platforms with thin Far Eastern girls hanging off poles. A mix of late-night chancers with fivers held out, ready to stuff ‘em in a G-string.

I look for a way out. All I see is a long bar lit white on the back wall. I don’t see an emergency exit and I don’t want to get suckered from behind. So I push the kid over to the bar, knocking a waitress flying with a tray of drinks.

The kid shouts at me in panic. “What do we do?”

I pick him up by his hoodie and the belt on his jeans.

The barman scarpers. I drop the kid behind the bar and tell him to stay down.

I stand with the small of my back against the bar top. Rudenko’s men pile in.

Here we go.