He took a huge gulp from the neck of the beer, dragged on the cigarette and looked me right in the eye. 'I know you don't want to do it. I don't much want to do it, to be honest with you. But this is big money, and I'm telling you, this bloke's no angel. He's fleeing London for the back-end of nowhere, meeting someone to get a caseload of cash off them so he can start a new life a long way from prying eyes. Does that sound like someone with a clear conscience to you?'

He had a point there, but if there's one thing I've learned in life, it's never to take anything you're told at face value. I'd made that mistake before, and it had almost cost me my life. In the three years since I'd left England, I'd tried to put all that behind me, to start afresh. Just like this guy Warren was trying to do. But you can never escape the past for ever, as he was about to find out.

I continued looking at Tomboy and he continued looking at me. I was thinking that there might be a way round this. A way of getting the money, doctoring a few photos, and not having to kill anyone. I suspected that he was just thinking about the money. Even so, I told him what he wanted to hear.

'All right,' I said. 'I'll do it.'

2

Tomboy drank the rest of his beer and ordered another one from Tina's daughter. He then spent the next few minutes flirting with her while she leaned against the table opposite, a cloth in one hand and a smile on her face that was wide enough to be friendly but had little in the way of depth.

He said he bet that all the boys were chasing after her, and told her what a pretty young thing she was. She was a pretty young thing too but I doubted if she was a day over sixteen – while Tomboy was, if my memory served me correctly, the grand old age of forty-two, which made the whole thing look a little tasteless. He winked at me now and again, between jokes and compliments, just to demonstrate that it was nothing more than light-hearted banter, but I could see the hint of desperation in his act.