PRESS DELETE - PART 3
‘Ah, James? James! JAMES!'
An anxious-looking middle-aged woman was trying to get my attention as I breezed past reception. I turned to look at her.
‘Hi! Ah, who are you here to see today?’
‘John. I’ve got to speak to John. It’s urgent.’
She smiled in a that’s what you think, sunshine kind of way and gestured to a large man sat on one of the leather sofas in the lobby. Well, he wasn’t so much sat on it, as he was sat in it. His bulk chafed against the arms of the sofa, pushed to breaking limit. As he rose, he just kept going up, up, and up. The sofa slammed to floor as it eventually broke free of him.
He walked over to me and extended his massive, clammy hand.
‘Hello again, James.’
‘Colin, always a pleasure.’
My hand disappeared inside his briefly, then was released covered in sweat.
‘Come with me, now.’
‘Yes, Colin.’
Colin’s car was a huge, black saloon that seemed to take up two spaces in the car park. Inside, it felt tiny. Colin took up about eighty percent of the available space. He was everywhere. His seat was back as far as it would go, and yet there was more of Colin to go around. His right knee seemed to go up to the window, his left leg covered most of the console, his right arm was crooked around the steering wheel and dashboard, and the left arm was resting on the back seat. I was only in this car with one man, but I was surrounded by him.
‘We have a problem James,’ he said in his booming, Cockney tones. ‘Quite a large problem.’
He looked at me with his tiny, crab-like eyes, embedded in his massive skull the way a snowman’s eyes are.
‘I see. What’s the problem, Colin?’
I’d like to say that fear was not detectable in my voice but I can’t.
‘Bit of work you’ve been doing. It’s known to us.’
‘Oh shit.’
‘That’s not the problem. We helped your employer with it to an extent, but had them go to you before it got too complicated. There’s some things that we can’t be involved in.’
‘So what is the problem?’
‘The problem is that my boss is the man who helped make it happen, and if you do anything rash, he could be for the chop.’
I let the words hang in the air between us.
‘Christ,’ I said finally. ‘Just to clarify Colin, your boss is still...?’
‘The Chief Constable, yes, he’s still my boss.’
People on the street looked anxiously at the car for a few seconds, as a muffled torrent of swear words were screamed by someone.
‘Sorry. Just had to get that out.’
‘I understand, James. It’s a very unfortunate situation.’
‘FUCKING UNFORTUNATE! Sorry, Colin.’
He produced a phone from his jacket and started punching numbers into with his massive sausage fingers.
‘Who are you calling?’
‘My boss. You’re going to tell him that there won’t be a problem.’
‘What? No! I mean, there won’t be a problem, it’s just...’
Colin narrowed his tiny crab eyes into even tinier dots of pure black hate as he stared at me.
‘What exactly are you intending to do with the disc, James?’
‘John wants it destroyed, and everything relating to it destroyed.’
His face creased up in a way that I interpreted as displeasure.
‘It’s important that we have it. We need to be sure of what’s on it, and then we want to destroy it.’
‘Well, John won’t be satisfied with that. He’ll assume you will try to use it against him.’
Suddenly Colin was an inch away from my face.
‘Why the fuck shouldn’t we use it against him? Why shouldn’t we just raid their offices, raid your home, take your car and lock the lot of you up? Why shouldn’t do whatever the hell we want, without any consequences, and destroy all of you!?’
I stared into those burning black orbs and felt like an ant.
‘There are rules... morals...’
‘That’s fucking right, James.’
He leaned back and surveyed the street.
‘There are morals. There are rules. That’s why you have to give it to me. Now.’
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