A Delicate Truth A Novel

watching how the beads of sweat were forming on Shorty’s brow, and how his hand shook as it plucked at the pocket of his denim shirt for a cigarette before returning to the table without one. Withdrawal symptoms? Or just a heavy night on the tiles?
    ‘Only I’ve got my new wagon round the corner, see, an Audi. I parked it early, for in case. So I mean, what we could do, we could go somewhere like the recreation park, or somewhere, and have a talk there, where we’re not noticeable, me being somewhat conspicuous. A full and frank exchange, as they say. For your paper. The Argus , right?’
    ‘Right.’
    ‘That a big paper, is it, or what – just local – or is it, like, more national, your paper?’
    ‘Local, but we’re online too,’ Toby replied. ‘So it all adds up to quite a decent number.’
    ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it? You don’t mind then?’ – huge sniff.
    ‘Mind what?’
    ‘Us not sitting here?’
    ‘Of course not.’
    Toby went to the counter to pay for his cappuccino, which took a moment, and Shorty stood behind him like the next person in line, with the sweat running freely from his face.
    But when Toby had done his paying, Shorty walked ahead of him to the entrance, playing the minder, his long arms lifted from his sides to make way.
    And when Toby stepped on to the pavement, there was Shorty, waiting, all ready to steer him through the teeming shoppers: but not before Toby, glancing to his left, had again spotted the bald, heavy-set man with a weakness for pastries and cakes, this time standing on the pavement with his back to him, speaking to two other men who seemed equally determined to avoid his eye.
    And if there was a moment when Toby contemplated making a dash for it, it was now, because all his training told him: don’t dither, you’ve seen the classic set-up, trust your instincts and go now, because an hour from now or less you’ll be chained to a radiator with your shoes off.
    But his desire to see things through must have outweighed these reservations because he was already letting Shorty shepherd him round the corner and into a one-way street, where a shiny blue Audi was indeed parked on the left side, with a black Mercedes saloon parked directly behind it.
    And once again his trainers would have argued that this was another classic set-up: one kidnap car and one chase car. And when Shorty pressed his remote from a yard away, and opened the back door of the Audi for him instead of the passenger door, while at the same moment his grasp on Toby’s arm tightened and the heavy-set man and his two chums came round the corner, any residual doubts in Toby’s mind must have died on the spot.
    All the same, his self-respect obliged him to protest, if only lightly:
    ‘You want me in the back , Shorty?’
    ‘I’ve got another half-hour on the meter, haven’t I? Pity to waste it. Might as well sit here and talk. Why not?’
    Toby still hesitated, as well he might, for surely the normal thing to do, for any two men who want to talk privately in a car, far from what Shorty insisted on calling the maddening crowd, was to sit in the front.
    But he got in anyway, and Shorty climbed in beside him, at which moment the bald, heavy-set man slid into the driving seat from the street side and locked all four doors, while in the offside wing mirror his two male friends settled themselves comfortably into the Mercedes.
    The bald man hasn’t switched on the engine, but neither has he turned his head to look at Toby, preferring to study him in the driving mirror in darting flicks of his little round eyes, while Shorty stares ostentatiously out of the window at the passers-by.
     
    *
     
    The bald man has put his hands on the steering wheel, but with the engine not running and the car not moving, this seems odd. They’re powerful hands, very clean and fitted with encrusted rings. Like Shorty, the bald man gives an impression of regimental hygiene. His lips in the driving mirror are very pink, and he has to moisten them with his tongue before speaking, which suggests to Toby that, like Shorty, he’s nervous.
    ‘Sir, I believe I have the singular honour of welcoming Mr Toby Bell of Her Majesty’s Foreign Office. Is that correct, sir?’ he enquires in a pedantic South African accent.
    ‘I believe you do,’ Toby agrees.
    ‘Sir, my name is Elliot, I am a colleague of Shorty here.’ He is reciting: ‘Sir – or Toby if I may make so bold – I am instructed to present the