Free Shredder by Niall Leonard Page A

crowds, inscrutable behind his aviator shades; the Guvnor picked up the menu and studied it, as chilled as a British pensioner sitting in an English bar in Spain.
    “Yes, please?” The waitress was at my elbow, pad and pencil in hand. She looked harassed and nervous, but then it couldn’t have been easy, scuttling about in this bustle and heat.
    “Two Cokes, an espresso, and a bloody umbrella,” said the Guvnor.
    The waitress scribbled quickly on her pad. “Sorry, we don’t have any umbrellas—they all got vandalized last night,” she said.
    “You’re kidding,” said McGovern. He sounded disgusted at the casual drunken hooliganism of today’s youth. Gary ignored the whole exchange, I noted, scanning the crowds around us like a CCTV camera himself.
    “Slashed them to ribbons,” explained the waitress. “Really stupid—people have been complaining all morning. Just the drinks, yeah?”
    “Yeah,” said McGovern.
    Thanks for asking what I wanted, I thought, although there was so much adrenaline pumping through my system I wasn’t sure I would even be able to swallow the Coke. I found myself scanning the crowds too, wondering when I’d see the Turk’s slight figure strolling towards us with his customary swagger. No—he wouldn’t swagger, I realized. The swagger had been Bruno’s, and Bruno had neverexisted. He was a fiction Pirbal had created, then discarded once it had served its purpose. I wondered if I would even recognize the Turk when I saw him again, or whether he’d be right on top of us before I’d even realized it.
    But surely that was Pirbal on the western edge of the square: that dark, slight, self-possessed man in his midtwenties, graceful and dangerous as a leopard. I’d been right—there was no swagger; in fact, I might not have recognized him in his baseball cap and shades had it not been for the stumpy gait of the man trying to keep up—my old friend Dean. Dean’s Elvis quiff had gone and his hair was cut short, but I knew that ratlike face, even though I’d changed its shape during our last encounter, when I’d managed to break it and knock out two of his molars.
    “That’s him,” I said. “In the red baseball cap and sunglasses.” I was surprised how steady and clear my voice sounded, when deep down I felt anything but.
    The Guvnor turned to his left and tilted his head back to get a good look through his shades: Gary got up and stood back, vacating his seat for the Turk, his hands hanging loosely at his sides; but I noted the tiny tremble of tension in them, and guessed he wasmentally rehearsing reaching under his jacket for his gun. At the same time an uneasy thought stabbed into my mind like a thorn in my sole.
    “Wait a minute,” I said. “Kemal’s not with him.”
    McGovern glanced at me, expressionless.
    “The Turk’s right-hand guy, his fixer, he’s not here,” I said. There was no way the Turk would come to a meet like this without Kemal…so where was he? But it was too late now to wonder.
    Trafalgar Square was smaller than I’d remembered, but it seemed to be taking Pirbal and Dean a long time to cross it. I realized time had slowed down, like it used to in the boxing ring, when adrenaline would heighten all my senses. I could make out every face in the crowd around me, and even see the hi-viz jackets of the cops by the fountains behind us, somehow; I could smell lemon in the glass of the woman sitting at the next table and hear the jingle of her bangles as she rooted in her handbag.
    And off to my right, skipping down the steps from the National Gallery, I could see pale, broad-nosed Martin, in short-sleeved shirt and sunglasses, carrying a folded newspaper and strolling nonchalantly south, his path destined to pass behind the Turk and Dean just before they reached our table.
    I didn’t turn my head towards him, but kept my eyes focused on the Turk, and noted the twitch of his lips as he saw me, seated there beside the Guvnor. He was smiling, apparently