“Oh?” Frank sat forward, as though sensing Harper’s next words were going to be vitally important.
“Smith’s bodyguards escorted me back to the toilets, said Smith wanted to see me, and they waited outside while I got changed.”
“And then what?”
“They took me to him.”
“Where?”
Harper scrunched his eyebrows together. “What?”
“Where did they take you?”
“To Smith’s car. He was waiting for me inside.”
“Make, model? Registration if you remember it?”
“Um… it was dark, maybe midnight-blue or black, and a BMW. I’m not sure what sort. I’m not all that into cars, sorry. But it was big.”
“Registration?” Frank asked hopefully.
“I don’t remember, except it was brand new.”
“So, this year’s model, yes?”
Harper nodded.
“What did he want to see you about?”
“Nothing really. I think it was more a veiled threat than anything.”
“He threatened you?”
“Not in so many words, but he told me how Charlie was supposed to throw the fight in the second round—”
Michael perked up at that titbit. “I take it he didn’t?”
“No, I knocked him out in round three.” When Michael motioned for him to go on, Aaron continued. “Smith was pissed off, said his friends had lost a lot of money and that Charlie was done fighting. Said he wouldn’t be back.”
So Smith had a big fat reason for being angry at Crossford. Enough to have him killed? Men had been killed for far less, in Michael’s experience. “And why would he tell you all this?”
“I figured it was his way of warning me that he’d be asking me to do something like that in the near future.”
“Throw a fight?”
“Something like that.”
Sounded plausible. “So then where did you go?” Michael prompted. “After that.” They needed to get all the information they could before Harper changed his mind about legal representation.
“I walked to Lycanis.”
“What time was that?”
“I’m not sure, maybe just after midnight?”
Michael worked out the distance in his head. “And it’s a thirty, thirty-five-minute walk to Lycanis?”
Harper nodded. “About that, yeah. I was walking quickly though.”
