Page 13 of We Chase Shadows

Vern gives Steve a laddish punch on the shoulder, and the only smile that Steve can muster is a sad one.

Three names for Interpol to look at: Tommy Griffin, Georgie Glazier, Jakob Eriksson. Rosie claps her hands. Plenty to be getting on with there.

‘I’m sure we can help you, Vern,’ says Rosie. ‘We’ll take a look at Georgie for you, and Tommy Griffin, and we really will need to find Jakob Eriksson. If only to rule him out. A murderer has threatened to murder you, so we wouldn’t be doing our due diligence if we didn’t.’

Vern shakes his head. ‘You won’t find him, and you don’t need to find him. It’s a smokescreen. I just need to know what the game is here. I need to know if Georgie or Tommy Griffin are trying to scare me. That’s your job. Who killed Esteban, and why. No one deserves what happened to that poor boy.’

Amy’s pen hovers over her notepad. ‘What was Esteban’s surname?’

Vern looks at her, quizzically. ‘No idea. He was only a bodyguard. I usually called him “number three”.’

Amy nods. ‘I’ll put “Sánchez”.’

8

Europe is crazy when you really start looking into it. It’s all different countries and all different languages. Tommy Griffin thinks the whole thing is completely unnecessary. Just pick a language, guys. Preferably English.

And the money? I mean, sure there’s plenty of it, but one day it’s euros, and then you go to Britain and they have, like, British money or something, and so then you’ll be in Dublin and you’d think it was British money there, right? But no, they don’t like that one bit and they point a gun at you and tell you to get out of their country if you think they’re anything to do with Britain. It’d be like trying to sell a million dollars of Viagra in Wisconsin and someone says, ‘Oh, it ain’t dollars here, bud, it’s blingblongs’, or something. That wouldn’t work, right? And yet that’s Europe for you. And it’s a whole continent, this place!

Listen up, Europe, you want some free advice from Tommy Griffin? Pick a language and pick a currency. Then we can really do business.

Tommy’s plane has just landed back at Palm Springs, but, for the moment, he can’t get up.

The trip has been successful, that’s for sure. Lot of deaths in the medication business in the last few years, and that’s good news for Tommy. Leaves a vacuum. Europeans might have screwy languages and currencies, but they sell cheap Viagra, and that’s all Tommy needs.

‘Sir,’ says the steward, ‘we’ve landed. I’d be happy to escort you to the terminal.’

Tommy waves him away. ‘I’m staying put.’

‘Certainly, sir,’ says the steward. ‘Absolutely understood.’

Going to Europe is a risk, of course. Strictly speaking, Tommy Griffin has agreed to stick to North America, but if Tommy finds a cheap, reliable source of Viagra in a corrugated cowshed in County Cork, then why wouldn’t he use it? It’s just economics.

Now the co-pilot approaches Tommy. ‘Is everything all right, Mr Griffin? Can I assist you with anything?’

‘You sure can,’ says Tommy, with a smile. ‘You can assist me with shutting the hell up and sitting back into your airplane driver’s seat until I’m ready to leave.’

‘Of course,’ says the co-pilot. He’s practically bowing, this guy. ‘We’ll be in the cockpit whenever you’re ready to disembark.’

‘Disembark.’ Can you believe that? Just say ‘when you’re ready to get off the plane’. These pilot guys think they’re something else. Like it’s hard to fly a plane? The wings are doing the work, not these idiots. He would actually like to get off the plane, but it’s impossible for now. He wonders how long he’s going to have to wait.

The real problem with Europe is, of course, Jakob Eriksson. But they got on okay in Vegas? Eriksson won’t mind if he buys a few blue pills from a new Irish supplier, will he? They can find a way through that.

One thing’s for sure. Eriksson will know that Griffin’s been in Europe. Eriksson knows everyone, and everything.

Oh great, now the captain’s come out to deal with him.

‘We trust you had an excellent flight, sir?’ says the captain guy. He’s got his little hat on and everything, like he’s the plane Pope, rather than just some jerk who went to pilot school.

‘Excellent?’ says Tommy. ‘How would it be excellent? You kept quiet and you didn’t crash the plane. You want a Nobel Peace Prize?’

‘I do need to disembark the crew,’ says the captain.

‘Disembark’ again. The brass balls on these guys.

Tommy speaks slowly now. Sometimes you have to speak slowly to other people.

‘I will get off the plane – not “disembark” – when I’m good and ready. I ain’t ready, and I tell you now, Captain Hat, I sure ain’t good neither.’