A Bad Bad Thing by Elena Forbes

Author:Elena Forbes [Elena Forbes]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canongate Books
Published: 2018-07-11T00:00:00+00:00

TWENTY-THREE

Dan checked his watch. It was well past eight in the evening. He had been hovering for quite a while outside the entrance to the Apple Store in Covent Garden, where the man on the phone had told him to wait. People came, people went. The store seemed to be a popular rendezvous point. But there was no sign of the man – the younger man, Mickey’s so-called friend, who said his name was Hassan. Dan searched the faces around him, but other than a dark-skinned teenage boy in a navy-blue anorak, who glanced at him suspiciously before going inside the shop, nobody made eye contact. They were all doing their own thing, having fun, window-shopping, drinking and eating and not remotely interested in him. He felt like some sort of sad loser on a blind date standing there, and he was freezing, water seeping up from the cobbles through the soles of his boots where the leather had worn thin. There were so many people milling around, he wondered how Hassan was going to spot him. He ought to be wearing a green carnation pinned to his lapel, or have a copy of Time Out magazine tucked into his jacket pocket, or something similar. But in broken English Hassan had said it wasn’t necessary, that he would find him. He said Mickey had shown him a photo of Dan on the 4Justice website. All Dan had to do was to keep his phone switched on and to come alone. Dan had been nervous about going there, knowing that it was probably a stupid thing to do. He ought to call the police and leave it to them. But something about Hassan’s voice, in particular the way he said ‘I am very sad’, sounded genuine. He kept replaying the sentences over and over again in his mind, trying to hear a flaw or a false note, but there was none. He should trust his instincts, he kept telling himself. If the man really had been Mickey’s friend, they should talk. There might be a simple explanation why he had Mickey’s phone and maybe he knew something that could be of help.

In spite of the bitter wind and the recent rain, the piazza was crowded and the restaurants and bars were full with people waiting to sit down. A jazz band played loudly somewhere inside the covered market and a fire-eater was entertaining a large crowd in the middle of the square, beside a twenty-foot Christmas tree. A giant silver reindeer stood in front of the entrance to the market, rearing up on a sleigh filled with a heap of shiny presents, its throat outstretched as though calling to its friends in the sky. It was covered head to toe in white lights, with a sparkling red collar of bells around its neck, and looked like something from a Disney film. All that was missing was snow and a posse of elves coming around the corner singing.

The air was filled with

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