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you, Oscar Seven. Cash customer specified black cab for two passengers, West One area, soon as you can.’
    It was too early in the day to tell if this was a wind-up or not, but some of the guys on Dispatch can get really warped after a quiet night on the switchboard.
    â€˜Pick up and destination?’
    â€˜Seymour Street, outside Barclays Bank.’
    â€˜And where to, Dispatch?’
    â€˜Passenger’s name is O’Neil. Cash not account. ETA?’
    They never tell you the destination, in case you pick up a better fare – like an airport – en route , so you always feel a right wally having to ask the customer: ‘Where to?’
    â€˜Five minutes,’ I said, knowing they’d say ten.
    I thought no more about it than that the fare might just pay for the diesel I’d used already that morning. I didn’t connect ‘O’Neil’ with anything and didn’t bother asking for more details, just blithely assumed that there wouldn’t be too many people hanging around outside a bank at that time of the morning.
    There weren’t. Just one. Tigger.
    He was hopping from foot to foot, more agitated than usual, and when he saw me coming he waved frantically.
    I slowed at the kerb and leaned over and pulled the window down.
    â€˜Don’t fuck about, Tigger, I’m working.’
    â€˜I know you are, I called you,’ he said breathlessly, opening the back door.
    I slid back the driver’s partition as he climbed in. His tracksuit top was soaking wet down the chest and he reeked badly of vomit. Before I could order him out or kill the engine, he waved a bunch of ten-pound notes at me.
    â€˜Genuine, Angel, straight-up hire. Look, I’ve got the dosh, now drive.’
    â€˜Where to, sir?’ I said, like the dispatch company had taught me.
    â€˜Down here.’ He pointed to Seymour Place. ‘We’re picking somebody up. I’ll show you. Then Lincoln’s Inn. Look, I told you, I’ve got money.’
    â€˜Where did you get it?’ I asked, as if it was any of my business.
    â€˜I’ve been to the bank. Hole-in-the-wall job. Cash available 24 hours. Now will you sodding well drive?’
    I picked up the crappy radio they’d rented me and called it in: POB – passenger on board – to Lincoln’s Inn. Dispatch feigned interest, saying they could maybe find me something in Holborn by the time I got there.
    I swung into Seymour Place and put my foot down, mildly curious as to why Tigger was lying to me.
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Chapter Five
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    If I’d had reservations about Tigger getting in the cab, it was going to take an advance course of sensory deprivation to persuade me to let his friend join him in the back of Armstrong.
    We hadn’t gone far, just down Seymour Place and then hanging a right before Marylebone Road into one of the small streets at the back of the Marylebone branch of Westminster Library. At this time of the morning it was notorious as a dossing area for the sad old winos wearing three jackets and someone else’s trainers who had been moved along – or more accurately, moved out – from Baker Street underground station or the nearby subway that stank of urine worse than any urinal.
    And that was exactly what I thought we’d got to begin with.
    Tigger made me stop and was out of Armstrong before I could complain. When I saw him bending over the figure slumped against the wall of a discreet, but high-priced, estate agent’s (‘Flats from £490 per week’), I left the engine idling and got out. My only thought was to close the back door and get out of there, but then Tigger saw the look on my face.
    â€˜Come on, Angel, you’ve got to help,’ he said in what I guessed was his normal voice. ‘I’m paying you, remember.’
    â€˜Means nothing,’ I said, looking at the figure on the pavement. There was no blood immediately in evidence, that was