Dance With the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller. James Nally

for sitting in their tent.’

      ‘In their tent! Jesus, Fintan, you can’t say things like that.’

      ‘What?’ he protested. ‘In the weeks before and after Ramadan, wealthy Arabs flood into London to shop, eat and shag, get it all out of their systems. Some of the poshest hotels erect tents on their roofs, supposedly so that the Arab men can enjoy their traditional shisha pipes without smoking out the hotel lounges and bars. At least that’s how the hotel explains it away to the other guests. The tents are for smoking alright, smoking hot hookers and drugs and booze, but well out of sight of their devout Muslim mums, wives and families. These men are the wealthiest in the world. It is almost a matter of honour that they party harder than the next richest man in the chain.’

      He frowned and turned to me: ‘You have brought some money here with you, Donal? Or a credit card?’

      ‘I don’t have a credit card. I took out 70 earlier. I’ve got about 50 left.’

      ‘Fifty quid?’ he whispered, eyeing me in disbelief, ‘Jesus, Donal, I’ve just ordered the cheapest bottle of plonk on the menu and that was £120. You’re expected to buy two of these before a woman will even sit with you.’

      ‘I’ll just eat then.’

      ‘The chips are another 50.’

      ‘Fifty pounds! For a portion of chips? You can’t be serious.’

      He pushed a menu towards me. I scanned it without bothering to disguise my disgust.

      ‘This is … obscene. We still have time to buy perfectly adequate £2 pints in any pub down the road.’

      ‘For fuck’s sake, you can’t go now,’ he muttered, reaching into his inside jacket pocket and whipping out a black wallet.

      He set to work beneath the table, then tapped my knee and hissed: ‘Five hundred quid, fully sanctioned by accounts.’

      ‘I can’t do that.’

      ‘Like I said, it’s been signed off by accounts. Relax and have some fun.’

      ‘How would this look to anyone on the outside? A cop taking 500 pounds cash off a reporter, who is also his brother, to spend on hookers? I could get the sack just for having this conversation with you.’

      ‘I’m a little more concerned about us getting our legs broken if you try to leave after ten minutes,’ he growled. ‘I’ve had my hand under this table now for fully two minutes. In the name of all that is holy, will you take the fucking cash?’

      I took the fucking cash, pocketing it seconds before the waitress bounced a wine bucket, two glasses and a bowl of fries off the cloth-cushioned table top. The fries remained steadfastly rooted to their receptacle because they were soggy McCain oven chips costing three pounds each. The champagne failed to fizz enough to flow out of the open spout, because it was lukewarm sparkling wine from Kwik Save. I suddenly didn’t feel so bad about taking the newspaper’s money. This felt about as luxurious as Ryanair.

      ‘Here,’ he said, pushing the wine bucket towards me, ‘take this, go sit over there, and get your enormous Rolex out for the girls.’

      By 11pm, foreign businessmen flooded the Florentine; wealthy wallflowers coaxing out the honeybee hostesses in their black leather mini-skirts and orange tans.

      Let’s get this straight – every female in the club had been officially rated since birth as ‘way out of my league’. Pretty, slim, lithe and glowing – they were the kind of textbook beauties dangled daily in the media as an example of what all women should strive to look like.

      Maybe it was just me who didn’t find them sexy. Over-tanned, over-toned, overbearing – like their rictus smiles, their entire personas seemed dehumanised and robotic, designed for a photo-shoot rather than real life.

      But maybe the finer things in life are wasted on me. I’d tried criminally expensive whiskey and chocolate, but found them bland and characterless. I’ve ridden in a Bentley and driven a Jaguar – both felt too smooth and insulated. No fun. As for food, I’d take a carvery over caviar any day.

      Beer, bangers and boilers all the way for you then, Donal, I told myself.

      My jangling nerves had a thirst on, polishing off bottle one in no time at all. Bottle two came with bottle-blonde Lenka, a Slovenian who proved every bit as bitter sweet as the Margarita she insisted I buy her.

      ‘So nice to meet you, Dunnell,’ she smarmed, making my name rhyme with Sally Gunnell.

      ‘You too, Lunka,’ I replied, wondering whether it was the sulphites, sugar or pesticides in champagne that always drove me slightly loopy.