Chapter 15: The Driver

The driver had picked a launderette in Peckham that stayed open all night.

We found him at the back, on a plastic chair beside a dryer, with his hood up and both knees bouncing.

He was about twenty-three and thin, and he looked as if he had not slept since the night of the car.

"You came in his car?" he said, when he saw Clement.

"Walked the last bit," Clement said. "Nobody followed us."

"You can't know that."

"I know that."

The lad looked at me, and then at the plaster over my brow, and he put a hand over his mouth.

"I didn't know it'd be you in the road," he said. "I swear.

"Nobody told me it was a girl getting out of a restaurant."

"Say it to the phone," I said.

I held it up and pressed record, and I steadied it against the washing machine.

He pulled his hood down.

His hands were shaking, so he sat on them.

"Name's on my licence, but you can call me what Tidy calls me," he said.

"The night before, a woman rang me.

"Posh voice.

"She said the job was changed.

"She said it had to look real this time, and it'd be double money, in an envelope at the usual place."

"What did she tell you to do?" Clement asked.

"Go at sixty, not forty. Hit the girl on the near side, clean."

He swallowed.

"I said that'd put her in a box.

"She said, 'It'll put her in a bed, which is where I want her.'"

"Did she give you a name?" I said.

"She signs the notes D. She left one in the envelope."