‘But I have money to spend and the tables out here are no good, stakes too low.’

‘Twenty-four hours,’ he repeated.

‘Well, that is a real shame.’

The bouncer regarded me for a moment, ice-chip eyes unblinking.

‘Who’s your friend?

‘What?’

‘Your friend inside. What’s his name?’

‘Ben Delaney.’

His expression gave nothing away, but I could see the name meant something to him.

‘Is he in there?’ I said.

‘Are you a copper?’ An edge of suspicion in his voice.

‘No, just a friend from London. But I’m worried about him.’

‘I’m sure your friend’ll be out sooner or later, sir.’

‘What time do you close?’

‘Four a.m.’

Crap. That was almost four hours’ time.

I went to the front desk but had the same answer from the duty supervisor, a lad in his early twenties with floppy blond hair and an adolescent beard. He put a form on the counter in front of me, with a biro.

‘There you go, sir, takes twenty-four hours to process.’

Through a glass panel in the door behind him, an older man in a suit was talking on the phone in a small office, one hand on his hip.

‘Can you give me a temporary pass for the executive lounge for tonight?’

‘Sorry, we don’t do that.’

‘Could I speak to the manager, then?’ I pointed at the man in the back office. ‘Would you be able to fetch him for me?’

The lad looked past me, over my shoulder, as if hoping there would be a less annoying customer for him to speak to instead of me. Finally he accepted that I wasn’t going to go away.

‘Hold on just a minute, sir.’

He turned and disappeared through the door into the back office.

My options were running out. They weren’t going to make an exception to the rule. And if I couldn’t go in, Ben would have to come out.

There was a small red box on the wall behind the front desk. White text on a black background: ‘Break glass – press here’.

Law of the jungle.

The supervisor had his back to me in the back office. He was still talking to the manager, jerking a thumb over his shoulder in my direction. A few people were milling about in the foyer, a couple walking in, a group of young women leaving to go on somewhere else, loud with booze and laughter.

I leaned forward over the front counter and smashed the glass of the fire alarm.

Chapter 69

69

The alarm erupted instantly, a piercing two-tone sound that was so loud it set my teeth on edge. I ducked away from the desk and out of sight just as the supervisor came rushing through from the back office.

I didn’t think he’d seen me. But it didn’t matter. This wouldn’t take long.

The house lights came on.