Jack Cornel rolled his eyes. His brother was never a man who could hold a drink inside him – he either pissed it out, or spewed it all over the floor. It was a cross he always had to bear, but tonight it annoyed him more than usual. Ignoring his brother, he walked into the stall. There was a window in there. It took him two minutes to open it – someone had painted it shut, so he had to use his penknife to open it. Once it was open he stood on the toilet bowl and climbed outside, calling to his brother to follow him. They found themselves in a small alleyway. Scaling a three-foot wall that took them on to another level, Jack grabbed his brother none too gently by the arm and pulled them both up a flight of rickety stairs until, finally, they were out on the street.

‘What’s going on, Jack?’

Jack Cornel didn’t even bother to answer.

By the time they were missed, the two brothers were long gone.

Chapter Seventy-Eight

Chapter Seventy-Eight

‘What do you mean, Declan? How could you have fucking lost them?’

Michael Flynn was genuinely perplexed. This wasn’t happening, surely? The Cornels were fucking idiots. How the fuck had they escaped?

Declan Costello was mortified; this was like amateur night. ‘Look, Michael, that Jack is a lot more fucking with-it than we gave him credit for. He followed his brother into the john, and they went out the fucking window. No one could have foreseen that.’

Michael Flynn was looking at Declan Costello as if he had never seen him before in his life. He was so outraged at the man’s complete fucking dereliction of his duty, he wasn’t sure he could be trusted not to hammer him into the ground.

‘This is fucking unbelievable! I have been entertaining the Colombians all night. All you had to do was keep an eye on two northern fucking wankers, and you are telling me that they outwitted you? They scrambled out of the crapper window, and no one fucking noticed anything? Are you telling me no one was outside?’

Declan shook his head in abject denial; he was reeling with amazement. He had kept a low profile, waiting for Michael to arrive, and now it was completely fucking naused up in the worst way possible.

‘Was he armed?’

Declan nodded once again. ‘He had two firearms, a Glock, and a smaller handgun.’

Michael laughed sarcastically. ‘Oh, that is just fucking great. Just what I need – a drunken fucking northerner after my blood, running the streets of London without a care in the fucking world. You useless crowd of cunts. If anything happens to cause problems with Salvatore, I will personally hunt every fucker involved down, and I will kill them myself.’

Declan looked around. Everyone in the club was looking at the floor; no one wanted to catch Michael’s eye, or bring his wrath down on their heads.