HEDOSCHISM: WATTY AWARD WINNER

4 // LAIR

That was the problem with spiders, you see. They'd sit and wait out of sight, watching as you wandered unsuspectingly into the web and then they'd happily let you struggle for a while, until finally, when all your energy was used-up, they would attack.

I couldn't help but sense that was exactly how Oscar lived his life. Always waiting to attack.

'Casey, sweetheart!' he called out in his rasping, Cockney tone as I walked in, his arms stretched wide, ready to welcome me as he did every time; by grasping my arms and planting a slightly-lingering kiss on both cheeks. I always had to resist the urge to wipe the kisses off my face.

'How are you, Oscar?'

No one addressed Oscar as 'Oscar' to his face. Not his employees. Not even his business associates. There was a mark of respect there that he didn't even have to demand of people. They just called him Mr. Turnbull, like they instinctively knew he should never be 'Oscar' to them. But I'd always called him Oscar and for some reason, he'd never batted an eyelid over it. In fact, I had a sneaky suspicion he sort of liked it.

'Ah, you know me, darlin', always fighting the good fight and all that.'

I raised a brow. 'Yeah? Funny, can't remember hearing about you making an appearance at St. Mary's at Sunday worship.'

He squeezed my arms in response and leaned in closer, sending wafts of cigar and whiskey breath my way. 'And what the bloody hell would you know about Sunday worship, eh? You'd be struck down by lightning as soon as you stepped foot over the bloody threshold.' He winked a conspiratorial wink and released me, making me want to rub my arms where he'd squeezed a little too enthusiastically.

Sauntering over to the drink's cabinet, he shot me a brief glance, one that expertly took in my legs with one sweep of his eyes. 'What you drinking these days, sweetheart? Still rum and coke?'

I nodded, although the truth was I'd probably drink anything anyone put in front of me.

Dropping two large ice cubes into a tumbler glass, he poured me a generous shot of rum, followed by a barely-worth-it mixer of cola he got from the fridge beneath the cabinet, before walking over and placing the glass down on a coaster on his desk. Motioning for me to sit, he went back and made a drink for himself - some expensive scotch he always drank - on the rocks, and then returned to his chair, where he leaned back, running one hand through his thinning, grey hair.

The first time I'd met Oscar Turnbull, I'd had to fight the impulse to laugh. I'd always had this idea of an atypical London gangster, inspired probably by too many Guy Ritchie and Ray Winstone films, and Oscar had fit that image to a tee. He always wore a suit - always - and it was invariably one of those grey ones with a slight sheen to the fabric, a crisply-ironed shirt usually in some garish colour that looked a little too tight around his paunch, open at the neck, and with too much gaudy gold jewellery on show. His hair was worn slightly longer and combed back to try and disguise the fact he'd lost a lot of it on top and he smelt of too much aftershave and weirdly, of baby powder. I never got the baby powder thing at all, but the hint of that smell on someone who liked to break people's kneecaps just for fun always seemed to me to be a slightly sick twist on the clichéd gangster image he portrayed.

And if he was an atypical gangster, then his office was a perfect reflection of him. Black lacquered furniture and chrome were still all the rage in Oscar's world, as were the red carpet and matching accessories. It was like 80's office Hell on acid. I couldn't have conjured up a worse hallucination with five pills and ten tabs on my tongue. He even had one of those kinetic desk toys with the metal figures on the see-saw, which he seemed to take great delight in watching move up and down with one push of his finger. On the walls lined various black and white prints in thin black, varnished frames.