Ian
Brynna Hynafol looked like a classy lady, and she had to have some money coming in with her client's success spiralling, but the bar I'd tailed her two twice now told a different story about her origins. I'd read stories like that a dozen times, it was the first time in months I'd felt comfortable on this case. In many ways it was a story like my own.
It wasn't the kind of bar you could sit quietly in a corner of and watch for who Hynafol was meeting. I hadn't even bothered to show my face inside on either of my previous visits, and I wasn't about to start tonight. Anything out of place might spook Hynafol's handler, and if they were working for who I expected, the likely outcome of that would cost me a few teeth and/or pints of blood.
Tonight, as soon as I'd seen Hynafol leaving her flat I'd rushed here to get ahead of her, scraping my knuckles to scramble up onto the low roof of a building down the street. By lying on the mingin, moss-scuzzy roofing felt at a particularly uncomfortable angle, I could just about see the bar's door without too much risk of being seen.
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By Rindburg standards it was a warm night, but there had been rain during the afternoon and the moss was still damp. I could feel it seeping through my shirt where my jacket had fallen open under me. Without looking at my watch, I guessed it had been ten minutes since Kosaka had gone into the bar. I hoped her contact was punctual.
He finally showed another ten minutes or so later, by which time my shirt was well past 'cold and damp' and into 'needing dry-cleaning'. I knew it was him well before he turned to go into the bar. Blonde and square-faced, he wore a lovely grey trench coat around broad shoulders and a barrel chest. Jewellery glittered on his bony fingers. The kind of man I knew better than to try flirting with, even if I hadn't known what he was.
After he'd gone inside, I rolled over and checked my watch. Only seven minutes had passed since I started my stakeout, which just goes to show you the mind-warping powers of a damp, muddy shirt. I let myself down off the roof as gently as I could, running the man's face over and over again in my mind. I had an idea of who to ask for help identifying him, but I'd need every detail I could commit to memory.