by Rob Ashman
Kray stopped in her tracks and turned to face Marshall. He turned and walked away.
The traffic en route to the station was mercifully light. Kray churned over her conversation at the Paragon – she didn’t like it. There was something about Marshall that sent her coppers’ intuition into orbit.
He was too calm and too helpful. Smug bastard.
The phone rang, it was Tavener. ‘Where are you?’ he asked.
‘On my way back, why?’
‘I’ve got something to show you.’
‘Sounds intriguing. I’ll find you when I get to the station.’ Kray continued to mull over her interaction with Marshall, and the more she thought about it, the more uneasy she became.
Twenty minutes later she was sitting in the incident room sipping a coffee. She handed the flash drive to Chapman.
‘This is the CCTV footage shot at the back of the Paragon last night. Take a look at it to see if it captures Tommy Weir leaving the premises.’
‘Will do, Roz.’ Chapman beetled off with the memory stick.
‘How did you get on?’ Tavener asked.
‘Weir was working last night and his car is still outside the club. He has a change of clothes in a bag which CSI are picking up. Apparently, he left work early but no one knows why. I met a guy called Marshall who said he runs the place but I don’t trust him. What do you have?’
‘I’ve been looking into where Weir worked. The Paragon club is owned by Bellville Entertainment, which is a limited company with a number of business interests; nightclubs, restaurants and gaming premises. It’s owned by a chap called Bernard Cross who keeps a very low profile for a man who must have a sizeable personal fortune.’
‘How does this help us with Weir?’
‘Well, that’s the thing, it doesn’t.’
‘So why are you telling me?’
‘You know how you keep banging on about there are no such things as coincidences?’
‘Yeah… and I do not bang on.’
‘The name Bernard Cross rang a bell and I could not for the life of me remember where from. Then it clicked…’ Tavener slid a sheaf of papers in front of Kray and jabbed at it with his finger. ‘Bernard Cross is a member of the Blackpool Yacht Club. He owns the Marine Blue – remember the forty-foot cruiser that was in dry dock undergoing repairs?’
‘Yes, I remember. What are you driving at?’
‘Michael Ellwood gets washed up on the beach. Our working assumption is he was tortured and shot in the head while out at sea and dumped overboard. A second man has his throat slit in a knife attack, and just happens to work at the Paragon. Bernard Cross has the wherewithal to take Ellwood out to sea and he’s the top man at the Paragon.’
‘It’s a tenuous link at best.’
‘So, you’re saying that’s just a coincidence?’
‘But aren’t you forgetting one important point? The Commodore said the Marine Blue had been in dry dock for six weeks so it couldn’t have been used to transport Ellwood.’
‘No, I’ve not forgotten.’ Tavener flipped over a few pages and pointed to an entry in the spreadsheet. ‘This boat is also ocean-going and it’s not in dry dock. I checked with the club.’
‘Okay, so?’
‘It’s owned by Delores Cross – wife of Bernard Cross.’
Chapter 17
It was the summer of the year 2000 and I was fast becoming Rolo’s go-to-guy when it came to running errands. Though the term ‘running errands’ gave my activities an innocent quality they did not deserve. It was a privileged position that enabled me to gain more and more insight into their operations. The Critchleys were the most successful gang in Nottingham, on their way to becoming one of the biggest in the UK. The stakes were high and rising by the day.
The effect on my cashflow was dramatic. Rolo held good to his promise that I would share in the profits. I had more money than I knew what to do with. It was hidden everywhere in my flat. I kept a meticulous record of every pound and never once did I consider skimming some off the top.
My influence in the team was growing. The other guys looked up to me, even Marshall. This was a rush, the likes of which I had not experienced before. Every day I came to work I got high on a heady cocktail of adrenaline and endorphins. Every day it sucked me further under. When I look back, the signs were there – I was losing it.
One time I was in the nerve centre dropping off another holdall bulging with cash when Rolo opened his desk drawer and pulled out his handgun. My senses went into overdrive. What the hell was he doing?
‘Do you know how to handle one of these?’ he said, handing it to me. It was a Beretta M9, one of my favourites.
‘I reckon so.’
‘Show me,’ he said, with more than an edge of challenge in his voice.
I placed the weapon on the table and closed my eyes. ‘Say go.’
‘Go.’
I picked up the gun, ensuring the manual safety was engaged, and removed the magazine. Then I checked the chamber was empty with my little finger, pushed the disassembly button and rotated the latch to remove the slide. The recoil spring and guide rod were next, followed by the barrel. In twenty-five seconds, six components were lined up side by side on the table.
Keeping my eyes closed, I reversed the process, and thirty seconds later the M9 was back in working order, ready for action.
I opened my eyes to see Rolo grinning like a Cheshire cat. He leaned back in his chair and clapped his hands.
‘That’s impressive.’
‘The army was good to me.’
Rolo rose from his chair. ‘Come on, we’ve got a meeting to attend. Oh, and you’ll need that.’
I slid the gun into the back of my jeans and covered it with my shirt. Rolo went downstairs, plucking a set of keys from a hook and exited the back of the club. The amber lights flashed on a big black Jag. He tossed me the keys.
‘Where are we going?’
‘Do you like Turkish food?’
‘Erm, yeah.’
‘Then get in and drive.’
I did as I was told and eased the luxury saloon out of the gates onto the main road. Rolo gave me directions as we went. We drove around in circles for what felt like ages then he said, ‘Turn left into that side street, pull over and wait.’
He jumped from the car and disappeared into a betting shop.
What the hell is he doing placing a bet?
A couple of minutes later he re-emerged with two men.
Shit! The Critchley brothers!
Rolo piled into the front seat and the brothers slid into the back.
‘Go back onto the main road and head into town,’ Rolo said, not bothering to introduce the two new guests. I could hear faint mumblings coming from the back seat but for the majority of the next twenty minutes we travelled in silence.
‘Stop here,’ Rolo finally spat out when we were close by a parade of shops. We all got out and walked over to a Turkish restaurant that was marked with a big red sign saying Closed. The door opened as we approached as if someone had said abracadabra. The brothers filed in first, followed by me then Rolo.
A small man who looked as though he spent all his days in the sun locked the door behind us.
The place was long and narrow with a bar to the left and enough tables to seat about forty people. All but one of the tables were bare. The largest one was laid out with silver knives and forks and a bright white table cloth. The Critchleys were greeted by a tall swarthy man wearing a light linen suit. Two other men sat in a booth seat, each one chewing a toothpick. There was lots of handshaking and backslapping as the bloke in the linen suit showed them to the table set with silver.
Rolo took me by the elbow.
‘Our job is to make sure they have an uninterrupted meal. I’ll take the back of the room and you take the front. No one comes in or out. Got it?’
‘Got it.’
‘Who are they?’ I nodded over to the two men sat in the booth seat.
‘They are the Turkish equivalent of us.’
Rolo walked to the kitchen end of the restaurant and took a seat at a table for two. I perched myself at the front. The thugs in the booth eyed us and gnawed on their toothpicks.
After a while the small man appeared laden with plates of food that he placed in front of the brothers. The smell was amazing and I automatically felt hungry. I watched as he continued to fill the table with plates. They tucked into the food, my mouth watering.
Focus, you idiot, focus.
After a while the small guy came over to me carrying two dishes.
‘Afiyet olsun,’ he said, placing them in front of me. One contained flat bread and the other a selection of mezes. Apparently Turkish gangland courtesy was alive and well.
I looked up to see Rolo enjoying the same treatment. I flashed him a smile and he shook his head – don’t eat it.
We sat for two hours while the Critchleys and the tall Turkish man conducted business. As much as I strained my ears, I heard nothing. Suddenly they rose from the table and it was handshakes all round again. Given the amount of food they had consumed I thought we would be carrying them out in wheelbarrows. Rolo jumped up, as did the two men in the booth seat. I followed suit.
The small guy came over to clear away my untouched food.
‘Git kendini becer.’ My refusal to eat had not gone down well. He looked like he was going to stab me with a fork.
Ten minutes of theatrical goodbyes later and we were back in the car. We dropped the Critchleys off at the betting shop and headed for the club.
‘Who were the two guys we were looking after?’ I asked.
‘That’s not important.’
I tried a different tack. ‘Did it go well?’
‘It did.’
‘It seemed to go well.’
We travelled in silence, then Rolo said, ‘We have a shipment coming in soon.’
Jesus Christ, this is what I’d been waiting for.
‘When is it?’
‘We are still working out the finer details,’ he lied. ‘I want you on the team, you up for it?’
‘You bet.’
In the weeks that followed I became increasingly involved in the preparations. The planning was run on a strict need-to-know basis. I’m not sure even Rolo knew the full picture. Every day we would have a list of tasks. Building the picture of what was going to happen was like constructing a massive three-dimensional jigsaw. A jigsaw with three crucial pieces missing: what was the shipment, when was it going to happen and where?
This was getting close. The problem was, I could feel myself losing my grip on reality. I was going under. And the further I sank into the underworld of the Critchleys, the more challenging it became to go home to Blythe. I tried to visit every month but the pace of the operation made it almost impossible.
I would kid myself that I was looking forward to going home; counting down the days in my head, but when it arrived I was a mess. A ball of nervous tension and anxiety would spin inside me. The weight of expectation always crushed the pleasure out of the time I spent sitting on my own sofa and sleeping in my own bed. Blythe knew it. We both knew it.
It was reasonable for her to expect that the man she married would walk through the door, but he seldom did. She got flashes of him, but for the most part I was going through the motions, trying to remember what a husband was supposed to do. The longer it went on the more lost I became. Both of us realised I was a walking façade which was tissue thin.
One night, when I was home for the weekend, Blythe said, ‘I’m pregnant, you’re gonna be a dad.’ We were watching TV and had just finished dinner. I was basking in the afterglow of my medal-winning chilli when she simply came out with it.
I was thirty-two years of age and she was twenty-seven. We had been married for four years and had never expected kids to come along. Blythe had been told that she couldn’t bear children after having fibrous growths removed from her ovaries. We had come to terms with that harsh reality and lapsed into our comfortable happiness – now we were fucking ecstatic.
And in that instant, everything changed.
After running around the lounge waving my hands in the air, occasionally stopping to kiss my wife, a burst of realisation stopped me in my tracks.
‘That means…’ I said.
‘I know,’ she replied.
‘I’ll need to make some changes.’
‘I think that would be for the best.’
‘I’ll talk to them in the morning.’
‘That would be good. What about…?’
‘Yeah, that could be a problem. We’re ten months in and…’
‘They might tell you to…’
‘They might. I’ll see what they say in the morning.’ We rarely saw the need to talk in complete sentences.
The next morning Blythe was proved right. They told me to complete my current assignment and after that they would get me out. They stressed the importance of the work I was doing and how they couldn’t pull the plug so close to the climax. I agreed.
‘A few more weeks, that’s all,’ I remember saying to her. ‘Then I’ll get a transfer and be home for you and our baby.’
‘Okay.’ She said it in a way that told me it was not okay. But what else could I do? I was slipping further away and we both knew it. The sooner I surfaced, the better.
The next day I went back to work and it was as if I had never been away. The lines were blurring badly and I had forgotten all about Blythe and the baby as soon as my foot crossed the threshold of my bedsit. I could feel myself being sucked under.
Who the hell am I?
Then I fucked someone I shouldn’t have.
I’d love to say it was a spur of the moment thing but it had been brewing for months. And if it was only the once I could forgive myself the indiscretion – but it wasn’t.
Natasha came out of nowhere, recruited as a dancer and table host to entice our more moneyed clients to part with their cash. She was of Eastern European extraction with that heady mix of old-style burlesque and Russian gymnast. It was a combination that was almost impossible to say no to. Actually, who am I kidding, it was absolutely impossible to say no.
I have no idea what she saw in me. I am reasonably good-looking but nothing special. She made a beeline for me and made it perfectly clear what she wanted. I later found out she had entered the country illegally and was looking for a meal ticket. Either way, we got it on, big style.
I told Rick about her in one of our daily debriefs. Well, when I say I told him, I kind of hinted at it. He didn’t seem too bothered and changed the subject. I took that as his way of letting me know it was fine to carry on. So, carry on I did.
The trouble was Natasha came with a hefty price tag – she got my wife killed.
Chapter 18
I’m sitting in my car watching the back of the Paragon, taking stock of my position. One dead foot soldier and fifty-six grand in cash is not going to get me where I want to be. I need to get under the skin of the operation if I’m going to bring it crashing down, and that means gaining intelligence. Plus, perhaps inflicting a little disruption along the way.
The building has been in darkness now for around forty minutes. The clock on the dashboard reads 2.55am. I pull the blanket around my legs to protect them from the cold.
‘I’m out of practice with this shit,’ I mutter under my breath as the night creeps into my bones.
‘You’re telling me.’ Jade blows into her hands and rubs them together. ‘What are you going to do with the money?’ She’s sat in the back, her wide eyes staring at me through the mirror.
‘Don’t know yet, I’ll think of something.’
‘Thinking… Thinking? You’re always bloody thinking!’
‘If I rush into this, it’s going to go wrong.’
‘Fat chance of that! Not seen you rush at anything for years.’
‘Yeah, well, I’m being cautious.’
‘You weren’t cautious when you sliced that guy up. That was good.’
‘It served a purpos
e.’
‘Yes, over fifty-grand.’ Jade paused. ‘You could buy some help?’
‘That widens the circle. It’s too risky.’
‘It would mean you could cover more ground.’
‘I know, but I’d be worried about keeping control, and at this stage, I can do without that.’
Jade nods and purses her black lips. ‘You’re going to hit them hard though, aren’t you?’
‘Yup, as hard as I can.’
‘The bastards deserve a good kicking.’
I reach for the rucksack in the footwell, discard the blanket and step out of the car. The drizzling rain sticks to my face as I yank my hood forward and walk past the gates. There are two security cameras watching the yard but nothing at the side.
I skirt past the high wire fence securing the perimeter of the building next door. It’s a solicitors’ with offices on the ground and first floor. An alleyway runs between the two properties. I make my way to the end where another tall wire fence bridges the two walls, then rummage in my rucksack and pull out a set of cutters. The galvanized metal snaps as the jaws make light work of the links. In no time I’m peeling back the fence and squeezing through the gap.
To the side of the club is a set of stone steps leading down to a cellar door. I descend into the darkness, all the while looking for additional cameras. The door has a Yale lock. I put my bag on the floor and retrieve a small pouch and a pencil torch from the inside pocket of my coat. The torch goes in my mouth and I insert the L-shaped tension pick into the lock, followed by a Bogota rake. I jiggle the rake back and forth against the tumblers while maintaining a turning pressure on the lock.
Christ, this is taking far too long! Looks like freezing my bollocks off in the car isn’t the only area where I’m lacking practice.
I can hear the tumblers clicking into place. Then the lock disengages and the door springs open. I check the interior of the doorframe to see if there are magnetic alarms fitted, but all is clear. I pack away my gear and edge inside. The thin torch beam scans around the bare brick walls, beer kegs and pipework.
There is a door set into the far wall. I make my way over and open it, a flight of stairs leads up to the nightclub. I make my way up and peep through a set of curtains at the top.