Boss Girl: A gripping crime thriller of danger, determination and one unstoppable woman

by Emma Tallon

  ‘I won’t lie, you look like it too,’ Anna said.

  ‘Great, thanks for the vote of confidence,’ he said with a laugh. ‘Right, I’m off. Catch you later.’

  Anna waved him off and bent down to put away the orange juice. As she stood up a wave of nausea swept over her and she groaned. Darting around the bar, she made her way to the bathroom and got there just in time. The contents of her stomach splattered all over the basin of the toilet as she heaved violently. She closed her eyes. Not again, she thought. She felt awful.

  After a minute or two she wiped her mouth and the beads of sweat that had formed on her forehead and stepped back out of the cubicle.

  ‘Hey, um…’ A concerned, young Latino-looking woman stood just outside. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Yes, I’m fine. I’m so sorry you had to hear that.’ Anna laughed, embarrassed. ‘I ate something that disagreed with me a couple of days ago. It doesn’t want to give up the fight.’ She pulled a face.

  The other woman laughed lightly, but the concern was still on her pretty face. ‘Well, hopefully you’re winning,’ she said. ‘You are really pale though. Why don’t we go and get you a glass of water?’

  ‘Oh, no, I’m fine,’ Anna protested, ‘really.’

  ‘No, I insist,’ the woman said strongly in what sounded to Anna like a Spanish accent. She guided Anna forward gently by the arm. ‘I used to be a nurse – it’s pretty much my duty to make sure you’re OK. Come.’ She led Anna back out to the bar and found two empty stools for them to sit on.

  Anna signalled the barman over and ordered herself a water. ‘And what can I get you, err…?’

  ‘Izobel.’ The woman smiled, showing little, even white teeth. ‘I’ll have a small white wine, whatever the house wine is. How much will that be?’ She directed the question to the barman but Anna waved him away.

  ‘No, no. The wine is on me. For your kindness,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Oh no, I couldn’t accept that; it’s nothing to show concern.’ Izobel shook her head, but Anna held up her hand.

  ‘I insist. This is my club, it’s nothing.’

  ‘Oh, wow.’ Izobel’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Well, I like your club. It’s the first time I’ve been here actually.’ She looked around.

  ‘Are you from London?’ Anna asked.

  ‘No, I moved here about six months ago with my boyfriend. Well… my ex now.’ She pulled a face.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ Anna said.

  The barman brought their drinks over and Anna sipped at the cool water gratefully.

  ‘No, it’s fine, really,’ Izobel rushed to reassure her. ‘He was an asshole, to be honest. I’m better off without him. He’s making someone else’s life miserable now. But I decided to stay and see how things went. I have another six months left on the rental contract anyway.’ She shrugged.

  ‘Well, how do you like it around here so far?’ Anna studied the girl beside her. She was blessed with deep olive skin, dark almond-shaped eyes and a mass of thick wild curls. She was a natural beauty and Anna guessed probably a handful of years younger than herself.

  She knew how Izobel must feel. She had been that girl once. It was only four years ago that she had rocked up in East London one night, having run away from her psychotic ex with all her worldly belongings in the back of her car. She’d known nobody in the city and had no plan as to what she was going to do. It had been by pure chance that she had met Tanya, who had befriended her and helped her find her way again. Tanya’s offer of friendship had meant so much to her, at a time where she had nothing and nobody else.

  ‘It’s OK. It’s going to take some adjustment, I think. But I’m hoping I’ll like it.’ She looked at her watch. ‘I think I’ve been stood up.’ She gave Anna a sad smile. ‘Just my luck.’

  ‘Who were you meeting?’ Anna asked.

  ‘Oh, just this girl who lives down the road from me. We got chatting and she said she would be in here tonight with some friends if I wanted to join them. But they were supposed to be here an hour ago now, so I guess they changed their minds. Maybe they went somewhere else.’

  Izobel tried to hide her disappointment and Anna’s heart reached out to her. ‘Hey, well, I’m actually not doing anything tonight if you fancy hanging out?’

  ‘Oh, no it’s OK; you don’t have to do that, honestly. I don’t want to bother you. I shouldn’t have said anything.’ Izobel flushed crimson with embarrassment.

  ‘It’s not bothering me at all, I really don’t have plans and’ – she smiled warmly – ‘you know, I was in your position once. Sometimes all you need is someone to just be a friend when you’re alone in a cold, alien city.’

  ‘Yes.’ Izobel nodded vehemently. ‘That is exactly how I feel. You get it.’

  ‘I do.’ Anna laughed. ‘Trust me, I really do. Listen, have you eaten? Because I know a great Italian round the corner. We could grab some dinner, if you fancy it.’

  ‘That sounds perfect,’ Izobel said, her tone brightening. ‘I’m starving.’

  ‘OK then, let’s go.’ Anna grabbed her purse from behind the bar and led the way out of the club. She felt good befriending Izobel, like it was karma somehow after Tanya had befriended her all that time ago. She stepped outside into the cool evening air and waited for Izobel to fall into step beside her. It was also refreshing to be around someone who wasn’t linked to any of her worries. She pushed everything else to the back of her mind and walked forward, determined to escape her own head for the evening.

  20

  The next morning, Freddie, Bill and Sammy walked out of Sammy’s office together.

  ‘So, there’s still nothing? That’s odd, Bill. Surely there has to be someone on that estate that saw something?’ Freddie said.

  ‘No, no one saw a thing. Or if they did, they ain’t talking to us. Which is strange in itself. Jay’s in custody at the moment – they’re trying to pin it on him. He was the last one who saw him alive, last to leave his flat. His prints are everywhere. Only reason they haven’t charged him is because they can’t find the weapon, or traces of Dale’s blood actually on him.’

  ‘Fuck sake.’ Freddie shook his head. ‘He got the brief?’

  ‘Yeah, Toby. I’ve asked him to keep me up to date.’

  ‘Tell him I’ll pay the bill at the end, cash. And to keep that quiet.’

  ‘Will do. He figured that was the case anyway, when I went looking for information,’ Bill said.

  ‘I still can’t work out who would have called Old Bill,’ Sammy said. ‘At exactly the moment you were standing in his flat. Bit coincidental, isn’t it?’

  Freddie bit his lip. He had been asking himself the same question for days. But he had no answer. Everything that was happening was suspicious, but he couldn’t think of anyone who would want to cause him such trouble. Even his enemies lived by a code. No one would go around trying to get a rival caught by the pigs. You went for the throat or not at all in their line of work.

  He changed the subject. ‘Sammy, have you heard back from Gambino?’

  ‘No, nothing. He’s gone cold. It’s really strange. I got a tip-off that he’s planning on heading back across the pond soon though,’ Sammy said with a grimace.

  Freddie groaned. Gambino had been eager enough to meet and he had been the perfect host at dinner, but after skirting around the conversation of business that night, he’d gone cold for some reason. It was like he wasn’t interested in working with them, but if that were the case, why would he have gone to all the trouble of entertaining them? Perhaps this was all some sort of test. Freddie let out a long, frustrated breath. There was nothing he could do but be patient and wait to hear more.

  ‘OK, well let’s hope he returns soon. He was supposed to be staying over here for a while, maybe he’ll come back.’

  The three men walked down the high street on their way to a restaurant for lunch. It had been a long morning and they were hungry. As they passed a newsagent’s, Freddie paused.

  ‘You go on, I’ll cat
ch up,’ he said, entering the small shop. The door closed behind him, the little bell that tinkled above it alerting the shop owner to his presence.

  Going to the till he pointed to the cigarettes he favoured. ‘Twenty, please, mate.’ He handed over his card and waited. A noise sounded and the man who had pressed it to the reader handed it back and pulled a face.

  ‘It has declined, sir,’ he said.

  ‘What? Nah, it must be your machine.’ Freddie frowned. He had around fifty grand in that account. It was his legal float, the only money he could have access to through an account that would pass any investigation. ‘Here, I’ll try the PIN.’ He slotted the card into the machine and entered his PIN. Another message came through the reader, stating that it was declined. ‘What the hell?’ Freddie exclaimed.

  Tutting, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a twenty-pound note. He handed it over. ‘Keep the change.’ He picked up the cigarettes and left the shop, heading straight for the cash point next door. He quickly tapped in his pin once more and waited to see his balance on screen.

  Freddie gasped as the account came up as empty. The balance was at zero. It had been cleaned out. ‘What the hell is going on?’ he exclaimed in disbelief.

  He strode back down the road towards his parked car and called through to Sammy’s phone. ‘Go ahead without me. Something’s come up that can’t wait.’

  * * *

  Forty minutes later, Freddie sat in the back office of his local bank branch. The manager knew him there, so all it took was an exchange of a few notes and he was settled in front of the controls to the CCTV.

  ‘So you say it was the day before yesterday, at 4.45 p.m.?’ he clarified.

  ‘Yes, that’s when the money was withdrawn, in full, over the counter,’ the bank manager confirmed. He cleared his throat and swallowed nervously.

  ‘And you say that it was me who took it out?’ Freddie asked, completely confused. The manager nodded. ‘But it couldn’t have been. I was at a party—’ Freddie trailed off.

  He had been absolutely wasted that day. Had he left at some point and drawn all the money from his account? But why would I do that? he wondered. And even if I had done that, where is it now? And surely I would remember? He shook his head. There was no way in hell that he wouldn’t remember clearing fifty grand out of his bank account.

  ‘Play the footage,’ he demanded.

  ‘Of course.’ The manager had already found the time on the video and had it paused, ready to go. He pressed play and they sat back to watch in silence.

  The camera was above the door, trained on the cashiers’ desk. It wasn’t great quality, quite grainy, but clear enough that he should be able to make out who it was that had emptied his account. The seconds passed and he shifted in his seat, impatient. Eventually the light in the picture changed, signalling that the door had been opened and a man came into view.

  Freddie leaned forward, a deep frown of concentration forming on his face as he watched. The man walked forward confidently towards the desk.

  Freddie shook his head in disbelief. It looked exactly like him. The camera had only picked up the back of him so far, but it was uncanny. Whoever it was had the same muscular trim frame, the same styled dark hair and even the same dark grey jacket. Freddie’s gaze fell to the bag the man was carrying and his jaw dropped open. It was his spare gym bag, the one he kept at the bottom of the wardrobe at home.

  Rage began to build up inside him as the realisation hit him. This bastard was the one who had broken into his home. He had to be. There was no other way he could have had that bag. Freddie hadn’t even noticed that it was missing. He wouldn’t – it wasn’t something he had thought to check.

  Freddie ran his hand through his hair, his mind whirling. The man on the screen turned with the bag full of money and walked out, his face down, his attention focused on the awkward zip of the bag as he went.

  ‘Well, we don’t exactly get a clear view of the face here,’ the bank manager said, ‘but from what I can see—’

  ‘From what I can see, you’ve let some fucking stranger walk out of your bank with fifty grand of my hard-earned cash,’ Freddie exploded.

  ‘Wh-what?’ The bank manager swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. ‘It can’t have been. That’s you.’

  ‘No, it fucking isn’t,’ Freddie yelled, standing up and knocking over the chair he had just vacated. He grabbed the man by the scruff of his collar and pulled him forward so that his face was only inches away from his own. Freddie’s voice turned dangerously low. ‘How on earth did you let something like this happen? Eh? Are you in on it? Is that it? Someone lined your pockets, to let them have a rummage in my account?’

  ‘N-no, I would never—’ he stuttered, his voice wobbling.

  ‘Do you know who I am?’ Freddie cut in. ‘Do you know what I do to people who steal from me?’

  ‘Yes, I-I, please—’

  ‘Then you’ll know how quickly I can find out everything about you, including where you live. You’ll know how easy it would be for me to have your throat slit in the middle of the night, so quietly that your missus wouldn’t find out until she woke up next to you in the morning, in a pool of your blood.’

  The manager started to shake and an acrid smell wafted up to them. Freddie looked down and curled his lip in disgust. The man had wet himself.

  ‘For Christ’s sake.’ He shook his head and sighed. This man didn’t have the balls to try to steal from him, he was sure of it. He let go of his shirt but his face was still hard and cold. ‘What’s the procedure for taking out that amount of money over a counter?’

  ‘We check ID,’ he replied hurriedly. ‘We take a copy and sign to say we’ve seen it and it matches the records. It all gets scanned into the system and attached under your file.’

  ‘Check it.’ Freddie pointed to the computer.

  The manager hurriedly sat down and signed into the system. He clicked into their internal software and after a couple of minutes got through to Freddie’s file.

  ‘Here,’ he said, pointing to one of the files. ‘This matches the date.’ He clicked on it and a PDF flashed up on the screen. It was Freddie’s passport and was signed at the bottom to say it had been checked.

  ‘Who checked this?’ Freddie asked.

  ‘Susan.’ He swallowed and looked up at Freddie fearfully. ‘My wife. She works on the cashier desks.’

  ‘Call her in here. Now,’ Freddie demanded.

  He did as Freddie had asked and they waited in silence for Susan to join them. They didn’t have to wait long until a soft tap on the door sounded and it opened to a round, friendly face.

  ‘What’s up? Oh.’ She caught sight of Freddie and smiled. ‘Hello again. Everything OK?’ She frowned in concern. ‘There wasn’t a problem with your withdrawal, was there? I did count it twice…’ Her voice faltered and her smile turned to a look of worry.

  ‘What withdrawal?’ Freddie asked, shaking his head in confusion.

  ‘From the other day… For your house renovations,’ she replied.

  ‘You recognise me?’ Freddie asked.

  ‘Well, yes. I mean, my eyesight isn’t what it used to be, but I tend to remember people.’ She glanced at her husband and then back to Freddie.

  ‘Is everything OK?’ she asked.

  Freddie studied her. She was in her late fifties and had a clear, open face. Either she was the best actress in the world, or she really thought she had seen him before. Freddie prided himself on being able to read people and even though the situation was absurd, he believed her reactions were genuine.

  Freddie ran his hands through his hair in agitation. Whoever had taken his passport had also gone to great lengths to resemble him, so he wasn’t sure he even had any grounds to fight the bank and get his money back through their insurance.

  He pointed his finger at the bank manager. ‘If I find out either of you had anything to do with this, I will come for you.’

  Walking past a shocked Susan,
Freddie stormed out of the back office, through the bank and out to the busy street. He growled under his breath as he marched to his car.

  First this guy had broken into their home and now he’d stolen fifty grand. When Freddie found out who he was – and he would – he was going to regret even so much as thinking about it. This was one murder Freddie was looking forward to.

  Anna entered the flat and paused. A crash sounded down the hall and then a muttered curse. She gently put the carton of milk she had been out to get down on the sideboard next to the door and tilted her head to listen. Her heart began to speed up and she swallowed. A door banged hard against a wall as someone threw it open with no caution. Had someone broken in again? Had she walked in on them trashing the flat? She flinched as someone suddenly bowled into view but then sagged in relief as she realised it was only Freddie.

  ‘Christ, you scared the life out of me. What are you doing? I thought we were being burgled again.’

  ‘No, we’re not. Or at least you’re not. I have been, but apparently by myself.’ Freddie looked pissed off.

  Anna frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’ she asked.

  Freddie sighed and quickly explained everything that had happened so far. ‘So now I’m stumped. It makes no sense. I can’t work out what’s happened.’

  ‘Who on earth could it be?’ Anna asked in shock.

  ‘Well, it wasn’t me. I was with you all afternoon, and even if I hadn’t been, I’m pretty sure I would remember doing something like that. I don’t get that drunk, Anna,’ Freddie replied, stress colouring his tone.

  ‘I wasn’t suggesting it was you,’ Anna replied, holding her hands up in surrender. She pursed her lips. She had no idea what else to say. She could understand why he was so irate; it was a lot of money to lose. But she didn’t want to add any more fuel to the fire, so she stood in silence for a few moments. ‘Come on.’ Anna picked up the milk. ‘I’ll make you a cup of tea. You look like you need one.’