Rivalry (The Cardigan Estate Book 4)

by Emmy Ellis

  Still, so still, but he breathed, ragged gasps.

  She hit him again. Waited.

  No more breathing.

  She dropped the stick, as an intruder would once they’d done the business, then walked out. In the bathroom, light on, she stared at her reflection in the toothpaste-spotted mirror above the sink, those milky-white splashes from where Aaron didn’t have a care that she’d have to clean it afterwards. The many spatters of blood on her were freckles, a fine mist of them, and some bigger ones clung to her hair, cherry-red globules on raven’s-wing darkness, the Devil’s tears.

  Shower on, she got beneath the spray, rubber gloves still on, letting the hot water take the diluted blood down the plughole. Julie washed herself and her hair, then, while still in the shower, used a scouring sponge with bleach to clean the bath, the tiles, the taps, the glass shower screen. She got out and did the same with the walls, the floor, the toilet, sink, mirror, every-fucking-where.

  And again.

  It took three hours.

  She placed the clean gloves in the cupboard under the sink. Window open to let out the bleach fumes and take the moisture from the walls, she rinsed then dried everything with a towel, placing that on the hot radiator—it’d be dry by the time the police came, and she could fold it prior to letting them in, place it in the airing cupboard. Even if they searched in there, she imagined it would only be cursory, their main focus the living room.

  Next, she took her front door key off Aaron’s bunch and fed it onto her own. Cleaned Aaron’s—“Why are your fingerprints on these, Julie?” one officer might ask after they’d perhaps been taken in as evidence, and she couldn’t have that.

  She dried her hair—so much drying going on, and would the neighbours either side hear the hum?—and got into her pyjamas. Climbed into bed. Remained there so her body heat seeped into it. She’d seen a policeman on TV touching a bed to check if it was warm. Her inner hellion went through everything, and she ticked things off her mental list—yes, she’d done it all.

  Her only issue was the smell of bleach and whether a forensic team would swab the bathroom and know what she’d done—“Why on earth would you bleach walls, Julie?” said with a raised eyebrow and a distinct glimmer of accusation in the copper’s eye.

  Her stomach lurched.

  Six a.m. rolled around, and still she remained in bed. She checked that her earplugs were on her bedside cabinet. They were, so she popped them in, her excuse why she hadn’t heard the intruder so callously killing her lovely boyfriend, and the only reason she had them in now was in case there was some mad test they could do to check if it was today’s earwax on them.

  The things you thought about while planning a murder.

  Time passed with fragmented thoughts, the shards sharp, pricking her conscience. She smothered them with images of what she’d had to do since Lime had become her pimp. No room for feeling bad here.

  Eight a.m.

  She got up, the corner of the quilt folded back towards Aaron’s slept-in side, and took the buds out. Placed them on the sheet, as if she’d just tossed them there, and thought, Oh, Aaron’s already awake, as she would have if he wasn’t dead.

  Julie went to the bathroom—it was what you did first thing—and sprayed air freshener—it was what you didn’t do first thing—and waited for a minute or so for the strength of it to pass. The bleach scent wasn’t so strong now.

  She pulled the window to—she’d say she’d used the toilet, hence the spray, if they even asked. She had a shower, frothing up the bodywash so clouds of it landed on the edges of the bath. Left them there. Stepped out and used a clean towel, brushed her teeth. The rad towel she tucked beneath the pile in the airing cupboard, just as she’d told herself she would, the wet one taking its place on the radiator.

  A morning ritual, nothing unusual.

  Bedroom. Dressed. Hair dried and styled. Aaron must be in the living room with a book, that was how the story would go—“Does he like reading then, Julie?” the officer might ask.

  “Yes, he got well into it after meeting me,” said in case his family disputed it. “That must be why I thought he was a bit quiet and I didn’t take any notice of him not speaking to me when I got up…”

  Socks on. Trainers on—“So you said you were going to nip to the shop along the parade here and get some bacon for breakfast, yes?”

  “Yes.”

  Handbag from the bedroom, her keys safe inside—“How do you think they got in, Julie? There’s no sign of forced entry.”

  “He lost his keys.”

  “So this could be someone he knew, someone who knows where he lived.”

  “Yes.”

  Out into the hallway, wondering, in her fake version of events, if she needed to buy some more brown sauce, because Aaron liked that. She popped her head into the living room to let him know she wouldn’t be long and, oh my fucking God, what’s happened?

  It would all work out. She had to believe that.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  The Brothers’ CCTV friend had come up trumps, the bloody brilliant bastard. All sightings of the redheaded woman had been removed from the original footage, so anyone else snooping regarding her would be shit out of luck, and stills were printed out so George and Greg had visuals to refer to—and to show Rosie to see if she recognised her once she had the chance to study the bitch properly. George imagined a scared woman wouldn’t take in much detail of the one following them, too frightened, the mind too full of how to get away, but the photos might trigger recognition.

  They were in their home office, the morning almost gone, the afternoon a cheese sandwich and a flapjack away, both on the desk along with steaming coffee, thanks to Greg’s stint in the kitchen. George was shit at anything culinary.

  From what they’d seen of the CCTV, it was clear the woman had followed Rosie—and it wasn’t a bad assumption to say she was the one who’d put the photos in the flats, or that she’d got someone else to do it. Or, if they went down a different route, Redhead had tailed her for another person. Who, though?

  When they’d gone back into Rosie’s flat and told her about the image of her in Costa on Shaun’s armchair, she’d shit a brick. Cried, shaking, asking why this was happening to her. George hadn’t said when you murdered someone, people were likely to take offence. It hadn’t been the time for sarcasm. He’d asked her who in her old life, to do with Aaron, would suspect what she’d done to Shaun.

  “No one. I kept it to myself for obvious reasons.”

  “Who would be the most upset by Aaron’s death?”

  “His parents and his sister,” she’d said, “but they were all okay with me afterwards, and at the funeral, and no, they wouldn’t think I’d bumped him off.”

  “Could it have been something Lime wanted sorting?” Greg had enquired. “After all, you murdered his recruiter, so he’d have been miffed at that.”

  Rose had appeared thoughtful, one finger to her bottom lip. “Well, if it was, then one of his men has come for me, because Lime’s bloody dead.”

  It wasn’t unheard of for estate leaders to have a list of things that should be completed if they died. Maybe Lime had got dogged off that Rosie had legged it—he hadn’t liked it when Sarah had done the same, and he’d come after her, so it wasn’t a stretch to think that. Rosie may have been next on his list.

  Hmm. George picked up one half of his sandwich. “Going back to that chat at Rosie’s, about Lime. If it is his men, we’ll just off the fuckers, all of his old employees, regardless of whether they work for the new leader now.” He bit into the bread.

  “I don’t get what the photo of Rosie had to do with anything, though,” Greg said.

  “Whoever it was is showing they’ve made a connection. Rosie in Shaun’s flat, Shaun in hers, albeit in pictures, but it says what needs to be said, as did that note.” He thought about Lime, someone he’d rather not, but it seemed that fucker had popped up from beyond the grave. Or the Thames where they’d dumped him. “I wo
uldn’t put it past him to have put that note in her other flat above the laundrette, maybe even writing another one ready for next time, but he got so wrapped up in the Sarah thing he put Rosie to one side.”

  “Or he was waiting, letting Rosie think she was safe.”

  “Whatever, the truth will come to light, and we’ll deal with it. We can put Martin on the job of finding out info for us, if he wants to, that is. He can stand in The Flag and listen to convos.”

  Martin had been homeless, kidnapped, and taken to another estate leader’s place—Kevin Robins’ gaff—whipped for Kevin’s warped reasons, then set free. George and Greg had taken him under their wing, and Martin worked for them as their home cleaner, plus he could do other jobs if he fancied them. The bloke may well enjoy finding out some information for a couple of grand in his pocket.

  “Not a bad idea,” Greg said, “seeing as he’s the only one we’ll be using for this sort of thing.”

  Yeah, Martin had been in on killing Kevin, so they had something on him. It helped pay for his silence. They’d decided to keep certain jobs away from their other employees, ones where people like Rosie were involved. The less folks knew about stuff like this, the better it was for all concerned. While they trusted their blokes to a degree, loose lips and all that prevented full disclosure. Some would go to the other side if the money was good enough.

  The work mobile rang, and Clarke’s icon filled the screen.

  “Oh, fuck me,” George said. “What now? You deal with him. I just want to eat my sodding sandwich.”

  Greg swiped to answer, put it on speakerphone, and propped the mobile against the salt and pepper pots. “What’s up?”

  “I need your help.” Clarke didn’t look well. Sweaty. Panicked.

  “What for?” Greg bit his sarnie.

  “Um, we hit a bit of a problem to do with Shaun. Now then, the shit I’m about to tell you, it wasn’t my fault, okay?”

  Which usually means it was. “Go on,” George said around a mouthful of bread.

  Clarke tugged at his shirt collar, swiping a finger along the curve. Couldn’t he breathe properly or something? And come to think of it, his hair was wet, like he’d washed it—or was he sweating that much it had got drenched?

  “Hang on, where are you?” George asked.

  “In my car, where else? It’s the safest place to talk, seeing as I’m not allowed round yours uninvited. We could do with having this chat in your kitchen, but someone won’t allow it.”

  George ignored the snipe. Sometimes, people tried to wind him up with them, but he couldn’t be arsed to react at the minute. To respond in kind was to feed into whatever game Clarke was playing. “Why’s your hair wet?”

  “I’ve had a shower, and I’ll get to that in a minute.”

  “Right…” Greg shoved the rest of his sandwich in his mouth then opened his flapjack wrapper.

  Clarke took in a deep breath and let it out. “So… That bloody Janice Farthingale rang me, Shaun’s sister—in the middle of the ruddy night, I might add. Anyway, she wanted me to go there this morning, so I did, because, you know, she said she had something to tell me. Turns out, she didn’t, she just asked me to do a TV appeal about him being missing. Like we can be doing with that. The long and short of it is, she pushed for it too hard and I killed her.”

  Stunned for a moment, George stared at him, then he roared with laughter. Fucking priceless. They really did have this fucker in their pocket now. No more passive-aggressive threats from Clarke about them doing things his way—not that they ever did. No more ‘I’m a copper and can get you banged up just like that’.

  Greg didn’t see the funny side. “What did you say? You killed a woman?”

  Ah. That part hadn’t registered with George until now. He held his temper in check, refusing to let his emotions show on his face.

  Clarke drew a hand down his cheek, his fingers knobbly on the knuckles. “Look, the death I’m talking about at the moment was clean, okay? I strangled her. I couldn’t have her asking some other copper for an appeal as well, could I. I mean, I’m trying to contain this mess for you two, and it got out of hand.”

  “You contain these messes so we don’t tell your senior officers what a fucking dodgy cockwomble you are.” Greg broke off a bit of flapjack and poked the rest towards the screen. “So don’t try to pin this on us. You’re in charge of your own mind, your own hands—I assume you used your hands to throttle her?”

  “Yes.” Clarke sighed, a shaky exhalation. “Um, there’s more.”

  “You’d better be fucking joking,” Greg said. He dropped the flapjack. A crumb broke off and rolled away.

  Ah, if Greg was getting arsey, things must be bad. George was still in a relatively stable mood despite the woman thing—he had a therapist’s appointment tomorrow, she’d sort him out, get his mind straight—but with Clarke now a killer, he’d do whatever they wanted, and that was what he’d focus on.

  “So,” Clarke said, “I left her in the kitchen, found her keys, and fucked off to her mum’s.”

  “Christ…” Greg gripped the sides of his hair, growling a tad, his cheeks turning red. “Tell me you didn’t…”

  George chuckled, couldn’t seem to stop himself. There was nothing funny about this situation, but his mind had been on the turn for a few days now, and he struggled to contain the scribble of mess in his head. “Go on.”

  “I went inside via the back, and she was in her kitchen. Now, this woman may well not have given a toss that her son’s missing, but her daughter? She’d kick up a stink. I couldn’t leave her to do that, so I went there planning to strangle her an’ all.”

  “And did you?” George folded his lips over his teeth, imagining Clarke shitting himself as things got more and more out of control. The bloke was such a lightweight.

  “No. She…I thought she was a fat bird before, but she had different clothes on today and—”

  “Saying ‘fat’ isn’t nice,” Greg said.

  “Sorry. Anyway, she must work out or whatever, so she’s more the chunky variety. She’d have overpowered me, easy. So I went in—she asked me to—and told her we were doing an appeal. I said she ought to get a dress on. While she was up there, I found a hammer.”

  “I don’t even want to know.” Greg got up and paced, staring at George: He’s fucking lost it, and so have you. A woman, George. That’s not on.

  “Listen, it’s all going to be okay,” Clarke said. “All right, I made a bit of a pig’s ear of things, smacked her, but it’s the other thing bothering me.”

  Greg stopped pacing. “What other thing?”

  “I was leaving her gaff, and some bloke was round the corner—well, a kid really, around eighteen. He asked about the blood on me…”

  “Did you hammer him, too?” George asked, the severity of the situation finally penetrating. Two females and a kid. Fuck that noise.

  “Yeah, I got him into Noreen’s house—”

  George’s temper nibbled at him. “Who the chuff is Noreen?”

  Clarke rolled his eyes. “Bloody hell, George, the mother. I got him in there and whacked him. You don’t like loose ends, so I fucking well tied them up.”

  “You’ll be paying us to turn a blind eye at this rate,” George snapped. “Give us the addresses. They’ll be gone tonight, as per, but if you ever touch a woman and a kid again, you’ll meet my fucking saw.”

  Greg stared from the phone to George: At last, you get why I’m so narked.

  “Keep your hair on, mate,” George said to his brother. “I didn’t fully twig at first.”

  “I did wonder…”

  “What are you two on about?” Clarke asked, frowning.

  “Mind your own,” George grated out. The sight of Clarke was seriously getting on his wick now.

  Clarke told them where the women lived, and Greg wrote it down.

  “I’ve got keys.” Clarke leant his head back. “And a sodding headache.”

  “So have we,” Greg barked, “and he�
�s called Rod Clarke.”

  George opened his flapjack. “Go on then, bugger off.”

  “Cheers for this, lads.” Clarke appeared relieved.

  Greg prodded the screen to get rid of him. “A copper, killing three people in one morning. What’s the world coming to?”

  George shook his head. “He needs a lesson.”

  “Too fucking right he does.” Greg marched out.

  I’ll enjoy torturing that prick. George bit the end off his flapjack. “That’s bloody lovely, that is.” And he didn’t mean the cake.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Hattie Quinten walked down the street—or was pushed, quite frankly—the wind playing up something chronic. She had a coffeetime slot booked into her busy day with Noreen, one of many she visited to not only pass the time but to find out all the gossip. People around here were such a good source of it, and when she finally went home—she tended to have hourly chats and move on to the next person, every day except the weekends—she spent her evenings mulling everything over and getting her mental abacus out to tot up all the two and twos and usually come up with vastly different answers.

  No one was about, more’s the pity. She did enjoy a brief interlude with whoever popped out to put rubbish in the bins, a snippet or two gleaned, filed away to be discussed with whoever the next willing participant was. The weather had kept everyone indoors, though, and that was a shame, but you couldn’t expect everything to go your way.

  She ambled up Noreen’s path, excited because the woman had one of those pod coffee makers, and Hattie had become partial to a latte or two. Noreen liked the finer things in life, and apparently, her son gave her the money to buy them. And wasn’t that a damn shame, that very son being missing? Noreen must be going out of her mind with worry.