The End

by Dave Lacey

“It’ll be fine for us to come to you. Where and when?”

  Meads gave the detectives his office address, and they agreed to meet at seven thirty the following evening.

  “Thank you, Mr Meads, and I’m sorry to have been the bearer of bad news.”

  “Thank you, Detective, and thank you for...”

  “Please, its fine. We’ll see you tomorrow evening.”

  Chapter 28

  Clarence now needed to find out where Anthony Meads would be later that evening. The Mechanic had provided him with the information regarding Meads and Susan Warwick affair. He had called Meads’ office to speak to him, and been advised he was out of the region currently. He used his initiative, and spoke to Meads’ secretary.

  “Well, that’s okay, I’ll just run with the story anyway, and we’ll see if your boss wants to speak then,” he said.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”

  “I’m from the Evening News, love, and we’re running a story on your boss, which he can either comment on or not. Either way, we’ll be running it.”

  She gave him the mobile number, which he called immediately.

  “Hello, this is Anthony Meads.” Meads sounded shaken.

  “Hello, this is Phil Clarke from the Evening News. Would you like to give us your side of the story, Mr Meads?”

  “I’m sorry, I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.” He sounded genuine enough.

  “I’m sure you do. Susan Warwick found dead at her home by her husband, possibly murdered. Was she murdered because of the affair she was having? You can see where this is going, Mr Meads?” Clarence’s voice was laced with assumptive arrogance.

  “You utterly foul excuse for a human being.” Meads sounded like a broken man now; he didn’t even seem surprised. Clarence had to put his hand over his mouth, to stop himself from laughing.

  “Why would you do this? What does this have to do with anything? How did you even find out?”

  “That’s not really important right now is it Mr Meads? Would you like to talk to us? Maybe there would be no need to mention you in the story.” He was silent. Clarence was confident he’d get the outcome he desired.

  “This is preposterous. You people are vermin.”

  “Now now, Mr Meads, there’s no need for name calling. I can’t imagine that’ll help your plight,” he oozed.

  “What do you want from me?” His agony was tangible, Clarence thought. Such a waste of emotion, when it would be the least of his concerns tomorrow. He almost laughed aloud.

  “How about thirty minutes of your time? When are you back in Manchester?” Clarence asked.

  “Tomorrow evening. I’m seeing the police at seven thirty.” Clarence felt the prickle of alarm. He hadn’t banked on that; he would have to make time before the police and allow for the fact that Warwick had to get there and get out before the police arrived. Shit.

  “Okay, and what time will you physically be back Mr Meads?” This could really mess things up.

  “I’m not sure. I would think it will be around six thirty.” He sounded exhausted.

  “I can come to see you then, otherwise I’m pushing my deadline. And if I miss my deadline... well,” he chortled, “we both know what that’ll mean?” “Fine, I’ll see you at my place of work at six thirty Mister Clarke.”

  Clarence wrote down the address and hung up. It was all going to be very tight, but then it would be boring if everything was easy.

  ***

  The following day, Clarence went through his plans thoroughly, to be sure he had allowed for every possible contingency. He would call Edward Warwick, then, when he saw the approaching car, he would wander in and shoot Meads, then get out before Warwick saw him. It wasn’t the most sophisticated plan, but time was running out. If Meads was meeting with the police, then it was only a matter of time before things came out in conversation, secrets let slip. No, it had to be quick, and this was the only route he had come up with. It had also occurred to him that he didn’t necessarily need Warwick to visit Meads, but all it would take would be for a nosey neighbour to say he never left his house and the jig would indeed be up. Then the police would be all over the investigation, and who knows what they would turn up from there. If only he had more time. But he didn’t, so it was what it was.

  This morning, he had hidden in the same tree behind the house as when he had offed Mrs Warwick, the whore. Then, when Edward had left for work in the dark, he had crept stealthily along the garden wall and let himself in the back door. Once inside, he had slipped the spare ammunition from the gun he would use to kill Meads, the wig and glasses he had worn to the Lowry Hotel, and a pair of black leather gloves he had worn when he had killed the whore, into Warwick’s wardrobe on the top shelf. Even if the police found DNA in the gloves, they would never be able to trace it: all trace of Clarence had been removed from any databases where he might once have resided. He would pop the gloves on Edward Warwick’s hands for a few minutes before he left him for the last time. Not perfect, but it would do he imagined. He would then make his way south, and so would be far away from Manchester before the police ever found Warwick’s body.

  ***

  Smithy collected Jack from the City Council buildings at six forty five that evening, on the way to meet Anthony Meads at his office in Hale Village at seven thirty. During the day, they decided they would warn Mr Meads of their concerns regarding Edward Warwick and his potential threat. At present, they did not have any evidence, other than circumstantial, which implicated Warwick in any of the murders. As such, they were not able or willing to make an arrest, but they would definitely be keeping a very close eye on him. They had just headed in the direction of Hale, when Smithy opened up the conversation again.

  “So, you think it’s him?”

  “Hmm, I really don’t know. I mean, it doesn’t look good for him, but then just because he’s a dick, it doesn’t mean he’d go on a killing spree does it?”

  “I’m with you, really, it just doesn’t seem right. But he is a dick, and he’s the only suspect we have. The only real suspect anyway.” Smithy looked thoughtful.

  “It’s the Ngwenye one that doesn’t seem to fit. I mean, angry dad and everything, but can you see him overpowering a man around half his age and much bigger and stronger?” Jack asked.

  “Well, he would have had the element of surprise. Let’s face it, to be wandering alongside the canal and see your prospective father in law would really put you on the back foot.”

  “Yeah, but enough to allow your prospective father in law to break your neck? Plus, he doesn’t smoke.”

  “That’s true, but remember, he had a driver that night. What if his driver had been the one with the cigarette?”

  “No, that doesn’t make any sense either.” They continued to postulate for the next twenty or so minutes on the way to the meeting. At seven twenty they were driving down Ashley Road when they saw a car they recognised.

  “Hello, that’s Edward Warwick’s car isn’t it?” Smithy asked.

  “Now, where does he think he’s going?” Jack’s brows knitted in consternation. Then, horror stole across his face.

  “Go! Go! Drive Smithy!”

  “Shit, we’re only round the corner, hang on!” Smithy floored the accelerator, handling the car smoothly as they flew over the rail crossing. The car’s engine roared in protest as he pushed it mercilessly along the busy road. Both cars and people moved aside as they tore toward their destination. A sharp left turn took them onto a poorly laid road for a hundred and fifty yards, until they came to an abrupt halt in a storm of dirt and gravel. They both leapt from the car, leaving the engine running and the doors ajar. They sprinted across the remaining distance to the door to the building, crashed through the door and ran up the stairs. Smithy burst into the office at the end of the corridor, to be greeted by a macabre sight. Jack was right behind him, and so saw the same scene without warning.

  “Oh shit! Oh shit!” Smithy shouted. Anthony Meads was leaning straight
back in his leather office chair. There was no need to check for vitals, as the contents of half of his head were strewn behind him on the office wall. He had taken one bullet just right of centre in his forehead, one in the chest, and a third in his hand.

  Smithy pointed at the wall. “Looks like our friend emptied the barrel here. Three in the body and three in the wall. He really meant it didn’t he?” Jack was breathing deeply.

  “He really did, yeah. I would think the shot to the head was a lucky one.” Jack tried to take in the scene before they left. They would have to get a team out here and then quickly get round to the Warwick residence. In fact, they may also need to call in an Armed Response Unit, this could be an all nighter. He called it in, advised the crew of the situation, and told them where they were going and asked for an ARU as back up. Then he tapped Smithy on the shoulder.

  “Come on, we have a date with the charming Mr Warwick.”

  ***

  Edward Warwick was in a state of shock as he pulled into his driveway. He turned the engine off and sat for a moment, stunned at the sequence of events that had led him to this point in time. He had panicked when he had walked into the bastard’s office. With fire in his heart and hate in his belly, he had burst into the room filled with a righteous, towering rage. It had vanished in an instant. He could not take in the scene before him; it simply didn’t match anything in his experience. If he had to guess, he would have said he stood there for three or four minutes, and he would have stood there longer had it not been for the insistent chirping and buzzing of the mobile phone in his pocket.

  “Hello?” he had answered meekly.

  “Oh, Mr Warwick, you’re in quite a pickle now aren’t you?” The voice. The same voice that had told him about the bastard. Except now, instead of pity and support, it was mocking and sing-song in nature.

  “Who is this? How do you know? What’s happening?” He looked at the phone: it was his son’s number.

  “Well, it’s definitely not your dead faggot son if that’s what you’re thinking, Eddie. Now, the police will be along in a few minutes. I suggest you get out of there while the going is good.” The voice became businesslike.

  “I don’t understand.” Edward felt lost now, utterly lost. “My son?”

  “Eddie, you don’t have time. Leave! Now!”

  The caller hung up. Edward stood there a moment longer, then shuffled along the corridor and down the stairs. He was running on autopilot: get into the car, start it up, push it into gear. He drove along Ashley Road, back toward home. In his stupor, he failed to notice the two police officers he had met just a few days earlier, not knowing that they had seen him. In ten minutes, he was home. And that was where he sat now, still trying to work out what had happened. Eventually, he got out of the car and let himself into the house.

  “Good evening, Mr Warwick, at last we meet.” Clarence gave a brief bow. He knew it was ridiculously formal, but he couldn’t help it. The day had worked out perfectly so far. If Warwick had been shocked before, now he just looked like a little boy. His eyes wide and uncomprehending, his hands rubbed at his hips as though checking for a lost item. His mind clearly couldn’t take much more. Fortunately for him, the only thing left for it to take today was a bullet. Clarence chuckled at his own comical magnificence.

  “Who… who are you? Why are you dressed like that? Why are you here?” Warwick asked his visitor.

  “I don’t have time to answer all of your questions, but I’m dressed like this so that I don’t leave any trace of having been here. And I am here to finish a little job.” He smiled. Clarence was dressed in paper overalls, with only his face and hands exposed. He wore gloves on his hands. On another less terrifying occasion, his appearance would have been amusing.

  “Sit down please, this shouldn’t take too long.” He pulled the gun out from behind his back and gestured toward the chair with it.

  “You? You’re the one?” Warwick pointed at him.

  “You’re not keeping up very well are you, Eddie? Sit down, and don’t make me lose my temper.” Warwick sat heavily in the armchair indicated by his captor.

  “There was so much blood, so much… . Why would you do that?” Warwick asked in a daze.

  “Why don’t you let me worry about that? Now, are you comfortable there?” Clarence asked.

  “Oh, yes, why?” Again, Edward Warwick answered as if heavily sedated.

  “Good, good.” Clarence put his hand on Warwick’s forehead and forced it back, placed the barrel of the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger. Warwick’s eyes went from shock to lights out over the course of around a second. Clarence closed his own eyes and savoured the moment. These special little bonuses didn’t come along too often; you really had to stop and smell the cordite. In a hurry now, he took the gloves out of his back pocket and awkwardly placed them on the hands of the dead man. He gave them a bit of a rub to make sure he got some dead skin in there, then took them off again.

  He took the stairs two at a time and made his way into the bedroom, where he hid the gloves as he had planned. Giddy with excitement, Clarence hastened back down the stairs to cap things off. Once there, he placed the gun in Warwick’s hand, smiled, and made his way out through the back door. Having opened the small window to one side, he locked the door then carefully dropped the key through the window onto the window ledge. It wasn’t perfect, because the window was still open, but it would have to do. Checking that nobody was obviously looking out of their rear windows, Clarence crept back down the garden, climbed over the wall, and walked briskly to where he had left the four by four, a happy man.

  Chapter 29

  Manhattan, New York.

  Nick Moretti sat at his desk on the fourth floor of the precinct building, pondering his next move. For two days he had been tracking down the members of Ambrosii Ryabukha’s gang, in an attempt to ascertain his whereabouts. So far, he had turned up nothing. Frustration was his primary emotion, but there was also an undercurrent of fear. The fear that Ryabukha was dead, or, worse, in the hands of his enemies. They weren’t friends exactly, but he could not deny his liking of the big man, and how badly he would take it if he turned up dead. Everything else that had happened kind of made sense.

  Starting with the murder of his former friend Zefram Mayer. Initially, of course, it had made no sense at all, but when combined with the death of Stanislaw Kasprowicz and his family and the disappearance of Ryabukha, it started to add up. A turf war involving eastern European gangsters was going to be two things at the very least: bloody and relentless. It had to be stopped before the death toll grew beyond measure. The niggling question Nick could not chase from his mind was who it could be? None of the other gangs was even close to that of the Ryabukha clan. It was a possibility that a new breed of villain had entered their fair city, and that they had come in with a desire to make an impression, namely wiping out the current kingpin and his gang.

  Leshaun had advised him to let it go and concentrate on their area of the case, the homicides themselves. Getting caught up in the whys and wherefores would only bring the rain, he had advised Nick. But Moretti couldn’t help himself, and so he had set to untangling the circumstances that had brought them to this point. Zefram, he thought, had been murdered because of his relationship with Ryabukha, the fact that they were practically father and son. Kasprowicz was dead because he was Ryabukha’s right hand man, and his family had just been collateral damage. He hoped that Ambrosii had made a run for it and gone underground. But it was too much to ask that he would survive the eradication. He was considering calling in a few favours from other precincts when the phone on his desk rang, startling him out of his scheming.

  “Nick Moretti,” he said.

  “Ah, Detective Moretti, I find you at last. You don’t know me, but I’ve been asked to call you by a mutual friend.” The man at the other end of the line sounded old, but robust. He spoke in measured, clipped tones.

  “Oh yeah, and who would that be sir?” Nick was intrigued imme
diately.

  “Are you familiar with the moniker, the Bear?” he asked. Nick felt a surge of adrenalin and his pulse started thudding in his ears, he sat upright in his chair.

  “I am, yeah.”

  “Well, I have been asked to call you on his behalf and pass on a message. He asked me to tell you that he is okay, and that you should not worry. He’s no longer on these shores, but has moved on to pastures new,” the voice intoned gently.

  “But he’s okay? Nothing’s happened to him?” Nick asked urgently.

  “He’s in rude health, but found it necessary to move on. He also asked that you perform a favour for him. He asked that you break the news to the loved ones of the Kasprowicz family, and advise them of his condolences. He never had the time to do this himself, as he had to leave in a hurry.” Once more, the voice had a comforting quality about it.

  “I don’t even know how I would begin to do that. I didn’t know the family at all well, and I don’t know anybody who did. And I don’t understand why it’s so important.” Nick doodled a row of question marks on his pad and frowned deeply.

  “Our friend thought this might be your response, but he also advised me to inform you that you are a bright and resourceful young man, and that he is confident that you’ll be able to help him in this, his last request of you.” The emphasis was placed on this last line, and the attempt to appeal to Nick’s sense of duty and Catholic guilt, were not wasted on him.

  “I see. Well, I’ll try. That’s all I’m willing to do. Is there anything else you have for me?” Nick asked, not really knowing what else there might be.

  “Not for now certainly, Mr Moretti.”

  “What about his daughters, are they still here?” Nick asked as an afterthought.

  “Yes, my client’s daughters have not travelled with him on this occasion. I am afraid that that concludes our call, Detective. Thank you so much for your time.” The man sounded apologetic, then hung up.

  Well that was weird, Nick thought. To be thinking of him, and then get a phone call about him. But that was as nothing compared to the rest of the call. Something about it was setting off alarm bells, but at present he could not pinpoint why. Initially he had thought it was the request for him to track down and visit, or at least talk to, anybody linked with the Kasprowicz family. But that wasn’t it, weird as it was, that wasn’t the thing. Still, he knew the easiest way to recall it was by allowing his mind to move onto other things; it would come. He was working his own time right now, so he figured that starting his search for those ‘loved ones’ would be a good way to begin.