Traitor in the House

by Caz Finlay

  ‘Evening, Detective,’ he said with a huge grin on his face.

  Leigh felt her breath catch in her throat. The last time she had seen him had been almost twenty years earlier when he had been Nathan Conlon’s right-hand man and she had been a deluded girl, in love with a psychopath. Now John worked for Grace, Nathan’s ex-wife and the woman who had eventually killed him.

  ‘John,’ she snapped, not bothering to hide her annoyance. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Grace has been unexpectedly detained. So, she sent me to look after you,’ he said with a chuckle.

  ‘What?’ she started.

  ‘Oh, calm down, Candy.’ He laughed again. ‘Or is it Leigh now? I’m just here to help, that’s all. Boss’s orders.’ He held his hands up in mock surrender.

  ‘It’s Leigh. And if she wasn’t coming, she should have let me know. Instead of…’

  ‘Instead of what?’

  ‘Instead of sending one of her Rottweilers to babysit me.’

  If John took offence, he didn’t show it. ‘You should count yourself lucky that Grace Carter considers you important enough to warrant the protection of one of her Rottweilers. Especially her best one.’

  Leigh was about to speak but John went on. ‘So, are we going in your car or mine, Detective?’

  She looked at his giant black beast of a car and thought about how her feet were aching from a long day. She was starting to regret the six-inch stilettos and short black cocktail dress she’d chosen to wear now. ‘Yours,’ she said with a resigned sigh.

  John grinned again and she was reminded that Nathan always referred to him as The Smiling Assassin. ‘Your carriage awaits, m’lady,’ he said as he pressed a button on his key fob and the X5 beeped to life.

  John parked his car in a side street a short walk from Jezebel’s. He had made a few phone calls, on their drive from Liverpool to Manchester, to some connections he had in Manchester. By the time they’d arrived, he had managed to find out that one of the bouncers, Jordan, was the best person to speak to for possible information about any girls who had worked there three years earlier, when Melanie had. He also had the name of a stripper, Hazel, who’d had a run-in with Melanie herself. Leigh had listened to him as he chatted amiably to his associates, managing to glean the information he needed without revealing anything as to the reason why. Despite who he was, she found herself feeling impressed, and could see why Grace Carter valued his services so highly. John Brennan might look like hired muscle, but he had brains and personality to back it up too.

  When they reached the club, John held the door open for her. As she walked through, he placed his hand on the small of her back and she flinched slightly. He bent his head low, his lips pressed against her ear. ‘Relax, Leigh,’ he said softly. ‘Aren’t we supposed to be incognito? A man doesn’t bring a woman to a place like this unless they’re fucking.’

  Leigh took a deep breath. Of course he was right. She relaxed and forced her a smile onto her face as John guided her towards a table in a dark corner. She sat down.

  ‘What do you fancy to drink?’ he asked her.

  ‘Just a Coke,’ she said.

  He leaned down and spoke in her ear again and she suddenly realised that he smelled incredible. What the hell was that aftershave he was wearing? ‘I’m driving, and one of us has to drink,’ he whispered.

  She blushed. He was making her feel like an amateur. ‘I’ll have a brandy and Coke then,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘Coming right up,’ he said, grinning at her.

  She watched as he walked over to the bar. He drew the eye of the blonde waitress as she sashayed past him. Leigh continued to watch him with interest as he chatted to the barmaid, who was laughing at whatever it was he was saying. Leigh looked around the club. There was a long stage near the middle, where two women gyrated and danced to the music. There was a look in their eyes that she recognised all too well and it made her want to rush outside and vomit. But she didn’t, forcing herself to breathe deeply and focus on the task at hand. She was suddenly glad she’d ordered a proper drink and was wondering what the hell was keeping John. She could see their drinks on the bar in front of him, but he continued chatting to the young barmaid.

  A man in a suit staggered past her table and bumped into the chair beside her.

  ‘Sorry,’ he slurred, then he turned to look at her. ‘Oh, hello,’ he leered, his eyes glassy. ‘Are you here on your own?’

  ‘No, she’s fucking not,’ John barked as he walked up behind him. ‘So fuck off!’

  The drunk turned with an angry look on his face, but on seeing the mountain of a man standing behind him, he shrank back. ‘Sorry, mate,’ he mumbled.

  John placed the two glasses on the table and sat down. ‘I leave you on your own for two minutes and you’re already in trouble?’ he said with a grin.

  ‘Two minutes? More like ten. Were you making plans with her behind the bar or something?’ she asked sarcastically.

  ‘Would you care if I was?’

  ‘No,’ she replied with a frown and he started to laugh.

  ‘She told me that Hazel will be in in half an hour, but Jordan isn’t working tonight. So we might as well relax and enjoy each other’s company for a while?’ John suggested with a wink as he picked up his glass.

  Leigh rolled her eyes and took a swig of her drink. It was going to be a long night. She was going to kill Grace Carter!

  If Leigh had been worried that she and John would have nothing to talk about, then she soon realised she needn’t have been. He was easy to talk to and they discovered they liked the same music, films and food. Given the establishment they were sitting in, she’d been sure that he wouldn’t be able to stop himself making jokes at her expense about her time as a stripper, but he didn’t mention it once. In fact, he was a perfect gentleman and before she knew it, forty-five minutes had passed and they were being approached by a young petite woman wearing lacy black underwear, with short dark hair and a body that only served to remind Leigh she should really get herself back to the gym. She was stunning, and Leigh felt a pang of jealousy as she ran a perfectly manicured fingernail down John’s chest.

  ‘Sylvie told me you were asking for me,’ she purred as she indicated the barmaid. ‘Do you want a dance?’ She looked at Leigh too then and licked her lips suggestively.

  ‘Hazel? Can you talk and dance at the same time?’ John asked her.

  ‘Depends how much you’re paying me.’ She grinned.

  Leigh looked at John. She only had about twenty pounds in cash with her and thought it unlikely Hazel accepted Visa. She hadn’t been expecting to have to pay for a lap dance.

  John narrowed his eyes at Leigh as though to warn her off speaking. ‘How does £150 sound?’ he asked as he pulled the crisp notes from inside his coat.

  Hazel took them from his hand and tucked the notes into her bra.

  ‘Who wants to go first?’ Hazel asked.

  ‘Ladies first. Always,’ John said with a wicked grin.

  Leigh sat back in her chair while Hazel gyrated on her lap. She looked across at John, who could barely contain his amusement. But Leigh had been in more uncomfortable situations than this one and she grinned back at him. ‘I’ll get you back,’ she mouthed.

  During their lap dance, Hazel told them all about her spat with Melanie. It seemed that Hazel took her profession very seriously and she objected to people like Melanie who thought it was simply easy money and all she had to do was turn up and look pretty. According to Hazel, Melanie was often too out of it to perform properly and Hazel and the other girls had to pick up the slack. Melanie had no other links to Jezebel’s and she hadn’t stayed in touch with anyone. And that was pretty much the extent of Hazel’s information. She had known Sol Shepherd and he had always been generous when she’d danced for him but she offered nothing further about him.

  Hazel had finished her dance and moved on to her next customer. Leigh finished the last of her third brandy and Coke. ‘Shall we go?’
she said to John despondently. They hadn’t learned much at all.

  ‘Just give me a few minutes,’ John said before he disappeared to the bar. Leigh watched him as he stood chatting to Sylvie the barmaid for the next ten minutes. The two of them were obviously having a good time and Sylvie kept grabbing hold of John’s arm when she laughed. Leigh frowned. She was tired, grumpy and she wanted to go home. Surely there were plenty of women in Liverpool for John to hook up with?

  She put on her coat and started to walk towards the door, deciding she would wait outside for John in the fresh air. She was passing by a table near the exit when an arm shot out and grabbed her around the waist. She looked down to see the drunken man from earlier, who now looked even more inebriated than before.

  ‘Take your hands off me,’ she snapped as she tried to wriggle free.

  ‘Looks like your boyfriend has other plans tonight, love,’ he slurred as he nodded towards the bar. ‘Don’t worry though, I’ll take care of you.’

  ‘Piss off,’ Leigh spat as she pulled at his arm.

  ‘Ow, you fucking scratched me, you bitch!’ he snarled, then he pulled her roughly to him until she was sitting on his lap. They were in a dark corner of the bar and she suddenly realised it would be difficult for anyone to see anything other than a woman sitting on a man’s lap. The music was thumping loudly and she wondered if John or any of the bouncers would hear her if she screamed. ‘You’re fucking asking for this,’ he hissed in her ear as he started to push his hand up inside her dress. She was about to elbow him in the lip when the hulking figure of John Brennan loomed into view. He pulled Leigh up with one hand and, grabbing the back of the drunk man’s head with the other, he slammed it down onto the wooden table in one swift move. The drunk man lay slumped on the table and no one around seemed to have noticed a thing – or if they did, they didn’t let on.

  ‘Come on. Let’s go,’ John said, pulling her by the hand.

  Leigh followed him outside and he waited until they were a few metres away from the club before he stopped and turned to her. ‘What the hell where you doing, Leigh?’ he asked. ‘I told you to wait for me. You can’t go walking around a place like that on your own, especially dressed like that.’ He nodded at her dress and she instinctively tugged at the hem. He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. There’s nothing wrong with your dress. But men who go to those places … they don’t like to take no for an answer.’

  ‘Well, how long did you expect me to sit there and wait while you flirted with the barmaid?’ she snapped.

  He frowned at her. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard me.’

  ‘I wasn’t flirting with her. Well … I was, but I was getting you information!’ he snapped.

  ‘Oh?’ she said. ‘I thought…’

  ‘You think Sylvie is my type?’ He started to laugh.

  ‘Why not? She was gorgeous.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He shrugged. ‘And she was young enough to be my daughter.’

  He started to walk towards the car and Leigh fell into step beside him. ‘Are you okay?’ he asked her.

  ‘Yes. And thank you, John. I have a good mind to go back there and arrest the filthy pervert!’ she spat.

  ‘Your call, Detective,’ he grinned at her. ‘That prick got blood on my best shirt,’ he said as he held up his arm. She saw the spatters of bright red blood as his white shirt cuff protruded from his jacket. ‘But how about I drive you home and get you a nice glass of some decent brandy instead?’

  Leigh looked at him. There was no way she could make an arrest and John knew it. There would be far too many questions asked, which would not only jeopardise the investigation but also quite likely earn Leigh a suspension. Nevertheless, his offer was tempting. ‘Sounds good to me,’ she replied with a smile. She wondered if the butterflies in her stomach were a result of the alcohol and lack of food – or something else entirely.

  Leigh watched as John pulled up outside his house and turned off the engine.

  ‘Come in and I’ll get you that drink,’ he said.

  Leigh wondered whether to change her mind about the drink and ask him to take her to her car, which was still in the car park of The Rocket, instead. But after the evening they’d had, she needed one. She figured he did too. Unclipping her seatbelt, she smiled. ‘Just the one though. I need to be up early in the morning.’

  ‘Whatever you say, Detective,’ John said.

  Leigh was standing in John’s tastefully decorated kitchen with a glass of cognac in her hand, watching him as he removed his bloodstained shirt and stuffed it in the washing machine before putting it on a cycle.

  ‘Most people don’t realise that the best way to remove bloodstains is to start with a cold wash,’ he said.

  ‘Well, I imagine bloodstained clothes aren’t a hazard of the job for most people,’ Leigh snorted.

  John didn’t respond to her comment. He stood up and stretched his arms above his head and she had to draw her eyes away from his muscular torso. She already knew where this night was leading but she couldn’t, or didn’t want to, stop it from happening.

  ‘Like what you see, Detective?’ he said with a wink.

  ‘Can we drop the sarcasm now, John? I’m standing in your kitchen with a glass of brandy and you’re half naked.’

  He laughed. ‘Fair point, Leigh.’

  He crossed the kitchen until he was standing in front of her. Reaching behind her, he picked up his bottle of beer from the counter.

  ‘You okay?’ he asked, his tone serious for a change.

  She was caught off-guard by his concern for her. ‘Yes,’ she replied a little too quickly, feeling the flush creep up her neck.

  ‘You sure?’ he asked, a frown on his face as he moved even closer, until there was only an inch of space between them.

  ‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she whispered as she looked up at him. She stared at him for a few seconds, aware of the heat from his body and his slow, steady breathing. ‘I’m tough, you know?’ she added.

  ‘I have no doubt about that,’ he said before he bent his head low and kissed her.

  Leigh wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him back. Then his hands were on her waist. Her back. Unzipping her dress. His rough fingertips running over her flesh. Leigh concentrated on how good it felt to have his hands and his lips on her skin, rather than how wrong it was that she was standing in the kitchen of one of the biggest villains in Liverpool – and what they were about to do.

  Leigh pulled the duvet over herself as she laid her head on John’s broad chest, both of them breathing heavily from their exertions.

  ‘That wasn’t exactly how I expected this night to end,’ John said as he wrapped one of his huge arms around her.

  ‘Me neither,’ Leigh agreed.

  ‘If I had known, I wouldn’t have given Grace such a hard time about having to babysit you,’ he said as he started to laugh.

  Leigh looked up at him. ‘You were not—’ she started until she realised he was trying to wind her up. ‘Will you pack it in?’ She gave him a nudge in the ribs.

  ‘But you’re so fucking easy,’ he replied.

  ‘Please don’t tell Grace about this, will you?’ she said to him, in all seriousness.

  ‘Why? Are you ashamed of me or something?’

  ‘It’s not that. But you and me? It’s not exactly a match made in heaven, is it? I’d just rather people didn’t know.’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’m not about to go shouting from the rooftops that I’ve copped off with a copper. Even one as fit as you,’ he said as he kissed the top of her head.

  Leigh didn’t respond. Everything about the situation she was in should have felt awkward and wrong. She was a DI and he was the top henchman of the biggest crime family in the North West, never mind Liverpool. If that wasn’t enough, John had known her a long time ago when she had been a different person, when she had been at her absolute worst. She would have thought that would have made her feel vulnerable around him, but she felt the exact opposite. It was a rel
ief to be able to be herself without worrying that she would slip up and reveal some part of her past that she was unable to explain. She had never really thought about how the secrets of her past had weighed so heavily upon her. Not until she was free of that burden. She had loved Nick, but she had never been her true self around him, and he had never known the real Leigh, only the parts of herself that she had allowed him to see. Only those parts that she deemed worthy. How ironic that she felt more at ease in John Brennan’s bed than she had felt anywhere else in the past twenty years.

  Leigh had worked hard to erase any trace of her past. Nathan Conlon had ensured he’d had plenty of police officers in his pockets, but fortunately none of them had ever been stupid enough to frequent his club, The Blue Rooms, where she had worked as an exotic dancer. Leigh had changed her appearance, gone back to her real name, and had become an entirely different person to Candy Malone the stripper. She had thought that shedding her past would mean freedom, but over the past few years it had become increasingly difficult to maintain the constant façade. Sometimes, she wondered who was the real her. Occasionally, she felt more like Candy than she did Leigh, and it was on those days that she realised she was both. Her past had made her the woman she was today and it was exhausting to have to hide that part of herself around almost everyone she knew. But she didn’t have to do that with John.

  Leigh closed her eyes and listened to the steady thumping of his heartbeat against her ear as she drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Twenty

  Grace was sitting in her office in Sophia’s Kitchen when John Brennan walked through the door.

  ‘Morning, Boss,’ he said with his trademark grin.

  ‘Morning John,’ she replied as he sat opposite her. ‘Thank you for last night. I really appreciate it.’ Grace had told John about agreeing to help Leigh with the investigation and her reasons why. She’d sensed he wasn’t entirely happy with her request, but he was loyal and he trusted her. She had never given him reason not to.