Informant

by Susan Wilkins

  ‘Oh for fuck’s sake Joey! You talking to me, getting a blow-job or what?’

  His voice came on the line, laughing and breathless. ‘Yeah I’ll call you back.’

  The phone went dead. Kaz chucked it on the sofa, she wasn’t sure why she was so annoyed. She went into the bedroom, changed into jeans, a clean shirt and was searching in the walk-in wardrobe for shoes and a jacket when her phone rang.

  She returned to the sitting room, she was still hobbling and not about to compromise her ankle by hurrying. She picked the phone up and heard a boyish giggle.

  ‘You pissed off with me babe? Sorry. But something . . . came up. Had to attend to it.’ He erupted into laughter, she could hear a female voice in the background going ‘Shuddup Joe.’

  She took a deep breath. ‘Did you hear what I said before?’

  ‘Dave’s dead, yeah I know.’

  ‘You knew already?’

  ‘No. You told me just now. Before.’ He giggled again.

  Kaz sighed. ‘I’m going down to Basildon to see Glynis.’

  ‘Okay. Ash can drive you, he ain’t got nothing to do.’

  ‘Don’t you want to come?’

  ‘Nah I’m . . . y’know I’m not that good with hospitals and stuff. I’ll send Ash straight over.’ There was a pause. ‘Oh and give Glynis my best. Take her a nice bunch of flowers or something.’

  Kaz ended the call. At times she found Joey’s childishness incredibly wearing. How much effort would it require for him to come with her and support her? But Joey was only helpful when it suited him to be.

  Ashley picked her up half an hour later. He seemed a little glum. They drove most of the way in silence with Kiss FM providing a muted soundtrack. Kaz gazed out of the window. She was determined to wean herself off the painkillers and had cut right down. She’d also thrown her remaining fags away. As a result her body was aching and sore and she was in need of a smoke. She felt grizzly and annoyed. But if her mood was sombre it took a nosedive when she walked into Basildon A & E and saw Nicci Armstrong.

  Armstrong was hovering near the reception desk and homed in on Kaz as soon as she walked through the door.

  Hearing Kaz’s hiss of exasperation, Ashley glanced at her. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Bloody cops! It’s this stupid bint that’s after Joey.’

  Ashley gave Armstrong a sullen look as she approached them. But her attention was focused on Kaz. She looked her up and down.

  ‘I heard he gave you a pasting too. You all right?’

  Kaz closed her eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Look we’ve come to see Glynis.’

  Nicci nodded. ‘We found her locked in a back bedroom all busted up. Meanwhile Sean was in bed with some hooker his mates had got for him.’

  Kaz inhaled, but then habit kicked in, her face remained impassive. She wasn’t about to display any kind of emotion in front of a cop. ‘That’s sounds like my cousin.’

  Nicci turned to the charge nurse. ‘All right if I take these two through?’

  He replied with a nod.

  Nicci had taken control of the situation and there was little Kaz could do at that moment. So she and Ashley followed her through two sets of double doors into the treatment area. The individual bays were curtained off, Nicci led them across the room to the adjacent observation ward.

  There were five beds, Glynis was in the end one by a window. She turned her head slowly at their approach, the sight of her battered and bandaged face sent a jolt right through Kaz. She was in a far worse state than when Kaz had last seen her outside the DLR station. After Sean had turfed Kaz out of his car boot and dumped her in the car park he must’ve gone home and vented his anger on Glynis.

  Kaz perched on the bedside chair and took Glynis’s hand in hers. ‘All right mate?’

  ‘I been better,’ Glynis replied with a ghost of a smile.

  ‘What the doctors said to you?’

  ‘Not much.’

  Kaz was very aware of Nicci Armstrong hovering over them. She wasn’t about to go away. Kaz considered just telling her to fuck off and as if Nicci had read her thoughts, she sighed, positioned herself at the end of the bed.

  ‘Look I know you don’t want me here, but I’m not the enemy. I’m here to help the both of you.’

  Glynis looked up. Her voice was a whisper. ‘Sean goes down for killing Dave, that’ll be good enough for me.’

  Nicci nodded. ‘Did he threaten to kill Dave?’

  Glynis looked very small and fragile in the hospital bed. ‘I dunno, maybe. I don’t remember.’

  Kaz turned to Nicci and fixed her with a cold stare. ‘She don’t need you hassling her right now, okay?’

  Nicci acknowledged this with a tilt of her head. ‘I appreciate that. But here’s the bottom line. Sean has a rock-solid alibi and we have no reliable witnesses. He’s going to walk. But if one of you is prepared to make a statement so we can charge him with ABH, then his licence’ll be revoked, he’ll be straight back inside.’

  Kaz glared at the cop. ‘What about forensics? Thought that’s what you lot relied on nowadays?’

  ‘Yeah well a detailed forensic analysis of the scene is ongoing. But . . . looks like whoever did this was a professional. I’m guessing Sean hired someone.’

  Ashley was standing next to Kaz, he was stock-still, just watching Nicci like a hawk. He turned to Kaz and mumbled. ‘Won’t be a minute. Need to make a call.’

  Kaz nodded. But she remained focused on Nicci. He walked off.

  Nicci Armstrong followed him with her eyes. She had a sudden sense of something revealed in Ashley’s abrupt departure, she couldn’t put a finger on it, it was pure instinct. But Kaz was on her feet and facing the cop.

  ‘You can’t nail Sean, so you want to put us in the frame, that it? We go to court, get pulled apart by a bunch of smart lawyers, Sean goes back for a short stretch, comes out – then what?’

  Nicci sighed. ‘I know it’s not ideal. But once he’s locked up again—’

  ‘He killed a police officer. You couldn’t get him for that. If you’d listened to me before, maybe some of this could’ve been avoided. But you weren’t interested, were you? You and your fucking politics.’

  ‘I know. And you’re right. But we’re interested now.’

  Well, I’m not.’ Kaz folded her arms, her whole body fizzed with hostility. ‘’Cause I wouldn’t trust you lot as far as I could spit.’

  53

  Mal Bradley had never really thought of himself as a drinker. At uni he’d played a lot of sport and participated in the binge-drinking sessions that went with that. But by the time he joined the police the booze culture of old had receded, certainly in the Met and amongst those with any ambition. Bradley used to keep a few beers in his fridge along with the ready meals; he drank wine when he went out with women and pints of lager with his mates. So it had taken him a while to even become conscious of the change. The bottle of Stolichnaya his brother had given him for Christmas, together with a set of shot glasses, had soon been demolished and then replaced a number of times until keeping a bottle of Stoli in the fridge had become his new habit. As had drinking alone.

  Bradley washed down his chicken tikka masala with a bottle of Japanese beer. He turned on the television, channel-surfed for a bit, but couldn’t settle. So he poured himself a couple of shots, just to take the edge off his mood. He didn’t give a toss what lies Turnbull was dishing up to the Assistant Commissioner; the politics of the senior ranks was none of his business. But Turnbull had set him up, paraded him in front of Fiona Calder so he’d be forced to confirm the story Turnbull had fed her. As a result Bradley was implicated in Turnbull’s schemes. He was a dupe, a pawn in the boss’s game, and that wasn’t what he’d joined the police service for. Nicci Armstrong was right, if he didn’t want to be Turnbull’s kind of copper, then he had to draw his own line and stick to it.

  Bradley downed a third shot, or maybe it was a fourth, picked up his phone and called Nicci’s number. She answered after several
rings.

  ‘What’s up Bradley?’ She sounded hassled.

  ‘I . . . y’know, wanted to say sorry. You’re right, I fuck everything up . . . I am one useless fuck-up in fact. And I’m sorry.’

  ‘Well, getting pissed won’t help.’

  Bradley poured himself another shot. ‘You’re right about that too.’

  ‘Listen, Bradley, much as I’d like to dissect your character I’m trying to put my kid to bed.’

  ‘Sophie, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah Sophie.’

  ‘Want me to sing her a song?’

  ‘Not really.’

  ‘I just wanna . . . make a difference Nic. Lock up a few villains. Go home at the end of a day and feel I’d made a difference.’

  ‘Don’t we all? Now I gotta go and get Sophie out the bath.’

  ‘This whole undercover thing is fucked, totally fucked. Karen Phelps is never gonna rat out her brother, not in a million years. Turnbull’s not stupid – when’s he going to realize that?’

  ‘Maybe he does.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You shouldn’t take everything at face value.’

  ‘I don’t. But what would you’ve done in my place?’

  ‘Told Turnbull no. Honeytraps are illegal.’

  ‘Where the fuck does that leave me now?’

  ‘I don’t know, Bradley. You can get pissed and feel sorry for yourself or you can discover some balls. The rules are there to protect us too, they’re not just a villains’ charter.’

  Bradley’s hand was unsteady, he poured himself another shot, slopping half of it over the table. ‘Irony is one time I try to make a woman like me she ends up hating me.’

  ‘Karen Phelps hates all cops. I don’t think it’s personal. I saw her at Basildon Hospital this afternoon. She came to pick up Sean’s wife who he’s beaten to a pulp. I suggested she bring charges against Sean herself and she practically gobbed in my face.’

  ‘She thinks we told Sean that she was trying to inform on him.’

  ‘That would certainly explain her hostility. Now I’m hanging up before the kid turns into a prune.’

  ‘Nic—’

  The phone clicked in his ear and she was gone.

  Bradley slumped back on the sofa. He must’ve dozed off soon after. When he woke he had a dry mouth, a stiff neck and chicken tikka masala on his left sock. He checked his watch, it was eleven thirty.

  When Bradley went out he didn’t really have a plan, only a vague feeling stirring somewhere in his lower gut. He wasn’t Turnbull’s boy and he certainly wasn’t dancing to his tune, not any more. For a while he walked and the cool night air started to clear his fuddled brain. After a while he found himself on the South Bank. He started to walk east, there were still quite a few people about, spilling out of riverside restaurants, enjoying themselves, laughing and joking, something he hadn’t done in a while.

  He worked and he drank to cope with the job. The last actual relationship he’d had was maybe two years ago, since then it had been the odd fuck and a morning wank in the shower if he had time. He’d told himself he was ambitious, this was a period in his life to forge ahead, make his mark. It didn’t matter if he had to work all hours so long as he got the promotions. DI before he was thirty, that had been his aim. Laughable really. His last performance review wasn’t brilliant, his next one would depend on Turnbull, so unless he toed the boss’s line he was stuffed.

  As he approached City Hall, rising up like the hull of a glass ship looming over the river, he thought again about the job he was being required to do. Turn Karen Phelps into a chiz, using whatever trickery he could muster. Turnbull had never said the plan was a male honeytrap, he’d just let the notion hover in the air. He knew that an ambitious young officer like Bradley would be anxious to second-guess his wishes. Turnbull had relied on that. He’d played him with such skill and if it all went pear-shaped the boss’s hands were clean. Nicci Armstrong knew it, the rest of the team too no doubt.

  Bradley felt ashamed of his own naivety. What made it worse was that he’d realized all this, he’d realized it weeks ago. Still he’d done nothing. And faced with Fiona Calder he’d simply bottled and lied to protect Turnbull. If it all came out he’d look like a complete sap. And that was exactly what he was.

  Bradley stood for a while watching flecks of light dancing across the dark fast-flowing current of the river. He thought about what Nicci had said: maybe Turnbull did know that Karen Phelps wouldn’t rat out her brother. He knew all along that Bradley would fail. Maybe that was his plan? But why? On the face of it, it didn’t make sense. Why would an ambitious and slippery shit like Turnbull go out of his way to create such a fuck-up?

  The irony was he liked Karen Phelps. If he had managed to get somewhere with her it wouldn’t have been a trial. She was fit by anyone’s standards. But more than that he admired her. She was trying to escape from a nightmare upbringing, although clearly she and Joey remained completely enmeshed. She simply refused to betray her little brother, although it would’ve been much easier for her if she did. He had a tight and protective relationship with his own baby brother. What would he have done if Dara had turned into a killer instead of a chartered surveyor?

  Bradley thought back to his first year in the job. As a uniformed PC he’d helped people. He’d been on a few exciting busts, had a spell in Traffic, riding round in fast cars, blues and twos – that had been a real buzz. But since he’d become a DC, life had become greyer; it had happened imperceptibly in tiny increments.

  He walked up on to Tower Bridge, looked over and down at the current as it sped under the ironwork and into the darkness. It seemed curiously inviting. He knew his life in the police was over, that’s what his gut was telling him even if the message hadn’t quite travelled to his brain. He wasn’t the suicidal type though; the thought crossed his mind, but only fleetingly. He turned away from the parapet, glanced up the road, stuck out his arm and hailed an approaching black cab.

  54

  The hospital was short of beds, extremely short of staff and hadn’t needed much persuasion to release Glynis into Kaz’s care. Ashley nicked a wheelchair, they loaded her into the Range Rover and drove back to Limehouse. Kaz made up her new bed and settled Glynis into it. She despatched Ashley to borrow some extra bed linen and towels plus a few pots and pans from Joey’s. She ordered groceries online. It was a long time since she’d done anything like proper cooking and even then her mother had never encouraged it. But she managed to concoct a passable pasta bake, using a jar of shop-bought sauce and a recipe she found on the Net.

  Kaz sat on the end of the bed eating the food she’d cooked, Glynis pushed the pasta around the plate with a fork. She sighed.

  ‘You gone to a lot of trouble. But I just ain’t hungry.’

  ‘Try and eat a bit. You need to build up your strength.’

  ‘What’s gonna happen Kaz? You heard that cop, they got no evidence. When he gets out . . .’

  ‘He won’t come here okay? Why? Because he don’t even know where this place is. Tomorrow me and Joey’ll put our heads together, come up with something.’

  Kaz washed up the dishes, tidied the kitchen. It felt really comforting to be doing domestic chores in her own home. When she looked in on Glynis, she’d dozed off. Kaz switched off the light and quietly closed the bedroom door. Then she made up a bed for herself on the sofa.

  She lay on her back staring up at the ceiling. The room was dark but curtainless, so the reflections from the river and the street lamps played across the walls. She watched the dancing patterns. She hadn’t picked up her sketchbook in days. All that had gone out of the window. Her course was due to start soon, the new life she’d planned so meticulously. But was being an art student just about impressing Helen?

  Whether she liked it or not she seemed to have landed back in the family business. It had bought her this flat. But she felt that was no more than her due for the time she’d served. Joey had promised to turn the business tota
lly legit, if she stuck with him, held him to that, maybe they’d both have a new start. That still left the problem of Sean. But even if he had made some kind of deal with the old bill, he’d murdered Dave and sooner or later she and Joey would discover how. They’d get the drop on him. Knowing Joey he was on it already.

  After what seemed like hours of rumination Kaz was drifting off to sleep when she heard a low tapping. At first she thought it was Glynis. She got up, limped down the hall to the bedroom and opened the door. Glynis was on her back, sound asleep, her breathing steady and deep. The tapping was repeated and Kaz realized someone was knocking softly on the front door. She hesitated, thoughts, fears, skittering through her brain. It was very late. Joey or Ashley would’ve called. Her heart soared, maybe it was Helen? Maybe in the middle of the night she’d realized her true feelings and rushed round to declare her love. But how would any of them have got into the building? The main doors were locked, that’s what the entryphone system was for, to keep the flats secure.

  Without turning on any lights, Kaz crept down the hall and put her eye to the spyhole in the door. The fisheye lens showed the distorted nose and cheek of a man’s face. He stepped back slightly and knocked again. She realized it was Mal Bradley.

  Kaz opened the door on the chain, Bradley’s face turned towards her. He smiled.

  ‘Sorry, did I get you up?’

  The unmistakable reek of booze wafted through the door at Kaz. Four years sober she smelt it everywhere, on people in the street, on the tube.

  She glared at him. ‘What the fuck d’you want?’

  ‘I got an idea, a solution.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘To all this. Just let me come in and talk to you. Please.’

  ‘How did you even get in the building?’

  Bradley grinned. ‘Waved my warrant card at one of your extremely respectable neighbours. She’d been out to take her dog for a dump.’

  Kaz huffed, closed the door, unhooked the chain and let Bradley in.

  ‘Keep your voice down ’cause Glynis is asleep.’