‘Who is this?’
‘It’s James, Aunt Margaret. How are you doing?’
‘My goodness, James. I’ve heard nothing from you in years and now it’s twice in one week.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘The police were here the other day wanting to speak to you. Told them I hadn’t heard from you in a long time.’
‘What sort of police, what did they want to know?’
‘Two policewomen. One of them was local, and the other sounded English. Wanted to know where you were living.’
‘Did they give you their names?’
‘Oh they did, love, but I can’t remember now. I hope you’re not in any kind of trouble?’
‘No, Aunt Margaret. Can’t think of any reason why the police want to speak with me.’
‘Are we ever going to see you again, James love? When are you coming home to visit us?’
‘Maybe sometime. I’m getting married this summer. You and the kids are welcome to come to the wedding. I’ll send you an invitation.’
‘That’s lovely! Congratulations. I’ll look forward to it.’
‘And I’m going to be a da.’
‘Ach, that’s great, son. Your Granny would be so proud.’
‘Have to go now, Aunt Margaret, you take care.’
‘Nice talking to you, love, bye-bye.’
Shit! My worst fear confirmed. Tara had discovered where I used to live. I’ll bet that was just to satisfy her curiosity. She knows where I am in Liverpool. She saved my life, knows all about my recent history. But now she must be linking me with Linda Meredith. Why else would she be asking my Aunt Margaret about me?
She has to go. She has to go — before she puts the whole thing together and discovers exactly what I’ve done. I must find a way of getting her without every cop in the country chasing after me.
Chapter 42
Tyler Finlay didn’t want to do this but they’d ordered him, and he couldn’t say no to these kind of people. He saw what they’d done to Ryan. No mercy shown. One wrong move and you were wasted. They didn’t give a shit.
And all his mates, his brave fucking mates. Not one of them volunteered to come with him. He regretted ever hooking up with another outfit. But if he hadn’t done it, they would have found another crew in Liverpool and the Vipers would be going nowhere. He wanted the big time, the big money — and so did the others. But where were they when he needed them? Fucking cowards, all of them. Even Craig pretended he was keen. He said he would hand the gear over to them. Big fucking deal. He wasn’t the one who had to drive all the way to Sunderland, find the place and hope the bizzies weren’t waiting for him. No one else, including those hard nuts from Belfast, fancied it.
‘You fucked up,’ Fitter had said to him. His rough Belfast voice always sounded threatening, and he didn’t think the man had a kind bone in his body. ‘Your man Boswell tried to pull a fast one, so if you want to keep doing business with us you can go clear up his mess.’
A million quid’s worth of gear, Ryan and his girl had creamed off. Stupid bastard. He should have known that these guys would catch on. His girl might have been the one who squealed to her old man. He didn’t trust her. And now they were all in the shit. The Vipers had to do as they were told, or else they’d all get the same as Ryan.
A grey, overcast day, a wind funnelled down the street — if you could even describe it as a street. An old red brick wall bordered one side, the remains of an old factory. The other side had several more recent buildings; a car body repair shop, a steel fabricator and a warehouse for plastics for the catering trade. Tyler stayed in his car, observing the sparse activity. A couple of cars came and went from the garage, a white van was parked at the warehouse. Now and again a van or a lorry would drive by.
He didn’t know Sunderland, he had never been here before. Close to the docks were the only directions Fitter had given him. He assumed this was the right place. He realised that Fitter had extracted the address from Ryan, just before he was shot. Ryan had hoped they would spare him if he told them where he and Carly had been hiding the gear. Stupid wanker. Fitter and McHugh beat him senseless to get what they needed.
There were no signs of any bizzies around. He’d been watching for more than an hour. It looked like a disused business unit. A faded blue sign with white lettering hung above the doorway. Trade Paint Supplies. Sooner or later he would have to open the shutter and take a look inside. He jangled the keys in his hand, in time with the rap anthem thumping from the radio.
His stomach felt empty and his body shivered as he ventured from the car and walked the few steps across the road to the lock-up. All the while he kept looking around, watching for signs of trouble, expecting a shit-load of bizzies to appear at any minute and slam him to the ground. But, other than the sound of the wind whistling by and causing the shutter to rattle, the street stayed quiet.
There were two heavy padlocks securing either side of the shutter to the wall. With the keys he released both of them and pulled on the bottom of the shutter. It rolled up easily, squeaking its way into the housing above. He peered inside to the gloom, searching for a light switch. He found one to his left and flicked it downwards. A single fluorescent strip flickered to life in the centre of the room.
The place stank of rat’s piss, and he was sure he heard something scurry away behind a stack of empty pallets. It seemed that the room had only been used for storage. As well as the empty pallets, there was a set of metal shelves against the right-hand wall but nothing else. No side rooms, no office, toilet, sink, workbench — nothing.
Several cardboard boxes sat on the lowest shelf, and he went straight to them, to check that he’d found the merchandise. He lifted the flaps on one of the boxes and found inside it four tins, like those used for paint. He checked the other boxes and found the same in each. The tins were unlabelled. He pulled one out and set it on the floor and using one of his keys, he levered open the lid. The tin was three-quarters full of a white powder. He assumed it to be cocaine, but he’d never come as close to so much gear in his life. Replacing the lid, he returned the tin to its box and selected another from the box next to it. This was exactly the same as the first. There were six boxes, and he checked a tin in each. The final box, however, held just two tins, but also contained a woman’s leather handbag. It probably belonged to Carly. Inside, he found loose banknotes, tens and twenties mainly, but also several fivers and a couple of fifties. He didn’t bother to count it — he wasn’t great at counting anyway — but he guessed that around ten grand was stuffed into the bag. He was wrong, underestimating by a margin of fifteen thousand. But it was the finding of the cash, more than the discovery of the drugs, that spurred him to action. One by one, he carried the boxes to his car and loaded them into the boot. The bag containing the cash, he kept beside him on the front passenger seat.
Now, in a hurry to be well away from the street and out of Sunderland entirely, he lowered the shutter on the store without bothering to replace the locks. Then he roared away, headed for Treadwater and home.
It was dark by the time he pulled into a parking space just below his flat. Before going in and settling down for the night, Tyler made a quick call.
‘Yo, it’s me. Got it.’
‘We get the stuff to them, and we’re in the clear,’said Craig. ‘What about Shania?’
‘She won’t say nothing. I’ve fixed her.’
‘You sure?’
‘Yeah, I’m sure, man,’ said Tyler. ‘Bizzies pulled me in a couple of days back, but they got nothing. Don’t think they’ll bother us again. We have to keep them sweet, Craig. Do as we’re told. Could be a lot of earning for us. I’ll get the gear over to your place, but not tonight. I’m going to crash out, man. I’m knackered. Been on the road all day. Need to get my head down.’
‘Tomorrow?’ said Craig.
‘Yeah, tomorrow. Cool yeah.’ He smiled to himself. He hadn’t told Craig about the cash. It could be his alone for having taken the risk i
n going to Sunderland. No one else needed to know.
There was a knock on his window. In the evening gloom, a dark figure peered in at him.
Chapter 43
The last person she wanted to see taking charge of a crime scene was DCI Weir. At least, the last person she wanted to see taking charge of this crime scene. Tara had no doubts that he was an efficient and experienced officer; she simply did not wish to be involved in any investigation of which he was a part.
She had arrived on the estate with Alan Murray and Superintendent Tweedy. Rain pattered on the car roof and Murray managed to stop where much water had gathered, in a dip in the tarmac of the road. Fortunately, she’d slipped on a pair of knee boots before rushing from her flat, remembering also to grab an umbrella. Opening the car door, she stepped over the puddle with one foot but wasn’t so lucky with the other. Quickly, she put up the umbrella and joined her colleagues as they approached the scene.
The street below a block of flats had been sealed off with incident tape, and SOCOs were already scouring the road and pavement for evidence. DCI Weir was in conversation with a uniformed constable when Tara, Murray and Tweedy reached him.
‘Morning, Harold,’ he said jovially. He didn’t acknowledge the presence of Tara or Murray, nor had he afforded Tweedy the appropriate greeting for his rank. That was no surprise to Tara. The man lacked manners.
‘Good morning, Malcolm. Not a pleasant day, unfortunately. What do we have?’
‘One male, dead. Shot multiple times. The MO is still looking him over.’
‘Any ID?’
‘We reckon it’s Tyler Finlay. Car is crammed with drugs. Paint tins full of cocaine. It’s worth a fortune.’
Tara wandered towards the car, a black BMW, not the most recent model, complete with spoiler, lowered suspension, tinted windows and twin exhausts. A symbol of dubious prosperity in these parts — locals would know it to be a drug dealer’s car. She watched the photographer taking shots under the direction of Dr Brian Witney, the medical officer in charge of examining the victim.
‘Hello, Brian,’ she called from a few yards away. ‘Anything peculiar?’
‘Ah, morning, Tara. Miserable day for this caper.’
He beckoned her forward. Witney, a man in his fifties, always seemed delighted to meet her and never made her feel uncomfortable. He was a gentleman, with good manners.
‘Victim has been shot several times in the head and face, also one or two places in the upper body. We found a wad of cash when we sat him upright.’ He indicated the passenger seat of the car.
She was never particularly strong at a crime scene, not hardened like some to the sights of violent death. She had to peer over the victim’s body to see what lay on the passenger seat. It was a leather handbag, smeared with blood, open and brimming with bank notes.
‘Seems to rule out robbery as a motive, I would guess,’ said Witney. ‘The driver’s window had been lowered. He wasn’t shot through the glass. Forensics already have his mobile phone.’
‘Indeed. Maybe he knew his killer. Thanks, Brian.’
Tara stepped away from the car and looked around her. She was standing in a parking bay below the block of flats where, she knew, Tyler Finlay had lived. A group of approximately thirty people, mostly teenagers, had gathered beyond the incident tape at the far end of the parking area. From forty yards away she didn’t recognise anyone, particularly anyone she might know who was associated with Tyler Finlay or the Treadwater Vipers. If they’ve any sense they’ll stay well away, she thought. Catching Murray’s eye, she indicated for him to go with her, towards the flats.
‘I want to get a look inside Finlay’s place before DCI Weir realises that this is where he lived.’
They climbed the flight of interior stairs to the third floor and stood by the door to the flat they had visited only a few days earlier. As expected, there was no reply to Murray’s knock. He thrust his shoulder against the door, but there was no give. Tara sniggered.
‘Not every door will just cave in, you know.’
‘I know. I’m sorry.’ He lifted his right foot and kicked out at the lock. Several attempts splintered the wood around it, and one final kick forced the door backwards. It hit the wall with a bang.
‘Well done,’ she said. ‘You’re so strong.’
‘What were you saying last night about sarcasm?’
Suppressing her smirk, she stepped into the hallway with Murray following. The place still had the all-pervading smell of smoked weed and was in a very untidy state.
Tara couldn’t decide, at first, whether it had been ransacked or had fallen into disarray following the departure of Shania Smith. The bedroom had male clothes strewn on the floor and across the unmade bed. Drawers and a wardrobe door had been left open. Used cans of lager sat on the coffee table in the living room, an ashtray overflowed with fag butts and the remains of some reefers. A remote control for a video game lay on the sofa, beside a small spiral-bound notebook. She leafed through its mostly blank pages. On a couple were scribbled various addresses. No names, just addresses, one of which was in Sunderland.
Tara heard a shout of discovery coming from another room, and Murray appeared at the door, holding aloft a small self-seal bag.
‘No surprise there then,’ he said. Inside the bag was a small quantity of what Tara assumed to be cannabis. Then they heard voices in the hallway, and in marched DCI Weir with one of his detective constables, a smooth-faced young man whom Tara knew only as DC Roley.
‘Ah, might have known you’d be first up here, DI Grogan. Find anything interesting?’ Murray was still holding the bag of cannabis in the air. ‘That’s right, son, it’s drugs.’
Murray fumed at Tara.
‘Well?’ said Weir.
‘Nothing so far, sir,’ Tara replied. She’d managed to slip the notebook into her anorak pocket, although she thought DC Roley may have seen her do it. She beamed a smile at him, but he didn't respond.
‘I think you’ll find that my assessment of the situation regarding the Vipers was correct. There’s a gang feud kicking off round here,’ Weir continued.
‘You don’t think Belfast has anything to do with this murder?’
‘No, I wouldn’t think so, DI Grogan. Much closer to home, I’d say.’
‘It’s all a bit one-sided though. Two members of the Vipers dead, but no retaliations.’
‘That’s where you would be wrong, lass.’
Not for the first time, she let the DCI’s condescension pass. She was keen to hear his assessment of the situation.
‘How so?’
‘I take it you heard of the shooting the other day in Bootle.’
‘The lad shot in the car park off the Dunnings Bridge Road?’
‘That’s the one.’
‘You think it’s connected with the shootings in Treadwater?’
‘The victim was Mikk Klavan. Estonian. I believe he is connected to a group known as the Tallinn Crew. I think a turf war has started, between the Vipers and these Estonians.
Tara didn’t agree at all with this assessment.
‘Right then. We’ll leave you to it, sir. But I would be interested to hear how things turn out with respect to the Boswell shooting.’
‘I’ll keep you informed, DI Grogan. If you wouldn’t mind leaving that evidence here, son,’ he said to Murray.
Murray tossed the bag at DC Roley and followed Tara from the flat.
‘Arrogant sod.’
‘I agree,’ said Tara taking to the stairs. ‘But I don’t believe this is a gang feud confined to Liverpool. There is definitely a link to Belfast. What is Weir playing at?’
Chapter 44
At St Anne Street, Tara had asked asked DC Wilson to trace some former colleagues of Ruth Lawler, who had worked with her when she nursed at the Royal. She hoped that they might be able to add weight to her theory, that someone at the hospital had been stalking Ruth before she vanished.
During the investigation into the murder of Ruth’s b
rother, Terry Lawler, Tara had spoken to Ruth’s ex-boyfriend. She thought Terry Lawler had at one point suspected Gary Hill of killing Ruth, but had dropped the idea when he uncovered a spate of disappearances with similar modus operandi. When Tara had spoken with Hill, however, he knew nothing of Terry Lawler’s investigations. She hoped now that people who had known Ruth may be able to tell her something about the events leading up to her disappearance. She left Murray to follow up on some points relating to Boswell, one of which was establishing the whereabouts of other gang members when Ryan had been shot. Similarly, to establish the whereabouts of those same people when Tyler Finlay had been killed. It would be helpful also to get the results of the examination of Tyler’s mobile, but she realised that would be for DCI Weir to consider, before her.
Wilson had traced one former colleague and friend of Ruth Lawler and also the former supervisor of James Guy at the hospital.
Tara drove to the hospital on Prescot Street and met firstly with a former nursing colleague of Ruth Lawler. They talked over coffee in the restaurant on the lower ground floor of the main building. Staff Nurse Mary Bautista was a thirty-nine-year-old woman, originally from the Philippines, with dark hair tied back and a small, round face. She recalled Ruth Lawler with great affection.
‘She was very good to me when I first came to Liverpool. Showed me around the city, helped me find a flat and brought me to dinner at her home. Ruth was a lovely girl.’
‘Did you work together on a ward?’
‘Oh yes. When I first came to the hospital I worked the same shift as Ruth.’
‘At the time she disappeared, did she mention anything that was troubling her? Any problems?’
‘She had split up from her boyfriend, Gary. I know she was upset about that.’
Lethal Dose; Lethal Justice; Lethal Mind Page 65