by Robert White
“He’s got a young tart holed up in a flat near the docks… he’s there most nights. I caught him shagging her in the toilets at the club a few weeks back.”
“Oh my God Laurie, I’m sorry love. You must be gutted, who is she?”
“She’s just some little girl, I mean that too. She’s Les Thomas’ niece.”
“Not Maisy Thomas? Lives on Moor Nook, next door to Les, the ice cream man?”
“Yeah, that’s her.”
“Fuck me Laurie, she’s still at school, she’s only fifteen you know?”
Laurie drained her glass a little too quickly and gave a cynical laugh down her nose. “So, call the cops, why don’t you? Come on Chez, even her mum daren’t say a word… and Maisy is loving it. New clothes, new shoes, nice little flat… that and all the coke she can stick up her nose. She’s young, and stupid enough to think that Frank is going to kick me into the weeds and install her here.”
Cheryl raised her eyebrows.
Laurie shook her head.
“Oh no, he ain’t that daft Chez. He knows where his bread is buttered. You were right at the table, I run Toast, I make the guys a lot of cash… and I mean a lot. Frank wants his cake and eat it. Me here… her there.”
“So, what yer goin’ to do Laurie?”
“I dunno… I made a big mistake with Frankie. I thought it would be all glamour, being a gangster’s girl. Respect from everyone, money no object… Then maybe, I could calm him down a bit, get him straight and get married, you know, have a kid or two… But it ain’t like that. It ain’t anything like that. It’s do as you’re told, keep your mouth shut, and give him what he wants in the bedroom… or else.”
“You mean he hits you?”
“He has done, but that stopped when I threatened to cut his cock off in his sleep.”
Cheryl spat out her wine and guffawed. “Fuckin’ hell Laurie, I can see how that did the trick.”
Laurie poured more wine. “I should’ve stuck with my Jamie. A good solid lad.”
“Jamie?”
“Yeah, Jamie Strange. He went in the marines, we were engaged, but stupid me, I wanted excitement, didn’t I? Well look what I’ve got.”
Laurie took another gulp, the wine kicking in, loosening her mouth.
“I think about him all the time Chez, Jamie I mean, I can’t help it. We were like two love-struck kids. Just, I never appreciated it, or him, back then. I was stupid, and a bit of a tart with it.”
Laurie ran her fingers through her hair.
“I suppose it could be just a good dose of regret, but I did love him, and he’d have walked through walls for me… probably still would.”
Cheryl held out her glass for a refill of her own. “I went to school with him, Jamie Strange, yeah, big lad, nice, quiet.”
Cheryl smiled a cheeky smile. “Handsome bugger too if I remember right.”
Laurie nodded as she recalled her striking man. “Yeah that’s him… probably got himself a nice girl now, settling down…”
Cheryl shook her head. “Oh, no Laurie. Ain’t you heard? It was in the paper an’ all. He’s banged up. In nick.”
“What… he’s in jail… my Jamie… where?” Before Cheryl answered, Laurie turned toward the living room, a quizzical look on her face.
“You hear that?”
Cheryl shook her head. “Nope.”
“Sounded like a car door slam.”
Cheryl shook again.
A spilt second later the gunfire began.
Glass shattered and wood splintered as the powerful rounds from the unseen weapons slammed into the house. Laurie grabbed at Cheryl and pulled her to the floor as bullets thumped into the mahogany dining table above them.
Laurie could hear Frankie, Eddie and Tony shouting, but couldn’t make out their words over the cacophony of noise. Glass flew in all directions from the shattered windows, plaster dust fell from the ceiling.
Within seconds, it was over and there was the sound of squealing tyres.
Frankie barrelled into the room holding a sawn-off shotgun.
“You two okay?” he shouted.
Laurie nodded. “We’re good.”
Then somewhere in the house, Tony began to shout, to cry out. It was a woeful, awful sound. Laurie and Cheryl followed the noise to the living room.
Tony was sitting on the floor, cradling William in his massive arms. The toddler’s toy motorbike torn to shreds by gunfire at his side. Tony’s shirt was drenched in William’s blood.
“Frankie,” he wailed. “Frankie, do something… Aw look, look at poor Billy… Frankie, you always know what to do eh… Frank? Please Frankie…”
Cheryl began to scream.
Laurie turned and strode toward Frankie Verdi, who stood riveted to the spot, stunned by the sight of a murdered child in the middle of his own living room.
She clenched her teeth in rage and balled her fists, pummelling his chest as she screamed in his face. He stood and took the blows, hands at his sides, swaying slightly.
“This is you Frank! This here… this dead kid is your doing. Do you understand me? This is because of you… and Eddie… and Tony and your pathetic reputations.”
She swung an arm at the opulence that surrounded them.
“You would all be fucking millionaires before you’re thirty… without the crime. Do you realise that Frank? Do you? Oh no… not the big-I-am, Frankie Verdi. No, you need the respect of all the scum that live in this town, don’t you? You have to deal the drugs, to dish out the beatings. What about the good people Frank? What about gaining their respect? No, you just ain’t interested in that, are you? Let the good guys fear you and the scum of the earth look up to you, that’s what you want isn’t it? Well look Frank. Take a good look at William lying there. Lying there because of something you did, something you planned, something to get some more fucking respect, some more fear.”
Laurie fell into a chair, exhausted and traumatised. She let her head fall into her hands and spoke to the floor. Questioning herself as much as Verdi.
“What did you do Frank? What did you do this time?”
She raised her head and met his black eyes.
“You killed those people in Blackburn, didn’t you? Shot that man and cut the throats of three more. This is connected, isn’t it?”
Laurie’s face became one ugly sneer.
“You disgust me Frank,” she spat. Then turned to Tony, still sitting on the floor cradling William with one arm and Cheryl with his other, as she sobbed uncontrollably. “And you Tony… yes you and Eddie are just as bad as Frank. You do his bidding. You killed that little boy in your arms, just as if you’d pulled the trigger yourself.”
Eddie had heard enough. He grabbed Laurie roughly by the arm and began to drag her out of the chair and from the room. “Come on, you’re fucking hysterical, I’ll get you a drink.” He turned to Frankie. “You calling the cops, or you want me to do it?”
Frank seemed to snap out of his trance. He walked to the phone.
“I’ll do it,” then, suddenly finding his most vicious tone, pointed at Laurie. “And you… you keep your fucking mouth shut.”
Frank lifted the receiver, but before he dialled, he turned, his mouth turned in a vicious sneer.
“Tony! Tony… For fuck’s sake… put the kid down and get Cheryl a fuckin’ brandy to shut her up. She’s giving me a fucking headache.”
* * *
Christmas Day is usually the quietest day of the year for all public services. The police are no exception.
PC 2211 Evans was the lone patrol on duty for the twenty-five square miles of rural and urban stretch between Fulwood and Garstang sections. The southernmost part of that area containing the Verdi household.
Before the call came that would affect Dave Evans for the rest of his career, he’d been driving along Whitting
ham lane, when he’d noticed smoke up ahead.
Moments later, he discovered a transit van smouldering at the side of the road, completely burnt out. The number plates were unrecognisable and as the vehicle was still way too hot to start poking around under the bonnet, he called the incident in, refused the assistance of the fire brigade and sat pondering his next move.
When the report of a shooting incident at the Verdi home in Broughton, not a mile away from the burning van came over his radio. Evans was experienced enough to know the van was an important piece of evidence, rather than a bunch of joyriders covering their tracks.
He contacted force control room and asked for a search of recently stolen Ford Transit vans, gave an approximate year of manufacture, and, as there was just enough paint left on one section of the vehicle, the colour blue. Then, being fully aware of the Verdi reputation, asked for all available patrols to assist him.
Dave Evans was a family man. Wife, three kids, two boys of school age, and a girl, Emily, a toddler. Dave was what some would call a “man’s man”. Big, burly, naturally strong, played rugby for Preston Grasshoppers, liked a pint. But when Evans walked into Frankie Verdi’s front room, all that strength, all that brawn, was of no use to him.
Verdi opened the door to him, his trademark black eyes dark and foreboding.
“This way,” he said, turning on his heels and walking Evans into the room.
The cop took in the awful scene. Almost all of the windows were shattered. Shards of broken glass littered the floor, mixed with splinters of wood from the frames. Dave Evans’ boots crunched across the carpet and he walked toward the heartbreaking sight that lay in the centre of the room.
A plastic tricycle, moulded to look like a police motorcycle, was on its side, torn open by the bullets fired indiscriminately through the windows of the house. Next to the bike, equally ripped open was the body of two-year-old William Greenwood.
Dave Evans swallowed hard. William would be close to Emily’s age. He knelt by the obviously lifeless body, yet did his duty and checked the child’s vital signs. Standing, he noticed the right knee of his uniform trousers was soaked in blood.
Evans stepped away from the body, doing his best to retrace his original footprints and found himself in close proximity to Frankie Verdi.
Evans felt rage burning in his gut. Hatred. He towered over Verdi, he wanted to smash his face to pulp, to hurt him. The man lived by the sword, yet it was an innocent who had died this day.
The cop took a deep breath and did his best to calm himself.
“Who did this?” he said quietly. “Who in God’s name did this?”
Verdi walked around the body toward the kitchen.
“That’s your job isn’t it copper?”
* * *
Detective Jim Hacker
The murder of the toddler, William Greenwood sent shockwaves around Lancashire and beyond. If Frankie Verdi had hoped for infamy after the gangland slaughter of Mohammed Mahmood, then whatever notoriety he, Eddie Williams and Tony Thompson had accrued was washed away, along with the toddler’s spilt blood.
The investigation had such obvious links to the Blackburn slayings, that the chief decided to give the Greenwood murder case to the same group of officers following the Mahmood slaying, allowing easier cross-referencing and sharing of information.
The transit van, found by PC Evans, burnt out close to Verdi’s home, had been stolen from Croxteth in Liverpool. House-to-house inquiries revealed that three men, seen in the proximity of the van, boarded another vehicle that had been described as a light grey Ford hatchback, and had made off at speed.
A stolen grey Escort was later found in the same condition as the Transit, just off Upper Parliament Street in Liverpool 8, the scene of such vicious rioting in 1981, and home to several well-known drug gangs. If the team investigating The Three Dogs were finding witnesses hard to come by, then the officers tasked with the door-to-door work in that area of Liverpool were on a hiding to nothing.
The truth was, the Mahmood investigation was going nowhere, and despite Verdi virtually shouting his guilt from the rooftops, the detectives had no firm evidence to back it up. As I have iterated before, people talk, and people listen, but when it comes to giving evidence against an individual who will cut your throat and laugh as he does it, well, witnesses get to be few and far between.
Verdi, Williams and Thompson, had all come up with the same story about Christmas Day.
They had just enjoyed their turkey, when several unseen and unidentified attackers opened fire on the house with big bore semi-automatic weapons. Their only possible explanation was one of mistaken identity, and although they would assist the officers in any way possible, they had no idea why anyone would wish them harm, or any clue as to their identity.
Cheryl Greenwood and Laurie Holland, unsurprisingly, backed this story to the hilt. No one knew anything.
That said, the death of a child loosens the tongues of even the most hardened criminals, and I had the feeling that someone, somewhere may just drop the dime on either Verdi, or the Liverpool gang who had sought revenge on him.
For now, however, both investigations trod ever deepening water.
If the public were reluctant to talk to the cops, the same could not be said for the press. It appeared, unnamed but well-informed insiders were willing to part with all kinds of information on The Three Dogs and their business dealings, both legitimate and criminal. Even, it would seem, their private lives.
When Eddie Williams stood on the steps of Lawson Street nick and made a veiled threat toward the Daily Mirror’s crime correspondent, James Dunn, he probably never gave it a second thought. However, Williams had shown his lack of savvy when dealing with the media. All he achieved, was to irritate a very old hack, who had never been shy when it came to exposing villains from all walks of life. Dunn had written “exposés” on the vilest creatures ever to walk the earth and had never given two hoots what they thought.
The Thee Dogs were about to get both barrels, from a very different gun.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
27th December 1983
Laurie stood in the kitchen drinking coffee and waiting.
Frankie was incandescent with rage and was busy smashing up what was left of their home after the attack. He’d spent a good ten minutes screaming down the phone at his lawyer, and like a petulant child, when he didn’t get the result he wanted, had gone about throwing his toys out of the pram.
Finally, there was quiet. Laurie risked a peek around the door frame and found Frank, bathed in sweat sitting in the only undamaged chair they owned. He was re-reading the Sunday Mirror. Laurie, had always thought that Frank craved infamy and she felt a secret inner contentment that he now appeared to have achieved his goal.
“They say, there is no such thing as bad publicity,” she offered with no mere hint of sarcasm.
Frankie couldn’t take his eyes off the front page of the paper. It showed a large picture of him helping Maisy Thomas out of his Jaguar, she was dressed in her school uniform. The headline read:
“Dog on heat,” with a tag line, “Gangster in schoolgirl love triangle.”
He threw the paper to the floor.
“This was you, weren’t it?”
Laurie gave a meek smile. “No honey, it wasn’t me. The whole fuckin’ town knows about you and your little slut. If I’d wanted to hurt you Frank, you wouldn’t be able to read that rag, believe me.”
Frankie grimaced. “Well when I find out who it is, I’ll…”
Laurie took a step closer and pointed. “You’ll what Frank? Cut their throat? Have you not seen enough blood to last you a lifetime?” She threw back her head a laughed. “If I were you, I’d be more worried about the last line in the article. What does it say? ‘A spokesman from Lancashire Social Services, says the Children and Young Persons Bureau is investigating the allegation?�
��…I reckon that means charges Frank. Charges that will make you a sex offender… a nonce… think on that.”
Laurie turned for the door.
“I’m going to see Cheryl. See how the poor woman is. If you’re not here when I get back, I’ll presume you’ve been nicked.”
Laurie slammed the door behind her, found the keys for her MGB in her handbag, and fired up the car. Were things finally unravelling? For the first time, Frankie seemed rattled. Whoever had hit the house on Christmas Day was a big-time villain, and Frank had got Eddie, Tony and Joe Madden on the case full-time. Laurie considered that The Three Dogs may have bitten the wrong guy this time, and that maybe, her longing for pastures new, was not so unrealistic after all.
As she pulled the car from the driveway and headed to Cheryl Greenwood’s flat, she pondered on what Cheryl had told her, just seconds before the shooting started that afternoon.
Jamie Strange was in jail. The mere thought of him filled her stomach with butterflies.
How could she have been so mean… so stupid? And look at her now. Fancy car, big house, designer clothes. Yet no friends, and no love in her life. Why Jamie was in jail, she had no idea. But she intended to find out, and she intended to go and see him.
* * *
Detective Jim Hacker
The funeral of William Greenwood was not only an extremely sad affair, but one that created a mass of media interest.
Fortunately, on that day, 16th January 1984, I was not required to attend. I did, however, see the press reports and images that were splashed across the daily papers.
The murder, and therefore, Frankie Verdie and his gang, were now national news. Indeed, Mr Dunn of the Mirror had taken it upon himself to lambast Frank, Eddie, and Tony at every opportunity. He would light a fire under one of the gang, and as fast as Verdi and co. extinguished it, another ferocious blaze would appear the next day.
Frankie’s affair with schoolgirl Maisy Thomas, Tony’s building firm’s tax affairs, and most recently, the allegation that Eddie had been seen in a notorious club in Liverpool, regularly visited by the city’s homosexual community, had all graced the Mirror’s gossip pages.