‘How so?’ As far as Frankie knew, his little brother had never had any serious contact with Dougie Hamilton at all.
‘They think this was a revenge killing.’
‘For what?’
‘One of Tommy Riley’s boys – a certain Danny Kale – was killed last month, found dead in a back alley over on Charlotte Street . . .’
Frankie had read about it in the papers. Kale had been one of Tommy Riley’s debt collectors, an enforcer. He’d been battered to death, then dumped outside one of Riley’s bars.
‘I still don’t see how that puts Jack in the frame for this,’ Frankie said.
‘Danny Kale was bludgeoned to death,’ said Kind Regards. ‘The same as this poor girl . . . Leaving the cops thinking that maybe Tommy Riley had her killed as payback for Kale.’
Frankie’s eyes narrowed. It made a certain kind of fucked-up sense. At least for the Rileys and Hamiltons of this world.
‘And, of course, it’s no secret that Jack’s been working for Tommy Riley,’ Kind Regards said.
Frankie felt heat flushing through his cheeks. He’d heard the same shit six months ago. How Jack was getting himself involved. Running errands. Doing a bit of driving. The bottom rung of the ladder, but one that could lead right to the top.
Frankie had had it out with him. Had told him to back the fuck out. Had even offered him a job down at the club. But Jack had told him no, had said he’d got something else lined up. The club promo stuff. That might have been the last real conversation that they’d had.
‘He told me he’d stopped.’
‘He lied.’
‘Even if it is no secret,’ Frankie said, ‘it’s still pretty fucking difficult to prove.’
‘Not after that incident in the Atlantic. He’s a known associate.’
Kind Regards meant the fight Jack had got into alongside some of Tommy Riley’s boys after a Gunners game. The cops had been called. Jack had been nicked.
‘That was just a ruck. All he got was a caution.’
‘Maybe, but it’s enough for the cops to see this – and him – as part of an on-going turf war.’
‘Even if Riley did want to take out Dougie Hamilton’s fiancée to get back at them for Kale’s death, do you really think he’d have sent Jack? Even if he is a known associate of theirs, it’s just for petty shit and helping make up the numbers in a brawl. He’s no fucking hit man, is he? You know that as well as me.’
‘I’m just telling you what the cops think. That maybe Jack did this under Riley’s orders. Or off his own back. To impress his new boss.’
Frankie couldn’t help sneering. Jack showing initiative? A fucking joke in itself. Jack had never been a leader, more like easily led.
‘Yeah, well you know what I think? This is all bollocks. Fucking cops have been served Jack up on a platter and they’re too lazy to bother looking for anyone else.’
‘But even supposing that’s right, it doesn’t help us, does it?’ Kind Regards pointed out. ‘Not with the evidence they say they’ve got. And whatever else they might find out at the old woman’s house. Which might be a lot. The killer made a right mess of the place. Even butchered the old girl’s dog.’
Frankie slowly shook his head. How much more messed up could this get? How the fuck were they going to get Jack out?
‘How is he?’ he asked. ‘I mean in himself?’
‘Past the scared stage, if that’s what you’re worried about. Past angry too. He’s slumped. You know. Low. It’s to be expected. The pressure they’ve got him under.’
Frankie took a deep breath. Another.
‘It will get better,’ Kind Regards said. ‘He’ll feel better once he’s in remand. That’s when we can start to plan. How we’re going to move forward.’
Move forward? Kind Regards wasn’t fooling him for a minute. More like, prepare for the worst.
‘And he still doesn’t remember anything?’ Frankie said. ‘About last night?’
‘No, not that he’s saying.’ There it was again, that note of doubt in his voice. ‘And as you can imagine, the cops aren’t exactly too happy about that. It looks bad, Frankie, him not even offering up any kind of plausible explanation. It makes him look like he’s refusing to co-operate.’
‘But how can he, if what he’s saying is true?’
Kind Regards ducked the question, staring down at his fingernails instead.
‘Snaresby . . .’ Frankie said. ‘. . . the DS who came round the club . . .’
‘What about him?’
‘He knew who I was. Made out that he knew Mum and Dad too.’
‘He grew up round here.’
‘They were friends?’
‘Not for a long time.’
What did that mean? If not friends now, then when? And what did that make them now? Enemies? Was that why Snaresby was enjoying this so much?
‘The cctv footage he says he’s got – placing Jack there at the old lady’s house – you seen it yet?’ Frankie asked.
‘No.’
‘So it might not show Jack at all? Just his car. If it even is his car . . .’
Kind Regards frowned. ‘They said the plates match.’
‘And what about the blood? They matched what they found on Jack and at his flat to Susan Tilley?’
‘Not yet. But they’re confident they will.’
‘So that might be bullshit too. So why are you standing there looking at me like you’ve already given up?’
‘We need to be realistic, Frankie. And focus on how we’re going to play this . . . if the evidence does point towards him . . . if this does go to trial . . .’
‘Even if it does,’ Frankie said. ‘I still won’t believe he did it. Because there’s no fucking way. And if that blood does match him, then it’s because that’s how someone wants it to look. Because he’s being fucking set up, all right?’
‘But by who?’
‘That’s what I’m gonna find out. There’s so much of this shit that doesn’t add up. Like how come he can’t remember anything. Like, if he had done it, why would he be stupid enough to go home covered in all that blood and just go to sleep and make no effort to clear up?’
‘It’s the police’s opinion that he could have been high at the time of the murder.’
Frankie could hardly believe what he was hearing. ‘What? They think he did it because he was high?’
‘No, not because he was high, while he was high. If it was a revenge killing . . . and if it was his first time, maybe he needed to get off his head to get the job done. It would explain the mess . . . the dog . . . the flat . . . all of it.’
‘I still don’t buy it. And you know what else doesn’t make any sense? Who called Jack and told him to run? Someone did that because they wanted him to look guilty. I tell you: someone’s fucking with him and fucking with the cops. And I’m gonna bloody well find out who . . .’
‘And how exactly are you planning on doing that?’
‘I don’t know. Not yet. But I tell you this. I’m not going to just sit here on my arse and do nothing.’
‘You want me to find you someone? A detective?’
‘Round here? You having a laugh? The only people that people from round here will talk to are other people from round here. People like me.’
Kind Regards grimaced.
‘I know how bad you’re feeling, Frankie. But I’ve got to warn you, as your lawyer as well as your friend, that you don’t want to go getting yourself involved in this. You’re lucky Snaresby found Jack on top of the club, not in it. He’s got his eye on you and the last thing we need is having both of you on the wrong side of the law.’
Frankie stared hard at Kind Regards. He knew the advice was meant well, but what other fucking choice did he have?
7
Frankie was still reeling when he got back to the club. He felt like he had when he’d first heard his dad had been sentenced to fifteen years. His brain hadn’t been able to process the number, hadn’t been able to grasp what it
meant.
All he knew was he couldn’t just wait for the law to run its course. The only one who could save Jack now was him.
The club was already open. Slim was stationed in his usual spot behind the bar, with his worn leather cowboy hat pulled down low over his brow and a smouldering B&H hanging below his bushy grey moustache.
Six punters were already in and playing. Life going on as normal. Just as well. The last thing Frankie needed was people steering clear of the place and leaving him even more financially screwed.
He needed to act normal too. No matter how churned up he felt. He had to show whoever was watching – cops, creditors, whoever – that he wasn’t rattled. Jack had been wrongly accused. That’s the signal he needed to be sending out right from the get-go. He’d been accused of a crime that he didn’t commit.
Frankie nodded at the punters at the tables, all of them regulars. He didn’t detect any sideways glances or awkwardness. News of Jack’s arrest clearly hadn’t got round everyone yet. Only a matter of time.
Slim was incredibly tall, even without the added height of his hat. He was dressed in a blue cheesecloth shirt, green moleskin waistcoat and piano tie. The height of fashion – for 1974, as Frankie’s dad had always joked.
‘How did it go?’ he asked, his voice husky from decades of drink, smokes and staying out late playing cards.
‘Good,’ Frankie said. ‘He’s confident. We’re confident that he’s innocent, that we’re going to be able to prove it, that we’ll turn this all right around.’
He said this plenty loud enough for anyone eavesdropping to hear.
Slim had already poured Frankie a lager without asking. He slid it towards him across the bar.
‘I know you’re meant to be cutting back, but . . .’
Frankie took it and drank deep. Slim raised his whiskey and soda. He never drank neat before dark.
‘To your brother,’ he said. ‘When you see him, you make sure they’re feeding him properly? That’s the worst thing about the clink, the food. Alongside the beatings and the buggery, of course.’
Frankie shook his head, smiling grimly. Life going on as normal. Yeah, Slim knew the form, all right.
‘He’ll be OK, don’t you worry,’ Slim said. ‘But I do mean it about the food. It sucks.’
Slim had been banged up a couple of times. For nicking cars, something he’d once described as his hobby as well as his vice. He was a reformed man these days, mind. Had seen the error of his youthful ways.
‘When did you last eat?’ he said.
‘Yesterday.’
‘I thought as much.’ He flipped on the Breville. ‘I brought in some Jarlsberg. That’s spelt with a “J”. It’s from Norway. A smooth texture with a nutty tang.’
The Breville was the only cooking appliance in the club and Slim made the best toasties Frankie had ever tasted. His stomach growled as Slim set to making a couple of rounds of Frankie’s favourite: cheese and tomato. He took another swig of lager and stared at his hands. Why the fuck wasn’t there someone older, someone wiser, who could sort this shit all out. Why did the buck always, fucking always, end up stopping with him?
‘Ketchup or Mum’s?’ Slim asked.
‘Mum’s’ was the mixture of mayonnaise, ketchup and Lee & Perrins that Frankie’s mum claimed to have invented. Her and Slim had always got on. Partly because they both liked nothing more than sipping whiskey and eating toasties into the late hours, and partly because they both had the knack of making each other laugh.
Frankie and Slim ate in silence, watching the players on the nearest table. Normally Frankie could watch a couple of decent players like these two for hours. But not today. Everything, the whole fucking world, felt slow, out of whack. Do something. He had to do something. If he didn’t, he’d go out of his mind.
‘Beats the hell out of cheddar, eh?’ said Slim as Frankie swallowed his last mouthful. ‘And Norwegian, eh? Who’d have guessed. I didn’t even know the Norwegians liked cheese.’
Frankie was staring at the door.
‘You all right, son?’ Slim asked.
‘Sure. And thanks.’ He got to his feet. ‘I’ve just got to go see someone. A man about a dog.’
8
A dog about a man, more like. Mickey Flynn was a low-life, a drug dealer, and one of Jack’s closest mates. The last person Jack remembered seeing last night. Frankie’s only lead.
Frankie stuck to Soho’s back alleys as he headed across town. Passing Morgan’s wine bar, he checked over his shoulder. How many times now since he’d left the Ambassador? Twenty? More? He’d be doing his neck more favours getting wing mirrors taped to his head.
No harm in a bit of healthy paranoia, mind. The cops could be following him, seeing if he was mixed up in all this, interfering, warning him off. Then there were Hamilton’s boys. Just because Frankie hadn’t seen any of them since Jack’s arrest, didn’t mean they weren’t around. He could feel it in the air, like one of them build-ups of pressure you got before a thunderstorm. Somewhere close, Terence Hamilton was about to fucking explode.
Frankie hoped he’d be able to avoid a ruck, but if it did come down to it, he’d be ready. He’d learned how to handle himself at an early age. The old man had seen to that, after this one time Frankie had been jumped by some prick in Islington as a teen. He’d lost his wallet, even though the only thing worth anything in it had been a passport snap of him with his first proper girlfriend, Rach. He’d lost his jacket too. Vintage Levi’s. Keith Moon’s autograph in biro on the back. Bad luck for Frankie. It had belonged to his dad.
The old man had clipped him round the ear when he’d got back home. And worse. He hadn’t given a shit about the mugger having a knife.
‘Bollocks to what you hear on the telly about not fighting back,’ he’d yelled. ‘You never let anyone take fucking anything from you ever again.’
The old man had marched Frankie and Jack down the boxing gym and told his old trainer to toughen them up. Jack had stopped going a couple of weeks later, but Frankie had stuck with it until he’d turned sixteen, when he’d moved on to kickboxing, something he still did most weeks.
He slowed at the end of the alley and lit a smoke. A Rothmans. Punchy as. He hadn’t been able to stop himself from picking up a pack. The stress. Fifty yards ahead was The Toucan pub off Soho Square. A bunch of early evening drinkers were soaking up the sun on the pavement outside. All of them harmless enough. No one he recognised. Advertising and new media types, over from the nearby film screening rooms and editing suites. Designer specs and trainers, no ties.
Frankie threaded his way past girls sipping Chardonnay and lads guzzling Guinness. Best pint of the black stuff in town, according to Potty-Mouth Pete, the manager, who nodded at Frankie now as he reached the bar.
‘How the fuck you doing there, Frankie?’ he said with a gap-toothed smile, his accent Belfast and broad.
‘Not so good.’
‘Why’s that?’
Not a flicker of suspicion in his dark eyes. Meaning he hadn’t yet heard about Jack?
‘Nothing. Just parched,’ said Frankie. ‘Must be the sun.’
‘Then you’re in the right place.’
Pete had several pints of Guinness already lined up for punters. He topped one up and pushed it across the bar to Frankie. Frankie pulled out a twenty from his silver money clip. Pete waved it away.
‘Keep it. You can spot me a couple of frames next time I’m in.’
‘Fancy your luck again, do you?’ Frankie had thrashed him seven frames to nil the last time they’d played.
Pete grinned again. ‘What the fuck did luck ever have to do with sport? Next thing you’ll be telling me you believe in friggin’ pots of gold at the end of the rainbow and leprechauns too . . . you superstitious cunt . . .’
‘On the subject of mythical creatures,’ Frankie said, taking a long, cold swig, ‘you seen young Michael?’
Young Michael. AKA Mickey Flynn.
‘Happens that I have. The wee bas
tard’s downstairs, getting shitfaced with one of his pals.’
‘Cheers.’
Frankie drained his pint and pushed through the crowd, his hands balling into fists.
Mickey tried running the second he saw him, jumping up out of his chair like he’d just sat on a wasp. He nearly made it to the open fire escape too. But he was so pissed he tripped up and fell flat on his face. Trying to haul himself back up, he grabbed for the nearest solid object. Big mistake. Turned out to be the leg of a bull-necked geezer with ‘Millwall F.C.’ tattooed under a roaring lion on the back of his shaven head.
The giant kicked Mickey away. Mickey scrabbled back looking like he’d just shat himself. Made this horrible, high-pitched keening noise, like he’d just trapped his finger in a door.
‘Ahs soh . . .’
Frankie reckoned this was probably Mickey’s slurry attempt at saying, I’m sorry. But it sounded a lot like arsehole too.
‘You fucking what?’
The giant glared down. Everyone waited to see what would happen. The last thing Frankie needed was Mickey in A&E with a broken jaw not able to talk. He had to control this shit now.
The skinhead looked down at his pint. It was full. Not a drop had been spilt. He held it out over Mickey’s head, but just as he started to tip, Frankie stepped in, gripping him by the wrist.
‘Steady, mate,’ he said, smiling a smile that wasn’t friendly at all.
The skinhead gawped at him, clearly not quite believing Frankie had dared to touch him, but Frankie ignored him. Letting go of him, he turned on Mickey instead.
‘I’ve told you before. You’re barred. Now get the fuck up.’
‘Whuh?’ Mickey stared in confusion.
‘How many times already this week, you fucking wanker? When are you gonna get the message you’re not welcome round here?’ Frankie shook his head in disgust, glancing back wearily at the skinhead and shrugging as if to say, What the fuck’s a bloke to do?
‘You work here?’ the skinhead asked, murder in his eyes.
‘Yeah,’ Frankie said. ‘On the door. Just started my shift. Boss sent me down to kick this little weasel out. Now up,’ he told Mickey. ‘Before I let this gentleman behind me kick your rotten teeth into the middle of next week . . .’
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