Snaresby had been as good as his word, getting his people in and out sharpish early yesterday afternoon, so that Frankie had been able to open up again this morning as soon as Taffy had sodded off. But why exactly was Snaresby helping? Frankie was still wondering about that. Why was he so intent on Frankie backing off? Just because he was a cop and he didn’t want some amateur poking around? Or because he didn’t want his nice little open-and-shut case starting to leak? Or because of something else? Because of something he didn’t want Frankie to find out?
More lightning. One of the punters started whistling The Twilight Zone theme. Frankie shook his head. Could be the theme tune to his life these last few days. He took another swig of coffee. Had to keep his shit together today. Things would spiral out of control pretty fucking fast if he didn’t, with what he had planned for later on.
After Snaresby’s goons had buggered off yesterday with their cameras and swabs and print kits, a couple of drinks down and all Frankie had wanted was to get out there amongst it. Amongst them. Amongst whoever might have been behind all this.
Hamilton’s boys. They’d been right up there. Top of his list. Why? Because they had plenty of reason, didn’t they? They wanted Jack kept inside. Didn’t want Frankie rocking the boat. Would be happy seeing Frankie frightened off. His reaction? He’d wanted to get hold of one of them. Give them a proper hiding. Find out if they’d done it or knew who did this. Fight fucking fire with fire.
But something had stopped him. And not just his general decency and love for his fellow man. Or Snaresby either. Snaresby could stick his sodding warnings up his arse. No, what had stopped Frankie heading out on the warpath was something Slim had said: Why would anyone bother warning you off at all unless they had something to hide?
Frankie had actually listened. He’d tipped the lager he was halfway through and had gone upstairs and fixed himself some food to sober up. He’d decided he needed to be more careful, smarter, like a real detective. And stop all this bullshit of trying to look into what had happened to Susan Tilley in such a haphazard, pissed-up, way.
He’d gone back to his piece of card. Those words he’d written down. His leads. And he’d made a bigger plan too. About how he was going to go about it. To tell no one what he was doing. Not even the people he trusted. Not Jack, Kind Regards, Slim or the old man. Because someone had been watching him, hadn’t they? Or listening in. Someone with something to hide, someone capable of breaking in here and threatening his livelihood as well as his life. Meaning he had to be careful. Make it look like he’d listened to the warning. Because whoever it was who’d been watching him before, you could bet your arse they were still watching him now.
No one was in earshot. He tried the phone again. The same number he’d been calling all day, the one he’d copied down in Jack’s house before Sharon had knocked him flat.
Sharon. He’d woken up thinking about her this morning. But not how she was now, as a cop. And him different too, younger. The two of them at school, just before he’d dropped out. He’d remembered that the day his dad had been arrested had been the day he’d been going to ask her out. He shook his head. He’d totally forgotten about that. All these years. She’d dropped out of his life, but now she was back. And guess what? His whole life was messed up again.
He counted the rings. Last time he’d tried he’d got to thirty before hanging up. But this time halfway through the first ring, someone picked up. Silence. No . . . breathing. He could hear breathing. Someone was definitely there.
‘Hello?’ he said.
‘Yes?’ A man.
Fuck-a-de-do. This could be them. The fucker who’d tipped Jack off to run. Keep it calm. Don’t scare them off.
‘This is going to sound a bit strange . . .’ he said. But who are you? And did you call my brother?
He never got a chance to ask.
‘Listen,’ said the voice, ‘I don’t know who this is, but I’m trying to make a call.’
‘You what?’ said Frankie.
‘A call. And whoever you’re trying to get hold of, they’re not here. The box was empty when I got here.’
‘What box?’
‘This one. The phone box. The one I’m standing in now.’
A phone box? ‘A public phone box?’ Frankie said. ‘Is that where you’re telling me you are?’
‘Yes, and if you don’t mind, I’m trying to—’
‘Where exactly?’ said Frankie.
‘What?’
‘Where exactly is the box that you’re in?’
‘Er . . . Look, who is this? And what possible business is it of yours where—’
‘Someone called me,’ Frankie said. ‘From this number. Someone called me and . . .’
Fuck. There was no way he could explain the real reason. But he had to stop this bloke hanging up. Be nice. Sound nice. He forced himself to smile. He’d read somewhere that doing that made your voice sound kind of fucking smiley too.
‘Listen, mate, I just need to know where it was they called me from, OK? It’s a bit complicated to explain, but yeah, if you could just humour me, I would really appreciate it if you could just help me out.’
‘Soho,’ the man said.
‘Which bit? What street? I mean, if you don’t mind, mate . . .’
‘Um, well . . . I’m not exactly sure of the name . . . The rain, you see. I was walking down Oxford Street and then I spotted this and . . .’
Oxford Street. Jesus. Well close to here. Less than a mile from Jack’s place too.
‘What can you see?’
A pause. Come on. Come on. Frankie pictured whoever it was on the other end of the line peering out through the phone box’s rain-spattered glass.
‘Um, well, hang on, yes, there is something . . . A big grey building with a blue sign out the front . . . Er . . . it looks like a police station, actually, I think . . .’
A fucking cop shop?
‘Which one?’
‘The sign. It’s too blurry. I can’t read it from here.’
Then bloody get out there. Bloody look. Calm. Keep calm. Think. There were only two round there.
‘Can you describe it, mate? The front of the building. Is it old or new?’
‘Old, definitely . . . stone . . .’
Frankie didn’t need to hear any more.
‘Cheers, mate. You’re a gent,’ he said, hanging up.
He stared at the phone. The only old cop shop round here was West End Central Police Station. Where they were holding Jack. Where Snaresby worked. Jesus. Jack’s tip-off had come from there? What did it mean? Something? Nothing? Everything? Could a cop have made that call? Snuck out there just before the raid on Jack’s? Some bent fucker on some bastard’s payroll? Even Snaresby himself? To make Jack look more guilty? To make him run? Or had the call come from someone else? Someone trying to help him? Some kind of accomplice? But on whose orders? Who’d called the shots?
Frankie pictured Sharon’s face. Christ alive. She was based there too. Was she somehow mixed up in this? Was that why she’d just happened to turn up there at Jack’s flat at the same time as him? Not a coincidence, but because she or whoever she was working with had somehow known he’d be there? What if it had been her who’d been sitting in that car with someone else who’d then driven off? No. Piss off. Bollocks. Not her. No way.
The hiss of the rain ramped up a notch as the club’s front door swung open. Frankie watched Kind Regards dripping in his trilby and mac, shutting up his umbrella and tapping its point on the doorstep to shake off the worst of the weather.
‘Oi, Slim,’ Frankie called out. ‘You mind keeping an eye on the bar for ten minutes?’
‘Yeah, yeah. No problem.’
Slim wandered over from where he’d been flicking through a paper on the sofa. Frankie went over and shook hands with Kind Regards. He tried reading his expression. It didn’t look good.
‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s talk upstairs. It’s quieter there.’
Kind Regards followed
him in silence across the hall and up to the flat. Frankie took his wet coat and hat and hung them on the antique hat stand his mum had bought the old man for their fifteenth wedding anniversary. Kind Regards smiled, seeing his trilby next to Frankie’s dad’s.
‘I remember the first time he wore that,’ he said. ‘Cheltenham Gold Cup. He was only twenty-three and everyone took the piss. Told him he looked like some kind of bloody spy out of a Cold War flick. Not that he gave a toss.’
The old man had loved that hat. Even now, years into his sentence, it still gave Frankie the odd pang, seeing it hanging there like the old man had just popped out down the shops and would be back any minute with a takeaway and a vid to sit in front of while they ate. Good times, those, when him and Jack had used to crash here weekends after their parents had first split. They’d been more like three brothers, instead of a father and two sons.
‘I tried calling,’ said Kind Regards, as Frankie stuck the kettle on in the kitchen, ‘but your phone’s been engaged all morning.’
Frankie told him about the public phone box next to the cop shop while he fixed him a cup of tea. The two of them sat down opposite one another at the small kitchen table.
‘Interesting, but it’s hardly proof of anything,’ Kind Regards said.
‘Maybe not. But it doesn’t look good either. Not to me. It’s not just that it might have been a cop who put that call in to make Jack run. It’s why they did it. It’s who they might have been working for.’
Whoever had wanted Susan Tilley and her grandmother dead. But the only people Frankie could think of were Tommy Riley’s mob. For revenge. But then why frame one of his own people? Why frame Jack for that? Unless the cops other theory was correct? That Jack had been involved, but had made a fucking mess of it. Had become a liability. But even then, would they really have given him up for that? Because why risk it? What if he talked? Wouldn’t it have been safer to just kill him as well?
‘My offer to find you a professional detective to help still stands,’ Kind Regards said.
‘As does my lack of money to pay for one.’ Plus, he wouldn’t trust one. The only detectives he’d ever heard of round here were ex-cops. And he wouldn’t trust one of them as far as he could spit.
Kind Regards put down his mug and leaned forward. ‘There’s something else we need to talk about.’
The way he said it . . . like Jack already being under arrest for murder wasn’t the real problem . . . like there was something much, much worse . . . Frankie swallowed. Shit. Here we bloody well go.
‘There’s a witness,’ said Kind Regards.
‘You what?’
‘Someone who says they saw it all.’
‘What do you mean all?’
‘Everything. What happened at the Tilley place. The cops – Snaresby – he says he’s got someone who was there that night at the grandmother’s house and saw the killer, covered in blood. They say they watched him remove his balaclava. They say they saw his face.’
Oh, Jesus. Frankie couldn’t bring himself to ask. He already knew what the answer would be. He fucking prayed he was wrong.
‘The witness says it was Jack. ID’d him in a line up. It happened this afternoon.’
Frankie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Was Jack lying? Had he really murdered Susan Tilley and beaten her grandmother half to death? He shook his head, feeling faint. No. Fuck that. What if Jack wasn’t lying? Yeah, spin this shit on its head. If Jack wasn’t lying then that meant this witness was.
‘Then they’re a fucking liar,’ he said. ‘Who are they? Who is this wanker? I will fucking kill them. I will tear them apart.’
To get them to recant. To tell the truth. But who were they? Why were they lying? Why?
Kind Regards shrugged. ‘Your guess is as good as mine. They’ve already been granted an investigation anonymity order. Which means the police aren’t releasing their identity and won’t have to. Right up until the trial. To protect them. From whoever else might be involved. Whatever criminal elements the police think Jack was working with. In case they try to get at the witness before the trial in order to intimidate them, or worse. It’s even possible they’ll be granted a trial anonymity order too.’
Frankie’s hands were shaking. ‘So what? We’ve just got to wait, have we? We can’t talk to this bastard at all?’
Kind Regards looked paler than Frankie had even known him. ‘Once we’ve appointed a barrister, we’ll be able to find out more . . . put more pressure on . . .’
In Frankie’s mind all he could see was some faceless, lying bastard, right here with their lying neck gripped between his fists. Another thought hit him.
‘But what if they did it?’
‘Who?’
‘This so-called witness. What if the reason they’re saying Jack did it is because they did it themselves?’
‘The prosecution say this person, whoever they are . . . they’re watertight, completely credible. Their story checks out. Which is why they’re formally charging Jack. They’re putting him on remand.’
‘That mean I can see him?’ No matter how bad this news was, this might be one good thing at least.
‘Yes. I’ll sort it for you as soon as I can.’
‘I still don’t buy, it, though. This witness. I bloody tell you. Because what if the cops are wrong? Like they are about bloody most things? Or what if they’re worse than wrong? What if they’re in this as well?’
‘Just don’t do anything stupid, all right?’ Kind Regards said.
‘I won’t,’ Frankie said. ‘How can I? I don’t even know who this lying sack of shit is. At least not yet,’ he added under his breath, but not quietly enough.
‘Not yet?’ Kind Regards frowned. ‘Those are the kind of words a man uses when he’s planning on doing something . . . something he might live to regret . . .’
‘I’m not planning on doing anything,’ Frankie said, staring down at the floor.
Not now.
Not yet.
Not at least until tonight.
20
Frankie sat parked in his Capri opposite the entrance to Mohammed Bishara’s mews. He’d been here since six and it was now coming up for nine. Starting to get dark. Still no sign of Mo, though.
He kept thinking back to his conversation with Kind Regards earlier on. Whoever this witness was, they’d do for Jack unless Frankie got hold of them first. But how the hell was he meant to do that?
The only idea he’d come up with so far was a pretty dumb one that might well land him in jail. To somehow put pressure on Snaresby. To get him to spill the witness’s name.
But what kind of pressure? How far would Frankie have to take it? Snaresby wasn’t just a bastard, he was a hard bastard. Even if Frankie did come up with some way of putting the frighteners on him, there was no guarantee he’d crack. And if Frankie played it wrong, well, he’d end up as screwed as Jack, wouldn’t he?
Then there was Sharon. He’d got over his panic that she might somehow be in with whatever bent cop might have made that call to Jack. Her doing that, it just didn’t fit. Did it? She was too . . . well, she was too nice. Too fucking decent. Even if she was a cop. But not just decent. There was something else about her. The same something that had drawn him to her at school. He liked her, always had. Always wished he’d somehow got round to telling her. And he believed her when she’d said she wanted to do the right thing.
He still believed she had her doubts about Jack’s guilt too. He kept remembering that look in her eyes when they’d talked about how come the blood was just in his bedroom. But even so, how much was she realistically likely to rock the boat, without some kind of proof to back her up? This was her career. And he was just somebody she used to know.
His eyes narrowed. A short, stout figure came into view fifty yards down the street. He felt his heartbeat rise. Mo. In the same three-quarter-length leather coat as before.
Frankie sank down lower into his seat as Mo passed on the other side of the road and turn
ed into the mews. Phew. He hadn’t spotted him. Frankie lit a smoke and then another. He chugged down three in total while he kept watch in case Mo was expecting company. Then he moved. Time to get in there and do this.
He parked the car a block away, then threaded on his gloves and pulled a rolled-up black balaclava he’d picked up from an army surplus store down onto his head, so that it looked like a Benny hat. He checked the street, before sliding the pistol from the glove compartment and zipping it up inside the left pocket of his hoodie. Fuck, it felt heavy. His stomach lurched. Get stopped by a cop with this and he’d be doing time.
Should he leave the gun behind? No, fuck that. Mo was a pro. This would tell him loud and clear he was dealing with another pro too. He took the knife out of the compartment as well. It was wicked – curved and sharp. He slid it carefully into his right pocket, tucking its handle up out of sight under his top. Better not fucking trip. Or he’d slice his bollocks off.
The less time he spent out on the street, the better. He fetched the old pizza box from the boot and pulled his hoodie up, then jogged back to the mews and on past Mo’s Aston Martin. He hoped to fuck Mo hadn’t headed out during the few minutes he’d not had the mews in his sight. A waste of his whole frigging night if he had.
He pressed the door buzzer, once, twice, then shouted, ‘All right, mate. Pizza,’ through the polished brass letterbox. Nice and friendly, like.
In case Mo looked out, he made sure the pizza box was showing at the door’s peephole. Footsteps. Then silence. He kept the box up. The door’s chain was taken off its latch. Frankie pulled the front of his balaclava down, concealing his face.
‘Listen, pal,’ said Mo Bishara tetchily, opening up, ‘I didn’t order any bloody—’
Frankie didn’t fuck around. Bish, bash, bosh. He smashed the door hard into Mo, bundling in after and flattening the bastard up against the wall with it. Nice. Smack. He did it again. Got a good hold of him. Punched him in the gut. Again for luck. Kicking the door shut behind him, he stepped in sharpish behind Mo, hooking one arm tight round his neck. He flashed the knife blade right before his eyes. Gave him a good fucking look. Then pressed it flat to his windpipe.
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