‘They’re talking about sticking me on the nonce wing,’ Jack had told Frankie. ‘With the paedoes and the rapists. For my own protection. I’ve told them no. But I don’t know, Frankie. I don’t feel safe here. Not any more.’
The old man had got wind about the contents of Jack’s car as well. He’d been next on Frankie’s visiting list today, across town in Brixton. He’d not been happy either. The whole time they’d talked, he’d kept his knuckles clenched like he’d wanted to snap something or crush it. Most likely a neck.
He’d heard Frankie out. About how nobody, not even Jack, could be so stupid as to leave a weapon and blood right there in their car. Or walk fucking home. If you ignored what the cops said about Jack having been high, which Frankie reckoned just sounded like bullshit anyway, then none of this made any sense. More like this was a stitch-up, pure and simple. That’s what he’d told the old man. He just hoped the old bastard believed him. Hated to think he might not. That would destroy both him and Jack.
Frankie turned into the street the courier firm was on. A suburban backwater. He drove past the address and pulled into a car park opposite, in front of a small parade of shops. Had a good nosey through the car windows. Only cctv he could spot this side of the street was above a Londis and that was pointing the other way.
OK, so let’s hit it. The cop routine. A quick in and out. Keep it confident. And polite. The same as before. He pulled on a baseball cap and shades. Got out, locked the car and crossed the road. Headed for the courier office.
No cctv on show. Nice. He took off his shades and cap and tucked them into his jacket pockets. But the office’s front door opened just as he reached it. A woman in her early forties came out, flipping the sign round to ‘Back in 5 minutes’.
He noticed she didn’t double lock the door, despite the keys hanging from her belt. He walked past, head down. He clocked a phone box ten yards away. Ducked inside and watched the woman head into a sandwich shop opposite. She had blonde hair, cut short. A cheap blue suit with some kind of corporate scarf round her neck.
A queue several people long snaked back from the sandwich shop’s counter. Frankie pulled the courier docket from his pocket and rang the office number. No answer. No one in.
He had just minutes. He pulled his cap and shades back on and hurried back to the office door. Watching the shops opposite in the half-reflection of the office window, he took Sharon’s business card from his suit pocket. Feel the quality. Expensively-thick, but flexible. Perfect.
He waited for a second when no one was passing, then slid the card up the doorframe to the tarnished Yale lock. Another sign of a misspent youth. He hadn’t exactly ever been a pro, but he had broken into a few places in his time. Mainly for kicks, in his teens. For dares. Just to see if he could. Into school, to tag the halls. Or through open restaurant windows to nick booze. Stuff that could have got him a police record, but luckily never had. Looking back, all he felt was ashamed.
But he did still remember this. Him and his mates had used to practise on one of their dad’s plumbing stores when he wasn’t around. The trick was to apply pressure with the shoulder, allowing you to thread the card in between the door and the frame, then use another card – his own this time, an Amex, long maxed out – to prise back the locking mechanism until . . . Hey, presto. The lock popped.
He pulled on his gloves. Another disposable pair nicked from a garage forecourt on the way over. He turned the handle. Another glance in the window’s half-reflection. The middle-aged blonde bird was still in the queue. Not looking at him. He stepped quickly into the courier office, shutting the door behind.
He felt a shiver down his spine: a buzz of fear, of being somewhere he wasn’t allowed.
‘Hello?’ he called out. Just in case there was someone here.
No answer. This place was a tip. Stank of fag smoke. Just the one desk with a square grey IBM on it. He hurried over and checked out the screen. Good: the screensaver hadn’t kicked in. Even better: not a new computer. He’d used one like this at school.
He scanned the named file folders laid out across the screen in a neat row: invoices, insurance, overheads, payroll, jobs . . .
He pulled out his photocopied docket again. The courier’s signature was illegible, but the date and time were clear enough. He clicked the ‘jobs’ folder open. All neatly organised inside. He quickly scrolled down to the right date and opened the file. A Lotus spreadsheet. A list of the forty-six jobs for that day. He read down the postcodes. Only two pickups in W1. But two different couriers. One called Jones. One Baotic.
Baotic. What was it the bookseller had told him? About the courier’s accent being East European. Well, that put this Jones out of the picture, right? But what about Baotic? Was that East European? Who fucking knew?
He checked his watch. Just crack on. Get the gen. You’re running out of time. He checked out across the street again. Could just about make out the woman. At the front of the queue, being served. Arsewipes. How long did he have left before she got back? Minutes? Less?
He shut the folder and dragged the mouse back to the one labelled ‘payroll’. Fuck. Hundreds of names. Maybe everyone who’d ever worked here. But all sorted alphabetically. He scrolled down . . . Ross Adams . . . Salvador Apellido . . . until Baotic was there.
Double clicking on the name file, Frankie’s heart thumped. Baotic’s employment details. The jobs he’d worked. The one in W1. But only a couple before that. His first one only a fucking week before. Meaning the wanker had only just started working here. How fucking convenient. Hadn’t done another job either, since Susan Tilley had died.
Then gold dust. The shithead’s address. Frankie snatched up a yellow Post-it from the block next to the keyboard and grabbed a biro from the pot beside. He started scrawling down the address – then felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.
Movement. He looked up. Fuck. The blonde. Already halfway across the street. Ten seconds and she’d be here. Shit on a stick. What had he been thinking? He should have checked again before.
He double-clicked the mouse. Shut down the file. Too late to run. Somehow had to front this out. But how? He snatched up the Post-it. Stepped away from the desk. Would she have some way of checking which files had been recently accessed? Quick. Get away from the computer. The last thing he needed was her telling the cops that someone had come here snooping and looking for Baotic. He took another quick two steps. And fuck. His shades. He took them off. His jacket too. No way would a cop have walked in here uninvited.
She reached the door. Still hadn’t seen him inside. She fumbled for her keys. He risked another step away from her desk. Then stopped as the door handle turned and the woman came in.
‘Hi,’ he said loudly, stepping forward, another whole pace from her computer.
She looked up, startled. Her takeaway soup carton slipped from her fingers. Her hand shot up to her mouth.
Frankie’s quickly reached out.
‘There, gotcha,’ he said.
She stared in disbelief. He’d caught the soup carton. Just in time. Hadn’t spilt a drop.
‘Sorry,’ he said with a smile. ‘I didn’t mean to startle you. Blimey, that was close.’
‘But who . . .? How . . .?’
He pushed the carton into her hands. ‘Oh, yeah, right, the door . . . it was open,’ he said.
She looked from him to it and back again, like it might somehow be able to contradict what she must have suspected deep down was a lie. Frankie just kept smiling.
‘Smells good,’ he said. ‘What is it? Chicken?’
‘Er, ham and pea,’ she said.
But she still wasn’t buying it, him just being here. Not yet. He could see it in her eyes as they flicked to her desk, then the door. Keep her calm. Keep this contained. Quick. Give her a fucking good reason why you’re here.
‘Salvador,’ he said.
‘What?’
‘Apellido.’
Her eyes widened in recognition of the name, the
same one he’d just seen on her screen.
‘Salv?’
‘Yeah, right. Salv,’ said Frankie, his smile widening once more. ‘He told me I might find some work here.’
‘Oh, well . . .’ The woman’s shoulders sagged with relief. She walked past Frankie to her desk. ‘And how is he?’ she asked.
‘Great.’
‘Still enjoying being back in Barcelona?’
Barcelona? ‘Absolutely,’ Frankie said. ‘He couldn’t be happier.’
‘Right, well, first things first. Have you got a clean licence?’
‘Oh, yeah,’ Frankie told her, still smiling, sitting down. ‘Clean as a whistle. I’m as honest as the day is long.’
41
Frankie got back to the club around three and checked in with Slim. All quiet on the Soho front. A healthy looking till too. A bunch of twenty-something lads on a stag weekend down from Edinburgh had come in after lunch. Had done about eight pints each. Nice.
Frankie had one himself. Just the one, mind. Needed his wits about him. He shot the breeze with Slim for a while. Xandra was out doing a food shop over on Berwick Street. Slim brought up that missing tenner again. Said someone else had complained about a missing fiver last night, as well, but they’d been pissed, he admitted, so who bloody knew?
Frankie told him not to worry and Slim tapped his nose and nodded at the floor, saying he wouldn’t. He meant the loose tile there just under the fridge, where he hid the till key after hours. Something they’d both kept from Xandra. Even though Frankie felt more and more he now trusted her enough to know.
He had a quick catch-up with her when she got back. She was looking happy, and healthy. Had fixed up the kitchenette out back and had started making her own food. Not bad either. Frankie tucked into a bowl of macaroni cheese that she knocked up. Even Slim had to admit it wasn’t half bad.
Frankie ducked out around four to a phone box over on Shepherd Market. One down a dark alley, used by hookers for contacting johns. No cctv cameras in sight.
He made a quick call. To Aunty Sal and Trumpet Dave. Not real rellies. Old pals of his mum and dad’s. He asked them how they were. Their kids as well. Around the same age as Jack and Frankie. Sal said how sorry they were about everything, about Jack. She said there was no way he’d done it. No fucking way at all.
Frankie called in a favour. They had a place down near Brighton. A holiday cottage. He told them he needed some time on his own. Just a couple of days. To recharge his batteries. Sal came good. Told him the cottage was empty for the next couple of weeks. He could stay as long as he liked.
Halfway down Poland Street on his way back the club, he spotted Snaresby. Too fucking late. The bastard had already spotted him too. He was parked up inches from the club. In a silver Saab. Too nice, too spenny for a cop. A straight cop anyhow.
‘She’s awake,’ he said, as Frankie marched past. ‘Properly awake and talking now.’
Frankie stopped dead in his tracks. The old woman. That’s who he meant. Susan Tilley’s gran.
Snaresby’s shark eyes twinkled. ‘I interviewed her earlier today.’
Frankie pictured Jack’s face in the Visitors’ Centre: the need, the raw fucking desperation in his eyes. But no, fuck it. Snaresby wasn’t here for that. To give him good news. To tell him the old girl had put Jack in the clear. He was here because of bad news. To give him bloody grief.
‘And?’ Frankie couldn’t stop himself from saying it.
‘And the good news is . . . that she remembers the attack . . .’
Frankie felt sick. Sweet Jesus. He tried to read Snaresby’s face. Couldn’t. Jesus. Please don’t let her have ID’d Jack. Because if she has, then that means . . .
‘But whoever attacked her, when she opened the door to him, he was wearing a balaclava,’ he said.
‘And did he?’ Again Frankie couldn’t stop himself asking. ‘Did he take it off? Did she see his—’
‘No.’
So she hadn’t ID’d Jack. But, fuck it, she hadn’t cleared him either. Frankie’s whole body sagged. His one hope. Gone. Just one glimpse. That’s all it would have taken. One glimpse of someone else’s face. Not Jack’s. Then this whole fucking horror show would have gone away.
‘She doesn’t even remember what colour her assailant’s eyes were or even how tall he was,’ Snaresby said. ‘Considering what he did to her next . . . the brutality of the attack . . . it’s hardly surprising, I suppose.’
Frankie saw his hands were shaking. Snaresby saw it too.
‘Too much drink, son? It’ll do that to you,’ he said.
The stink of him. Frankie felt it wash right over him. The foul guff of Snaresby’s aftershave. His dirty Old Spice or Brut.
‘And that’s it, is it?’ Frankie said. ‘Why you’re here? Just to tell me she’s not put my brother in the clear? Just to see my fucking face?’
‘Oh, no, son,’ Snaresby said, taking out his Marlboros and brass Zippo. ‘You’ve got me all wrong. I’m not here to mock you. No, no, not at all. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’m here to help.’
‘Yeah? And how the fuck d’you figure that?’
‘Well, I just want you to get on with your own life, don’t I? Don’t want you clutching at straws.’
‘Straws?’ What the fuck was this wanker on about now?
‘False hopes. Like this old lady or someone else somehow suddenly proving your little brother didn’t do it. Because you can’t go putting your whole life on hold for a fantasy like that, can you? Any more than you can for something equally unlikely . . . like your old man’s appeal . . .’
‘He’s innocent too. They both fucking are.’
Snaresby tutted. He flicked his Zippo into life and sparked up a smoke. ‘I mean, that’s just it, you see, son. You’re looking at all that . . . you know, really focussing in on it . . . when you should be, well . . . looking ahead . . . to your future . . .’ He stretched out his spidery arms like he was conducting a fucking symphony. ‘. . . to here . . . to the club . . . to London . . . to everything you’ve got going . . . everything that’s waiting for you further up the line . . .’
‘And you expect me to believe that, do you? That you actually give a shit about me any more than you give a shit about my brother or old man?’
‘I’m just a decent cop doing his job. And I’ve been doing it a fair old while. Long enough to know that just because there’s a bad apple in a family – or in your case, two . . .’ He blew smoke up into the air. ‘. . . doesn’t mean you have to make it three. Doesn’t mean you need to end up going down the same nasty little path as them. Because you’re not like them, are you? Or at least you don’t have to be. You can be someone else. Your own man.’
What was this? Why was this bastard doing this? Why was he taking the piss? Snaresby stared at him. Watched.
‘Go fuck yourself,’ Frankie said. ‘You don’t know anything about me. Or my family.’
He marched on into the club. Could still feel that bastard grinning. The toe-rag. The wanker. What the fuck was all that about? Why’d he tried winding him up like that? Just because he could? Because he thought it was funny? Because he hated him? For whatever the same fucked-up reason he hated the rest of Frankie’s family? Or because he’d wanted to wind him up enough to get Frankie to hit him? For the pleasure of then being able to bang him up as well?
Well, fuck him sideways. He’d failed.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Slim as Frankie reached the bar.
‘Nothing. Nothing that a drink won’t fix.’
His own man? That tosspot. Frankie poured himself a double vodka. Necked it. He stared across the club at the door. You think you fucking know me? Think a-fucking-gain. Tomorrow night. Oh, yes. We’ll soon see who’s the smart bastard out of us two.
That dumb fuck Snaresby didn’t even know he’d got his prime witness’s name.
42
‘That woman. She rang,’ Xandra told him as she joined them at the bar, a couple of stacks of glasses in her
hands.
‘Who?’
‘The shouty one.’
‘Oh, her . . .’ She meant Sharon. Frankie had had enough of cops for one day. Even her. ‘What did she want?’
‘Just to call her back. Said it was important.’
About the old woman? Her waking up and not being able to clear Jack? Would have probably broken it to him a whole lot nicer than that piece of human shit outside.
‘She made me promise,’ said Xandra. ‘That you’d call.’
She offered him the phone. He shook his head.
‘As soon as you got in. Or she said she’d have to come round.’
He groaned. Because, really, what was the point? Who needed to hear shit news twice? But then he remembered. The last conversation they’d had. How they’d talked about how Susan Tilley and Tara Stevens had been killed. Both bludgeoned. And the petals. And Keira too. About how she’d told Frankie Jack had been with Tara and how knowing that might have got her killed.
Maybe this wasn’t about the old woman at all? But the autopsy instead? What if they’d found signs of foul play?
He hurried up to the flat and called her. No joy at work. Tried her home. No boyfriend answering this time. Just her.
Half an hour later and he was pulling up outside the Starlight café. He was just slapping a parking ticket down on the Capri’s dash, when he clocked her walking along the opposite pavement and ducking inside the caff.
He found himself smiling. Not just at the sight of her, though there was something about that too, the way she walked, even at a distance. No, more because he couldn’t help remembering his mum’s favourite movie. Brief Encounter. A black-and-white classic. The story of a man and woman whose love affair grew over a course of meetings in a jaded café not much different from this.
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