His smile faded. Mum was gone. A memory. Just like that stupid film. And nothing was growing between him and Sharon. Whatever connection they’d had had been cut. By her.
He joined her at the counter. She nodded. Didn’t speak.
‘And a coffee,’ she told the guy serving. ‘Milk, three sugars.’
They sat down opposite each other. The usual table. She stirred her tea.
‘It looks different here in the daylight,’ he said.
‘Yeah.’
‘Feels different too. Less like sneaking around.’
‘It still wouldn’t look good, us being seen together. Not for work.’
What was that meant to mean? That if they weren’t here because of Jack, then that would somehow be fine?
‘You look tired,’ he said.
‘Thanks.’
‘I don’t mean it like that. I just mean, you know, like you’ve been working hard.’
‘I have.’
‘And outside of work?’
She looked annoyed. Still didn’t want him prying. About him. Her bloke. ‘I meant your mother,’ he lied, remembering her Parkinson’s, how sad she’d sounded when she’d talked about it, how bloody helpless too.
‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘That. That and Nathan.’
Not him bringing it up, her boyfriend. Her.
‘What’s he done?’
The way she’d said it. Something was up.
‘Nothing,’ she said. ‘Yet . . .’ She sighed. ‘He wants us to move.’
Us. ‘Where?’
‘Hong Kong.’
‘Jesus. I thought he’d only just got back.’ Frankie pictured her there, couldn’t help himself. A million miles away.
‘He’s been offered a permanent position,’ she said. ‘A promotion. He’s got contacts there. They know people in the police force too. He says they can find me a job. They need people in the run up to the handover.’
‘The what?’
‘Of the islands. To the Chinese.’
‘Oh, yeah.’ He’d read about it somewhere. Hadn’t seemed important. Until now.
‘Will you go?’
‘I don’t know. He says we don’t have to. That he doesn’t either. Not if I don’t want us to.’
‘And?’ Don’t do it. Tell him to leave, but don’t go with him. Stay here in London. Where you belong. Near bloody me.
She lit a cigarette. ‘Christ, I shouldn’t be talking about this. To you of all people. I don’t even know why I am.’
‘And yet here we still are.’
She shook her head, then looked back at him. All serious. Hard. Her work face. Shutting him out of her life again.
‘The reason why we’re here,’ she said.
‘The old lady. I already know. Your boss called round to tell me in person.’
She looked surprised. Should he tell her how Snaresby had handled it? No. He’d only start swearing. Wouldn’t be able to stop.
‘About how she remembered opening the door,’ he said, ‘and seeing that bastard with a balaclava pulled down over his face . . . But her not remembering anything apart from that.’
‘And the flowers?’
‘What?’
‘Did he tell you about the flowers? Because that’s the first thing she saw. When she looked. They were obscuring his face. That’s why she opened up the door fully to him, because she thought he was there because of the wedding the next day . . . just delivering flowers—’
‘Meaning it could be the same person who killed Star . . .’
‘Could . . . Or maybe this connection . . . it’s just what we want to see . . .’
We? What did she mean? That she was finally coming round to his way of thinking too?
‘But, listen,’ she said. ‘The reason I called you. It’s not about the flowers . . . I spoke to the pathologist this morning,’ she said.
‘You mean about the autopsy? About Keira?’
‘What you were told. About her. It was right. She drowned.’
Was that it? No. There was more. He could see it in her face.
‘But there were also . . . There were wounds,’ she said. ‘Ligature marks . . . around her wrists . . .’
‘Meaning what?’
‘She’d been recently restrained . . .’
‘Tied up?’
‘Yes, but there’s no proof this was against her will.’
Because she was a hooker. It might just have just been part of a trick.
‘There was also a laceration. One and a half inches long. Just above her right cheekbone. But nothing that couldn’t be accounted for by her falling in or being hauled out by the river police . . .’
Whatever it was she wasn’t saying . . . he did the maths for himself. ‘Or,’ he said, ‘someone could have hit her.’
‘But even if that were so . . . it wouldn’t even have been enough to knock her out . . .’
Meaning it was nothing like the batterings Susan Tilley and Tara Stevens had endured. Nothing to connect either of those deaths to this.
‘You’re certain?’
‘Positive,’ Sharon said. ‘She was alive at the time of submersion.’
‘How can you be sure?’
‘From the chemical reaction that occurred when the water mixed with the air and mucus in her lungs. As the air was forced out under pressure, it produced a foam – that’s what the pathologist found inside Keira. Which means she went in breathing.’
Not murdered and then dumped. ‘So what are you saying did happen?’
‘One possibility is suicide.’
‘No.’ Frankie didn’t buy it. She’d been too switched on, too hard.
‘There were high levels of alcohol in her system. Drugs as well. It’s possible that she either killed herself, or that this was an accident.’
‘No,’ Frankie refused to believe this either. ‘She was a junkie.’ The one thing that bastard doorman at Stav’s place had got right. ‘She was used to drugs. Wasn’t some first-timer who’d be unaware of their effects. You can’t tell me she just somehow ended up beside the river and fell in.’
‘With the cocktail she was on, I can’t imagine she was exactly too switched on. She had high levels of both cocaine and GHB in her system. Enough to—’
‘What?’
‘Coke and GHB. Which means—’
‘No, wait,’ Frankie said.
‘What?’
GHB. Where the fuck had he heard that before? Come on. Think. Then . . . Yes . . .
‘It was Keira,’ he said.
‘What was?’
‘When I spoke to her . . . when I met up with her, she told me that Star had some contact, some secret dealer . . . who’d been scoring her that, whatever the fuck it is, along with all kinds of stuff . . .’
‘And?’
‘And it’s another coincidence, isn’t it?’ Frankie said. ‘This GHB . . . first Star having some, then Keira being found dead after taking it. What is it exactly?’
‘Exactly?’
He nodded.
‘Gamma-Hydroxybutyric acid,’ she said. ‘A club drug. Class A. Causes a wide range of symptoms, from euphoria to dizziness . . .’ She started counting off on her fingers, making Frankie think this was probably something she’d been tested on as part of her training. ‘. . . to disinhibition, nausea . . .’
Frankie remembered the congealed vomit on Jack’s sheets, the stain on the floor.
Sharon continued, ‘. . . and amnesia, drowsiness and . . .’
She shut up herself before he even had time to butt in. Then stared at him. He knew what the fuck she was thinking. Because he was thinking the same bloody thing. What if it was GHB that Jack had taken that night? A massive dose of it? What if that was why he couldn’t remember anything? Because he’d been suffering from amnesia? Brought on by that bloody drug?
‘What does it look like?’ he said.
‘What?’ She stared at him for a second, still reeling.
‘The GHB. A powder? A pill?’
; ‘Er . . . Either. Or a liquid.’
‘Liquid?’
‘Yes. It’s soluble. A salt.’ Her brow crumpled even further as she said it. ‘There are some cases where it’s been used as . . . as a date rape drug . . . because people don’t remember, and because it’s easy to put into . . . to dissolve in someone’s drink . . .’
Frankie just stared.
‘Which means Jack might have been drugged? Spiked?’ he finally said. Was that what had happened? What if he’d not even known he was taking it? What if he’d been given it when he thought it was something else? Duped, doped and hung out to dry?
‘It’s possible. Yes.’
‘Was he tested for it?’
‘No, I mean he did agree to a blood test, but—’
‘But what?’
‘With Keira . . . the pathologist said she tested positive for it, but only because she’d died. Otherwise her body would have cleared it less than four hours after ingestion.’
‘Meaning it didn’t show up in Jack’s test?’
‘No. But it does show up in hair samples. For months. The pathologist told me that too.’
‘So Jack can still be tested for it? To see if he took it?’
‘Yes, but . . .’
‘But what? That would prove—’
‘No, Frankie. It wouldn’t. It still wouldn’t prove he didn’t do it. We won’t be able to prove from any hair test which night he took it on, or how much. Someone . . . the prosecution . . . could just argue that he’d taken it recreationally . . . to get high.’
The way she said it, the way she’d distanced herself from it, from them, the prosecution, did this mean she was now on his side? On Jack’s? Was she thinking the cops might just possibly have got it all fucking wrong?
‘And it might not only be Jack,’ he said. ‘But her too,’ he said. ‘Keira. That’s why she might have drowned, even though she’d still been breathing when she went in. Because the GHB had been used by someone else on her to get her wasted . . . proper wasted . . . And those marks on her wrists . . .’ What was that word Sharon had just used? ‘Those ligatures . . . after she’d been drugged, they could have tied her up, and then taken her there to the river, before cutting her free and rolling her in . . .’
‘Again, Frankie, I’m sorry but there’s—’
‘No way of proving it. I know.’
But I don’t need proof. Not now I know. Not now I know as well where that lying bastard of a witness lives.
Sharon checked her watch. Her face was full of doubt. About what? Jack? Or him? Nathan? Was she meant to be with him now?
She stood up. He did too.
‘I’m going to feed this all back in,’ she said. ‘To the investigation. Not where I got it from. Just the thinking . . . the possibilities . . .’
She nodded. It felt like a promise. She turned to go. But then turned back. She leant across the table and kissed him on the cheek. He felt a lump in his throat. Like a fucking kid.
He watched her walk to the door and out. He thought back to the last time he’d watched her leave. He’d done nothing then, even though he’d wanted to. Couldn’t follow her now either. What she was going to do next, it could save Jack’s life.
But how long would it take her? Her talking to her people? Feeding all this back in? He pictured Snaresby. That bastard wanted his brother to rot. Or worse. He’d block her every step of the way.
He pictured Jack too. There in the prison. The people who wanted to do him harm. He was running out of time. Even if Sharon did somehow pull this out the bag . . . Jack might be already dead.
Frankie drained his coffee. He went out and got into his car. He took the Post-it note with Mario Baotic’s address written on it from his pocket and held it tightly in the centre of his balled-up fist.
He couldn’t just rely on Sharon sorting this for him. He still needed to sort it himself.
43
Frankie gazed out through the hire van’s windscreen. At the Chinese takeaway on the corner. So close he could smell the spare ribs. Baotic – assuming the geezer he’d just followed here really was him – was still inside.
A cloudy night. Pitch black. Tip fucking top. Frankie already had his gloves on, his balaclava rolled up on the top of his head under his hoodie. Getting to be quite the habit, eh?
He’d parked up by the little metal gate that led into the park across which Baotic had taken a shortcut on his way here from his neat little suburban semi a couple of streets round the corner.
Frankie had been waiting for him to come out of there all fucking evening. Hadn’t wanted to go barging in. Not like with Mo. Looked too big for just one person. Mind you, no telltale signs of kids outside. No bikes or basketball hoop in the yard. But still possible he had kids or a partner in there. Best to keep himself well clear of all that. He’d waited until the fucker had come out. He’d watched him kiss a woman goodbye. His girlfriend? Wife? A flash of short blonde hair. He’d watched him through the park, then pulled the van up here.
Look alert. Here he was now. Coming back with his little blue plastic takeaway bag. Heading for the park gate. Time for Frankie to make his move. He slid the pistol from under the seat and got out. Stuck the weapon down the back of his jeans and went to the back of the van. Opened the double doors, but not too fucking wide. The lights were off inside, but he could still make out the shapes on the floor: a sack, T-shirt, crowbar, padlock, chain and duct tape. The fucking works.
He waited, heart racing. He checked the road behind him and up ahead. Baotic was the only person in sight. He tugged his cap down low. Keep cool. Keep calm. Keep careful. Because if this bloke really had been out there when Susan Tilley had been murdered, if he really was in on it, then who was to say he wasn’t some kind of fucking gangster himself? Might even have helped do it. Joined in with whatever fucker had already driven there in Jack’s car.
He was real close now. Whistling. Just a couple more steps and . . . Frankie turned to face him . . . bollocks, he was big . . .
‘’Scuse me, mate,’ he said.
The man’s dark brown eyes narrowed.
‘Me?’ he said. ‘What is it you want?’
Frankie’s pulse raced. A heavy accent. East European. Just like bookseller had said.
‘Oh, right, well you see, mate,’ said Frankie, ‘if you don’t mind, can you just hold the door here a second, like, while I pull this parcel out?’
The man grunted something. Shit. What? Was he saying no? No, here he was. A good fucking citizen. He stepped in nice and close. Close-a-fucking-nuff.
Frankie grabbed him by the back of the neck with his left hand. Rabbit punched him well fucking hard in the gut with his right. Once. Twice. Nice. Doubled him up. Winded. Way too fast for the fucker to get a good look at his face.
Frankie kept his grip on him. Bundled him into the back of the van. Climbed in after him. Slammed him down hard on the floor.
He wedged the pistol’s barrel into the side of Baotic’s face. ‘You say one fucking word and you’re dead.’
Nada resistance. Frankie jerked his arms behind his back. Duct taped his wrists. Trussed him up like a turkey. Then gagged him, forcing a wodge of the T-shirt into his gob. Just enough to breathe. Not enough to choke.
He pulled the doors shut behind him and fumbled for the light. Got it on. More duct tape around Baotic’s face. To stop him spitting out the gag. He hauled the sack over his torso and head. Wrapped the chain round him. Then padlocked the bastard to one of the metal struts on the side of the van.
Gotcha. You’d have to be fucking Houdini to get out of that.
He stuck the pistol back into his jeans. Got out the back of the van. Checked the street. A couple of teens loitering a hundred yards away. No one closer. So far so bloody good.
He drove south, careful to keep under the speed limit. Reckoned his ETA to Trumpet Dave’s cottage down in East Sussex was about an hour. He put on a CD. Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd. Had brought it because his old man had always used
to chill to it around bedtime and it had always helped Frankie relax.
But half an hour later and he was still buzzing. Christ on a bike. This wasn’t just wrong, or illegal. It was bang to rights full-on bloody mental.
Christ only knew what sort of time he’d get for this. Especially with this fucker being a cops’ witness. Life. Had to be. They’d throw away the fucking key.
Too late to turn back now, mind. Didn’t want to anyway. No matter how wrong this was officially, it felt right. Justified. And, yeah, fuck it. He lit another cigarette. No getting away from it. Something about all this that he liked. Same as when he’d seen how piss easy it was to shit up even a proper fucking villain like Mo. All it took was force. An effort of will. He still remembered how good it had felt to key that wanker’s car.
He checked the rear view mirror. Saw himself staring back. Maybe this had always been in him. In his blood. Like them Bloodthirsty James Boys back in the day. A great big fucking King Kong chest beater of a gene right here inside him all this time. Just waiting to be fucking set free.
Was this what it was like for real gangsters? For the Rileys and Hamiltons of this world? For Shank friggin’ Wilson? Was this what made people fear them? Not the fact they were evil, or psychopathic. Nothing as black and white as that. Just because they’d discovered that they could . . . be stronger . . . and control . . . and get whatever they wanted, just by terrorising another human being into giving it up?
Another half hour later and he hit the south coast. The cottage was up on a hillside just past Devil’s Dyke. Middle of fucking nowhere. Frankie pulled up in the yard and got out. Total silence. No one in earshot, or gunshot. Not for fucking miles.
He’d used to come here as a kid sometimes with his mum and dad. Happy days. He turned back to face the van. Thought of Baotic inside. Something in him squirmed then. What? Doubt? Over what he was doing? Who he was being?
No, fuck that. No way you’re backing out. This isn’t about now. This is about the greater good. About Jack. This witness can do him for life. Or even just keep him inside for long enough not to matter. Just long enough for one of Hamilton’s boys to do him.
Framed Page 25