Frankie flexed his fingers inside his gloves. He’d got one big advantage on the cops. Something else he’d worked out on his visit to Mo. Where the cops were trained to think like a criminal to catch one, Frankie could go one better – he could act like a criminal too.
Do whatever it took to get to the truth.
And he would.
44
‘In two seconds, you’re gonna tell me your fucking name.’
Frankie glared through the eyeholes of his balaclava at Baotic. At least he fucking prayed it was him. Dried blood all over him from when Frankie had jumped him in London. Now had him duct taped to a chair in the cottage. Had used the kitchen table to wedge him up tight up against the cooker.
Fuck, he looked scared.
Frankie jerked the bunched up T-shirt out of his gob. Watched him shudder like he was going to puke.
‘Who . . . Who are—’
‘No, motherfucker,’ Frankie yelled. ‘Your fucking name. Tell me it now.’
‘Mario.’
Well, thank fucking hell for that. At least he’d kidnapped the right man.
‘Mario fucking what?’
‘Baotic,’ the man said.
Bayotitch? To rhyme with bitch. East European for sure. Russian? Was that what he was dealing with here? A Russian? Shit, what if he was some kind of Russian bloody gangster? Moving in on Hamilton’s turf? Was that why Jack had been framed? Because some Ruski hood wanted the Hamiltons and Rileys at each other’s throats?
‘Who do you work for, bitch?’ Frankie said.
‘No one.’
‘Liar.’ Another smack in the gut. Already knew this one didn’t like that. He let him get his breath back, then he asked him, ‘Who?’
‘No . . . please . . . I don’t know . . .’
Frankie picked up the crowbar.
‘You’re not very quick on the uptake, are you? There’s no point in you denying everything, because I already know what you’ve done.’
‘I don’t understa—’
Frankie brought the crowbar smashing down against the wall, just past Baotic’s head.
‘Oh. Yes. You. Fucking. Do.’
‘Please . . .’
‘Susan. Fucking. Tilley,’ Frankie said.
Bing-fucking-go. Oh, yes. Right there. Blazing in Mario Baotic’s eyes. This bastard was guilty as hell.
‘Yeah, that’s right,’ Frankie said. ‘Susan Tilley. And Jack James. You know that name as well.’
No denial. The bastard just started to shake.
‘Ah, so now you see it,’ Frankie said. ‘How right royally screwed you are. Because I know what you’ve been doing. Talking to the cops. And even worse than just talking, you’ve been telling porkie pies.’
Baotic started to hyperventilate. What was he thinking? Where were the cops? Why weren’t they protecting him? How the fuck had a nutter like Frankie tracked him down?
Frankie leant in close. Didn’t hit him. Put down the crowbar. Took out a smoke and lit it off the gas cooker next to his head. Gave Baotic a nice, long look at the flame, before leaving his cigarette on the edge of the cooker, smoke curling up around Baotic’s terrified face.
‘You’ve got a very simple choice.’ Frankie picked up his crowbar from the table. ‘Either you tell me why you’ve been lying to the pigs right now, or I’m gonna break your fucking legs, then your arms, and then your fucking neck.’
‘Please . . . no . . .’ Tears welled up in Baotic’s eyes. ‘Please . . . believe me . . . I only do it . . . what he say . . .’
’Ello, ’ello.
‘Who?’
Tears. The fucker was crying now.
‘Wilson,’ he said. ‘Mister Wilson.’
Wilson? Was this some kind of joke? Fucking hell. That cunt Shank Wilson was behind all this? He’d sent Baotic out there? But why? Was he behind the girl’s murder as well? Or just covering up for someone else? Frankie remembered Wilson dragging Dougie Hamilton off him outside the Ambassador Club. Like he’d been doing Frankie a favour. That bastard had looked Frankie right in the eyes and had told him – what? That the best thing Frankie could do was disappear. That if he thought about pressing charges, he’d come back and skin him. That motherfucker. That motherfucker had been laughing in his face. He’d known Jack had been innocent all along.
‘You work for him?’ Frankie’s said. ‘That it? You one of Hamilton’s fucking boys?’
‘No . . . just things . . . just sometimes . . . just sometimes I do things for him . . .’
Frankie slowly shook his head. Things like lying about being a witness to something he wasn’t. Because Wilson couldn’t have used one of his own boys for that, could he? The cops would have rumbled that connection for sure.
‘What did you do for him this time?’ Frankie said. ‘What did you really see?’
‘I can’t . . .’ Baotic wept.
‘Can.’ Frankie hit him in the gut with the curved end of the crowbar. Hard as he could.
Breath hissed out of Baotic. Piss ran down his trousers onto the floor.
Frankie slapped the crowbar against his palm. ‘I know for a fact that Jack James didn’t do it,’ he said. ‘But I also know, because of the cctv that the cops have got, that you really were there at the same time as whoever drove in through those gates in Jack’s car . . . Which means there were two of you there . . . So now you’re gonna tell me . . . if the other fella wasn’t Jack James . . . then who the fuck was it?’
Baotic’s eyes stretched wide. He stared desperately at the door. Well, he could go swivel for it. Batman and Robin weren’t coming here to save his sorry arse tonight.
‘Who?’ Frankie said. ‘Who drove that car there? Who murdered that girl?’
Baotic tried to speak. Shaking too hard. His accent thickened. His words came out as whimpers and hisses. Made no sense.
‘Or wasn’t it just him who done it?’ Frankie said. ‘Was it you as well? One of your little favours for Wilson? Did you help him? Whoever it was who drove that car? Did you help him find that girl and her grandma? D’you help him finish them off?’
‘No,’ Baotic wailed.
Frankie gripped the crowbar with both hands and swung it back like a baseball bat, ready to let fly.
‘Please. Anything,’ Baotic screamed. ‘I tell you anything you want to know.’
Jack leant in close. So close now he could see little red blood vessels bursting across the whites of Baotic’s eyes. ‘No, sunshine. Not anything,’ he said quietly. ‘Just the truth. And nothing fucking but. You’re gonna tell me what happened that night. All the details. All the names. You’re gonna spill the fucking beans until there’s nothing left inside the can.’
And he did. He started to talk. And once he started, he couldn’t fucking stop. It all came out. How he’d done exactly what Shank Wilson had ordered. At exactly the time Wilson had said. He’d ridden out to Susan Tilley’s grandmother’s house to deliver the parcel he’d picked up from Chivenham’s book shop after making sure he’d been sitting right there in the courier office when the collection request had come in. He’d driven his bike nice and slowly past the cctv camera at the end of the old lady’s drive, which Wilson had already known was there. He’d then ‘witnessed’ what he’d been told to – namely that just after he’d got there, a man had come round the side of the house all covered in blood before pulling down his balaclava and getting into his car and racing away. A man he’d later positively ID’d as Jack James.
But he told Frankie what had really happened too. How he’d not seen this at all. How the real killer had still been there when he’d got there. How the real killer had walked round from the side of the house with a baseball bat in his hands, covered from head to foot in fresh blood.
‘Who?’ Frankie said.
‘Wilson,’ Baotic said. ‘Shank Wilson. It was Shank Wilson who was there.’
Wilson. In. Fucking. Person. Frankie stared in disbelief.
‘It was him who attacked the old lady and killed Susan Tilley?�
��
Baotic nodded.
‘No one else?’
‘No.’
But Jesus. Why the hell would he do that? Why would he have murdered his boss’s daughter-in-law to be?
‘Why?’ Frankie said.
‘I don’t know. I vow it. I don’t.’
Was he telling the truth? Yeah. Why not? Why the fuck would he hold back on this when he’d already given everything else up?
‘What happened next?’ Frankie said. ‘After Wilson came from round the side of the house?’
‘He smear blood all over the car,’ Baotic said. ‘Then change – his bloodied clothes . . . he place them inside a refuse bag and take them with him. But first he puts the bloodied balaclava back on . . .’
For the benefit of the cctv camera on the way back out. While Baotic then called the cops and told them his story.
And what then? Wilson must have driven back into London. And smeared those bloodied clothes all over Jack’s flat and all over him too, as he’d lain there GHB’d out-for-the-fucking-count on his bed.
‘And what about you?’ Frankie asked Baotic, still swinging the crowbar slowly back and forth in his hands. ‘Why did you do it? Why did you agree to accuse—’ He stopped himself just in time. Had been about to say my brother. Would have given his own identity away. ‘Why the fuck did you agree to accuse Jack James of murdering that girl?’
‘He . . .’ Boatic screwed up his eyes.
Frankie guessed what he couldn’t say. ‘Money? You bastard. You did it for money? How much? How much did Wilson pay?’
‘Five. Five thousand.’
‘Five measly fucking grand? To just stand there while some psycho murders a girl and batters her grandma half to death? To lie and put someone else in fucking prison for life?’
Tears ran down Baotic’s face.
‘It wasn’t only . . .’ he said.
‘Only what?’ Frankie pulled the crowbar back. It was all he could do not to just let fly.
‘Money.’
‘What else?’ Frankie growled.
‘He knows . . . Wilson . . . he knows other jobs I have done . . . for him . . .’
‘What jobs?’
‘Things that can send me to prison, deport me . . . and my wife, back to Bosnia . . . to where we . . . where we have no life . . . he has proof of things I do . . . it will only take one call . . .’
Blackmail. Blackmail and money. Belt and fucking braces. If the money wasn’t enough to make this prick play ball, then there was always the added threat of turning him in.
But the biggest question of all was still left unanswered. Why had Hamilton’s chief enforcer done it? Was he jealous of Dougie? Did he want her for himself? Was that it? Was he in love with her? Or had she turned him down? Or had he done it for money? Because he was batting for the other side? Secretly working for Riley or some other mob?
Frankie stared down at the sobbing wreck in front of him. His hands tightened on the crowbar. This piece of shit deserved it. Pain. Something to remember for the rest of his miserable life. He’d have gone to court, all right. He was terrified of Shank Wilson. He’d have done what he was told. No matter what the consequences were for Jack.
He still had the crowbar in his hands. No. Don’t do it. Leave. Before you hurt him. This isn’t the bastard you want. It’s that motherfucker Wilson. He’s behind this. He’s the fucker with the answers. The cunt who needs to pay.
Frankie went outside. Lit a smoke. Inhale. Exhale. Right. OK. This is over. You got what you came here for: proof. Jack is fucking innocent. Jeee-zuz. Yes. Fucking yes. But now fucking what?
No point him just having Baotic tell him this, was there? Needed to get the bastard to tell the cops as well that it was Wilson who’d been pulling the bloody strings as well as swinging the bloody bat.
And God knew what else he’d got up to. Stav’s brothel was affiliated to the Hamiltons. Meaning Wilson could have known Star. Could have paid her. Or blackmailed her. To slip Jack some GHB. To knock him and his memory out. So they could then set Jack up good and proper with all that blood.
Wilson could have then killed Star as well. To stop her from talking. Had it been him who’d lamped Frankie in her kitchen that night? Him delivering the flowers to get in, just like he’d done at the old lady’s house? And what about poor Keira? Had he then murdered her too? Because she’d known too much?
No way would Frankie get Wilson to admit any of that. But the cops might. Once they’d nailed him for Susan Tilley’s murder. Once they started looking into him. What else he’d been up to. What part he’d had in Tara and Keira’s deaths.
But not Snaresby. Oh, no. He wasn’t getting a sniff of this. Sharon. She’d listened. She’d tried to help. Was still trying. Well, it was time for some payback. Frankie was going to serve her Shank Wilson’s head up on a plate.
But first things first. He had to make sure Baotic told Sharon exactly what he’d just told Frankie. Only problem being, Frankie wouldn’t be there with a crowbar next time to help him remember it right.
He lit another cigarette. Stared up at the stars. Think, you fucker. Think.
Ten minutes later, he walked back inside. He ignored Baotic. Poured himself a drink. Had a little hum.
Then he turned to him and said, ‘I’m gonna take you back to London tomorrow and cut you free. Then you’re gonna turn yourself in. And tell the cops what you done and why you done it . . . But while you’re telling them all that, you’re gonna keep your fucking mouth shut about our little chat tonight . . . Got it?’
Baotic’s whole body sagged. He wasn’t going to die. He was going to make it out alive. It was all the bastard could do not to actually bloody smile. But Frankie saw something else too. Right there in the middle of his bloodshot eyes. How he was already thinking about how he could turn this situation round. Put one over on Frankie. Not do what he was told.
Well, not so fucking fast, my friend. Frankie twisted Baotic’s chair round so he could see the sound system up on the kitchen top. A tape was turning in the deck. Its red record light was on.
‘Don’t even think about not showing,’ Frankie warned. ‘Because everything you just told me, I’ve got it on tape. The bit about Wilson being the killer . . . about you being there to pretend it was Jack James who done it instead . . . all that’ll go right to the cops . . . to Sharon Granger . . . the same detective you’re gonna hand yourself in to tomorrow . . . and, trust me, if you run, there won’t be anywhere you can hide . . . not from Wilson or the cops . . .’
‘Yes,’ Baotic said. ‘I will . . . whatever you tell me . . .’
But it was still there. In his eyes. This bastard was a survivor. Wouldn’t have made it out of Bosnia otherwise. The threat of the recording might not be enough. Frankie didn’t know if something like that would even hold up in court. Maybe Baotic was smarter than him. Maybe he already knew. Frankie needed to completely shut down any thoughts of a plan fucking B. Needed to make this prick understand that it wasn’t Shank Wilson he needed to be afraid of, it was him.
‘That’s good to hear,’ Frankie said. ‘But in case you get any dumb ideas, there’s something else I want you to think about. And that’s your Mrs . . . Your wife . . .’
Ah. Better. His eyes didn’t look so optimistic now.
‘Your pretty little blonde wife,’ Frankie said, remembering the woman he’d glimpsed at his door. ‘Yeah, you see I’ve been watching her. And not just me. My associates. Where she goes. What she does. Who she knows. The fucking lot. But do you know what the really cool thing is?’
Baotic slowly shook his head.
‘A couple of my associates are watching her right now. And will be all night. And tomorrow. And until I fucking tell them not to. Meaning if I don’t hear from my contacts at the cop shop that you’ve been a good boy and have told Detective Granger the truth, then trust me, you’re gonna find yourself single faster than you can say, Who murdered my fucking wife?’ Frankie leant in. So close his mouth was touching Baotic’s
ear. ‘And then, once we’ve finished with her, my friend, guess who’s fucking next?’
45
The drive back up to London was murder the next day. It was pissing down. Good for what Frankie had planned, mind.
He dropped Mario Baotic off blindfold in the driving rain on a piece of waste ground round from West End Central Police Station. Told the wanker to wait there for five minutes with the blindfold on before handing himself in. Reminded him of the consequences if he fucked up. Told him one of his associates was already watching him.
Five minutes.
Then he was to get in there and do his bit.
Frankie drove off. Watched him in the wing mirror, just standing there waiting like a fucking ghost. Frankie headed back to the multi-storey where he kept the Capri. Top floor. Back corner. Nice and quiet. No cctv.
He’d got all the gear he needed for the clean-up already stashed. He scrubbed the back of the van. Wiped it down. Switched the plates back over from ones he’d unscrewed off of another van the day before. Then he bagged up his gear – the balaclava, gloves, crowbar, duct tape, chain and hoodie – and drove the van back to the hire yard up on Kensal Rise, ditching all the goodies in separate bins on the way.
All except the gun. It wasn’t that he needed it. Didn’t. Not now all this was over. Now Shank Wilson was going away, the Hamiltons’ hatred would be directed away from Frankie and Jack and onto Wilson instead.
But something still stopped him chucking the gun. Part worry that some other fucker might find it and use it on somebody. But a darker fear too. Could the cops tell from a gun whether it had been used in a crime before? He was pretty sure they could. He didn’t believe the old man had ever actually used it. But someone else might have, someone who’d asked him to look after it. And who knew what kind of shit storm might blow into town if it suddenly turned up now?
He got a cab home. Stashed the pistol in his mattress. Showered. Scrubbed himself. Got dressed. Nice and smart and clean. A different man. He put a call in to Riley from a public booth. Left a message. Nothing too explicit. Phones got bugged, didn’t they? Especially people like Riley. Frankie said to tell him he’d ‘acted on the new information provided’ and was ‘expecting to be able to share some very good news very soon’. He also asked him to take extra special care of the ‘inside security work’ they’d discussed. Meaning the last thing he wanted was Jack being done over in prison before news got out that he’d done nothing wrong.
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