‘Justice,’ Frankie said through gritted teeth.
He waited for the sudden flash of movement. The blade scything through the air. The beginning of the fucking end. Hamilton’s hand didn’t move.
‘How noble,’ he said. ‘For that junkie little brother of yours?’
‘My junkie little brother who’s innocent of all this,’ Frankie said. And justice for her. For Susan Tilley. And her grandmother too. And for Tara and Keira as well.
Again Frankie waited for the blade. Again it didn’t come.
‘And what if I can give you your justice?’ Hamilton said. ‘Give you Susan’s killer? Give him to the cops as well? So that your brother gets off?’
Frankie looked up. He couldn’t help himself. He had to see Hamilton’s face. To see if this was all some kind of sick joke.
‘You’d give up Wilson?’
‘Maybe. To protect my son.’
From you. From what you really are. From the ugly fucking truth.
Frankie stared into Hamilton’s eyes, trying to read him. And this time, yes, he saw something less hard, less certain, than before. He was a bastard all right, but he was still human. Just. And his son. His weakness. He didn’t want to lose him. Knew he would if he ever found out what he’d done.
This is it. Your fucking card. Play it right. Hamilton was every bit as guilty as Wilson for the murders. He’d given the orders. But getting Wilson . . . saving Jack . . . walking out of here a-fucking-live . . . fuck yeah, that would be a start.
‘If you can do that,’ Frankie said, ‘then that recording, I swear to you now, it’ll never see the light of day.’
Hamilton watched him. ‘Oh, don’t you worry about that. He’ll confess.’
But how? Why? But what the hell did it really matter? Hamilton would have his ways. God only knew what else he had on Wilson, what other threats he could bring to bear.
‘But I tell you this now,’ Hamilton warned, ‘if that recording ever does surface . . . for whatever reason . . . if my son ever gets to hear one word of it . . . I will have you and your brother and everyone you’ve ever loved painfully wiped from the face of this planet.’ Hamilton took the pistol from his pocket. ‘And this gun . . .’ he said, crouching down and pressing its butt into the palm of Frankie’s taped-up right hand, pointing it away and forcing his fingertips tightly round it and onto its trigger. ‘ . . . it’ll go straight to the cops with your prints all over it, and you’ll be nicked for this murder.’
Frankie just stared as Hamilton took the gun away. He didn’t understand. ‘What murder?’ he said.
‘This one.’
Hamilton pointed the pistol at Frankie’s head, then turned and shot Mario Baotic in the face.
Baotic didn’t even twitch. His head slumped forwards. Blood trickled out of a hole in his temple. Onto the floor.
‘Whu-whu—’ Frankie tried to talk. Couldn’t.
‘Whu-whu-why?’ Hamilton asked. ‘Whu-whu-why did I kill him?’ He stared at Frankie with contempt. ‘Because he’s no fucking use to me now, is he? He’s nothing but another loose end.’
The scumbag. The wanker. He just did whatever he wanted. Whatever he fucking well pleased. If Frankie had a hold of that blade . . . of that gun . . . he’d slash him to ribbons . . . he’d shoot the fucker dead.
‘Someone will come and cut you loose in the morning,’ Hamilton said. ‘But until then, you just think on it, on what I’ve just said. And if for even one second, son, you consider double-crossing me, then you just take another look at our friend Mister Baotic there. Because trust me: he’ll look positively pretty compared with you, if you ever think about fucking me around.’
50
‘Holy fuck, Frankie. What the hell happened to you?’ Xandra said.
She meant his face. The severe bloody mess Shank Wilson and Terence Hamilton had made of it. The swelling had gone down since last night. But he was no oil painting.
Two of Hamilton’s goons had come first thing this morning. Both wearing masks. He’d not seen their faces. They’d taken Baotic, or what was left of him. God only knew where.
They’d come back for Frankie an hour later. They’d blindfolded him and had put him back in whatever box he’d been brought there in. He’d been driven across town and cut loose round the back of an abandoned warehouse in Shoreditch.
‘Sweet Jesus.’
Frankie turned to see Slim coming in through the front door. He looked horrified.
‘All right?’ Frankie said.
‘Well, I was going to say I had a God-awful hangover,’ Slim said, ‘but I look a hell of a lot better than you. You need me to call someone? Like maybe the police?’
‘Nah. I’ll be fine.’ Frankie turned back to Xandra. ‘But what about you, eh? How come you’re back? I thought you’d be halfway to Honolulu by now.’
‘Ah, yes. You mean with all that money I stole . . .’
She was smiling. Slim was too. Slim was blushing as well.
‘Something you both need to tell me?’ Frankie said.
Slim laughed. ‘There’s been a little bit of a mix-up,’ he said.
‘Though I did take some money,’ Xandra said.
‘Thirty quid,’ Slim said. ‘Half of the pay she was owed.’
‘I needed it for a train. To go and visit someone,’ Xandra said.
What the hell was going on? Why were they both still smiling?
‘And the rest of it?’ Frankie said. How much was it Slim had told him had gone? Four hundred quid.
‘Tucked safely away in a box of tiles down in the cellar,’ she said.
Slim nodded. ‘Where her note said it would be.’
Frankie put his hands up. ‘All right, will one of you just tell me what the hell this is all about?’
Slim explained. Xandra had taken it upon herself to go visit the shelter she’d stayed in when she’d first got to London. Before things had gone properly tits up for her and she’d ended up on the street. There’d been a couple of volunteers there who’d really tried helping her. She’d wanted to let them know she was doing OK. There’d been a letter waiting there for her too. From an aunty she’d written to when she’d been staying there, who lived over in Croydon. Someone she’d always liked as a kid. It had said she was sick. In a hospice. Was dying.
‘I’m sorry,’ she told Frankie now. ‘I should have asked. Before taking it. It’s just I panicked. I came back here to get my pay. But you weren’t here. And Slim wasn’t. And, well, I knew where you both kept the key.’ Her turn to blush. ‘Only then I broke it, didn’t I? Trying to shut it. And I didn’t want to just leave the rest of the cash in there then. Which is why I hid it and wrote the note, saying it was somewhere safe, and where I’d gone.’
‘I found it down the side of the fridge, the note,’ Slim said. ‘After . . . well, you know . . . after I wrote my own note, telling you she’d done a runner . . . telling you she was a thief . . .’
Frankie shook his head. Christ, it hurt even to do that.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said. ‘Well I’m glad it’s all sorted out now.’ He nodded at Xandra. ‘And I’m glad you’re back.’
Slim produced an envelope of cash from one pocket. A key from another. ‘New spare,’ he said.
‘And where you planning on keeping that now?’ Frankie asked.
Slim patted Xandra on the back. ‘Same place I kept the other one,’ he said. ‘So we all know where it is.’
‘Right,’ Frankie said. ‘Well, I’m glad that’s all sorted. But if you don’t mind, I’m going to have to duck upstairs. I need a bloody kip.’
‘Ah, well maybe you’d best prepare yourself first,’ Xandra warned him. ‘Because there’s one more little surprise coming your way.’
She looked up at the ceiling.
‘What?’ Frankie said. It couldn’t be Hamilton, or why would he have set him free? Wilson? Shit, was that bastard on the loose again? No, letting other people know he was coming, that wasn’t Wilson’s style.
‘It’s he
r,’ Xandra said. ‘Your friendly neighbourhood policewoman.’
‘Sharon?’
‘I had to let her in. She said she’d get a warrant if I didn’t. She’s been up there over an hour already. I get the feeling she’ll wait there all year.’
Shit. He’d called her, hadn’t he? Just before Wilson had knocked him out. He’d called her and let slip he knew who her witness was. Or what he was. A courier. Her now dead witness. Jesus, would Hamilton have dumped his body? Had it already turned up? What the hell was he going to tell Sharon? How was he going to explain he’d known anything about her witness at all?
‘You want me to come up with you?’ Xandra offered.
‘To protect me?’
‘She looks pretty pissed off. And worried too,’ Xandra said. ‘And I can’t blame her, the state your flat’s in . . .’
Where Wilson had done it over. Bollocks. He’d forgotten about that too. He walked over to the sink behind the bar and stuck his mouth over the tap and turned it on. He gulped down fresh water. Tried washing the worst of the dried blood off his face.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll deal with it. With her.’
But as he trudged upstairs, he really didn’t fucking know how.
The flat’s hallway was tidy, was tidier. The bedroom too. Had Sharon done it? No, forget that. More like Xandra. Or Slim. Jesus, he hadn’t even asked her how things had gone with her aunt. He was useless, exhausted. His brain was fried. How the hell was he going to cope with Sharon?
‘Well, at least you’re still alive.’
It was her. Standing in the living-room doorway. Blocking it, her arms crossed. She must have heard him coming up the stairs.
‘I can explain,’ he said.
‘I sincerely doubt that.’
Her fists were bunched. The whites of her knuckles showed. She was furious. He could see that. But shocked as well. By how messed up he looked.
‘Who did that to you?’
Frankie didn’t answer. He had no answer to give.
‘I said who?’
‘It doesn’t matter. It’s over,’ he said.
But was it this time? Really? Please, fucking yes. Let that be true.
‘And what about Mario Baotic?’ she snapped. ‘I suppose you know nothing about him either?’
‘Never heard of him.’
‘He was our witness. The same one you somehow miraculously knew was a courier.’
Was . . .
She stared at him, waiting for him to speak. Nothing he could say. Not without incriminating himself. Or Hamilton. Nothing that wouldn’t result in him and everyone he’d ever cared for, including her, ending up dead.
‘So that’s it?’ She looked like she was going to explode. ‘You’re just going to stand there and say nothing?’
He desperately wanted to tell her that everything, well some things, were going to be OK. That Jack’s innocence was going to be proved. That at least the killer of Susan Tilley, and Keira and Star, was going to pay for what he’d done.
‘He’s dead,’ Sharon said. ‘Baotic. They found him two hours ago. Shot in the head.’
She waited. Let the silence rage.
‘He’d been beaten . . . tortured . . .’ She glared at Frankie’s face. ‘Like you . . .’
An accusation. She knew he knew so much more than he was letting on. Him and Baotic were connected. She’d sussed it. Did she think they’d been beaten up by the same person? Her eyes said as much. The same as they were clearly now asking him how come he was alive and Baotic was dead.
Frankie thought about Baotic’s wife. His little house. Had she been told yet? Had she identified the body? Or had Hamilton left ID on him, so he’d be identified that much more quickly? Just to get Jack out quicker? To complete his part of the deal?
‘And he’s not the only one,’ Sharon said.
‘The only what?’
‘One who’s dead . . .’
What was she talking about? Surely Hamilton would have called Dougie and the rest of his dogs off? Wouldn’t have sanctioned them killing any more of Riley’s men? Not now.
Another, even more horrible, thought occurred to him.
‘You mean the old lady? Susan Tilley’s grandmother?’
‘No, she’s much better.’
‘Then who?’ he asked.
‘Wilson. Shank Wilson.’
‘What?’
She spotted it right away, the surprise on his face. No matter how hard he tried to swallow it back down.
‘Suicide,’ she told him, watching him like a hawk. ‘He was found in a warehouse last night after an anonymous tip-off, with photos of Susan Tilley, and a signed, typed confession by his side. Blew his head off with a shotgun.’
Frankie felt the room sway. Only just managed to keep his cool. To not lurch sideways. So that was the kind of confession Terence Hamilton had meant. One that could never be challenged, because its ‘confessor’ was already dead. He’d clearly decided that whatever leverage he might have had on Wilson, it hadn’t been enough to bend him to his will. So he’d broken him instead. He’d shot him and had then planted that confession on him.
‘The confession detailed how Wilson had tried to persuade Susan Tilley to run away with him,’ Sharon said, ‘because he was obsessed with her, but then when she refused him, he decided to kill her to punish her and in case she told Dougie what he’d planned . . . and it said how he’d then blackmailed Baotic to go there and claim it was your brother who’d done it . . . and everything else that he’d done to frame Jack . . . including Baotic and the two girls he killed to cover up what he’d done.’
Frankie’s mouth had gone dry. She was still staring at him, still watching. Say something. Anything to make her stop thinking you already know. Be how you’re meant to be. Like you’ve just heard someone’s confessed to the crime they arrested Jack for. Look happy, for fuck’s sake. Be happy. This is what you wanted. You’ve got Jack off. The rest of it . . . Star, Keira and Baotic, they’re not your fault. You did what you had to. You did the best you could.
‘He’s innocent, then,’ he said. ‘Jack . . .’
‘If what Shank Wilson says is true.’
‘What do you mean, if?’
‘Well, do you buy it?’ she asked. ‘That someone like him, his boss’s Rottweiller . . . that someone that loyal would have betrayed him like this?’
She knew. She knew this wasn’t right. That something about it stank. But . . . he stared into her eyes . . . she didn’t know what, did she? And wouldn’t either. Not unless he told her. Not as long as he kept his gob shut.
‘I don’t give a fuck about Hamilton,’ he said. ‘Or Wilson. All I care about is Jack. And the fact you’ve now got to set him free.’
If she’d been furious with him before, it was nothing compared with the hatred that now blazed in her eyes. Why? Because she’d been proved wrong? No, he didn’t believe that. Not even now in the heat of the moment. She was a pro. This was something more primal than that. And simple. He realised what then. It was because he was lying to her. Because he’d shut her out.
‘Listen,’ he said, stepping forward, trying to sound like what he wasn’t, a decent person, not a fucking lying scumbag who was just here pulling her strings.
Because he still wanted her. No getting away from it. He wanted her, and with everything that had happened with Jack – everything that had kept them apart – now sorted, he wanted to make things right between them. He didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t want her to go to Hong Kong.
But before he could get another word out, she shoved past him. He turned to try and stop her, but she was already at the flat’s front door. She slammed it hard behind her. He heard her running down the stairs.
51
Frankie was drunk. Again. But at least this time he deserved it, right? The Ambassador Club was buzzing, it was rammed, without a snooker ball in sight. It was Jack’s ‘Welcome Home’ party and everyone was here.
Jack and all his mates, most o
f them Riley’s boys. Smoking and drinking and stuffing their faces from the buffets that covered the tables. Riley had sent carpenters over to fit a bunch of protective boards this morning. The food too. Only the best. From Fortnum & Mason’s down on Piccadilly.
Frankie had thought twice about accepting it. But not for long. He was still skint and, no matter how creative Slim was with the Breville, there was only a finite number of toasties he could rattle off.
Riley had sent over another envelope today as well. Care of Tam bloody Jackson. But when Frankie had opened it, instead of finding a lead to a witness in a murder case, he’d found a bundle of cash. A grand. Enough to get everyone here nicely pissed.
Frankie poured himself another pint behind the bar. He’d not yet had a spirit, though the optics kept glinting at him every time he served anyone else. He turned up the stereo a notch. The Rolling Stones’ ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’. Picked up a nice welcoming roar from the crowd. Frankie wished his dad was here to see this. His mum too.
And Sharon. He’d not forgotten her. He’d left her six messages since she’d stormed out. At home and at work. She’d not got back. He’d nearly called Snaresby’s office too, to ask if he’d seen her. He’d been that desperate. But speaking to that bastard . . . nah, he couldn’t face that yet. Even though he reckoned it was only a matter of time before their paths would cross again.
Had she already quit her job? Now that her case had collapsed? Was she even now packing for Hong Kong? Or did she just hate him? Never want to see him again? That’s how it felt.
The club’s front door swung open. Riley came in, flanked by Mackenzie Grew and Tam Jackson. Just about Riley’s whole crew was gathered here now, something that would have been unthinkable even a couple of days ago, when the turf war between them and the Hamiltons was still in full swing.
But all that was over. For now. Since Shank Wilson’s suicide and confession, Hamilton had gone to ground. His boys and Dougie too. And what must he think? Dougie. About everything he’d done since his fiancée’s murder? Now that he’d found out she’d been killed by one of his own? Who would he be tomorrow? What kind of a man by next year?
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