by Kevin Brooks
An alert went off on her mobile then, a single quiet chirp. She glanced at the screen, reading a text message. She quickly replied to it, her thumb skipping effortlessly across the screen, then she went over to the window by the sink, looked out through the blinds, and closed them again. She then opened a cupboard above the sink and took out a dusty glass. She rinsed it out under the tap, filled it with water, and brought it over to me.
‘You probably need that,’ she said.
‘Thanks,’ I told her, suddenly realising how thirsty I was. I drained the glass in one go.
‘Do you want some more?’ Gloria asked.
I shook my head.
She smiled at me again, then turned back to Dee Dee. ‘Right, there’s one more thing you need to know about the video before I start telling you what you’re going to do. You’ll have noticed that it’s shot from above, and that in the clip I played you, your faces aren’t very clear. Now if you’re thinking that’s your get-out-of-jail card, because you can deny that it’s you on the tape, you’re wrong. Firstly, voice analysis will prove that it’s you and DI Bull. And secondly, there are a number of occasions on the tape when both of you raise your heads just enough to make identification unquestionable. You don’t have to take my word for it. I’ve already had a copy of the tape emailed to DI Bull’s mobile, so you can watch it at your leisure and see for yourself. Now, if we’re all clear on that, I think it’s time to get down to business.’ She went over to Dee Dee, stood in front of him, and stared down into his eyes. ‘Listen very carefully, Mr Devon. This is what you’re going to do.’
52
Although I still had serious doubts about Gloria, and I was only temporarily putting them on hold because I didn’t have any choice, I couldn’t help but admire the way she commanded the situation. She was totally in control of everything. Armed only with a mobile phone and a series of calmly spoken threats, she had Dee Dee and Ronnie Bull exactly where she wanted them. All they could do was sit on the floor like naughty children and listen to her while she reeled off a string of demands.
‘First of all,’ she told Dee Dee, ‘you’re going to write off Lisa Yusuf’s debt and let her keep her job in Tanga Tans if she wants it. You’ll employ her on a completely legitimate basis, and you’ll pay her twice the minimum wage. If she doesn’t want the job, you’ll let her go with a one-off cash-in-hand redundancy payment of £5,000. Whether or not she wants her job, you’ll stop laundering drug money through Tanga Tans. Is that understood?’
Dee Dee looked as if he was about to protest, but when Gloria glared at him, he changed his mind and just nodded instead.
‘Secondly,’ Gloria went on, ‘you’ll make a £25,000 donation to a charity called Parkinson’s UK. Agreed?’
Dee Dee shook his head. ‘I don’t have that kind of money.’
‘You’ll have to take out a loan then, won’t you? I’m sure you know plenty of people who are willing to lend you money at very reasonable rates. Now, I’ll ask you again, is that agreed?’
‘Yeah,’ he said sourly.
‘Thirdly,’ Gloria continued, ‘you’ll have no further contact of any kind whatsoever, either directly or indirectly, with the staff of Delaney & Co or their families and friends. You will not approach them, talk to them, go anywhere near them. You will not threaten them. You will not harm them. You will not touch a single hair on their heads. Is that understood?’
Dee Dee nodded again.
‘All right,’ Gloria said. ‘Well, that’s just about it.’
Dee Dee looked surprised. ‘You’re not going to turn me in?’
‘As long as you comply with our demands, you’re free to carry on doing whatever it is you do. It’s not my job to clear the streets of dog mess like you. Just make sure you keep your stink away from us, that’s all.’
‘What about me?’ Bull said.
‘What about you?’ Gloria replied.
‘Do you have any demands for me?’
Gloria laughed. ‘What could I possibly want from you? You know that I hold your life in my hands, and you’re not going to do anything to jeopardise that, are you? I’d like to report you to your superiors and let them deal with you, but for one thing I don’t trust your superiors, and for another, any action taken against you would necessarily implicate Mr Devon, and unfortunately, at the moment, it’s easier for everyone if he remains a free man. So, no, I’m not going to do anything with you, Detective Inspector Bull. You can carry on as you are, living your dirty little life, taking the devil’s gold.’ She smiled coldly. ‘That’s if he still wants you on his payroll, of course. It’s quite possible that he doesn’t require your services any more. But I’ll leave that to you to sort out between yourselves. I’m sure it’ll all work out very nicely for you.’
The doorbell rang then.
‘Ah,’ Gloria said, turning back to Dee Dee, ‘I almost forgot. There’s someone else who wants a quick word with you.’ She looked at me. ‘Would you mind getting the door, Travis?’
‘Who is it?’ I asked, wondering what on earth was going on.
‘Why don’t you go and see?’ she said, smiling.
I got to my feet, hesitated for a moment, then headed out of the kitchen. The doorway led through into a spacious hallway with a stone-tiled floor and a high ceiling. The front door was on my right. I wondered briefly if Gloria was setting me up for an unpleasant surprise, making me think that everything was OK and then – BAM! – I open the door and it’s Winston or Lance Borstlap or somebody else from Omega. But then I realised that it didn’t really matter whether I opened the door or not, because whoever was there was going to get in anyway. So I just took a breath, unlatched the security chain and unlocked the door, and opened it.
‘Hey, Travis,’ Courtney said, beaming at me. ‘I bet you didn’t expect to see me here, did you?’
I felt so relieved I couldn’t speak for a moment, I just threw my arms around her and squeezed her tight.
‘Whoa!’ she said, wincing. ‘Not so hard, Trav. My ribs aren’t quite up to it yet.’
‘Sorry,’ I said, letting her go and ushering her into the house. ‘God, am I glad to see you. How are you? How’s your head? Do you know what’s going on? I haven’t got a clue—’
‘Just calm down a second, Travis,’ she said. ‘Everything’s OK. I’ll explain it all when we get out of here. Where is everybody?’
‘Through there,’ I said, indicating the kitchen doorway. It was only then that I noticed she was carrying a baseball bat. ‘What’s that for?’ I asked her.
‘Retribution,’ she said simply, heading for the doorway.
53
‘Is everything taken care of?’ Gloria asked Courtney as we entered the kitchen.
‘No problem,’ Courtney said, glancing around at Dee Dee and Bull. ‘The guy in the black BMW showed up about a minute after you called me.’ She slapped the baseball bat into the palm of her hand. ‘He’s having a little nap in his car at the moment. And when he wakes up he’ll find that he’s cuffed to his steering wheel.’
‘Has Joseph turned up yet?’
‘No. I tried calling him but his mobile’s turned off. He’s probably stuck in traffic or something.’ She looked at Bull. ‘You must be Dee Dee’s pet cop.’
Bull didn’t reply, he just sat there looking sorry for himself.
Courtney turned to Dee Dee. ‘And you, of course, are the mighty Drew Devon. Mr Big. The tough guy who gets his goons to do his dirty work for him.’ She went over and stood in front of Dee Dee, her eyes fixed on his like laser beams. ‘I’m Courtney Lane,’ she told him. ‘You’re responsible for putting me in hospital. Do you enjoy getting women beaten up? Does it make you feel good?’
Dee Dee shrugged. ‘It’s just business.’
‘Just business?’ Courtney said quietly.
‘You want me to apologise?’ he said, sneering at her. ‘All right, I’m sorry you got hurt, OK? But you can’t say I didn’t warn you. I told you to keep out of it, didn’t I? You’ve only g
ot yourself to blame.’
‘Get up,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Stand up.’
Dee Dee hesitated. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘If you don’t stand up, right now, I’m going to crack you in the head with this baseball bat. That’s what I’m going to do.’
He slowly got to his feet. He didn’t look quite so defiant now. He’d seen the look in Courtney’s eyes, and he’d realised there was a lot more to her than he’d thought.
‘Hey, listen,’ he said, holding up his hands. ‘I understand how you must feel—’
‘Turn around.’
‘What?’
‘Turn. Around.’
The uncertainty in his eyes had changed to a look of genuine fear now. He knew that Courtney wasn’t just messing around with him. She meant business.
‘You can’t do this . . .’ he muttered. ‘You can’t just—’
She raised the baseball bat over her shoulder. ‘If you don’t turn around in the next three seconds, I’m going to smash open your skull. Do you understand?’
‘What are you going to—?’
‘One . . .’
‘No, please—’
‘Two . . .’
‘OK! OK!’ he spluttered, turning round.
‘Now put your hands against the wall,’ Courtney told him.
He did as he was told.
‘Spread your legs.’
‘Please don’t do this,’ he begged. ‘I promise I’ll make it up to you. I’ll do anything—’
‘I said, spread your legs.’
As he hesitantly spread his legs, he was literally shaking with fear. He was standing there with his hands against the wall and his legs wide apart, and he was absolutely terrified of what Courtney might do to him.
She was just standing there now, staring murderously at the back of his head, the baseball bat gripped tightly in her hands. I wanted to reach out to her, to tell her to stop, don’t do it, don’t sink to his level, but I couldn’t even breathe, let alone speak. I was frozen to the spot, petrified by the look in Courtney’s eyes.
‘How does it feel, big man?’ she said calmly. ‘How does it feel, knowing that you’re about to die?’
‘Please,’ he sobbed. ‘Please don’t—’
‘It’s not very nice, is it?’ she said, stepping softly towards him.
‘No . . .’
She moved right up close to him, paused for a second, then leaned forward and whispered in his ear. ‘If I ever see you or any of your thugs again, I won’t just make you wet your pants, I’ll make you wish you’d never been born. Nod your head if you understand.’
As Dee Dee desperately nodded his head, I noticed a dark stain on his trousers. Courtney really had made him wet his pants.
She stepped away from him, turned round, and for a second or two she just stood there, breathing quietly, staring at the floor. Then she let out a long sigh and looked up. The violence had gone from her eyes.
‘Right,’ she said, ‘I think it’s about time we got out of here, don’t you?’
54
As we left the house and headed down a long, hedge-lined gravel driveway, Gloria tried ringing Grandad again. There was no reply from his mobile, and as she tried the office number, I looked around at the tall privet hedges and the rooftops of neighbouring houses in the distance.
‘Where are we?’ I asked Courtney.
‘Birch Grove,’ she said, ‘home to the wealthy and privileged.’
She was right. Birch Grove is easily the most well-to-do suburb in Barton, the kind of place where houses start at around a million pounds. The only locals you’re likely to see around the Grove, as it’s known, are the people who come here to work – nannies, cleaners, gardeners. I’d only ever been to Birch Grove once before, and after everything I’d just been through, I’d be perfectly happy if I never had to come here again.
‘Any luck?’ Courtney asked Gloria.
‘No . . . no answer. It’s a bit strange, don’t you think?’
‘Is Grandad supposed to be here?’ I asked.
‘That was the plan, yeah,’ Courtney said. ‘I’m sure there’s no need to worry,’ she told Gloria. ‘Like I said, he’s probably caught up in traffic somewhere. There’s a lot of black spots between here and town where the mobile reception isn’t that good.’
Gloria nodded, but she didn’t look reassured.
We’d reached the end of the driveway now and were coming out into a broad residential avenue lined with bare-branched birch trees and large detached houses. The houses were all set back from the street behind well-tended hedges and long winding driveways.
‘We’re parked over there,’ Courtney told me, pointing along the street. ‘Come on, there’s someone in the car who wants to see you.’
We passed the old black BMW on the way to Courtney’s car. Dee Dee’s hitman was slumped in the driver’s seat, still unconscious, his left hand secured to the steering wheel with a plastic cuff. An egg-sized bump was clearly visible on the side of his head, and a thin stream of blood was oozing down his face.
‘Baseball bat?’ I said to Courtney.
She nodded. ‘I didn’t hit him all that hard. He’ll probably be all right.’
He didn’t look like much – just a stringy little guy, kind of ratty-looking, with grubby skin and dirty fingernails, wearing an old blue anorak and a sweat-stained baseball cap. I don’t know what I expected a hitman to look like – maybe a chisel-jawed guy with a scar on his face, dressed in a black suit and gloves – but whatever I was expecting, this scrawny little guy certainly wasn’t it.
But then it suddenly struck me what he’d come here to do, and despite his underwhelming appearance, the sight of him made me shudder. I looked away and carried on walking, trying not to think about what could have happened.
I could see Courtney’s car up ahead now, and just as I spotted it, the door swung open and a familiar figure jumped out. It was Jaydie, and from the way she was smiling and running towards me, her eyes lit up like neon lights, I guessed she was pleased to see me. I had to admit that my heart was beating pretty quickly too.
‘Travis!’ she yelled, throwing herself at me. ‘Thank God you’re all right! I was so worried about you!’
I held her tightly for a moment or two, surprised at how good it felt to be back in her arms, and then I remembered that we weren’t alone. I gently put her down, not feeling too embarrassed, and just stood there grinning at her like a fool.
‘It was you, wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘You made the video of Dee Dee and Bull.’
She nodded. ‘I thought you might need a bit of help.’
‘I should have asked you to help me in the first place,’ I said. ‘I wanted to . . . I just didn’t want you to get hurt.’
‘I know . . . it’s all right, Trav. Everything’s OK now, that’s the main thing.’
Gloria interrupted us then. ‘Excuse me, you two,’ she said, ‘but we really ought to get going. There’ll be plenty of time to talk in the car.’
Once we were in the car and on our way back to Barton – Jaydie and Courtney in the back, me in the passenger seat, Gloria driving – I finally began getting some answers. Jaydie explained how she’d got the bus into town and gone to the car park after calling me about the meeting between Dee Dee and Bull.
‘I was pretty annoyed with you, Travis,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, I’d done all the work – bugging the phone box and getting the tracker planted on Dee Dee – and now you were telling me to keep out of it.’
‘I didn’t mean it like that,’ I told her. ‘I tried calling you back to explain—’
‘I didn’t want to talk to you,’ she said, grinning. ‘So I turned off my phone.’
When she got to the third floor of the car park, she explained, she did exactly the same as I’d done when I got there – looked around for somewhere to hide.
‘I tried all the doors, but they were locked, as you know. So I kept looking, and that’s whe
n I spotted the hatch in the ceiling. I guessed there must be some kind of crawl space or something up there, otherwise what was the point of the hatch? And I knew it was a good place to hide, because people never look up, do they?’
‘She’s right,’ Gloria said. ‘People hardly ever look upwards, whatever they’re doing. You ought to try it one day, when you’re in a really familiar place, like walking along the High Street or something. Just stop and take a look upwards. You’ll suddenly see things that you’ve never seen, even though you’ve been there hundreds of times before.’ She smiled. ‘Sorry, Jaydie, I didn’t mean to interrupt. Carry on with your story.’
‘Well,’ Jaydie said, ‘it wasn’t hard to get up to the hatch, I just climbed onto one of those metal unit things against the wall, gave the hatch a quick shove, and it opened straight away. All I had to do then was pull myself up. There was a massive space up there, like a six-foot-high gap between the whole of the third and fourth floors. It was filled with wires and cables and all sorts of stuff. Anyway, I got myself into a reasonably comfortable position, kind of lying down on my front with my head over the hatchway, and I put the hatch back so there was just enough of a gap to see through, and then I just had to wait.’
‘So you were there when I arrived?’ I said.
‘Yep. I was up there watching you. I nearly called down to you at one point, but I was still really angry with you, and it kind of made me feel good that you didn’t know I was there, you know, like I was getting one over on you.’ She shrugged. ‘It sounds a bit childish, I suppose . . .’