A Duty of Revenge

by Quentin Dowse

  Five minutes later, Debbie was walking off the docks, her mind racing with a mixture of fear and excitement. She now had to make sure that Frame and Keegan went to prison for a long time, as he would know she’d planted the holdall – and robbed him. With two kids, she couldn’t just take the money and run, but if she could hang on to it, there was enough to change her life – if she lived – and she’d have her revenge. She began to look for a phone box.

  *

  The Jag cruised north on the A1. Frame glanced across at Keegan, who was intent on his driving but seemingly very tense judging by the way his hands gripped the leather steering wheel. He dropped his eyes to the speedometer – just under seventy.

  He turned in his seat to smile at the man in the back. ‘Happy with our arrangement then, Steve? An extra five grand do you then?’

  Russ Holland smiled back. ‘You bet. Grantmore’s gi’ me two grand up front and promised another three when the job’s done, so you’ve doubled my money… and just for a trip up the motorway.’

  ‘And like him, you get the last three, when the job’s done.’

  Holland leaned forward, straining on the seatbelt, looking keen and excited.

  ‘So what is the job then, Pete?’

  ‘A bit more than just driving, I’m afraid. Hope that’s okay? I’ll explain it all when we get up there. Relax for now, enjoy the drive and you’ll net ten grand for less than twenty-four hours away from home.’

  ‘I’m cool, Pete. I’m cool. Grantmore told me you were planning a robbery but said in ’ull somewhere? Makes no matter to me we’re off up north, but I got a right to know what I’m getting into. So what we robbin’?’

  Frame saw Mick’s hands squeezing and twisting at the steering wheel and recognised his anger and frustration were building. He too wanted to thump the middle-aged, low-life criminal who had done nothing but ask questions since they had met him at Ferrybridge.

  Frame had been pleased that the driver Grantmore had supplied had already been standing at the agreed meeting place when they’d arrived a bit early. He wanted to be in and out quickly. The less time they spent where Grantmore knew they’d be, the better.

  After they’d introduced each other, they had told him they were travelling back up north to do the job tonight and when Frame had offered him more money, he had readily agreed but started with the questions immediately. ‘Is it a robbery? A bank? A building society? Will we be tooled up? Guns? Will I get a gun?’ The bloke was like an excited kid, yet he was older than Frame or Keegan had expected. After letting him rattle on for a couple of minutes, Frame shut him up, explaining that he didn’t need to know the details yet but all would be revealed. Eager to get going, Frame told him to move his car to a quiet corner of the large car park.

  Holland did as he was instructed and for the few minutes he was out of sight, quickly tapped out a text to Darnley:

  Job is tonight up north somewhere – not Hull.

  No details yet.

  Just two met me – Frame & Keegan.

  Be in touch when I know more. Don’t reply.

  He pressed send but nothing happened. No signal. He deleted the text. He’d get another chance. He walked back to the dark blue Jag and climbed into the back seat.

  Keegan suggested a coffee before the return journey but Frame just ignored the request with a command ‘Drive’.

  As soon as they had negotiated their way back onto the A1, Frame turned to Holland and demanded his mobile, holding his hand out to receive it. He thought about denying he had one but realised it was too risky.

  ‘Why’d you want my phone?’ asked Holland, looking offended.

  ‘We haven’t got caught because we don’t take chances. I don’t want you using your phone while you’re with us.’ Frame sounded calm – the voice of reason.

  Holland, however, responded as he imagined they would expect. Angrily. ‘Don’t you fuckin’ trust me?’

  Frame just smiled and kept his voice level. Removing an envelope from his jacket pocket, he tossed it onto Holland’s lap.

  ‘We trust nobody. Let’s call this a down payment for the phone. Two grand in there and you’ll get another three when the job’s done. That’s on top of what Grantmore’s giving you. I’m showing my trust, so you show yours… now give me the phone.’

  Holland picked up the envelope and quickly flicked through the cash, smiling, playing his role of the thick, greedy low-level criminal. He handed his mobile to Frame, who quickly checked the call and text register and saw nothing untoward. He switched the phone off, buzzed down his window and threw the mobile into the hedge at the side of the road.

  *

  The earlier excited discussions, phone calls and updates within the incident room had now subsided. We were just waiting. The Command Centre had updated me with the West Yorkshire Police Firearms Commander’s decision to stand down. There had been no trace of any likely armed suspects. No Frame, Keegan or Pike, nor indeed Russ Holland in or around Ferrybridge Services.

  I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

  Had the meeting not taken place? Had Grantmore got it wrong? Was Holland with them or not?

  We organised another round of drinks while everyone had toilet breaks and calmed down and began to assess where we went from here. To all intents and purposes, the review was both impossible and pointless – the urgent task now was to plan for a crime we had been told would take place tonight.

  Detective Superintendent Tom Corrigan spoke to his Command Centre back in Newcastle, ordering that a firearms operation be set in motion. He explained that no addresses for Frame or Keegan had as yet been unearthed but they had one for Pike, although it was from several years ago from when he was prosecuted for assault. Up to this point, he and I had agreed not to approach that address, waiting to see what came from Grantmore and not wanting to alert Frame. But this address was all we had – and we had to make tracks.

  I then gave my assembled audience a necessarily brief version about Grantmore’s arrest and admissions, and how I had authorised his bail so that he could try and find out what the gang was planning next. I described how he had told me that Frame’s intention was to target the affluent suburbs to the west of Hull, albeit next week, and that I had tasked him with providing me with specific targets. Despite the obvious suggestion that he was unreliable – look at the fiasco around Ferrybridge – we discussed the potential of such a crime still happening today, in Hull, despite what the female informant had said.

  This prompted an inspector from NCIS to float the idea that Grantmore could be feeding me false information. Should we believe him? As a ruse to get bail, he had promised to get me information about Frame’s next crime, but was now feeding me a line. Was not Ferrybridge proof?

  I argued against that scenario, describing his fear of Frame and why, having admitted his role and then grassed him up, his best option of surviving was to get him and Keegan imprisoned. Tom Corrigan did his best to support me and suggested we had little to lose at this stage by leaving Grantmore to try and discover more. However, my own Chief Constable seized wholeheartedly upon the notion of “Dinosaur Darnley” cocking up, and suggested that Grantmore was already with the other three and ready to take part in whatever crime they’d planned. Ferrybridge was a smokescreen. He went on to cast doubts about my gullibility in believing him and my recklessness in granting him bail, when he had in effect admitted to being part of a crime that involved murder.

  Someone suggested we could not ignore the possibility that all of them could be at one of Grantmore’s addresses, and Jane Greenhall was tasked with setting up another firearms operation to manage searches of them all. Even if found alone, it was agreed Grantmore should be arrested. My side of our deal was now in tatters. If found, what would he say? My head was now the proverbial shed.

  Despite Crabbe’s insistence that he knew Grantmore was taking me for a mug, it was eve
ntually agreed we should also establish a third firearms operation in and around Hull’s western suburbs, just in case. This gave me a little comfort. We didn’t know what we were looking for – just three or four men in a car, but if Hull were indeed still the target for tonight, surely a strong police presence would be enough to frighten Frame off?

  There was now the clear potential of them being confronted by armed police. In Hull or somewhere in Northumbria. I just prayed Russ Holland would get the chance to contact me before that happened. Dare I contact him? He was going to need all the skills gleaned from the army. Could his counterinsurgency experience from nearly twenty years ago really help?

  Thirty-One

  12:30 That Same Day

  Marilyn was just finishing off her favourite client when pandemonium broke out. She thought old Mr Roper, who came every Wednesday while his wife went shopping at Asda, would have a heart attack when the door to the treatment room was kicked open and three armed police officers in black combat gear stormed in.

  ‘Foxtrot Tango One to Control. Nicole’s is clear. No sign of target. All safe. Over,’ rasped an officer into his helmet mike.

  Simultaneously, teams at Cleopatra’s and at Grantmore’s home were reporting a similar lack of success.

  Marilyn threw a fluffy pink towel over Albert Roper’s bony shoulders and demanded, ‘What the fuck are you lot doing here?’

  Albert, having more fun than he’d had in ages, sat up with his skinny frame still glistening with baby oil.

  ‘This ain’t illegal. We’re good friends. Why the bloody guns?’ He sat there, naked, shiny and defiant.

  The officers lowered their guns and removed their helmets, while Marilyn guided an animated Mr Roper into the vacant room next door to get dressed. Everyone was chuckling as she reassured him he could return next Wednesday – for a freebie. The team leader encouraged Marilyn to put her dressing gown on while he asked her a few questions about her employer. Enjoying the officer’s obvious discomfort, she took her time.

  ‘Reckon you’ve missed him, love. He’s long gone. Came in here yesterday morning after you lot released him and emptied the safe. He’s taken all the cash… and his passport… even left the bloody safe door open. He was in a right sweat.’

  Bending excessively provocatively to remove her painful stilettos, she added, ‘Is it owt to do with this?’

  After slipping on a pair of fluffy slippers, she went through into the reception area and came back with a well-thumbed copy of the Hull Mail. She pointed out the article she wanted him to look at.

  ‘Did Sean kill him?’

  The officer quickly scanned the brief article, headlined Local business leader found dead, beneath which was a head and shoulders photograph of a Noel Priestley. None of it meant anything to the officer, who was specialist firearms response and not attached to the incident or to any division.

  ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘He was a regular customer. Been coming for years… excuse the pun, love. Grantmore never chats to the customers but he always talked to him… and often in his office. I’ve heard them arguing recently. Is that why you’re looking for him?’

  After contacting the incident room with this information, he was told to take Marilyn straight to Central and within an hour she was dishing as much dirt as she could remember on the man who had abused her for over ten years, to an enthusiastic Jo Young. As she did so, search teams were going through Grantmore’s home, Nicole’s and Cleopatra’s with the proverbial fine-tooth comb.

  *

  The Chief was torn between being delighted at his own investigative instincts being proved right and devastated that his force, via yours truly, had made such a cock-up and “let the good people of Humberside down”. It certainly looked like Grantmore had done a runner – and I was a mug. Thoroughly enjoying battering my professional judgement, he continued his theme of Grantmore doing tonight’s job with Frame and Keegan and then fleeing the country. He started ranting about roadblocks – and of course high-visibility jackets. At least he had those in place now around the area in West Hull, that he was sure I’d been conned into believing was the likely target. It was all I could do not to storm out and find somewhere just to think.

  The obvious link between Noel Priestley and Grantmore just added to my humiliation. As motives for crime, sex and money were often the favourites, and it was now looking pretty likely that Grantmore had blackmailed him to get him access to the premises via Anne Beedham and Janice Cooper. Grantmore must have thought all his Christmases had come at once when he found out a building society manager was using his girls. Jo Young had unearthed more pieces of the jigsaw, having pinned Marilyn down to when she had heard them arguing. It had been just before Grantmore was attacked and blinded – just weeks after the robbery.

  I was heartened that Tom Corrigan kept rigorously defending my thought processes in bailing Grantmore, and a surprisingly good proportion of the visitors from NCIS also supported me. To be frank, it was obvious this was more of a CID versus uniform scenario, but the point was well made about hindsight being a wonderful thing. I confess a little part of me still dared to hope Grantmore would ring me with something solid and I’d be proved right. A bigger part of me knew that my supporters would soon back-pedal if Holland ended up getting arrested with the gang. I kept willing him to ring me and resolved that if I had heard nothing in the next hour I would text or ring him, hoping he could somehow use his phone. I needed to get him out of there.

  We had hardly absorbed the likelihood that Grantmore had fled when Northumbria informed Tom Corrigan that they now had a current address for Billy Pike and were en route with a firearms team. Officers had also been dispatched to Catterick to investigate the suspicious disappearance of the trio’s files.

  I was about to feign a heart attack – or bloody have one – when someone shouted from the back of the room asking everyone to be quiet. The room settled into a hush and we all looked towards the source of the request. DC Beatty was on the telephone, his right hand raised in a signal that showed it was he who had demanded silence.

  We all listened intently to his one-sided conversation, which kicked off with, ‘Thank you for ringing back, we really appreciate it.’

  The anonymous caller.

  When he replaced the phone on its cradle, the whole room looked at him, waiting for him to fill in the blanks.

  ‘That was the same woman who rang earlier. As you must have heard, she has now named Frame and Keegan. She gave me their Christian names… Peter and Michael. Basically, she’s claiming that Frame and Keegan are going to pull another job tonight, in Newcastle or nearby. She didn’t mention Pike.’

  He glanced at me sympathetically before continuing: ‘She reckons they are being helped by a man from Hull who she thinks is called Grantmore. She didn’t know where or what the job will be, and doesn’t know how we can find them before they strike, but she does know that they are using a dark blue Jaguar saloon… and she’s given me the number.’

  He paused for dramatic effect and glanced down at his notes.

  ‘Keegan has a trawler called The Blaydon Races, moored at North Shields. She claims that on that boat there is a gun and other stuff they’ve used in other crimes… and loads of cash. She’s sure that they’ll use the trawler after the job to escape the country. They plan to kill Grantmore when they get out to sea. That’s about it.’

  A series of questions followed, mainly about where exactly the crime would occur, where we could find the three men, and did she explain how she knew all this? Again, we set about trying to trace the call.

  DC Beatty kept shaking his head. ‘All she would say is that the information she has given is accurate. She sounded scared… but convincing.’

  There was a clamour of voices as everyone began to discuss what they had just heard. The clear consensus of opinion, led by Crabbe, was that Grantmore was with them and actually on
the job. I almost hoped he was – that could mean Russ Holland wasn’t with them.

  I could sense Tom Corrigan’s support ebbing away, just as mine would have done were our roles reversed.

  Thirty-Two

  13:45 That Afternoon

  Debbie left the telephone box shaking. She crossed the road to the Spar supermarket, where she worked on the checkout three mornings a week. As she crossed the unusually quiet shop floor, she waved to her mate who was sat looking bored behind her silent till. She walked quickly on, wanting to avoid a chat, and pushed through the swing doors at the rear of the store that led to the staff area. She nodded to one of the stockroom lads as he walked out of the kitchen and then she entered the small locker room, thankful to find it empty. As always, she tucked her long fingernails under the small air vents in the locker door and pulled it open. The lock had been knackered since the day she had been allocated the locker three years ago, and until today that had never bothered her. But she had to hide the money somewhere and the police were soon going to come knocking – Frame had said so – and Billy Pike had a record. As far as she was aware, no one had ever gone into her locker, so she hoped the cash would be safe, at least until she was able to think of somewhere safer to hide it. Praying no one would come in she pulled a Spar plastic bag out of the locker and quickly emptied her pockets of the cash before starting on the notes stuffed in her blouse. The bag filled quickly and she had to pull another from the locker, while shoving the full one to the back. As she hastily withdrew bundles of cash from around her body, she dropped a handful, which fluttered all over the floor. She pushed the second plastic bag into the locker and then fell to her knees reaching across the tiled floor and pulling the notes towards her into a pile. Before she had even finished picking them up, the locker room door swung open and in bowled the lad from the stockroom. He saw Debbie scrabbling on the floor with the small pile of cash and his eyes lit up in amusement.