The Conspiracy 6

by Jack Probyn

  ‘Without you they wouldn’t have even found the brothers, let alone find out about Candice.’

  Jake looked up at her. ‘That was all you on that one.’

  ‘Another day in the office,’ she joked. They both chuckled, interjecting some humour and escape from the realities of the day. It was needed. ‘What happens now?’ she asked.

  ‘Danny and Louise are being signed in with the custody officer while Michael makes his way up from Fareham. Then I suppose we’ll interview all of them. Not that there will be much to discuss. It just depends on whether Michael is willing to talk.’

  ‘What about Danny?’ Danika asked as the crowd in the middle of the room began to disperse.

  ‘He’s going to give a full statement.’

  As Jake finished, the doors to Major Crime opened and a man Jake vaguely recognised entered. His head was long and narrow, as if someone had pinched the sides of it and let the excess skin and bone and brain matter stretch. The officer spoke with Pemberton at the centre of the cluster of people. After they’d finished, her eyes searched the room until they fell on Jake.

  ‘Tanner,’ she called. ‘With me. Danny Cipriano’s just arrived in the custody centre at Guildford Police Station.’

  ‘You want me to come?’

  She nodded from across the room.

  ‘You want me to interview him?’

  Despite the distance that separated them, Jake was certain he saw a smile flicker on the side of Pemberton’s mouth.

  ‘You can watch for the first bit. Then we might decide to bring you in.’ It was Bridger who spoke, startling Jake – he hadn’t noticed it, but the DS had run away and wandered past them to the canteen to Jake’s left. In his hand he held a cup of coffee. ‘Come on, mate.’

  Jake hesitated a moment. He stared into Bridger’s eyes for longer than necessary, contemplating, deep in reflective thought. His gaze moved towards Pemberton at the centre of the room and then to Danika to his left. They glanced at one another quickly.

  ‘I’ll leave it, thanks,’ Jake said. ‘I think Danika should go. The guy just saved my life – I’m not sure how I feel about interrogating him right now.’

  ‘You sure?’ Bridger asked.

  ‘Jake—’ Danika began, but Jake cut her off. He knew what she was going to say. That she was going to protest against it. But it was done. His mind was made up.

  ‘I want you to go.’

  Bridger moved his arm and handed the cup of coffee to Danika.

  ‘Come on then. Seems like you’re with us.’

  Danika took the mug from Bridger, and as they walked away, she mouthed the words thank you to Jake. Jake bowed his head as he watched them leave.

  As he waited for Danika to return, Jake found himself a seat at his desk and rested, sighed and collected his thoughts. It had been a long day. And the next few days processing all of the information and details for the Crown Prosecution Service was going to take even longer. But before he allowed himself to think about that, there was something else concerning him. Danny. Freddy. Candice. What the current leader had mentioned to him about Candice mistaking him for someone else. Who? Jake recalled the conversation in his head. It had struck him as odd when she’d started talking about his watch, but then he’d thought nothing further of it. Until… Could that have been it? Had she thought he was someone else because he was wearing the same watch as the person she thought he was supposed to be? Did she think that he was the bent cop who was going to help get Freddy and the rest of them out of the country? But why him? And then Jake remembered. Bridger was wearing the same watch as him. He had only glimpsed it quickly, but he was certain it was the same make and model as his.

  No. Surely not. Bridger wouldn’t… He couldn’t. But then, the more he thought about it, the more it began to make sense.

  There was just one final piece of evidence he needed in order to confirm his suspicion.

  An hour later, Danika returned, looking happy with herself. Jake thought it was the happiest he’d seen her in a while. It was what she needed right now – a welcome distraction, something to take her mind off everything that was going on in her personal life.

  ‘How was it?’ he asked, swinging round to face her.

  ‘Insightful,’ Danika replied as she pulled her chair out from beneath her desk. ‘Really insightful. He confessed to everything.’

  ‘Nice one. Well done,’ Jake said, trying to hide the slight bitterness in his voice. ‘Who was leading it?’

  ‘DS Bridger and DI Murphy. I watched for a bit and then they brought me in.’

  ‘Right… Dan, can I ask you something?’

  ‘Yeah, sure.’

  ‘There’s something that’s been playing on my mind for a while now. Did you… did you ever hear anything about the traffic accident on the M25 earlier? Was anyone hurt?’

  ‘What traffic accident?’

  ‘Involving a lorry and a bus load of kids?’

  Danika shook her head. ‘Nope. There’ve been no reports of that. Why?’

  Jake turned his attention back to his desk. ‘No reason. Nothing to worry about. I just wanted to make sure everyone involved was OK.’

  | EPISODE 6 |

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CONVINCE ME

  It was Jake’s day off. He had been allowed some respite by Pemberton but had still elected to focus on work in a roundabout way. He had a promise to fulfil.

  Jake pulled up to a desolate car park on the outskirts of Elena Miller’s estate in Newcastle. Freddy’s old partner lived in block ten, floor five, flat twenty-two. Jake removed his warrant card from his glove compartment, exited the car and wandered to the building. On the other side of the car park a group of kids played on their bikes, swerving around the broken bottles strewn across the concrete. One of them carried a basketball in his hand, and the sound of the ball bouncing up and down sporadically on the ground echoed around the grey concrete walls of the estate.

  Jake stopped at a flight of steps, checked the small panel on the side of the wall that told him where each flat was, made sure he was in the right place and started up. The stairs stank of alcohol and sweat and decaying cigarettes. Puddles of liquid drenched the steps, and Jake struggled to avoid them.

  His legs began to ache as he climbed to the fifth floor. He made a left turn and walked along the outside of the building. To his right, on the other side of the waist-high brick wall, Jake kept tabs on the children playing and, more importantly, his car. He came to a stop outside number twenty-two. The sound of a television played in the background. Jake lifted his hand and rapped his knuckles against the wooden door.

  A few seconds later, it opened, and before him was a skinny brunette with thick black bags under her eyes. She wore a thin grey hoodie with disproportionate drawstrings dangling by her collar bones, and a pair of jeans ripped at the knee. In her hand she held a light blue plate carrying a sandwich. Her expression was blank, clearly unimpressed to see the stranger. Jake tried not to take it personally; he suspected she would have been unimpressed to see anyone.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  Jake kept his ID in his pocket. ‘Elena?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s about Freddy.’

  ‘Don’t want to hear it.’ She threw the door shut but Jake caught it with his fingers before it closed completely, then pushed with all his might, forcing it open a little. He planted his foot between the door and the door frame.

  ‘Please. I’m a friend of his.’ The words felt strange to say.

  ‘The last thing that man has is friends. Who are you?’ She hid behind the small sliver in the door.

  ‘My name’s Jake Tanner. Would I be able to come in please?’

  ‘No,’ she said, scowling at him.

  Behind her, from within the house, a call came. ‘Who is it, Mummy?’

  ‘Oh, it’s – it’s no one, Sammy. Just a man who wants to have a chat about adult stuff. Go back to the television.’ Elena remained still. She continued to glare throug
h the gap, and he could feel her eyes assessing him, judging him. Eventually, she sighed, stepped aside and allowed him to enter. ‘You’ve got five minutes.’

  Jake crossed the threshold and waited in the hallway. Elena closed the front door behind him and pointed to the kitchen.

  ‘In here. I don’t want you near my son.’

  Jake held his hands in the air. ‘It’s your house.’

  The kitchen was cramped. There was a small table laden with notebooks and textbooks in the far right, barely large enough for two people. Beside it, a fridge that came to the same height as the table. Next to that, an oven, washing machine and a sink. Elena stopped by an overhead cupboard and pulled out a glass.

  ‘What do you do?’ Jake asked, leafing through another textbook that was on the surface beside him.

  Switching the kettle on, she said, ‘I’m studying nursing.’

  ‘That’s wonderful,’ Jake said.

  ‘But it’s a bit difficult with him lying around the house.’ Elena nodded towards her son playing in the other room.

  ‘I commend you for it. I have a lot of respect for people in that role…’

  ‘You have kids?’ Elena asked, leaning against the kitchen countertop with her arms folded. He sensed she was beginning to warm to him, becoming less hostile to his presence.

  ‘Just the one for now. We had a little scare the other day, but she’s fine. My wife was being paranoid, but I think we might try for another one soon. Let’s say I won’t be disappointed if we get pregnant again. We were told we couldn’t have one in the first place.’

  ‘There’s a reason they call it the miracle of birth.’

  Jake looked to the ground, bit his lip and decided to move the conversation along. He was conscious of the time. ‘He wants to see you… and his son, Elena.’

  ‘You can call me Ellie.’

  ‘Right,’ Jake said.

  ‘What do you mean, he wants to see us?’ she asked, shifting her weight onto the other foot.

  ‘Freddy. He wants to see you. He wants to see his son.’

  ‘Is that what this is about? He sent one of his mates to come and do his dirty work for him? I’ve been receiving his letters, and they’ve been going straight in the bin. That man stopped being a father to Sammy the day I found out what he was.’ Elena stepped away from Jake, ignoring the kettle that had just finished its boil.

  ‘It’s not like that,’ Jake said, trying to placate the tension between them. ‘It’s not like that at all. I promised him I would come here. I also promised him that you would bring Sammy to see him.’

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  Jake slowly reached into his front pocket and removed his ID.

  ‘Why’s he getting a copper to do his grovelling for him? He paying you? You bent? Wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen one of them round here.’

  Jake pocketed the ID and held his hands back in the air so Elena could see them. ‘It’s not like that. At all. It’s a long story, but—’

  ‘You’ve got a few minutes left to explain yourself.’

  Jake swallowed before telling her everything. He was honest with her. Told her he’d made Freddy a promise. That Freddy had helped him solve the case. That Freddy had proven to Jake he was sorry and beginning to change. That Freddy had lost all of his ‘brothers’.

  ‘You can’t call them brothers,’ Elena said. ‘He was the outcast.’

  ‘He was like a father to them. They never had their father growing up, so he stepped into the role.’

  ‘And look how they turned out,’ she snapped.

  ‘I didn’t have a dad growing up either. He died when we were young, which was worse because we knew him and then he was taken from us. I was the middle child, but I was forced into adopting that role. I looked after my younger brother and I cared for my older sister, who didn’t even need me there. But I was, because I loved them. I’m telling you, I didn’t know what I was doing. I made mistakes. We all did. I still do. And I can tell you now, we would have been raised so much better if we’d had our dad in our lives. He would have kept us on the right path, told us when to turn left and to turn right. Not that my mum didn’t do a great job – she did.’ Jake paused to gauge Elena’s reaction; she was attentive, her eyes focused. ‘Freddy’s not asking for much. He just wants to see him. Maybe even speak with him for a bit. You don’t have to tell Sammy that Freddy’s his father. Freddy doesn’t mind that – he realises he gave up that privilege a long time ago, like you said. Just so long as he’s in his life, so long as Sammy knows Freddy exists. I mean, have you prepared for when Sammy begins to get curious? When he wants to find out who his dad is?’

  Elena remained silent.

  Jake continued without giving her time to answer or think. ‘Wouldn’t you want to know? I mean, if I could do anything to get my dad back, I would. One hundred per cent.’ Jake reached for his wallet, removed a business card that had his work mobile and email address on it, and placed it on the surface. He grabbed a pen from the spine of the textbook beside him and, on the reverse of the card, wrote down the visiting days and hours at HMP Winchester.

  ‘I know it’s a long way,’ Jake said, ‘but if you need me to, I’ll be happy to front some of the expense. I can’t force you to go, but I hope you’ll do what’s right for Sammy, because, after all, he’s the one that matters in all of this. I’ll show myself out. Thank you for your time.’

  Jake slid the card closer to Elena, adjusted his wallet in his jeans, then wandered out of the kitchen and out of the flat, closing the door behind him.

  | EPISODE 6 |

  CHAPTER NINE

  WHEN PROMISES COME TRUE

  The buzzer sounded overhead and the door clicked open. The prison officer beside him escorted Freddy through the frame and onto his seat. He hadn’t been expecting visitors. In fact, he hadn’t even known about the visitor – whoever it was – until ten minutes ago. It was out of usual visiting hours and the prison staff had made an exception for him. His assumption was that it would be Jake again, coming back to get help with something. In the years that he’d been locked inside he had only ever seen a handful of visitors. Mostly solicitors coming to bring him bad news, or the sporadic visit from a deranged member of the family who’d found out he was incarcerated and wanted to put it on their blog or their social media channels. Every time, though, whether they were there to exploit him or depress him, he agreed to see them. Prison was a lonely place, and what sort of psychopath would he be to turn down external company?

  The visiting room was empty, save for the guards standing to attention in the four corners. Freddy sat there, tapping his knee on the bottom of the table, drumming his fingers on the top. His gaze darted to the clock that hung on the wall to his right. It was nearly lunchtime, and he was beginning to get hungry.

  A few minutes passed.

  ‘Is this a joke or something?’ Freddy asked, facing one of his favourite guards. ‘Because I know how you like to think you’re funny, Gabe. But—’

  Freddy was interrupted by the door in front of him opening. Two people entered. At first he didn’t recognise who they were. And then, as the light reflected off their faces, his heart stopped. Elena and Sammy were right in front of him, strolling towards him. Freddy’s eyes were glued to his son. He hadn’t seen the toddler in years. Sammy was growing up to be tall and strong. His hair was well kept, and he looked healthy. Elena had been doing a good job, as he knew she would.

  Freddy felt a sense of raw elation and euphoria crash over him. A lump swelled in his throat and his eyes began to water.

  Elena and Sammy pulled the chairs from beneath the table and sat opposite them.

  ‘You all right, Fred?’

  | EPISODE 6 |

  CHAPTER TEN

  THE CABAL

  Bridger slumped into the front seat of his car and slammed the door shut. He exhaled deeply and ran his hands over the steering wheel, bringing himself to make the call. It had been put off for too long now, and the longer
he left it, the worse it was going to get.

  The ringer sounded in his ear, sending bolts of panic through his brain and into the rest of his body with every tone.

  He clapped his knees together as he waited impatiently.

  The call was answered but he was greeted by silence.

  ‘Hello?’ he said, licking his lips. ‘It’s me.’

  There was a pause.

  ‘You’ve got some explaining to do,’ the voice on the other line said. Bridger didn’t know his name. He’d never been given one. He didn’t even know what he looked like. All he knew was that the nickname the man had given himself was The Cabal. And in the line of work that he was involved with, it seemed apt to Bridger.

  ‘Do I still get my cut?’ Bridger lowered himself in the leather seat.

  ‘Depends whether you can convince me you’ve earned it.’

  ‘Listen,’ Bridger began, suppressing the fear in his voice. ‘It’s not my fault.’

  ‘You were supposed to get them out of the country. That was your one job. They’re either dead or in a cell. That’s your problem. Your fault. Not mine. No one else’s.’

  ‘There were issues. Delays,’ Bridger said. ‘This new bloke. Tanner. He got in the way every time.’

  ‘He a threat?’

  ‘Nah.’ Bridger shook his head and stared out of the window. He glanced up at the police station just as Jake and Danika exited the building. They were going home for the evening. Together they waved goodbye to one another and headed towards their respective cars. ‘Trust me, he won’t be an issue.’

  ‘I’ll still put him on my radar.’

  ‘He’s on mine too.’ Bridger breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth. Slowly. Carefully. As if doing it drastically would piss off The Cabal somehow. ‘So, do I get my cut?’