by Michael Kerr
It was half an hour later when the men reappeared, climbed into the car and drove out of the yard to head in the same direction that Sean’s Honda was facing.
“Follow them,” Billy said, and Sean started up and drove after the other car, keeping a couple of vehicles between them.
“This next collection could be dodgy,” Travis said to Henry Norton. “Denton is a crazy son of a bitch.”
Henry shrugged. “He knows the score. He asked for a discount and the boss said no. He still hasn’t come up with any cash, so we need to sort him.”
Dale Denton sold cars. He had four showrooms in south London and two more beyond the M25 in Redhill, where he lived. His main showroom was in New Cross, and he could usually be found there between ten and four p.m. Monday to Friday.
Dale knew the way the world worked. And he also knew that not paying a ‘monthly insurance premium’ as Ricky Lister called it, was asking for a confrontation that he may not win. Three years ago his refusal to pay up to be allowed to conduct his business safely had resulted in one of his showrooms being burned to the ground, with the added loss of more than forty high-end priced vehicles. He’d coughed up ever since, until two months ago when Lister had upped the payment by a third.
There had been a stalemate. He had spoken to Lister on the phone, but hadn’t been given any leeway. He was told to pay up or suffer the consequences, so had told Lister to go to hell, and to remember that protection was a two-way street, and that he had beefed-up his security and would respond to any threat or action against him and his staff or property.
It was not a surprise to be visited by two of Lister’s men. He invited them into his glass-fronted office and pressed a button fixed to the underneath of his desk to start a unit that would record everything that happened by way of a camera secreted behind a ventilation cover high up on the wall behind him.
“Go back out in the showroom and advise the salesman that is eye-balling us to take a coffee break,” Henry said to Travis.
Travis left the office and Henry just stood in front of the desk and looked down at Denton. He knew that his six foot six muscled frame was intimidating, and that pure menace emanated from his ebony-coloured eyes.
“Can we talk straight?” Henry said.
“Yeah,” Dale said. “But take a seat and let’s be civilised. Looking up at you is giving me neck ache. You want a cup of coffee?”
“Thanks, but no,” Henry said in his bass rumble. “You know what we’re here for. And if we were to leave empty-handed, then a third party would be truly pissed-off with us.”
“You mean Ricky Lister?”
“Never heard of him. And if you’re taping this meet, you need to know that I’ll find the equipment if need be. Trying to be smart is like smoking, it can kill you.”
“Are you threa―?”
For a giant with his left arm in a cast, Henry was extremely fast. His long, muscular right arm shot out, and his hard, scarred fist exploded in Dale’s face, knocking him back out of the chair to hit the wall and crumple onto the carpet.
Henry stepped around the desk, picked Dale up one-handed and sat him back in the chair. “You’ll need tissues, Mr. Denton,” he said, straightening the man’s jacket and holding him up with a hand on his shoulder to prevent him slumping forward onto the desk. “You seem to be bleeding all over your shirt front.”
Dale could feel his jaw swelling and decided that it was probably broken, and that the inside of his mouth had been split open against his teeth. He finally realised that he was no match for Ricky Lister.
“You’ve done good for yourself,” Henry said. “You have a comfortable life, so why throw it away over a few quid a month. Having principles is fine, but not something that a used car salesman would know much about. You need to wise-up, now, before it’s too late. Okay?”
Dale said nothing. He was still a little dazed from the blow, and his jaw was a mass of pain.
“I’ll take your silence as a yes,” Henry said. “Now get whatever you’ve recorded this on for me, plus a couple of grand as a goodwill gesture and we’ll be on our way. And think on this, Mr. Denton, there won’t be any more friendly chitchats like this. If you hold out again you’ll lose everything. Got it?”
Dale nodded very slowly.
Henry gave him a warm smile. “Good man. Go and get what I asked for.”
Standing on unsteady legs, Dale went to the door to his left in the corner of the office that opened onto a small closet. He stopped the recording and removed the minidisc from the machine, and then opened a small wall safe and withdrew two thousand pounds. Back in the office, he put the disc and money on the top of the desk.
“Find an envelope for this,” Henry said. “I’ll check the disc later. I don’t think that you’re stupid enough to give me a blank or one with footage from a trip to Disney World or somewhere on it.”
It had been a rewarding few minutes. Henry left the office and nodded to Travis, and they both sauntered out of the showroom and climbed into the Insignia.
“He coughed up two K and won’t give us any more grief,” Henry said. “And the dumb bastard had a hidden camera running. He tried to get me to confirm the boss’s name.”
“Did you get the tape?” Travis said.
“It’s on one of those little discs. I’ll run it back at base and then destroy it.”
“I’m done for today,” Travis said. “Drop me off at home on the way.”
“That will have been a collection,” Billy said to Sean as they followed the black car from the showroom, back in the direction of Lewisham.
“How do you know?”
“Because Lister is my uncle.”
“No way, man!”
“It’s true.”
“And the guy that mugged you works for him?”
“Long story, Sean. Least you know the better.”
“Jesus, Billy. You’re uncle is a fuckin’ gangster, and you plan on doin’ one of his goons.”
Billy nodded. “You reap what you sow. The guy hurt me, so I plan on hurting him back, with interest.”
The Insignia stopped at the kerb outside a modern development by the name of Lime Tree Court on Black Horse Lane, which comprised four blocks of flats in a landscaped area where a large slaughterhouse had once stood.
Travis got out and raised his hand in a wave as Henry drove off in the automatic, which he could handle one-handed.
Taking a key card from his wallet, Travis ran it through the slot to gain entry, and used the stairs up to the second floor.
After having a shower, Travis dressed in a white T and red sweat bottoms, put a J. Cole CD on: Born Sinner, and poured a large Jack Daniel’s over ice into a square-shaped tumbler. He listened to the rapper as he relaxed and let the day melt away like the ice in his glass. He decided that he would go out later, walk the short distance to the Goodfellas’ pub and have a steak and maybe a couple more drinks. Working for Ricky Lister had changed his life around. Like Ricky, Travis had been a pro boxer, but had hardly made enough to pay the bills. And then in what turned out to be his last bout, which featured him at the bottom of the bill at the York Hall in Bethnal Green, he was spotted by the man who now paid him his high, tax-free wages.
The fight was going badly for him. He had been on his knees in the second round after being caught by a sucker punch, and by midway through the fifth he knew that he was being out boxed and was taking a beating. Another cutting blow put him down for a count of seven, and opened a gash over his left eye. The ref checked it and let him fight on, but he knew that it was a lost cause, up until his sneering opponent, a Welsh guy, told him he was a fucking wanker, as Travis held on in a corner. That concentrated him. Made it personal and lit a fire in his brain that had been almost out. He found the reserves needed to stand off, put his guard up and then go to work. He heard the roar of the crowd as he began to land heavy head punches and a flurry of penetrating body blows. The next round was his; he had turned a corner and knew that he could finish it, and
he did. A right hook took the Welshman up on his toes, before he hit the mat and stayed there.
A knock at his dressing room door had brought Ricky into his life.
“I had a grand on you to lose,” Ricky said to him through a cloud of smoke from a Cuban cigar. “How the fuck did you get back into it and win?”
“He badmouthed me. That gave me the incentive to find something extra.” Travis said.
“I’m impressed, but you’re never going to make a fortune at it. Take my card and give me a bell if you want to make a good living away from the Game.”
Travis had made the call two days later and had never regretted it. Being on Ricky’s payroll was money for old rope. He did what was required of him, and did it well. And to be paid a lot of money to do what you enjoyed was a bonus in life.
“How long do you suppose he’ll be in there?” Sean said to Billy.
“Pass,” Billy said. “You can call it a day and go home now if you want. I’ll see if I can get inside and deal with him.”
“I’ll wait. You might have to leg it in a hurry.”
It was twilight when Billy made his way on foot to the front door of the building. There were no names next to the bell pushes for the flats, so he walked around to the rear. He had come prepared, carrying a plastic bag containing items he’d thought he would need. The four-storey block contained sixteen flats, four on each floor; two each side of a central stairway and lift shaft. He hoped to find a window open, but they were all closed and probably locked, but there was what he supposed to be a service door midway along the building, which had a single cheap deadlock that he jemmied open in seconds. He closed the door behind him and was in pitch darkness, but had taken in the details of the room in the low light from the dying sun that had been behind him in the western sky. Walking the few feet to the inner door, he ran his hand up the wall to the side of it, found the rocker switch and thumbed it on.
The now lit room was stacked at both sides with shelving that held cleaning materials. Billy surmised correctly that a janitor attended to the flats. He opened the door onto the ground floor landing and approached the door to the first flat on his right and knocked on it.
He could hear a television, and then footsteps. A voice said, “Who is it?”
“My name’s David Lowry,” he said. “My mother has just had a seizure or something and the phone is dead. I need to call for an ambulance.”
George Blane opened the door. It did not occur to him that anyone with deadly intent would be inside the building and knocking at his door. He was a trusting soul and saw the good in people, not the bad.
Billy walked in and pushed the old man back, knocking him to the floor. He had swapped the jemmy for a hunting knife with an eight-inch long serrated blade.
George gasped for breath and looked up at the intruder, who had one arm in a sling, but wielded a big, wicked-looking knife in his other hand, the point of which he had pressed to George’s narrow chest, hard enough to puncture the material of both his cardigan and shirt and break the skin beneath, causing him to gasp in pain.
“I need some information, old-timer,” Billy said. “What’s your name?”
“George…George Blane.”
“I’m looking for a very tall, muscular guy that lives in one of these flats, George. I want his name and flat number.”
George blinked against the fear and pain that he felt. His hips joints were on fire, due to the sudden jolt of falling onto his bony arse.
“That would be Mr. Lawson in number four,” George said.
“Tell me about him.”
“I don’t know a lot about him. He doesn’t talk much, only in passing, which isn’t often. But I do know that he used to be a boxer. He told me that he’d once fought Frank Bruno, but lost on points.”
“Get on your feet and lead the way upstairs, George. I’ll tell you what to say to him on the way.”
Travis heard the door bell ring above the music. It had to be a neighbour, because no one had pressed the bell on the main door to use the intercom. Although it could be the little semi-retarded janitor, he supposed. He had asked the guy to call in and replace the tube of the overhead fluorescent light in the kitchen.
Opening the door without bothering to look through the peephole, Travis lowered his gaze to stare into the face of the balding old guy who lived downstairs.
“I had an accident, Mr. Lawson,” George said and pointed a gnarled finger to the blood that had seeped through his clothing from the prick of the knife. His skin was thin and he bled more these day; all part of the aging process.
“You’d better come in and we’ll check it out,” Travis said as he reached out to assist the old man inside.
Billy had been standing to the side of the door, out of sight. He moved fast, used the fisted hand holding the knife to shove George forward with all his strength, propelling him into Travis as he entered and kicked the door shut behind him with his heel.
Even as Travis lost his balance, he put his hands out, hoping to catch George, believing that he had just collapsed forward into him.
Billy felt a surge of exhilaration. It was absolutely true that the bigger they are, the harder they fall. Lawson landed on his back with George in his arms looking like some wizened oversized doll that was being cuddled.
Billy stabbed the old man in the nape of the neck, driving the razor-sharp blade deeply into the spinal column beneath the base of the skull.
George didn’t make a sound. His whole body stiffened, he felt a paralysing shiver run the length of his body, and then he died, holding onto Travis with a death grip as firm as a limpet clinging to the rock of a storm-lashed cliff.
Billy got down on one knee and pressed the edge of the blood-coated blade to the throbbing artery on the side of Travis’s neck. “I want my gun and my money back,” he said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Matt drove up and down a two and a half mile stretch of the A104 for over an hour, stopping irregularly in lay-bys and on the grassy verges. Marci and Tam were doing the same on the A121.
“You really think he’ll just appear out of the trees and try to stop a car?” Pete asked.
“I think that this could be a total waste of time,” Matt said. “But I’m sure that he’ll have headed north from the Porters’ cottage. This and the road that Marci and Tam are on converge, so if he is heading this way he’ll in all probability walk into the net.”
John was almost drained. The stress was telling on him. Being constantly on high alert since fleeing from his house, he was now physically and mentally spent and needed to find somewhere safe where he could rest and recuperate. If he could make it away from the area he would be fine. He would at some point have to kill the copper, but that wouldn’t particularly bother him, not after all that he had done. Once they were in a car and she had driven him well away from the area, he would do her and dump the body. No one would have a clue as to his whereabouts.
Looking around as he walked, imagining that every flutter of leaves could be the sound of his hunters, he lost his footing and pitched forward, to sprawl on the ground in an ungainly heap.
Lucy turned to see him now unarmed. He had instinctively dropped the shotgun to use his hands to break his fall. Her reaction was immediate. She threw herself sideways into the almost chest-high greenery of ferns, saplings and tall weeds with rhubarb-thick stems topped by leaves as big as dinner plates. Moving on all fours she edged slowly to her left, picking up a stone the size of a tennis ball as she kept going, hoping to be able to crawl far enough away to remain undiscovered.
Getting up, John recovered the shotgun and ran into the undergrowth at the point that she had entered it, only to stop after a few yards. He had no way of knowing which way she had gone. Had she just bolted like a spooked deer, then he would be able to see and hear her, but she was staying low and was completely hidden from him.
Standing and slowly turning in a full circle he studied the area, and after only a few seconds he saw the tops o
f high ferns trembling just forty feet away. He smiled. She should have stopped and stayed as still as a statue.
Lucy heard him drawing nearer. There was nothing she could do but hope that he passed her by. Holding her breath, she closed her eyes; just sat and hugged her knees and prayed that she would not be found. As a little girl playing hide and seek with friends, she had always believed that she could become invisible to them if she kept her eyes tightly closed and didn’t move a muscle.
A few seconds later Lucy opened her eyes and readied herself at the sound of his clothing rustling against the ferns just a few feet from her. If he appeared she would grasp one of his legs and yank hard. Once he was down she would be able to brain him with the stone.
Even as Lucy thought that he had walked by she felt the pressure on her neck.
“You’re beginning to be more trouble than you’re worth,” John said. “I think I’ll just blow your head off and go it alone.”
Lucy found a reserve of mental strength that she had not known she possessed. It was as if a separate part of her took over in an attempt to fight for survival and not with the stone that she held, but with words. “If you pull that trigger it will just lead them to you,” she said. “You need me if you want to get away.”
“Words,” he said. “They’re hollow. You just tried to escape so that you could go for help and have me arrested.”
“I tried to get away because I’m not just a police officer; I’m a wife and a mother, John. You’ve killed people, and have no intention of letting me live, so I had to do something.”
He moved to the right, walked around her and sat down facing her. “Drop the stone,” he said, and she did. “I don’t just kill people,” he continued. “I didn’t kill the other copper or that couple, did I? I’ve got a wife and daughter, but…something happened and it all went wrong. I let something bad grow inside me, and now it’s too late to make things right.”
“So give yourself up, John.”