Sam’s grin was so wide the corners of her mouth almost met at the back of her neck. ‘Still under house arrest according to Bev.’
‘It’ll be killing him,’ Ed said. ‘Was she shagging in their house?’
‘Apparently.’
Ed imagined Wright fitting covert cameras around his home, remote monitoring on his laptop and checking his wife’s mobile every chance he could get.
‘Most intelligence gathering he’ll have ever done,’ he told Sam, who sniggered like a schoolgirl. ‘Not that ‘intelligence’ and ‘Never’ belong in the same sentence.’
Ed indicated and turned left into the car park.
Paul Adams was huddled under a black Ping golf umbrella with Bev Summers, the hood of her Berghaus pulled over her head, cigarette poised.
‘Standing in the rain just for a tab,’ Ed said, shaking his head as he drew alongside.
‘How did you get on with the call to Elgin’s office?’ Sam asked, getting out of the car and popping the button of a retracting brolly she had grabbed from the back seat.
The bright red canopy barely covered her head.
‘And they say size doesn’t matter,’ Ed said, wiping rain off his shaved scalp.
Sam stuck her tongue out at him.
Bev blew smoke, said a check had confirmed Elgin’s account of the call.
‘Made from a phone box on the outskirts of town,’ Bev said. ‘No cameras for miles. Julie Trescothick’s arranged to get it fingerprinted, but, her words not mine, don’t hold your breath.’
‘Okay,’ Sam mentally ruled out usable prints. ‘Anything from the house-to-house around Hans’ place?’
She took the pack of Marlboro from her pocket, balanced the tiny umbrella under her chin, and sparked-up the cigarette.
Bev shook her head, rain filling the creases in her waterproof like miniature rock pools.
Sam turned to Paul: ‘Does everybody know the score about the CCTV and the snatch on Julius?’
‘Nobody will say a word,’ Paul told her.
Satisfied, Sam smoked for a moment in the silence, the only sound the rat-a-tat of rain on the umbrellas.
‘Me and Ed are going to the football pitches to see if the CCTV picked up Julius and this so-called friend,’ she said at last. ‘You two check how we’re doing with the number plates on the Transit, see if there are any more sightings on CCTV.’
Harry tapped the stop/start button on the Jaguar XF, still marvelling at how the automatic gear knob dropped elegantly into the centre console.
The caravan had raised decking, patio chairs and a table pulled close to the double white UVPC doors, the Northumberland coast less than a hundred metres away.
Harry got out of the car and inhaled the fresh sea air.
Seahouses was a place he’d visited often…a walk along the sandy beach, his favourite fish and chips in a polystyrene box, mushy peas, salt, and so much vinegar it made his eyes water.
Head down he walked towards the door. Had it been daylight he would have seen beautiful Bamburgh Castle and Holy Island. Now all he saw was Mat’s Porsche.
He looked at the number plate, the last three letters GBH, the same letters as his father’s BMW.
Prick.
Mat opened the door. Harry climbed the steps and walked into the caravan, Dean following.
‘Sorry about last night,’ Mat said, as Harry and Dean sat down on the sofa.
The caravan smelt like a whisky vat.
‘You haven’t called us all the way up here to apologise,’ Harry told him straight out. ‘So cut the crap and say what you have to say.’
‘Drink?’ Mat asked, sitting in the armchair opposite, reaching for the bottle of Scotch on the glass-topped coffee table, hand shaking like a wedding groom about to make his reception speech. ‘Driving,’ Harry said, settling into the settee, ‘and he’s my insurance in case other people turn up, so he doesn’t want a drink either.’
He nodded at Dean.
Mat threw his head back and drained the newly poured shot in one.
Harry took in the puffy eyes, the reddened cheeks. The hair-trigger aggression that normally surrounded Mat Skinner had gone, exposing him for what Harry thought he really was…all piss and wind surrounded now not by his father’s reputation but scatter cushions, tie back curtains, and two bronze Greek God table lamps with red shades.
‘I haven’t asked you here to fight,’ Mat said. ‘I know you were skimming…’
Dean bolted upright, a sprinter a fraction ahead of the starting gun. ‘You cheeky twat!’
Harry put his outstretched arm in front of him, said settle down, said let’s listen to the man.
‘Geoff’s dead,’ Mat said, voice flat, empty.
Harry and Dean exchanged ‘what the…’ glances as Mat Skinner’s body suddenly shuddered.
‘Beaten half-to-death on the say-so of my father then thrown off a boat to finish him. Why? All because of what happened at your pub.’
Harry stared at Mat, in no rush to speak. When he did, he spoke slowly and picked his words. ‘Whatever’s happened to Geoff Mekins, it’s not down to us.’
Mat reached for the scotch and poured himself a shot that would have put an elephant on its back.
‘I know that and that’s not the reason you’re here,’ he said. ‘I’ll never forgive my dad for Geoff. Mark and Luke went along with it, didn’t fight my corner. They’re nearly as bad.’
He drank long and slow.
Harry crossed his outstretched legs, watched but said nothing. He had no idea where this was going and although he didn’t feel under threat, he knew better than to drop his guard.
Mat drained the whisky, licked his lips, and said: ‘I’m looking for a partner.’
He glanced at Dean then back at Harry.
‘Two partners I suppose. I’m taking over the Skinner empire.’
There was a stunned three second pause before Harry burst out laughing.
‘You?’ He shook his head. ‘Taking over? How in the hell are you going to do that? Everybody knows the old man’s lined Luke up for that job.’
Mat clenched his fist but that was the only movement.
‘Things change.’
Harry leaned forward.
‘I will have that drink after all,’ he said. ‘Just a small one though, touch of water.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The manager of Shots and Saves had the squat muscular frame of a football full back; thirty something, sandy haired, and a former Premier League academy prospect who never made it beyond semi-pro.
Sam was directly behind Charlie Grey as they walked along the narrow corridor and up the stairs. She glanced at his firm buttocks
in the spray-on white shorts, her nose twitching at the smell of liniment seeping like invisible smoke from his tanned legs, a smell she’d loved ever since her father took her to watch the local pub team.
His small office housed a desk, a black swivel chair, two green plastic guest chairs and a huge screen computer that looked as out of place as an abacus in a university mathematics faculty.
Sam sat on one of the green chairs. Ed stood, fearing the flimsy looking plastic would collapse under his weight.
‘Julius and Hans hired three pitches every Friday night. Seemed sound blokes to me,’ Charlie said.
Ed tried to hide his disdain. Firstly, the man was clearly no judge of character and secondly, nobody involved in football should wear green sweatshirts; they belonged to Brian Clough, his football management idol, and should have been retired with the legend.
Sam looked at Charlie, a brief image of his chest with the green sweatshirt removed flashing through her head.
‘When people book pitches, what do they get?’ she asked him, her head back in investigative mode.
‘A seven-a-side all-weather pitch and a private dressing room with showers.’
He looked directly into Sam’s eyes and smiled.
Christ he knows what I’m thinking.
‘So, how many pit
ches do you have?’ she asked.
‘Twelve.’
‘So twelve dressing rooms?’
‘Correct.’
‘And the CCTV cameras cover everywhere?’
‘With the exception of the changing rooms,’ another smile, ‘for obvious reasons.’
Grey had already been told in a phone call to get Friday night’s footage ready for the detectives.
‘It’s in another office,’ he said. ‘If you just wait here please.’
Ed waited until he’d left. ‘Do you want to make it any more obvious?’
‘What?’
‘What?’ Ed said. ‘Put your bloody tongue back in.’
‘You jealous?’ Sam teased him.
Ed blushed, kicking himself he had made anything of it.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to see you get hurt that’s all.’
‘Why?’ Sam gave Ed a look. ‘Sometimes a girl has to fall down and pick herself up.’
You could pick me up when I fall…
The door opened before Ed could speak.
‘All sorted,’ Charlie said.
‘How many cameras do you have?’ Ed asked more sharply than he meant, following Grey out of the office to make sure Sam wasn’t directly behind him.
He is jealous!
‘Two on this corridor, one at each end.’ Grey pointed them out, each positioned above the door.
‘So the corridor’s covered.’
‘Yeah, there’s a camera in the bar upstairs and that’s it.’
Grey led them into a windowless space, more a cupboard than a room, too small even for chairs. He bent down towards the video machine, pressed play, and a small TV monitor flickered into life.
Julius and the unknown man could be seen walking into the building. Julius was easily identified. The other man, head bowed and a baseball cap pulled down across his eyes, was not.
‘Any more?’ Ed asked.
‘Yeah, you see them leaving.’
He fast-forwarded the tape but the result was the same - the mystery man kept his face hidden.
‘Did anyone speak to them?’ Sam asked, not looking away from the screen.
‘I did,’ Grey said. ‘They weren’t here long. Went onto the balcony I think, then left.’
‘What did you say to them?’ Sam pressed.
‘Just, ‘alright Julius’. His mate didn’t speak.’
‘What did he look like, his friend?’ Sam asked him.
Grey squeezed his eyes closed and rubbed his nose.
‘I never took much notice of him,’ he said. ‘Taller than Julius, medium build.’
He shrugged his shoulders and gave another smile.
Ed stared at him until the smile disappeared.
‘Did the camera in the bar pick them up when they went onto the balcony?’ Ed said, the sharpness this time absolutely intended.
Grey told them the camera had been broken for a couple of weeks, that they hadn’t got round to a repair.
‘Can we take the tape?’ Sam asked.
Grey’s hesitation belonged to a man who didn’t know the answer, didn’t know whether he had the authority to say yes or no.
‘We’ll take the tape,’ Ed made the decision for him. ‘If your boss has a problem he can ring. Thanks for your time.’
‘My pleasure,’ Charlie said, taking the card Ed offered but looking directly into Sam’s eyes, his grin broadening.
Ed waited until he and Sam were outside, out of earshot of anybody else.
‘I thought you’d be keen to give your card the way you were drooling over him.’
‘I told you,’ Sam serious this time. ‘Pack it in.’
The walk back to the car was done in an awkward silence.
Ed opened up, slipped the key in the ignition, but didn’t turn it. ‘Julius’ mate didn’t want to be captured on camera did he?’ he said, playing back the footage in his head. ‘Talk about surveillance conscious.’
Sam lit a cigarette and asked Ed to start up so she could open her window.
He turned the ignition key, still thinking about the shots from the centre, then the footage of Julius’ abduction.
‘I can’t put my finger on it, but the way he walks, our mystery man.’
He pulled away slowly.
‘I’ve seen that walk before.’
Mat walked past the breakfast bar, ran some water into a glass, and poured whisky into it.
‘I want my dad to die a slow death like Geoff,’ he handed the glass to Harry. ‘Mark and Luke will follow me.’
‘I doubt that,’ Harry sipped the scotch.
‘Then they’ll follow him.’
Harry glanced at Dean, then tugged at his earlobe, a show of bafflement for Mat’s behalf.
‘You’ll forgive me if I don’t get too excited, Harry said. ‘I love Seahouses but I’ve driven all the way up here to listen to a fairy story. That island in the distance,’ he nodded to the north, ‘is called Holy Island not fucking Fantasy Island.’
He pushed himself off the settee. ‘Come on Dean we’re off.’
Mat’s expression showed neither surprise nor anger.
‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I’m the one out on a limb here. There’s nothing stopping you going back and telling my father about this conversation. He doesn’t even know where I am, doesn’t know we have this place. I’m the one taking all the risks so at least you can hear me out.’
Harry stopped, looked at Dean again and sat back down.
‘I know the business inside out,’ Mat told them. ‘My father might want Luke to take over because he’s got the brains, but I know how everything runs…the clubs, the drugs, the girls. There’s nothing I don’t know. You two could be my right hand men.’
Harry’s mind was starting to race, a chess player suddenly fearing a wrong move.
‘And why would we want to do that?’ he said, elbows on knees, chin in the palms of his hands, a show of calm on the outside.
‘Forty per cent of the take,’ Mat made his pitch. ‘Forty per cent of everything.’
Harry tried, unsuccessfully, to calculate 40% of Billy Skinner’s empire. He couldn’t. It was too big to contemplate. He felt like he’d taken a punch to the gut.
‘Why us?’
‘My father’s trusted you since you were kids,’ Mat told him. ‘My mother would understand why I would go to someone like you for advice, an older head if you like.’
‘So how and why does your father get killed?’ Harry was still so thrown he would have struggled to spell ‘fuck me.’
‘The how’s not important now,’ Mat said. ‘The why’s easy enough. A man like my dad? My mother’s lived for years terrified someone would take him out. He’s had plenty taken out himself. And some of our people favour me over Luke.’
Dean Silvers had listened in silence, as stunned as Harry but already working the new landscape in his head.
Now he spoke for the second time since he’d stepped into the caravan.
‘You’d seriously kill your own father?’
Mat poured himself another malt then held Dean’s gaze.
‘Don’t think he wouldn’t do it to me.’
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘There’s shepherd’s pie in the oven,’ Jill Brown shouted. ‘I’ll be down in a minute.’
She looked in the bathroom mirror, checked her hair and make-up, brushed down the short black pencil skirt and tottered down the stairs on stiletto heels.
Getting dressed up had been an effort this time.
‘How you’ve been?’ she said, walking into the kitchen. ‘It feels like weeks since I’ve seen you.’
He gawped at her before answering.
‘Busy and stressed,’ he said. ‘What about you?’
She placed her arms around his neck and opened her mouth; two tongues danced a brief, fierce tango before she pushed him away. ‘Food first,’ she forced a smile, a finger on his lips. ‘Did you bring the wine?’
Councillor John Elgin took two
bottles of Sainsbury’s House Pinot Noir from the orange carrier bag on the kitchen floor. Harry Pullman hadn’t believed a word about any planning meeting but his wife had swallowed the story.
‘Still splashing the cash,’ Jill said, taking a bottle from him, eyeing the label, and twisting the screw cap.
‘I only had twenty quid on me,’ Elgin told her. ‘I didn’t want to risk my debit card. She watches my spending like a hawk.’
‘Any excuse.’ Jill poured the wine. ‘The police were here yesterday. Old school friend actually.’
‘An old flame?’ Elgin leered, slapping her left buttock.
‘No, although he said he used to fancy me.’
Elgin slapped her backside again, a little harder this time.
‘Did you then? For old time’s sake?’
Jill Brown said no she certainly had not; there had never been any old times.
‘Only teasing,’ Elgin took the glass Jill held towards him. ‘Was it Curtis again?’
And at that moment the damn burst.
She threw her arms around his neck, spluttering and gulping for air like someone plucked from the sea, her sobs sudden and savage.
‘What is it?’ Elgin said, pulling her head into his chest, his other outstretched arm placing the glass on the bench, wine dripping from his wrist.
Her whole body shook, words beyond her, only Elgin’s arms keeping her standing on jelly legs.
He held her for what felt like long silent minutes.
‘Curtis was abused by his piano teacher.’
The words, like the tears, had come without warning.
‘I used to drop him off at a monster’s and now the monster’s dead and Curtis was there when he was killed,’ the nightmare delivered in bursts, rapid speech handing over to hitched breaths and back again in a jerky relay. ‘Ed said he didn’t think Curtis was involved but I don’t know whether to believe him or not.’
She gulped in more air.
Elgin stroked her hair. ‘Slow down.’
He passed her a glass of wine, his speech tender. ‘What did this Ed say?’
Her eyes stared at the floor, her quiet voice now mirroring Elgin’s.
Dark Tides Thrillers Box Set Page 78