Mitcheson shrugged and poured the rest of the coffee down the sink. “I’m going to the gym, then I’ll get some kip. I’ll be back later for the briefing.”
Gary nodded and let Mitcheson out, and stood watching the driveway as the car purred out onto the road. Only then did he let go of the gun in his jacket pocket.
Chapter 5
The address Brask had given Riley was amid a row of glass- and steel-fronted refurbishments in Uxbridge. As she climbed out of the Golf, she caught glimpses of high-tech open-plan and discreet lighting, with a hint of tinted glass and tastefully-arranged potted plants. Nice, she thought. Feng Shui is alive and well in the bodyguard industry. Then her glance clicked on the number she was after and she questioned what Donald was getting her into. Between two of the stretches of clean glass modernity was a single brown doorway with an open letterbox, like a shocked mouth dressed in dried and peeling paintwork. A section of plain wood had been clumsily inserted down one side and left unpainted, as if the owners were going for shock value to annoy their neighbours.
Riley was glad she had dressed in her customary jeans and a sports jacket. It wasn’t the height of fashion but it suited her day-to-day movements. Especially here.
She crossed the pavement, pushing open the weathered door which led into a gloomy hallway. A narrow stairway led upwards to a glass-panelled door at the top, with piles of cardboard boxes vying for space on the treads and spilling onto the tiny landing. She shuddered, stepping past the rubbish, nudging open the door with one foot. There was no name on the frosted-glass panel. Inside, the dull atmosphere of a small, smoke-filled office replaced the gloom of the staircase.
“Always make an entrance, dear,” a drama teacher she’d known had often said. The theory was that women could conquer their surroundings by making their presence felt. On the other hand the teacher was unlikely to have seen this dump. The furniture was pre-war MOD surplus, with a touch of rough living thrown in. A sturdy desk, a side table, a couple of chairs and a battered, wooden filing cabinet all came together in an uninspiring collection of grot. And yellowed wallpaper. Decor to jump off a bridge by.
A man was sitting at the desk peering at a computer screen. Riley put his age at about forty, with a good head of dark hair and a face that would have been interesting if it hadn’t been screwed up in concentration. He wore a battered jacket of indeterminate colour and a button-down green shirt. Comfort winning out over style. He didn’t look up.
“I’m looking for Frank Palmer,” said Riley.
He raised a finger for a second, then stabbed it down on the keyboard with conviction. Whatever it did seemed to please him and his face lost the screwed-up look.
“Technology,” he announced, “can be a real bitch.” He had a pleasantly deep voice, with the huskiness of a smoker. “But I live in hopes of mastering it.” He smiled vaguely as if the likelihood was imminent but unimportant, and stood up. “I’m Frank Palmer. Who is the client - you or a third party?”
Riley suppressed a tug of irritation. He wasn’t exactly the jump-up-and-hit-'em type she had imagined. And his office was the pits. But she had enough faith in Donald Brask’s advice to know she needed this man - or one like him.
“I need someone to accompany me for a few days while I do some research,” she explained.
“Okay. My rate’s a hundred and fifty a day plus expenses.” He smiled. “I love saying that.”
“Make it a hundred including and I’ll think about it.”
“‘Bye,” he said, turning back to his computer. “Close the door on the way out.”
Riley felt the slow burn of anger. This wasn’t how it was meant to go. She was supposed to tell this Palmer what he was to do, he would then agree the terms and off they would go. Nobody had mentioned morons who could afford to turn away paying customers. Hell, it didn’t take much to see that Frank Palmer had a cash-flow problem.
She decided to give it another try. Better that than face Donald Brask’s inevitable sarcasm. “Do you mind if I sit down?”
He nodded towards the other chair. “Help yourself.”
Riley flicked at the patina of dust and sat down, while Palmer lit a cigarette.
“I need someone,” she started again, “to accompany me on some field research. I was given your name.”
“So you said.”
“My name’s Riley Gavin,” she continued, letting a little grit creep into her voice. “Donald Brask recommended you.”
“Good man, Donald.” He stubbed out his cigarette with a wince of distaste. “I’m trying to give up. It’s not easy. Which daily are you with?”
“I’m freelance. I work for whoever I can.”
He raised his eyebrows, looking impressed. “How long have you been doing this kind of work?”
“Does that matter?”
“It might. I don’t want to end up holding the hand of an amateur and getting dragged into something messy.”
Riley counted to five. “What makes you think it could be messy?”
“Because it often is. Call it instinct, but hot news is never dull.”
“Maybe. But you won’t be holding anyone’s hand. I’ve been doing this for four years and if you don’t want the job-” She began to rise.
“I didn’t say that,” he said calmly. “I just need to know who I’m - might be working with, that’s all.” He smiled faintly and looked across his computer towards one of the grimy windows as if hoping for divine guidance.
“How about you?” She decided to go on the offensive. “How long have you been doing this… work?”
“Same as you,” he said readily. “Four years. Well, four years solo, anyway.”
“Police?” Donald hadn’t given out any information about Palmer’s background, which could be a good or a bad sign.
“Army - Special Investigations Branch. Redcaps to our clients.”
A military cop. Useful.
She told him as much as she knew, beginning with the murders of the two former gangsters and ending with the suspicions that a third person had been involved with them. It was the third person she needed to find.
“Who are the two stiffs?”
“John McKee and Bertrand Cage.”
Palmer leaned forward until the front legs of his chair settled with a faint thud on the floor. His face was still. In the silence a fly buzzed about his head before settling on the desk and cleaning its feet.
“I think someone’s having you on, Miss Gavin,” he said softly. “There’s nothing ‘former’ about McKee and Cage. They may be getting a bit long in the tooth, but they never left the business. Even I’ve heard of them. They and their type are not nice people.”
Riley stared him in the eye. “That’s where you come in, Frank. I do the digging - you watch my back.”
He returned her stare for a few moments, eyes blank. Outside, a van door slammed and a man laughed. It seemed to galvanise Palmer into a reaction. He shook his head. “Sorry. Can’t help you.”
Riley stared at him. “Why not?”
“I’m busy. Permanently.”
Chapter 6
It took Riley an hour on the phone to discover that London was suffering a shortage of willing, experienced men. She was down to three names and fast losing heart: two like Frank Palmer - one-man shows - the third an agency. So far, none had shown any great enthusiasm for the job. Only the agency had admitted any knowledge of the two dead men, and the man she had spoken to had hinted a warning about going ahead with the piece. He promised to get back to her after conferring with his colleagues.
She kicked off her shoes and jacket and padded around her Fulham flat seeking inspiration from the notes she had been given by Brask. The file on McKee and Cage was still depressingly thin and she felt an unusual lack of control; normally she had no problem in planning her strategy. Damn Brask and his warning!
There was a scratching sound at the door and Riley stopped prowling and let in the neighbour’s cat. The animal had decided she was worthy of his company a few days af
ter she had moved in and took to calling whenever he was bored or hungry. Buying a tin of cat food hadn’t been her best ever idea, but it was cheaper than sharing her infrequent television dinners. Anyway, she had always been a sucker for strays.
She spooned out meat into a saucer and, as he ate, powered up her laptop and opened a new document. She typed everything she knew into the file, mind-mapping and adding a few random thoughts for expansion later, before running dry and closing down the machine in frustration. There were times when pushing too hard resulted in brain-fatigue and a blank screen.
“What am I going to do, cat?” she asked. The cat finished eating and climbed on Riley’s notes to clean himself. She hadn’t the heart to dump him off, so turned out the lights and got an early night.
Next morning she called Brask. He didn’t seem surprised at her difficulty in finding help, nor at Palmer’s lack of enthusiasm. “He’s still the best you’ll find,” he insisted. “Try him again, sweetie. I think he’ll change his mind if you talk nicely to him.”
Riley hung up and rang an agency she’d heard of in Luton. They were polite until she mentioned McKee and Cage, then found they had suddenly been awarded a big contract and couldn’t spare anyone. And they wouldn’t recommend anyone either. Better to forget the whole idea, their tone implied.
She rang two more. The wife of one said he was away on a long contract, while the other man’s answer machine seemed to mock her with its request to call back later. The industry workload suddenly appeared to have been given a boost, Riley reflected. Bully for the industry.
She got dressed and went to the local library where she began the task of dredging for gold dust. Her father, a beat copper, always said eighty per cent of activity was in research. It was a simple credo but one she found correct. It was a matter of knowing where to look. She concentrated on biographies of criminals from the fifties, trawling the indexes for familiar names that might give her a jumping-off point.
In the afternoon she drove out to the British Library at Colindale and waved her press card for admission to the reading rooms. She quickly found that between the strands of often lurid speculation, there was little hard detail about the activities of McKee and Cage, most of it from too many years ago to be of practical help. Whether through lack of criminal convictions or a greater press interest in the Krays and the Richardsons, the two men appeared to have enjoyed a remarkably low-profile existence. What few references there were seemed to have come from a reporter’s desire to pad out another story with speculation and name-dropping in the absence of solid facts. It relegated the two men to being little more than satellites in the outer atmosphere surrounding the bigger names. Maybe, she reflected, that’s how they had preferred it to remain.
She kept at it, slotting a few names into her memory for later use. Most had been connected with McKee and Cage at one time or another and were either beyond the grave or beyond reach in other ways. But someone somewhere must have a story to tell. All she had to do was to find them.
From the grainy pictures and the text cataloguing the times, Riley wondered why they had bothered. Most would-be gangsters of the time seemed to have been blessed with little skill or luck in their chosen profession, and had disappeared off the radar with no explanation or farewell. The smarter ones, she guessed, must have salted something away for their old age, and were probably now living quiet, respectable lives.
Cage and McKee seemed to be in this group, and the latest information had them living in comfortable seclusion on the south coast near Brighton. John McKee had been a member of an exclusive golf club, with his home described by one newspaper as an expensive block of flats near the beachfront, where he entertained friends and lived quietly. There was no mention of a family.
Bertrand Cage had not been so fortunate. Dogged by ill health, he had gradually withdrawn into a hermit-like existence. His sole companion was his chauffeur/handyman, Peter Willis, a stocky, neat man staring solidly into the camera. Riley checked her notes and found Brask had included a phone number but nothing else. She wondered what other skills Willis had apart from driving. From their latest reports, the police seemed satisfied that he had taken no part in the murder.
She went back to the reports of the killings. Both men had been shot with .38 calibre handguns. Cage died sitting on the beach with a single shot to the back of the head; McKee died in his flat - also with a single shot, but to the heart. Time of death for both men had been estimated at between 08.00 and 09.00 hours. There were no recorded witnesses.
Riley closed the files. Both shot about the same time. Close enough proximity for the same killer or two separate ones? She went back to the old reports and made a note of two names that appeared often enough in the files to be interesting. After cross-checking for addresses, she left the library. On the way back she tried the number for Peter Willis. No reply. It was already getting dark.
The rumble of traffic south of the river built up relentlessly as the last of the afternoon light faded, and cooler air began to float outwards through the streets of Newington as a tall figure arrived beneath a block of flats and waited in a doorway. A door slammed and angry voices bit into the gloom, and a thin drizzle of dirt fell to the ground, kicked out from beneath the railings by a scrape of feet on the balcony overhead. In the distance a dog barked and a dustbin lid clattered to the ground. Above the newcomer’s head the name of the block had been removed, leaving a grubby outline and a few twisted, rusted screws for those who needed reminding what this place was called.
The man had spent most of his life in places like this, and had learned the hard way to ignore whatever did not concern him. Everyone had their own problems, never mind listening to those of the people inhabiting cesspits like this.
A youthful figure appeared out of the darkness, cocky and strutting. As he passed under a lamp near a passageway, the watcher saw a familiar gaunt face topped by a harsh crew cut, with the dark patch of a tattoo on the side of his neck.
He waited until the figure drew level with the doorway, then reached out a powerful hand and grasped him by the collar, effortlessly cutting off any sound the other might have uttered. The youth struggled instinctively, but was spun round with his face pressed hard against the cold brickwork, a knee in the small of his back pinning him like a butterfly.
“You were told to stay put, Leech,” the watcher whispered in his ear. “Where have you been, you little runt?”
Leech wriggled ineffectively, straining against the powerful grip. “I only went for a bevvy, honest!” he choked. “You never said about not taking any breaks - it’s cold out here!”
The watcher released the pressure a little, and leaned in close to breathe against the youth’s face. “I never said you could leave your post, neither,” he whispered. “Has anyone been near Cook’s place?”
“No - honest!”
“You better hope so. The moment anyone does, find out who they are and ring me. Right?” With that he let the youth go and walked away.
Behind him he knew Leech would be congratulating himself that his ugly little face wasn’t going to take any more punishment. He might even be feeling a little full of himself. He heard the youth running off into the dark. So far he hadn’t allowed Leech to see him face to face, giving him his instructions by mobile phone, which suited them both fine. Undoubtedly Leech would think himself well off: being paid to watch some old git who smelled of piss and booze and never went out would be a doddle. Even with the occasional bruising, it was probably a break for Leech from pushing pills and any knocked-off goods he could trade in the area.
The big man walked back to his car and drove away.
Chapter 7
Next morning Riley tried the phone number for Peter Willis again. There was still no reply, so she double-checked with Directory Enquiries and trawled the Internet. No number was listed. Maybe he’d gone to ground to escape the press. She had a feeling that as a driver/handyman - for which read minder - he would be a more reliable source of informati
on than most. If she could find him.
She left the flat, pointing her Golf towards the Thames. The first address she had noted was Trinity Court, south of the river near Elephant and Castle. It turned out to be a block of flats set back from the road, and she cruised by to check the layout first before slotting into a parking space fifty yards away.
The block had been given a trial makeover, although there were still a number of gloomy walkways and alcoves typical of the design, with trees and flower tubs struggling to complement a garish fascia and buffed-steel handrails along the balconies. But what would probably once have been a breeding ground for scraggy dogs, doubling as a car-breaker’s yard into the bargain, was now gone. At least, on the surface.
Riley climbed a spiral stairway, following the numbers to the first floor balcony. Her progress was watched by a group of children, for the most part hooded and silent, and she wondered if anything had truly changed under the surface. Her suspicions were confirmed when she arrived at the door to number thirty-two. It was a carbon copy of those on either side, all three reinforced with sheets of aluminium or steel, daubed with paint and etched deeply with initials or symbols. Dynamite would not have dented them, and Riley wondered if neighbourhood watch schemes elsewhere couldn’t learn a thing or two around here.
She hammered on the door until it flew back without warning, revealing a tall, emaciated man in a string vest. He looked about eighty but could have been twenty years younger. Strands of grey hair hung limply from his forehead and rheumy eyes stared out in a dazed fashion, like an animal emerging into the daylight after a lengthy hibernation. Around his body hung the acid aroma of beer and stale sweat.
Riley swallowed hard. So much for her image of a gang member from the sixties. Reginald Arthur Cook, according to reports of the time, had been an enforcer - a strong-arm man - for Bertrand Cage and John McKee. In December 1968, one of his strong arms had put a bookie into a coma, resulting in a five-year prison sentence. Back then he had been bad news, a man to avoid.
NO PEACE FOR THE WICKED (Gavin & Palmer) Page 3