by Conrad Jones
“I need whatever you can give me, as soon as you can,” Alec carried on walking.
“Charming,” Dr Libby muttered as he entered the dining room.
The detectives walked back to their cars in silence, mulling over what they had seen and trying to put the pieces together. Will recalled the events of the previous evening, which he hadn’t had a chance to speak to Alec about yet. It wasn’t significant enough to bother him at home, but it needed to be told.
“I found our homeless guy last night, guv.”
“What?” Alec was deep in thought.
“I found the homeless guy that lived at the back of the shops, where we found the dealers.”
“Oh, right,” the cardboard box sprung into his mind.
“His name is Ronald Theakston, an ex-marine turned wino.”
“Did he have anything useful?”
“He was there when the shooting happened, and he recognised the weapon as a nine millimetre handgun from his army days.” Will paused, and thought about how to explain the rest of the conversation. “He didn’t see anything, but he heard a diesel engine.”
“That it?” Alec thought there was more.
“He said one of the men was called, Einstein, guv.”
“Einstein? Was he drunk?”
“Wasted, guv.”
“Okay, we’ll park that for now.” Alec couldn’t make any sense of it. “Get the team together and bring in Malik Shah and Ashwan Pindar. It’s time we had a little chat with them.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Rasim Shah
Rasim Shah woke early. He was still weary, as he hadn’t slept well. The events of the last few days played on his mind. Omar told him that Malik had set the dogs onto the Richards gang, but he didn’t know why. He called Malik to ask him what was happening, but he told him to sit tight and wait, nothing more. Rasim hated Malik with a passion. If he wasn’t so scared of him, he’d have left the organisation years ago. He had enough money now, and didn’t need the bullshit that came with working for Malik; however, no one that had walked away lived very long afterward. Shah and his organisation operated in the city with relative impunity from the other crime families. They didn’t bully the smaller gangs, and they had enough firepower to ensure that none messed with them. The Richards weren’t as big by any stretch of the imagination, but they were popular – Malik and his men were despised by everyone. Attacking the Richards could encourage the smaller organisations to unite against them, and then things would get messy. Rasim didn’t have the stomach for a turf war of that scale. He had too much to lose.
“Are you okay, Ras?” Shelpa reached out and touched her husband’s cheek with the back of her hand. “You’ve been twisting and turning all night long, darling.”
“Indigestion.” Rasim turned to her and kissed her forehead. “It’s your cooking, I’m sure.”
“Well if it’s that bad, I’ll stop cooking, cheeky boy,” Shelpa moved closer to him and she pointed her finger playfully at his nose. Her other hand stroked the thick hair on his chest. Rasim was in good shape for his age. He swam fifty lengths every morning, which kept his muscles toned.
“If you stop cooking, I’ll file for divorce.” Rasim kissed her lips gently. Shelpa responded, opening her mouth and probing gently with the tip of her tongue. “What’s the point in having a wife if she doesn’t cook?” he whispered.
“Is that all I’m good for?” Shelpa pulled away and kissed his chin, running her tongue across his neck, stopping momentarily to nibble his earlobe. She could feel him growing hard against her stomach. Her hand slid down, teasing the skin on his stomach. She wrapped her fingers around his erection and began to stroke him up and down. “Well, is that all I’m good for?”
“I’m thinking about it,” Rasim whispered playfully. He put his hand on the back of her head and pushed her down gently towards him. Shelpa took him deep into her mouth, and she rocked her head back and forth until he cried out in ecstasy.
“I remembered why I married you,” Rasim gasped. She held him tight while his head returned to planet Earth. “It wasn’t your cooking.”
“Do you feel better?”
“Much better.”
“Go for your swim,” Shelpa kissed his cheek.
“I’m going, bossy boots,” he kissed her back.
“Are you hungry?”
“Starving.”
“Do you want eggs?” Shelpa sat up and gathered her long black hair into a ponytail as she spoke.
“You are beautiful, you know?” Rasim touched her neck with the back of his hand.
“Thank you.” she took his hand and kissed it. “I love you.”
“I love you too.” he leaned over and kissed her lips. “Even though you give me indigestion!”
“Ras!” she punched his arm gently. They held each other for a precious moment, kissed and then moved to the end of the bed.
Rasim pulled on a towelling bathrobe and tied the belt at the front. He grabbed a towel and padded down the stairs towards the swimming pool. The laminate floor was cold as he stepped off the carpeted staircase and headed through the wide split-level living room. In the corner of the room was a white marble coffee table. A black onyx table lamp stood proudly in the centre, guarding three remote control pads and his mobile phone. Rasim picked up a remote and switched on the music system. David Bowie started to sing ‘Heroes’, and Rasim turned the volume up in the pool area. He eyed his mobile as he walked by, checking the battery was fully charged. It was. Rasim put it back down and walked towards the pool block. The phone began ringing and he stopped in his tracks. It was early, and the call would be trouble, he was sure of that. He sighed and thought about ignoring it. If it was Malik then he would be furious it wasn’t answered, it was his pet hate. The Richards crew had been attacked last night, so he guessed Malik would be ringing to bring him up to date. He walked back and looked at the screen. The caller’s number was withheld.
“Who is that at this time in the morning?” Shelpa called through from the kitchen. Pots and pans clanged as she prepared to make their favourite breakfast. It was omelette with onions and peppers fried in sunflower oil.
“The number is withheld, it will be Malik.”
“I hate that man, he makes my skin crawl, ignore him.”
“He’s my boss, Shelpa, you know how he is.”
“He’s a creep, he stares at me.”
“I stare at you.”
“You’re allowed to.”
Rasim smiled as he placed the phone to his ear and accepted the call. The fingers on his right hand were blown clean across the room, and his skull exploded like an egg being hit with a sledgehammer. Crimson fluid splattered the wall and ceiling and his body stayed vertical for a few seconds, as if it could function without its head, then it fell forward and knocked the onyx lamp across the room.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Omar
Omar woke from a dark dream. He was stuck fast in a muddy field and no matter how hard he tried to free his legs, he couldn’t get out of it. As soon as he freed one, the other became trapped. The more he struggled, the deeper the mud was. He needed help but he couldn’t find his phone to call anyone. Then it started to ring, but he couldn’t see it. The ringing became louder and more real as he drifted back from sleep to reality.
“Will you answer the fucking telephone.” Lindsay Morgan nudged him hard in the back with her knee. “Omar, answer the phone, for fuck’s sake!”
“Do you have to moan from morning until night? Have a day off will you?” Omar rubbed his eyes and yawned. He was sick of Lindsay and her foul mouth. She did nothing but whinge, morning noon and night. The only time she was happy was when she bought shoes or handbags with his money. He put up with her bad attitude because she was a looker, and the sex had been good at first. It was still good, but she rarely wanted it now. Omar had the feeling that she was getting it somewhere else, but Malik told him to stop being paranoid. When they first met, she bought red satin sheets and she
would dress sexy for him, suspenders and fishnet stockings, whatever he wanted. Now she came to bed in a tracksuit. What he didn’t know was that she had been sleeping with Malik for nearly six months. She enjoyed his dominant, rough bedroom manner. He used and abused her body in ways that Omar would never think of, and she enjoyed the thrill of feeling like a hooker. They met at hotels, had rough sex, and Malik would chuck two hundred pounds at her as he left, more shoes. Happy days, sex and shopping in one afternoon.
“I will stop moaning when you answer the phone!” Lindsay shouted at the top of her voice. She pulled the quilt violently over her head and turned away from him.
Omar paused a moment before picking it up. The landline was ex-directory, only his close friends and family used the number, and that was usually if his mobile was switched off. He opened his bedside drawer and looked at his mobile. It was on silent, and he had twelve missed calls.
“Shit,” he muttered as he answered the landline, hoping the missed calls weren’t from Malik. “Hello?”
“Omar, Ras is dead!” Shelpa was hysterical. She could hardly speak for sobbing. He heard her retch and cough, almost choking. “He’s dead, Omar, help me please!”
“Shelpa, what are you saying?” he shot out of bed and grabbed for the trousers he’d discarded the night before.
“Shelpa, have you phoned an ambulance?”
“Yes, but his head is gone, and there’s blood everywhere. Omar, please help me!” She wailed like a banshee, and her words were almost inaudible. She didn’t make any sense. “Have you phoned an ambulance?” he repeated.
The telephone clattered at the other end, as if she had dropped it on the floor. Omar thought that she might have fainted. “Shelpa, Shelpa are you okay?”
“What does that silly bitch want at this time in the morning?” Lindsay moaned from under the quilt.
“Shut your mouth, Lindsay, she’s hysterical.”
“She’s always fucking hysterical.”
“Shut your mouth, you stupid bitch!” Omar yelled. He was struggling into his clothes as fast as he could. He grabbed his mobile and forced his feet into his shoes without undoing the laces. The backs collapsed and clung to his heels.
“Where are you going?” Lindsay poked her head from under the cover. “You’re not running to their house because that fucking drama queen is having an episode are you?”
Omar couldn’t think of a response worthy of delivering, although if he’d had a gun at hand he would have shot her right there. He slammed the bedroom door as he left, and hurtled down the stairs at a million miles an hour. He reached the hallway where a key rack hung above an overflowing shoe rack. His car keys weren’t there.
“Keys, keys keys,” he turned full circle checking the furniture nearby, in case he had plonked them down somewhere. Nothing.
“Where are my car keys?” he shouted up the stairs.
“How the fucking hell should I know?” Lindsay shouted back.
“Have you moved them?”
“Fuck off!”
“Lindsay, this is an emergency!” He screamed. His face was flushed red and his blood was reaching boiling point.
“Fuck off!”
Omar ran into the kitchen and searched frantically along the worktops. He moved his diary, nothing, on top of the microwave, nothing, under the newspaper, nothing. His coat hung on the back of the kitchen door. Omar squeezed the pocket and his keys were there. He sighed loudly, snatched them out and ran for the front door. The chain was fixed, and the bolts were thrown, and it took him what felt like an age to open the door. He stepped outside onto a gravel driveway, and it crunched as he ran to the silver Lexus. The indicator lights flashed as he opened the door with the key card. He climbed in and slipped it into the dash. The supercharged engine roared into life, and the rev counter flicked into the red zone. Omar clicked his mobile into its cradle, and pressed the number two as he selected first gear. The mobile searched its speed dial memory and found the number for Malik Shah. Omar pressed dial and released the handbrake. He heard the line click as it began to dial, and he heard the gravel crunch beneath the wheels as the vehicle surged forward at speed. What he didn’t hear was the mercury slosh in a glass vial as it made the connection between the detonator and the explosive that was packed around his fuel tank.
The Lexus was lifted three yards into the air by the force of the blast and the interior became a blazing inferno in a millisecond. Omar didn’t have time to be confused, or to contemplate what was happening to him. His brain registered the dreadful pain as his skin was peeled from his body by the intense heat. He felt his lungs sizzle as he breathed in the flames. Mercifully, death came for him quickly.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The Major Investigation Team
Will Naylor sat at his desk and ploughed through the information that he had for the fifth time in as many hours. He had the police and MI5 files on Malik Shah stretching back to his late teens. It was like looking for a needle in a haystack. Many of his business associates, including members of his family, had died in mysterious circumstances. He’d been investigated numerous times, but nothing stuck to him. He was like Teflon. His businesses were legitimate and profitable, even the overseas ventures looked genuine. Finding an obvious suspect was impossible. The superintendent acquired arrest warrants for Ashwan and Malik on the back of the Lucky Dragon murders. He also brought in two of the other known crime lords from the city, hoping someone would have the information that would give them a lead.
“You still staring at that?”
“Yes, guv.” Will smiled and pushed his chair back from the desk. “Do you want a brew?”
“Why not.” Alec looked at the screen thoughtfully. “You found anything useful in this lot?”
Will disappeared into the small kitchen area, which consisted of two cupboards, a sink, microwave and coffee machine. The coffee pot was half-full, or was it half-empty, Will couldn’t decide. He filled two cups with black liquid and the aroma of stewed coffee drifted up to him.
“I can’t see anything in there that is relevant to our investigation,” he passed the cup to his boss as he walked back to his desk. “There’s plenty of accusation and speculation, but nothing we can use to hold him.”
“Smithy and his team are trawling through his finances, but there’s nothing untoward there either.” Alec sipped the stale coffee and grimaced. “Uniform have picked them up, they were both at Shah’s residence. When they knocked at Pindar’s home the wife was very cagey, said he’d gone away. The officer said she looked like she’d been crying.”
“Domestic, maybe?” Will smoothed the creases in his trousers. His navy blue suit looked immaculate, and his shirt was crisp and white.
“I’m not sure what to think, Will,” Alec sensed that there was an undercurrent somewhere beneath the recent events. Something that they didn’t know about yet, something that would explain what was going on. “We’re going to question Shah, and then you take lead with Pindar. We might get lucky.”
“Have they asked for lawyers?”
“Oh yes.”
“Who?”
“Grenade and associates,” Alec used the force nickname for Grenace and Associates. They had a formidable reputation for representing bad guys and getting them off. The force detectives called them ‘Grenade’ for obvious reasons.
“Great, I love a challenge.” Will crossed his legs and put his feet up on the desk, sipping his coffee loudly. His trousers rode up above his ankles to reveal shiny black Chelsea boots.
“Nice boots,” Alec smiled sarcastically.
“You wouldn’t understand, guv, fashion you see?”
“I had a pair just like them when I left school.”
“Really?” Will looked concerned.
“Exactly the same.”
“Retro, guv,” Will scrabbled for some credibility. “Vintage clothing, it’s all the rage.”
“Vintage?” Alec teased. “You mean second-hand.”
The telephone o
n Will’s desk rang. He picked it up. “DI Will Naylor.”
His face darkened immediately, and he grabbed a pen and began to scribble notes. Alec could see the shocked look on his face.
“When was this?” Will put his hand to his forehead. “Unexplained? Jesus Christ! Okay, keep me up to date.”
Alec raised his eyebrows as he looked at the scribbles. He could make neither head nor tale of it. “What is it?”
“I don’t believe this,” Will put the phone down and shook his head in disbelief. “There have been two emergency calls made in the last thirty minutes: an exploded Lexus exploded belonging to one Omar Patel, and the unexplained death of Rasim Shah.”
“Unexplained, why?”
“The ambulance crew that responded couldn’t be specific as to the cause of death, but the first officer on the scene said his head had been blown off.”
“By what?”
“We don’t know yet, could be a high velocity bullet?”
“Maybe, and the Lexus?”
“He was dead before his girlfriend made the call.” Will chewed his index fingernail nervously. He was thinking over the shocking information that they had just received. “They are both on the list of Malik Shah’s directors, right?”
“Yes,” Alec replied. Someone was upping the stakes, but why. “Could this be a retaliatory strike for the Richards murders?”
“What about the rest of Shah’s business associates?”
“Get the team onto it now. Warn them not to use their cars and to stay away from their windows, there could be a sniper out there.”
“I’m on it, guv.” Will dashed across the office barking orders as he went. They could be too late already.
Alec called the armed response unit, and communicated the name and addresses of the other directors on the list. “Get me a response team to each address, and dispatch the bomb squad to check every vehicle they own.”
“Guv!” Smithy shouted across the office. Alec put his hand over the mouthpiece to block the office noise. “Graham Libby on the telephone, guv, says it’s urgent.”