by Jay Stringer
The kitchen unit is pressed up against that new wall, and the fridge is stocked with a mix of health food and beer.
Gotta love this guy’s self-delusion, aye?
In the small living room there’s a TV unit, some musical instruments, and a black leather sofa. The place has clothes lying around in stupid places. I mean, next to the TV? Come on, who does that?
Close inspection shows the sofa’s not really leather.
Up above the furniture, about six feet off the floor, I find what I’m looking for. There’s a white closet door set into the wall. Before this floor was converted into two separate apartments, there would have been a closet off the living room, backing onto the wall of the old kitchen. When it was all changed, they must have used that closet space for a new smaller kitchen in the flat behind the new dividing wall. And above that kitchen, in a space that’s now useless, is a small closet. The only reason to have a door so high in the wall is for a conversation piece.
I climb onto the arm of the sofa and take a look behind the door. As I expected, there are a few cardboard boxes in there, and a plastic Christmas tree. I push the boxes over to one side, and lift the tree on top of them. There will be just enough room for me to fit in there, if I need to.
I’m still working out the details, but I know I’ll want to fake Alex’s death in the morning, before he leaves for work. And I’ll need the replacement body to be fresh enough to fool a casual examination.
I sit on the sofa for a second and think about what Zoe said.
I know she’s right. I know I need to build up the guts to ask Sam out for a coffee. I don’t want to keep this thing going on too long if it’s not going to work, because that’ll just set me up for disappointment. And, if she’s not interested in meeting me, I may as well know now rather than wait until I’m too attached.
I write her a message saying all of this.
Or, I start to, because I keep deleting it.
Then I chicken out, and send the blandest bit of useless chat in history.
FergusSingsTheBlues – At work. Bored.
FergusSingsTheBlues – Know any good jobs?
Fucking auto correct again.
FergusSingsTheBlues – JOKES. Good JOKES.
Fergus, sunshine, yer patter will never win any awards.
Okay. I know where Scott lives, and I think I know the best time to take him out. I know how I’m going to fake things for Alex. I’m back on form.
THIRTY-EIGHT
SAM
13:10
I knew who Joe Pepper was. Both versions of him.
Publicly, he was a solicitor who’d left a lucrative career as a prosecutor to start taking mostly pro bono cases in the East End. He was a big figure behind the scenes in the local Labour Party, known to be the pit bull who fixed everything in private but one of the party’s most effective councillors in public.
Behind all of that, and most relevant to the way my gut was trying to climb out through the soles of my feet, was the other side of Joe. The orphan who had been raised by Mike Gibson. Linked to a number of crime families, and one of the most feared men in the East End.
So of course I knew who he was.
But I wasn’t going to let him know that.
‘How can I help Mr, uh, Pepper, was it?’
He laughed. Maybe he was used to people pretending not to know who he was. ‘There’s a café on Argyle Street. Laurie’s. Nice place. Decent coffee. It’s a lovely day and I’m sitting out front. I’d like to talk to you, and it’s a nice public space, so if you’re worried, you know you can walk away anytime.’
Oh, thanks. I like having someone mansplain to me about the safety of public places. The only thing I find creepier than men who assume I never need to think about my personal safety are men who assume they need to think about it on my behalf. First thing I do when I walk in a room is check out all of the ways out of it. I know why I do it, but I worry about men who do it. Why do they need to? What are they hiding?
I’d already talked to Mike Gibson today. And stared down a couple of feds. Talking to Joe Pepper – a bigger fish than both – felt like a hat-trick I didn’t want to go for.
‘No thanks.’
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘No foul. I’ll just have that drink, and when I’m finished, I’ll probably call the polis and let them know about the package you picked up off a dead woman yesterday.’
Crap.
He killed the call before I could say anything. Smart move. It put all the pressure onto me to make the decision.
I headed to the café.
Laurie’s faced right out onto the street. It had wide windows, with the front door in the centre. The windows were partially obscured by the café’s name, painted across them in frosted letters. The paint around the windows was black, and there was a dark awning that came out a few feet, casting a slight protective cover down onto the silver metal tables and chairs on the pavement. The pavement on Argyle Street wasn’t very wide, so our conversation would be overhead by any of the few passers-by.
How did he get my number?
Well, that’s easy. I have a website. Anyone can make a booking for my services. I’ve delivered parcels for all kinds of people, and done investigation work for some high-profile clients. It’s not hard to find me.
But why?
And how did he know I had the parcel?
By the time I reached the café, he was already sat at a table, giving an order to a waitress who looked young enough to have been conceived in her parents’ celebration shag after Blur vs Oasis. Joe ordered a coffee and mentioned his tab. I asked for a glass of water and sat down across the table from him.
He was waiting until the waitress was out of the way before speaking to me. I decided to take the opportunity to take control and rattle him. ‘How did you know to call me?’ I said.
The waitress looked down at me, startled, before realising I wasn’t speaking to her. Joe simply smiled. He continued to stay silent until the waitress had gone, like he’d intended, then started. ‘You know who I am.’ He said it matter-of-factly, dismissing the game I’d played before.
‘Yes.’
‘And what I do.’
‘Yes.’
‘I have a package I need to find. A woman stole it from me yesterday, and then she was, unfortunately, murdered. I’d like you to find it for me, urgently.’
He was watching me as he spoke. Was he gauging my reaction, waiting to see if I connected what he was saying to what had happened to me yesterday? I’d be an idiot not to. I was determined to hold back, but I’ve never been a poker player. He smiled, and I got the impression he’d seen whatever he was looking for.
He continued. ‘Let’s say I pay you to find it for me.’
‘What if I’m fully booked?’ I said, pushing as much ice into my veins as I could. ‘I might not have the time to take on the work, but I could recommend another good detective to you.’
Joe nodded, but it was sideways, with his head bobbing a little on his neck. It was a move I’d seen George Clooney do in films, and it looked cute as hell when he did it. On Joe, it just looked like an act.
He slipped a phone out from inside his jacket and swiped at the screen a few times. He put it on the table between us and nodded for me to take a look. I picked it up. There was a picture of me, talking to Paula yesterday as I took the package. The quality was a little off, and it looked like a video still. The angle was pointing downwards, from farther up the street. A security camera.
‘There are others,’ he said, nodding at the phone with his chin.
I pushed onto the next image, then the one after that. And again. Each of them showed me, from different cameras, talking to Paula, and then pushing off on my bike.
How did he have these images? I was pretty sure the cops still didn’t have them. If they did, Alan Dasho and Todd Robinson would have arrested me. I felt my own phone buzzing in my pocket. It kept going. An incoming call. I ignored it. Now wasn’t the time.
The
drinks arrived and he nodded thanks at the waitress. He lifted his cup and held it in front of his face, blowing at the surface but not putting the coffee to his lips. I didn’t touch my glass of water. I knew my hand would shake, and I didn’t want Joe Pepper to see it.
‘I always like to sort things out the easy way,’ he said. ‘I think all problems can be dealt with reasonably, by throwing cash at them. That said,’ he set the cup down and leaned forward for effect, ‘I am under a lot of pressure lately, and I can’t afford to be as patient as I would like.’
I felt three shorter buzzes on my phone. Messages.
Joe placed a bound bundle of twenty-pound notes on the table, and said, ‘What do you say? Can you find the package for me?’
I was rattled, and stuck between a rock and a scary place. Because even if I took the bung and handed over the tapes, I’d then have to explain to the cops why it was I didn’t have—
Wait.
Wait.
Wait.
Joe kept saying package. He hadn’t mentioned tapes. He hadn’t said ‘them’ or ‘those’ or anything that suggested he had an idea of what had been handed to me the day before.
He didn’t have a clue what was in the package.
‘I need a few hours,’ I said. ‘It’s in a safe place.’
‘Of course.’ He stood up and handed me a business card. ‘Meet me back here at four. And please, let’s just do it the easy way. Better for both of us.’
He smiled as if he’d just delivered a warm farewell rather than a threat. I watched him walk away. The bastard had a spring in his step.
I headed back down the block toward my bike. I pulled out my phone to switch the GPS back on. The messages were all from Fergus. Straight away, I wanted to reply to the messages. But I knew I needed to get the phone call out of the way. She was off the case, but maybe it was in relation to the investigation. She could be trying to warn me of something.
I dialled the number.
‘Hiya, Han. I know, they need me to come—’
‘No,’ she cut right in. Her voice sounded as rattled as I felt. ‘Where are you? I need to talk. Out of the office.’
‘What’s up?’
‘Paula Lafferty? You were right. Looks like she was a cop.’
Here we go.
THIRTY-NINE
ALEX
13:55
Holy shit.
Alex had it. Joe’s big plan. He could see the edges of it. The trail of numbers wasn’t conclusive, but he could see what Joe was up to. It was just a matter of taking a step back, and looking at things from a distance. Usually, he had to get up close to follow a trail. Look for all the tiny footprints, all the tracks that have been covered. It was a job of remembering dates and numbers, and seeing the incremental steps that added up to one big leap.
This time it was more about taking a wider view and seeing the pattern. He would never have noticed it if he wasn’t already looking.
Joe was going to try and pull a fast one.
Asma Khan wasn’t going to see this coming.
More important, was this something Alex could use? He saw three different options. First, he could try and cut in on the deal. Take some of the cash. Second, he could use it to blackmail Joe if things went bad. If Joe discovered what Alex was up to. Third, he could hand the info over to Khan, make himself bulletproof.
He was trying to figure out his angle when Emma knocked on the door. She walked in without waiting for a response.
‘Why do you knock?’ Alex said.
Emma shrugged. ‘Politeness, I suppose.’
‘So you knock to be polite, but don’t wait for me to respond?’
‘Were you going to tell me not to come in?’
‘No.’
‘Have you ever told me not to come in?’
‘No.’
‘Well, then.’
She smiled and waited him out. Alex laughed. He could never stay mad at Emma, she had something about her. Even when she was being rude, it was with a sparkle. Everyone who met Emma fell for her, just a little. Never all the way, but just enough to enjoy being around her.
‘How was lunch?’ Alex said.
Usually he didn’t care about the sex lives of his co-workers. He’d never had a personal conversation with anyone else in the building. Truth be told, he didn’t know who was married, who was single, who had kids and who was shagging each other in the toilets.
Didn’t know.
Didn’t care.
But Emma was different. She was gay. Woman on woman? Yeah, he could talk about that. Showing an interest in the details of her love life did two things: it got him excited, and it let him appear to be supportive and modern. Fake feminism was where it was at. Plus, it involved his boss. The only person in the world he answered to.
Emma sat on the edge of the desk and waggled her eyebrows. ‘It was great. We’re doing it again tomorrow.’
‘It?’ He leaned forward a little.
‘Coffee and pasta.’ Emma smiled. ‘Maybe even some red wine, if my boss doesn’t mind.’
‘Just one glass is fine,’ Alex said.
‘A bottle is just one glass.’ Emma gave a fake-innocent look. ‘A big one, mind. I think my boss’s boss will be okay with it.’ She gave him a small grin just to let him know she was playing around. ‘Which is why I’m in here. Asma’s waiting outside, but Joe’s running late. Should I stall?’
Alex looked at the screen on his computer. The clock told him it was time for the meeting. An hour ago, he’d been dreading it. Now? He was looking forward to it. He could sit there, listening to the two of them being all cool and smug, and he would know something they didn’t. He’d be the only person in the room with all of the information.
He liked the thought of that.
FORTY
SAM
13:55
I found Hanya sitting in the back corner of FuBar. She was nursing a vodka, which was a bad sign for that early in the afternoon. I asked for a glass of water from the bar and joined her at the table.
‘What’s going on, Han?’
She snorted, petulant like a teenager. ‘You tell me.’
Okay. Did I deserve that? Had I read her signal wrong the night before? I didn’t think so, and I was the one who’d fed her Paula’s real name. I waited her out. After a moment she nodded, deciding to start again.
‘Sorry. This thing’s got me in a weird mood. I have no idea what’s going on.’
‘I’ll start,’ I said. ‘So, I got her real name off our app. She’d booked the pickup using a card as Lafferty.’
‘That’s odd.’ Hanya’s eyes screwed tight with confusion. ‘She didn’t have a debit card in her purse. Maybe she knew the numbers off by heart?’
‘Maybe.’
‘So what made you think she was a cop?’
I put a hand up. ‘In a minute. First I want to know where you got with that. You said she was?’
‘Took some digging, but yeah. She was. Or, she used to be, back in Belfast. She worked undercover over there, helped to bring a few gangs down. But then, about two years ago, she quit.’
‘Why?’
‘Well, it gets weird. See, I called a guy she used to work with, a detective called Brennan.’
‘Did he know why you were calling?’
Hanya gave her head one quick shake. ‘Nope. I said I’d arrested someone who was claiming to be her, then described someone completely different to him, he said, no, doesn’t sound like her. Then I got him talking.’
‘So nobody over there knows she’s dead?’
‘Not as far as I know.’
‘She have any family, anyone who’ll miss her?’
‘I didn’t look at that.’ Hanya looked pissed off, but it was at herself, not me. Sometimes it was easy for cops to forget the human aspect of their job, the emotions of the victims and their loved ones. ‘Brennan said she left suddenly, never said goodbye to anybody. But Paula’s boss did the same thing, at the same time. They both just vanished.�
��
‘Either of them married?’
Hanya waved that line of thought away. ‘He was gay. Brennan was very clear on that. He’d tried to raise the whole thing with his bosses. He said, with all the undercover work they’d done, he was worried that maybe someone had killed them, a revenge thing, and he wanted to investigate. But his bosses shut that down, said they were both fine.’
‘That’s fishy, yeah. Would you be able to speak to his boss? Find an excuse?’
She shook her head. ‘Heart attack twelve months ago.’
Ouch.
‘And it gets better. I’d been off the phone to Brennan for ten minutes when one of the feds asked to talk to me in private. Took me out to the car park and warned me off it.’
‘Seriously? Like in a movie?’
‘Exactly.’
‘This fed who warned you off, wouldn’t happen to be either Alan Dasho or Todd Robinson, would it?’
Hanya’s eyes narrowed at me. ‘How’d you know?’
‘In a sec. Did you get a name for the guy? The one who left with Paula?’
‘Robert Butler.’
Holy crap.
I pulled the package out of my messenger bag and showed the name to Hanya. Robert Butler. Hanya’s mouth dropped open like in a cartoon as she read it.
I put my hands out in a wide Tell me about it gesture. ‘I know, aye? So she gave me this in the street. Sent me to an address that doesn’t exist. Well, the address exists, but you know what I mean, there’s no Robert Butler there.’
I handed the package to her. Hanya opened it up and looked at the tapes inside. She pulled them out and read the labels, then cocked an eyebrow at me. ‘Have you listened to them?’
‘Yeah. There’s not much on there, but the first one makes it pretty clear Paula was here undercover. Second one is like a sex tape, practically, but there are mentions for the ninth—’
‘That’s in two days.’
‘Yeah, and also two guys on it mention a takeover and a cartel. Mean anything?’ Hanya gave me another What the fuck look and shook her head. ‘The third is just a mix tape.’
‘Good music?’
I shrugged. ‘So-so. But read the labels again.’ I watched as she scanned across them. ‘The arson job you’ve been assigned to, know who the building belongs to? Because I’ll bet it’s Mike Gibson. And you know his son’s name?’