by Conrad Jones
“It sounds complicated, Guv.” Will frowned. “I can’t get a straight answer from anyone at the scene, that’s why I thought you would want to see it.”
“They’re all complicated, Will.” Alec looked out of the window across the river. It was a grey day and it looked cold outside. “What is the doctor saying so far?”
“Vice are saying it’s too early to tell who she is yet, but Graham Libby says it was a prolonged attack possibly carried out by more than one attacker.”
“There must be a reason why he thinks that, what’s he said?”
“All he said was there are multiple blood pools at the scene,” Will shrugged. “He thinks that there was at least one other victim at the scene, possibly more, although there’s only one body.” Will’s mobile beeped and he took it from his pocket. “Text message from Bruce at vice, there is definitely more than one victim according to forensics. I’ll handle it if you like, Guv, I just thought you should know that Doctor Libby has gone down there.”
Graham Libby was the head of Liverpool’s crime laboratory. “If he goes to a crime scene in person, then it is a bad one, and the old Ramsay mental alarm bells have started ringing.” Alec sighed. “Jesus Christ, more than one victim. This sounds like a messy one,” Alec sighed again. He stood up and looked out of the window toward the Anglican cathedral dominating the hill above the Jamaica Street area of the riverbank. It was about half a mile away from the city centre. “I remember in my youth Lime Street station was the red light district in the city. Somewhere between then and now, prostitution has moved across the city to the cathedral area. Why, I’m not sure.”
“We were probably put under pressure to move the girls out of the city centre so that we could pretend it doesn’t exist.” Will laughed. “Doesn’t matter what we do, it will always be there, Guv.”
“There have probably been more murders in that part of the city than in Whitechapel by now.” Alec mused.
“I think Jack the Ripper might be a little old to be making a comeback. Didn’t you work on that one, Guv?” Will teased.
“Hilarious, Inspector,” Alec laughed.
Will teased his boss whenever he referred to criminals of the past, despite admiring his knowledge of them. “Even the Yorkshire Ripper is too old for me.”
“Well, if ‘Take That’ can come back, who knows?” Alec turned to face his D.I. “So, if there is only one body, what makes them think we have more than one victim?”
“He said there are several blood pools in the unit,” Will shrugged. “You know what the doc is like, Guv. He doesn’t give anything away until he’s ready to.”
“Yes, he is what you’d call eccentric,” Alec laughed. It was the most polite word he could think of to describe the doctor. “A pain in the arse is more realistic,” he mumbled, but he had to admit Dr Libby was sharp and his forensic team was thorough.
“I could think of a few better words to describe him than that, Guv.” Will raised an eyebrow and smiled. He had issues with the doctor, but they were personal ones.
“I think you should keep your private opinions to yourself, Inspector,” he smiled as he reached for the phone. “I’ll be five minutes, I need to call home.” He rolled his eyes skyward in anticipation of the ear-bashing he was about to receive from his wife. He was glad that he didn’t have to go straight home, if he was honest. The mother-in-law grated on his nerves.
“Good luck with that, Guv.” Will was smiling as he closed the door behind him. There was a spring in his step as he headed toward the briefing room. A new homicide always made his adrenalin flow.
Chapter Two
Connections Nightclub
Jinx lit a menthol cigarette and inhaled deeply on it. The smoking ban did not extend to this gathering. The minty smoke burned its way into his lungs and the nicotine cocktail of toxins was absorbed into his bloodstream, soothing his nerves. He inhaled again as the fourth card was placed next to the flop, and it took all his skill and experience to contain his excitement. It was the seven of spades. There was a seven dealt on the flop, and he was holding a pair of pocket sevens in his hand, giving him four of a kind. It would take a miracle to beat him now, and there was over thirty grand on the table already. He didn’t want to give any signs to the other players that he had an unbeatable hand.
“Check,” Jinx said. He was bluffing. That was where the skill in the game lay, hooking them and then reeling them in for the kill.
“Bollocks, I’m folding.” One of the men tossed his cards into the middle.
“Me too, I’m out.” The other players folded their cards, leaving Jinx and Leon Tanner in the hand. They looked at each other through the cigarette smoke.
“Raise a grand,” Leon growled. He flicked a black chip into the pot. “It’s on you to bet, Jinx,” Leon said tapping his hand nervously on the green felt of the poker table. He was fat and his upper body wobbled as he moved his arm. Beads of sweat glistened on his black skin. Heavy gold rings covered his fingers and a thick bracelet hung from his wrist. He eyed Jinx with caution, trying to read his mind without looking too uncertain about his own cards. He had an okay hand, but nothing great. He hated folding to Jinx. He hated Jinx, full stop. The feeling was mutual. They were on a collision course and everyone knew it.
“I know whose bet it is, Leon, I’m thinking,” Jinx bluffed. He wanted him to think that he was unsure about his cards. Leon had a good hand, Jinx could tell by the sweat on his forehead but there was no way he could beat four of a kind. It didn’t matter what Leon had, Jinx was unbeatable for this hand. He played with a stack of poker chips and they clicked annoyingly. The longer he delayed the call, the more confused Leon would be about how strong his hand was. The atmosphere in the club was tense and charged with testosterone. Cigarette smoke curled upwards and swirling tendrils clung to the yellowed ceiling tiles. There was an acrid smell to the room at the back of the nightclub t hosted the monthly card school. It was an invitation only game where each of the eight players needed a stake of twenty thousand pounds in cash. There were no markers or cheques allowed, strictly sterling only. There was no trust between the poker players because they were all gangsters of one type or another. Armed robbers, fraudsters, drug dealers and people traffickers sat at the table. They did not like each other but they were certainly of use to one another. The underworld is like any other business community, it is not what you know, it is whom you know that counts. The poker players at this table were responsible for ninety-nine percent of all the crime in the city.
“I’ll call your grand. No raise,” Jinx bluffed again. He wanted Leon to think he had nothing in his hand, and then he was going to trap him. Jinx Cotton was the youngest man there but he had earned his place amongst them because he was a ruthless moneylender and debt collector. Over recent years, he had recovered thousands of pounds for the men playing poker and carved himself a fearsome reputation in the process. Jinx only lent money to people that had money and could pay it back. He never lent to the poor people in the community he lived in. Most of his business came from drug dealers who were looking for a large amount of cash for a short period, while they conducted a deal. Jinx would extend a loan to them at an extortionate interest rate, and if the deal went wrong or there was a delay in repayment, the dark side of him would take control. Jinx was a God-like character on the streets of Toxteth, one of Liverpool’s most infamous areas. The youth of the community idolised him while the adults involved in crime feared and respected him. Jinx was a modern day Robin Hood, making fortunes from his rich clients but often handing out cash to the less fortunate members of the black community. Although he did business with them, he hated drugs and drug dealers, pimps and prostitution. Leon Tanner was both a pimp and a dealer leeching off the very community Jinx tried to protect.
“Re-raise. All in,” Leon wiped sweat from his brow and grinned as he pushed all his remaining chips onto the table. Gold teeth glinted in the light that hung above the table. He thought he had Jinx beaten with the pair of aces he ha
d in his hand. With the sevens that were on the table he had a high two pairs but there was the chance Jinx had another seven in his hand. That was why Leon was sweating. When Jinx hadn’t raised, it had signalled to Leon that he wasn’t confident enough to bet on his cards to win, but that was the bluff.
“Call,” Jinx pounced and closed the trap. “How much have you got left?”
“Fuck you, Jinx, you’re bluffing,” Leon growled angrily. His jowls wobbled as he shook his head in dismay. He was already regretting making such an impulsive bet. Once a player’s twenty thousand pound stake was gone, they were out. There were no re-buys back into the game and no second chances.
“We’ll see if I’m bluffing, how much have you got?”
“Sixteen thousand,” Leon felt sick to the core. It was obvious that Jinx had another seven in his hand, or was it? He could be bluffing but it was too late anyway, as the bet was all in and he couldn’t change it. Jinx had called him.
“I’ve got that covered,” Jinx counted the equivalent number of chips out and turned his cards over. “I have four sevens; you’re drawing dead, Leon.”
There was still a card to be played but it didn’t matter now; Leon couldn’t win. Jinx stood up and stared Leon in the eyes as he cleared his chips away from him. Leon was a bad man. He was the biggest pimp in the city and he moved more crystal meth in a week than most importers handled in a year. He was over twenty stone in weight, most of it nestled around his waist, but he was no fighter. His enforcers did his fighting for him but there were no minders allowed in the room once the poker game started. That was one of the rules of the game. Jinx however was a fighter. He was over six feet four inches and weighed about the same as Leon, but hard-earned muscle mass packed his frame. He looked like a heavyweight champion in his prime. If Leon wanted to make something of it, there was only one winner.
“Four of a kind, Jinx?” Leon sat back and relaxed. His many chins folded into his neck. “Your turn to be lucky this time, next time it’ll be a different story, boy.” Leon pronounced the last word of his sentence to reinforce its derogatory meaning.
There was silence at the table while Jinx counted his chips. He hated Leon because he turned beautiful teenage girls into pox ridden meth addicts and then forced them into prostitution to meet their drug bills. Jinx had his eye on Leon’s empire, and he intended to knock the fat man out of business sometime in the near future. Others would try to move in and abuse the young and the weak, but he could deal with them when they came. He wanted Leon and his henchmen out of Toxteth, the sooner the better.
“What did you say?” Jinx stopped counting and looked up at Leon. There was darkness in his eyes that terrified the debtors he dealt with. Leon knew he didn’t stand a chance in a fistfight with Jinx, but the young pup was snapping at his heels, and he intended to slap him down permanently very soon. Jinx was on his hit list. The silence in the room was tangible as the two men glared at each other. Calling Jinx a boy was not a bright idea. “I asked you what you said, Leon.” Jinx repeated slowly. He pushed Leon, trying to provoke a response.
“I said, next time it will be a different story.” Leon stood up as he spoke. He couldn’t lose face to this youngster but he had dropped the word ‘boy’ this time. Their business was all about respect and reputation. “You were lucky, that’s all.”
“Sit down, Leon,” Dava said. David Lorimar was a wiry-built man in his fifties. He was an ex-paratrooper, and mercenary. He had seen action in Kosovo, Bosnia and had fought for the highest bidder during several African conflicts. Dava made his living by selling reactivated weapons and making people disappear. Some of Jinx’s clients thought that killing him would be an easier option than repaying their debt to him. When that happened, Jinx would employ David Lorimar to square things up. Dava was a professional. He was a quiet man, but nobody messed with him. “You were beaten fair and square, let’s not have a scene.” He said quietly but with an edge in his voice. Some of the players shifted uncomfortably in their seats. The situation could flare up at any moment.
“Like I said, he was lucky this time,” Leon never took his eyes off Jinx for a second. There was no point in kicking off. He would definitely lose a fight with Jinx and lose all respect from his peers in the process.
“Next time you see a pair on the table, it means that your two pairs isn’t worth shit, Leon,” Jinx changed his glare into a big wide smile and laughed. He was a clever man, and he knew that by being magnanimous about it, the others would see Leon’s reaction as churlish. He turned it into a joke. The men around the table realised that he was winding Leon up and burst into laughter. There was a sense of relief around the table but Leon looked confused. Jinx stuck out a spade-sized hand for Leon to shake but there was no friendship in his eyes. “Come on, Leon, sixteen grand on two pairs? Are you snorting your own drugs?”
Leon grinned and then began laughing with the others. His eyes darted around the table looking at their faces searching for any sign that they were ridiculing him. There was a fine line between them having a laugh, and them laughing at him. He decided that it would be wise to accept the handshake for now. He wanted to shoot Jinx in the face. Jinx would need a favour one day, and it would cost him twice what he had won tonight when the time came. The fact that Jinx was black cut no ice with Leon; his card was marked for the future. The laughter reached full volume. No one heard the beer cellar door creaking open as two masked men crept in carrying Uzis.
Chapter Three
Jamaica Street
DS Alec Ramsay pulled on the handbrake and switched off the engine. His silver BMW smelt of leather polishes and air freshener. It had been valet cleaned the week before at a carwash staffed by Eastern Europeans. They had done a good job, and he had been impressed until one of them had offered him cocaine. He had tipped off the Drug Squad, and they had watched the place for three days before swooping in on a raid. The police had arrested four of the staff and interviewed the owners for employing illegal immigrants. The owners had closed the business the day after. It was a shame because it had been the cheapest carwash in the area. He would have to find another one. Such was the price of drugs, but they were everywhere he looked nowadays. The city was swamped with the stuff fuelling a rising crime rate and leaving a swathe of destruction in its wake. Statistics showed that eight in ten homicides were attributed to drugs and the drug trade.
There were two police cars and a mortuary van parked side by side outside a single storey industrial unit. It was a grey prefabricated building with a corrugated iron roof, sloping at a gradient towards the river. The concrete render was decayed and crumbling, exposing the breezeblock beneath. Green patches of mould and damp snaked up the exterior of the unit and weeds had forced their way through the tarmac forecourt. The river was five hundred yards away down the hill. An assortment of similar factory buildings lined the road leading to the water. There was a faded sign hanging loose above the metal shuttering, but years of exposure to the elements had rendered it unreadable. The huge Anglican Cathedral standing further up the hill dominated the skyline, a gothic sandstone titan surrounded by residential properties. Alec looked at the clock. He had promised Gail that he would be home within the hour. She hadn’t sounded happy but then she rarely did lately. It was his doing. His work was always his priority. Alec checked the time again and sighed as he opened the door and stepped out into the cold sea breeze. The wind was blowing off the Irish Sea and it cut through his clothing with ease. He shoved his hands deep into his pockets and jogged across the road to the unit.
A uniformed officer lifted the crime scene tape as he approached. He had a white safety mask over his nose and mouth to keep out the cloying smell of death drifting over from the building. There was no sign of the press yet, but it wouldn’t be long before they turned up.
“The smell’s that bad, eh, George?” Alec said as he ducked under the tape. He made a point of calling the uniformed police by their first names whenever possible.
“Worse, Sir.” The consta
ble sounded muffled. “She’s been in there a while.”
“Were you the first officer on the scene?” Alec wrinkled his nose.
“Yes, Sir,” he pointed to his patrol car. “I was eating my breakfast around the corner when the call came in.”
“Well, I hope you finished it,” Alec smiled.
“I did, Sir, but it came straight back up when I saw her,” the officer nodded toward the factory unit. “Don’t worry; I threw it up out here.”
Alec patted his arm as he walked by him and stooped beneath the roller shutters. The investigating officers had left it open at waist height to allow the crime scene officers easy access. The smell of rotting flesh became much stronger as he straightened up on the other side of the shutters. Engine oil stained the concrete floor and holes pitted the walls where screws and fixings had once lived. A few strong thistles poked through the cracks in the floor, a reminder that Mother Nature is constantly trying to reclaim what we have taken from her. Will Naylor waved from the back of the unit. He stood with the SOCO, the scene-of-crime officers, and Dr Graham Libby. Behind them hung the remains of the poor soul that had brought them to this isolated place. From this distance, it barely resembled a human being. She reminded Alec of the smoked hams he had loved when he had holidayed in Spain. Thinking about the holiday reminded him that he had to go home to his wife.
As Alec approached, the men turned from their work to greet him. They were dressed in white paper suits and blue plastic overshoes. Will gave him a mask to help cope with the putrid stench coming from the corpse. Alec placed it over his nose without speaking but the sickening smell clung inside his nostrils, and he knew it would stick to him for days, no matter how many times he showered. Alec often told friends that there was something about the smell of rotting human flesh that made it linger, usually at the dinner table, on the odd occasion when he and Gail entertained ‘her’ friends. She called them ‘their’ friends, but Alec hardly knew them at all.