They heard the car before they saw it. Not a screech of tyres or the steady dum-dum-dum of bass, that was pretty much standard for this part of town, but jazz. A clarinet was playing, sweet and haunting. It felt like music from another age altogether. Frankie turned to look as the sound got louder and watched a top-of-the-range Merc pulling up alongside them.
The tinted windows glinted in the sun, so much so that Frankie had to cover his eyes, all the while trying to peer in at whoever was inside. The front passenger window nearest the kerb slowly wound down and a woman stared out. She must have been in her mid-thirties, with short, bobbed black hair and heavy kohl make-up – a diamond collar competing with the glare from the car.
‘Frankie and Jack James?’ she said.
‘Yeah?’ Frankie and his brother answered at exactly the same time, earning themselves another smile in reply.
‘I’ve got a message for you.’
‘What?’ both the James boys answered at the same time again.
Frankie thought he heard another voice. Who else was sitting there inside? He tried peering in again, but couldn’t see a thing. The Cleopatra woman was blocking his view of the driver and the tinted windows stopped him seeing into the back seats.
‘It’s not for everyone to hear,’ she said, her eyes just on Jack now.
‘No?’ said Jack, smiling himself now, clearly enjoying this game.
‘No. It’s a secret. Come closer and I’ll tell you.’
‘Really?’ Jack was half laughing now.
‘Really.’
Jack stepped in closer. She held out her hand to him, like she was inviting him to kiss it. Expensive nails. Slender fingers. Something about her wrist, though, her arm, that didn’t look right.
‘Wait,’ Frankie said, suddenly seeing what it was.
Too late. Her arm shot out, hooking round the back of Jack’s neck as he leant in to hear what she had to say. Her other arm met it at his throat, pinning him tight in a lock.
The Merc’s engine gunned. The vehicle shot forward with a hot screech of tyres. Jack went with it. Jerked clean off his feet. But he didn’t just fall. Not like he should have. Because what Frankie had noticed about this woman, he’d been right – she might have the face of an angel, but she had the arms of a fighter, toned and strong enough to keep their grip on Jack as the Merc dragged him down the street, headfirst towards an electricity box right there – up ahead – on the kerb.
But Frankie was moving too – he’d taken off at the exact same time as the car and had grabbed hold of the girl’s arms and was trying to tear them off Jack.
And he did. Just in time. Both he and Jack fell, their legs buckling and tangling. They missed the electricity box by less than in inch and stumbled, sprawling into a gasping heap on the pavement.
Motherfucker. Frankie stared after the car, its number plate a blur. Ten yards away already and disappearing round the corner of the block.
‘Jack? Are you OK?’
Jack was flat on his back, gasping, rubbing at his red raw throat where she’d got a hold of him.
‘Jack!’ Frankie rolled over to help him. ‘Can you breathe?’
‘Yeah . . .’ Jack curled up into a ball.
The waitress from across the road, Tiffany, came running over, dropping down beside Jack and cradling his head in her arms. Then, out of nowhere, a man jumped from his bike, leaving it skittering across the pavement, and ran towards them, shouting he was GP and asking if they were OK.
Frankie forced himself up. His suit trousers were ripped right through on both knees. One of his shoes was lying in the gutter six feet back. His knuckles were covered with blood from where he’d scraped them across the pavement as they’d rolled.
‘Motherfucker!’ he screamed, staring down the empty street at the corner where the Merc had vanished.
‘Who the hell was that?’ Jack panted, struggling, but managing to sit up. He was covered in dirt and dust and blood was dripping from his lip, but apart from that he looked miraculously all right.
But it wasn’t the girl Frankie was thinking of at all as he kept on staring right down that road. It was the face he’d glimpsed in the back of the car, of the man who’d stared even harder back into Frankie’s eyes as him and Jack were being dragged along. A man who Frankie was 90 per cent bleedin’ sure he knew.
Dougie Hamilton, son of Terence Hamilton, who not only clearly now knew where Jack lived, but clearly still wanted him dead.
10
Frankie spent Tuesday evening and the whole of Wednesday burying himself in work, prepping for the tournament launch at the Ambassador Club. But he couldn’t get that Cleopatra woman out of his mind. Or whoever had been sitting in the back. Had it been Dougie Hamilton? Frankie still couldn’t be sure enough to tell anyone or do anything about it. He’d warned Jack to stay sharp and to call if anything happened. Frankie hoped that whoever it was had had their fun and would now leave Jack alone. He hoped, but he wasn’t convinced.
*
Thursday morning and Frankie’s blood was boiling as he picked up his Capri from the multi-storey where he kept it over by Raymond’s Revue Bar a couple of hundred yards from the Ambassador.
Late last night he’d finally found some time to sit down and start reading through the Old Man’s case files. But five minutes in and he’d gone apo-bloody-plectic, after reading the three names of the chief investigating officers who’d put the Old Man away.
Because Snaresby . . . Snaresby had been one of them – something that both Kind Regards and the Old Man had kept from Frankie, even while Snaresby had been trying to put Jack away last year.
Frankie had called Kind Regards up there and then to demand why. He’d kept it from him because he knew how Frankie would have reacted, because he’d have seen connections where there weren’t any. Kind Regards genuinely believed that Snaresby had just doing his job, or at least said he couldn’t prove that he hadn’t.
Whereas Frankie now reckoned it was more like a vendetta.
Navigating his way round the clusterfuck of exits around Hyde Park Corner, he pictured the sheet of A4 in his jacket pocket, with all three of the cops’ names written on it:
JOHN SPENSER SNARESBY
CRAIG STANLEY FENWICK
JAMES NICHOLLS
Frankie had never even heard of the last two. But he was planning on finding out as much about them as he could, and not just them, but Snaresby too. As well as any possible motive any of them might have to do Frankie’s family harm. And where better to start than with a visit to the Old Man himself?
It was just as he was heading down Grosvenor Place towards Victoria that he became aware of the white BMW 525 behind him. He lost sight of it round the dogleg at Buck Pal, but it wasn’t long before he picked it up again in his rear-view mirror as he was hunting round the maze of little streets next to Brixton Prison for somewhere to park.
Could it really be the same car? And if it was, did that mean that whoever was inside was following him? Nah, he was just being paranoid, right? But even so, he slowed right down to get a dekko at the number plate and hopefully the driver too. Only, the second he did, the car sped off down a side street, and was gone.
The Old Man was already sitting waiting for him by the time Frankie got through to the Visitors’ Room. He was nose-deep in The Stand, the latest Stephen King novel Frankie had brought him last week.
Frankie recognized one of the inmates on the table next to him too. Stanley Lomax. One of Riley’s enforcers, who was in here on the tail end of a GBH charge. He’d kept an eye on Jack last year while he was on remand over in Wandsworth. Must have been transferred since. With him was a wizened, older guy with razor-sharp cheekbones, who looked like he’d been weaned on coke. Frankie nodded at Lomax, who nodded solidly back.
‘You know Dolf and Lomax, do you?’ said the Old Man, keeping his voice well low, as Frankie sat down opposite him.
‘Lomax, yeah. He used to pop into the club from time to time. What did you say the other bloke’
s called?’
The Old Man leant on his hands to hide his lips from being read. ‘Dolf. As in Adolf,’ he said.
‘You’re kidding, right?’
‘Let’s just say his dad was a fan. And make sure you keep the hell out of his way. He’s a dangerous fucker, all right?’
Frankie nodded. The Old Man stared hard into his eyes. ‘So you want to talk about Snaresby,’ he said.
‘You what?’ How could he know?
The Old Man smiled thinly. ‘Kind Regards rang.’
Frankie swallowed. He hated this. The way it always felt like the Old Man had the upper hand in whatever conversation they had.
‘Fine, so why didn’t you tell me?’ Frankie said. ‘Last year, when I told you that Snaresby was the one who was bossing Jack’s case, why didn’t you tell me that he was the one who’d helped put you away an’ all?’
‘I warned you off him, didn’t I? Told you he was a bastard. What else was I supposed to do?’
‘Tell me he had it in for us. For our whole family.’
‘I don’t know that.’
‘Yeah, you and Kind Regards both. But I bet you bloody well suspect it, don’t you? I mean you must do. You grew up with him. You can’t just think it’s a coincidence that he –’
The Old Man’s brow furrowed even deeper. ‘I’ve got no proof. Don’t you think that if I did, if I had one scrap of actual evidence that him or some other copper stitched me up, that I’d be sitting here talking to you in this shithole now?’
‘Yeah, well, what if I can get proof?’
The Old Man grabbed his wrist, making him flinch. ‘You keep your voice down,’ he hissed.
There was something in the Old Man’s eyes that Frankie had never seen before. Something that looked a lot like fear. He glanced across at Lomax and Dolf. Had they been listening too?
‘There’s something else,’ Frankie said.
‘What?’ The Old Man still looked wary.
‘No, not about your case,’ Frankie said. ‘This.’ Digging into his jacket pocket, he pulled out the postcard and pushed it across the table, picture side up.
The Old Man put on his glasses. ‘Majorca. Very nice. I always fancied having a little holiday there. Never did find the time.’
‘Well, aren’t you going to read it?’
He turned it over. ‘Don’t look like it’s addressed to me.’
‘Read it.’
Frankie had said it louder than he’d meant.
The Old Man did what he’d been told, then tossed it back down onto the table.
‘Well?’ Frankie said.
The Old Man shrugged. ‘If you think that’s meant to mean something to me, it doesn’t.’
So Frankie told him. What he’d told Jack. What the last thing his mum had said to him on the day she’d vanished was. The Old Man listened, but he didn’t look back down at the card.
‘So that’s it, is it?’ Frankie said. ‘Nothing? You’ve got nothing to say?’
‘What do you want me to say? That it’s her writing? That it could be?’
‘Well? Could it?’
‘I don’t know. Maybe. In fact, no.’
‘Why not?’
‘Just because.’ The Old Man growled, actually growled. ‘Jesus, Frankie, I know you want to . . . for her to be . . .’
‘Still alive.’
‘Yes. But she ain’t. She can’t be.’
Jesus, it was like talking to his brother all over again. Why was he the only one who could see this for what it was?
‘But why?’
‘Because if she was alive, if she could come back home, she already would have. For you and Jack. Because she loved you. She’d never have abandoned you like that.’
The same dead end he’d hit with his brother. But what if it wasn’t just him who still believed she might be out there? What if he was just the only one who was willing to say it out loud?
‘You kept them,’ he said.
‘Kept what?’
‘Her letters. Her postcards. Everything she wrote you. Even when you split up from her and moved into the flat, you never threw any of it away. After she vanished, you kept it all too. All those clippings about those women. Women who might have been her . . .’
‘You been going through my stuff?’ the Old Man flared. He spoke through gritted teeth, trying to keep his voice under control. ‘You’ve got no right. That desk was locked.’
The Old Man’s face was the colour of beetroot. For a second, Frankie thought he was going to lunge for him. But then, suddenly, the fight went right out of him.
‘We were over, finished,’ he said. ‘But yeah, maybe a part of me did want it to go back to how it was, and maybe that’s why I kept all those letters, to try and see where it all went wrong.’
‘So why all the newspaper clippings?’
‘Just because you break up from someone . . . just because that person doesn’t love you any more . . .’
The way he said it. It was her not him who’d fallen out of love. Mutual. That was the word they’d always given him and Jack. But if it had been his mum who’d made the decision, then why? Because there’d been someone else? Or because of something the Old Man had done?
‘. . . it doesn’t mean you stop caring, about what had happened to them, about where they might be . . .’
‘And that’s just it,’ Frankie said, stabbing his finger down onto the postcard, ‘I do still care, I do still want to know.’
‘Digging all this up, trying to find out what happened, you think you’re going to find something good . . . her, still alive . . . You think there’s going to be some happy ending to this, but I’m telling you now, there ain’t.’
‘The way you say it . . .’
‘What?’
‘The way you look . . . It’s like you know, like you know what really happened to her. Or even if you don’t know, it’s like you suspect.’
The Old Man’s eyes flicked across to Dolf and Lomax once more. And again Frankie thought he glimpsed it – that look of fear in his eyes. But even if they had just heard – so what? Why should he be afraid of them?
*
Back out on the street, Frankie clambered into the Capri. It was only when he started the engine that he saw the folded-up piece of paper that someone had tucked under the wiper. He got out and opened it and read the neat, looping writing:
Fear Lies in the Past
What the hell? Frankie looked quickly round, trying to catch sight of whoever had written it. But the street was empty. He thought straight away of that car. The white Beamer. Had he been followed? And if he had, was it them who’d written this?
He read the note again. But what did it mean? It was clearly trying to warn him off something, but what? Was it telling him to leave the past alone? But which past? His dad’s case? His mum’s disappearance? But who – apart from Jack, Kind Regards, Slim and the Old Man – even knew he was looking into either?
He pictured the Old Man again. That look in his eyes.
Dolf had left before Frankie, hadn’t he? Quick enough to have got here first? But how would he even have known that this was Frankie’s car? Unless he’d been the one following his Capri as well? But even if that was true, what possible beef could he have about the Old Man’s sentencing, or even less so Frankie’s mum, to make him write something like this?
‘Fear Lies in the Past’. He read it again. Because what if this note wasn’t referring to either his dad’s case or his mum at all? What if it was about Jack and what had happened last summer? Hamilton, Dougie Hamilton . . . Could his gang have followed Frankie all the way out here? But to warn him what? Was last year’s nightmare never going to be over?
Frankie’s face darkened. He felt the adrenalin rushing through his veins. He walked into the centre of the road and stared up and down the street. Was whoever had written this still watching? Well, fuck them, if they were. He wasn’t afraid of them. Wasn’t afraid of anyone. And if whoever this was thought they could mess with him,
they had another think coming. And high time he let them know.
He tore the note in half, tossed it up into the air and watched it flutter down around him like snow.
He heard it then. A car engine starting up. Saw it too. The white Beamer 525, pulling out a hundred yards up ahead, and racing away, again before he’d a chance to clock its plates.
So much for being paranoid. Someone had followed him here. The only questions now were who? and why?
11
Frankie got the call from Paddington A&E late that night at just gone 3 a.m. He grabbed a cab from right outside the club and was by Jack’s bedside less than ten minutes later.
‘Bloody hell,’ he said, taking Jack’s hand and staring down at him. His face was a right bleeding mess. Literally.
‘I’m all right,’ Jack said. Or tried too. What actually came out of his cut and swollen mouth was something more like ahgrawli. Along with something small and white and wet with blood and spit.
Fuck. Frankie picked up a tooth. Someone had walloped Jack. And walloped him hard. Frankie had seen plenty worse down the gym. He’d been bashed up a couple of times this bad himself over the years, but seeing his brother like this made his skin crawl.
He listed what he reckoned he could see. A black eye. A split lip – or was that a re-split lip from the bounce he’d got off the pavement after getting dragged by that car? Broken teeth. As well as a nasty gash right across the top of forehead.
‘Dwunning . . .’
‘What?’
‘Dwoening . . .’
‘Drowning?’
‘Here . . .’ Looking round, Jack even managed half a smile.
And, Christ, yeah, Frankie got it now. The last time the two of them had been here. When Frankie had saved Jack from drowning after Jack had jumped off a bridge into the Regent’s Canal for a bet when they were kids. Just after their mum had gone.
‘What happened?’ Frankie said, gritting his own teeth so hard they hurt.
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