by Danny Miller
‘Yeah, well, we’re not the fashion police,’ laughed Waters.
Arthur Hanlon rested the remains of the sausage roll on his fat thigh and lifted the binoculars to his eyes. ‘Unbelievable. Even the car! It’s a casuals car!’
Waters snatched the binoculars from him and took a good look at the white Peugeot. He saw it had green trim and decals, and a green crocodile badge: it was a special edition Lacoste 205. Waters muttered, ‘Wankers.’
He handed Hanlon back his binoculars. ‘They’re flashing their cash.’
‘Where’s it coming from?’
‘Well, let’s put it like this, I don’t think they’re interested in collecting the reward money for information on young Dean.’
Five minutes later and the entrance door to Clay House was flung open, and Bomber Harris and Tommy Wilkins came out with the two other burly-looking thugs.
Arthur Hanlon said, ‘Football’s on later today, maybe they’re joining forces to have a scrap with a rival firm?’
When the four men reached the car, the pecking order of the gang revealed itself in almost comical terms: the doors were opened and the seats pulled forward reverentially for Harris and Wilkins to take their places in the back, like a pair of budget Don Corleones. The designer Peugeot screeched off. John Waters fired up the Allegro and followed.
Tuesday (5)
‘From what we’ve got from Mr Malcolm Crain, the son-in-law, Maureen Drake, Jimmy’s wife, found him. They’d just got in, and Mr Crain, his wife and their two kids were waiting in the living room. Then they heard Maureen Drake scream. Mr Crain checked Jimmy, saw the marks around the neck, knew it wasn’t natural causes and called us immediately.’
Sue Clarke closed her notebook. She was standing with Frost just inside the Winchester Club, wary of the limited space and mindful not to disturb anything until the Forensics boys had done their work.
The next-door neighbours’ kids had already been told to get down from the wall, from where they’d been trying to get a look at what they were sure was a dead body. Shame they weren’t so nosy earlier, thought Frost, but they were probably still at school when it happened. PC David Simms and WPC Hanna Davis were already out doing a door-to-door.
Dr Maltby was examining the brass plaque on the shed exterior. ‘The Winchester Club – Members Only.’ He looked quizzical. ‘Isn’t that from The Sweeney?’
‘What are you doing watching the telly, Doc? I thought Radio Four was as far as you dipped your toe into anything as crass as the twentieth century?’
‘I keep abreast of these things, Frost.’
‘Minder,’ said Sue Clarke.
‘Yes, of course,’ said Maltby with a snap of his fingers. ‘Alastair Sim’s sidekick is in it. Well, it’s chucking out time for you lot. We need to get a closer look before they take him away, and then Forensics.’
Frost and Clarke made way for the team to take a fine-tooth comb to the Winchester Club. But before he stepped out, Frost scoped the photos plastered all over the walls, but couldn’t see Melody Price in any of them. He’d met Jimmy only once but he’d liked him. At the races he’d profited from Drake’s knowledge, both about George Price’s secret credit bookmaking operation, and also the horses’ form. Frost hadn’t been able to keep hold of the money he’d won, but he had held on to the information about Price, and he was determined that it would come good.
It was 7 p.m. when Eve Hayward entered the Bricklayer’s public house on the edges of the Southern Housing Estate; even the cover of night couldn’t disguise what a dump it was. The pub was attached to a block of flats and a row of shops that included the Codpiece chip shop, a newsagent’s for your paper and fags, and an off-licence for when the Bricklayer’s was closed. It was the sort of seamless 1960s architecture that was supposed to provide everything the estate’s inhabitants could possibly want in one grey concrete slab. Or, less charitably, and as Eve Hayward saw it, it was designed to keep the natives on the reservation.
Hayward looked the part: red puffa jacket, stone-washed spray-on jeans, white boots with a spike heel. She was wearing too much make-up, like she was covering a skin condition. And she was blonde, thanks to a Debbie Harry peroxide-blonde wig that looked convincing enough.
The inside of the pub didn’t belie the outside. The walls were covered in a wood-effect laminate that was peeling away from the concrete. The floor was covered in carpet tiles of an indistinct colour that had in turn been soaked in booze and appeared speckled with dried blood. And all the tables and chairs looked like they’d been broken over someone’s head at one time or another and put back together with Bostik.
There was an open brick fireplace with a chipped red Calor Gas heater stuck in it; around the hearth there might once have been some brass decorations, in an attempt to make the place look like an olde worlde country inn, but these had been nicked and sold for scrap long ago.
Eve Hayward didn’t know if this was the worst pub she had ever been in, but it was certainly up there with the best of the worst of them. In the public bar there were two men playing pool who did actually look like bricklayers in their dusty work clothes. There was a gang of five probably underage girls by the jukebox who glared at her. The music they’d just selected was blisteringly loud and incongruous for the near-empty pub, which seemed moribund to the point of extinction, with Frankie Goes to Hollywood encouraging everyone to ‘Relax’.
And sat at the bar was the reason she was in this dump. There were three of them, and the one she was after was instantly recognizable: he was wearing a lime-green tracksuit and had his arm in a sling. As she made her way over to the bar she could feel the glares of the girls at the jukebox intensify with each step she made. She was also getting attention from the three men at the bar.
‘Can I get you and the lads a drink, Tommy?’ she said confidently, pulling a twenty-pound note from her jeans pocket.
This offer threw them. It was bold and businesslike and seemed to put them on the back foot. The three men exchanged quick questioning glances, before Tommy Wilkins, the leader of the pack, said, ‘Snakebite and black.’
The other two lads raised their pint glasses to order the same. Eve Hayward joined suit.
Wilkins clinked glasses with her. ‘Cheers …?’
‘Rosy.’
Tommy gave a leering grin. ‘Rosy. Mickey said you were a sort, and he wasn’t wrong.’
Hayward, now in the guise of Rosy Jennings, laughed, and took a substantial gulp of her snakebite and black. ‘Mickey’ was Detective Inspector Tony Norton’s alias, and she could immediately imagine what he’d told them. But he would also have laid the groundwork for her being seen as a major player who should be taken seriously and could be very profitable to them.
‘So, what can we do for you, Rosy?’
Hayward’s suspicious eyes did a quick sweep of the bar, looking for anyone sitting or standing just that little bit too close who wasn’t meant to be. ‘I’m looking to fill a Transit van. I’m in the market for lots of clobber with good names, like Armani, Ralph Lauren, Calvin Klein. I need lots of recognizable labels that we can shift quickly. Pirated videos, rebranded and reboxed TVs and ghetto blasters, you name it. And if it’s good merchandise, I can fill maybe two vans a week.’
Tommy Wilkins’ narrow gaze honed in on Eve Hayward. He looked impressed. ‘Not here.’
‘What do you mean, not here?’
‘I can’t discuss it here.’
Hayward looked around the place and then shrugged. ‘I was told this was the place you did business.’
‘Things have changed.’
‘I’m not really in the mood for messing about, Tommy. I’m looking to fill a Transit van over the next couple of days and take it back to London. I’ve got customers waiting.’
‘Mickey said you was OK, said you was proper people with proper money to spend. But the local Old Bill have got big eyes on us, you see. So if you want to discuss business, you’ll have to come with us.’
Tommy Wilkins downed
his pint with some noisy glugs, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, the one not in a sling, and burped good and loud.
‘Excuse my manners, Rosy, how bleedin’ rude of me,’ he said with a challenging smirk on his face.
The two others laughed along and also downed their pints, and then repeated what Tommy had just done with various measures of success – or maybe they just thought it good sense not to burp as loudly as their leader, what with the natural Neanderthal pecking order that prevailed in pubs such as these. For Wilkins, propped on a stool at the corner of the bar with a view of everything, including who came through the door, might just as well have been installed on a burnished throne surrounded by the Praetorian Guard.
Tommy got off his throne. ‘Follow me, Rosy.’
‘Where are we going?’
He grinned, showing a gap where a front tooth used to be. ‘For a ride.’
Eve Hayward’s undercover rules played back to her in her head: never leave a prearranged location without back-up to follow you. But then again, Eve rationalized, don’t come on all brass balls and then not follow through because you’ve not got the bottle. This was no time to come across as confused, in two minds, torn between different personalities. She was Rosy Jennings. She followed them out of the door and into the dark.
Wednesday (1)
Journalists from the BBC, ITN, LWT, all the national red tops and broadsheets, and Sandy Lane of the Denton Echo – who had shouldered his way through the big boys to take his place at the front of the press pack – were all gathered before the steps of Eagle Lane Police Station. At the dais with a microphone in front of him was Superintendent Stanley Mullett. He had just read out a statement that he, under the supervision of Assistant Chief Constable Winslow from County HQ, had prepared the night before. It was factual and to the point.
‘Now, I’m sure you have lots of questions, but as I’m sure you will understand, the tragic death of Dean Bartlett is still very much under investigation, so we can’t—’
‘Sandy Lane, Denton Echo!’ interrupted the local hack, putting the big boys of the nationals to shame. ‘Two points: is Denton, and the Southern Housing Estate in particular, being flooded with cheap heroin; and has Denton police force the ability to get the situation under control, or will the town fall into the hands of gun-wielding drug gangs like the major inner cities?’
‘Good old Sandy,’ said Frost to Sue Clarke. They were standing away from the media scrum, and out of view from Mullett, ACC Winslow and John Waters, who had been roped in to the 8 a.m. press conference by the top brass. Mainly because Mullett no longer trusted Frost at press conferences, but also because, as Waters suspected, having a black officer in the ranks of white men showed the diversity of the Denton force – which of course it didn’t, because it wasn’t. It showed that Eagle Lane was on top of things and in tune with the inner-city drug problem that was spreading to the outer boroughs, the suburbs, the market towns and new towns. But whatever the connotations of having John Waters at the press conference, Frost was happy to see him up there for lots of reasons – the most important being that he knew what he was bloody well talking about.
Frost and Clarke had heard enough and left the press pack with its popping cameras and barked questions to get on with work.
‘You look gorgeous as ever, Melody. Thanks for coming.’
‘When Eamon calls, everyone comes running, right?’
Eamon Hogan smiled. What else can he do, thought Melody. Pointless to deny it, it was the truth and he knew it. And she knew it too. So when Eamon asked her to meet up, she knew she had to go. He’d wanted to pick her up and drive her to the stables that he’d invested in recently, where he was going to keep some of his horses. They could go for a ride – they shared a love of horses, didn’t they?
Hogan said he’d be meeting more people there, some jockeys and trainers. Melody knew they were arranging to fix races, and also knew that she didn’t want to be privy to that conversation. She would do her part, take the bets that Eamon laid, and work with the information that she had been given, but she didn’t want to meet anyone else involved who could later implicate her. And the less she knew about Eamon’s business, the safer she was. Her days of taking mad risks for money were over.
So Melody made some excuse, not very convincing, something about having to buy some make-up, and arranged to meet him in the restaurant of Aster’s department store in Market Square. She could tell by the tone of his voice that he didn’t believe her. But at this point she didn’t really care, she wanted to meet in a public place because it was safer. And he was obliging, effusively polite and accommodating. So there they were, like any other couple taking a break from shopping. Eamon had picked the corner booth, which ensured less opportunity for eavesdropping and from where he could see everyone who entered the restaurant. The large dining room was all in pastel colours, and to accompany the blandness of the decor there was piped music that seemed to contain a sax solo every thirty seconds, yet never really disturbed the soft domestic chatter that bubbled away. It was the perfect place not to get shot, garrotted, or have your head caved in.
The waitress came with their orders – a pot of tea for two, eggs Benedict, and the club sandwich for him. It had all arrived in record time: ruthless efficiency or was everything just fast food now?
‘I’ll be mother,’ said Eamon with a wink and another smile as he poured the tea. ‘It’s a shame you couldn’t come to the stables today. I’ve got a lovely new filly we could have taken out. You used to love horse riding.’
‘I haven’t done it in years.’
‘Has working at the racing jaded your passions, Melody?’
‘How’s Angie?’ she countered.
‘She’s well. She’s in Spain at the moment with little Eamon and Carmen. She sends her love.’
‘You’re a lucky man. You’ve got a beautiful wife, two beautiful kids. You’ve got everything you ever wanted.’
‘Not everything. It could have been you, you know that, and God knows I wanted it to be.’
‘No, it couldn’t, and you knew that.’
Melody picked up her knife and fork and cut into her meal: the poached egg wasn’t particularly runny, and the ham that accompanied it curled at the edges where it had dried out. Eamon removed the lethal-looking cocktail stick from his sandwich and took a bite. It was clear that for now, the less-than-fresh food was more palatable than the topic being discussed.
But Melody couldn’t let it go. ‘You knew that, Eamon, because there was only one person I’d confided in, my best pal, my best friend in the world, and closest … companion, shall we say? And, as it turned out, my biggest competition, Angie.’
The secret had been the messy abortion Melody had had in her youth that had left her unable to bear children. Left her feeling like she was in mourning for the lost child, and the children she’d never have.
Eamon said, ‘I won’t deny I knew. But it was you, you were the only one I really loved.’
‘But Angie ran a close second, right? And once she told you my secret, she became the favourite.’
‘I wanted children, Melody, what man doesn’t?’
‘I understand. It’s only natural.’
Eamon averted his eyes from her, snapped the cocktail stick he’d been rolling between his thumb and forefinger and tossed it on the table, then laced his hands together in front of his face as if to pray. Only then did he meet her gaze. Melody stayed strong. There were no tears left for him. She’d fallen in love with Eamon practically on sight. She and Angie, both in their twenties, had met him in an exclusive nightclub in Amsterdam, where he bought them champagne all night. The dark looks, the bright blue eyes, and, yes, the power the man possessed served as an aphrodisiac for both women. At first they were prepared to share him – they were young, adventurous, why not?
But it wasn’t long before the adventurousness extended beyond the bedroom of the Hotel Prins Hendrik. He introduced her to a world of risk, danger and big money. It
seemed that Melody would do anything for him. She even tried to outmatch him, coming up with her own dangerous, wild and profitable schemes. She didn’t want to be seen as the gangster’s moll, she wanted to be seen as his equal.
But Melody had miscalculated. She was almost too wild, too impulsive, too independent, and in the deeply patriarchal world that Eamon Hogan had grown up and operated in, she was perhaps not the girl you would choose to marry. And once he found out she couldn’t bear him children, it was over. But still he had a hold over her, and she him. There was that frisson, still strong enough to set her off into a fantasy that maybe one day things would be different between them.
Deep down she knew it was foolishness to think such things, and she had hoped that George Price would break the spell. And in many ways he had. He was kind, funny, gentle and generous, and had promised to look after her, a promise he’d more than fulfilled by making her a partner in his business. George had understood that she would never be one to sit at home and play the role of the trophy wife. She’d had her own businesses, her ventures. Even though George had given her what she initially wanted, she always wanted more, and she had enough self-awareness to recognize that was her great failing. Like addicted gamblers: they didn’t play to win, they played to keep on playing. It was just in her nature to twist rather than stick. And to a degree, George understood that. Maybe he thought he would be the one who could tame her, to finally satisfy her. She knew men, knew their egos, knew that might have been part of the attraction for him. George had married his first wife young, and as worldly as he was in most matters, he was somewhat naive when it came to women. She had worked that out early. And maybe that was part of the attraction for her.
‘To be honest, Melody, as lovely as it is to see you, as always, I’m not here to talk about the past, and I certainly don’t want to pick at old wounds,’ announced Eamon. ‘I need you to know something, about George.’