by Nigel Cooper
Ok, many things to do, and fast. I have to get rid of the Honda, get rid of the pay-as-you-go phone and buy another. But right now I have to get the hell out of this house before the police come banging on the door.
I grabbed my suitcase and threw my clothes and other bits into it, not bothering to fold anything, and grabbed the rifle bag, my coat and handbag and then left, tossing the keys to the room onto the bed as I did so. As I struggled along, rifle bag over one shoulder, handbag over the other, dragging my wheeled suitcase behind, I looked all around for any sign of a police car, marked or otherwise. My Honda was parked two streets away and the few hundred-metre walk felt like a mile, I was seriously exposed right now and anybody who knew anything about rifles and shooting would possibly recognise the shape of the canvas rifle bag; the police certainly would, especially if they were on the look out for a woman carrying one, which they probably were. I got to my car, put my suitcase and the rifle in the boot, got in and started the engine, but I was far from in the clear. I had to assume that the police would be arriving at my rented room any minute and they might already know what car I was driving, I had to get away from here and get rid of this car – fast.
It was terrible, my adrenalin was on overdrive and I was physically shaking and, even though I’d been careful regarding fingerprints in my rented room, I realised that I wasn’t wearing my gloves when I tossed the keys to the house onto the bed before I left – damn! Nothing I can do about it now, I certainly wasn’t about to go back and potentially walk right into a room full of cops, besides, I didn’t have the key to get back in anyway. I decided to forget about this slip – figuring the police would only get a partial print at best off the little key – and press on with my plan; it would still work, as the police had no idea what I was planning.
I couldn’t book into a motel, certainly not in this area, if the police were onto me and were on their way to my rented room right now they would probably check all the local hotels and B&Bs for a woman fitting my description who’d checked in today. Damn, there was only one thing for it, it was risky, but I didn’t have any other choice.
‘Helen, oh my god, what a surprise,’ said Darren.
‘I’m really sorry to turn up out of the blue like this, but I really need your help.’
‘Of course, come on in,’ he said, stepping back into his hallway.
‘Are you alone?’ I said.
‘Yes.’
Darren lived in a two-up-two-down terraced house in Ely. We went to secondary school together. We were never girlfriend/boyfriend or anything like that, but we did have a brief snog once at a school disco when I was fifteen and Darren has carried a torch for me ever since. I looked around the living room; there was no sign of a woman living here, definitely a bachelor pad.
‘You live alone?’
‘Yeah, you know me,’ he said.
I did know him. He was a sweet guy, but he just didn’t seem to understand women, or their emotions, at all. Darren was a good looking guy and didn’t have too much trouble picking women up, but he just seemed to flit from one brief relationship to another, usually with little to no gap in-between. But, by chance, I’d caught him during a gap-month, thank god.
‘Crumbs, this is surreal; I haven’t seen you for ages. I think the last time we saw each other was at Dave’s wedding, what was that, two years ago?’
‘Yes, it must have been.’
‘Helen, I saw all that stuff with your children on the news, I’m so sorry, if there’s anything I can do, I’m here for you.’
‘Actually, there is,’ I said.
‘You name it, anything.’
‘I’d like to stay here for a while, not long, a few days, a week at the most.’
‘Of course, whatever you want, Helen.’
‘Thanks, Darren, I really appreciate it.’
‘Look, you can have my bed, I’ll sleep down here on the sofa.’
‘No, really, you don’t have to do that, I’m smaller than you, you’ll be too uncomfortable down here.’
‘I really don’t mind, in fact I insist.’
‘Thank you,’ I said. I didn’t really want to have to sleep in Darren’s bed, knowing how he feels about me, but I do trust him, and I trust him not to come into the room and try anything in the middle of the night. He might carry a torch for me and he didn’t have a clue about how women worked, but he was a decent man and I knew he’d show me respect and give me privacy while I was here. Besides, under the bed was probably the only place I could hide the rifle without him seeing it.
‘Ok then, that’s settled. Would you like a drink?’
‘Look, there’s something else, you can’t tell anybody about this, I don’t want anyone knowing that I’m here, not even your closest friends.’
‘I understand, but, Helen, what’s this about?’
‘Darren, I really don’t want to talk about it at the moment, I just need somewhere I can be for a few days.’
‘Ok, I understand, and I won’t ask you again, but if you want to talk, I’m here for you.’
‘Thanks, now, how about a cup of tea?’ I said.
‘I’ll go and put the kettle on.’
‘I’ll go and bring my things in from the car.’
‘Need any help?’
‘No, thank you, I don’t have much, I’ll take it straight up to the bedroom if that’s ok?’
‘Of course, I’ll dig a spare key out to the house so you can come and go as you please.’
I went out to the car and grabbed the rifle case and my coat and carried it in with the coat half disguising the canvas rifle case shape. I pushed the front door open and walked straight up the stairs, Darren was still in the kitchen making tea. There were only three doors on the upstairs landing: airing cupboard, bathroom and bedroom. In the bedroom Darren had a pine bed, which meant space underneath, relief. I ducked down and looked underneath, there was nothing there, which was good as it meant Darren would have no need to look under there for anything. I slid the rifle bag right underneath, towards the middle so there would be no chance of him accidently seeing it if he needed to come in here, which I assumed he probably would for clothes and stuff. I went back to the car and brought in my suitcase too.
‘Darren, I’m sorry, hold fire on that cup of tea, I just have to pop out, I’ll be back in about an hour, ok?’
‘Of course, wait, let me give you a key,’ he said, opening the kitchen drawer.
‘Thank you, Darren,’ I said, taking the key. ‘I’ll be back shortly.’
‘Ok.’
* * *
I drove the Honda from Ely along the A142 to Sutton, about eight miles away. I didn’t want to dump it right on my new doorstep. I drove around to find a quiet side street where I could park it, where it wouldn’t raise any suspicions. I got out of the car, removed the sim from my pay-as-you-go phone then put the phone on the pavement and stamped on it, it was a cheap and nasty plastic thing that practically disintegrated on the first stamp, shards of plastic flying everywhere. I gathered up the broken parts (kicking the tiny remaining shreds of plastic into the gutter) and headed towards the One Stop shop that I’d driven past on the High Street, tossing the broken phone parts and sim into a bin en route.
I bought a drink in the shop and asked the lady if she could be kind enough to call me a cab, which I had drop me a few streets away from Darren’s house.
‘Hey, everything ok?’ said Darren, as I entered his house.
‘Yes, fine, thank you. Now, how about that cuppa?’
‘Coming right up.’
Darren and I chatted, not about my stuff as I’d made it quite clear that I didn’t want to talk about my children, what happened to them and what I was going through right now. He understood. Instead, we just caught up generally, mostly about what he’d been up to the past few years, which suited me just fine.
‘Are you hungry? I don’t have much here, I need to go shopping tomorrow, but I can order a takeaway if you like?’
‘Sure, b
ut I’m paying,’ I said.
‘You don’t have to do that.’
‘I insist.’
‘Ok, well in that case, you can choose.’
We ordered a Chinese and Darren asked if I wanted to watch something on the television.
‘No, I need to look a few things up on the Internet, but you go ahead, if there’s something on you want to watch,’ I said.
We ate the Chinese then I grabbed my iPad from the bedroom and brought it down to the lounge. I felt obligated to sit with him, as he’d been good enough to let me stay with him for a few days. Going up to my (his) bedroom would have been rude, especially on the first night.
‘You want the passcode for the Wi-Fi?’ he said, standing up and walking across the room.
‘Oh, yes, please.’ He handed me the little plastic Plusnet card. Autotrader.co.uk here we come, again. As before I searched for cheap £500 runarounds. I was only going to need a car a few days, maybe a week at the most. After about twenty minutes I had a short list of local-ish cars priced between £350 and £500: A red 1999 Suzuki Swift with a genuine 45,000 miles, pretty impressive for a 17-year old car, though I had my doubts as to authenticity of the mileage, a 2001 Volkswagen Passat, a green 1998 Toyota Corolla and even an old Mercedes C Class.
The next morning – after a surprisingly good sleep, all things considered – I took my list of phone numbers and walked into town to the Carphone Warehouse on the High Street to buy another pay-as-you-go phone. As before, I gave the salesman a false name and address and paid cash, both for the phone and the £20 of call credit. Then I went next door to Café Nero. I ordered a cappuccino, found a quiet table and set about phoning about the used cars on my list.
Some of the sellers weren’t going to be back home for me to view the cars until the evening after work, but one, the seller of the suspiciously low-mileage Suzuki Swift, was going to be home in an hour, and another, Mrs Mercedes-Benz would be home at lunchtime. I arranged to see the Suzuki first so I called a taxi and arranged for them to pick me up from Café Nero in thirty minutes. Given that I’d already been in there for fifteen minutes and it was probably a fifteen-minute journey down to the sellers house in Soham, the timing should work out fine.
When the taxi dropped me at the sellers address, he was already home. The elderly man showed me, proudly, around the little red Suzuki Swift and started the engine for me. I was starting to believe that the ultra-low mileage of just 46,000 was genuine. Even though the car was seventeen years old, it was in unbelievable condition and it sounded sweet, no smoke or engine noise at all. I was now a dab hand at this buying used cars lark, thanks to my basic knowledge courtesy of Wheeler Dealers presenters, Mike Brewer and Edd China
The seller explained that he’d just bought a new Ford B-Max as he and his wife needed something that was a little more elevated and easier to get in and out of because of various age-related ailments. I didn’t even bother to test drive the avuncular man’s Suzuki, it was obviously as genuine as they came and he was proud to tell me that he was the only owner of the car and he’d cherished it. I handed him his asking price of £400 without bothering to haggle, which would have been an insult. He handed me the large faux leather folder with the manuals, a stack of old MOTs and service history in abundance. He’d filled out and signed the sellers part of the V5 document and entrusted me to complete my section and send it all off at my convenience. As I drove away in the little red car I felt a little guilty that it was not going to a better home and was going to end up left abandoned somewhere.
Chapter 32
It was two a.m. and it looked like it was about to kick off between two separate groups of young men who were hanging around outside the nightclub smoking cigarettes. Brandon ‘Snowy’ Clifford was one of them. Typically, a scruffy sod like Snowy would never get into a nightclub like this, dressed the way he was, but he’d bunged the doorman a crisp £50 note, being flash-with-the-cash and gobby with it. Since taking off with the £200,000 ransom money, Snowy had been spend-happy and he suddenly had a whole new bunch of so-called friend's, in addition to those that he’d left behind when he moved from his birth-town down south to Cambridge. When he first arrived back in Newcastle, his old pals weren’t exactly keen on putting him up, until he started to flash his cash around, then they were suddenly all pally again; money tends to have that effect on people.
Although he’d only been back home in Newcastle for a few weeks, he was beginning to make a serious dent in the £200,000: drugs, alcohol, cigarettes, parties and nightclubs and being stupid enough to buy all the hangers-on drinks and generously hand out and share his drugs like they were Haribo gummy bears.
Snowy was wearing a black and white striped Newcastle United football shirt, which was the cause of the argument and ensuing fight. Snowy was with three of his Geordie marras, but the four guys standing a few yards away from them were from Sunderland, up in Newcastle for a friend's stag night, which had ended up at this particular nightclub.
One of the Sunderland guys had made some snide comment about Newcastle being shite and that they were going down because they’d had their Geordie arses kicked all over the pitch by pretty much every team in the premier league all season.
‘Hey, fuck you, youre fucking shitty team are going down with us,’ said Snowy.
‘Not so, haven’t you heard? We beat Everton tonight, three nil. We’re staying up my friend, and because of our victory we made sure that you bunch of fags are going to be playing championship football next year with all the other wankers down there,’ he said, his mates laughing their arses off.
‘Fuckin’ lucky bastards,’ said Snowy.
‘Nothing lucky about it, Big Sam came up trumps for us, unlike that Spanish wanker your lot took on to try and save your pathetic arses,’ said the Sunderland guy. His friends were practically pissing themselves laughing now.
‘Fuck you you cunt, and your Mackem cunt gay friends over there,’ said Snowy, squaring up to him.
‘Who’d you be calling a Mackem cunt you skinny Geordie wanker,’ said Sunderland guy, also squaring up, his three mates coming over to back him up.
‘Well I don’t see any other Mackem cunts around here, do you? Cunt?’
‘I’ll show you who’s the cunt,’ said Sunderland guy, flying forward: arms, fists, legs, feet, head, all at once. Snowy threw several aimless drunken punches, only one of them making a somewhat scuffed connection with the Sunderland guy's head as it breezed past. Then, before Snowy knew what had happened, Sunderland guy had head-butted him, his forehead connecting squarely with Snowy’s nose, he fell to his knees, holding his bleeding face, but Sunderland guy didn’t stop there, he kicked Snowy in the face, knocking him back onto his arse. With this, Snowy’s pals steamed into him, punches and kicks flying, then Sunderland’s mates joined in and then there were suddenly eight guys beating the shit out of each other. One of Snowy’s pals was a pretty strong burly guy, who could hit really hard, and he did, knocking one of the Sunderland guys out cold with a one-punch-wonder. As he collapsed and fell backwards his head struck the edge of the pavement with a crack – claret started to flow into the gutter.
The police arrived within a few minutes, knowing by experience, that this part of the city was a trouble hot spot at this time of the morning, as the clubs started to tip out. They broke up the fight, or what was left of it, and called an ambulance for the unconscious guy in the gutter, claret still pouring out of the gash in his head.
Snowy, in his drunken and drugged up state, thought it would be a good idea to start getting gobby with the cops, to show how tough he was in front of his pals. After a while, Snowy’s drunken abusive language towards the officers took its toll. Diplomatic, tactful, and patient as the officers had been, they decided enough was enough. One of the officers was busy trying to save the unconscious guy's life while another tried to calm things down. Dealing with the gobby Snowy was a bridge too far so he was cuffed and put in the back of the marked police car. In the meantime one of the officers
called for back up by way of a secure cell van that could transport Snowy to the nick.
* * *
‘Guess who’s just popped up on the radar?’ said Sakki, approaching Rhodes’s desk.
‘Who?’
‘One Brandon Clifford.’
‘Great. Is he on his way to Parkside?’
‘Yes, but not for a while.’
‘Not for a while? How come?’
‘He’s in Newcastle. He was arrested there last night, outside a nightclub. He was involved in a drunken brawl with some football fans apparently. Anyway, DCI Bailey’s made arrangements for a couple of uniform to go up there and get him.’
‘How long’s that gonna take?’
‘As soon as he can find a couple of spare guys to do it, I suppose. But it’s nearly four hours each way so he won’t be here until later this afternoon, at the earliest.’
‘Oh well, at least he’s on his way.’
‘There’s something else.’
‘What that?’
‘Well, because he’s a suspect in a kidnapping and ransom case the local police up there thought it would be a good idea to search his house. Two of their detectives escorted Clifford to his residence, well, his room, he’s been staying with a mate up there. Anyway, under his bed they found a leather bag stuffed with fifty pound notes.’
‘How much?’
‘They don’t know, nobody’s counted it yet, but they reckon, on first glance, that there’s got to be at least a hundred grand, probably more.’
Rhodes smiled.
* * *
Brandon Clifford arrived at Parkside police station, looking slightly worse for the wear having spent the night in the cells up in Newcastle and still wearing his Newcastle United football shirt, though it was now black, white, and claret since he got head-butted in the nose the night before and bled all down the front of it.