Dark Fragments: a fast paced psychological thriller

by Rob Sinclair

  ‘You don’t have to do this!’ I cried out.

  ‘First question,’ O’Brady said, moving closer. Elvis kneeled down next to him and pinned my wrists to the chair arms. No matter how much I squirmed and struggled, there was no chance of me fighting him and Egan off. ‘What did you tell the police about me?’

  ‘What? … I …’ I stammered, trying to think of what to say. It wasn’t that I intended to hold back, just that the question was so open I really didn’t know where to start.

  ‘Not good enough,’ O’Brady said.

  He took the forefinger of my left hand in his grip and opened the blades of the cutters. He moved them over my finger, right down at the knuckle.

  ‘No!’ I screamed. ‘Wait. No. Please.’

  O’Brady looked up at me. The cutters were in position. The blades were already nicking my skin and I could feel blood dripping down.

  ‘The reason I told you,’ I said, ‘is that the police have someone on the inside.’

  O’Brady squinted. He held firm with the cutters.

  ‘Surveillance,’ I said. ‘Not me. They’ve got surveillance on you. I don’t know for how long. Maybe in the club too. An inside man.’

  O’Brady’s face changed. He moved the cutters away from my hand and I let out a long sigh of relief. Though I knew I was far from in the clear. I hadn’t quashed any of O’Brady’s hostility toward me. I’d simply put doubt in his mind as to what the police knew.

  ‘There’s been surveillance on me for years,’ O’Brady said. ‘That’s a way of life. It’s not a problem. And in the club? No chance. I have this place swept every week. I know what I’m doing.’

  O’Brady’s confidence never faltered and my body slumped. But O’Brady wasn’t finished.

  ‘They can’t hear what’s going on in here,’ he said. ‘I can absolutely guarantee you that. I can do whatever I want. You can beg and scream all you want. No-one will hear you.’

  I began to whimper.

  ‘But that other thing you said – an inside man. Tell me more.’

  O’Brady nodded to Egan and he finally let go of my neck. My head dropped forward and I coughed and spluttered as I tried to get my breathing under control. When I’d taken a second longer to recover than O’Brady was happy with, I felt a sharp tug on my hair. Egan lifted my head so I was eyeball to eyeball with O’Brady.

  ‘Talk,’ O’Brady said.

  ‘I’m in a lot of shit,’ I said. ‘The police have enough to put me away. Or so they say.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘Nothing to do with you,’ I said. ‘My own mess.’

  ‘And yet you’re causing problems for me.’

  ‘They already know all about me and you. They know everything. Far too much to have come from a few foot patrols following you around the place.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘But they did tell you there’s a mole in my crew?’

  ‘They alluded to it, yes. It’s the only explanation.’

  O’Brady stood tall and stepped away. He turned and put his hands on his hips. No-one in the room said a word for what seemed like an eternity.

  ‘The police want me to help them,’ I said. ‘Help them put you away.’

  ‘So why aren’t you?’

  ‘Because you terrify me,’ I admitted. ‘You always have done. Look at the position I’m in. The police think they have a hold over me, but that’ll never take away the fear of what you might do to me. I had no choice but to agree to what they said; it was the only way to stop them locking me up. But I don’t trust them. And I know they’ve got someone else working against you.’

  O’Brady turned and looked at me. He kneeled back down and pushed his face close to mine.

  ‘I’m going to let you go,’ he whispered into my ear. ‘You’re right: I can’t touch you in here. Not when the police know where you are, and not while there might be a rat somewhere.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said, and I meant it.

  ‘Don’t thank me. I’m never going to forget this. I don’t care how long it takes me, I’m going to make this right. As long as I’m still walking this earth, I’m going to be watching you. Waiting. I’m going to find that mole, and I’m going to kill him. And when this has all blown over, and believe me when I say that it will, I’m going to come for you too. Until that day, Ben Stephens, you’re nothing but a dead man walking. Now go.’

  CHAPTER 49

  I was thrown out of the back exit into the street wearing only my underwear. Literally, thrown. Two men hauled me up and tossed me in the air, and I landed with a painful thump on the pavement outside, badly grazing my hip and my elbow and my shoulder. My clothes were tossed out after me and I clumsily dressed myself as tears rolled down my face.

  I knew in that moment that it was the end of my life as I knew it. Given the road ahead, I knew at best I’d end up behind bars, and at worst my body would be cut into pieces and I’d be dispatched across the country.

  After realising I was stranded outside the club, with no help coming for me from the police, I headed away on foot. I wandered aimlessly around the city centre as I tried to make sense of what to do next. It was gone ten p.m. when I walked into the hotel back in Sutton Coldfield.

  I uttered a cursory greeting to the receptionist as I headed toward the staircase. She mumbled in return. I came to the door to my room, unlocked it and pushed it open. I entered, then turned around to close the door, but jumped in shock when a hand pushed past me and slammed the door shut.

  Before I knew it my right arm had been grabbed and twisted back and upwards, behind my back, and I was thrust forward up against the door, my cheek smacking into the wood panel. I grimaced and let out a surprised shriek.

  With all the thoughts that had been running through my mind of O’Brady and his death threat, it was only natural to leap to an immediate conclusion as to what was happening.

  But the voice I heard speak told me otherwise.

  ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ Dani hissed.

  My mind relaxed just a touch on hearing her voice, but my body remained stiff as she kept me in the painful hold.

  ‘So?’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said through gritted teeth.

  ‘Jackson wants to throw you straight into a cell. He’s not the kind of man to piss about with. With everything you’ve told us about you and O’Brady, I’m not sure I’m that far away from agreeing with him. You’re really determined to throw your life away, aren’t you?’

  ‘You’re hurting me,’ I said, trying to squirm out of the hold, or at least reduce the pressure. It felt like my arm was about to snap.

  I could well imagine Dani was loving the moment. She was already superior to me in almost every facet of life, but I’d always at least been bigger and – I believed – stronger than her. Yet here I was entirely at her mercy, her unrelenting grip giving me no room for manoeuvre.

  Eventually Dani let go and shoved me painfully in the back. I winced again and immediately clutched my sore arm. I turned to Dani, who was glaring at me.

  ‘It was the only way,’ I said to her.

  ‘The only way to what? You’re going to have to explain that one to me. I’ve just spent the best part of two hours getting Jackson to climb down off the wall. He wants blood. Your blood. If it wasn’t for me, you’d be locked up already. I’ve saved you once again.’

  ‘It’s not what you think. I just … in the club, I couldn’t go through with it. There’s no way O’Brady was going to just open up to me and give you what you need.’

  ‘You were told that. Jackson and Marsh made it clear that it could take time.’

  ‘And every time I went in there I would have been putting myself on the line.’

  ‘It was what you were offered. What you agreed to. You’re not in a position to make up the rules here.’

  ‘I know that. But sitting in that club, it just became too real. I was scared. Do you know what I saw today? His man
, Mickey Egan, arms covered in blood.’

  ‘Whose blood?’

  ‘I don’t know! That’s not the point. But these are mad men. O’Brady was going to start cutting my fingers off with a set of fucking cutters! Come on, Dani.’

  I saw her expression change slightly but she was still angry.

  ‘I hear what you’re saying,’ she said, ‘but we need real, tangible evidence. That was the whole point of the bug, to get that evidence. Not just for O’Brady, but maybe for Egan too. You want to get him, don’t you? If he really is the man who killed Alice?’

  ‘Of course I do! But I’m just not sure … I can.’

  ‘That’s simply not good enough, Ben.’

  ‘And what about your inside man?’ I said.

  Dani glared at me but didn’t respond.

  ‘I know there is one. There has to be. I just don’t know who.’

  Still Dani didn’t say a word. The look on her face was answer enough.

  ‘O’Brady’s going to find who it is,’ I said. ‘He’s going to kill him. You need to get your man out, whoever he is.’

  ‘You let me handle that.’

  ‘Who is it?’

  ‘I can’t tell you.’

  ‘Why not? How do you expect me to help if I don’t know half of what’s going on? The same with Alice and Hayley Lewis. I know you’re not telling me everything.’

  ‘Telling you won’t help you.’

  ‘How do you know? I know more about O’Brady than you ever will. I can still help you to catch him. Maybe Egan too.’

  ‘I don’t see how.’

  ‘If you want to catch O’Brady in the act, this is your golden opportunity. You need to up your surveillance. Pull all the strings you can. I know O’Brady. He’s going to do everything to find your man. This could be your chance.’

  ‘You want us to catch O’Brady in the act of doing what? Killing our informant?’

  The scathing way in which Dani spoke riled me, but I held it in.

  ‘If you stay close, it won’t come to that,’ I said. ‘And you might get more. O’Brady hates my guts, but I can still be useful to him. If I can get back on the inside, plead with him that I’ll keep him informed of the police’s operation, who knows what I’ll find?’

  ‘You think O’Brady will ever trust you again?’ Dani said.

  ‘Who knows? Maybe. Probably not. If I had something useful to give him, it might still happen. I could feed him disinformation. Help you snare him while he tries to track down your guy.’

  ‘You don’t get to decide what we do,’ Dani said. ‘You’re a witness only because we agreed to it. You’ve admitted to being complicit in his activities. You do what we tell you, or there’s nobody to protect you.’

  ‘Fine. It was just a thought. I’m trying to help.’

  ‘You’re doing a pretty crappy job so far.’

  ‘Just do your job, Dani. This is your chance to catch O’Brady at his worst.’

  Dani huffed and took a few moments to think. When she next spoke her voice was calmer, as though she was coming around to what I’d said. Or at the least she was resigned to the fact that, with me having blown the previous plan, it was the only option currently available.

  ‘Maybe,’ she said. ‘Maybe it is an opportunity. I just hope we can stop him before it’s too late.’

  CHAPTER 50

  ‘Did Dani ever tell you what crimes the police believed O’Brady had committed?’ she asked.

  ‘No. They would only ever talk in open-ended terms to me. Extortion, fraud, corruption, money-laundering. They gave me few specific details. Maybe they didn’t trust me enough.’

  ‘How about violent crimes? Murder? You suggested how scared you were of O’Brady – had you ever witnessed firsthand that he was capable of such an act?’

  ‘Murder? No, I’d never witnessed that. Did I believe he was capable of it? Yes. Maybe not always, maybe not in the early days.’

  ‘So when you first went to see O’Brady, when you wanted him to beat up Craig Fletcher, you didn’t then see someone capable of killing?’

  ‘I’m not sure what you’re getting at.’

  ‘I’m just trying to understand your relationship with him. What you saw in him, and whether that perception changed over time. How you came to be so fearful of him.’

  ‘I never liked O’Brady. I never respected him or looked up to him or anything like that. And if I’d thought O’Brady was a psychotic killer, I’d never have approached him. When I first met him, I thought he was a thug, a gang leader.’

  ‘And did that perception change?’

  ‘I guess so. Over the years I heard things. I saw things too. O’Brady was capable of violence. I mean, just look at the times he’d had me beaten up.’

  ‘And murder?’

  ‘I never saw him kill anyone, but I heard that he had. O’Brady was definitely changing. He seemed more dangerous.’

  ‘Can you explain that?’

  ‘The police, the sting operation they wanted me to be involved in, that put me in a dangerous position with O’Brady. Then there was the other informant, the inside man I was sure the police had. O’Brady could tell his days were numbered. He was becoming more deadly, almost desperate, out of control. I think that was why I was so scared.’

  ‘So when O’Brady made the threat to you, that one day he would come for you, you believed that?’

  ‘Absolutely.’

  ‘That day in the club, did you ever find out what Egan had been doing? Why he had blood covering his arms?’

  ‘No. But if you ask me the same question for Egan, did I think he was capable of murder, the answer is yes.’

  ‘But you never saw him –’

  ‘I didn’t need to see him doing it to know what he was capable of.’

  ‘After Dani confronted you in your hotel, what happened next?’

  ‘The next few days were a struggle. I didn’t feel safe anymore. The police refused me any kind of protection, said they had no direct evidence that there was a threat to my wellbeing. O’Brady’s threat was simply my word, which they didn’t feel was sufficiently reliable, given form.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘Nothing for two or three days. I holed up in my hotel. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to see my children, I wanted to see Cara, but … it’s hard to explain, it felt like my life was over.’

  ‘Were you in contact with O’Brady at all during those days?’

  ‘No. I was in contact with Dani and Marsh – we were trying to figure out a way to get me back on the inside with O’Brady so they could get what they needed. They said it was the only way to stop him. We all had ideas, but the issue was trying to find something that wouldn’t result in my immediate death.’

  I smiled at my sarcastic words. She didn’t smile back.

  ‘But you never did?’ she said. ‘Find a way back in with O’Brady?’

  ‘No. It’s not like this went on for weeks or anything like that, just a couple of days.’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘The kids were off limits. Gemma was refusing to let me see them. I think she realised I was in serious trouble – maybe Dani had even told her some of what was happening. I knew that distancing myself from them at that point in time was probably best for all of us. Which left only one other person I wanted to see.’

  ‘Cara?’

  ‘Yes.’

  CHAPTER 51

  Eventually, despite being scared out of my skin at leaving the confines of the hotel, I bit the bullet and agreed to meet with Cara. We’d been bombarding each other with texts and I wanted to at least try to appear like a normal human being to her. We made plans to stay at her apartment that night – I didn’t want to take her back to the rundown hotel that was passing for my home.

  After grabbing a quick meal, we headed out past the Jewellery Quarter toward Hockley, to a bar Cara had recommended.

  ‘So where are we going?’ I asked as we ambled by a gleaming glass block of new-build apart
ments, one of many in the redeveloped area.

  ‘It’s supposed to be really cool,’ she said. ‘I used to go there all the time when I first moved over from Ireland. My uncle owned it. I worked there on and off too. Just helping out.’

  I raised an eyebrow. I’d noticed a passing unease with her a few times during our dates. Even though her marriage was all but over – just waiting for a signature on a piece of paper, as was mine – I still sensed that she was wary of who might be watching us, people who knew her from her old life. And I guess I was exactly the same. I hadn’t told anyone about my relationship with Cara.

  It wasn’t a surprise, then, when Cara had suggested we head to a bar that was out of the main city centre and further from where she lived. But a place that was owned by her uncle? That went against the grain.

  ‘So this place is kind of a home from home for you then?’ I said. ‘You’ll know all the regulars.’

  ‘I wouldn’t think so,’ she said. ‘This area is completely different now. It was just a down-to-earth pub back then. Full of Irish. Just a drinkers’ pub. My uncle sold it and moved back home a few years ago when my aunt died. I haven’t been back to it since, but I heard it got bought out recently and it’s supposed to be really busy again. It’s all different, though. It’s some trendy lounge bar now, or whatever they call them.’

  ‘Yeah, going for a night out was certainly a lot simpler when the two choices were pub and club.’

  And she was right about the pub – it certainly wasn’t an old local anymore. Although there was a decent selection of real ales on the taps, the modernist interior with mood lighting, bare brick and swathes of oak took away any sense of what it might have once been.

  The clientele, largely twenty-something hipsters with carefully coiffed hair, tanned skin and designer clothes – both men and women alike – perfectly complemented the flash interior. What was most eye-opening, though, was the prices.

  ‘Four ninety-five for a pint!’ I choked when the barman handed me my paltry change. He just shrugged. I turned to Cara and handed her the glass of wine that had cost nearly twice as much again.