The Two O'Clock Boy

by Mark Hill

  The breath pumped, quick and eager.

  ‘Come on, mate,’ called the voice in the van, ‘move!’ The horn blasted again.

  ‘Let me hear you say it. Yes.’ But the man in the back didn’t speak, he didn’t want to be identified, and it gave Drake a glimmer of hope. ‘You’d better finish the job now, or I will come for you and I will kill you. Do you understand me?’

  He heard a smack of lips, and the blade was pressed so hard against his Adam’s apple that he could barely swallow.

  ‘Don’t be shy,’ said Drake. ‘Just say yes.’

  Then a door slammed on the van, and footsteps approached. Drake’s head was released. The knife glinted past his eyes as it whipped away. The back door opened, and Drake hit his door release to stumble into the alley. But the van driver was already in front of him, remonstrating. ‘Come on, fella, shift the car, some of us have work to do.’

  Legs shaking, Drake slumped against the door to watch the Two O’Clock Boy, face hidden by the woollen hat, escape across the park.

  29

  When she arrived in the Incident Room, Flick was mortified to see Eddie Upson at the whiteboard. She’d phoned to warn her team that she’d be late, but he had already taken the daily meeting, held first thing every morning, in her absence. Vix Moore eyed her walking past and murmured something to Kendrick. In contrast, Millie Steiner, bless her heart, gave Flick an encouraging nod.

  ‘Sorry I’m late,’ Flick told Eddie, who followed her into her office. ‘I had someone to go and see on the way in.’

  ‘No problem,’ he said, ‘but we may need a new whiteboard.’

  Flick slapped the space bar on her keyboard to awaken the screen. ‘Why?’

  Eddie held up a marker pen. ‘I thought this was a magic marker, but it’s permanent ink.’

  ‘You need alcohol.’

  Upson rolled his eyes. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘To clean the whiteboard,’ she said.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I meant.’

  ‘Do me a favour, Eddie,’ said Flick, as he turned to go. ‘I need an address.’

  ‘I’ll get Vix to do it. Wait, I’ll try to get Vix to do it.’

  ‘No,’ said Flick. The last thing she needed was DC Moore asking awkward questions. ‘I’d rather you did it. It’s Elliot—’ But then Ray Drake walked in and she blinked, astonished, at the livid yellow bruises beneath one eye, the red nick across his throat.

  ‘Juniper?’ Eddie was unaware of Drake behind him. ‘The name you mentioned yesterday, do you still want it?’

  ‘Please,’ she said, but she must have looked a picture because Eddie followed her gaze, seeing the DI’s terse expression, closing the door behind him.

  ‘What on earth happened?’

  ‘It was nothing.’ Drake lowered himself stiffly into a chair. ‘Some kids attempted to relieve me of my wallet last night, shoved me the ground. They got in a couple of kicks and ran.’

  ‘Did you report it?’

  ‘No point, it was too dark to get a good look at them. Anyway …’ Drake seemed agitated to Flick. ‘Where are we on the investigation?’

  Several of the plastic pockets containing the newspaper articles were peeking from a drawer of her desk. She’d not put them back in the Property Room, but had closed the drawer when she’d left yesterday.

  ‘Has anybody been working in here?’

  ‘The cleaners were in my office, so I used your desk earlier,’ said Drake. ‘I trust that’s okay.’

  Drake in the basement, stepping forward.

  A cough – another sound.

  Tucking the plastic inside, she closed the drawer. ‘Of course.’

  ‘Holloway’s people need to get a move on with the forensic reports,’ he said. ‘And there’s plenty of CCTV still to get through. Steiner’s doing her best, but she’s snowed under.’

  ‘I’ll get someone to help her.’

  ‘Ryan Overton had links with some people who steal scrap metal and sell it on, did you know that?’

  ‘I’ll get up to date as soon as I get my email working.’ Drake stood to go, but then turned irritably. ‘Why do you want Elliot Juniper’s address?’

  She prodded at her mouse. ‘Is your email down?’

  ‘Flick,’ Drake said quietly, ‘tell me you’ve dropped the other stuff, this children’s home nonsense.’

  ‘Why?’ She struggled to keep the shrillness out of her voice. ‘All these years you’ve told me to trust my instincts, told me to think less like a bureaucrat and more like a detective. Now I am, and you’re annoyed.’

  Drake came around the desk. There was a splash of mud on one of his shoes. He wasn’t the kind of man who wore dirty shoes. But then, the whole world seemed to be turning on its head, these days.

  ‘Amelia Troy was a dead end. She knew nothing about this home you’ve become obsessed with.’

  ‘Because she can’t remember a thing!’

  ‘What have you been doing?’

  ‘Connor Laird,’ she barked at him, and Drake flinched, as if she’d shot him in the chest. ‘The boy named in the caption of the missing—’

  ‘I recognise the name.’

  ‘There’s an old man called—’

  ‘Flick—’ Drake pinched the bridge of his nose in exasperation.

  ‘Just hear me out.’ Her heart was pumping. ‘There’s an old guy called Ronnie Dent who worked at the Longacre home. When I mentioned Connor Laird’s name he became hysterical. He was ranting and raving, and terrified of the boy even after all these years. I’ve tried to look him up, guv, but there’s no record of a Connor Laird anywhere. No convictions, no social security or national insurance, no driving license, nothing. The boy disappeared into thin air.’

  ‘So he’s dead, or emigrated.’ Drake folded his arms. ‘It’s been three decades.’

  ‘Maybe.’ She took the cutting with the photo torn from it out of the drawer, and slipped it across the desk. ‘Or maybe not. All I know is that all the other children in that caption are dead.’

  ‘Except Amelia Troy.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And, as far as we know, Deborah Willetts.’ He plunged his hands into his pockets, turned to the window. ‘She’s probably married now, living out her life in quiet obscurity.’

  ‘But everybody else …’ she said quickly. ‘I’d like to speak to your—’

  ‘I’ve told you, absolutely not. She’s a frail old lady.’

  ‘Then I’ll speak to Elliot Juniper.’

  ‘Right now, DS Crowley,’ he said, ‘the best thing you could do is concentrate on your job while you still have one. Because, to be honest, I’m running out of patience with this … farce.’

  ‘I’ll go in my free time.’

  ‘You’re investigating four murders, you have no free time.’

  As he strode to the door, Flick jumped up so quickly that her chair rolled into the radiator behind. ‘What were you doing in the Property Room?’

  A muscle ticked in Drake’s jaw. ‘I’m going to forget you spoke to me like that.’

  Then he left, slamming the door behind him.

  Flick’s face burned. She had the terrifying, and oddly liberating, feeling that she had gone too far. The sensible thing to do would be to go next door to rally the troops, get up to speed on the morning’s developments. If need be, she’d hold the meeting all over again, just to show who was in charge. For the moment, at least, she was still leading this damned investigation.

  But instead she picked up the article about the visit of the Drakes to the home, let the plastic sheet flap gently in her fingers.

  There was something about this particular cutting that gnawed at her.

  A cough, another sound, Drake stepped forward.

  A cough, a tearing sound.

  The surprise on his face – no, the shock – when he saw her.

  Flick fumbled the half-page back into the pocket, put it in a drawer. She took a small key from the shallow plastic tray where she kept staples and pape
rclips, and locked it.

  Just as the office door flew openly so violently that it bounced against the wall and shuddered. Drake stood there.

  ‘Come on,’ he said.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘To finish this once and for all.’

  30

  The journey out of London took far too long because of endless northbound roadworks. By the time the motorway snarl cleared, Drake had twenty minutes of hard, fast cruising before he eased his Mercedes off the M11.

  Once again Flick spent most of the journey on her phone, keeping on top of things in the office and filling Drake in on developments – if you could even call them that. In particular, Kendrick and Moore had tried to link the Overton murders with a series of burglaries that had recently plagued the borough. But the modus operandi was completely different, and that line of inquiry stalled quickly. It didn’t stop Vix from speaking at great length about all the work she had put in.

  Ray Drake had come to keep an eye on Flick, and also to put to bed once and for all her obsession with the Longacre. But there was another reason. He wanted to get the measure of Elliot after all these years. Wanted to see him, but not be seen.

  After all, Elliot had been one of Gordon’s Two O’Clock Boys.

  In between calls, Flick gazed tensely out of the window, and Drake thought of that journey from the police station to the Longacre in Sally’s car – the stifling heat, the stench of tobacco smoke – all those decades ago.

  Following the navigation system’s instructions, they drove past a war memorial on a village green the size of a billiard table, and along a series of winding lanes, past woods and fields. Drake kept an eye on the rear-view mirror, half expecting a murderous face to pop up in the back.

  ‘Not long now,’ he said, turning into a lane that was almost hidden from the main road. The car’s suspension bounced on the uneven surface. Drake eased past Elliot Juniper’s cottage, alongside a listing barn set back from the road, and reversed up the drive, cranked the handbrake on the steep slope. Smoke billowed from the chimney of the cottage.

  When Flick opened her door, he said, ‘I’ll stay here.’

  ‘Aren’t you coming in?’ she asked, surprised.

  ‘I’ve some calls to make,’ he lied. ‘You go ahead.’

  She hesitated a moment, then climbed out. Drake adjusted the side mirror to get a better view of the cottage door, watched her climb the drive and knock.

  It had been a long time since Drake had seen Elliot Juniper, but he hadn’t changed, not really. Much of his bulk had slid down his torso in middle age: a bulging stomach drooped over the belt of his jeans. His hair was shaved, perhaps because there wasn’t much left to grow. From this distance, Elliot’s flattened nose appeared to spiral on his face, like an optical effect.

  Drake cracked the window, but Flick and Elliot were too far away for him to hear anything above the shiver of the leaves on the wall of trees in the lane.

  Inside. Drake watched them linger on the doorstep. Go inside.

  But instead Elliot left the door ajar behind him and walked with Flick halfway down the slope. Drake heard her voice, but not her words. Shoulders slumped, the big man crossed his arms and listened, that same anxious expression etched into his face all these years later.

  Don’t mention my name, Drake thought.

  Flick nodded at the car. Elliot glanced towards the Mercedes. Ray Drake was safely hidden behind his headrest, but Elliot stooped as he tried to see inside. Not my name. She said something, and Elliot responded. His eyes widened and he bent his knees, once again trying to see inside.

  ‘Damn it,’ said Drake, annoyed that he couldn’t hear a thing. He pushed open the car door, crunched across the stony ground towards them. As he approached, Flick was saying: ‘… to know if you have seen Connor Laird.’

  Looking from Flick to Drake, Elliot laughed in astonishment. ‘Is this some kind of joke?’

  Drake took out his ID and held it up, kept it suspended in front of Elliot’s face to let the name and the photo fully sink in. ‘DI Ray Drake.’

  ‘Is that right?’ Elliot gaped at the contusions and bruises on his face, the angry red dash at his throat. ‘You look like you’ve been through the wars, if you don’t mind me saying.’

  ‘Answer the question, please,’ said Drake. ‘Have you lately seen a man called …’ he turned to Flick. ‘What is he called again? Connor …’

  ‘Laird,’ she said.

  Elliot shook his head, bewildered. ‘I don’t …’

  ‘Have you?’ Drake asked tersely.

  ‘No,’ said Elliot, staring at Drake.

  ‘Or anybody else from the Longacre?’ Flick said.

  ‘Ain’t been in touch with any of that lot for years. It’s all ancient history.’ He turned finally to her. ‘And as I told you, I haven’t been in trouble with the law for donkey’s.’

  ‘Nobody’s suggesting you have, sir.’

  Elliot’s gaze kept returning to Drake. ‘You said this was to do with Kenny Overton’s death?’

  ‘So you haven’t heard from Kenny?’ asked Flick.

  Hesitating, the big man turned his phone in his fingers. But standing out of Flick’s sightline, Drake shook his head slowly, emphatically. The answer is: no.

  ‘I only know what I saw on television, about him and his family. A terrible business. But what’s it got to do with me?’

  ‘Nothing. It’s a routine visit,’ said Drake. ‘We’re speaking to anybody who may have known Kenny.’

  ‘You’re going a hell of a way back.’

  ‘What was he like?’ asked Flick.

  ‘Who? Kenny?’

  ‘Connor Laird.’

  Elliot crossed his arms. ‘As I say, it was a long time ago. We was kids.’

  ‘What do you remember about him?’

  ‘I remember he did this to my nose.’ Elliot held a finger up to his face and laughed, bleakly. ‘Everyone was scared of good old Connor. He was cold, unpredictable. You never knew what he would do next.’

  ‘Would you recognise him if you saw him?’ asked Flick.

  Elliot looked at her in surprise, but before he could answer, a teenager came up the slope, a pair of bulky headphones folded over his head. He walked backwards, admiring the Mercedes unexpectedly parked there. When he saw Elliot with two strangers, he pulled the phones to his shoulders. Music ticked from the earpads.

  ‘This is my boy,’ said Elliot bashfully. ‘Dylan.’

  How do you do, Dylan?’ Flick held out her hand. ‘Detective Sergeant Flick Crowley.’

  ‘Police,’ said Dylan flatly.

  ‘A clever boy, takes after his old man.’ Elliot winked at Dylan. ‘It ain’t nothing to worry about. They’re asking about stuff that happened a long time ago, when I was your age. I’ll see you inside.’

  Dylan looked uncertainly at them and then trudged to the house.

  ‘Nice kid,’ said Flick.

  ‘Couldn’t ask for better,’ said Elliot. ‘Was there anything else?’

  Flick was about to speak, but Drake said impatiently, ‘No, we’ll leave you alone. Thank you for your cooperation.’

  He held out his hand. Elliot considered it doubtfully, then shook, and Drake walked to the car to wait for Flick to follow him back.

  ‘He’s lying,’ said Flick, pulling her seat belt around her. ‘You can tell.’

  ‘About what?’ Drake reached for the ignition.

  ‘I don’t know exactly,’ she said. ‘But he was as pale as a ghost.’

  ‘He’s a man with a criminal record who’s just received an unexpected visit from two Met police officers,’ said Drake. ‘That fear of the law never goes away.’

  He flung open the door suddenly. Flick asked, ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Forgot to give him a card.’ Drake reached into his jacket. ‘Won’t be a moment.’

  He walked back to the cottage, beneath the swaying trees. A gust of wind sent a spurt of leaves flying around his head like demented bats.


  Before he even knocked on the door, it opened. There was an edge of panic in Elliot’s voice: ‘All these years later and imagine my surprise at who comes knocking. What the fuck is going on?’

  ‘Step inside,’ said Drake. ‘We don’t have much time.’

  A fire crackled in the room, which was small and tidy. Smoke tumbled against the blackened brick and pulled into the chimney.

  When Drake started to speak, Elliot put a finger to his lips, nodded upstairs. ‘The walls in this house are as thin as a fag paper.’

  ‘Where were you this morning? At about six a.m.?’

  ‘Where do you think? I was in bed.’ Elliot looked annoyed, but also afraid, and Drake believed him. Elliot’s conviction sheet didn’t exactly scream criminal genius.

  ‘We’re in trouble.’

  Elliot laughed bleakly. ‘I figured you’d grow up to be many things, but a copper wasn’t one of them.’

  ‘I’ve got a certain skill at it.’

  ‘I bet you have at that.’

  ‘Listen to me.’ Drake stepped forward. ‘People we knew from the Longacre are being killed. Kenny and his wife and sons are just the latest.’

  ‘One son.’ Elliot blinked. ‘The news said one son.’

  ‘The second was murdered last night. Thrown off a tower block.’

  Elliot blinked. ‘Who else, then?’

  ‘People from the home.’

  ‘Which people from the home?’

  ‘Most of them.’ Elliot’s eyes bulged in horror. Drake lifted the net curtain in the window to peer down the drive. ‘Jason, David, Regina, Karen, Ricky. Debs was killed this morning. They’re just the ones I know about.’

  ‘And who do you figure for this?’

  Drake dropped the curtain. ‘He calls himself the Two O’Clock Boy.’

  ‘Fuck, fuck, fuck.’ Elliot dragged his hands down his face. ‘You are fucking kidding me.’

  ‘I think we’re next.’ There was a movement on the floorboards above, and Drake lowered his voice. ‘I think he’s coming after us.’

  ‘I know him.’ Elliot groaned. ‘Calls himself Gavin.’

  ‘He calls himself a lot of things these days.’

  ‘He told me about Kenny. I gave him money.’