Streetwise

by Roberta Kray

  ‘Me?’

  ‘Yes, you see Mr Squires was conscious for a while when he was first taken into hospital. He was heard to repeat a name several times. Do you know what that name was?’

  Ava shook her head. ‘How should I know?’

  Middleton left one of those short pregnant pauses. ‘Well, the peculiar thing is that the name he kept saying was Ava.’

  The words hit Ava like a fist in her stomach. She felt the blood drain from her face. ‘What? I don’t understand… He can’t have meant me. How could he? He can’t have. It must be someone else. I’m not the only person in the world called Ava.’

  Middleton lifted her shoulders a fraction. ‘But you see the problem we have? I mean, look at it from our point of view. Last night two men were shot and one of them was Danny Street. You drive for his brother, Chris. Jeremy Squires keeps repeating the name Ava. Perhaps there’s another Ava that we haven’t come across yet. What do you think the chances are?’

  ‘But this is crazy!’ Ava exclaimed. ‘It’s mad, completely mad! I swear to you, I don’t know this guy.’ She looked wildly around the kitchen as if somewhere, in one of its corners, there might be the evidence she needed to prove her innocence. ‘I don’t, I honestly don’t!’

  DS Higgs watched her with a kind of dull weariness as if she’d seen this act a thousand times before and hadn’t believed it the first time.

  But then, out of the blue, Ava suddenly found a straw to grasp at. ‘You can ask him when he comes round again. I’ll even come to the hospital. He’ll tell you! He’ll tell you this had nothing to do with me.’

  Higgs glanced quickly at her boss, eager to be the one to reply. Middleton gave her a curt nod. ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Mr Squires died from his injuries this morning.’

  ‘He’s dead?’ said Ava, barely able to squeeze out the words. She felt her throat constrict as fear and alarm swept through her body. If he was dead then he couldn’t clear her name and if he couldn’t clear her name then…

  ‘Yes,’ Higgs said. ‘Mr Squires won’t be telling us anything.’

  DI Middleton stared at Ava gravely. ‘So, if there’s anything you’d like to tell us, anything you might have forgotten to mention, now might be the time to do it.’

  Ava shook her head. ‘I’ve told you everything. I’ve told you the truth.’

  ‘Well,’ said Middleton as she rose to her feet, ‘we’ll want to talk to you again. Not planning on going anywhere, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Good. We’ll be in touch.’

  Ava remained seated at the table as the two officers left. She dropped her head into her hands and covered her face. She felt cold and panicky, like an animal trapped in a snare. This couldn’t be happening to her, it couldn’t. In a matter of minutes her life had slipped from the normal, from the everyday, into a weird surreal nightmare.

  Ava heard the coppers talking to Tash and then the heavy click of the front door closing.

  Seconds later, Tash came hurrying into the kitchen. ‘What is it? What’s going on? Why did they want to know where Lydia lives?’

  ‘Squires is dead,’ Ava said. ‘He died this morning.’

  Tash raised a hand to her mouth. ‘Oh God!’

  ‘You’d better call Lydia and warn her that the police will be paying a visit. Leave a message if she doesn’t answer.’

  ‘But why did they want to talk to you?’

  ‘I’ll tell you in a minute,’ Ava said. ‘You’d better call Lydia first.’ As Tash went into the living room, Ava snatched up her phone and rang Chris Street’s number. It went straight to voicemail. ‘Damn it,’ she murmured. Then, as heard the beep, she said, ‘It’s me. It’s Ava. Call me back as soon as you get this. It’s urgent.’ As soon as she’d hung up, she quickly dialled again. This time the phone was answered on the second ring. ‘Dad? Thank God you’re there. I need to talk to you. Can I come round?’

  35

  As Silver carelessly manoeuvred the black Mazda MX-5 around the bend, she clipped the edge of the pavement, sending a judder through the car. Danny swore softly under his breath. ‘For fuck’s sake! You know how much this motor cost? Concentrate, can’t you? At least try and keep the damn thing on the road.’

  Silver tossed her head and glared at him. ‘You drive, then. Oh, no, I forgot – you can’t. You’ve only got one good arm. I’m doing you a bloody favour here. At least try and show some gratitude.’

  ‘A favour? You’re in this as deep as I am. If I hadn’t got hold of those photos, you’d be looking forward to making new friends down Holloway by now.’

  Silver looked at him again and shrugged. ‘I still don’t see why we need to do this. Why don’t you just give him a bell?’

  ‘Because this needs the personal touch. Squires is brown bread, ain’t he? Singing with the angels. Morton’s going to be shitting himself, wondering if his little sideline is about to be exposed. What if he panics and starts shooting his mouth off to the filth?’

  ‘Do you think he might?’

  ‘You can never tell with people like that. It ain’t worth the risk.’

  ‘So what are you going to do?’

  Danny grinned. ‘What I’m going to do, hun, is make sure that he’s more afraid of me than he is of the law.’

  ‘With one arm?’

  ‘Yeah, with one arm. Why, do you reckon I can’t? There’s more than one way to scare the shit out of tossers like him.’ Danny glanced over his shoulder at the cars behind. ‘Go round the block a couple of times. I want to make sure we ain’t got a tail.’

  ‘We haven’t,’ she said.

  ‘And how the fuck would you know? The only time you use the rear-view is when you’re admiring your pretty little face.’

  Silver flicked back her long fair hair, glanced in the mirror and smiled. ‘Only pretty? Squires said I was beautiful.’

  ‘Yeah, well, Squires was trying to get into your knickers.’

  ‘Or maybe he had more taste than you.’

  ‘Taste?’ Danny snorted. ‘The guy collected dead animals. How fuckin’ tasteful is that?’

  Silver indicated left and swung the car round again. ‘You see? There’s no one behind us. I was right. Come on, tell me I was right.’

  Danny lit a cigarette, a procedure that took twice as long as it normally would because of his injured right arm. ‘Just ’cause the guy ain’t up our backsides, don’t mean he ain’t there. Slow down a bit. I want to make sure.’

  Silver took her foot off the gas and cruised through the back streets at a steady twenty. ‘What did the cops say at the hospital?’

  ‘They figure the bullets were meant for me.’

  ‘Maybe they were. Who’d want to kill Squires?’

  ‘How should I know? He could have been up to all sorts. Just ’cause he’s Mr Respectable don’t mean he’s whiter than white.’

  ‘You think the cops will want to talk to me?’

  ‘Why should they? It ain’t nothin’ to do with you.’

  Silver pursed her lips, annoyed at being dismissed so casually. ‘It is too. Who’s to say I wasn’t there? The old man’s got plenty of guns. I could have gone down Belles and tried to blow your bloody brains out.’

  Danny drew on his fag and laughed. ‘Yeah, be just like you to kill the wrong fuckin’ bloke.’

  ‘Maybe I won’t miss next time.’

  ‘Maybe I’ll get in there first.’

  Silver shook her head. ‘You couldn’t kill me, babe. You know you couldn’t.’

  ‘Nah,’ he said. ‘You’re right. Who would drive me around if you were six foot under?’

  ‘Maybe Ava would oblige – if you asked her nicely.’

  ‘Did Squires ask you nicely?’

  ‘You should know,’ Silver said. ‘You’ve got it all on film.’

  Danny opened the window and threw the fag end out. ‘Not any more, hun. I’ve got rid of it. And all the photos too.’ Solomon Vale had brought the envelopes round last night after the filth ha
d finally let the staff go. The black man had handed them over without a word, got back in his car and pissed off home. Danny had made a bonfire at three o’clock in the morning, destroying all the evidence.

  ‘Shame about that,’ Silver said.

  ‘It’s not safe to hang on to anything, not with the filth on the prowl.’

  ‘We can get some more,’ she said. ‘Once they’ve lost interest, we can start again.’

  Although the blackmail gig had been a lucrative one, Danny suspected that it had probably run its course. ‘I dunno. We’ll see.’

  Silver pulled up round the corner from Beast and killed the engine. She took off her seat belt and went to open the door.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘We’re going to see Morton, aren’t we?’

  Danny shook his head. ‘Nah, not we, babe. Best I do this on my own.’

  Silver narrowed her eyes, her mouth becoming sulky. ‘What?’

  He leaned across, took hold of her chin with his left hand and pulled her head around. He kissed her roughly, his tongue probing her mouth as his hand roamed down over her breasts and her stomach before coming to rest between her legs. He waited until he felt her respond before moved his lips away from hers and whispering in her ear. ‘We don’t want him getting distracted, hun. One look at you and he won’t be listening to a word I say.’

  Silver, although partly mollified, wasn’t giving up yet. ‘But it’s not fair,’ she said, like a disappointed child. ‘You can’t just leave me here on my own.’

  ‘I’ll be five minutes,’ he said. ‘Ten at the most. This is important, babe. I need him to be concentrating, not staring at your tits.’

  Silver glanced down, admiring the generous curve of her own breasts, before looking up at him again. ‘Ten minutes,’ she said. ‘And if you’re not back by then I’m going to take this fuckin’ car and dump it on the Mansfield.’

  ‘You do that,’ he said, ‘and you’ll end up in the same bloody morgue as Squires.’

  ‘You’ve been warned.’

  ‘So have you.’ Danny got out of the car, closed the door and bent down to grin at her. She gave him the finger. He gave her the finger back. As he walked off down the road, he took a quick look at his watch. Twenty past ten. He made a mental note of it. Silver was nuts enough to actually carry out the threat.

  The front display window of Beast was covered by a metal grille. The gallery was closed on Sundays, but Danny was sure that Morton Carlisle would be here. He was always here. And if he wasn’t in the main part of the shop, he’d be in the basement ripping the guts out of some dead animal. He rang the bell, two short rings. While he waited he stamped his feet in the snow and looked up and down the street, his eyes quickly scanning everyone who passed by. Had the filth got a tail on him already? He didn’t think so, but you could never be too careful.

  Thirty seconds passed and then a minute. Danny put his left hand to the side of his face and peered in between the metal slats covering the reinforced glass door. He rang the bell again, this time keeping his finger on it. ‘Come on, you fucker,’ he hissed. If one thing was for certain it was that he wasn’t leaving until he’d done what he’d come to do.

  Eventually, there was movement from inside. Morton appeared from the rear of the gallery and looked towards the door. He saw Danny and stopped dead in his tracks. For a moment, Danny thought he was going to do a runner, retreat back into his office, but finally he made up his mind, carried on forward, unlocked the door and opened it.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Morton hissed through the metal grille. ‘Are you mad?’

  ‘Let me in. We need to talk. Do you want to do it here or shall we go somewhere more private?’

  Morton hesitated again, but only for a second. With shaking hands he fiddled around with the locks until he was eventually able to lift up the grille. As soon as Danny had stepped inside, he quickly slammed it shut again.

  ‘Good choice,’ Danny said.

  Morton stared at him. ‘He’s dead, you know.’

  ‘Of course I fuckin’ know. Why do you think I’m here?’

  Morton’s hands began a frantic dance, rising up to his chin, falling down to his hips. His eyes were wide and full of panic. ‘What if they find out? What if the police realise he was being blackmailed and —’

  ‘And what?’ Danny said. ‘They can’t prove nothin’, not if we all stay calm and keep our mouths shut.’ He gave Morton’s shoulder a shove. ‘Come on, shift it! Get away from the door.’

  The two of them went through to the office at the back where Morton slumped down at his desk and put his head in his hands. ‘You shouldn’t have come here,’ he said. ‘It’s asking for trouble.’

  Danny stayed on his feet, looming over him. ‘Not as much trouble as we’ll be in if you lose your nerve, mate. You’re not going to do that, are you, Morton? I’d be really disappointed if you did.’

  Morton Carlisle looked up at him, his forehead shiny with sweat. ‘The man’s dead,’ he said hoarsely. ‘If the police find out about the pictures, about… they’ll think we did it, they’ll think we killed him.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Danny said. ‘So let’s make sure they don’t find out, huh? I mean, so far as they’re concerned, you’re just a business associate, nothing else. There’s no reason to suspect you of anything unless you give ’em reason to. So we keep calm, yeah? Keep a lid on it.’

  Morton Carlisle had gone a sickly colour. His face had a greenish hue as if he was about to throw up. ‘I didn’t sign up to this. I don’t know. A man’s been murdered, shot dead in cold blood. It’s not… I can’t…’

  Danny suspected that the time for reasoning was over. He sat on the corner of the desk, pulled the flick knife from his pocket and leaned forward, placing the blade against Morton’s throat. ‘This ain’t a discussion, mate. I don’t give a fuck what you think.’ He pushed the tip of the blade into the soft flesh, pressing it hard enough to pierce the skin. A thin stream of blood trickled out.

  ‘Please,’ Morton begged, his body going rigid. His eyes stared pleadingly into Danny’s. ‘No, please.’

  There was something about his pathetic desperation that made Danny want to plunge the knife in deeper. He could cut straight down into the throat or, if he moved the blade sideways, he could slice neatly through the carotid artery. Either way, it would all be over in a matter of seconds. Even with his left hand, he was more than capable of performing the act. And he was tempted, sorely tempted. It would mean one less loose end to worry about.

  ‘Please,’ Morton croaked. ‘I won’t… I won’t say anything. I swear.’

  Danny gazed down at him, revelling in the power he held. One simple move and he could shut Morton’s mouth forever. But was it worth the risk? Probably not. The filth would be crawling all over the place and God knows what they’d find. Well, he knew one thing they’d find and that was a lot of unexplained cash. That’s if Morton kept it here. But where else would he keep it? It wasn’t safe to put blackmail money into a bank account.

  ‘Please,’ Morton begged again.

  Slowly Danny lowered the knife, returned the blade to the sheath and shoved it back in his pocket. ‘It’s your lucky day, Morton.’ He rose to his feet and gave a slow shake of his head. ‘Just don’t make me sorry I didn’t finish the job huh?’ At the door, he stopped and turned around. ‘Oh and a word to the wise. You may want to change your shirt. There’s a little blood on the collar.’

  36

  Ava couldn’t keep still. She’d been at her father’s for over an hour, jumping up every so often and going over to the window to look out across the Mansfield Estate. Any minute she expected to see a couple of squad cars drive through the main gates and pull up outside Haslow House. It wasn’t that long since she’d been stressing about her father being arrested and now she had her own freedom to worry about too.

  ‘Sit down,’ Jimmy Gold said. ‘You’re making me nervous.’

  Ava scanned the horizon one more time before re
turning to the kitchen table. ‘Sorry. I can’t help it. I just keep thinking…’ She sat down, put her hands around the mug and tried to get warm. Even though the central heating was on, she felt cold and shivery, as if a sliver of ice was lodged in her bloodstream.

  ‘Well don’t. Nothing’s going to happen. They were only fishing, love. All they’ve got is a name. How’s that going to stand up in a court of law?’

  Ava jerked up her head. ‘You think they might arrest me?’