by Dc Alden
‘I said Jesus knows. About my sins. My guilt.’
Now it was Sammy’s turn to laugh. He peered under his desk. ‘Tank, where did you put my tambourine and sandals?’
‘Excuse me?’
The laughter faded. Sammy stared at Frank across the desk. ‘Okay, let’s cut the bullshit. Tell me why you’re here.’
Frank’s eyes flicked to the brass lamp, the reflection that had moved a little closer. He kept his hands in his lap, flexed his fingers, his feet braced beneath the chair.
‘Roy Sullivan is an innocent man,’ Frank said. ‘He’s lost his whole family before the age of forty. He’s been tortured by the mystery of his missing brother for three years, a mystery that has cost him his marriage and a decent relationship with his son. He has nothing, and nobody.’
‘I’m choking up already.’
‘Listen to me, Sammy. You’re done with Roy. He’s suffered enough. Cut him loose.’
Sammy shook his head. ‘Roy fucked up. He let people down last night. I’d made plans, spent money—’
‘Derek’s dead.’
Across the desk, Sammy froze. So did the reflection in the brass lamp. Sammy stared at Frank for several moments before he spoke. ‘Say that again?’
‘I saw him get cut in half with a shotgun last night. His friends at the trailer park, they’re dead too.’
He watched the gangster’s reaction, saw his furrowed brow, his eyes scanning the neat row of mobile phones on his desk. He picked one up, thumbed its buttons.
‘Derek won’t be calling again.’
Sammy leaned back in his chair, his eyes clouded with doubt, a hand rubbing his jaw. ‘You were there?’
Frank nodded.
‘And Derek’s dead?’
‘Killed by a big guy with a tattoo right here.’ Frank touched his cheek, just below his left eye.
‘What happened to him?’
Frank shrugged. ‘Dead too, most likely. So you see, you don’t need Roy anymore.’
Sammy pointed to a TV in the corner of the room where a Sky News ticker trailed across the bottom of the screen. ‘So tell me, Frank, why isn’t it all over the news?’
‘I don’t know. Ask the cops.’
‘Don’t get smart,’ Sammy warned, but his voice had lost its dangerous edge. The prospect of so many convenient deaths seemed to please him.
‘You’re in the clear,’ Frank said. ‘Just give me Roy’s knife and the phone, then we’ll be out of your life.’
Sammy shook his head. ‘He really has got a big mouth, hasn’t he?’ He tugged open a drawer, produced the bloodstained plastic bag, the knife and iPhone inside. ‘You mean these?’ he said, holding the bag aloft.
Frank nodded. ‘That’s it.’
‘Not a fucking chance.’ He dropped the bag back into the drawer and slapped it shut. ‘You think I’m going to let that little shit off the hook on your say so, Frank? I don’t care if half of London is dead, Roy disobeyed orders. And instead of coming here to beg for my forgiveness, he sent some long streak of piss Yank to beg on his behalf. I can’t let that slide, pal. So go back and tell Roy that I own him. Tell him I’ve got him for the rest of his naturals. And tell him I’ll be seeing him very soon.’
He wagged a finger across the desk.
‘As for you Frank, well, you can count yourself lucky you’re walking out of here. You come to my place of business again uninvited and we’ll be having a different sort of chat. Now get the fuck out.’
Frank stood, shoved the baseball cap in his pocket. Time to light the fuse.
‘Don’t be an asshole, Sammy. Just give me the bag and you won’t get hurt.’
Sammy’s face darkened. ‘Last chance, Frankie. Leave. While you still can.’
‘What’s the matter? That pussy little temper of yours getting the better of you again?’
Sammy sprang to his feet, his chair slamming against the wall, the Fusilier wobbling above him. He snatched the bag from the drawer, pulled out the infantry knife, held it low by his leg. ‘You want the knife, Frankie boy? Why don’t you come and get it.’
Frank smiled. ‘Like taking candy from a baby.’
Sammy snarled and came around the desk at speed.
Frank heard the creak of leather behind him.
He kicked backwards, sending his chair crashing into Tank’s shins. The woman cursed, stumbled. Frank turned just as Sammy threw himself at him, the serrated black blade held high, then plunging down in a violent arc towards Frank’s chest. Frank blocked the strike with his left arm and shot his right out, his extended fingers stabbing deep into Sammy’s windpipe. Sammy dropped the knife and staggered backwards, his hands clutched against his throat. Frank spun around, just as Tank launched a roundhouse kick at his head. He ducked, the leg breezing the top of his skull, and moved in fast. Tank, younger and fitter, saw the move and spun past him. Frank picked up the brass desk lamp and hurled it at her. She twisted her body and the lamp crashed against the wall. Frank had underestimated her. She was fast, and tougher than he expected. There was no fear in her eyes, only the cool appraisal of a natural fighter looking for an advantage.
Swaying behind her, Sammy kicked the infantry knife at his feet. ‘Kill him,’ he wheezed. ‘Spill his fucking guts.’
Tank scooped up the Gerber and came at Frank fast. She held the blade low and thrust it at his stomach, Frank twisted his body and caught the limb as she lunged. He locked her arm then elbowed her hard in the face, reassured by the sound and feel of crunching bone. Sammy reached behind him, pulled a pistol from his waistband. He wheezed and spat, his eyes streaming, the Browning swaying in his unsteady hand. Frank charged at him, using Tank as a shield. She cannoned into Sammy and the gun discharged, the noise deafening.
Sammy screamed.
The gun fell to the rug and Frank moved in fast, snatching it up, racking a new round into the breech. He spun around to face them. Tank swayed unsteadily on her feet, her nose splattered by Frank’s elbow, the blood pouring down the front of her beige tracksuit. Sammy had sunk to his knees, his grey shirt and trousers soaked with dark blood, his hands shaking, his watery eyes pleading.
‘Get it out,’ he gasped. ‘For fuck’s sake, get it out.’
The knife was buried deep in Sammy’s left side, just below the ribcage. He stared at it, shivering, his fingers dancing around the black handle, knowing he should pull it out but too frightened to touch it. Frank watched him turn very white, then topple onto his side.
Tank’s eyes flicked from Sammy to the gun in Frank’s hand. Frank could see the pain and confusion behind her eyes, yet there was something else there too—a seething anger, the frustration of a fighter denied the opportunity of hand to hand combat by the gun between them. Frank smiled, ejected the magazine, the round from the breech. He tossed the gun across the room and dropped into a fighting stance, his fingers beckoning.
‘Okay, girlie, if that’s what you really want. Let’s see what you got.’
Tank pinched the bridge of her nose and expelled blood and mucus in an angry snort. She stepped over Sammy’s body to circle Frank, arms raised, fists bunched, chin tucked low as she bobbed her head from side to side. She closed the gap quickly, made her move, but Frank saw it coming. He dodged the kick, parried the punch and grabbed her arm, using her momentum to spin her around while putting a powerful lock on her elbow joint. Tank screamed in pain as Frank slammed her face onto Sammy’s desk and applied even more pressure, bending the arm back and upwards until the elbow joint cracked, the splintered bone slicing through her tracksuit. Before she could scream again Frank grabbed the back of her head, his fingers finding purchase in her thick Mohican, and lifted it high, smashing her skull once, twice on the corner of the desk. He saw her eyes roll up into their sockets and let her body slump to the rug. He knelt down, checked her pulse. It was strong, steady. She was a tough broad. She’d live.
Frank ran to the door, pulled it open. No voices, no feet pounding up the stairs. Nothing.
He wen
t behind the desk, saw a gym bag underneath. He emptied out the sweats and sneakers and slung it over his shoulder, taking every phone he could find, including Roy’s bagged up iPhone and the one in Tank’s pocket. He rifled the drawers, found a thick stack of fifty-pound notes. That went into the bag too. He traced the cables around the ceiling’s cornice work, discovered the CCTV room next to Sammy’s en suite facilities, ejected the discs from the recorders. They went into the bag along with the cash and the phones.
Out in the office, Frank saw that Sammy had expired. He stood over his blood soaked body, pulled the knife from his guts. He knelt down next to the unconscious Tank, pressing the handle of the knife into her palm, rolling her fingers into the handle’s grooves until the cops would be left with no doubt that she’d used the knife in at least two murders. Then he picked up the landline phone on Sammy’s desk and punched three numbers in rapid succession.
‘What emergency service do you require?’ said the voice on the other end.
Frank waited a moment, until the operator had repeated the question, then whispered two faint words.
‘Help me.’
He left the receiver on the desk, left the room. Loud music greeted him in the club downstairs. He saw the kid who’d let him in, stacking bottles of beer in glass-fronted fridges behind the bar, his body swaying to the thumping beat, back turned away from the room. Frank kept moving.
Three minutes later he was lost in the quiet streets of Putney, the sound of a single police siren wailing in the distance. Ten more after that he was striding along the towpath that ran alongside the River Thames, destination Hammersmith.
The river was empty, and the freshening breeze felt cleansing, washing away the stench of death and violence that lingered after his recent, brutal exertions. His goal, however, had been achieved; Roy Sullivan was free, unburdened from the mystery of his brother’s death, released from the debt of a dangerous criminal, free to escape the city, find sanctuary with his family before the Transition began. He should’ve felt good about it, his own guilt lifted, but he didn’t.
The green iron span of Hammersmith Bridge soon came into view through the trees. He found a quiet spot in the bushes close to the water. He took the phones out of the bag, removed the SIM cards, and threw the handsets far out into the middle of the river. A nearby gaggle of brown-feathered water birds protested with angry calls and flapping wings. Frank moved on, snapping the DVDs into pieces, dropping broken SIMS into different waste bins.
Clouds crept across the sun. Back in Harlem he’d truly believed he could right the wrongs, absolve himself of his sins, but now he realised that that could never be. Even if he could stop the Transition, or save a billion lives, it would never wash the blood from his hands. Despair plucked at his consciousness, and Frank was scared again.
The sun came out then, bathing him in its warmth and light, and the fear melted away. It was another sign, he realised. He muttered a small prayer of thanks, that God had granted him the ability to save another, that He had watched over and guided him this far, leading him along His path towards his last, final mission.
The end was coming, and Frank smiled.
He was ready.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Roy saw the ivy-covered pillars looming out of the darkness and turned the wheel, steering the VW Golf through the iron gates and into the grounds of the manor house. He noticed Frank’s suspicious eyes flick towards the wing mirror, to the shadowy figures that closed the gates behind them.
‘How many?’ he asked.
Roy shrugged. ‘A dozen, maybe more. We barely see them but Nate says they’re pros. Vicky’s looking forward to seeing you,’ he added, trying to change the subject.
Frank took in the extensive grounds, the dark woods that surrounded the estate’s high walls. ‘On the face of it this could be a good place to wait out the Transition. A little hard to defend maybe, but if there were enough of you…’
Roy touched his foot on the brakes, the Golf crunching to a stop on the gravel outside the main doors. ‘To tell you the truth we haven’t thought about it.’
‘No?’ Frank unclipped his seatbelt, twisted in his seat. ‘This isn’t a game, Roy. The Transition is coming. It can’t be stopped.’
Roy turned off the engine. ‘We can try though, right, Frank? Someone’s got to try.’
Frank glanced past Roy to the manor house, where another shadow waited by the open door.
‘Who else is here?’
‘Me, Vicky, Nate, plus a couple of others.’
‘Who?’
He took a breath. ‘A politician. And a newspaper man.’
Frank shook his head. ‘You’re wasting your time.’
‘Not everyone can be part of this bloody conspiracy, Frank. There must be some good people left.’
Frank remained silent, studying the manor house, the dimly lit hallway. ‘How much do they know?’
‘Right now they think it’s a national security issue. Vicky set it up, swore them both to secrecy. She’s been sitting by Max’s bed going through your data for the last forty-eight hours. Have you actually seen any of it, Frank?’
‘It doesn’t matter. It won’t make a difference.’
‘Vicky thinks it can. She said she’d wait for you before she said anything. Please, Frank, come and meet them, tell your story. Jimmy died trying to uncover this whole mess. If it wasn’t for him you wouldn’t even be here.’ Roy climbed out of the VW. ‘C’mon, Frank. Please.’
Roy waited. The cooling engine ticked on the night air. He hoped he’d said the right things.
‘What the hell,’ Frank muttered, opening his door.
The security guard ushered them in, and Roy led Frank into a large, wood-panelled dining room. He saw Frank’s eyes take in the gilded oil frames on the walls, the dark antique furniture, the heavy plum drapes shutting out the grounds beyond. Vicky and the others rose from their chairs around the large mahogany dining table. Before Roy could do the introductions Vicky stepped forward and greeted Frank by wrapping her arms around him. She held him like that for several moments, then took his hands in hers.
‘Thank you, Frank.’
‘How’s the little feller?’
‘He’s doing okay. How about you?’
‘Did Roy tell you?’
Vicky squeezed his hands. ‘I’ve seen the news, Frank.’
Roy had seen it too.
Sammy’s death had made the papers but there wasn’t much more than a brief byline while investigations continued. The gypsy camp was a different story altogether. Details of that dark and violent night had consumed the media for the last couple of days, the red tops splashed with typically lurid headlines such as Gypsy Camp Bloodbath, Traveller Terror and Big Fat Gypsy Massacre, while the TV continued to broadcast the same aerial images of burned out caravans and country lanes blocked by police vehicles. Thankfully they seemed no closer to solving the mystery, hindered by a lack of witnesses and stonewalled by the travelling community itself. There was no word of Derek, the bodies so badly burned that they’d almost disintegrated.
Memories of his violent encounter with Max’s hard-faced gaoler were still raw, her threats and curses, her painted nails clawing at his mouth and face. He remembered the smells in that caravan too, of furniture polish and cooking fat, knowing he’d never eat another bacon sandwich again without thinking of that night. He shook his head to clear his thoughts, catching the end of Frank’s words.
‘I tried to avoid violence,’ he was saying. ‘I didn’t have any choice.’
‘I don’t care,’ Vicky assured him. ‘Max was in harm’s way. You and Roy brought him home.’
‘Is this conversation relevant to our meeting?’
All eyes in the room turned to the woman in the navy trouser suit and shoulder-length grey hair. Her presence here tonight was a result of Roy’s journey to Selly Oak, near Birmingham, the day before. There he’d sat in the MP’s surgery on the busy Pershore Road for over two hours, listening to the ch
atter around him, the complaints of littered pavements, of broken street lighting and speeding motorists outside the local primary school. He’d waited until last, when the final complainant had trudged off into the night, when her familiar face had invited him inside with that distinctive voice and a tired smile, still eager, after so many hours, to listen to the grumbles of her constituents. It was then that Roy knew he’d chosen well.
Her voice was strong and clear, and when she spoke, Roy was reminded of another time and place, the day the air was filled with noise, the streets with chaos, a day when that same voice had reverberated around that historic square. The day all this began.
It was Vicky who made the introductions. ‘Frank, I’d like you to meet Anna Reynolds, Member of Parliament for Selly Oak. She also sits on the Home Affairs Select Committee.’
‘Mister Marshall,’ said Reynolds, extending her hand.
‘It’s just Frank.’
The man standing next to Reynolds stepped forward and offered his own hand. ‘My name is George Burnett. I’m the owner of the West London Herald.’
‘George is my boss,’ Vicky explained. ‘He owns the Herald outright, Frank. No investors, no shareholders, no agendas, political or otherwise. One hundred per cent independent and objective. A champion of the free press, right, George?’
Burnett smiled with crooked teeth. ‘Vicky flatters me but yes, we’ve managed to maintain that independence over the years.’
Roy could see Frank was wary. He moved past them to where Nate was standing at the head of the table. They shook hands.
‘Your security detail, what’s their brief?’
‘Two teams of twelve, roaming patrols of the house and the estate.’
‘Armed?’
Nate shook his head. ‘They’re private contractors, Blackstone Industries. Not authorised in the UK for firearms.’
‘Blackstone, huh? They’ve got a good rep.’
‘They should do,’ Nate said, ‘my father’s on the board.’
Frank turned and addressed the room. ‘Look, I don’t know what you people expect to gain from this little pow-wow but whatever it is, it’s not going to matter. You’re too late.’