by Mark Eklid
‘My body’s missed you too,’ she replied, staring straight at Wesley as she did. Challenging him.
‘Good,’ he purred. ‘Come on over. I’m ready for you.’
Wesley took a bookmark off his lap and closed the pages over it. She watched, expectantly. But he was only pausing to take a cigarette from the packet on the table beside him and light it. He blew smoke towards the ceiling and opened the book again.
How irritating!
‘You know what, I’m going to pass,’ she said.
‘Aw, come on babe.’
‘No. I’ve been thinking about this for the last few days. It was fun and the sex was good and all that, but I think it’s time to bring it to an end. I think we’re done.’
‘You don’t mean that.’
‘Yeah, I mean it. It’s over, Darrell. Don’t call me anymore.’
‘Babe…’
‘And don’t call me babe.’ She hung up and tossed the phone onto the sofa.
Wesley took another drag from his cigarette and said nothing.
‘It’s not easy to crush them but it’s better to do it that way. Less painful on the long run, don’t you agree, Wes?’
He turned a page.
‘We were having an affair for the best part of three months, right under your nose if you’d been smart enough to notice. It was purely physical, but it was great. He’s got a good body – tall, muscular, nice dick. Completely the opposite of you, actually.’
Wesley flicked ash into the ashtray.
‘We had sex all the time. Lots of different ways, different places – in fact, do you remember when I told you I was going to Birmingham to meet a girl friend? I lied. I was with Darrell. We spent the whole weekend in bed.’
He cleared his throat and pushed the bridge of the glasses higher on his nose.
‘I just told you I’ve been seeing someone else. Doesn’t that bother you?’
Wesley took a last drag on the cigarette and stubbed it out.
‘You screw who you like. Why should that bother me?’ he said casually.
She was angry now. He was the one meant to be angry.
‘Look at you. You’ve stopped even trying to be a proper man. You’re pathetic. You’re a pathetic, little, impotent…’
He folded his book, using his finger to keep his place.
‘Then why don’t you just go? Piss off now, but don’t take anything other than what you had with you when you first came through that door. Let me remind you, that was nothing. You were nothing. In one moment of weakness, I let you drag me to the Register Office and that’s the biggest mistake I ever made because you’re a parasite, Beth. You make like you want out, but you haven’t got the guts to leave because that would mean having to fend for yourself until you find some other poor sod to feed off. And you call me pathetic?’
He opened his book again, though it was more for show this time. He wasn’t seeing the words anymore.
She sat stiffly, tight-lipped. If she got up and stormed out of the room now, that would mean he had won by having the last word. She wanted to come up with the perfect response to slap him down again but could not find one.
The ring of a phone broke the tense silence. It was Wesley’s. He looked at the screen.
Foghorn.
He cursed under his breath. Hardstaff was the last person he wanted to talk to right now.
He was rising to his feet as he accepted the call and muttered ‘Hold on’ down the line before marking his page and leaving the book on the chair. Beth took note of his initial reluctance to answer. She listened as he climbed the stairs to seek the privacy of one of the bedrooms and then snatched up her phone, following him as quietly as she could.
‘Yeah.’ Wesley pushed the door closed in the room where he kept his computer.
‘You’ve fucked it up again, haven’t you?’ There was even more spite in Hardstaff’s tone than usual. Wesley thought he knew why.
‘There was a problem.’ Valerie had told him what the problem was. They hadn’t anticipated that. Why should they have? You can’t know everything about a target without running proper surveillance and background checks and he hadn’t been given time for that.
‘No shit.’ There was no point trying to explain it to Hardstaff. ‘People told me you were the best there is because you were reliable. I’m starting to think I was deceived. This is twice you’ve fucked it up for me. Perhaps I ought to start putting the word out that you’ve lost your touch.’
As much as he wanted to tell Hardstaff to fuck himself, Wesley knew that would not be a smart move. He could give himself the option of never doing work for the pompous bastard in the future but only after he had finished this job. His reputation depended on it and his reputation was everything.
‘I’ll put it right. I’m working on it.’
‘Don’t bother,’ Hardstaff spat. ‘The situation has moved on. He’s screwed me over good and proper. The gloves are off. I want him taking care of, once and for all.’
Wesley was not easily taken aback but he was this time. He even questioned that he had understood the meaning right.
‘You want him terminating?’
‘That’s exactly what I want. Is that an issue?’
‘Not an issue. A bit of an escalation, that’s all. It’ll cost you.’
‘I don’t care. This fucker has already cost me a fortune and if he isn’t taken down, I don’t know what else he’ll cost me. I need him out of the picture for good. All I need to know is if you’re up to it and if you can get it right, for once.’
Wesley did not rise to the barb. He had to think about it. But what was there to think about? He could not have word getting out that he turned the job down. The circles he mixed in would not look kindly on such an apparent show of weakness.
‘I can take care of it. I’ll need a few days. This has to be done carefully.’
‘Understood, but this is a priority job. Do it soon but not in a way that makes it obvious. Make it look like an accident or whatever, just not like a hit. Nothing to raise suspicion in case he’s not working alone. And you do this one yourself. No palming it off. Nobody but you and me are to know about this.’
Hardstaff was rattled, Wesley could tell. Somehow, that made him feel a little better about doing it. He was back in charge.
‘It’s done. I’ll handle it.’
There was no sharp rebuke this time. Wesley preferred this Hardstaff. He was vulnerable.
‘Good. Let me know when it’s resolved.’
He hung up.
Wesley lay his phone on the desk. He needed to compose himself. He had never taken on a hit before. He was not completely sure how to go about it. This would have to be thought through properly so that there would be no way the police could trace it back to him. He was used to planning out his jobs meticulously, so that wasn’t a problem. Get the planning right and the rest would be easy. There had been lots of jobs over the years he had taken on not knowing how to implement them, but he always found a way. This would be no different.
This would be his first hit, but what was it he said to Beth the other day?
There’s a first time for everything.
Outside the door, Beth switched off the voice recorder on her phone and sneaked nimbly back down the stairs, her slender frame touching each step so lightly she made no sound at all.
If the recording came out as clearly as she could hear, pressed as closely as she dared to the slightest of openings in the door, it would be dynamite. This was her way out.
This was how she could get Wesley out of the way and help herself to his hidden cash without fear of reprisal.
This was her chance to start again and make sure money was not a concern.
He had told her she was free to screw whoever she wanted. Well, she had decided.
You. I choose to screw you.
22
Beth gave herself the following day off too but at least she paid school the courtesy of phoning in to lie about the reason why this time
. If things worked out the way she planned, it would not matter for much longer anyway.
She caught the Supertram to the city centre and walked to the police station on Snig Hill. It was not a part of the centre she had been to before, at least as far as she could remember. Her focus previously had been avoiding having to go to police stations rather than seeking one out, but this was different. This was doing something that would work to her advantage.
The red brick and cold concrete police building loomed on the eyeline long before Beth had reached the bottom of Angel Street and she began to wonder if she had the stomach to go through with it. The large mural of an old steelworker’s head, made from coloured bricks and covering the full depth of a four-storey gable end, was a welcome distraction. By the time she had finished musing about the stories she had been told of the times Sheffield was known the world over for its steel and how those stories felt so much like ancient history now, she was almost there.
A sign on the front of the building pointed her down a row of steps to the entrance and Beth braced herself, walking briskly to the main doors and inside.
‘I’d like to talk to a police officer,’ she said to the sergeant at the enquiry desk. He appeared to her so old that he should probably have retired by now, with his bald head and moustache streaked with more grey than dark hairs. Perhaps, she thought, it was an inevitable consequence of being a career policeman and he was actually a lot younger than he looked.
The sergeant scrutinised her with dark seen-it-all eyes. It made her uncomfortable, unable to hold eye contact, like he was able to gaze straight through her and see all her sins.
‘Could I ask what you would like to talk to an officer about please?’
Beth inwardly scolded herself for being intimidated. She was doing them a favour, after all.
‘I have information about the jewellery shop robbery, the one where the people were shot.’ She leaned forward and spoke softly to try to make sure she was not overheard. ‘And information about other crimes. Serious crimes.’
The sergeant nodded and picked up the phone on the desk in front of him.
‘I have a young woman at the desk who would like to talk to an officer,’ he said when his call was answered. He seemed to be paying particularly close attention to her hair colour as she glanced around her at the bustling activity in the room. ‘OK, thanks.’
He slid a clipboard and pen across the desk to catch Beth’s attention again.
‘Could I ask you to sign in here, please? Somebody will be down to see you in a couple of minutes.’
The officer who bounced jauntily down the stairs to the reception to meet her was no older than she was. He wore plain clothes, with only the identity badge swinging on a lanyard around his neck distinguishing him from being mistaken for some young bloke who had just wandered in off the street. With his close-cut beard that was little more than dark stubble and carefully gelled dark hair, Beth thought he was good looking. His eyes were fresh and his smile easy.
‘Hi. DC Harry Adams,’ he said.
She shook his hand but did not reply.
He turned to the sergeant. ‘Can we have room three sarge?’
The older officer checked his list and confirmed ‘All yours,’ offering Beth a badge with the word ‘visitor’ printed on it for her to wear around her neck. The detective constable watched as she pulled it over her head and gestured towards a door to his left.
‘This way, please.’
The interview room was nothing like as foreboding as she imagined it would be. It was windowless and not a place a claustrophobic would want to be shut in alone for very long but it looked more like a display stand for an office furniture supplier’s basic range than the spirit-sapping cold tile and bolted down fittings she was half-expecting. The DC invited her to sit on the blue steel-rimmed chair on the far side of the white-topped table and he sat opposite.
‘Right,’ he pulled a pad of paper towards him and clicked down the top of his pen. ‘Could I start by taking your details please?’
Beth hesitated. Part of her wanted to stand and leave, say she had made a mistake, changed her mind, but she also realised she had come too far to back out now. She answered his questions.
‘And how can we help you Beth?’ She watched him. Could she trust him? He seemed just like a nice, ordinary guy but he was a policeman and that was a hurdle she still had to clear. She decided to take a chance.
‘I have information about that jewellery shop robbery last month. I think I know where some of the stuff they stole is kept and I think I know what happened to the gun.’
This time it was he who seemed to be weighing her up. Was she for real?
‘OK, that’s good. Can you tell me where the stolen goods are being kept?’
‘It’s a storage unit just off the Parkway. I have the details.’
The DC made a note. ‘And the gun?’
‘It’s been got rid of, but I don’t know where.’
He scribbled some more but slightly less enthusiastically. Maybe her information would not turn out to be as useful as he had initially hoped.
‘So, can I ask how you came to know about the stolen goods and the gun?’
She pursed her lips. This really was the point of no return.
‘It’s my husband,’ she said. ‘He takes on work from criminals, you know, when they need to cover their tracks or need someone they can trust to dispose of evidence or take care of stuff until the heat dies down, that sort of thing. He’s their fixer, their cleaner. They go to him because he’s good at what he does.’
Beth hoped she had not come across as being proud of him.
‘He’s involved in lots of criminal activity, dealing with all sorts of low-life crooks, and I’ve known about this for as long as we’ve been together, but I’ve decided I can’t keep quiet anymore. He should pay for all the bad things he’s done.’
Adams checked over his notes again. Her surname. He was trying to join the dots.
‘What’s your husband’s name, Beth?’
‘Wes. Wesley Hughes.’
He wrote down the name and underlined it. It was not familiar to him, but maybe it would mean more to one of his more experienced colleagues.
‘And how do you know the people involved in the jewellery shop robbery are using your husband’s services?’
‘He admitted it. As good as, anyway.’
‘I see.’ He was still unconvinced. Too much of this sounded vague, implausible.
‘Just out of interest,’ he added. ‘How long have you known Wesley?’
‘About three years. Just less than three years.’
‘So why come forward now?’
Beth had hoped her previous silence would not lay her open to being charged with an offence herself. She had pinned her hopes on being protected by the strength of the information she could offer.
‘I overheard him plotting to kill somebody.’
The young DC sat up straight. Interesting.
‘I listened to him talking about it to someone on the phone. I recorded it.’
She rummaged through her bag for her phone.
‘Would you like to hear it?’
DC Harry Adams went back upstairs to the CID offices. After playing him the recording, Beth had agreed to give him a copy and to provide a full formal statement. He held the signed papers in his hand as he scanned the room for someone to discuss it with.
Detective Sergeant Will Copson was on the far side of the office, leaning on the back of a junior officer’s chair as they talked about something on the computer screen. Copson gave the officer two encouraging pats on the shoulder and began to walk away.
‘Sarge,’ Adams moved to intercept him.
‘Harry lad. What’s up?’
‘I need a word. Does the name Wesley Hughes mean anything?’
The mention of the name seemed to change the DS’s mood.
‘He’s been on the radar for a while. Despicable pond life that we haven’t been able to pin d
own as yet. What have you got?’
‘I’ve just been talking to his wife.’
‘His wife?’
Adams nodded. ‘She’s just given a statement connecting him to the jewellery shop robbery and she played me a recording that implicates him in conspiracy to commit murder.’
‘Really?’ The DS smiled. ‘Come with me. We need to take this to the DI.’
After they had both read the statement and had listened to the recording, DI Jane Jackson and DS Will Copson exchanged a look that said it all. It was the break they had been looking for.
‘How do you want to play it, ma’am?’ he asked.
She flicked through the pages of the statement again.
‘With this and the statement from the witness who thought she saw him throwing the gun into the river – and the photos of him at the scene – I think we’ve got something to go on. The recording, I’m not sure. The voice she says is Hughes is fairly clear but it’s hard to make out anything from the other voice. We’ll need to see if one of the technical team can do anything with it to tidy it up a bit, but it might be useful to us.’
The DI closed the file with the statement in it and stood.
‘I think with all this together we’ve got enough to justify sending in a diving team to see if they can recover a weapon from the area of the river where the witness saw him disposing of whatever it was – hopefully, the gun. Then I think we should apply for warrants to search the storage unit at the address Mrs Hughes has given us and his home. We see if we can find the gun, see if it matches the one used in the robbery and then we bring him in. Once we’ve got him in custody, we can execute the warrants and see what we find. That could lead us straight to the gang who carried out the robbery themselves. Also, maybe once we do have him in custody, we can get information off his phone which helps us identify who he was talking to in the recording.’
Copson and Adams sat opposite her, listening intently.
‘I think perhaps we’ve got him this time,’ she said. ‘Then we’ll see how much he values his own neck and how willing he is to give up the names of the people he works for. What Mrs Hughes has told us could turn out to be very useful indeed.’