by Jamie Raven
The flat in Bermondsey still had its uses. He stayed there occasionally and it was great for parties and meetings. It was also where he took his women, usually prossies and one-night stands. But he knew he would have to have a rethink when and if he eventually entered into another long-term relationship.
As usual the area was heaving. Traffic was snarled up in New Bond Street so he walked up to Grosvenor Street to hail a black cab.
His progress would have been monitored by a whole bunch of security cameras but it didn’t bother him because he’d be just another anonymous figure in the crowd. These days he preferred not to attract attention, which was why he dressed down and chose not to go everywhere with minders.
The years spent with Megan had turned him into the best-known villain in London. That hadn’t been so bad when his father was running the show and he’d been able to concentrate on enjoying himself.
Now things were different. The onus of responsibility had made him appreciate just how vulnerable he was.
It had also made him realise that he couldn’t trust anyone but himself.
Tamara lived in one of the residential streets bordering Vauxhall Park. As the taxi pulled up outside her house, Danny did a quick recce of the immediate area.
He couldn’t see any street cameras and this came as a relief. It would make it harder for the cops to prove that he hadn’t spent the previous evening here.
He still had to convince Tamara to provide him with an alibi, but he was hopeful because she hadn’t turned him down on the phone. It would have been easy for her to do so and he would have understood.
She’d appeared sympathetic to his plight, and had said that she did not want to see him go to prison for something he hadn’t done. But he reckoned it was probably the £50,000 bribe he offered her that had prompted her to tell him to come right over so that they could talk it through.
Hers was a modest terraced house with creeping ivy clinging to the brickwork. Danny’s stomach was churning as he rang the bell. He had no back-up plan if she decided not to help him and he had no idea what he would do.
The filth were probably thinking he’d done a runner. He’d considered calling Ethan Cain, the firm’s main man inside the Met, to find out what was going on, but had decided it should wait until after he’d sorted an alibi.
His empty stomach lurched when Tamara answered the door and ushered him quickly inside. The first thing she did when the door was closed was to give him a hug and the strong smell of her perfume made his eyes smart.
‘Come into the kitchen,’ she said. ‘The kettle has just boiled.’
She was softly spoken and there was the subtle hint of an Irish accent in her voice.
The house interior was surprisingly old-fashioned, with chintzy curtains and wallpaper, and brightly coloured rugs on the floor.
In the kitchen Tamara told him to sit at a table while she poured the teas. A portable TV stood on the worktop and it was tuned into the news. An anchor was talking about the prime minister’s latest pronouncement on welfare reform.
‘Does your father know what’s happening?’ she asked over her shoulder.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I haven’t heard from him.’
She turned and he watched her as she placed the mugs on the table. She was in her mid-forties but looked younger. Her eyes were dark, her lips full, and she had perfectly symmetrical features. There was a spray of faded freckles across the bridge of her nose, and her skin was clear and smooth with just a touch of foundation around the eyes.
She was wearing a grey sweatshirt and jeans, and her red hair hung loose about her shoulders. She sat down at the table and lit a cigarette, expelling the smoke in a long, thin stream.
‘You look like you’ve got the world on your shoulders, Danny,’ she said.
‘Right now that’s what it feels like. This has come out of the blue and I need to react to it.’
She leaned across the table and placed a hand over one of his.
‘Before we talk about this I need you to do something for me, hon. I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t kill Megan. I’ll know if you’re lying.’
Danny straightened his back and thrust out his chin.
‘I swear on my life that I didn’t do it, Tamara. I’ve done some bad things in my time, but murdering a woman isn’t one of them. It’s not my style.’
‘But you did go to Megan’s house last night.’
‘I did, and we argued like I told you on the phone. But she was alive when I left there.’
That at least was what he wanted to believe. The truth was there were still gaps in his memory. As hard as he tried he just couldn’t remember how the argument with Megan had ended and what she’d been doing when he’d stormed out.
‘The police are not going to believe me,’ he said. ‘If no one else is in the frame and I don’t have an alibi then I’m toast.’
‘So what makes you so sure that the police will believe me?’
‘Why wouldn’t they? It’ll be hard, if not impossible, for them to prove that I wasn’t here.’
‘But I wasn’t here myself, Danny. I told you that on the phone. I got home after midnight.’
‘Did anyone see you?’
‘I doubt it. The taxi dropped me right outside. I didn’t notice anyone around. And the neighbours aren’t particularly nosey.’
‘So where had you been?’
Her face filled with colour and she flicked her head towards a calendar hanging from a hook on the wall behind her. It was too far away for Danny to see the words scrawled in the boxes.
‘I spent the evening with a new client,’ she said. ‘I went to his place in Maida Vale at nine and left after midnight.’
‘But that’s not a problem,’ Danny said. ‘He never has to know what you’ve told the police. In fact no one has to know. As soon as you tell them that I was with you that’ll be the end of the matter. And if anyone comes here asking you just stick to the story.’
She turned back to him, sucked in a breath, said, ‘I wouldn’t do it if I didn’t believe you, Danny. Even for fifty thousand pounds. But I do believe you. So it follows that I can’t stand by and let them fit you up. Your dad would never forgive me.’
‘Does that mean …?’
She nodded. ‘It means I’ll tell the Old Bill that you were with me all evening and that you’re often here. I’ll say that between ten and midnight we were watching telly and drinking wine.’
Danny felt the knot in his chest loosen. ‘I’ll owe you big time, babe. And so will Dad. I’ll make arrangements for the money to be sent wherever you want.’
‘You and your father have done a lot for me, Danny. This is my way of paying you back.’
They spent the next half an hour agreeing the details of their story. They’d say he arrived early in the evening but that he couldn’t recall the exact time because he’d been drinking. Then he stayed overnight and heard about Megan’s murder when he woke up this morning.
‘We can get around the details by saying we were on the booze the entire time,’ he said.
She gave a hesitant smile. ‘So you’re confident we can get away with it?’
‘I’m positive. Trust me. It’ll be fine.’
The TV news seized their attention suddenly. They were back to reporting on Megan’s murder. Two detectives, one of them Ethan Cain, were standing before a crowd of reporters answering questions.
Danny felt his jaw set with tension when a woman asked them whether Megan’s ex-husband had been questioned and if it was true he’d made threats against her. He recognised her straight away as Bethany Chambers, the crime reporter on The Post. She was well known on the manor, and not just because of her job. She was the stepdaughter of Tony Hunter, the blagger who was shot some years ago in Tulse Hill. How bloody ironic, he thought, that her job now was to report on such things.
He recalled meeting the cheeky cow a couple of times when she approached him for an interview. It occurred to him then
, as it did now, that she was a ballsy bitch.
‘Can you confirm that Mr Shapiro spoke to Miss Fuller by phone yesterday and that they had an argument? According to Mr Fuller, his daughter was threatened by Mr Shapiro.’
Danny’s blood surged with a hot rush of anger. The fucking slag was trying to implicate him.
The anger mounted when she went on to say that Megan’s father had told her about the phone call in an interview.
‘Those fucking idiot coppers should have kept her away from him,’ he blurted.
‘Don’t let it get to you, hon,’ Tamara said. ‘It would have come out sooner or later. And besides, it’s common knowledge that you two were always arguing.’
Danny shook his head and the rage continued the burn inside him.
After a few seconds he switched on one of his three pay-as-you-go phones and tapped in a number he knew by heart. When DI Ethan Cain answered, he said, ‘It’s Danny Shapiro here, my friend. I just heard your lot are looking for me.’
10
Beth Chambers
I called up an Uber taxi and gave the driver the address of a well-known snooker club in south Bermondsey. It was from there that Danny Shapiro ran his operations, most of which were illicit.
On the way I did some research on Google. Unsurprisingly the search engine came up with thousands of hits going back years. The Post’s own archive was packed with stories about him, many with my by-line.
He hardly got a mention until after he married Megan Fuller, though. Before that it was his father who attracted the headlines. There were only a few photographs showing the pair of them together. The latest was taken just before the old man was arrested. The likeness was evident in their narrow faces and chiselled features.
One photo I came across I hadn’t seen before. It must have come from a family album because it showed father and son posing under a tree. The boy looked about 5 and his dad was in his late twenties or early thirties. The caption beneath the picture said it had been taken on Peckham Rye Common.
There was no date, but it occurred to me that it was probably around the time that Callum was building his reputation as a hard man in Peckham. I wondered if that was also when he bought his salads from my mother’s stall. She’d told me that he would often walk up Rye Lane on Saturdays as though he owned the place. I made a mental note to show her the photo. Then I came across dozens of other pictures showing Danny Shapiro and Megan together. It seemed to be a period in his life when he was actually courting publicity.
They were a glamorous couple – the soap star and the mobster. Or to be precise – the alleged mobster. It was a fact that despite everyone knowing what he did the police hadn’t yet been able to prove it. His only criminal convictions were from years ago. He’d been put on probation for stealing a car and had done some community service after assaulting a pub bouncer in New Cross. But unlike his father he had never faced racketeering and murder charges.
Was that about to change? I wondered. Was Danny Shapiro about to get what was coming to him?
I couldn’t help smiling at the thought that in the end most villains ended up in prison or dead at the hands of their enemies. It was certainly true of London’s most notorious gangsters. The roll call was endless: Charlie and Eddie Richardson, Ronnie and Reggie Kray, George Cornell, Freddie Foreman, Jack ‘The Hat’ McVitie, ‘Mad’ Frankie Fraser, Callum Shapiro.
The list went on and I knew there was no way it would ever stop growing. Organised crime was as much a part of London as its multi-ethnic population. It would never be eradicated and would forever be a part of the capital’s heritage – and its future.
The snooker club was just around the corner from Millwall Football Club’s legendary stadium known as The Den.
My stepdad Tony used to take Michael to home matches there on Saturday afternoons and I went along a few times. I hated football but it was fun spending quality time with Tony and Michael.
It was before my little brother went off the rails and got sucked into the gang culture. Back then he was a delight to be with and I’d loved him dearly. We were unlikely siblings – me with my pale complexion and him with his coffee-coloured skin.
He was a happy boy with a pleasant demeanour and a disarming smile. I often wondered where he would be now if he hadn’t died before his time. I liked to imagine him as a doctor or a lawyer, or perhaps even a Premier League soccer star.
My mother and I talked about him all the time, and when we did it was still hard not to cry.
According to various biographical snippets on the internet, Callum Shapiro had also been a Millwall supporter and a regular visitor to The Den. The snooker club had been one of his first investments and local legend had it that it was where he started selling drugs and dealing in stolen cars.
The members-only club was situated between an MOT centre and a confectionery wholesaler’s. The cab dropped me outside and I asked the driver to wait. As soon as I stepped onto the pavement I was assaulted by the smell of exhaust fumes and rancid fat from the chip shop across the road.
The guy at the small reception desk looked like a Samurai wrestler with clothes on. He eyed me suspiciously and his brows almost came together.
‘What can I do for you, love?’ he said with a heavy, indeterminate accent. ‘I take it you’re not here to hit some balls about.’
‘I have an appointment with Mr Shapiro,’ I lied. ‘The name’s Bethany Chambers.’
It was all I could think to say to have any chance of gaining access. If Shapiro was on the premises – and not already in a police cell – then he might well agree to an interview. If not then there was just a possibility that one or more of his minions could be persuaded to talk to me, either on or off the record.
‘Mr Shapiro ain’t here,’ the man said.
‘Then where is he?’
‘Are you with the police? Because they’ve already been here and checked the place over.’
‘I’m not with the police,’ I said.
‘Then you can’t come in. So bugger off.’
‘If Mr Shapiro isn’t here I’d like to speak to whoever is in charge.’
‘Why?’
‘That’s my business. But I can tell you this. If you turn me away without checking you’ll get in trouble. Do you want that?’
That gave him food for thought. He was just a lackey, after all, and the last thing he wanted was to get on the wrong side of the guys who ran this place.
After a couple of seconds of indecision he picked up the desk phone and spoke into it with his back to me. Then he gave a rigorous nod, replaced the receiver and said, ‘Mr Bishop says you can go up to the office.’
Frankie ‘The Nutter’ Bishop. It had to be. He was Danny Shapiro’s right-hand man and it was said that he went out of his way to live up to his reputation as a sociopath.
I mounted the stairs to what turned out to be a suite of offices above the snooker hall. A bloke in a black polo sweater was waiting for me. He was completely bald and had the build of a gorilla.
‘Follow me,’ he said.
I kept pace with him along a long corridor past several closed doors. The door at the end of the corridor stood open and the gorilla moved to one side and waved me in.
That was the precise moment when I realised I might be making a huge mistake. Not for the first time my eagerness to chase a story had blinded me to the risks. I was about to enter the inner sanctum of south London’s most violent criminal gang. A voice in my head was telling me to turn around and walk away. But another voice told me to brazen it out.
‘So what are you waiting for?’ the gorilla said. ‘Go in.’
I let out a breath I wasn’t aware I’d been holding and entered the room. It was a large, airy room with a long mahogany table surrounded by about a dozen chairs. Five of the chairs were occupied by burly men in casual clothes. They were all leering at me like I’d walked in naked. Two other men were standing to my right next to what looked like a drinks cabinet. I was at once aware of a pa
lpable air of menace.
My heart started pounding high up in my throat and I was sorely tempted to beat a retreat. But at that moment the man at the head of the table stood up and gave a twisted smile.
‘It’s good to see you in the flesh at last, Miss Chambers,’ he said in a broad cockney accent. ‘I’m Frankie Bishop and I have to say I’d willingly pay to give you one, as I’m sure would every man in this room.’
There were groans of agreement from the others and I felt my system flush with rage and indignation.
I was about to fire back an angry retort when the two men to my right lunged towards me. One seized my shoulder bag while the other grabbed my arms from behind and held me in a firm grip.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ I screamed. ‘Let me go.’
‘We need to be sure that you’re not recording what goes on in this room,’ Bishop said. ‘It’s just a precaution.’
The man with my bag emptied the contents on the floor. Then he picked up the phone and voice recorder and checked that they weren’t recording.
‘All clear,’ he said as he set about putting everything back into the bag.
The other man now pushed me forward and onto one of the chairs. I wanted to resist but felt paralysed as raw fear flooded my body.
I sat there, trying to control my breathing, as Frankie Bishop lowered himself back onto his chair and stared at me.
He was a big, hard-looking bastard. His face was dimpled with small scars as if from terrible wounds. His nose was splayed and crooked, and his bulging biceps strained at the black T-shirt he was wearing. He had short cropped hair and eyes that were small and cold.
‘I will say this for you, Chambers,’ he said, dropping the Miss. ‘You’ve got some front coming here and telling a big fat lie to get in. You never had any appointment with Danny. He never speaks to reporters as you well know.’
‘I thought he might make an exception today,’ I said with false bravado. ‘In view of what’s happened to his ex-wife.’
‘Well, Danny’s not here.’