“Rumour had it that he was not just the star of the productions but also the leading man in a number of members’ lives, too. We heard that by the age of seventeen he had bedded a number of the women in the group, including Katy Deland, who was twice his age, but most frequently Pat Grierson. Years later Pat confided in me that Dennis Grierson couldn’t perform with her, and so she sought solace elsewhere. Now, I don’t know whether Dennis found out, or even if he cared, but in 1981 he ran Brendan off the estate; we never knew why. Brendan didn’t care because he had already starred in a couple of TV dramas and at eighteen he was cast as the lead in a film about boys in a borstal. Now, of course, he’s nearly fifty and has lost his good looks, but he still gets a lot of work where a hard, fast talking Londoner is required, particularly in the States.”
The fact that Brendan hailed from the Farm was news to Ben, who had seen the actor in any number of old British TV series over in New Zealand, but who was now better known for his roles in Hollywood blockbusters.
“Anyway, to cut a long story short, after Dennis Grierson got Siobhan pregnant, I delivered both you and a baby girl. She was the oldest. Siobhan never got to bond with the girl because, as soon as she was cleaned up, Den took the child and presented her to his wife Pat as their new daughter. Den had let it be known that his wife was sterile and so, to keep her happy and distracted after Brendan, he stole our grandchild.”
“Bloody hell! Couldn’t you stop him?” Ben was indignant; the thought of the distress his mother must have suffered made him hate Dennis Grierson all the more.
“Probably, yes.” May teared up and dabbed at her eyes with an embroidered handkerchief. “But Den made it clear that if we stood in the way of the private adoption we would all suffer. If he couldn’t have one of the children he fathered, no-one would have either of them.” Ben looked on, feeling uncomfortable as his grandmother recounted some bleak and distressing memories.
“We believed him. Oh, how I wish I’d been braver. We all helped to raise you as your mum went back to school, and we would see Pat out with her baby from time to time. To her credit, Pat was ashamed of Den’s abduction of the baby and she never really bonded to the girl. They called her Ashley Marie Grierson. She was a pretty little thing, but Pat fell further and further into depression, neglecting her little girl. Eventually Social Services took the child into care when Den was sent to prison, and some time later the little girl was adopted by a childless couple in Kensington. By the time Den came out of prison he had been divorced and lost his child. I honestly believe he had a breakdown himself.
The next time we saw Patricia was on the TV. She looked stunning. She was healthy, fit and glowing, and on the arm of Brendan Grayson at a film premiere in Los Angeles. It turned out that the reason she was glowing was because she was pregnant. She hadn’t been sterile at all. In fact, she and Brendan had three more kids in quick succession. Brendon said in one magazine interview that he just had to walk by his lovely wife too closely and she would fall pregnant. Grierson was humiliated, and he began to concentrate on his criminal career, eventually taking over most of the local drugs and prostitution and taking out his anger on anyone who stood in his way.”
“If she was adopted, how did you know where she was and yet Dennis Grierson didn’t?” Ben asked.
“We had no idea until just before the Millennium; we received a note from the adoption agency asking if we would agree to their disclosing Ashley Marie’s mother’s details. We explained that her birth mother was dead, and we spoke with her on the phone, but when she heard the history of her early years she backed off and we never heard from her again.”
“Do you know where she is now? She may be in danger from Grierson.”
May Fogarty was clearly deciding whether she should share something with her grandson. Ben noticed the indecision written on her fine features.
“What is it? What do you know?” he asked, trying to make up her mind for her.
“I can tell you how to find her, but anything else she tells you is for her to explain. Suffice to say, I don’t think he will harm her,” May Fogarty said emphatically, closing that line of enquiry. “What I can say is that she changed her name yet again from Ashley Marie Doughty to Ashley Marie Garner in 2007 when she married Lawrence Garner.”
“Lawrence Garner of Garner-Brinkman, the property developers?” Ben gasped.
“The very same, and she became joint managing director after old man Garner retired last year,” his grandmother confirmed. “You’ve heard of them, I see?”
“Oh, I’ve heard of them,” Ben confirmed. “Garner-Brinkman Australasia are clients of my law firm.”
***
Ben Fogarty sat in the first class compartment of the Virgin Pendolino train waiting to depart from Platform 7. With any luck he would be back in London around seven this evening. Ben looked at the architecture around him and reminded himself of what he loved about Britain; its history. The flyer he had picked up outside said that Liverpool Lime Street station was built in the early days of railway expansion and noted that it was constructed following the fashion of the day. Ben looked up at the curved iron roof that was first installed in 1849 in the style of Euston Station in London, with a second roof being added in the 1880s. He read that the North Western Hotel was added to the front of the station soon after, and that the Alfred Waterhouse design is reminiscent of St Pancras, with its vaguely gothic styling. As his taxi passed the station earlier, Ben saw that the magnificent hotel was now student accommodation, and so the taxi dropped him off further along the road where he gained access to Lime Street Station via the ultra modern stainless steel and glass atrium, which pays homage to the original construction by replicating the curved roof of the old iron structure.
Architecture and ancient history aside, Ben had lots of modern history to absorb. Who could have imagined that his family history would be so turbulent and yet so fascinating?
Twins, separated at birth, born in difficult times, and in unprepossessing surroundings, yet both went on to achieve success; one in property development, and the other in International Rugby and Law. Siobhan, his mother, would surely have been proud of them both. Ben struggled to remember his mother - her voice, her face, even her touch - but despite his flawed memory he knew he owed it to her to protect her only daughter, and that meant getting back to London as soon as possible.
Chapter 14
London Bound Virgin Pendolino Train.
Monday 15th August 2011, 6pm.
Despite his own best efforts, and those of Vastrick Security, according to her PA, the first appointment that Ashley had available to meet with him was at 5pm the next day. He could probably have seen her earlier had he revealed who he was, but he had decided to make the appointment under the guise of business. He did not want to alarm his sister by explaining that he was her long lost twin, and that their biological father might want to harm her because of what Ben had done.
Ben was still contemplating what he would say to his sister, and her husband, when his mobile phone rang. He looked at the caller ID, which read, ‘Dee Hammond, Vastrick’. The two chatted amiably for a minute and then Dee read out the findings from her research.
“Ben, the information given to you by your grandmother was broadly correct. The Griersons privately adopted your sister, before she was taken from them by social services when Dennis Grierson was sent to prison. Ashley Marie was then adopted by a couple called Doughty, who sent her to school at Queens Gate Girls’ School in Kensington and to college at Girton in Cambridge. Ashley was an intern at Garner Properties, as it was then, in her year out, taking a full time job with them after graduation. She quickly rose up the ranks and was made a Vice President when the merger between Garner and the American consultancy firm Brinkman was announced. The word in the City is that she runs the UK arm of the business and her husband is only there because of his father’s shareholding. In fact, the elder Garner is the one who left her holding the reins in preference to his own son.
&
nbsp; It seems that your twin sister is something of a high flyer. Her office is on Holborn Viaduct at Fleet Place House. Garner Brinkman is on the third floor above the Thameslink Station. There is a taxi rank right outside, in the middle of the road, oddly enough, if you need a cab.”
“Thanks, Dee, I owe you. Perhaps I could take you and Josh out to dinner, once I’m sure that my sister is safe?” Taking a heavily pregnant business colleague out to dinner would be a risk, unless her husband was also present, so that he could deal with any unexpected birth pangs.
“I’ll book a table at Simpsons on the Strand on Thursday night, if you like. We probably won’t be able to get in anywhere decent on a Friday night,” Dee suggested.
“That sounds great, Dee. I’ve heard that they do the world’s best carvery, or certainly the poshest.”
Dee laughed. “OK, Ben. Good luck. Remember, we have Geordie available if you need back-up.”
Ben said his goodbyes and hung up his phone. He had seen Geordie, or Pete, to give him his real name, and he looked tough. Ben could certainly use a wing-man if Den or his cronies decided to play rough; still, there wasn’t much the Psycho could do with an electronic tag on his ankle linked to a monitoring station in his flat.
***
Nick Palmer had served in Iraq, but he was more nervous walking past the TH Crew on the Farm than he had been at any time during his stint patrolling in Basra. Now working for MetroSec, he was a tagging supervisor, and a tag alarm had sounded at the monitoring centre in the City. The tags had a pre -determined range, and if the wearer was out of range for more than a few minutes an amber alert would be sent down the telephone line. If after an hour the tag was not back in range they would call the house and see if the offender was home. If that was indeed the case, the tag would be reset remotely; if not, a supervisor would attend before the police were called. The police were slow to respond to tagging breaches, mainly due to the number of false alarms caused by faulty tags, or by wearers deliberately testing the range of the tag.
Nonetheless, Nick found himself outside the flat belonging to Dennis Grierson and he could not believe his eyes. Twenty-four hours earlier, this had been a comfortable, if not luxurious flat, but now it resembled a bomb site. The door hung loose on one hinge, all of the contents had been stripped and gang graffiti had been scrawled all over the walls. The place looked as though it had been abandoned for years. Over in the corner, the monitoring unit still flashed red and so Nick disconnected it and placed it in his bag. Dennis Grierson had gone and it didn’t look as though he was ever coming back.
Nick called the Metropolitan Police bail monitoring unit and reported his findings. They didn’t seem particularly bothered. He also called Haringey Council and suggested that they might want to secure the flat before some lout torched it.
As he walked back to his van, teenage boys in purple hoodies, with the arms cut off at the elbows, watched his every move. “I’d resign and go on the dole before I came out here in the dark,” Nick thought, counting himself lucky when he returned to find his van untouched.
Chapter 15
Trafalgar House Flats, Broadwater Farm, Tottenham.
Tuesday 16th August 2011; 6:45am.
Dennis Grierson was in a world of pain when he awoke from a fitful night of sleep. Sophie was lying beside him on the only clean bed in the flat. Without make-up she looked plain and very young, just the way the clients liked them. Den wondered how he would control his girls from outside the manor. Perhaps it was time to retire. Other gangs would already be homing on his drugs operation, and before the week was out his girls would be looking for better protection than he could offer.
In the lock-up the gang had been holding close to a quarter of a million pounds’ worth of high value electronic goods, counterfeit tobacco and spirits and drugs. According to his storekeeper, Ron, the TH Crew had looted the whole lot. Morons. They had left over a hundred grand’s worth of cocaine in the car when they torched it. Amateurs.
A series of late night phone calls had culminated in the plan that was about to be executed. The TH Crew were patrolling the flats, and it was going to be impossible for Den to leave by the normal routes, and so Ron had suggested that at around six thirty in the morning he would cut a hole in the back security fence and he would park his car on the main road, well away from the flats. It would then be down to Dennis Grierson to get himself through the fence and to the main road. In normal circumstances that would not be a problem, as the TH Crew were not known for early rising, but with Den’s leg it would be a slow journey even though the distance was less than half a mile.
Squeezed into a grey tracksuit made for a size 14 woman, Den pulled the hood over his head and grunted his thanks and a brief goodbye to Sophie, who had already ensured that the escape route was clear. The flats were quiet as the grave, and Den limped his way to the steel security fence. He walked alongside the fence, testing every vertical steel paling until he found three that had the bottom welds broken. “Thanks, Ron,” he muttered to himself as he squeezed through the narrow gap. It took the injured gangster another fifteen minutes to cover the few hundred yards to the main road, stopping every twenty yards to try to alleviate the pain in his leg. As he looked down he could see blood flowing freely from the stitched wound and seeping through the jogging bottoms. He hadn’t trusted his usual nurse or the doctor enough to ask them to treat him. He felt certain they would rat him out to the Crew and then both he and Sophie would be history.
Just a handful of people were walking along the main road, and none paid him any attention. Almost as soon as he appeared, a red Volvo pulled up at the kerb and the door opened. He climbed in with some difficulty, swearing and blaspheming at the pain. The car pulled away as soon as he was secure.
***
Marty and Jaz had been told that Dennis Grierson must be on the Farm, probably staying with a sympathiser in the flats. They had also been told that it was their job to make sure he didn’t get off the estate and rouse reinforcements. Mickey wanted to secure the area and let everyone know he was running the flats from now on, but some of the TH Crew were already secretly expressing doubts to Marty about whether the Crew could really control the community as Psycho had done. After all, he had ruled by violence and fear. Most members of the TH Crew were school kids who scared nobody on their own and who would be back at school in a couple of weeks.
It also worried the older members that Dennis Grierson had controlled the sale of serious drugs in the area, keeping violent dealers off the manor. The Crew carried no weight with the Albanians who handled the distribution for the rest of the Farm. To Crew members like Marty and Jaz, who had young brothers and sisters, the ‘no drugs dealt in the flats’ rule was sensible, but the Albanians wouldn’t give a second thought to getting ten year olds hooked on drugs. They didn’t have to live here.
The two gang members had been on the prowl since six this morning and were now riding their bikes down to the Butty Van parked in the lay by on the main road, where they could buy a sausage, egg and bacon roll. They had just rounded the corner when they saw a red Volvo pull over to the wrong side of the road and pick someone up.
“Shit, Jaz, that’s Den getting in the car! We have to stop him! Mickey’ll have us whipped!”
Jaz and Marty abandoned their bikes at the side of the road and stood in the path of the Volvo, which was now about seventy-five yards away. When the car showed no signs of slowing, Jaz pulled out a handgun and started waving it around.
“Jaz, what’s that? Where did you get a gun?”
“Mickey gave it us last night. Said we might need it.” Jaz aimed the gun at the oncoming car, but it never slowed. Sweating, and regretting his decision to carry, Jaz pressed the trigger. Nothing.
“Bloody hell, Jaz! The safety, man! You’ve got the safety on!” Marty yelled above the roar of the car engine. Jaz flicked the safety off and levelled the gun, firing at the same time.
***
Den had his eyes closed, but they sprang
open when Ron yelled.
“Jesus, Den! Are we suddenly living in Dodge City? It’s a couple of the Crew and they’re tooled up again.” Den could see the two teenagers standing in the road; they were in the uniform of the Crew; purple hoodies cut off at the elbow.
“Drive straight at them, Ron. They’ll get out of the way.”
Ron gunned the engine as one boy levelled the gun. At first nothing happened, but then a shot rang out, the bullet passing over the car roof. Ron pressed the pedal to the metal and aimed at the boy with the gun, hoping to scare him. A second later another, final, shot rang out and a crease appeared on the car hood before a ricochet punched a hole in the neoprene gasket holding in the windscreen. A crack started to spread down from the point of impact.
***
Marty was almost hysterical. Shooting people in broad daylight wasn’t what he signed up for, and now the red Volvo was almost on them. He dived at Jaz, trying to move them both out of the way of the oncoming car, but it was too late. The driver’s side wing clipped Jaz, sending him spinning to the ground, his hip dislocated and his leg broken. His head banged into the tarmac and he was out for the count. Marty had pushed Jaz out of the path of the car, but this meant that he was now in harm’s way. He would perhaps have had a chance if he had gone over the hood and been thrown off, but that wasn’t to be. The car hit him whilst he had both feet grounded, and the bumper hit his knees, bending his legs in the wrong direction. The boy was dragged along the road for fifteen yards, until his unconscious body fell under the chassis and the car accelerated away.
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