by Roberta Kray
‘Sort out Hales and get Liam over here.’
‘Yes, boss,’ he wheezed, wiping his nose on the sleeve of his tracksuit. But although the spirit might have been willing, the flesh was weak. His large body was still heaving, his lungs trying to retrieve the breath that they’d lost.
Bryant, who was not the sympathetic sort, let out a growl. ‘Sometime before tomorrow would be good.’
Morgan nodded and forced his bulk unsteadily forward. Hales, who was sitting on the floor, was holding his jaw like it might be broken. As Morgan helped him up and led him away, he gave Cavelli a sideways vicious glare.
Reprisals were on the cards. There was no doubt about it.
Bryant finally turned his attention to the visitor. His eyes were cold, almost reptilian. ‘You want to tell me what the fuck is going on?’
‘You should be grateful.’
‘And how do you work that one out?’
‘I’ve shown you the flaws in your security. Whatever you’re paying them, it’s way too much.’
Bryant snorted and stepped back inside his cell. ‘If you’re looking for a job, you only had to ask.’
‘Just a chat. Although naturally I’m flattered by the offer.’
Bryant sat down, crossed his legs, and then flapped a hand towards the other seat. ‘So what’s so important that it couldn’t fucking wait?’
Cavelli shifted the chair round so that his back wasn’t to the door. He didn’t like surprises. ‘I thought we had a deal.’
‘I don’t recall a deal.’ Bryant paused, slowly stroking his thigh with his long narrow fingers. ‘A conversation, yes, but not a deal.’
‘An agreement then.’
‘An agreement that I’d think about your proposition. Perhaps even, at a stretch, a temporary arrangement. But nothing more.’ He sighed deeply as if the information he had to convey pained him more than it would Cavelli. ‘Unfortunately, time moves on, things change. It’s the way of the world.’
‘What’s changed?’
The only response he gave was a thin cruel smile.
Cavelli nodded. ‘Okay. So how much are the Rowans paying you to keep out of it? Or are you just worried about what they might do if you don’t go along with them?’
If he’d been hoping to goad the man into any kind of careless retort he was disappointed. Instead Bryant actually laughed, showing a row of white capped teeth. ‘Oh, come on,’ he said. ‘Don’t let me down. You can do better than that.’
‘So you’re telling me they have nothing to do with this?’
‘Work it out for yourself.’
Cavelli tried to keep his cool. How he was supposed to work anything out when he was scrabbling in the dark was a mystery. If it wasn’t the Rowan brothers then who was pulling George Bryant’s strings? Someone influential, that was for sure. And someone he was prepared to take risks for. He was beginning to wonder just how much the sweet-talking Evie Weston hadn’t told him. And getting any sense out of Terry was a hopeless prospect: the kid would just raise those soulful doped-up eyes of his and plead his usual bloody ignorance of anything and everything.
Cavelli shifted in his seat. His knuckles, where he had thumped Hales, were starting to throb. Resisting the urge to rub at them, he laid his hand in his lap and went back on the offensive. ‘So what are you saying – that it’s out of your control?’ He gazed at Bryant, his dark eyebrows lifting. ‘And here was me thinking you had a mind of your own.’
Bryant’s expression barely wavered. There was only the slightest of reactions, a tiny pull at the corner of his mouth, but it was enough to reveal that he wasn’t entirely at ease. ‘We all have, how shall I put it – certain obligations?’
Recalling his conversation with Evie – her questions about the guy called Joe – and with nothing left to lose, Cavelli took a wild shot. ‘I never realized you were Joe’s dancing bear.’
And it hit the spot. A bloody hole in one! The words were barely out before Bryant visibly flinched, his eyes narrowing into two icy slits. His fingers curled into his thigh. ‘Shall I give you a piece of advice, son?’ He didn’t wait for an answer. ‘It’s usually best to stay out of business that don’t concern you.’
‘Maybe it’s too late for that.’
‘It’s never too late … and this isn’t your argument.’
‘It wasn’t, but somehow it’s becoming kind of personal.’
‘Your choice,’ Bryant said, menacingly, and as his gaze roamed over his head, Cavelli turned to see that they had company.
‘Have you met Liam?’
Liam, leaning in the doorway, was built like a shit brickhouse – four inches taller, six inches wider, and with the kind of muscles that thrived off a regular dose of illegal steroids. As if that wasn’t bad enough he also had the edgy dangerous look of a man whose crack habit frequently outran his income. Cavelli had seen him around, seen him in the gym. And that was about as close as he ever wanted to get. ‘I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced.’
‘Liam, this is Mr Cavelli. Be sure to remember him.’
The giant looked him up and down and then grunted a few incoherent syllables, probably the closest he got to any sort of speech.
‘Mr Cavelli was just leaving,’ Bryant said softly.
He got to his feet, not so fast as to show undue fear but fast enough to prevent Liam from having to prove how big and strong he was. ‘Thanks for the chat.’
Bryant stared at him for a moment, before his gaze swept down to settle uncomfortably close to his groin. ‘It’s been a pleasure.’ His cold eyes flickered up again. ‘Be sure to tread carefully. I’d hate to hear that anything unfortunate had happened. I trust we understand each other?’
‘Perfectly’
Cavelli walked past the mountainous breadth of Liam and out into the corridor. With his fists clenched he was waiting for it, for the attack from behind, but it never came. He made his way along the landing and back up the staircase. And all the time, as the steel rattled noisily under his feet, he was thinking, thinking, thinking …
When he got to his cell, he sat down on the bunk and swore. Shit! This wasn’t just a spot of trouble, it was grief of monumental proportions. There was only one Joe who could have this kind of influence and that was the man himself – Joe bloody gangster Silk. But Joe had a finger in half the pies of London so why was he concerning himself with the vengeful desires of a pair of dumb third-raters like the Rowans? What could possibly be in it for him?
Well, he wasn’t going to get the answers sitting on his arse. He reached out for the visiting order on the table and picked up a pen. He was in a hole and the only possible way out was through the person who’d helped to dig it for him in the first place. If he was going to save his own skin, not to mention Terry’s, he needed to see Evie Weston.
He was still scribbling her address on the envelope when Isaac hurried in. Cavelli glanced up at him and sighed. It was clear from his expression that Isaac had already heard about the ‘incident’ with Bryant’s men. News travelled fast in Hillgrove. ‘Don’t say it,’ he murmured. ‘Don’t even think about it.’
Isaac stared dolefully down at his grazed knuckles. ‘Aw, fuck man. What you gone and done now?’
It was over twenty-four hours since Eve had found the photograph and she was still no closer to understanding its relevance. What was so significant, so vitally important about this image, that her father had gone to such pains to conceal it?
She drummed her fingers on the table. Terry must know the answer. Damn, if only she’d found it before she’d gone on the visit. Could she risk putting a call through to the jail, leaving a message for him to call her urgently? But she knew it was pointless. He wouldn’t be able to answer her questions over the phone. Anyway, she was better off seeing him face to face. It was probably smarter too, she grudgingly admitted, that she didn’t provide any advance warning of what she wanted to talk about. If she took him by surprise she was more likely to get the truth.
As she bent
her head to look at the picture again she heard familiar steps in the hall and the jangling of a bunch of keys. She jumped up and opened the door.
Sonia, with a small canvas bag at her feet, turned to smile at her. ‘Hi, love. How are you?’
Eve stared at her, alarmed. ‘More to the point, how are you?’ She looked tired and worn, her make-up smudged as if she’d slept in it – and not just for one night. Only the red lipstick was fresh, bleeding softly into the deep grooves above her upper lip. ‘Come inside. Come on. I’ll put the kettle on.’
‘I wouldn’t say no.’ Sonia stepped forward but then paused for a moment by the newly glossed door. ‘You been decorating then?’
‘Just a lick of paint. Thought I’d jazz the place up a bit. Grab a seat. I won’t be a minute.’ As Eve walked across the living room, she quickly bent to sweep up the picture. She might not have worked out what it meant but she knew it was important enough, and dangerous enough, not to leave lying around. She took it through to the kitchen and placed it on the shelf beside the pans.
But Sonia, forgoing the debatable comfort of the lumpy sofa, followed her in. ‘What’s that?’ she asked curiously.
Eve turned to her, all wide-eyed innocence. ‘What?’
‘I might be getting on but I’m not senile yet. That.’ She indicated with her head towards the shelf. ‘Whatever it is that you’re trying to hide from me.’
‘I’m not hiding anything,’ she insisted. ‘It’s just a letter from a friend.’ She didn’t like lying to Sonia but what she didn’t know couldn’t hurt her. She busied herself with the mugs and the kettle and briskly changed the subject. ‘So how’s Val bearing up? How’s she dealing with it all?’
‘Not so bad. It’s the shock that gets you, when it’s sudden like. There’s no time to prepare. He was hardly the best dad in the world but …’
‘And the boys?’
Sonia pulled out a chair and slumped down into it. ‘The little ones are too small to understand but Darren’s pretty cut up – idolized his granddad he did, although God knows why. The stupid sod spent half his life in jail.’ She gave a small bitter laugh. ‘But then that’s probably the reason. The kids today think it’s cool to spend the best years of your life rotting behind bars.’
‘Until they get there themselves,’ Eve said. ‘And realize what a shithole it is.’ She thought of Terry again and hoped he was okay.
Sonia, as if reading her mind, raised a hand in apology. ‘Oh, sorry, love. I didn’t mean to—’
‘Don’t worry. He’ll be out in a few months. I’m just hoping this’ll be the first and last time.’ Eve grinned, trying to wipe the worry from her face. ‘He’s hardly a criminal mastermind, is he? Although what he’ll do when he does get out, God alone knows. He’s never held down a job for more than five minutes.’ She put a mug in front of Sonia and then placed a hand briefly on her shoulder. ‘Lord, listen to me,’ she said, ‘droning on about my own troubles. I’m sure it’s the last thing you need.’
‘Oh, don’t mind that. You carry on. Takes my mind off it all, to be honest. The world doesn’t stop because Peter Marshall has one too many and staggers into a river.’ Despite the dismissive nature of the words there was a slight waver in her voice. She took a slurp of tea, her smudged eyes peering over the rim of the mug.
‘Here,’ Eve said, reaching for the bottle of Scotch. ‘You want a strengthener in that?’ She unscrewed the lid and poured out a generous splash. She supposed Sonia must have loved him once and no matter how sour those feelings might have turned, no matter how brutally they’d been stamped on, some flimsy remnant of affection still existed.
‘Ta, love.’ She licked her lips. ‘Mm, that’s hit the spot. I bet your Terry’s looking forward to a decent pint. Worried sick he was, your poor old dad, when they arrested him. He was on the phone to that solicitor day and night. Didn’t sleep for a week. Up and down, pacing the flat like a madman. I thought he’d tear his hair out.’
Eve glanced up in surprise. It was news to her. ‘Was he really that bad?’ Sonia, surely, was exaggerating. There had been no indication of that level of distress when she’d come up for the court case. In fact he’d been remarkably calm. Of course he’d not been happy, far from it, but he had been quietly resigned as if it was somehow inevitable, a fate decreed, that one day his only son would end up in jail. ‘He was fine when I was here.’
‘Well, it was sorted by then, all that hassle with the filth trying to stitch him up. That’s what was preying on his mind. Couldn’t bear to think of him stuck inside for years. Scared for him, you see. He’s not exactly Mr Muscle, your Terry, is he? The bastards would have done him for that robbery and all if they’d got their way.’
And the bastards, Eve reflected, had been right. She wondered how much her father had known about the true extent of his involvement. Enough to give him a few sleepless nights by the sound of it. So why hadn’t he called her, shared his fears? Instead he had apparently chosen to confide in Sonia. Not for the first time, she pondered on just how involved they had been. Had their friendship progressed beyond the neighbourly? Had the two of them slept together? Inquisitive as she was, Sonia couldn’t see through walls but still appeared to know an awful lot about her father’s night-time activities. She frowned. Surely that implied … But then again, so what if it did? It was nothing but guilt that was fuelling her resentment. It was no one’s lousy fault but her own that she hadn’t been here when it mattered.
‘At least he’ll be home soon.’
Eve sighed. ‘Yeah.’ Leaning over to rummage through her bag, she came up with a crumpled pack of cigarettes. She needed a smoke. She shook one out and then slid the pack across the table. ‘Help yourself.’
‘Ta,’ Sonia said.
As Eve was lighting up, her hand was less than steady. That awful niggling doubt was creeping back into her thoughts again, about how exactly Terry had managed to wriggle out of a twelve-year stretch without making some kind of a deal. That whole ‘losing the evidence’ tale had a whiff of fantasy about it. No one, not even her angel-faced brother, could be that lucky. She took a drag, inhaled and then breathed out a thin frustrated stream of smoke. ‘That cop, Shepherd, was here again. He was looking for you.’
‘What did he want?’
‘I don’t know. I told him you weren’t here.’
‘Maybe it was about the inquest.’
Eve, recalling his flu-ridden sneaky eyes and even sneakier questions, had the feeling that an inquest had been the last thing on his mind. ‘Didn’t he come round to see you at Val’s?’
Sonia shook her head. ‘No, I haven’t seen him. Only some slip of a girl. A PC, Moira Grey. She said it was being arranged. Said she’d let me know in a few days.’
‘Oh, right.’ A faint wave of relief washed over Eve. Whatever Shepherd had been after, and she was sure it wasn’t to her advantage, he clearly hadn’t followed up on it. With a bit of luck he was laid up in bed with enough germs to knock him out for a month.
But the relief was short-lived.
‘So, are you going to tell me what’s been going on?’ There was a sudden sharpness to Sonia’s voice which hadn’t been there before.
Eve tried to look unconcerned. ‘I’m sorry?’
Sonia flicked her cigarette towards the ashtray, missing by the usual inch. ‘You might be your father’s daughter, Eve Weston, but that innocent expression doesn’t cut any ice with me. He could charm the birds from the bleedin’ trees but I always knew when he was pulling a fast one.’
‘I don’t know what—’
‘There’s been more trouble, right? Something happened while I was away.’
‘No, honestly. Everything’s fine.’
Sonia’s gaze drifted up towards the shelf again. ‘So what’s all that about?’
Eve might have known she wouldn’t let it drop. When it came to tenacity Sonia was premier league. ‘It’s only something I came across when I was going through Dad’s stuff.’ And suddenly it seemed smarter to j
ust show her than to go on feeding her voracious curiosity. Once she’d seen it, she’d as quickly forget about it. Eve stood up, picked it off the shelf and passed it over. ‘Here, take a look if you want.’
Sonia placed it on the table and gazed down at it. After a while she let out a long soft sigh. Her eyes when she lifted them again were glistening. ‘Oh, love. You didn’t need to hide it from me. What were you thinking – that I’d get upset by some old picture?’
Eve shrugged, not having a clue what she was talking about, but sensing it was wiser to keep her mouth shut.
‘He always did take a rotten photo.’ Sonia placed her forefinger on the large man facing the camera. ‘Usually too pissed to stay still, see? Bet he’d been on the hard stuff when this was taken.’
Eve’s eyes flickered from the photo, to Sonia, and then back to the photo again. She stared at it in astonishment. My God, was she saying what she thought she was – that the big grey-haired man was Peter Marshall? That was the last thing she’d expected.
‘I didn’t know they were friends.’
‘I wouldn’t say that exactly. Had a common interest though, didn’t they? Couldn’t stay away from the cards. Just a whisper of a game and they’d be out the door like a pair of bleedin’ greyhounds. That’s what that little jaunt was all about. I could do with some sun myself, I told him for all the good it did. You know what he said? It’s business not pleasure!’ Sonia took another drag on her cigarette, pondered for a moment and then laughed. ‘Came back looking like thunder, the three of them. Christ knows how much they lost. Couldn’t get a civil word out of him for a month. Your dad wasn’t much better.’
‘Not like him to lose at poker.’
‘Must have met an even bigger hustler than himself,’ she said good-humouredly.
Eve forced her lips into the semblance of a smile. Her surprise was being superseded by a cold chill of dread. Peter Marshall was dead. An accident, allegedly. But had it been? She was starting to wonder. He was in the photograph and somebody badly wanted that photograph back, someone who was prepared to threaten, to bully, to maybe even … She remembered Sergeant Shepherd showing her the picture of Ivor Patterson, the light that had come into his eyes when she had asked if there was a connection to Peter’s death. The way he had sat forward and said: Why should there be?