by Conrad Jones
Rachel and Claire were sitting in the back of a BMW. The radio was on and Rhianna was singing about being naked. Claire hadn’t asked what had happened to her father or why he wasn’t going with them. She sensed that her mother wasn’t telling her everything, things that she didn’t understand. Rachel would sit her down and explain everything to her one day but it wouldn’t be any day soon. He had lost the right to be top priority in their lives the day he picked up a gun and a kilo of cocaine. If that was the world he had chosen then he could have it but it had put his daughter in danger and that was unforgiveable. There was nothing that he could say, no number of apologies and no gestures of remorse that could take that away. He had crossed a line and there was no way back. She knew something was amiss but hadn’t suspected drugs. Importing and exporting. That was what he had told her [EM16]he did. When she asked what it was that they imported and exported, he had mumbled something about commodities. It didn’t sound like a word he would have used. More likely he had heard somebody else saying it. She doubted he even knew what a fucking commodity was. A chair with a hole in it and a pot that people piss in underneath it. He was as thick as pig shit. [EM17]Her mother had told her that he was as thick as pig shit but that was part of the reason she had married him. He was easy to manipulate. His brains were in his pants and she had used that to control him. He was like a puppy dog following her around, sniffing at her behind, waiting for some love and affection. She had rationed sex, giving him enough to make it not a chore for her but also kept him wanting her. The sex had been good if she was honest. Good, not spectacular. Her ex had been spectacular but he had been spectacular with two of her best friends too. She knew Chris wasn’t the brightest bulb on the tree but she knew he would be faithful. Faithful and trainable. He had made a lot of money, so much that she should have realised it was drugs. In her mind, she had told herself that they were importing and exporting fake designer goods. He had come home with a few pairs of Ugg boots for her the year before and a couple of Hugo Boss shirts for himself and said Charlie had given them out as a bonus on a good shipment. Drugs had never crossed her mind. In hindsight, she should have known better.
Claire snuggled into her and murmured. She would be asleep in seconds. She could fall asleep on a washing line.
****
Vasily Karpov pulled alongside the BMW. He timed it perfectly as the motorway bridge loomed in the headlights. He steered the Range Rover left into the driver’s side of the BMW. The driver was taken completely unawares and the car veered left across the hard shoulder. He tried to brake but it was too late. The BMW hit the massive concrete structure at over sixty miles an hour, forcing the engine block through the dashboard cutting the driver in half, smashing the front seats and pinning Rachel and Claire in the back. The collision was devastating and Rachel was stunned. She only had a second to comprehend what had happened when the petrol tank exploded.
chapter 17
FORTY-EIGHT hours later
Peter Clough put his wallet, car keys, and phone into his locker. He picked up his coms set and the keys to his wing and headed to the office to see how many of his shift had phoned in sick. Staff shortages and a steep spike in violent incidents had pushed the sick leave through the roof. Built in the late 1800’s, HMP Liverpool was dirty, overcrowded, and unsafe for prisoners and prison guards. He knocked on the security glass window and a fellow officer looked up from his newspaper and let him in.
‘You’re on a skeleton shift again, Peter.’ The officer said, going back to his paper. ‘You’re two down on the shift. Barnes and Ellis are still sick.’ He opened his mouth and pointed inside it with his index finger. ‘Bad throat again.’
‘They should call them sicknote and sick throat,’ Peter moaned. ‘How many times can a man get tonsillitis anyway?’
‘I don’t know why they keep on scheduling them.’
‘Me neither. Having said that, I hardly notice when they’re not here. Pair of fucking empty-heads.’ Peter laughed hoarsely. ‘They’re a waste of oxygen if I’m honest.’
‘That’s putting it politely!’
‘Anyway, once again, into the fray we go,’ Peter said, in a theatrical voice.
‘Be careful out there.’
Peter clocked on and made his way to the wing gates. The sound of men’s voices echoed from the ancient walls, eight wings packed with prisoners locked up night and day meant the place was a tinder box waiting to be lit. He opened the first gate and stepped inside the buffer zone, locking it behind him. The nightshift officers were filling in their notes, ready to hand over the wing. The landings were filling up. The prisoners were being let out, three cells at a time to collect their breakfast, before having to return with it to their cells to be locked up again. The shortage of officers meant that communal dining had been suspended temporarily, which was causing tension throughout the jail. There had been three attempted drone deliveries in a week and the governor was extremely pissed off. Making the prisoners eat in their cells was his way of punishing them.
‘Anything exciting to report?’ Peter asked his opposite number from the nightshift.
‘The usual shenanigans.’ The officer sighed. ‘Some bright spark catapulted a package over the wall last night. The dogs were on it straightaway. A couple of mobile phones and some spice. We think it was aimed at the Ahmed crew. They are [EM18]the only ones thick enough to toss stuff over the wall when we’re on lockdown and they are [EM19]the ones who are the most pissed off about it being intercepted. I’ve made a report for the governor, apart from that, all is quiet on the Western Front, officer Clough,’ he joked. ‘Keeping the bastards locked up helps take the pressure off a bit, although this place feels like it’s about to explode. Have a good one.’
‘Will do,’ Peter said with a nod. He unlocked the last gate and stepped onto the landings, waving hello to the officers on the higher tiers. The lower level was quiet, the prisoners already eating their breakfast. Peter walked along the landing towards the single cells. They were used for the senior hierarchy, the prisoners who ran the wings. The officers had the keys but the city’s gangsters ran the prison. They always had and always will. If a PO stepped over the line with the hierarchy, their families would be targeted on the outside. They were just as vulnerable as anyone else and bars and barbed wire couldn’t stop a powerful criminal’s influence beyond the walls. Nothing could. Playing the game kept a fragile peace. Peter reached the cell that he wanted and knocked on the bars before he opened the door.
‘Officer Clough,’ the prisoner said, as he stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Anthony John was lying on his bunk reading a book. Everyone knew him as AJ. His skin was the deepest black colour that only those from central Africa possess. His eyes were deep brown with intelligence behind them. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘I have got a problem that I need help with, you owe me one, remember?’ Peter said, keeping his voice low. ‘You help me and I’ll help you. You know how it goes.’
‘Tell me what your problem is and I’ll think about it,’ AJ said, putting his book on the floor. He swung his feet off the bed and sat up. His wiry frame seemed to grow as he stood up. He was seven inches taller than Peter. ‘I do owe you one but a man can lose his reputation in here doing favours for a PO,’ he said, a wide grin on his face. ‘We don’t want the landings thinking AJ is a snitch.’ He moved closer. ‘What’s up?’
‘Do you remember Charlie McGee?’ Peter said, his voice a whisper. AJ nodded, suspicion in his eyes. ‘He’s trying to move gear onto the wing and he has set me up. The bastard has my fingerprints on some packets and he’s threatening to tell the governor that I’m dealing.’
AJ rubbed his chin. ‘I’ve heard that he is moving stuff on some of the other wings. How does he have your prints?’
‘One of his crew in here stitched me up by getting a nonce to show me some old coins. They were in little packets.’
‘And now those packets have traces of cocaine in them, yes?’ AJ grinned.
‘Yes.’ Peter leaned closer. AJ lowered his head. ‘I need those packets destroyed. They’re on this wing somewhere, I know they are. They must be. There’s no way that I’m moving gear onto this wing or any other wing, not for Charlie McGee, or anybody else for that matter.’
‘Plenty of screws do,’ AJ said, grinning again. ‘How else would it get in here?’
‘I know what goes on, I’m not stupid but I’m not bent either. Help me to destroy those packets and I don’t mind turning a blind eye sometimes, especially in your direction.’
‘I don’t want McGee trading on the wing. This is my wing.’ AJ turned serious, his face like stone. ‘You have [EM20]got yourself a deal. Who is the motherfucker that stitched you up?’
‘Jack Howarth, little kiddie-fiddler with glasses.’
‘I know him. Leave it with me. If those packets are still on the wing, he’ll give them to me. It will be a pleasure to rattle that dirty paedo!’ He pointed his bony index finger at Clough. ‘Then you’ll owe [EM21]me big time.’
chapter 18
Alec and Jo walked into the interview room. Brian Selby was sitting behind the table his brief next to him. He didn’t look up as the detectives took their places and read out the legalities. As she sat down, Jo straightened her hair above her ears and opened a manila file. Alec undid the buttons on his grey suit jacket. His blue tie was already loosened at the collar.
‘Before we start, I have some important news for you,’ she said. ‘Christopher Cornell was found on the M62, tossed from a car we think. He was hit by a lorry and then thrown under a bus.’ Brian looked up then back down very quickly. He looked even fatter in the grey tracksuit that they had given him to wear. The trousers revealed six inches of the crack of his arse when he sat down. Sweat patches had formed beneath the armpits and he was already starting to smell of body odour.
‘Is he dead?’ Brian glanced at his brief.
‘Yes, very,’ Jo replied, curtly.
‘That’s a shame. He was alright with me,’ Brian said, unconvincingly. ‘Not like the others.’
‘His wife and daughter were killed in a car crash the same night and their home was burned to the ground. Do you think these were terrible coincides or were they linked?’
‘I don’t think my client …’
‘They’re not coincidences,’ Brian interrupted his brief. ‘Bad things happen around Charlie McGee.’ Brian shrugged but his face had gone pale. Alec wanted him scared. He needed him to know that this wasn’t a game. ‘If they’re all dead, Charlie had something to do with it. I’ll guarantee it.’
‘A[EM22]re you ready to tell the truth, Brian?’ Alec asked. He nodded but didn’t speak or look up. ‘For the tape, Brian.’
‘Yes,’ he muttered.
‘Good,’ he said, sitting back in her chair. ‘What were you doing in the woods on the night Stuart Radcliffe was shot?’
‘I went to dig up my drone.’
‘You had buried a drone in the woods?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
‘Charlie McGee made me fly a football over the wall of the prison.’
‘A football?’ Alec said, frowning.
‘He had filled it full of drugs and mobile phones.’ Brian sat up and looked at them. He twiddled his fingers, nervously. ‘He made me pilot my drone to deliver the football into the exercise yard.’
‘So, you attempted to smuggle drugs into the prison?’
‘He said that he would hurt my mum if I didn’t.’
‘So, he threatened you. Forced you to do it?’
‘Yes.’ Brian pointed to the scar on his face. ‘He did this to me with a steak knife because I buried it.’
‘Tell us what happened.’
‘I flew the ball over the wall and dropped it in the exercise yard but the prison officers were waiting. The delivery was intercepted and I knew that the police would be looking for the pilot along the road so I buried it in the woods and left it there. When I told him that it was still in the woods, he cut my face.’
‘Okay,’ Jo said, smiling thinly. ‘Thank you for being honest with us. Tell me what happened afterwards. Why did you go back with Charlie McGee and Stuart Radcliffe?’
‘I didn’t,’ Brian mumbled. ‘I went alone. Charlie told me that I had to throw it in the river but I didn’t want to destroy it, so I moved it.’
‘Moved it?’ Alec asked.
‘I dug it up and then buried it somewhere else where Charlie couldn’t find it.’
‘Go on.’
‘I don’t think they trusted me to throw it in the river,’ Brian said with a shrug. ‘They followed me and when I reached the garage on the way back, they were there. That should be on camera,’ he added, quickly.
‘We have seen that but it doesn’t show Charlie,’ Jo confirmed. ‘What happened in the woods?’
‘I dug up my bag and showed them the drone inside. That was when Charlie pulled out a gun.’ Brian paused and swallowed hard, his eyes becoming watery. ‘He told me to keep digging. I thought he was going to shoot me and bury me in the hole because I hadn’t done what he asked.’
‘What was Stuart Radcliffe doing?’ Jo asked.
‘He was shouting at me. I was asking Charlie not to shoot me, you see. I was nervous and frightened and I ramble when I get nervous. I think I was getting on his nerves.’
‘Go on.’
‘I kept on digging and when it was done, that’s when Charlie started asking how much the Drug Squad had paid for the information. I thought he was asking me but he was talking to Stuart. Then he shot him.’
‘Then what?’ Alec encouraged him. ‘Take your time.’
‘Then he made me help to bury him so we used all the dirt and old leaves and stuff. Then Stuart tried to get out of the grave, he wasn’t dead. So, Charlie stabbed the spade into the ground, three times.’ He made the action as he explained. ‘And then he stayed dead.’
‘Then what?’
‘We buried him again, properly. Charlie said he would feed my mum to the pigs if I didn’t.’
Jo and Alec exchanged glances. ‘What pigs?’
‘What?’ Brian blushed. He looked at his hands.
‘You said that he threatened to feed your mum to the pigs,’ Jo pushed. ‘What pigs?’
‘I don’t know,’ Brain lied. ‘He just said it.’
‘Where does Charlie McGee have pigs?’ Alec pushed.
‘I don’t know,’ Brian said, looking at the floor.
‘You’re lying again,’ Jo snapped. Brian jumped.
‘I’m not lying.’
‘Then explain yourself!’
‘He has shares in a farm that has an illegal abattoir.’
‘An illegal abattoir?’
‘It’s in Cheshire somewhere. They ship the meat abroad,’ Brian said, looking from Alec to Jo to his brief. ‘I overheard them talking about it. So, when he said he would feed my mum to the pigs, I believed him.’
‘Well, you would, wouldn’t you?’ Jo said, sitting back. She watched his eyes. She couldn’t tell if this was a fantasy or reality.
‘They have done it before, you know,’ Brian added.
‘Done what?’ Alec asked, coolly.
‘Fed people to the pigs,’ Brian said, conspiratorially. ‘I heard them talking about some brothers, once. They killed them and fed them to the pigs.’
‘Can you remember their names?’ Jo asked.
‘Wats or Wicks.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Wicks it was.’
‘Okay, we’ll consider that,’ Jo said, looking at Alec. He nodded. ‘When did Stuart attack you?’ Jo changed tack.
‘Stuart?’
‘Yes. You said he attacked you.’
‘I’m not sure,’ Brian mumbled. ‘When I was digging the hole. He kept shouting at me, then he grabbed my throat.’
‘You didn’t mention that when you were taking[EM23] us through it,’ Jo said, staring into his eyes. He looked up and then down again. ‘So, you and Charlie buried Stuart and left the wood
s together?’
‘No,’ Brian blurted. ‘He left me there and told me to make sure the grave was hidden with leaves and stuff. So, I did what he said and then I left and that was when I was arrested.’
‘Okay, Brian,’ Jo said, smiling. ‘That’s all we need for now.’
‘Really?’
‘Really,’ she said, watching his expression closely. ‘We need to ask Charlie McGee what his side of the story is before we make any decisions.’
‘Will you tell him what I’ve said?’ Brian asked, quietly. ‘I mean everything?’
‘We’ll see what he has to say and take it from there.’ She watched him for long seconds but he didn’t speak. ‘If you have told us the truth, there won’t be any problem will there?’ Brian shook his head almost imperceptibly. ‘Good. Interview terminated.’
Brian looked pale and frightened as they stood up and left the room.
chapter 19
Charlie McGee was handcuffed to his hospital bed. He had been moved to the HMP Liverpool and was recuperating on the hospital wing. He was isolated from the other patients in a secure room. His brief had arrived half an hour earlier in anticipation of an initial interview with DI Jo West and DI Alec Ramsay. He heard the key turning in the lock and the door creaked open. Jo and Alec stepped inside and for a moment, her perfume masked the overpowering stink of antiseptic and sweaty men but it was soon overwhelmed.
‘Good afternoon, detectives,’ Jacob Graff said, standing up to greet them. His dark, silk suit was tailored perfectly and his silver hair was gelled back from his forehead. Highly polished brogues reflected the surroundings on the toe. His face looked younger than his sixty-five years but the liver spots on his hands and his turkey neck gave the game away. ‘I trust Merseyside’s finest are in good fettle.’
‘I see you’re still defending the city’s lowlife,’ Alec countered. He undid the button on his dark blue suit jacket.