by GB Williams
Piper passed across a second photograph that had been collected during the surveillance of the group in the run up to today’s events. The man it showed had boyish good looks, the kind that wouldn’t be out of place in a boy band.
‘He looks a little Like Enrique Iglesias,’ Sheldrake suggested, to Piper’s surprise.
‘If you say so, ma’am.’ Piper wasn’t entirely sure who Enrique Iglesias was—Julio’s son, possibly—but now wasn’t the time to show his disinterest in popular music. ‘His name is Martin Stubbs. Originally a locksmith, but he apparently found picking locks more lucrative than replacing them. He was implicated in a safe crack a couple of years ago, but there was insufficient evidence for CPS to take the prosecution forward. If he’s in, it’s a backup in case the staff won’t open up. This one is Lester Grimshaw.’ Piper passed over a mug shot of a man in his late twenties who looked closer to his forties. The blond hair was thinning, the complexion sallow and the eyes and cheeks sunken. Even allowing for the always-awful outcome of mug shots, the guy did not look good. ‘Grimshaw has form, was inside HMP Blackmarch for eight weeks for shoplifting. He seems to see doing time as an occupational hazard. From what I can tell of his home life, he probably lives better inside than out. He was the one that approached Bell to join this blag.’ Finally, Piper passed her over the last eight by ten image. ‘This man goes by the name of Andrew Beamish.’
‘Goes by?’ Sheldrake asked.
‘We know it’s an alias, but don’t have his real name yet. We haven’t been able to trace who he really is, not even from some prints Bell managed to lift. He’s not in the database, has no known previous.’
He watched as Sheldrake frowned over this last mystery man. That sense of irritated curiosity was one Piper understood far too well.
Sheldrake’s lips were compressed as she finally shuffled the images together and handed the photographs back to Piper. ‘There’s no image of Bell in there.’
Piper turned his clipboard around and showed her the last picture, one of Charlie looking rather serious in his service photograph. ‘Didn’t think you’d need to see that one.’ He lowered the clipboard and put all the images back together.
‘What did Bell have to do to prove himself to this gang?’
‘Nothing.’
Sheldrake looked up at him, her head still slightly tilted forward, her eyes hooded. Still the look was sharp, pointed. ‘Really?’
‘He did time with Grimshaw. He’s a convicted murderer. Maybe that was enough.’ Piper hoped his voice didn’t share the quiver of his gut. He didn’t like lying to superior officers.
‘Piper if I find out you’re lying to me, what do you think the consequences will be?’
Guts for garters. Incarceration. Unemployment. It all flashed through his head as acid burned his stomach.
‘So,’ she asked with only the thinnest veneer of patience, ‘what did Bell have to do to prove himself?’
The noose was around his neck, only the truth could free him. Though more likely the truth was the difference between long lingering strangulation and a quick neck snap. ‘Not what we made it look like he did. Ma’am, I understand the interest in this topic, but at the moment it’s irrelevant. We can deal with it later.’
Her brows rose, her head tipped slightly in question. ‘Along with your insubordination?’ She didn’t wait for a response before she turned her attention back to the clipboard.
His fuck-up is your fuck-up.
Piper’s eyes rose over Sheldrake’s bowed head and clashed with the glare from Broughton. Would he make it out of this with his career intact?
‘I was led to believe,’ Sheldrake said as she looked up, ‘that none of those men are actually in the bank?’
Piper’s gut movement escalated from quiver to quake. ‘The video feed isn’t as clear as we would like, but the images we’re getting don’t match, and the descriptions from Mr Hickson were significantly different. I spoke with Walsh in the station, asked him to pick about thirty images to show Hickson, including the five we’re expecting to see, see if he recognises anyone.’
‘And?’
‘And he’s probably still looking. I don’t expect an answer for at least another half hour.’
12
Registering as an informant was probably the stupidest thing Charlie Bell had ever done in his life. He had always known life was a game of consequences, and he had to face his. He was already sick of the price.
He lived in a shitty little flat, one hardly big enough to be worthy of the name. It was only just bigger than his prison cell. The only job he’d been able to get was manual handling at a paper mill warehouse, strictly leave-your-brain-at-the-door stuff. Skulking in a pub hadn’t done him any good either. That was the stupidity that had led him to bumping into another ex-prisoner, who’d led him down the slippery slope to meeting Simon Lincoln.
Driven in a big black town car, Lincoln pulled up beside Charlie as he walked from work to home and made him a cut-in offer, following a gesture of ‘good faith’. To be carried out immediately. Charlie got in the car.
The demand to prove himself could hardly be ignored. If he was to inform, he had to have something to inform about, and he’d only have that if Lincoln let him in. He had to control his disgust when he heard what he had to do to prove himself. But he still did it.
Lincoln’s driver, a big man with yellow-toned skin and black hair, pulled over. They were in the better part of town, near the railway station. The people wore suits, carried briefcases or laptop rucksacks, and they had money. Money he was expected to liberate.
Without a word, Charlie stepped from the car. His throat was dry and his heart pumping. He’d never robbed anyone before. Could he do this?
Moving into the crowd, he kept his head down. These men all moved with purpose: it was surprising that more didn’t bump into one another. Without warning, Charlie stopped, and a man whose concentration was clearly on his mobile walked straight into him. They staggered and straightened themselves out. The mid-five-foot, designer stubble moron who couldn’t tie his tie properly hurled a barrage of abuse about how Charlie had deficient eyesight and no father.
Offering the office idiot a one-fingered salute, Charlie sauntered on. He took the long way around the back of the station, walking in a wide arc as he returned to the car. Once he was back inside, the driver pulled away and merged with the steady flow of traffic.
Lincoln didn’t look happy. ‘I didn’t see a mugging.’
‘Good,’ Charlie retorted, ‘then neither did any of the five CCTV cameras focused on the station. Besides—’ He threw the thick wallet into Lincoln’s lap ‘—you said you wanted a wallet, not a mugging.’
Again there was that minuscule flicker of surprise, then Lincoln picked up the wallet by the edges, opened it and looked through. Charlie watched, showing no emotion as he saw the self-portraits the man had carried. Any man that much in love with himself deserved a loss every now and then. The wallet was padded with credit, debit and store cards. When Lincoln pulled out the cash, there was easily two hundred there.
Lincoln kept the brown leather wallet, but offered the money to Charlie. For a moment he just looked at the wad. His persona was strapped for cash and struggling to make ends meet. Hell, that wasn’t just a persona. He took the money.
‘The Don would approve.’
That was the phrase that had finally secured him, trapped him. The Don was a figure of shade in a world full of shadows. The Don, allegedly, was a safety barrier that couldn’t be breached, the figure keeping a lot of the organised crime in the area going. No one knew who The Don was. If Lincoln did, then Charlie needed to work his way in and find out.
That money was still sitting in a drawer in the flat. He hadn’t touched it, he probably wouldn’t. Right now he wasn’t sure he’d ever get the chance.
‘How you doing?’ Carlisle whispered in her ear.
Teddington turned her head slightly. The intimacy of the moment surprised her. She was still
leaning against him, her shoulder blades to his chest. His hands were on her upper arms, no longer holding her, resting there ready to support or shove her if he needed to. Her head was on his shoulder, so in turning, her face was now barely an inch from his. It was all but a lover’s embrace. For a split second, the memory of her last kiss flashed in her mind. Charlie Bell. Damn the man. She felt her face wash with blood.
‘I’m fine.’ She offered a small smile. ‘As long as I don’t do anything stupid. Like move, or breathe.’ Her laugh was a bitter huff. ‘I’ll survive though.’
Carlisle smiled at her. ‘You do tend to.’
As she shifted to face forward again, she clashed with the dark look from Mr Brown by the door. His fists—well, the one she could see—were tight, his lips a compressed line. Apparently talking didn’t meet with his approval. Fear shivered through her, and clashed with the vibration of her phone. Her mother, again. Christ. She refused the call.
The chord was softer now she’d turned the phone down, but Highway to Hell rang the second the first call was refused. Shit. She looked up. ‘Mr White?’ Once she had his attention, only then did she answer. ‘Hello, Matt.’
‘Ari. Is Mr White listening?’
She looked up at him, he nodded once. ‘You are on speakerphone and you have his attention, yes.’
Which made it odd that Piper didn’t immediately speak again. When he did, Teddington was no more pleased than Mr White looked.
‘I’d like to meet you, Mr White.’
Teddington tried not to show her surprise. Why would Piper want a meeting? Judging by the scowl on Mr White’s face, he didn’t understand it either. When he didn’t speak, she raised her eyebrows, mutely asking for his response. Nothing was forthcoming.
‘Ari?’
She swallowed, licked suddenly dry lips. ‘I’m not getting any response from Mr White, Matt.’
‘But he is still listening?’
Her eye line hadn’t shifted so she knew Mr White was watching her, not the phone. ‘Yes.’
‘Mr White, if I might speak to you, one-to-one, then we will have a better chance of successfully resolving this situation to everyone’s satisfaction.’
Mr White said nothing.
‘They’ve already told you what they want, Matt.’
‘Which I’m working on,’ the disembodied voice told her, ‘but these things take time. While waiting, a face-to-face will assist our mutual understanding and expedite the resolution.’
Has he been on a training course to learn this corporate bullshit?
‘Mr White, it really would be useful for us to speak face-to-face.’
The silence smothered them like a duvet. A 500-tog duvet, heavy and stifling.
Ari swallowed again. ‘Matt, I think Mr White needs time to consider his response,’ she tried at last. ‘Perhaps you could text me your number and once he’s figured out what he wants to do, I can call you back.’
She hoped she sounded more reasonable than desperate. Her nerves were shredding, her hand on the phone trembling.
‘Okay.’
She nearly dropped the phone with relief. ‘Thank you, Matt. And I’m sorry to ask this, but can you contact my mother and ask her not to phone me? I don’t want to risk missing a call from you because she’s on the line. You can get her contact details from Blackmarch.’
‘Will do.’
‘Cheers, Matt.’ She signed off. Then she looked at Mr White. ‘You’ll have to figure out what you’re going to tell him.’
As Mr White looked at her she felt pinned, instinctively backing away. Carlisle’s hands gripped her arms tighter as she pressed against him.
‘Don’t tell me what to do.’
The words were ground out through clenched teeth. At least he didn’t point the gun at her. All Teddington dared do was mutter a tiny apology and bow her head, lower her eyes. Only after Mr White turned away did Carlisle’s hands relax on her arms again. Taking a shaky breath, one restricted by the bruising and the corset beneath her winter jacket, she was grateful for Carlisle’s presence.
Like a lot of Marchs over the last few years, they’d had great weather, but in the last two days the cold had washed back in. Though today was dry, it was chilly, hence the thick jacket. At home she’d been wearing a thick cardigan, her favourite cardigan. It had lost all pretence of shape or style years ago. The seams were more her mending stitches than the original, and her mother groaned every time she saw it. Her mother said she should throw it away, and she should—she had others. But she couldn’t. She wouldn’t be seen dead in it, which was why she’d taken it off to come out, but she loved it all the same. That cardigan was like an old friend. In fact, she had only one actual friend she’d known longer and that relationship had cooled somewhat of late. Which was her fault. She’d been a pig-headed fool to take such offence at the truth Enzo had told her. So, the cardigan stayed home, because putting it on was the closest thing she had to having someone to hug her. She wished Charlie was here.
‘He wouldn’t do you any good,’ Carlisle whispered in her ear.
She hadn’t realised she’d said it out loud, and huffed a small laugh. ‘He never did. Carlisle, can you do me a favour?’
‘If I can.’
Their voices were little more than tiny breaths. The wind whispered louder.
‘If I don’t make it, can you tell Enzo Sanchez that I know I’m the one who got it wrong, and I’m sorry.’
This time Carlisle’s hands pulled her back against him, his right arm sliding across her left shoulder. He held her tight, though careful not to touch her bruised ribs. ‘You’ll make it.’
Resting against him, she turned her head away from the other hostages, blinking to hold back tears she couldn’t afford to shed. Now was not the time to be sorry for herself. Mr Brown was watching her again. Again she felt that pull in her gut. What was it about those eyes that called to her? Why didn’t she remember such a distinctive-looking man, if he’d been under her care in the prison?
A double trill shook the phone in her hand. A text message. She opened it up.
‘That from them?’ Mr Pink demanded.
‘No,’ she said as she closed the message. ‘Apparently Pizza Plaza think I don’t order enough. They’re offering a 10% midweek discount.’
Evidently, the Plaza’s persistent advertising was annoying a lot of locals, given the small groans and gripes that rippled around the occupants of the room. Some of the weight of the silence lifted with this unexpected shared experience. Oh, the joys of modern technology.
‘You know we all have families.’
Teddington looked to her right, to Judy. ‘What?’
The older woman scowled at her, like she was mentally deficient or something. ‘I said we all have families. Don’t you think I might like someone to let my mother know that I’m stuck in here?’
Something about Judy, the hardness in her eyes—or maybe it was just a lack of warmth—gave Teddington pause. ‘Would you want your mother informed?’
The woman reared slightly. ‘Well I do have a husband and children, they’ll be worried.’
‘If they knew, of course they would, and I’m sorry that there’s nothing I can do for you or them. But they’re not the ones constantly calling on a phone that needs to be kept free.’
‘I haven’t heard your phone ring constantly.’ Judy moved a heavily liver-spotted hand to her heart, pressing it over the Hermès silk scarf looped around her neck.
Teddington couldn’t help noticing that the hands seemed far older than the rest of the lady’s appearance. She tuned back into the conversation. ‘That’s because I turned her ring tone to vibrate so it annoys no one but me. Your family isn’t causing an immediate problem.’
‘Doesn’t mean they won’t be worried.’
Teddington sighed. ‘Anyone with friends or relatives who use this bank—or who work here—will be worried, just in case. Right now, yes, your family will be worried, wondering where you are and hoping that at any mome
nt you’ll walk back into the house. The second that they actually find out that you are a hostage, that hope flies out the window and all they’ll have left is gut-wrenching fear. Would you wish that on them?’
Judy sat back, pale. It seemed the message had got through. Looking at Judy meant seeing the hostages. They were all afraid, cowed. But of all of them, Miss Arden was the one that worried Teddington. The blonde’s silence told her nothing and too much. In triage, the walking, talking ones were on the road to recovery; it was the still and silent sufferers that were the problem. This was a similar situation, she could judge how they were coping by their responsiveness. None of them could walk, but everyone could talk. And had. With the exception of Miss Arden. Was she so far into fear she was numb? There was no way to tell right now, and nothing Teddington could do for the woman anyway. Sighing, Teddington relaxed against Carlisle again.
‘You’re saying releasing your identities will cause more concern outside?’ Mr Blue asked.
It wasn’t exactly what she was saying, but as these guys didn’t seem to like having things explained to them, she kept quiet.
‘Then maybe we should release all their names.’
Her eyes snapped to Mr White. She suspected her skin went that shade, too.
13
Charlie was worried. Worried about things he couldn’t do anything about. That felt like a waste of time, so he pushed it away. He needed to distract himself for a few minutes at least. Remember why you’re here.
When he’d bumped into Piper in that pub, his old boss had, quite rightly, kicked his arse for being a self-pitying layabout. The words that had cut him with the keenness of a samurai sword were simple, ‘you can’t be a cop, but that doesn’t stop you investigating.’
Simple and true.
If he could bust Rhys Mansel-Jones’ organisation from the inside, he was still busting it. So, joining an ex-con on a blag was his way in. The nebulous idea of The Don just cemented his interest.
They’d started hearing rumours about The Don around six, maybe seven years ago. But that was all they got—rumours. Linguistically mafioso, and connected with organised crime. Everything about The Don was whisper and shadow, smoke and mirrors. Nothing concrete. Nothing that linked directly to any individual. Nothing he could even link to Mansel-Jones. No matter how much he listened, what he looked into, The Don remained a ghost.