by Nick Oldham
‘Is your mother in?’ he asked Ray.
‘No, why?’
‘Where is she and when will she be back?’
‘Why, what’s this about? Why do you want to speak to my mum?’
‘Ray, would you like to take a seat?’ Jane said. ‘I’m afraid we have some bad news.’
Puzzled, but still wary of two cops in his house, Ray sat down and Jane Roscoe sat next to him, giving him one of her best and most professional funeral looks.
‘It’s about Marty,’ she began softly and informed him gently but fairly bluntly so that he would be under no misapprehension that his half-brother had been murdered. As she finished, there was an unworldly wail from the kitchen. Henry stepped out of the lounge and spun into the kitchen where he found Jack Burrows collapsed in a ragged heap on the wooden floor, head buried in her hands, just on the verge of hyperventilation.
The car with four dark shapes on board was still there when they drove away from Ray Cragg’s house. Henry clocked the registration number again to reinforce his memory for later checking on the Police National Computer.
Behind him Ray Cragg was being driven by Crazy, accompanied by Burrows in a BMW which had been in the garage attached to Ray’s house.
In convoy they headed to the M55.
‘How do you think he took it?’ Henry asked Jane.
‘Didn’t actually seem too concerned. More annoyed than anything, especially when he told us he didn’t want a family liaison officer attached to him.’
‘Yes, I got that impression.’
‘However, Jack Burrows was just a bit the opposite. A bit strange considering that she appears to be Ray’s bit of fluff. Unless . . .’
‘Well, I didn’t know she was Ray’s girlfriend until now, because she’d denied any knowledge of the Craggs to me, but I’m pretty sure she was seeing Marty on the side.’
‘Fact or fantasy?’
‘Something I’ve unearthed.’ Henry explained the custody records and Burrows’ reaction to his questions about Marty.
‘Do you think there is anything to suggest that Ray might have killed Marty? Could he have found out about the liaison and got a teeny bit jealous?’
‘I won’t rule it out, but I think it’s unlikely.’ Henry relaxed into his driving as he joined the motorway, taking the Vectra up to a steady seventy, ensuring the car behind stayed in touch. ‘What have we got here?’ he mused. ‘Fill me in. Speculate.’
‘I’d love to fill you in,’ she responded.
‘About the job, not personally,’ he said hastily.
‘Okay.’ She marshalled her thoughts. ‘Johnny Jacques and his girlfriend, both dead. Johnny worked as a messenger boy for Ray and could have been ripping him off. Next we have three drug dealers shot to death on the same day at the King’s Cross by two masked gunmen and one getaway driver. The drug dealers are known to have been poaching on Ray’s territory. Two bodies are then found dumped in a quarry in Manchester and their two mates show up in Blackpool and order more than a double cheeseburger from McDonald’s. And finally, poor old Marty gets shot, together with a John Doe, as they say in America.’
‘And there’s also the cold case I’m investigating?’ Jane nodded. ‘Which has Jackie Burrows connections, who is sleeping with Ray and Marty, but not with Marty anymore because he’ll never get an erection again . . . and Ray does not seem too upset that his brother is dead meat.’
‘But Jack Burrows is.’
‘And maybe therein lies a way in to Ray Cragg.’ He looked at Roscoe and raised his eyebrows. ‘You thinking what I’m thinking?’
‘She could be a chink in Ray’s armour.’
Eleven
Crazy drove away from the mortuary, concentrating on the road ahead, his hands gripping the wheel tightly. Ray sat next to him, staring frozenly through the windscreen, teeth grinding, jaw pumping.
It was not far to the motorway and soon they were speeding north up the M6. It was only as the speedo touched seventy that Ray inhaled deeply, then slowly swivelled his head round like something from a horror film and looked at Jack Burrows in the back seat. Initially, she did not know she was being stared at. Her eyes were fixed on her knees and her tightly interlocked fingers on her lap. She slowly became aware that Ray was looking at her and raised tear-stained eyes to his. She swallowed when she saw the expression on his face, the sneer of his lips, the red of his eyes.
‘What was all that shit about?’ he whispered loud enough so she could hear above the drone of the engine.
She shook her head slightly and frowned. ‘All what shit?’
‘All that fucking weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Why?’
‘He’s your brother. The news upset me.’ She folded her arms.
Ray glared at her then twisted forwards. ‘When I get back I need a chat with you and Miller. That bastard Dix must have done this. I want him hunted down like a dog. I want him dead and I want my money back, but most of all, I want my money back.’
There was a second interior rear-view mirror for use by front-seat passengers. Ray adjusted it so he could see Burrows. His mean face was tight and ferret-like as he watched her.
‘It’d be a pleasure,’ said Crazy. ‘He won’t take too much finding.’
‘Good.’ Ray continued to watch Burrows. ‘OTT,’ he said.
‘Eh?’ said Crazy.
‘I’m talking to that bitch in the back – so over the top. How come? I want to know how come.’
‘I don’t know what you’re getting at,’ she said. ‘He was your brother and I liked him, that’s all. The news has upset me, but it obviously hasn’t upset you.’
‘I want to know why,’ he insisted.
They had reached junction 32. Crazy peeled off on to the M55. The road was quiet and he was making good progress.
‘Give me your mobile phone.’ Ray held out his hand to Burrows.
‘I haven’t got it with me.’
‘Yes you have, now give it to me.’
‘Why?’
‘Jack, just give it to me or I’ll climb over these seats and lace you.’
Her shaking hand reached into her shoulder bag. She handed the phone to Ray, who switched it on and waited for it to connect. Then he went straight into the record of the last ten calls she had made. He stared at the display and snorted. ‘Why have you been calling him?’
She closed her eyes and dropped her chin. ‘To talk,’ she said meekly.
‘What about?’
‘Oh just things . . . nothing really.’
‘You have never had any reason to call him, Jack.’ Ray released his seat belt and fed it slowly back on to the inertia reel. ‘No reason at all.’ He lowered his voice and said, ‘Keep driving,’ to Crazy.
Suddenly he spun out of his seat, found a foothold on the dash board and propelled himself back through the gap in the seats and hit Burrows hard across the side of the face with the phone, knocking her head against the side window. Then he was on top of her. He discarded the phone and set about her, pummelling her with his fists, slapping her, grabbing her hair and smacking her head against the door frame, while under his breath he growled the word, ‘Bitch, bitch, bitch,’ with each blow.
In front, Crazy concentrated on keeping the car in a straight line while at the same time enjoying watching the action behind through his appropriately adjusted rear-view mirror.
Crazy pulled on to the driveway outside Ray’s house. He killed the engine and lights. Ray climbed out of the back seat and stood to one side while Burrows crawled out, her face a battered and bleeding red pulp. She tried to stand, but her legs were weak and would not take her weight. She staggered against the car, sucking desperately for breath through her bloody nose and cut lip.
Ray watched her coldly, not attempting to assist her.
‘Get in the house,’ he said.
She held on to the car, smearing blood across the roof. ‘Can’t.’
Ray drove his fist into the small of her back, punching her kidneys as har
d as he could. She emitted a long moan of pain and sank to her knees. Ray picked her up by the collar and threw her to the ground, stamping on her head.
‘Shit, boss,’ Crazy intervened. ‘Not here, not in public.’
Cragg was breathing heavily, the look on his face murderous, but he saw the wisdom of Crazy’s words.
‘Drag her in and dump her in a bedroom.’
Henry and Jane had stayed for the post-mortems after Ray had formally identified his brother. Both detectives had carefully watched his reaction. Ray had been icy and clinical, showing no emotion whatsoever. They had accompanied him back to his car, which he had got into, and nodded at both occupants. Crazy was as impassive as Ray, but Burrows was deeply affected by the fact that Marty was a goner.
Henry leaned into the car and told Ray that a detective would be calling round to see him to obtain a statement regarding the identification. Some time later, Henry would also want to interview Ray himself to get more information about Marty, his movements, friends, acquaintances and bad habits. Ray did not seem too pleased by this news and Henry already knew that very little would be forthcoming from that particular conversation.
The post-mortems were long and detailed, carried out thoroughly and painstakingly by Professor Baines.
It was 1 a.m. when Henry and Roscoe landed back at Blackpool.
He dropped her off and drove straight home. He saw her in his rear-view mirror, watching him leave.
‘Bugger,’ he said and kept going.
Henry was exhausted when he reached home, but even so he took a little time in the front room, accompanied by a large Jack Daniel’s to review the day he’d had and to plan for the forthcoming one. He was glad to be up to his neck in work and, for the first time in a long time, was thriving on it. There was much to do and he knew he would have little time to sleep. That did not bother him too much. The coffee and adrenaline of concurrent murder enquiries would keep him going in the early stages and it was imperative to pull a cohesive plan together or things would go off half-cocked and he would just get confused.
With paper and pen, he started to jot a ‘To Do’ list under five separate headings.
1. Cold Case
– search flat again (maybe support unit to do)
– find ex-house manager
– annoy Jack Burrows. What is it with her and the Cragg bros?
2. JJ & Carrie
– see informant again
– forensics
3. King’s Cross
– liaise with Jane?!
4. Marty/unknown
– search Marty’s house
– stmt from Ray
– annoy Burrows
– forensics from hotel room
– circulate details of ‘unknown’
– four in a car
5. McDonald’s . . .
That was as far as he got before his eyelids started to droop. He heard movement upstairs and thought someone was going to the toilet, then there were quiet footsteps on the stairs and a sleepy Kate appeared at the living-room door. She rubbed her eyes. She was wrapped in a less than alluring dressing gown. Her short hair was awry and there were tramlines across her face from where she had been lying on pillows. Henry stifled a gasp. She looked damned wonderful.
‘Hi,’ she croaked with a crooked smile.
‘Hello, gorgeous.’
‘You busy?’
‘Yeah – ish.’
She was wearing big teddy-bear slippers, which she dragged across the floor, stopping in front of Henry. She bent down, picked up his pad and pen and pretended to read his notes. ‘Um – very interesting.’ She dropped them on to the coffee table before dropping herself into his lap and winding her arms around his neck. She smelled wonderful and musty. Henry had to catch his breath, especially when the dressing gown fell open to reveal one perfectly formed breast and one hard little nipple.
‘God, I love you,’ she said. ‘I don’t know why, I just do.’
‘And I love you,’ he admitted honestly for the first time in a long time.
She gently took hold of his face and kissed him, long, slow, warm, wet. She had amazing lips.
‘I know it’s late,’ she said, snuggling her face into his neck, ‘but how do you fancy making love?’
There was no doubt that his body, though exhausted, wanted to oblige.
‘Here?’ he asked.
‘Mm,’ she breathed from deep in her throat, ‘right here, right now.’
Henry pushed her gown off her shoulders and ran his hands across her soft, white skin. He knew he was where he belonged.
They were waiting for Miller to arrive, sitting in the living room of Ray’s house. Crazy was smoking one of his thin roll-ups and sipping a beer. Ray was staring at the porn channel on satellite TV, the sound turned low. He had a bottle of Stella in his hand.
‘I just don’t see Dix doing that,’ Crazy ventured reasonably. ‘He doesn’t have it in him, doesn’t have the bottle.’
‘He had the bottle to nick my money.’
‘That was just a spur of the moment thing.’ Ray shot Crazy a hard look and Crazy raised his hands defensively. ‘I’m not defending the cunt. I’m just saying that he probably wouldn’t do something like that.’
‘He was a good taxman. He put guns to a lot of people’s heads. I think he had it in him. I think Marty found him and Dix popped him.’
‘So who’s the other guy? It doesn’t make sense. Dix shooting two people – naah.’
‘I don’t know who he was, and I don’t care,’ spat Ray. ‘All I know is that silly twat of a half-brother of mine’s been whacked and my money is still missing. As I said, I’m not so much fussed about Marty. It’s my money I want back.’
‘What about your mum?’ Crazy asked.
Ray shrugged. ‘I’ll tell her whenever she lands back. Haven’t got a clue where she is and I’m not going out looking for her.’
‘Fine,’ said Crazy.
There was a knock on the door.
‘That’ll be Miller.’ Crazy stood up. He did not look out of the window to check. He should have done.
Jack Burrows knelt at the top of the stairs in the darkness, a wet towel pressed to her face, still trying to stem the blood oozing out of her mouth and nose. Her right eye was swollen and closing rapidly. Her whole body ached. There was a pounding noise in her ears, but she was still capable of hearing the conversation between Ray and Crazy in the lounge.
When the knock came at the door, she pushed herself deeper into the darkness, but maintained a position where she could see Crazy opening the door.
‘Ray,’ Crazy said from the living-room door.
Cragg was engrossed in a screen image of a man being given a blow job by a blonde with huge breasts.
‘What?’ he said, annoyed.
‘It’s not Miller.’ Crazy’s voice sounded strangely strained.
Ray tutted and glanced round, his head fixing into position.
Crazy was at the door, an expression of terror across his face because a man was holding a gun screwed into his side. The beer fell from Ray’s hands on to the carpet where it spilt.
On the TV screen, the fortunate man ejaculated over the blonde’s face and neck.
Ray and Crazy knelt side by side. Their faces were pressed into the settee. Their hands were bound behind their backs by plastic handcuffs which dug deep into their wrists. They both had the muzzle of a pistol skewered into the base of their skulls, held there in place by two men dressed in dark clothing.
A third man, similarly dressed, came into the room and spoke to a fourth man, who was sitting in Ray’s chair.
‘All clear,’ he said.
‘Where is the woman?’ the fourth man asked.
Neither Ray nor Crazy answered. To encourage speech, the guns were pressed harder and twisted tighter into their necks.
‘She’s gone,’ Ray said, his voice muffled.
‘Why is her car still here?’
‘Got a taxi,’ Crazy said qui
ckly. ‘She’d been drinking. Couldn’t drive home.’
‘What’s going on?’ Ray demanded. ‘You’re gonna fuckin’ regret this.’
‘Yes, I’m sure I am,’ said the fourth man. ‘The guns are pointed at your heads, don’t forget that, Mr Cragg.’
‘What do you want?’
‘My name is Mendoza,’ the fourth man said. ‘Have you heard of me?’
‘Should I have?’
‘Your brother has been doing business with me for over a year, maybe you should have heard of me.’
‘Who, Marty? Doing business? He’s a fucking useless businessman, or was.’
‘Exactly, and that is why I am here. He kept taking credit from me and never paying me back. You are right, he is not good with money – not like you, I understand.’
‘Fuck all to do with me,’ Ray insisted. ‘I don’t know anything about it.’
‘Be that as it may,’ Mendoza said. ‘I called in the debt and decided enough is enough. He had to pay with his life.’
‘So the debt’s settled,’ Ray said quickly.
‘No, it has been passed on to his next of kin. That is the way things are in my country.’
‘I don’t know fuck all about it, so it’s nothing to do with me. I’m not his fucking keeper.’
‘Sorry. You now own all the debt.’
‘How much? Just curious, because whatever it is, you can fuck off. I am not paying.’
‘With interest, two hundred thousand pounds, sterling.’
‘You gotta be joking!’ Ray squirmed. His head was forced back down by the man with the gun.
‘No joke,’ said Mendoza. ‘You now own the debt, Mr Cragg. I know you have the funds to pay it. You have one week to do so, otherwise – you’ve seen what happened to your brother. The same will happen to you.’
Miller arrived ten minutes later. His senses told him there was something amiss. Something in the air, something about the stillness. Too many tours across the water had sharpened him too much, he thought. I’m always too damned cautious. He drove past Ray’s house, noting that the front door was slightly ajar, the lights on throughout. He smelt danger, but did not know why. He drove into the next cul-de-sac and parked his car, walking back slowly through the shadows. He watched Ray’s house from a distance and edged closer. His gun was in his hands, in a two-handed combat grip.