by J G Alva
CHAPTER 14
Sunday, 5th June
“Sutton, I can hardly hear you.”
“Fin, it’s the Bluetooth in the car. It doesn’t work very well.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m driving back from Avonmouth. I just had a very interesting meeting with some very interesting people.”
In between Avonmouth and Bristol, while he traversed the Portway, he told Fin most of it. He kept his speculation to a minimum. By the time he was done, he was coming into Hotwells.
“I don’t think you should have told them,” Fin pronounced gravely, at the end.
“You’re probably right. But I wasn’t going to get any further unless I did. I gave the PA your e-mail address. They’re going to send it all to you: a copy of the list of suspects, and a copy of the list of victims, eleven of which are in the Dunbar Group.”
“Okay.”
“And I want you to look into the main players: Michael Dunbar and Phyllis Steadman. They’re the principal heads of the Group. I didn’t like them.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know,” Sutton said, but he did know. It was just how to put it into words… “If someone gets their own way for a long time, they start believing their way is the only way.”
“Deep.”
“Well…”
“Do you mean, absolute power corrupts absolutely?”
“Something like that. Either way, they’re rich enough to be generally unpleasant.”
“Okay. I’ll look into them. I didn’t find anything more on Vicky Clapham or Steve Cook by the way. They’re internet ghosts.”
Sutton shook his head.
“They’re obviously not interesting enough.”
“Or they’re more secretive. So I don’t know what you want me to do next. Do we just go back and hang around outside their flat? Hoping they turn up? Because I’m not getting anything from the web.”
“Maybe.” Sutton suddenly had an idea. “Or maybe we find out where they’re going to be. Or at least, where Steve’s going to be. I’ll call you back.”
“How is the back, by the way?”
“It’s not sore, but it’s stiff.”
“I could say something really funny right now, but I won’t.”
“Thank you. Thank you very much. I appreciate it.”
◆◆◆
Sutton knocked on the door of the flat on West Park, but as he had feared, they were not in residence.
He was tempted to go in anyway, but it was still light, and it might be more hassle than it was worth. Better to wait until the occupants returned.
But how long would that be?
Better to be proactive and see if he couldn’t find out where Steve worked.
◆◆◆
He struck gold on the third place he tried.
It was a pub masquerading as a cocktail bar. Hermanos. The place was completely empty of patrons and staff, except for a lone, sullen barman. There was a semi-circle of bar to the right, with a semi-circle of stools in front of it, and a spiral staircase at the end going all the way up to a galley style mezzanine floor. Opposite the bar, booths were arranged in front of floor to ceiling windows looking out on to Whiteladies Road. The walls were covered with an array of colourful pictures in varying sizes: bright graphic illustrations of women in sun hats on beaches drinking margaritas. The ceiling was cyan, the floor light wood. Like you were on a beach, not in a bar.
The barman was wiping down the bar with a white towel. He was darkly tanned, thickly muscled, with a military style haircut and small features crowded in the centre of his face. Women would like him. Except maybe for the eyes. They were tiny, distrusting…they made him appear narrow minded. Even mean.
Well. Everyone has a flaw.
The barman wore a black T-shirt that might have been painted on. Vanity, thy name is bench pressing.
“Hi,” Sutton said agreeably. “I’m looking for Steve. Do you know when he starts work?”
The barman eyed him suspiciously with those tiny eyes.
“Steve who?”
“Steve Cook.”
A hesitation. He might just as well have confessed.
“I don’t know any Steve Cook.”
“Maybe you’re new. Is the manager about?”
“I’m the manager.”
“Really?” That was a surprise. He looked too young.
“This is my place.”
Sutton smiled widely.
“I always like to see the upper echelons mucking in with the guys down in the galley. This must be a great place. I think I’ll have a drink.”
Sutton sat on one of the bar stools.
“What would you like?” The barman asked, putting the towel away. He said it with some trepidation, as if concerned about opening the door to Sutton. Metaphorically speaking.
“How about some company?” Sutton said, indicating the empty bar. Then he laughed.
The barman was not amused.
“I meant to drink.”
“Of course. Of course you did. A beer, I think. Heineken?”
“We only serve bottles.”
“That’ll do.”
The barman bent to retrieve a bottle from one of the refrigerated display cases behind him.
He popped the lid off with an opener fixed to the back of the bar and placed it in front of Sutton. His manner was cold and hostile.
“Want a glass?”
“This is fine,” Sutton said, picking up the bottle and taking a sip.
“£4.80.”
“Jesus,” Sutton said, getting change out of his pocket and counting it on the bar. “I can remember when you could get a bottle of beer for a couple of quid.”
The barman took the money.
“Yeah, you look old enough to remember,” he remarked, ringing up the purchase and putting the money in the till.
That was rude, Sutton thought.
“Well,” Sutton said, tipping his bottle toward him in a kind of salute. “You were probably still an embryo in your Mummy’s tummy.” He tipped the bottle towards him. “You know, you still look a bit like an embryo.”
“When was that? 1946?”
“Of course. Just after the war.”
“Was everything in black and white back then?”
“Nope. Sepia. Hey. I could be your Dad.”
The barman’s smile faded.
“My Dad was in the Army,” he said. All the joy had gone out of this conversation for him, and Sutton had to wonder why. Some tragedy in the past involving this man’s father?
What else was he going to use to open this guy up?
“And you’re a barman. He must be so proud.”
“He left before I was born.”
“I know,” Sutton remarked. “Because that’s just about the time I started fucking your Mum.”
Sutton watched him. The barman froze for a moment, grinding his jaw…
But he didn’t react. He managed to control his temper; it was pretty impressive. After all, he was dealing with a paying customer…and they were a little thin on the ground at the moment. Going for him wouldn’t be good business sense.
Instead, the barman turned away. At the end of the bar was the industrial dishwasher, and he busied himself unloading it.
Idly, Sutton waited, sipping his beer.
When he finished, he called to the barman, “I’ll have another drink, I think. I’m in no rush.”
Slowly, the barman returned to his spot in front of Sutton.
“We’re out of stock,” he said coldly.
“Then something else.”
“We’re out of everything.”
“What kind of a place are you running here?”
“No place for you.”
“Then maybe I’ll have a cocktail…”
“Do I have to spell it out? Fuck off, old man. Or I’ll make you fuck off.”
Some locks you can’t finesse. Some you just have to smash open. It’s a fault at the design stage.
While he was dazed, Sutton punched him in the face. Nothing too devastating. He was going for cooperation, not dismemberment. Still, he felt the muscles in his back pull alarmingly. He was getting old.
The barman kept his feet, but his lip was split, and bleeding heavily. Now he didn’t look dazed, he looked angry. But he didn’t raise a hand against Sutton. Sutton wondered if it was because he was a paying customer.
And they were thin on the ground at the moment.
“Is Steve Cook really worth this kind of hassle?” Sutton asked.
The barman tentatively explored his cut lip with his tongue.
“I just want to talk to him,” Sutton explained.
“Why?”
Sutton wondered how best to appeal to this stubborn man’s sympathies.
“He owes me money,” he lied.
Something – some recognition – came in to the barman’s eyes. Sutton guessed that maybe Steve owed him money too.
“Sound familiar?” Sutton asked.
The barman nodded again. His reactions were a little slow; a bottle across the head can do that to you.
“Yes.”
“My guess is you might have given him a loan.”
“He’s a good barman. Entertaining. Worth the investment.”
“But?”
“But…” The barman touched the side of his head and winced. “I haven’t seen him in almost a week.”
“Ah.”
“He let me down. Badly.”
“Well…”
“But he’s due in tomorrow night.”
“What time?”
“Nine.”
“Okay. Excellent.”
“Let me see if I can get my money out of him first. Then you can do whatever you want with him.”
Sutton slid off the bar stool.
“Be my guest. I’ll be back tomorrow at nine. Or someone will. So we don’t have to see each other again.”
“Suits me fucking fine.”
The barman ejected a little bit of bloody sputum into the nearby sink just to highlight his distaste at the prospect.
◆◆◆
After that, there wasn’t really a lot to do except wait.
Sutton went back to his flat.
He made himself something simple, and while he was eating it, he decided to try and summarise in his head where they were.
Chris Masters was The Rumbler. Or at least part of it. They could surmise that he created the code for the Trojan Horse (although nobody seemed to be aware that he was good with computers). But the Dunbar Group had said the trail had gone cold a month ago…from that, Sutton could assume no other blackmail attempts had occurred. So he must be the computer guy. Maybe.
As The Rumbler, who was he working with? The obvious answer seemed to be his friends: Victoria Clapham and Steven Cook. But why kill him? They were effectively killing the Golden Goose. Unless he could be replaced, of course...but that was risky. His death could not have been more poorly planned. Their alibis were, quite frankly, terrible, and put them square in the firing line. Did they own a car? It looked as if they could barely scrape enough change together to afford decent clothes, at least according to Vicky’s attire, let alone pay for and maintain a working vehicle. They could have stolen a car, he supposed…but that seemed risky too.
But their attack on him with aluminium baseball bats proved they were stupid, and willing to take stupid risks.
Which led him to another piece of the puzzle that didn’t seem to fit: if Vicky and Steve were part of The Rumbler team, then why were they hurting for money? Surely they should be rich. They should be riding around in Audis and wearing Armani.
But they weren’t. Vicky looked like she shopped at charity shops in Cotham, and Steve was borrowing money from his boss.
Unless it was the mysterious fourth person. Whoever it was who had been in that walkway and had attacked him (assuming the other two had been Vicky and Steve). Who was he? Another friend from the university? Another student?
Or someone else?
There was another explanation about the money. It seemed unlikely, but they might just be waiting. It would make sense for them to disappear eventually – maybe after their stint at Busbar was over – so maybe they were waiting for that, for suspicion to be fully extinguished. Returning to their home towns, Vicky and Steve could say anything they like about the money: I won it in a local lottery; I won it at a freak bet at the casino; I got lucky on the horses. No one would be too suspicious.
It would show unusual restraint and control – if that was indeed the case – but all their actions since seemed to belie such discipline: the unprovoked attack, the destruction of the hidden office…all this seemed to indicate a disorganised mind set, one prone to fear and alarm, not one that thought coldly and logically before making the next move.
Too many contradictions. It was hard to make sense of it.
And now there was the Dunbar Group to consider. They employed muscle, presumably to handle the more physical aspects of their investigation. It was a leap to assume that they had killed Chris Masters – they had motive – but they had seemed genuinely shocked at the revelation of the name. And clueless.
So where did that leave him? And what would be the ideal endgame?
He was no closer to finding Chris’s killer. His next step had to be Vicky and Steve. He hoped they would provide much needed illumination on certain points. His wildest hope would be that they’d reveal themselves to be his killers…
But somehow that didn’t fit. He couldn’t say why. There were just some parts of the whole that weren’t working.
He shook his head. He didn’t have all the pieces. Speculation without all the information would tie him up in knots. It was best to wait and see what else he could find out.
He was washing the dishes in the kitchen sink when he heard the sound of the landing alarm.
He stopped.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four –
A knock.
He dried his hands on a towel and went to answer the door. He looked through the peephole.
A woman.
Blonde hair. Thin. Nervous.
He opened the door.
Her head had been bowed, and now she looked up.
Sutton guessed her to be in her late twenties, but dark rings framed her eyes, and her skin was pale, and marked with mild acne. It was a shame, as otherwise it would have been a pretty face. The eyes were a bright, vivid green.
“Are you Sutton Mills?” She asked.
“Yes. Who are you?”
She looked tearful suddenly.
“Please. Please. Can you help me?”
“I don’t know –“
“The police don’t know. The police don’t know.”
“I’m sorry, what –“
Her green eyes bore into his.
She said, “I need to find out who killed my brother.”
◆◆◆
CHAPTER 15
Sunday, 5th June
The woman was like a frightened rabbit.
She sat on the sofa and fidgeted. Her hands – curled around the cup of tea Sutton had made her – showed ragged fingernails chewed to the quick. She couldn’t look him directly in the eye, not for long. Her long blonde hair hung lacklustre and framed her pale, tired, miserable face, making it appear thinner. The dark roots were coming through. She kept her handbag in her lap like a shield…or as if she meant to leave in a hurry. She wore a cream coat that was dirty and frayed around the cuffs and the collar. And she brought with her a smell of something…like old perfume gone past some kind of expiry date. He wondered if it was just an effluvium of misery.
Her name was Jennif
er Casey.
He had his doubts…but all the signs pointed to a woman in need. Still. There was the phone call to consider. Was this the girl he had been warned about?
Although she was hardly a girl.
But she was a sister…
“Just…tell me what happened. And if I think there’s something I can do to help…then I will.”
She nodded without looking at him.
She cleared her throat. Her throated sounded raw, as if she had been crying hard for a long time.
“Two weeks ago, my brother was killed,” she began.
“Older? Younger?”
“Younger. By two years.”
“Okay.”
“We both grew up in Tetbury. It wasn’t exactly a warm upbringing. My father was…There’s no easy way to say it: we were both abused. When I was sixteen and Liam was fourteen, our father died of a heart attack. Which should have been a good thing, all things considered – after what he’d done to us. But Liam…he never really recovered. I suppose he had mixed feelings for him. When he died I knew enough about the world to know that your parents are as fallible as any other person. I’d already given up on loving him. Liam hadn’t, it seemed. He went kind of…wild, I suppose.”
She briefly checked his eyes before turning back to her feet.
“I’m telling you all this because I think Liam was killed by drug dealers. When he was in his late teens he fell in with that sort of crowd. He spent a bit of time in prison. But when he came out he was different. Better. Like time away had…healed some part of him. And he was clean. No more drugs.
“And so we were okay for a while. For ten years. A family. He still had issues…I suppose we both did. But it seemed like it was possible we could escape the ghost of our father. Were escaping his ghost. Every day. If things were good, that was another day we won.”
“Where was your mother in all this?”
Jennifer twitched her head to the side, almost as if dodging a fly. She flapped her hand.
“She was there. But we couldn’t count on her. She turned a blind eye. She died four years ago; so it doesn’t matter much either way.”
“Okay. I’m sorry.”
Once more, she flapped a hand: it was of no concern.
“About eight months ago, Liam started to become erratic. We’d arrange to meet and he wouldn’t turn up. Usually, we’d speak every day on the phone, or at least text; we were the only family each of us had left. But he’d go missing for days at a time. He’d turn up, eventually…but there would never be any explanation as to where he had been. I even called the police once, I was so worried about him. But two days later there he was, on my doorstep, laughing off my concern and dodging my questions about where he had been, and why he hadn’t answered his phone. And the explanations he did give were always pat. They seemed okay at the time…but later, after he’d leave, I’d be left with a nagging doubt. The phone had run out of power, a friend had invited him on a city break…they seemed reasonable. But I wasn’t wholly convinced.