Deadly Serious

by Jean Chapman

  Then he heard the unmistakeable sound of a door being forced, shouldered open by sheer brute force. There were more faint noises and then footsteps coming back. The rope around his knees was grabbed and he was half dragged, half lifted to the edge of the boot. Then the rope around his arms was pulled and he fell to the ground. There was no pause in the punishment. The man must be big, strong like all the Jakeses, there was no doubt about that, but there was also something bumbling and clumsy in his movements. Progress was a series of great jerks and lifts as his body came into contact with corners and steps, just as if his captor did not realize they would be a problem until he was stopped in his tracks. Maddern felt he must be being taken into a house of some kind because in the first room there was a lingering smell of homemade bread; a kitchen, then. Margaret often made bread.

  He was dragged further, through into another room for his side hit the doorframe. A few more steps and his ankles were released. It sounded as if the task was done as the man straightened and drew in a few breaths. Then, as he walked away, something crunched under his foot and whatever it was was kicked aside.

  The man must have got back to the kitchen when he was confronted by someone else, another man. Maddern concentrated, held his breath to listen. One thing was certain – there was not just anger, but fury in this man’s voice. He seemed to be shouting in spite of his own intentions not to.

  ‘What’s that car doing here? What’re you doing here?’

  The explanation was a low mumble.

  ‘What? You have to get him out!’

  A rumble of complaint, mention of a name, ‘Sean.’

  ‘I might have known! A bloody clown and a punch-drunk idiot, what more….’ He broke off, then said, ‘Well, you’ve got half an hour to get him out and the car well out towards the coast somewhere, I don’t care where, just off the face of the earth, you, him and the car.’

  ‘Sean said—’

  ‘Sean said! Do you always do what your Uncle Sean says? You’re a big boy now!’

  The sneering, mocking voice left Maddern in no doubt who this man was, and he expected to hear Jones suck his teeth at any moment.

  ‘He told me—’ the voice became a thick nasal whine.

  ‘Told you! You’ve about twenty minutes before the police get here. Just thank your lucky stars, lad, that I’m early.’

  Maddern had heard many a police recruit cowed by this man and at the back of his mind was a story he’d been told of another young Jakes who had tried to slip the family, but he was too busy trying to catch every word to think of worrying about it.

  ‘Why are the police coming?’ the sulky voice asked.

  ‘They’re going to decide what they’ll do to put this house right, now forensics have finished. Now get him, his car and yourself out of here!’

  It hit Maddern like another blow, a kick in the guts – he was in his own house! The way from kitchen to lounge, the broken china underfoot. He was still coming to terms with this knowledge as the two of them began man-handling him out again.

  The reverse journey was quicker, fiercer. Jones helped, but bullied the younger man all the time. Even as he was being dragged and bruised on doorways and down steps, if he could have recoiled from the touch of the traitor he would have, and taken the side of this member of the Jakes family, probably another Danny in his time. If there was such a thing as surviving against the odds, he resolved he was going to do it and see this turncoat, this bad apple, publicly ousted from the police barrel.

  Liz drove and her passenger could not grumble at the speed or her skill. She was fast but aware, though there were few about this early. They saw only one or two early land-workers, a milkman and a solitary post-van, until they reached the outskirts of Reed St Thomas and turned into Sea Lane.

  ‘Pull in,’ Cannon ordered, as ahead – parked at Maddern’s bungalow – was a police car and the black chauffeured car of a more senior officer, which had obviously just arrived. The driver was opening one door for his uniformed passenger, a man in plain clothes getting out, the other.

  ‘It’s Jones in the police car,’ Cannon said in a low voice as they stopped, ‘he’s come to meet a superintendent, a chief super if I’m not mistaken, and there’s another official looking geezer in plain clothes.’

  Then both of them jumped as someone tapped the side window of the car. They were so busy looking ahead they had not seen this man coming from one of the other homes.

  ‘Mr Russell!’ Cannon exclaimed, opening the window. ‘What are you doing here at this hour?’

  ‘What d’ya think,’ he snorted, ‘delivering my own papers. Had two boys leave, parents have hold of something terrible having happened to young Danny, so now we’re the cursed newsagents.’

  ‘What you doing here?’ Russell asked in return, ‘not more trouble I hope, but …’

  ‘But?’ Liz queried.

  ‘Unless I’m mistaken, as my wife dropped me off on the main road, the sergeant’s car came out of Sea Lane as if all the hounds of hell were after him.’

  ‘He was driving?’ Cannon asked.

  ‘Oh couldn’t say that, couldn’t even be sure it was his car, it was pretty muddied up, never seen the sergeant’s in that state come to think of it,’ he said, then nodded towards the end of the lane, ‘but looks like there’s plenty going on at his house.’

  ‘Yes,’ Cannon said, wanting to get in there, to know exactly what was going on.

  ‘Everybody knows what happened to his home,’ Russell said, ‘you can’t keep that sort of thing quiet in a place like this. Everyone’s on his side.’ He patted his bag of newspapers. ‘Must get on.’

  ‘But what good is it doing?’ Cannon asked as they watched him go. ‘Everybody being on his side, caring? I bloody care but what good am I doing?’

  ‘They’re all going into the house,’ Liz said, ignoring the sudden pessimism, then reminding him, ‘you and Hoskins have saved two lives in the last few hours.’

  ‘But not Jim Maddern.’

  ‘If he’s in there we’ll soon know,’ Liz answered.

  They watched and waited. About twenty minutes later they all emerged, the plain-clothes man with a notebook making notes as the chief superintendent jabbed a finger towards the notepad as if emphasizing a final point.

  ‘Seems I was wrong,’ Cannon said.

  ‘But should you let Austin know about the car Russell saw?’ she said.

  ‘Tell me why it should be Maddern’s car,’ he muttered. ‘What did they do, bring him home for a change of clothes?’

  Chapter 17

  ‘Hello,’ the woman’s voice said, ‘it’s Margaret Maddern here, I …’

  Cannon’s concern for Jim Maddern switched to Maddern’s family as he answered the phone behind the pub’s counter. The voice at the other end wavered and broke. ‘Are you all all right?’ he demanded. ‘Has something happened down there?’

  ‘I know I shouldn’t be phoning, Jim told me not to, so I’m sorry for bothering you,’ Margaret gabbled her apologies.

  ‘You’re not bothering me. What’s the trouble? Not you or the girls, or Jim’s brother?’

  ‘No, it’s …’ she hesitated then rushed into her concern. ‘It’s just that yesterday I was so uneasy all day thinking about Jim, and this morning I woke with such a sense of dread….’

  There was a silence as if she was waiting for news, for details he could not give her.

  ‘Have you heard anything?’ she ventured.

  ‘I have just spoken to the London officer in charge,’ he began cautiously, ‘it sounds as if it is very much a watch and wait operation.’

  ‘With Jim involved?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh yes,’ he said gently.

  ‘And Jim’s all right?’ she persisted.

  ‘I haven’t seen him.’

  ‘So you can’t tell me anything?’

  ‘No, but he’ll be pleased to know everything is all right with you all when I do see him….’

  ‘Yes,’ she said flatly, ‘we’
re OK.’

  He rang off and went to the kitchen. ‘Now I really know what being divisive is,’ he said, but Liz shushed him and indicated the twenty-four-hour news programme she was watching. He went to stand by her side. On screen a reporter was talking in front of a service station on a motorway; in the background, while the car park area was full of cars the motorway behind was completely empty.

  ‘In the early hours of this morning,’ the grim-faced reporter was saying, ‘a scene was repeated here that many had previously only seen on gangster movies. Ten or more men on motorbikes roared into this service station …’ he half turned and the camera scanned the area behind him, focusing on a white tent and a blue and white taped-off area at the far end of the lorry park ‘… and, using a sub machine-gun, shot – at point-blank range – two men, who witnesses thought came from that direction.’ The reporter extended a hand towards the taped off area. ‘After parking a vehicle like a large furniture van, the two men were walking from the van towards….’ his voice fell dramatically as now he indicated a further taped-off area and a powerful-looking black car ‘… that car, when they were gunned down. The driver of the Mercedes was also killed.’

  The camera panned in, followed a line of bullet holes running up from the back wing and finishing in a hole through the driver’s side-window and a blood-splattered front windscreen. The focus now came back to the reporter.

  ‘While this was happening, we understand that men leapt from the pillion-seats of two of the motorbikes, hi-jacked the lorry the dead men had parked and drove away before, as one witness told me …’ he paused to refer to a piece of paper, ‘anyone had time to recover their breath.’ He looked back at the camera. ‘So far, none of the dead have been named, but people here have talked about “an atmosphere” before it all happened and some even seem to believe there was a police presence before the motorcyclists arrived, but we have no confirmation of this.’

  ‘Have the police given out any information?’ the woman newsreader asked from the studio.

  ‘Merely that their investigations are ongoing, but …’ the outside reporter turned in the other direction and the camera moved to show the restaurant area – where many people were standing close to the windows staring out. A gel-haired youth pulled a comical face and one or two waved as they realized they might be seen on television. The reporter continued. ‘There are many travellers held up here, many on their way to workplaces in the Bristol area and neighbouring docks, mothers with young children taking them to nurseries and play-schools before going on to their own work.’

  ‘So are the police keeping people there?’ the studio presenter asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. It seems to be a question of proving identities and destinations. This reinforces the feeling that the police were already around, looking for people known to them, but that, you understand, is not from any official sources.’

  The news moved on.

  ‘You think this is connected?’ Liz asked. ‘This is the London gang?’

  ‘Faima,’ he supplied, ‘yes, Austin said they were spawned back in the sixties, apparently an offshoot of the first UK chapter of the Hell’s Angels.’

  ‘Live fast, die young,’ she said, repeating the tag the bikers had earned, ‘and closing in for the kill, if they can find the Jakeses.’

  ‘They seem to have found three,’ Cannon said. ‘Seeing what we know about them buying boats this van’ll be a plant to put the London boys off the real scent. The driver and his mate were going to be picked up by the driver of the black car and they should have been away before the information was leaked to the Faima. But the Faima were obviously already in the know, and that of course,’ he paused, lifted his eyebrows at her, ‘could have been deliberate.’

  ‘Making the final share-out larger for the remainder of the Jakes gang,’ Liz finished. ‘Well we’ve seen that happen a few times while we were in the Met.’

  The phone rang again; it was Austin. ‘Have you seen the news?’

  ‘From the service station, yes,’ he answered.

  ‘The van’s already been found abandoned near London; it was carrying crates packed with house-bricks.’ Austin paused then added, ‘The van had false number plates.’

  ‘No surprise there,’ Cannon commented.

  ‘No, but the plates came from a car stolen from Reed St Thomas months ago. It’s never been traced. The owner lives in Snyder Crescent.’

  Cannon swore under his breath as Austin asked, ‘The Smithsons, they’ll be well away by now?’

  ‘Left early hours of this morning,’ he said, then asked, ‘Would the Faima know about the plates?’

  ‘They have a skilled computer hacker – we know that – but what I wanted to tell you is that we’ve a helicopter up tracking two separate groups of motorcyclists with gangland-type logos on their bikers’ leathers and helmets heading your way, and another reported assembling north of London.’

  ‘So it’s possible they could be …’ He stopped short of naming Reed St Thomas. It seemed ludicrous when he thought of that sleepy village green, of Stuart and Joy Russell’s shop, ludicrous and outrageous. There was nothing and no one there now as far as he knew. Meanwhile the bikers were swooping in for revenge, bloody retribution, and heaven help anyone who got in their way.

  ‘… And having hi-jacked a load of bricks …’ he continued.

  ‘Their tempers may be a little frayed,’ Austin added, with that mastery of supreme understatement he was noted for in times of crisis.

  ‘Jim Maddern’s wife has just rung me,’ he said. ‘She suspects Jim is in real trouble, but knows nothing.’

  ‘I’ve a countrywide watch for his car,’ Austin said.

  Cannon registered the edge of anguish and frustration in his friend’s voice as he said, ‘He’s not forgotten,’ then Austin added, ‘and I’ve a twenty-four hour watch on Jones.’

  Reloaded into the car, Maddern had been pushed in head first, face down, and the tape at one side of his mouth had been rolled into a tight band. He realized if he kept repeating the same action with his head, he might be able to free his mouth, perhaps even make himself heard, call for help. He knew the estate’s horizontal blind to cover objects left in the boot had been pulled out and secured – no one would see him.

  Like a dog cleaning its mouth on a carpet he pressed the side of his face to the harshness of the mat. At first the tape made the constriction of his mouth and jaw greater, felt like a steel band, but he persisted, and as the car lurched down into a bad pothole, his face rasped across the matting and the tape was pushed the rest of the way. Once off one side, using his tongue and repeatedly stretching up his chin did the rest; for a second or two it felt like a great victory. Then common sense set in.

  What had he gained? At best perhaps the possibility of talking to the man given the job of disposing of him and his car – wherever in the middle of the North Sea Jones had suggested. However, the driver did have to make his way back from whatever deserted spot he chose.

  Maddern tried to figure out where they were heading. He knew they had turned left from Sea Lane, a few miles of winding lanes, then another left turn had brought them on to this straighter, faster, stretch of road. They might well be travelling along the south side of the Wash.

  There was one other thing he could do. He could try to recall all that had been said, and all he could remember about this driver.

  He had called Sean his uncle, or Jones had, so assuming he was a Jakes – and his strength seemed to confirm that – he was the son of another of the brothers. Another Danny, who had not managed to escape. He recalled that, when the family had removed themselves from the area, a story had come back that a young Jakes was doing well in the boxing world. ‘Jockey Jakes’ he had been called because he had the skill of riding hard punches, then coming back with a sharp retaliation. He had won quite a few good fights, had been making his way up to the big time. Maddern recalled his own father saying, the boy made one big mistake, and that was keeping his own n
ame. The story went that the family had moved in on him, hoping to make big money. Jockey Jakes had been used and exploited – the family rigged fights and Jockey had finished up being banned from the sport. He had become a back-street illegal bare-knuckle fighter – a money spinner for the family, for a time. Finally, punch-drunk, he became dogsbody for and totally dependent on his family. He was obviously still dependent and still being used.

  There was a change to the driving pattern now, stopping, pausing, travelling on but not far before another stop. They were clearly in an area where there were traffic lights. He wondered if he could possibly get onto his back and pushed his feet up under the obscuring blind above him, but at that moment the car turned sharply left again and he was rolled onto his face. They travelled some distance quite slowly and then stopped. He prepared himself for what might be the biggest, and the last, gamble of his life.

  ‘Jockey!’ he called as loud as he could. ‘Jockey Jakes. Jockey Jakes, is that you?’

  He heard the front door of the car being opened, and, once it was, he could hear the distant noise of a fairground ride. From the pattern of the drive and the distance, he felt he knew where he might be. He had been brought to the car park at the extreme end of Skegness fairground, but he was under no illusions, he could perish here just as easily as on some distant deserted beach. Visitors were sparse at this seaside town at this time of the year and cars could be parked much nearer the attractions that were open.

  He wanted to shout and keep shouting, but knew he could panic the man into hasty action if he did. What he needed was a calm contact, the chance to distract this man from his purpose, to make ordinary conversation with this ex-boxer, and because he had been driven to this place, full of childish delights, Maddern was confident it was the punch-stupefied Jockey Jakes.

  ‘Do you like Skegness, Jockey?’ he called. ‘Did the family bring you here as a child?’

  The back door of his hatchback was lifted.

  Chapter 18