by Echo Freer
Mercedes took a deep breath and approached the door to Frankie’s study. She tapped in the security code then, carefully, she turned the knob and pushed. Nothing. Perhaps she’d pressed a wrong number? She steadied herself and tried again. It was no good; the door would not open. She hung her head in anger and frustration - this could not be happening!
‘You know what’s happened?’ she said to Zak.
‘He’s only gone and taken a leaf out of Boreham’s book and changed the blooming code! I can’t believe it!’
Zak put a comforting arm around her. ‘Let’s think about this logically. Anyone who uses his date of birth is hardly the brightest crayon in the pack, so he’s probably just chosen someone else’s. How about his kids’?’ he suggested.
‘Brilliant!’
She tapped in Alfie’s date of birth, first forwards and then backwards. Nothing. Then she tried Paige’s but the door remained firmly shut.
‘What about your other brother’s?’ Jenny piped up.
Mercedes looked at Jenny and took a deep breath. She couldn’t help feeling that it might have been better for everyone if she’d let Jenny go when she’d first started to bottle it. ‘They’re twins, Jenny - think about it.’
Jenny grimaced apologetically. ‘Oops.’
When Mercedes had exhausted every member of the extended Bent family, alive and dead, she sank to the floor and dropped her head into her hands. She had to get into that room and find the file. She couldn’t believe that after all this effort she was going to have to abandon her plans and just sit back and watch her brothers pursue their life of crime.
‘What about the woman he was with at the club,’ Zak suggested, ‘- Honey Coombes?’
Mercedes sprang to her feet and kissed him. ‘You are a genius.’
He grinned. ‘So it’s been rumoured.’
Zak was dispatched to his home, two doors away, to look up the supermodel’s date of birth on the Internet and, five minutes later, Mercedes, Zak and En Min were inside Frankie’s office while Jenny and Donovan kept watch outside.
The folder had been tossed back on to his desk but the contents were just as she remembered.
‘Here,’ Mercedes said, handing all the handwritten notes to En Min. ‘I want you to copy all these as precisely as you can. Do you think you can do that?’
‘No problems. This is like Reception Class stuff compared to getting Fern’s homework past the old Doberman.’
‘Now,’ she said, leading Zak to Frankie’s computer. ‘Before I can close down my brother’s illegal activities, I need to know exactly what’s going on in his life legally, so let’s see what joys this will reveal.’ Mercedes reasoned, correctly as it turned out, that with Frankie’s limited creative streak, working out his password would be a doddle. As far as she could see, there were only three things in life that Frankie cared about; his children, his mistress and his car - not necessarily in that order.
‘A piece of cake,’ she grinned as Zak typed Carrera 911 and the computer sprang into life.
She directed him to Frankie’s Internet banking account but Zak was pessimistic.
‘It’s not going to work,’ he warned. ‘Even if we guess all the passwords and personal information, there’s no way we’ll work out his PIN number.’
Mercedes smiled. ‘Oh ye of little faith. Four, eight, two, seven.’ She tucked her thumbs into her belt and stretched her chin forward in a chicken-like way, a habit Frankie had developed believing it made him appear more assertive. She dropped her voice and spoke in a heavy East End accent. ‘You see, Chubbs, what you gotta do is pick a number what you can remember. Me, for instance, I use house numbers - this one and your one in Honey Drive. Forty eight, twenty seven - lemon squeezy, mate.’ She dropped the impression and kissed Zak lightly. ‘You forget I come from a long line of criminal master-idiots.’
When they were all done, Mercedes picked up the plans of the bank. ‘The only thing that’s a bit tricky now is how to get these architects’ drawings copied. En, this is your field - any ideas?’
En Min shrugged. ‘We’ve got a print machine at work for copying drawings that size, but if I took them now, wouldn’t your brother realise they were missing?’
‘Probably.’ Then she smiled as a solution to her problem presented itself. ‘But Mum’s got a spare set of keys for here at home and on Monday afternoons Cheryl takes Paige to a toddler club and Frankie’ll be at the car yard.’ She grinned at Zak. ‘I’ll just have to pull a sickie at work.’
The first part of Operation Stitch-up was completed in less than an hour and the house returned to normal. Mercedes stood on Frankie’s doorstep with her arms round Zak.
‘I’ll probably see you in the morning,’ she said quietly. ‘I’ll say I’ve got a dental appointment and need to leave at lunchtime.’
‘Why don’t you take the whole day, it would make more sense.’
She shook her head. ‘I’ve got a few things I need to sort out with my old friend Harley ‘Tosis Spinks on the train in the morning.’
He kissed her softly. ‘You know that I’m with you a hundred percent on this but just be careful, won’t you?’
Mercedes rested her head on his chest, relieved and grateful. No one had been with her a hundred percent since her dad died.
‘Swede ’art, swede ’art, get back in the car, darlin’.’ Harry Spinks, although not averse to the physical discomfort of anyone else, was beside himself at seeing his daughter’s agony.
Harley Spinks eased herself, painfully, from one foot to the other. ‘Bog off, Dad!’
‘Don’t do this, precious. Let me drive you up there, darlin’.’
Harley was standing - or rocking, to be more accurate, on the pavement at the bottom of the steps to Snaresbrook Tube station. She could not have looked more tormented if an army of ants had invaded her shoes and begun nibbling their way through the flesh of her feet.
‘If you hadn’t made that cow Rita buy these shoes, I wouldn’t be like this, would I?’ she railed. ‘It’s all your fault.’
‘Angel, you said you wanted to wear sophisticated commuter clothes. Be reasonable, darlin’.’
Harley considered she was being very reasonable - in the circumstances. She didn’t know why she couldn’t wear trainers to work. Even the DMs that Miss Pincher grudgingly allowed her to wear for school would’ve been better than the ridiculous instruments of torture that Rita had forced her feet into. And as for the suits that she’d made her buy! She wriggled the waistband trying to find a bit of give but to no avail.
‘These stupid clothes are unnatural, that’s what they are!’ she shouted. ‘When I’m running the firm, I’m gonna make it compulsory to wear tracksuits to work.’
Harry leaned across the leather seats of the metallic blue Rolls Royce towards the open window and mopped his brow. ‘Darlin’, it don’t work like that in our business. The punters won’t respect you if you wear a tracksuit. Trust me - Rita knows what she’s doing.’
‘They’ll respect me! Now clear off! You’re making me look like some nerdy little wimp what needs ’er old man to drive ’er everywhere.’
Harry sighed, heavily. ‘All right, my angel but remember what I told you, if you see the Bent gel, be nice to ’er. Let bygones be bygones, eh?’ Harry looked as though an idea had just occurred to him. ‘Tell you what, swede ’art, why don’t you invite her round for a game of tennis one evening? How’s that sound?’
‘Oh, ha ha! Very flamin’ funny!’ Harley snarled. ‘I’m walking like a ruddy crab with corns and you want me to invite that cow round so she can thrash me on my own ground? Nice one, Dad!’
‘Darlin’, darlin’, darlin’,’ Harry cajoled. ‘I just want you to be nice to her, all right? Talk to her. Find out what’s happening with her and her brothers. Look on it as part of your work experience, eh?’
> ‘I’m sick of this poxy work experience,’ Harley sulked. ‘It’s boring. I want to go back to the tennis club.’ A stab of pain shot across her foot between blisters, causing her to go over on her ankle and yelp with pain. She kicked off her shoes and threw one against the side of her father’s car in anger and embarrassment.
‘Darlin’, darlin’ - mind the motor, my angel.’
Mercedes rounded the corner and recognised the electric blue car instantly. It had disgraced the school car park on many a parents’ evening and sports day. She hesitated; although sucking up to Harley Spinks had been phase two of Operation Stitch-up, doing so in front of her father was an entirely different game of tennis. She’d planned to seek out Harley, win her confidence over the next couple of mornings and then set up a meeting later in the week, so that she could infiltrate the firm’s office. But, with Old Man Spinks on the scene, Mercedes wasn’t so sure. Harley she could manage, but her father? She knew when she was playing out of her league.
Too late. Just as she had decided to hover out of sight until the coast was clear, Harley looked up and saw her. ‘What’re you staring at?’
Mercedes forced a smile which broadened into a genuine one as she mentally awarded Fern full marks for her assessment of her arch-rival’s dress sense. Harley was dressed from head to foot in black and, just as Fern had reported, her two-piece looked more suited to issuing parking tickets than gracing any office. And, despite the fact that it was July, her muscly tennis-player’s legs were shrouded in industrial strength tights. The only remotely elegant part of her attire was the footwear that she was currently waving in her father’s face and even that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Jenny’s Mum. Seeing Harley in everyday clothes, Mercedes suddenly found herself experiencing an unprecedented wave of sympathy for the girl.
‘Just concerned that you seem to have hurt yourself.’
‘Yeah, right!’ Harley sneered. ‘Gloating, more like.’ Perhaps, Mercedes thought, she should reassess the whole sympathy thing. Ignoring the remark, she learned in front of her schoolmate and spoke through the open car window.
‘Good morning, Mr Spinks. How are you today?’ No point in pussyfooting around.
Harry was taken aback at her forward approach.
‘Erm, I’m all right, darlin’, and yourself?’
‘Very well, thank you.’ She turned to Harley, ‘Fern said that you were working in the West End now, do you fancy travelling up together?’
Before Harley could reply, her father jumped at the suggestion. ‘That would be nice, wouldn’t it, my angel?’ Harley glowered at him. ‘Tell you what,’ he continued, ‘I was just going to give Harley a lift, weren’t I, swede ’art? We could drop you off too if you wanted.’
Mercedes hovered for a second: there was something fishy about this. She weighed up the odds - the chances of Harry Spinks performing an act of kindness to anyone, let alone a member of the Bent family, were about the same as Chubby becoming president of MENSA. So, could it be a ploy to kidnap her and get back at her brothers? No chance! There was no way Harry would do his own dirty work and certainly not from such a public place. No, kidnapping was a rank outsider. But there was definitely something suspicious about the offer and the clever money had to be on Spinks having found out that she was working in the bank. So, she thought, he was hoping to pump her for information, was he? Well, two could play at that game.
‘Excellent!’ she opened the door and slid along the back seat while Harley took her place in the front. ‘So, Harley, how’s your work experience going? Mine’s really boring, I just sit and watch this old biddy all day. How about you? What sort of things are you doing?’
As Harley grunted her response, Mercedes noticed a scrap of paper on the floor of the car by her foot. Whilst pretending to listen, she made a show of putting down her bag then, surreptitiously picked up the note and slipped it inside; it could be absolutely nothing but you never know what might come in useful.
By the time the Rolls Royce turned off Pall Mall into St James’s Square, Mercedes had managed to keep up an almost relentless stream of chatter without volunteering a single piece of information that Harry couldn’t have found out by interviewing the bank’s cleaner.
‘Well, thank you very much, Mr Spinks,’ she said, stepping out of the car. She was frustrated not to have made more headway with Harley. Had she been travelling on the Tube, as she’d planned, she would have suggested meeting up with her later in the week but she didn’t want old man Spinks getting a whiff of what she was up to.
‘Pleasure, darlin’. A pleasure. Tell you what, swede ’art,’ he offered as she turned to walk away, ‘why don’t you come over to our place one night after work - ’ave a swim or a game of tennis or something? You an’ my Harley ought to get to know each other a bit. You can... do whatever you gels do.’
‘Dad!’ Harley snarled. ‘I told you to leave it out.’
Mercedes smiled. Did he think she was stupid? No way was she going to go waltzing into maison Spinks under the watchful gaze of Harry and his minders. No, far better for her to execute her plan via Harley alone.
‘Thank you. Maybe next week, once we’re back at school.’ By that time, if everything went as she hoped, Harry would be safely behind bars and, as his piranha of a daughter seemed even less keen on the idea than Mercedes, the occasion would never arise. ‘I’ll tell you what though,’ she said to Harley, ‘why don’t we meet up and go shopping or something after work?’
Harley glared at her. ‘Yeah - ’cos trailing round shops is my favourite pastime.’
‘I was thinking maybe we could find you some trendier business clothes. I know our work experience is nearly over but I expect you’ll be helping your dad out quite a bit over the summer.’
‘Diamond idea!’ Harry beamed. ‘Ain’t it, swede ’art?’
Harley made a porcine sound that Mercedes took as being affirmative.
‘Excellent!’ she said. ‘Thursday’s late-night shopping, so let’s go then. I might as well come to your office and pick you up. How’s that sound?’
As the Roller purred away round St James’s Square, a nervous quiver ran through her. The words baby, candy and taking from had never seemed more appropriate and yet, it had seemed too easy. Mercedes knew that the success or failure of her plan hinged on Thursday evening’s shopping spree, or at least the few minutes she would have in Spinks’s office before that; she just hoped Harry Spinks wasn’t thinking along the same lines.
She waited on the steps of the bank watching the car glide out of sight before taking the piece of paper from her bag. It was a ‘to do’ list and, at first glance, appeared to be of little consequence:
take books to Manny
check tyres & oil
phone Jonnie
buy dog food
phone tennis Club re: Sergio
speak to Rita about H.
On closer inspection, though, Mercedes smiled with satisfaction. She must remember to take it with her when she went to see En Min this afternoon. In En Min’s hands that little scrap of paper could prove to be very useful - very useful indeed.
Thirteen
Mercedes stood on the pavement and stared at the seedy looking doorway that was squashed between a sandwich bar and a bespoke tailor’s shop on Wardour Street. The top part of the door was glazed with frosted glass and the lower panels were flaking brown paintwork. The words ‘Spinks Org.’, could just be discerned in peeling gold paint across the glass. She looked up and down the street in disbelief. Was that it? It looked more like the entrance to a second-rate dental practice or the call centre for Down and Out Minicabs Ltd than the headquarters of Harry Spinks’s underworld empire.
She had, as planned, taken the architects’ drawings to En Min’s work placement on the Monday afternoon, together with the list she’d found in Harry Spinks’ car. En Min had come up
trumps with the copying of the plans and had produced a masterpiece in the transcription of Sid’s shifts, rewriting them in the same handwriting as Harry’s ‘to do’ list. Mercedes was satisfied that all the paperwork was now sorted; there were copies of the documents from Frankie’s office, reworded and rewritten to eliminate every possible reference to the Bent brothers or their firm, as well as a couple of others that made sure Spinks was implicated, not simply as an outsider who intended to cut in on someone else’s job but as the mastermind behind it.
The originals had been safely returned to Frankie’s office, but not without a few seconds of panic when Cheryl’s Shogun had pulled into the drive just as Mercedes was closing the front door behind her. Fortunately, some quick thinking and the explanation that she’d come to look for an earring, supposedly lost whilst babysitting the previous evening, had allayed any suspicions her sister-in-law might have had.
So, everything was going according to plan. There was just this one last piece to put in place. She stood at the opposite side of the street from the Spinks Organisation office and took a deep breath. This was it; the last furlong. She carefully pulled a pair of cream cotton gloves from the rigid paper carrier she had with her. Every fingerprint had already been eliminated from all the plans, drawings, notes and schedules: no point in plastering them all over Spinks’ office. She stretched her fingers into the gloves and grimaced; they might have been high fashion when her nan was her age but they looked more like something Chubby wore to dust down the snooker table in the games room at home. No matter: the last thing she wanted was to incriminate herself at this stage of the game. She crossed the road and rang the intercom.
Once inside, she mounted the stairs slowly, taking care not to touch anything; not for fear of leaving fingerprints but because that morning she’d made the mistake of wearing a Karen Millen cream two- piece to work and there was every chance that it would end up looking like one of the towels she used to dry the dogs after they’d been romping in the muddy lake, if she allowed her sleeve to touch the walls. The plain emulsioned walls were the colour of old nicotine and dust balls drifted down the treads like tumbleweed. This was not what she’d expected at all.