The Stretch (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  Sam hurried out of the office, tears of rage burning in her eyes.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Terry walked along the landing. A young prisoner slipped him two telephone cards and Terry nodded his thanks. Terry had made it known that he was prepared to pay twenty times the face value of telephone cards, the money being paid on the outside to family or friends. He’d been inundated with prisoners wanting to exchange their cards for cash and Terry had taken all he could get.

  He slipped the cards into the back pocket of his trousers. Ahead of him two large prisoners, one black, one white, were lounging against a wall, their eyes scanning back and forth, taking in everything that was happening on the wing. Both were well over six feet, broad shouldered with bulging forearms. They straightened up as Terry got closer, and stood in front of him, their arms crossed, their faces set like stone.

  ‘Hello, lads,’ said Terry. ‘Is he in?’

  ‘You got an appointment?’ said one of the prisoners in a thick West Country accent.

  ‘No, just wanted to pay my respects, that’s all,’ said Terry.

  The other prisoner knocked on the cell door behind them, then disappeared inside. A few seconds later he reappeared and nodded at Terry. ‘You can go in,’ he said gruffly.

  ‘Thanks, lads,’ he said.

  The two men moved to the side and Terry walked into the cell. There was a single occupant, a black man in his late twenties with close-cropped hair and a runner’s build, thin and wiry. A thick raised scar ran from his left eye down to the corner of his mouth. He wore a dark blue Nike T-shirt and tracksuit bottoms and a pair of gleaming white Nike training shoes. He acknowledged Terry with a slight nod of his head. ‘Settling in, Terry?’ he said.

  Terry shrugged. ‘You know how it is, Baz.’ Baz Salter had run a major drugs crew south of the river before being sentenced to life for an arson attack on a Brixton drinking club that left four Jamaicans dead and more than a dozen horrifically burned. Terry had never met him on the outside but he knew him by reputation. The four arson deaths were the tip of an iceberg – Baz was rumoured to be responsible for more than a dozen gangland slayings in the struggle for the dominance of the South London crack cocaine market.

  ‘Have a seat,’ said Baz, waving Terry to a chair by the single bunk. The cell was the same size as the one that Terry shared with Hoyle, but Baz had it to himself. There was a CD player and a selection of books on a shelf, and a green and black quilt on the bunk. Baz effectively ran the wing and was allowed privileges that reflected his status.

  Terry sat down. ‘I wanted to drop by and let you know I was here.’

  ‘Jungle drums said you were coming,’ said Baz.

  ‘If there are going to be any problems down the line, I wanted to get them out in the open here and now,’ said Terry. ‘I don’t want to keep looking over my shoulder.’

  Baz nodded slowly, but didn’t say anything.

  ‘Jungle drums told you why I’m here, right?’ continued Terry.

  ‘It was in all the papers. Major celebrity, you are.’

  Terry smiled thinly. ‘So are there going to be repercussions?’

  Baz leaned forward and put his head on one side. ‘Of what nature?’

  ‘Preston Snow was one of yours.’

  Baz smiled. ‘Ancient history.’

  Terry nodded slowly. He looked into Baz’s dark brown eyes, trying to see if the man was being honest with him or not.

  ‘I didn’t shed any tears over Snow,’ said Baz. ‘He went loco years ago. He needed killing.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Terry.

  ‘So what are your intentions, then?’

  ‘To get out of here as quickly as possible,’ said Terry.

  ‘That’s easy to say. I was wondering more about your intentions on the wing.’

  ‘It’s your wing, Baz. There’s going to be no boats rocked.’

  ‘It’d be a difficult boat to rock,’ said Baz.

  ‘Absolutely,’ said Terry. ‘I just want to keep my head down.’

  ‘You’ve been buying cards, big time. Pushing the price up.’

  Terry nodded. ‘I’ve things that needed sorting on the outside,’ he said.

  ‘You and me both,’ said Baz. ‘But pushing the price up is gonna piss me off.’

  ‘Message received,’ said Terry.

  ‘Gambling, smokes, drugs, booze, I run them all,’ said Baz.

  Terry nodded.

  ‘Any problems on the wing, you talk to me before sorting them.’

  ‘Fine by me,’ said Terry.

  ‘Anything you need bringing in, you talk to me. I don’t like contraband coming on to the wing without me knowing.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Terry.

  Baz smiled. ‘That’s all the rules,’ he said. ‘Break them and I’ll break you.’

  Terry stood up. ‘Thanks for your time, Baz.’

  ‘Be lucky,’ said Baz.

  Terry left, closing the cell door behind him and nodding at the two heavies. He walked back down the landing to his own cell. He hated having to kowtow before a thug like Baz Salter, but he knew he had no choice. Terry didn’t plan to stay behind bars for long and he didn’t have time to wrestle for control of the wing. If Baz wanted his own little prison empire, all well and good. Terry had bigger fish to fry, and they were outside the prison walls.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The manager made Sam wait for almost an hour before his secretary ushered her into his office. It was austerely furnished, as if the bank was keen to demonstrate how little money it was spending on decoration. The manager was in his thirties with thinning sandy hair and a sprinkling of freckles across his nose and cheeks, and wore a suit that was slightly too small for him, so that he constantly pulled at the sleeves to cover his shirt cuffs. A wooden nameplate with black plastic letters announced his name as Mr Phillips. No first name. He even introduced himself as Mr Phillips when he offered Sam his slightly sweaty hand, the emphasis on the Mr, as if he was desperate to prove his gender.

  He punched his computer keyboard with his index finger and frowned as he read what was on the screen. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘I see what’s happened.’ He tapped the screen even though all Sam could see was the back of the VDU and a tangle of wires. ‘The account is still in the black, but there wasn’t enough to cover the direct debit payments. So they weren’t processed.’

  ‘Why didn’t anyone tell me?’ asked Sam.

  Mr Phillips squinted at the computer screen. ‘Strictly speaking, you should have been told. I’ll speak to our admin department.’

  ‘So you can make sure the payments go through? It is important.’

  Mr Phillips looked surprised at her suggestion. ‘Oh, I couldn’t do that, Mrs Greene. You don’t have sufficient funds.’ He peered at the screen again. ‘In fact, as of today there is just under three hundred pounds in the account.’

  ‘My husband and I have another joint account here, don’t we? It pays the mortgage on the house and the household bills.’

  The manager tapped on the keyboard and made a slow whistling noise through his teeth. ‘That’s also perilously close to being overdrawn, Mrs Greene. Up until a few months ago payments were made into the account on a regular basis from one of your husband’s business accounts, but they appear to have stopped. In fact I’m glad you called, because I’ve been wanting to talk to you about your accounts for some time. Obviously with your husband now being, how shall I put it, indisposed, we were wondering what you propose to do with regard to your financial situation.’

  Sam frowned and brushed a stray lock of hair away from her face. ‘I don’t follow you.’

  ‘To put it bluntly, Mrs Greene, your income doesn’t come anywhere near covering your present outgoings. In fact, you don’t appear to have any income at all.’

  ‘Since when?’

  Another one-fingered tap on the keyboard. ‘Since three months ago. That was the last time your husband transferred money into the accounts.’

  Sam nodded hesitantly. That
was about the time Terry was remanded. ‘My husband has a number of business interests, Mr Phillips. You know that. He owns several clubs, a courier business, property development.’

  ‘But we don’t handle your husband’s business accounts, Mrs Greene. Only his and your personal accounts. That’s what I have to be concerned with.’ He sat back in his chair and put his hands together like a child preparing to say his prayers. ‘Do you think it would be possible for your husband to arrange a transfer of funds in the near future, considering his current predicament?’

  ‘He’s in prison, Mr Phillips. He’s not dead.’

  The manager’s smile hardened a little. ‘Even so . . .’

  Sam remembered the accounts Laurence Patterson had showed her. There was nothing in them worth transferring to their joint accounts, and certainly not enough to cover the nursing home bills and Jamie’s tuition fees. If she admitted that to Phillips, though, he’d have to move to protect the bank’s position, and that would mean siezing the house. She tried to smile confidently, even though she could feel the bottom falling out of her world. ‘I’m going to see my husband in a couple of days, I’ll take the necessary papers with me.’

  ‘Glad to hear it, Mrs Greene. You and your husband have been with the bank a long time, we’d hate to lose your custom.’

  Sam stood up and held out her hand. What she really wanted to do was to slap young Mr Phillips’ face, but she knew that she couldn’t afford to antagonise him. She smiled sweetly. ‘I’ll be in touch, Mr Phillips. And thank you for your understanding.’ She shook his hand across the desk.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Sam called Laurence Patterson on her mobile phone and arranged to meet him and Richard Asher in Asher’s office. He didn’t ask why, and she knew without a shadow of a doubt that he didn’t need to and she hated him for that.

  She stopped at a Starbucks on the way and had a double espresso and three Peter Stuyvesants, figuring that she’d need the caffeine and nicotine to get her through what lay ahead. ‘Damn you, Terry Greene,’ she muttered to herself as she sipped the rich brew at an outside table and blew smoke as she watched the city traffic crawl by.

  Patterson and Asher were waiting for her. She sat on a leather and chrome chair opposite Asher’s desk and took a handful of bills from her bag. ‘I’m stuck between the devil and the deep blue, Richard, aren’t I?’

  Asher nodded.

  ‘Terry’s got me stitched up like a kipper, the bastard.’

  Patterson snorted softly. ‘I think given the choice, he’d rather not be in his current situation, Samantha. He’s not doing this by choice.’

  Sam tossed the bills on Asher’s desk. ‘These are going to have to be paid, and soon. What about getting Terry out? Then he can take care of his own dirty work.’

  ‘It isn’t going to be easy, Samantha,’ said Patterson. ‘The judge’s summing up was fair, and I don’t see any reasons to appeal on a point of law.’

  ‘But they only had one witness and he was hardly credible.’

  ‘We can’t appeal just because the jury chose to believe a scumbag who sold drugs to schoolkids. There’s the forensics.’

  ‘They never found the gun.’

  ‘They don’t need to, not to get a conviction.’

  ‘So are you telling me that we’re not going to appeal? Is that what you’re saying?’

  Patterson held out a hand as if trying to soothe a wayward horse. ‘What I’m saying is that we don’t yet have solid grounds with which to approach the Court of Appeal. We need evidence of a miscarriage of justice.’

  ‘Terry didn’t do it.’

  ‘Samantha, I’m on your side here. Look, the best way to get Terry out is to find out who did kill Preston Snow.’

  ‘And how do we do that?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Private investigators. Professionals. I can recommend people.’

  ‘Whatever I do, it’s going to cost, isn’t it?’

  Patterson gave her a pained look, then the merest hint of a nod. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘Pay peanuts, you get whatsits,’ said Asher.

  Sam stood up and paced up and down. She could feel herself being painted into a corner, and while she wanted to resist, she knew that she was clutching at straws.

  ‘Look, is there any way we can untangle Terry’s legitimate businesses from the dodgy ones? I could look after the property business and the courier firm. I’ve already arranged to sell the modelling company and I’m trying to find a buyer for Terry’s football shares. There must be some way of generating some cash legitimately.’

  Both men shook their heads.

  ‘They feed off each other, Samantha,’ said Patterson.

  ‘It’s symbiwhatsit,’ said Asher.

  ‘Symbiosis,’ said Sam.

  ‘That’s it.’

  ‘Shit,’ said Sam. She sat down again. ‘You know the situation I’m in, don’t you? I’m going to lose my house, Terry’s mother is going to be put in a council home, our son’s going to have to leave university. Unless I do what Terry wants.’

  ‘Like I said before, Samantha, it’s not really what Terry wants,’ said Patterson. ‘He’s no choice in the matter either.’

  ‘I had a thought on the way over. Why don’t I remortgage the house? It’s got to be worth three hundred grand, right? And the mortgage is what? A hundred and eighty?’

  ‘A hundred and ninety-five,’ said Asher.

  ‘So I can get a bigger mortgage. Another hundred grand maybe.’

  Asher shook his head. ‘Won’t work, Samantha. You’ve no income. The bank’s not going to give you more money without a guarantee that they’ll be getting it back.’

  ‘But they’ll have the house.’

  ‘Thing is, Samantha, they’ve got the house already. If you default on the mortgage, they’ll take it and sell it.’

  Samantha realised he was right. She looked at them in turn. They waited for her decision, their faces impassive. Sam swallowed, angry at the unfairness of it all. ‘Okay,’ she said eventually. ‘What do I do?’

  Asher leaned to the side and opened a desk drawer. He took out a clear plastic file containing several typed sheets of paper. ‘First we need you to sign a few papers,’ he said.

  Patterson appeared at her elbow, proffering a Mont Blanc fountain pen, its cap already removed. Sam took the pen and looked down at the first sheet of paper that Asher slid in front of her. ‘I feel as if I should be signing this in blood,’ she said bitterly as she scrawled her signature. Asher took the paper from her, dabbed it on his blotter, and gave her a second sheet. Sam didn’t bother reading the legalese. She knew there was no point. Signing was the only choice she had. Terry had got what she wanted, by signing she was taking control of his companies. His bank accounts. There were more than a dozen in all. His life.

  ‘Now what?’ she said.

  ‘Terry has a safe deposit box in South Kensington,’ said Patterson. ‘You’ll need to see what’s inside.’

  ‘Can we do that tomorrow, yeah?’ said Sam. ‘I’ve had all the excitement I can stand today.’

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Trisha was in the kitchen devouring a pizza when Sam got home. ‘Did you buy that?’ asked Sam, nodding at the box the pizza came in.

  Trisha shook her head. ‘You did,’ she said. ‘I used your credit card.’

  ‘Trish! Why didn’t you ask me first?’

  ‘Because you weren’t here. I thought you might be late again.’

  ‘I was visiting your gran.’ Sam took a triangle of pizza. ‘And you know I hate pineapple.’

  ‘Fruit’s good for you. How is she?’

  Sam sat down at the table opposite her daughter. ‘The same, pretty much. She’s not going to get better. It’s not that sort of illness.’

  ‘Yeah, I know. We did it in biology last year.’

  Sam took a bite of pizza while Trisha went to the fridge and poured her mother a glass of milk. ‘So how’s school?’ asked Sam.

  ‘School’s school. It’s
not going to get better either.’

  ‘Soon be over. Then you’ll be off to college or university.’

  Trisha sighed. ‘Don’t start, Mum.’

  ‘I’m not starting. It’s just that an education’s important. You know that.’

  ‘You left school at fifteen and you did all right.’

  Sam laughed and put down her slice of pizza. ‘Oh, Trisha, come on. I’ve been a kept woman for almost a quarter of a century. That’s hardly an achievement.’

  ‘You’re a wife and mother. You brought up three kids. You made a home.’

  ‘And that’s what you want to be? A housewife?’

  Trisha grimaced. ‘No bloody way. But I’m just saying there are options, that’s all.’

  ‘That’s exactly what college will give you. Options. And don’t swear.’

  ‘Bloody isn’t swearing, Mum.’

  Sam arched an eyebrow and Trisha threw up her hands. ‘Fine, I won’t express myself.’ She stood up. ‘I’ve got homework. Don’t stay up too late, you need your beauty sleep.’

  ‘Thank you very much,’ laughed Sam.

  After Trisha had gone upstairs, Sam opened a bottle of white wine and sat on a sofa in the sitting room with an old Eagles CD playing on the stereo as she read through the file that Patterson had given her. The financial details didn’t make any better reading the second time. The cheque that Warwick Locke had promised her would keep her creditors at bay for a week or so, but without a major injection of capital the whole house of cards was going to come tumbling down. The only salvation lay in the contents of Terry’s safe deposit box.

  Later she went upstairs and showered. As she stood in the bedroom, towelling her hair dry, she saw a flash of light through the curtains. She switched off the bedroom lights and peered through the window. A car was parked in the road outside the house. A big car.

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  Frank Welch popped two breath mints in his mouth and sucked on them as he stared at Sam Greene’s house. Welch had been inside the house twice, both times with a search warrant. The first time, four years earlier, Welch had been gathering evidence against Terry Greene’s drug-dealing empire, but the house had been clean and Welch and his team had walked away with Terry and Sam’s insults ringing in their ears. The second time had been equally unfruitful – it was only when they went to the apartment where Terry was staying that they’d discovered a pair of Terry’s shoes with spots of blood on them, blood that was later identified as being Preston Snow’s. Not absolutely conclusively of course, but the police genetics expert gave evidence that there would have to be of the order of two hundred billion people on the planet for there to have been anyone else with the same DNA profile. That was good enough for Welch, and for the jury.