The Stretch (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘You won’t be happy until I’m behind bars with your husband, will you?’ He looked left and right. ‘Come on, we can’t stay here.’

  ‘Ashamed of me, Blackie?’

  Blackie hissed in annoyance and walked off towards the main road, and Sam hurried after him.

  Blackie turned off into a park. He kept looking around as if he feared someone might see them.

  ‘Blackie, will you relax? You’re making yourself look suspicious.’

  ‘You’re the wife of a convicted murderer. How’s it going to look if I’m seen with you?’

  ‘What, you never talk to criminals? What sort of cop are you? Just tell them I’m one of your grasses.’

  Blackie hissed again and headed towards a small lake in the middle of the park.

  Sam followed. ‘Look, Blackie, I need to talk to Morrison. He said he saw Terry leaving Snow’s after he was shot. I want to know why he lied. If I have to make your life a little uncomfortable to get to the truth, then tough shit.’

  Blackie turned to face her. ‘Morrison’s in a witness protection scheme: new identity, the works.’

  ‘You know where he is?’

  ‘You can’t see him. End of story. If I let you speak to him, word’ll get back to Welch and I’ll be in deep shit.’

  ‘But you do know where he is?’

  Blackie glared at her, then turned and walked off.

  ‘You can’t keep walking away, Blackie,’ Sam called after him. She took a manila envelope out of her bag and held it up. ‘Not if you want these destroyed.’ Blackie didn’t look back. ‘You can be all macho if you like, but if these end up on your boss’s desk, then your career’s in the toilet.’

  Blackie stopped. He slowly turned and stared at the envelope in Sam’s hand. ‘What the fuck’s that?’

  Sam didn’t reply. They stared at each other like a couple of gunfighters, neither prepared to draw first. Blackie gritted his teeth and took his hands out of his overcoat pockets before slowly walking back to her. He snatched the envelope from her and ripped it open. Inside was the set of black and white photographs that Sam had found in the safe deposit box. Blackie looked through the pictures, his face reddening. ‘You could get seven years for this.’

  ‘Just a few holiday snaps.’

  ‘This is fucking blackmail.’

  ‘Oh, I didn’t realise. Well, now that you’ve pointed that out, let’s just forget about the whole thing. Grow up, Blackie. I know it’s fucking blackmail. That’s the point. Now, are you going to take me to Morrison or do I send the negatives to your boss?’

  Blackie put the photographs back in the envelope. ‘You’re learning fast, Sam.’

  ‘I’m having to.’

  ‘Just be careful you don’t get too smart for your own good, yeah?’ He slid the envelope into his inside jacket pocket. ‘You got a car?’

  Sam took out her mobile phone and called McKinley. Two minutes later the Lexus pulled up outside the park and Sam and Blackie climbed in the back. Blackie told McKinley where to go and then settled back in a sullen silence.

  They drove to a tower block in a rundown part of north-west London. Sam and Blackie got out of the car and Sam looked around at the boarded-up shopfronts sprayed with graffiti and pavements strewn with litter. ‘You certainly look after your witnesses, Blackie.’

  ‘Budget cuts,’ said Blackie. ‘Plus no one’s going to bend over backwards to make life easy for a scumbag like Morrison.’

  Blackie took her over to the entrance to the tower block. There was a keypad entry system on the rusty metal door, but the lock had been broken and the door swung gently in the wind. Inside, ‘Out of Order’ signs had been plastered across two of the three lifts.

  ‘What floor’s he on?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Third.’

  ‘How about we walk up?’

  ‘Good call,’ said Blackie.

  They walked up the stairs. The walls were covered in graffiti, mainly names and obscenities with the occasional anatomical drawing. ‘How long’s he been here?’ asked Sam.

  ‘Since about a month before the trial,’ said Blackie.

  ‘And this is part of his deal for grassing on Terry?’

  ‘He didn’t grass on Terry,’ said Blackie, who was starting to breathe heavily with the effort of climbing the concrete steps. ‘He was a witness at the scene of a crime. There’s a difference.’

  ‘Yeah, well, the devil’s in the details,’ said Sam. ‘Why’s he on the witness protection scheme?’

  ‘He’s helping the drugs squad with a couple of cases. Morrison is strictly smalltime, but he knows a few people higher up the food chain.’

  ‘Presumably not too high up or he’d be in better surroundings.’

  Blackie pulled a face. Someone had defecated in the stairwell, and they both gave the offending item a wide berth. Sam felt sick, and covered her mouth and nose with a handkerchief.

  Blackie smiled at her discomfort. ‘If you think this is bad, wait until you meet Morrison,’ he said.

  Morrison’s front door was one of more than a dozen off a dimly lit corridor. It had three locks and a security viewer, and screwholes showed where there had once been a three-digit number. The numbers had been removed but the outlines could still be seen in the faded paintwork. Blackie rang the bell, and when they didn’t hear anything from inside he knocked. They heard footsteps and Blackie knocked again.

  ‘Come on, Ricky, I know you’re in there.’

  The security viewer darkened as Morrison scrutinised them from inside.

  ‘Stop playing fucking games,’ said Blackie.

  ‘Who is it?’ said a muffled voice.

  Blackie took out his warrant card and held it up to the viewer. ‘Police.’

  The door opened a couple of inches. There was a security chain attached and the man inside kept his hand on the edge of the door. All Sam could see was a third of the man’s face – a shock of unruly hair, a squinting eye and a cheek covered with stubble – but she recognised him from his time in the witness box.

  ‘You’re supposed to talk to my brief,’ said Morrison. He had a slight lisp. ‘You can’t come here like this.’

  ‘We don’t have time to go through channels.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  Blackie pushed the warrant card closer to Morrison’s face. ‘Detective Chief Superintendent Blackstock.’

  Morrison squinted at the card. ‘Blackstock? You’re not drugs, are you?’

  ‘No, Ricky. I’m not drugs. Now, will you open the door or do you want me to kick it in?’

  Morrison nodded at Sam. ‘What’s she doing here?’

  ‘I just want to talk to you,’ said Sam.

  Blackie put the flat of his hand against the door and pushed. ‘Come on, Ricky, your neighbours are going to start asking questions if we carry on like this.’

  Morrison sniggered. ‘Neighbours here don’t give a toss about fuck all,’ he said.

  Sam took an envelope from her bag. ‘I’ve got this for you,’ she said.

  Blackie threw her a threatening look but didn’t say anything.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Morrison.

  Sam smiled and tapped the envelope on the door. Morrison nibbled on his lower lip, then took off the security chain and pulled the door open. Sam walked into the flat first, handing the envelope to Morrison as she walked past him. He ripped it open. There was a wad of fifty-pound notes inside.

  Blackie saw the money and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder. ‘You can’t do that!’ he said. ‘He’s a witness, you can’t go bribing a witness.’

  ‘She can do what she wants,’ said Morrison. He was wearing a tartan dressing gown over grimy pyjamas. He hurried off to his bedroom as if he feared they might ask him for the money back.

  Sam shook Blackie’s hand off her shoulder. ‘I’m just smoothing the way. Same as you do with your grasses, right? If this offends your sensibilities, maybe you should wait outside.’

  ‘Maybe you’re right,’ said Blackie. He looke
d at his watch. ‘Ten minutes, yeah? Then we’re out of here.’

  Sam nodded.

  Blackie looked as if he wanted to say more, but he just turned and left.

  Sam looked around the flat. There was a tired sofa, two worn leather armchairs and a brand new large-screen television and video recorder. Discarded fast food cartons lay on the floor, and dirty magazines were piled on a coffee table next to an opened can of lager. Sam walked over to the window and drew back a grubby net curtain. Down below a burnt-out car had been pushed on to its side, next to a skip overflowing with rubbish.

  Sam turned around as Morrison came back into the room.

  ‘I don’t know what you think I can tell you,’ he said.

  ‘You know who I am, right?’

  ‘Sure. Saw you in court. Mrs Greene, yeah?’

  Sam nodded. ‘Mind if I smoke?’

  ‘Go ahead.’ Sam took out a cigarette and then offered the pack to Morrison. He took a cigarette and she lit them both. She looked at the sofa. There was an opened magazine on the arm, next to a box of tissues. Morrison saw what she was looking at and pulled out a tissue and wiped his nose. ‘I’ve got a cold,’ he said. ‘Can’t shake it.’ He tossed the magazine on to the pile and sat down, wrapping his dressing gown around him.

  Sam decided not to sit. She stood with her back to the window and blew smoke at the floor. ‘Ricky, I heard what you said in court, but I’m here to tell you that my husband didn’t do it. He didn’t kill Preston Snow.’

  Morrison shrugged. ‘I saw what I saw.’

  ‘Which was what?’

  ‘I already said. In court. I wasn’t lying, Mrs Greene.’

  ‘Tell me again, Ricky.’

  Morrison sighed. He took a long pull on his cigarette, then sighed again as he exhaled the smoke. ‘I’ve been through this a thousand times. With the filth, with the CPS, with the barrister.’

  ‘Make it a thousand and one.’

  Morrison picked a spot on his chin and put his feet up on the coffee table. ‘I was asleep, right? I woke up. Then I heard two shots. Bang. Bang. I get up and I open the door. Your husband comes down the stairs putting something in his pocket. I see him, he doesn’t see me. He goes downstairs and I close the door. I go back to bed. Couple of hours later the filth are knocking on my door and they tell me that Snow’s dead. Shot twice.’ Morrison threw his hands up, as if he’d just proved a complicated theorem. ‘QAD.’

  ‘I think you mean QED, Ricky.’

  ‘QAD. QED. I saw what I saw.’

  Sam nodded thoughtfully. ‘You were staying at Snow’s house?’

  Morrison shook his head. ‘Snow had the top two floors. There were bedsits on the ground floor.’

  ‘And you knew Snow?’

  ‘He wasn’t a mate, if that’s what you mean. He was just the Sooty that sold me gear from time to time.’

  ‘Gear?’

  ‘Bit of crack. Coke if I had the money.’

  ‘You get high a lot?’

  ‘If I can afford it.’

  ‘You didn’t tell the court that.’

  ‘Wasn’t asked.’

  Sam paced up and down, and noticed a small kitchen off the sitting room. A gas cooker thick with grease, a stack of dirty plates in the sink, a dripping tap.

  ‘You want a coffee or something, Mrs Greene?’ Morrison asked.

  Sam was taken aback by his sudden offer of hospitality, but there was no way she could bring herself to drink out of a cup from Morrison’s kitchen. ‘No, thanks, Ricky. Were you high the night Snow was shot?’

  Morrison screwed up his face like a baby about to cry. ‘I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t imagine it.’

  ‘I’m not saying you were, but maybe you were a bit woozy. A bit disorientated.’

  Morrison shook his head. ‘I saw what I saw.’

  ‘It was night. There wasn’t a light in the hallway.’

  ‘Your husband’s barrister said all that in court. There was enough light coming in from a skylight. I saw his face.’

  ‘But only in profile. With his collar up.’

  ‘It was him, Mrs Greene.’ He took a drag on his cigarette, holding it between his thumb and first finger. ‘You weren’t with him that night, were you?’

  ‘I’m the one buying information, Ricky.’

  ‘Yeah, but we both know that if anyone was lying in court, it was you, right? He wasn’t with you, was he?’

  Sam didn’t reply and Morrison grinned triumphantly. He jabbed his cigarette in her direction. ‘See!’

  ‘What woke you up?’

  Morrison frowned. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You said you woke up and heard two shots. Why did you wake up?’

  Morrison shrugged. ‘Dunno. Wanted a piss maybe. Why does anyone wake up?’

  ‘You didn’t hear shouts? An argument?’

  ‘I just woke up. Then I heard the shots. Then I saw your husband.’

  Sam’s cigarette had burned down to the filter. She looked around for an ashtray but couldn’t see one. She went into the kitchen and stubbed it out in the sink. A cockroach scuttled across a dirty plate and Sam jumped back. ‘Jesus, Ricky, don’t you ever clean this place?’

  ‘They said they’d send a cleaner around.’

  Sam went back into the sitting room. ‘Had you done business with Raquel before?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Frank Welch. Were you involved with him before Snow was killed?’

  Morrison still looked confused.

  ‘Were you one of his grasses?’

  Morrison rolled his eyes upwards. ‘I can’t tell you that. Do you know how many people want me dead?’

  ‘Is that including me, Ricky?’

  ‘If word gets out that I’m a grass, do you know what’ll happen to me?’

  ‘Ricky, you’re on a witness protection scheme. Presumably every man and his dog knows that you’re singing like a canary. All I’m asking is, were you one of Welch’s grasses?’

  Morrison nodded. ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Yeah. I was.’

  ‘See, I think Welch set my husband up. I think he faked the forensics.’

  ‘And you think he got me to lie for him?’

  Sam looked at him and nodded slowly. ‘That’s exactly what I think.’

  He looked back at her steadily. ‘Well, you’re wrong, Mrs Greene. Dead wrong.’

  ∗ ∗ ∗

  The three white Transit vans drove off the ferry separately but regrouped just outside the terminal. All three had been waved through by a bored Customs officer in a yellow reflective jacket. They were just three among hundreds of vans taking advantage of the cheap beer and wine on the Continent, and the men in the vans had done the run enough times to have learned how to avoid attracting attention to themselves.

  Kim Fletcher and Johnny Russell were in the first van to come off the ferry. Russell was driving, and Fletcher used a mobile phone to call Ellis, who was driving one of the other vans, and then Ryser, who was driving the third. They drove in convoy towards a large roundabout outside Dover, where they split up, taking different routes back to London. Each van was shadowed at a distance by two large motorcycles, the riders and passengers wearing leathers and full-face helmets.

  Russell constantly checked his rear-view mirror while Fletcher kept his mobile phone in his lap. There was a burst of laughter behind them and Fletcher twisted around in his seat. ‘Will you keep the fucking noise down,’ he said.

  Four big men sat in the back on cases of lager, cradling cricket bats. They wore leather bomber jackets and jeans and had holdalls containing cricket whites and pads in case Customs had stopped them. ‘Sorry, boss,’ said one of the heavies.

  ‘We’ve got a tail,’ said Russell.

  Fletcher checked the wing mirror on the passenger side.

  ‘Four cars back. Blue van.’

  Fletcher saw the van. There was a blonde girl in the passenger seat and a big, balding man driving. ‘You sure?’

  ‘Changed lanes twice and so d
id he. Been matching our speed for the last two miles.’

  ‘Okay, lads,’ said Fletcher. ‘This is it.’ He called up the two other vans and told them that the pressure was off and that they were to tell their accompanying motorcycles to get over to Fletcher’s van. He opened the glove compartment and took out a small radio transceiver. The two motorcyclists who were half a mile behind the van were tuned to the frequency of the transceiver, Fletcher called them up and told them about the blue van, then he sat back in his seat and smiled. He began to hum quietly to himself.

  The blue van kept its distance for another fifteen minutes, then made its move as they drove along a relatively quiet stretch of road. The blue van accelerated until it was just a car’s length behind the white van, then it slowed and matched its speed. There was a traffic light ahead, and as it changed to red, Russell gently braked.

  ‘This is it, lads,’ said Fletcher. He leaned down and took out a large monkey wrench from under his seat. ‘Brace yourselves.’

  Russell brought the van to a stop. There was nothing ahead of them. The blue van banged into the back of them, but Russell had already taken his foot off the brake and the impact nudged them forward a few feet. Fletcher winked at Russell and climbed out.

  The female passenger was already out of the blue van, apologising profusely in an East European accent. ‘I so sorry,’ she said, smiling and throwing her hands up in the air. ‘We not see light.’ She was pretty with a wide mouth and dyed blonde hair tied back in a ponytail. ‘Everybody okay?’

  Fletcher kept the monkey wrench behind his back as he smiled at the girl. ‘We’re fine. Are you all right? Not hurt?’

  ‘We okay,’ said the girl. ‘But we have damaged the back of your van.’ She pointed at the rear of the white Transit. ‘See?’

  Russell got out of the driver’s seat and walked around to join Fletcher. As they approached the back of the Transit, the rear doors of the blue van flew open and four heavily built men jumped out wielding crowbars. The girl ran to them, shouting in a language Fletcher didn’t recognise.

  ‘Fuck me,’ said Russell. ‘It’s a stick-up.’

  ‘A cock-up, more like,’ said Fletcher, producing his monkey wrench. Russell brought a length of chain out of his jacket pocket and stepped to the side, swinging it around as he walked towards the four heavies. Fletcher banged his monkey wrench against the side of the van and the doors burst open. The four men inside leapt out, their cricket bats at the ready, yelling obscenities.