by Jack Probyn
‘What’s going on?’ Michael asked, leaning across the aisle.
‘Nothing,’ Danny said. He tried to placate Luke by placing an arm around his body and concealing the key with his other hand, but both efforts were pointless. Luke had no intention of calming down – not after what he’d just realised.
‘Luke,’ Michael said, ‘Luke – listen to me! Shut up and listen.’ Michael grabbed Luke by the wrist and, almost instantly, the youngest brother froze. ‘You’re causing a scene, and you better fucking stop it right now. What’s the matter with you?’
Luke shook off both Danny and Michael and brandished the key in the air. The sunlight from outside the bus reflected off the key’s surface.
Before Danny could say anything, Michael spoke first. ‘Is that what I think it is?’
‘Yes,’ Luke said, nodding. ‘This cunt betrayed us. He betrayed Candice. He’s left her there to die.’
‘Oh my God,’ Michael said. ‘You told us you’d left it on the airfield—’
Danny snatched the key from Luke and locked it in his grip. ‘Boys—’
‘You lied to us. You said she was going to join us at the port, but you knew all along that was never going to happen, didn’t you?’ Michael said.
‘Listen—’
‘No. You listen,’ Luke said, shoving his finger in front of Danny’s face. He hissed as he spoke. ‘Do you know what you’ve done? You’ve killed your own mum.’
‘She was already dead to me,’ Danny replied, pocketing the key in his jeans.
‘But she wasn’t to me. And she wasn’t to Micky. We were going to restart our lives together, make up for all the time we’d lost, and you’ve taken that away from us. You selfish bastard.’ Luke’s eyes turned black with hatred.
‘What else have you lied about? What else aren’t you telling us, Dan?’ Michael said, bringing his voice down to a hush.
‘Nothing—’
‘Bullshit!’ Luke blurted out. ‘You’re a fucking liar and you always have been.’
As soon as Luke finished, the bus skidded to a halt and dipped to the front left. The three brothers stopped and looked ahead. There was no one standing at the front of the vehicle, waiting to disembark.
‘Off! The lot of you, off!’ the bus driver called back. He stared at them in the rearview mirror and pointed to the doors as they opened with an eerie hiss.
Nobody said anything, and Danny felt all eyes boring into him.
‘I said get off!’ the bus driver barked.
‘It’s fine. Honestly. We won’t do anything. We’ve stopped.’
‘This bus isn’t going anywhere until at least one of you gets off. Otherwise I’m calling the police.’
Both Michael and Luke glared at him. He knew their intentions, but he wasn’t going to concede defeat that easily. He had hundreds of thousands of pounds’ worth of jewellery in his bag that he wanted to smuggle out of the country – and more waiting for him at the port. There was no way he was going to miss that opportunity.
As Danny opened his mouth to argue back, Michael hefted his share of the loot from the seat beside him and stood. He stepped into the aisle and stopped beside Danny’s knee.
‘Come on, Luke. Let’s get out of here,’ Michael said.
‘No. Stay here, we—’
Luke leapt up from the seat and barged into Danny’s legs, trying to pass through.
‘No,’ Danny said. ‘I won’t let you go. Luke – you have to stay here.’
Luke eventually shuffled past and joined Michael’s side. ‘No, Danny, I don’t. I don’t have to do anything you tell me. I don’t have to listen to you anymore. I’ve had enough of you. I wish you weren’t my brother.’
‘What are you going to do now, eh? You can’t do anything? You can’t go anywhere. I’m the one with the tickets.’
‘So long as we’re without you, we’ll be fine no matter where we are. I’m sorry it’s come to this, Dan,’ Michael said.
Without saying anything else, Michael and Luke turned and strode off the bus, keeping their backs to him as the driver pulled away.
CHAPTER 45
CURRY
With them, as Bridger brought the car to a stop twenty yards from the Harbour Car Park, narrowly avoiding a scuff mark on his front near alloy and a hefty repair invoice, was a convoy of armed support in the back of a van that had been called in courtesy of Hampshire Police. In the centre of the car park was the stolen Saab. The bonnet was dented and one of the headlights was missing, the metal bent, car doors left open.
‘Must have left in a hurry,’ Bridger said as he climbed out of the vehicle.
Jake joined him and together they rested against the bonnet. They were under strict instructions to remain where they were while the firearms team approached the abandoned Saab for any signs of life or threat. It was clear to both of them that they were under Hampshire Police’s control now. The baton had been passed, but Jake was adamant he was going to make sure that he’d be crossing the finishing line with them. He felt a duty to find the brothers; not because of their past with one another – although that was a mitigating factor – but because, as time wore on, the pool of people he could trust was drying up very quickly.
After several long minutes of standing in the sun, angling to find shade, Jake and Bridger were given the all-clear by the armed officers. Before they were allowed to investigate the Saab for themselves, they changed into their forensic suits.
Bridger was first to the car.
‘What can you see?’ Jake asked as he edged closer, fighting with the zip of his suit.
Bridger reached in, out of Jake’s sight, and removed something. At first, he couldn’t see what it was, but then, as Bridger shuffled around the vehicle, the object came into view.
‘The mask,’ Jake whispered. In Bridger’s hand was the insidious mask that had been responsible for the nightmares, for the weeks of interrupted sleep he’d suffered following that day in Oxford. The sight of it was enough to bring back the knot in his stomach.
‘We’re close. We can’t be too far behind.’
Jake took another step closer to the vehicle and looked through the window, at the handful of glistening jewels and crystals that were buried in the seams of the seats from where they’d fallen out of the brothers’ bags. Jake wondered whether they’d been left behind on purpose as a cruel taunt, a middle-finger salute. And then he considered taking one; a single diamond alone was enough to fix several of his financial issues and keep his family in the black for a long time. But the ramifications were too great, and he very quickly realised what a stupid idea that was.
A flurry of liveried police cars skidded to a halt on the outskirts of the perimeter that had been set up a few hundred yards away down the road. It was another patrol from Hampshire Police. Joining them, from the back, was an unmarked car. Two officers disembarked and patrolled towards them.
‘What’s going on here?’ one of the uniformed officers asked them. His full beard shielded his lips, but from the way he spoke and the immediate presence he held over the rest of the team, it was clear to Jake that he was the officer in command. Albeit late to the party.
‘DS Bridger. Surrey Police,’ Bridger replied.
‘We have no need for you here, Sergeant. My team and I can handle this. Let them do their jobs. If I need you, I’ll catch up with you in a minute.’
Bridger nodded and smiled graciously in defeat. From the short amount of time that Jake had spent with Bridger, he knew that that was going to bruise the ego, even if it was procedure to follow Hampshire Police’s orders from here on. Nobody admired relinquishing control, and Jake just hoped he was better at hiding it than Bridger. They stepped aside and started back to Bridger’s car.
By the time Jake reached the passenger side, his mobile started ringing.
‘Hello?’
‘Jake.’ It was Danika. She spoke slowly, as if her brain were still trying to process what she was about to tell him. ‘I just thought you should know – I
was looking into the tickets for the cruise in Portsmouth. They’re all purchased under their Cipriano name. All through the same credit card. They were all registered to the same address in Guildford, near the university – we’ve organised a team from the office to search the address.’
‘Where were they going?’
‘Mexico.’
‘Mexico?’
‘Mexico.’
‘Bloody hell. When’s the ship leave?’
‘It’s scheduled to leave at two.’
Jake checked his watch – 1:11 p.m.
‘I need another favour,’ he said.
It was time for her to prove herself to him.
‘What is it?’
‘CCTV from the Harbour Car Park and the surrounding area. The brothers are most likely on foot. They’ll be much easier to track, so long as they stay like that. Find out which way they’re heading, and where they are. Also – are their faces on the news yet?’
‘No,’ Danika replied.
‘Who’s the media liaison officer? I would have thought they should have taken care of that by now. Their faces should be all over the television, internet, social media – they should even be on the sides of buses!’
‘There’s a process, Jake. And remember your place. We can’t go around bossing seniors like that.’
Jake sighed and took a step away from Bridger, letting his aggression flow out of his heavy steps on the concrete. He thanked her and then cut the line.
As he lowered the phone, he tried to focus on what was happening in front of him. At the forensics team burying themselves in the seams of the Saab’s seats. At the flurry of pedestrian activity to Jake’s left, and at the police officers that were struggling to keep the general public at bay. But there was something niggling at the back of his mind. Like why would The Crimsons leave the car in plain sight and with no obvious effort made to conceal the damages sustained to it? Why would they book tickets under their own name and not the alias like Freddy had advised? Had Freddy been pulling him along or was he telling Jake the truth?
Bridger joined his side.
‘You know when something’s not quite sitting right with you?’ Jake asked him.
‘You mean like after you’ve had a curry?’
Jake smirked. ‘Not exactly. But when your intuition starts flagging a few things.’
‘It’s been known to happen. What are you thinking?’
‘That it doesn’t add up,’ Jake said. ‘DC Oblak called and said they had tickets booked to Mexico under their original names. But when I spoke with Freddy, he told me to look out for their other name. He said it was likely they would have booked tickets under a name nobody knew they had.’
‘What’s that?’ Bridger asked, putting his hands in his pockets.
‘Harrington.’
‘Candice’s maiden name?’
Jake nodded.
‘You think they’ve booked tickets for the same cruise but just under different names?’
Jake shook his head. ‘That would just be stupid.’ He paused a beat. ‘They’re either on a later boat today, or an entirely different one altogether… Maybe even at a different port.’
And then it clicked. The map of Southern England flashed in his mind, complete with its roads and towns and villages and coastal lines and boat routes.
Brighton. Portsmouth. Southampton. Bournemouth.
Southampton.
The storage unit.
The answer was right in front of him all along.
‘Jesus Christ,’ he said, ‘they’re going to Southampton Port instead.’
CHAPTER 46
CHANGE OF IDENTITY
Danny Cipriano. That bastard, low-life-piece-of-scum shitbag. Out of all the things he could have done, he’d gone and betrayed them, gone against the plan, gone and effectively killed their own mum. And now he’d deserted them, shown his true colours. Right now, he was as far away from a rainbow as possible.
Something was making Luke shake, and he was certain it wasn’t adrenaline. It was an emotion he hadn’t felt in a long time – ever since Michael had told him that their dad had left them to fend for themselves in foster care. Luke had been eleven when he’d found out. He’d thought the worst of his dad then, and he thought the worst of Danny now. They were both the same, and for a moment Luke wondered whether all of the Cipriano family members would be like that: completely and utterly selfish, only caring about themselves, ready to throw everything away.
Luke looked up longingly at Michael and hoped his older brother wouldn’t do the same. He couldn’t stand that.
After jumping off the bus outside Fareham, they’d decided to head into the town, keeping their faces and their features concealed, but in the brilliant sunlight it had proven difficult. Neither of them had been able to count the precise number of witnesses on board the bus, but they were both abhorrently aware that it was a number far greater than they were comfortable with. Discretion, throughout their career, had been their one key factor of success. Without it, they may as well hand themselves in at the station. And so they’d headed into a Boots store inside the nearby shopping centre, positioned just in the middle of the high street, and purchased an electric shaver. Cash. In, out. Without acknowledging or speaking to the cashier. It was the middle of the day and they were in a rush. Nothing to second glance, nothing to query.
Feeling like they’d just stolen it, they hurried out of the store and paced towards the bus depot a few hundred yards away from the centre’s entrance. Attached to the depot was a set of public toilets. Men’s on the left. Women’s on the right.
The brothers ducked into the men’s, made a quick recce of the cubicles, and after realising that they were empty, tore open the electric shaver box like a pack of wolves feasting on their prey, destroying its opportunity to escape.
Michael was first. The thinning hair on his head meant that his would take the least time. It was something all of the Cipriano brothers were plagued with: balding. And Danny had suffered the worst. Only a few years older than Michael, his hair – or lack thereof – made him look double his age. With the shaver, they thought they might as well speed up the process and adopt new personas.
Luke’s attention waned while he waited, his eyes falling on the crude graffiti in the stalls and above the urinals. There was a lot of anger on those walls, but every now and then they were dampened by the crudely drawn phalluses and vaginas playing with one another. To Luke’s surprise, some of them had been artistically done, detailed, realist. He admired anyone who had the bravery and ability to hold a canister in hand and let their fingers do the rest. He’d tried, on several occasions, but each time had been less than satisfactory, and each time had also resulted in a lesson in running away from the police, moving the autopilot from his fingers to his legs and letting them do all the work.
‘Oi.’ Michael shoved him in the arm. He was finished, his thick bald head glistening beneath the lamp like a polished bowling ball. ‘Come on. Your turn. Hurry up.’
Luke took the shaver from his brother, blew the detritus free from the blades and stared at himself in the mirror. Christ, he looked broken, beaten. They both did. Shadows of their former selves. As if the past nine years of solitude and secrecy and being on the run had culminated in this: a man who was a stranger to himself.
‘We ain’t got all day,’ Michael scorned. ‘Get moving.’
Breathing deeply, Luke raised the shaver to his head, held it there. Not long, he told himself. Not long until it would all be over. Until he and Michael would be able to start their new lives together somewhere. Somehow. Whether it was in the UK or whether it was abroad in the back of a rubber dingy, they’d work it out.
So long as they were together.
As he grazed the shaver over his scalp, he tried to force the images of the collar currently strapped around his mum’s neck from his mind, and then realised that, no matter how hard he tried, they simply wouldn’t stop.
CHAPTER 47
MAKING AMENDS<
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‘We think it’s a decoy, ma’am,’ Bridger said as he tore out of the car park, heading up Queen Street and turning onto the A3.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, the static and connection of her voice in the loudspeaker sounding like she was coming from somewhere in space.
‘Tanner believes they’ve booked the cruise tickets from Portsmouth as a decoy. He believes they’re really going to Southampton.’
‘What evidence do we have?’ Pemberton asked.
Jake shifted his arm onto the centre console and leant closer towards the mobile that was tucked into the dashboard vent.
‘It’s a working theory at the moment, ma’am,’ he explained.
‘Speculation isn’t going to catch these guys. You can’t just go gallivanting across the country in the hope that they might be there.’
Bridger opened his mouth but was cut off by Jake.
‘With all due respect, ma’am, I have reasonable grounds to believe that’s where they’re heading. Hampshire Police have sent several officers to search the Portsmouth boat we originally believed they were taking, so if they do show up there – and I turn out to be wrong – then they will be caught. We’ve asked DC Oblak to find any ticket references that have been booked under the name Harrington.’
A long moment of silence played out in the car as they awaited a response.
‘Candice never mentioned anything about Southampton…’ Pemberton said.
‘Either she’s still protecting them and not telling you about it, or she doesn’t know that it could be a part of their plan.’
‘She’s got ten spikes strapped to her neck – she’s not going to try and cover for them now, Jake.’
Why do you sound so sure?
‘Then there’s a possibility that Danny might’ve only told her half the story. If he’s capable of hiding the key from her, then he might not have told her about Southampton. He clearly isn’t stupid enough to hop on a boat where he knows we’ll be waiting for him.’