The Detective Jake Tanner Organised Crime Thriller Series Books 1-3 (DC Jake Tanner Crime Thriller Series Boxsets)

by Jack Probyn

  ‘You’re good,’ the boy said, hopping onto his bike.

  ‘Tell Henry I wanna speak to him.’

  The boy shook his head. ‘He ain’t gon’ like that… pig. You know what time it is?’

  He didn’t know precisely, but he was aware it was already gone three. Well past the kid’s bedtime. And his.

  ‘Just tell him, you little shit,’ Liam snapped. ‘It’s important.’

  ‘You better watch what you say in front of me, fam.’ The boy, lightning quick, pulled out a flick knife from his pocket and held it at arm’s length. The street lamp lit the three-inch blade orange, as though it were scalding hot.

  Liam glanced at it and remained still. ‘What’s your name, kid?’

  ‘Lewis,’ the kid replied with pride and a quick snap of the chin.

  ‘You know what I am, right?’

  ‘That ain’t mean shit when you step foot round ’ere… pig.’

  Lewis spat on the floor by Liam’s feet and set off on his bike, heading back through the underpass. While he waited, Liam observed his surroundings. The tower blocks were thirty storeys high, and there were several hundred people living there, most of them in run-down conditions. But not a select few. There was a hierarchy that not many people outside of the estate knew about. The dealers were naturally the wealthiest, occupying several flats at a time – mostly at the top, furthest from any rival gang members looking to start a turf war by making someone swallow a bullet. Then there were the runners, the ‘youngers’ – the young, apprentice-type kids who were no older than fifteen and didn’t know any better – that would run the drugs around the streets, shipping them to the buyers. And, finally, there were the buyers – the desperate addicts begging for their next fix.

  And then there was the one who supplied it to them all.

  Henry Matheson.

  Liam wondered which flat he was staying in. In the north building or the south? Before he could contemplate it any further, the boy returned, his brakes squealing as he skidded to a standstill.

  ‘You caught him in a good mood. Follow me.’

  Liam started off after the kid. They headed to the building on the other side of the basketball court, through the doors and up fourteen flights of stairs. There, the stench of alcohol and vomit ran up his nostrils, dived down his throat and settled in his stomach, making him want to vomit. As they came to a stop on the twentieth floor, Liam tried to force the smell from his mind. He needed to focus. There was a job to do and he needed his A game if he was going to be convincing in any way, shape or form.

  Top form, Liam told himself. Top form.

  The boy stopped outside a flat. There was no door number on it, but behind the door was the source of the heavy bass he’d heard from down in the square. After Lewis knocked, the music stopped and was followed by the sound of footsteps and a door chain being unlocked.

  Henry Matheson was a beefy guy – his hair short, eyes deep in his head and his nose broken. He wore a gold chain around his neck and an even thicker one on his wrist. His complexion was fair and looked as though he maintained it well, which struck Liam as odd because he thought the last thing on a drug dealer’s mind would be completing a skin routine every night. Henry was dressed in an Adidas tracksuit, with the trousers hanging halfway down his legs, and the unzipped jumper revealing a vest and a substantial amount of chest hair.

  ‘This better be important. You didn’t make an appointment.’

  ‘You got business cards or something now then? A secretary I can call?’ Liam hoped the light-hearted banter would make up for the disturbance.

  It didn’t.

  Henry turned his back on Liam and disappeared into the flat. Liam took that as his cue to follow. The flat was dark, cold and stank of weed. It was a pleasant change from the piss and everything else he’d smelt on the way up. The air was filled with a dense mist originating from the smoke; Liam supposed it permeated through the walls and pores and molecules of everything that lived there.

  He followed Henry into the living room at the end of the flat. The lights were off and the only source of light was the forty-inch television screen sitting on the floor on the left. Against each of the three remaining walls was a sofa. On them sat Henry and his dealers, all looking up at Liam with contempt, the flickering lights from the television dancing off their chains and earrings. As he panned the room, he noticed that, on either side of the television, two bodies were slumped on beanbags.

  ‘They all right?’ Liam pointed over to the two comatose girls.

  ‘Let me worry about them,’ Henry said, folding his arms. ‘You just worry about making yourself heard in the next five minutes.’

  With pleasure, he thought, stepping into the room. He saw a free space, large enough for him to sit on without coming into contact with anyone else, and sat on it.

  ‘No, no. You don’t get to sit,’ Henry ordered, waving his finger at Liam to get up.

  Rising to his feet in the middle of the room, Liam chuckled awkwardly and asked, ‘How’s business?’

  Henry kissed his teeth. ‘Fam, you come here at this time in the morning to talk about fucking accounting? You’ve just shaved off two minutes of your time. Get talking.’

  Liam raised a defenceless hand in the air. Cut to the chase. Short, succinct, he told himself. ‘What if I told you I could nearly double your income for you?’

  Henry sat forward a little. ‘I’d say you’re chatting shit, but now you have my attention.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ve heard about the Cipriano case? Famous robbers. Killed their mum with a spiked collar-bomb thing. Yeah? Those ones. Disgusting, I know. But one of the boys on my payroll did it. Offered him a large enough sum of money and he was happy to accept. Only problem now though is one of his boys has fucked up and managed to get his DNA on the body. Our person on the payroll in forensics didn’t get a chance to discard it. Now we’ve got ourselves a situation—’

  ‘One minute.’

  Liam continued, regardless. ‘We need someone to pin the murders on. And that’s where you come in.’

  At that, one of the dealers to Henry’s left moved his hand to the arm of the chair, grabbed a gun from beneath a pillow and moved it slowly onto his knee, making very sure that Liam knew it existed and that it was pointed directly at him.

  ‘What you talking about?’ Henry asked.

  ‘My original question. Business. It’s going good, but it could be better, right?’ Liam looked around the room as if he was actually expecting an answer. ‘Your friend, Jermaine Gordon – how’s he doing?’

  ‘Still taking forty per cent of the market.’

  ‘What if I got rid of him? My team can arrest Jermaine, plant some evidence on him that would make it look like he killed the brothers and then he’s gone for a good ten to twenty years. With his record, he could even go down for longer. Frees up his share of the market.’

  A moment of hesitation fell over the room. Liam felt like he was in court, being judged and assessed by a jury. Hopefully, the man with the gun wasn’t his executioner.

  ‘What’s in it for you?’

  Liam shrugged. ‘A bigger cut than usual. Ten per cent.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘Ten per cent of your monthly takings. Think about it. You’ll own one hundred per cent of the market. Ten per cent of that is negligible. And we’ll keep letting you bring in the shipments, ship it around the city and stay out of any trouble.’

  ‘Two per cent,’ Henry countered.

  ‘Eight.’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘Two.’

  Liam opened his mouth to counter but stopped as he watched the man with the gun push it further up his leg. ‘Fine. Two per cent. Usual delivery methods?’

  ‘Yes.’ Henry nodded. ‘Is that everything?’

  ‘Not yet. How long have I got left?’

  ‘Ten seconds.’

  ‘Good. One last thing – tell your boys to stop supplying to Drew. He’s about to go off
the rails if you keep giving him this shit.’

  Henry leant forward, resting his elbows on his knees. ‘I’ve got something I want you to have.’ He turned to the man beside him and took the gun from the man’s grasp, then placed it on the glass table in front of him.

  ‘Wh—’

  ‘Are you about to be ungrateful, Liam?’

  Liam shook his head.

  ‘Good boy. If your plan works and it all goes smoothly, then you’re gonna have Jermaine’s boys coming after you. And trust me, you ain’t gonna want that. I don’t usually offer protection to my clients, but as this is a special deal, and you’re doing me a favour, it’s the least I can do for you. All right?’

  Liam nodded. He didn’t know what to say. In fact, he was too afraid to say anything. A gun was pointing at him, and he didn’t even want to think what sort of life it had had – how many lives it had claimed, how many bullets had travelled through its chamber, how many women it had widowed, children made fatherless.

  ‘And what about Drew?’ he asked, stalling for as much time as possible.

  ‘You’re just worried about him because you’ve not tasted the stuff for yourself in a while…’ Henry reached behind him and produced a small bottle of Pepsi. He placed it on the table. ‘You can use this. Try it and see what you think. Might help you forget that you’re a dirty pig for a couple of hours. Like you used to. I remember it was your favourite. Go on. Time’s up. Elijah can show you out.’

  Without needing to be told twice, Liam grabbed the gun and Pepsi bottle, concealed them in his pocket and waistband, and left.

  CHAPTER 67

  DOUBLE

  As soon as the front door closed, Henry sparked up a cigarette, inhaled the toxins into his lungs and kept them there until his breath couldn’t hold any longer.

  ‘Liam fucking Greene,’ he said aloud, shaking his head amidst the cloud of smoke that hung in front of his face. ‘Prick’s getting too big for his boots. Nobody gets to dictate my business like that. Nobody.’

  ‘What you gonna do, G?’ Elijah asked.

  ‘I already know what I’m gonna fuckin’ do.’ Keeping the cigarette in his mouth, Henry found his phone and pressed five on speed dial.

  Silence descended on the room.

  ‘Hello?’ a voice answered.

  ‘Rupert? It’s me. Sorry to wake you like this.’

  ‘It’s fine. Perfectly fine.’ A pause. ‘Give me a moment; I’ll get somewhere more private.’

  Henry waited as Rupert shuffled around, opened a door and climbed down a set of squeaky stairs.

  ‘What’s up?’ Rupert asked as he settled somewhere in his North London mansion.

  ‘I’ve just had a meeting with a mutual friend of ours.’

  ‘What have you done now?’ Rupert asked. He spoke affluently. Even though they were in the same sort of business and earned similar sorts of money, they’d grown up on opposite ends of the societal spectrum.

  ‘Nothing like that. It was Liam… Liam Greene. He came over to work out a deal. Just thought I’d let you know that he’s planning on taking Jermaine off the streets in exchange for a cut of the take. He wants to pin a double murder on J.’

  Rupert sighed through the phone. ‘He’s clearly not been keeping up with the times, has he?’

  ‘His head’s too far up his own arse to know it.’

  ‘Or he’s too focused on keeping The Cabal happy. What do you need me to do?’

  ‘Keep Jermaine out of it all. I don’t want anything jeopardising our new plans. Ignore anything Liam tells you. They’ve got nothing on J, and they’ll struggle to make it stick, but I just thought you should be prepared to represent him when he needs you.’

  ‘Consider it done. But I’m not charging my usual fee. I want more.’

  ‘How much?’

  ‘Double. Fifty grand.’

  CHAPTER 68

  DEVELOPMENT

  Jake didn’t remember coming home the night before. He and Charlotte had shared one too many drinks with each other. They’d spent hours discussing everything. Their lives. Their families. Jake’s marriage and Charlotte’s single life. Their interests, their desires, their hobbies. And then they’d moved on to the investigation. The progress they’d both made – how Charlotte had been working tirelessly in the background after hours. And then they’d discussed the effects that it was having on them. Jake had been upfront about the fact that, even though it felt like they were coming towards the end of the investigation, it still felt as though everything was only just beginning; that it was just the tip of the iceberg; that it was physically and mentally draining and he didn’t know how much longer he could sustain it for; that it was putting an unprecedented strain on his and Elizabeth’s marriage.

  Charlotte had listened to him babble on with an understanding and sympathetic ear, but he supposed it was just out of politeness. Unfortunately, she was the only person he could talk to, and he appreciated her being there. Whether she liked it or not, she was more than just an undercover officer now; she was a friend.

  ‘Morning,’ he said as he entered the kitchen. Elizabeth was in the middle of making them each a cup of coffee.

  ‘Morning,’ she replied, avoiding his gaze. She finished pouring the water into the mug and stirred.

  Jake walked up to her and gave her a kiss on the cheek, but she pulled away.

  ‘Everything all right?’ he asked.

  ‘What d’you think?’

  ‘I didn’t wake you up when I came home, did I?’ Jake asked, taking his coffee and finding a chair at the table.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s the matter then?’

  She threw the spoon into the sink then spun on the spot and scowled at him, the black bags under her eyes darkening, as if she were summoning the devil from inside her.

  ‘We enjoyed our takeaway last night, thanks. Oh, wait, no we didn’t – nobody fucking came home to bring us one.’

  Regret assaulted Jake’s body. Like a boxer, it punched him in the stomach repeatedly until he was consumed with guilt. Again. He’d let his family down. Again. And he hadn’t even realised it. He’d made a promise to come home with a takeaway, and instead, he’d been at the pub with Charlotte. He was an awful husband. And an even worse father.

  ‘Liz, I—’

  ‘Save it.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Let me make it up to you. But… maybe not today. I don’t know when I’ll be home.’

  ‘I don’t care. We don’t care. Do what you want. The girls and I are going to the park for a couple of hours today. We’re going to play on the swings for a bit, go on the seesaw, maybe even fly a kite. And then we’re meeting Becky to go to the races.’

  Jake took a sip of coffee and spat it back out; the contents were scalding hot and burnt his tongue.

  ‘You’re not going there to gamble, are you?’

  Elizabeth took her coffee from the counter and sat at the opposite end of the table, as far away from him as possible. Amidst the mountains of paperwork and schoolbooks and folders, was their family laptop. He hadn’t realised it, but the lid was open.

  Elizabeth set her cup on the table and moved the trackpad.

  ‘I didn’t realise you had a problem with me gambling,’ she said, defiant. As the computer screen loaded, she twisted the machine and showed it to Jake. ‘Although you didn’t seem to have a problem with it the other night.’

  In front of him was the gambling site he’d visited a few nights ago, replete with all its bold, vibrant colours. Shit. He’d completely forgotten to log out and delete the browser history before taking Maisie to bed.

  ‘I-I…’ he stuttered. There was nothing he could say that would excuse what he’d done. ‘I…’

  ‘When you said you were going to find a solution to our problems, I didn’t expect you to resort to this, Jake. You of all people know how much worse it can make everything.’

  Jake dipped his head in embarrassment. He did know – all too well. When Jake was younger, his uncle, Adam, h
ad tried to use his brother’s position at Chelsea to gain insider knowledge for placing bets on their matches, both domestic and international. Ian had told him no, but Adam had quickly become addicted, and it wasn’t long before he’d lost his house, marriage and kids. A few weeks after the divorce was finalised, his ex-wife had found him dangling from the ceiling after dropping the kids off for their weekend visit.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jake said, swallowing his guilt. ‘But I didn’t do anything. I just signed up.’

  ‘What made you think signing up was a good idea?’

  He shrugged. ‘They had an offer on. Spend ten pounds you get ten pounds free.’

  ‘We don’t have ten quid that we can just throw away willy-nilly like that! And then there’re all these taxi rides you’re taking as well. What’s going on, Jake? Where were you and who were you with last night? What else aren’t you telling me? I swear to God, if I find anything else, I’m taking Maisie and Ellie, and we’re going straight to my mum’s.’

  Maisie entered the kitchen, holding a teddy bear in her arms and rubbing her eyes.

  ‘What are you doing awake already, sweetheart?’ Jake asked, bending down to pick her up.

  ‘You woke me,’ Maisie replied, clutching the bear against her chest.

  ‘Where’s Ellie, Maisie?’ Elizabeth asked, rising to her feet.

  ‘Playing.’

  Jake and Elizabeth looked at one another.

  ‘I’ll go.’ Elizabeth slipped off the chair, out of the kitchen and up the stairs.

  Once she was gone, Jake turned his attention to his daughter. His beautiful, precious little daughter.

  ‘Did you sleep OK, darling?’

  She nodded, her eyes still half closed. He moved over to the fridge and found her a juice. Unscrewing the lid, he said, ‘Don’t tell Mummy, OK?’

  ‘Secret.’

  Jake chuckled. ‘That’s right. Our little secret.’ He hesitated as he heard the sound of footsteps descending the stairs. ‘Are you excited to go to the park today?’

  Maisie’s eyes beamed and her tongue fell out of her mouth.