Dan had taken on a very dangerous enemy without blinking. Even in the most recent days when she thought he was a low life loser, he still turned out to be some kind of hero. He definitely had deserved more credit than she had given him. Far more credit than Parker ever deserved. The door to doors on the Estate revealed no more information than Changing Tracks and the Plastic Police. Doors were slammed in their faces, abuse shouted through the letterboxes, doors left ignored, and just a few were opened long enough to say they didn’t want to talk about it, or that the drug dealers were the problem. The most jarring encounters were with the woman who swore at them like a witch on acid, the old woman who shook in her doorway and told them she never went out after dark, and the working family who described how the drug dealers had tried to expel them from their own home and turn it into a crack factory. Fear and loathing was the common denominator, fear in all its manifestations - this was the atmosphere being lived in by the residents of the Kingsmere Estate. She disliked herself for her patronisingly middle class feelings – but she pitied them, and reminded herself even so that she wasn’t middle class at all. Eva had been born of a working class Czech girl to a Basildon blue collar man. There was nothing middle about that, and she had been given a good upbringing and had been luckier than most. The poor saps of the Estate had lucked out and been landed in the ghetto by the council housing lottery. But the council hadn’t made it a ghetto, the villains who roamed, raped and pillaged it without check did that. Dan had tried to offer some opposition to their status quo, so they took him out. It was entirely possible the motive for Dan’s disappearance was far more practical and local than they had thought up to now. It could have been a knee-jerk reaction by the local bad-boys. Now was the time to push it further and take the investigation to the enemy, with a little bluff of their own.
Eva and Jess ate at a sandwich bar just off the High Street, one of the bars designed for students but priced so far out of their range that it sat empty instead. Which was fine by them. Eva had hummus while Jess ate a cheese and bacon bagel. They had discussed the essence of the plan and avoided the terrifying detail. It was harum-scarum, a stupid plan which could only cause more danger for them both, but any action that involved the Somalis would always be dangerous. The silent tension mounted with smiles and hasty forkfuls of salad, as a giant chrome clock clicked away above the coffee bar counter.
Before they left the café, Eva called Parker. It was all part of the plan.
“Hi… Devon. After this morning, we think we can sort things out with Gillespie. We contacted him earlier and he agreed to meet us. He’s going to come down and meet us on the Kingsmere Estate. The Mitkins will be there - they always are.” It sounded like bull as soon as it left her mouth. Every word sounded ridiculous and false. He was never going to buy it.
The suspicion that the Mitkins were somehow in cahoots with Parker meant she couldn’t claim their involvement. But she could assume it, and Parker would not be able to call her a liar. The line went silent. She listened and waited. It didn’t feel good.
“Is this a joke?”
Now Eva hesitated, and then tried a different tactic, raising her voice. “Look… what’s the matter with you anyway? I’m calling to tell you some good news, news I’d thought you’d want to hear, and you sound about as pleased as a grouse at the shoot. This is your job, Parker, and the meeting is happening because of your input. Don’t let me down.”
“When?” he said eagerly. Or was it nerves, serious nerves in his voice?
“At one. Give it a ten minute margin in case they are late.”
“No need. If Gillespie is coming, he won’t be late.”
“How do you know?”
“He’s got a very bad reputation. He hates lateness. Like he hates everything else that doesn’t bow before him and give away a slice of whichever pie is under his nose at the time.”
“I thought you were keen on Gillespie.”
“I am keen. Keen we run him through – because of the kind of man Gillespie is – because of what he’s done to Dan.”
Parker was playing the same old scratched record without another grain of proof.
“Okay, Parker. Do you know where to go? The Kingsmere Estate in the town centre. One pm.”
“Yes. Yes, I’ll be there…”
Eva put down the phone and smiled at Jess. “I think he’s nervous.”
“He will be,” said Jess. Eva paid up at the counter and left the young café hostess sitting bored behind the tall counter. “Lower your prices, and you’d be packed in here,” said Eva.
The girl nodded half-heartedly, like she had heard it a million times already. It clearly wasn’t her café. She didn’t care enough to joust with Eva on the reasons for the high prices.
“I totally agree with her. Lower your prices by a million per cent, and try putting some filling in the sandwiches, and you’ve got it made,” said Jess, having the last word as they exited onto the street.
The sun was high in the cloudless sky. Traffic on the nearby main road towards the seafront growled with the excessive speed used by almost all the local drivers. It was as if everybody was late, and stressed enough to want to cut each other up and race their neighbour at the traffic lights. It was always this way. Eva was often surprised to find, upon leaving Essex and the south eastern corner of England, that other places didn’t act out their mental aggression on the road like failing psychiatric patients.
Eva had parked the Alfa on a local road near the Kingsmere Estate, and out of sight. She didn’t want the Mitkins or Somalis to recognise or target her car. She liked it too much. She enjoyed its newness still, like a fancy new pair of shoes, and didn’t want to see it tarnished. She and Jess walked in the sun, with heavy tiredness buried beneath a new wave of nervous tension. “How do you think this will go? I mean, have you ever done anything like this before?” asked Jess, sounding hopeful as well as desperate.
“Um. Well, I often play the surprise card and face down people when they’re not expecting it. Not every case, but it’s a useful trick of last resort. I used it a few days back. It gets their backs up, and then you’ve got to bluff your way through it. Keep your face unreadable, don’t let them see your fear. Then with the rest of it, you forget the fear anyway. The adrenaline kicks in, and your instincts do everything they need to,” said Eva, feeling pleased. Yes, she did have some bottle. And, yes, she was used to facing difficult situations head on.
“So this situation… this is just like one of those others, right?”
“No. It’s not at all like any of those.”
“We’re out of our depth here, aren’t we, Eva.”
“I prefer some positive thinking, Jess. Right now, I’m thinking we have no choice. Dan’s locked up somewhere – and it could be nearby – we have to eliminate some of our options. I want to shake a few things out of my hair. Unfortunately, this is incredibly high stakes, so our risks are high too.”
“Right.”
“Jess – you are a brilliant help to me, but you really don’t have to do this. You can wait in the car for me.”
“No way. Nope. I’m coming with you.”
“You’re crackers, you really are.”
“I’m learning all about crackers from you.”
They walked around the corner towards the Estate. The Refuge was still open, but only just. By one o’clock the crowd of desperate, inebriated, mentally ill, and depressed and the really quite jolly had mostly migrated into town with full stomachs and bags full of free groceries. They saw the Mitkin brothers leaning against the railings, holding court with one African guy, and two other misfits in clothes that looked like charity shop gear turned into an art aesthetic, with a twist of biker leather. The outfits were interesting and pretty terrible too. They could have been drug buyers, or the Mitkins could have been grooming them as potential addict-customers. One of the art-leather types was a tall thin girl with a model-like face. Eva didn’t feel good about her future if she was hanging with these wre
ckers; the example of Laura was enough to tell anyone that. Eva nodded towards another corner of the first floor platform where they could climb up without being observed by the Mitkins. They climbed up the curling slope. The feral eyes and smutty comments of the drunks leaving the area slid away from their ears as if they had been Teflon coated. Eva and Jess took up a position opposite the place where the brothers were standing, so The Refuge building hid them from view. It was time. Almost.
“He’s here,” said Jess, pointing to the old Calibra as it pulled around the corner of the road adjacent to the Estate, and turned into a free roadside space. Parker was in a hurry. He slammed the door shut, flattened the mess of his hair, his scruffy tie, and crumpled suit jacket as he made his way towards the ramp.
“Now,” said Eva.
“How do we play this?”
“Like I said, on instinct. I’m going to do some make believe, so think on your feet and stay with me. If you can’t keep up, then say nothing.”
“Wilko.”
They rounded the corner to face the group of villains and leathered art-hobos. Now Eva could see they were well lubricated – the art-leather folk were bleary eyed, and tottering, overly loud and gesticulating as they spoke. She felt sorry for them – they were clearly interesting people – but they were pissing their life away right in front of her, and now they were dancing with the devil. She wondered if they even knew it.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen.”
“What?” said Lee Mitkin, his body shifting away from the railings, his arms folding defensively.
“We thought we’d pay you a visit this time. We didn’t get the chance to talk properly this morning.”
“How daring of you,” said Robert Mitkin, with a disinterested air that Eva didn’t like and Jess hated.
“This isn’t daring. We can do daring for you another day.”
“I may hold you to that,” said Rob Mitkin in the very same tone.
The art-leathers did a ‘whooo-ooo’ noise in reaction to the sexual innuendo. It was over the top crass.
Rob Mitkin turned on them, “Go away. Come and see me when you’ve had ten less litres of that piss you both drink. Then we can talk.”
“Talk. Yeah. Talk, talk. Talking’s good,” they muttered drunkenly, and gave half-hearted scowls back in the Mitkins direction for his daring to dismiss them. The African with them stayed. He was tall, thin, with a wispy beard and large, almost feminine eyes. He looked Somali all right, and Eva recognised him from the white car in the morning. This time he didn’t smile.
“You’re trespassing, you know that, don’t you?” said Lee.
“On your patch, I take it,” said Eva.
“Exactly.”
“Like you trespassed this morning.”
“Ahhhh. That doesn’t count,” said Lee.
“You’re on very shaky ground here, ladies. You’ve had a warning. As a rule, we don’t do second chances, and we don’t make nice after we’ve gone up against someone. Do you get me? You’ve been poking your nose into our affairs. And last night you upset people we have dealings with. If you had dicks, you’d be hurt by now, do you realise that?” Rob Mitkin said with his droning voice and stared at them both with his dead eyes. If he wasn’t so dark, if he wasn’t so empty, Eva thought he would be a very good looking man. But the darkness emanating from him masked any appeal he might have had.
“You don’t understand. We can’t stop this. We have to find Dan Bradley. We have no choice.”
“Everyone has a choice. Forget him, that’s your choice. That man made some very bad decisions. Maybe they cost him, or maybe they haven’t. It’s none of our business really, is it?”
“Where is he?”
Rob Mitkin’s mouth closed. There was hesitation. Eva noted it. Then the man rolled his eyes up to the blazing sky.
“I don’t want to hear that man’s name again. And no… I don’t know where he is.” Eva burned inside. He was lying now. In the near distance, Devon Parker had surfaced at the top of a ramp and was heading their way.
“Lee, look who it is. The old tosspot has come along too.”
“Ha. He’s another one who needs to get going before someone takes a dislike to him.”
Eva listened and observed something funny in their body language. There was something there, an inside banter, a subtext to what they were saying about Parker. Each time they and Parker were together, it was like there was a connection between them, a history. There was disdain too.
“I brought Parker along because we’ve invited someone else here today too.”
The brothers’ faces changed. They scanned the street.
“What are you on about? The police?”
Eva shook her head. “I called Brian Gillespie this morning. He’s due about now. I said we could sort all of this out now, and save him a lot of unnecessary hassle. After all, a manhunt involving private detectives, possibly police too – something like that could uncover things that some people really don’t need to hear about.”
“You threatened him?” said Lee. “You crazy bitch. You’ll be under a patio by winter.”
“Shut it, Lee.” Rob fixed his dead eyes on Eva and Jess. “He’s coming to see us? What? Now?”
Eva nodded. Rob looked at her harder. Then he broke into a theatrical guffaw, like a pantomime idiot.
Lee Mitkin said it for him. “That’s bullshit! I know Gillespie, inside out. There’s no way he’d be seen dead over here. He’s not coming here. She’s lying.”
Robert stared at Eva, then Jess. He was reading them. Eva looked at Parker’s strained smile. There was a glimpse – she caught it and made an indelible snapshot of it in her head –a moment when Robert Mitkin and Parker’s eyes locked, and something was exchanged between them, an emotion or information, but it was there. Damn it, it was there. They were on the same team. She couldn’t believe it, but the picture was there, and it told her the same thing over and over. There was tension, fear even, in the handsome dead-eyed face of Rob Mitkin, and the same fear was in Parker’s eyes. It was well-hidden, but it was there.
“Gillespie bluffed you, Eva. He’s not coming,” said Parker looking at his watch. “He told you he’d be here by one.”
Rob Mitkin nodded, and his body seemed to loosen up immediately, as if someone had cut his bindings. A thin smile even appeared on his face.
“That man is never late. You’ve been stood up, Red,” said Rob, growing in confidence every second.
“I told you he wouldn’t come. The Bad Boy never leaves his Manor unless he’s got his boys with him and Mad Maggie is usually dragging behind. He would never come here in a billion years. He’s got standards.”
“Lee?” said Rob, “Don’t be a dickhead. Shut your mouth.”
Lee sulked and leered at Jess with squinty eyes.
“You bluffed or he bluffed, but I don’t see why. Now you’re all alone with us, with only your fat old gumshoe here to help you. And he doesn’t look very quick on the draw, does he?”
“Is Dan Bradley in any of these flats?” Eva pointed her question to Robert Mitkin only now. Parker noticed the change of tack, and her insistent, barking tone of voice.
Rob laughed. “Quite a Rottweiler, eh, Red? I like ‘em feisty.”
“Tell me. Tell me if he is here. I know you know something.”
“I know a lot of things, gorgeous. And you don’t. But that’s life.”
“Careful, Eva,” said Parker.
“Stay out of it,” said Jess, snapping at him from behind Eva.
“If I have to get into every one of these flats, I will, so tell me where he is now.”
“He’s nowhere round here, so get out of our faces while you’re still pretty,” Lee Mitkin threw his snide comment in from the side. His brother gave him an accusing look and shook his head.
“What?” said Lee.
“You’re a pillock is what.” Rob Mitkin turned on Eva and Jess and waved his arms. “Get going right now. Now! You really shouldn’t have co
me here, Red. Not threatening me or telling me lies or demanding information from me like that. Not here. If I wanted that kind of treatment, I’d be married. You’ve got problems now, Red. You can bet on it.”
The Somali smiled widely at her. “Consequences,” he rolled the word, savouring it.
“There’s always consequences, Mr Mitkin. For you too.” Eva turned away and walked towards the distant ramp. A thin crowd of drunks and hobos had been watching from the other end of The Refuge.
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