by Emmy Ellis
She sighed. “Whatever, Jiang’s dead, no matter how that street was cleared, if it even was. I could be making more of it than it is, but Dad always said, if something feels funny, it usually is, and this feels funny. The Donny is too far along for anyone to take any notice of owt, same with The Pudding. People would be too interested in going inside for their pints or cheesecakes. I wonder if anyone in the houses opposite saw owt.”
“You’ll soon know once they read The Life. Jiang supposedly going to China will jog their memories about owt iffy at the Jade. A man all in black, masked, and waving a machete about? Someone will come forward.”
“Yeah, and it’ll save us going to their doors asking questions, something I don’t want to do. It’ll fuck up the cover story.”
Jason sagged as if tiredness had come over him. “Yep, you’re right. Here we are, look.” He pulled up outside the block of flats Mam now owned, switching the engine off and leaning his head back. Was he tired? Or did the prospect of doing their own detective work not appeal?
Tough.
Cassie left the car and wandered over the night-damp grass. She’d been here so recently, warning the residents that if they got up to owt they shouldn’t now she ran the place, she’d come down on them. Mam owned the high-rise, and they employed a range of people to service the flats—electricians, plumbers and the like. Jimmy lived on the second level, and she recalled him assuring her he wouldn’t step out of line, he’d behave. She remembered that because his face was so riddled with spots, the poor bastard.
Maybe he’d gone back on his word. What a prat.
If he hadn’t, perhaps she could use him as her grass now Richie Prince wasn’t around to do it. She’d see how Jimmy was when she spoke to him and make a decision later. It’d be handy to have someone spying on the high-rise residents for her.
She waited for Jason then entered the lit foyer, pleased it smelt of lemon. The cleaners were doing their jobs right then. At the lift, she poked the ‘up’ button, and they ascended in silence, Cassie wishing she’d brought her weapon with her. Sadly, in was in the boot of her car inside a briefcase, and she’d left her vehicle by the Jade.
“You got a gun on you?” she asked.
Jason lifted one of his jacket fronts to show her. It sat snug in his brown leather holster. “Yep.”
“Good. I might need it.”
He scoffed quietly. He’d probably thought he’d be the one pulling the trigger.
Not on your nelly.
The lift dinged, the doors slid apart, and Cassie stepped out first, scanning the landing, listening for sounds of discontent behind flat doors. No one was around, and nowt seemed amiss. She walked over to number eight and rapped on the door. The faint murmur of characters speaking on the telly filtered through, one of them angry, about to do some damage to someone called Luther, and she smiled at the parallel. Then came the sound of heavy footsteps, like Jimmy stomped, annoyed at being disturbed at this time of night for a cup of sugar or a few teabags. Or was his dealer due? Cassie sifted through the masses of info in her mind. No, that was last night the runner in this area collected cash from people who had weed on tick. Jimmy was good for his money, so he was one of a few who were allowed the privilege.
He flung the door open, his red-and-white-checked onesie with scarlet ankle and wrist cuffs at odds with his usual appearance of jeans and hoodies. His short black hair, fuzzy as if just washed, didn’t have its usual wet-look gel on it, but his spotty face was as livid as always. “What?” Upon recognising Cassie, he paled, his droopy, relaxing-before-bed eyes going from glazed to sharp. “Sorry. What’s up?”
He’s too casual to have tried raiding the Jade, to have murdered Jiang. “Where were you this evening?”
He swept a hand down himself. “Telly outfit, innit. Netflix. Pringles. Got some of that cheese and chive dip from Tesco.”
Too much information. “All night?”
“Yeah, I’ve had a bastard of a day at work so holed up in here. Why, has something gone on?”
Cassie ignored that. “Can anyone back up your story?” God, she sounded like the pigs, but that couldn’t be helped. She had to find out who’d done this to shut them up. The story of Jiang going to China had to hold water, and having a killer out there with the potential to admit murder to a mate while pissed out of his head didn’t sit well.
‘Containment, Cass. Ensure you keep lids on all your pots and screw them down tight so the contents don’t go mouldy.’
Dad had once told her that.
Jimmy peered over his shoulder into his flat. “Shirl? Come here a minute.”
A young blonde woman appeared at the end of the hallway, leaning against the doorframe. Cassie knew her from school. Her cream onesie had multicoloured unicorns all over it, and she coiled a string of bushy hair around her finger.
“Yeah?” She spotted Cassie. “Fuck a duck.”
“Where was I tonight?” Jimmy asked.
“Here.” Shirl nodded, a bit frantic like, but she seemed genuine enough.
“Thanks. We weren’t here, got it?” Cassie walked off, giving no explanation as to why, and prodded the lift button, her mind zooming ahead to the next port of call.
“You’d better not be lying,” Jason said.
Cassie gritted her teeth and spun to glare at him pointing at Jimmy, his jacket pulled across so the man got a good view of the gun.
“Leave it,” Cassie barked, bloody fuming. The lift doors parted, and she went inside, holding one door until Jason got on. With them enclosed in the metal box, level button pressed so hard it hurt the end of her finger, she let rip. “Do not issue threats to people when I’ve established they haven’t done owt wrong. If I wanted to threaten him, if I needed to, I would have. He’s had a night in with his missus, and if I wasn’t mistaken, he was telling the truth, and so was she. Shirl is a scaredy-cat when it comes to me. She’d blurt it out if he’d been up to something. Now, when we get to Brett’s, shut the fuck up and let me do the talking, got it?”
Jason stared ahead at his reflection in the steel doors. “I was just saying—”
“Well don’t. Learn how to read people. Jimmy no more went to the Jade than he has taste in pyjamas.” She seethed all the way to the ground floor and stalked out of the lift, pissed off at Jason but also narked she hadn’t found the killer yet. One more fella to question, and if it wasn’t Brett who’d done this, she was back to square one, clueless, the only lead a skinny sort who enjoyed beef fucking curry and egg fried sodding rice.
Jason drove them back to Brett’s, sulking. Cassie let him get on with it, the mardy git. She couldn’t be arsed to climb off her high horse. She was too elevated up there and might hurt herself if she slid off. If she had time to interview someone else for the position of right hand, she really would ditch Jason, but who could she trust with the secrets of the Barrington? She’d told Mam he was all right, but honestly? Deep down, she knew he wasn’t the man to stand by her side.
Fuck it. I’ll get this mess sorted then deal with it. Give him one more proper warning, and if he doesn’t behave, then he’s gone.
Jason swerved into a parking space, a bit too sharply for her liking, wrenching the steering wheel, but she held back a snipe. He’d done it on purpose, she’d bet, and he’d get a kick out of any reaction. Though if he wanted to test her, push her, he’d soon see she didn’t suffer fools gladly, that he wasn’t immune to her brand of retribution. He should know that by now anyroad, but it was clear he wanted to test the boundaries.
Again.
Wanker.
She shot out of the car and waited for him to catch up. Brett’s house was still in darkness, and she whacked on the door with the side of her fist, the anger she’d kept at bay threatening to spill over.
No response.
“Try round the back?” Jason sounded tentative, maybe waiting for her to rip his head off for offering his opinion.
“Yeah.”
She led the way down the side and opened the t
all wooden gate. Crept into the garden. She glanced right, at the back door.
“It’s open a bit.” Phone out, she selected the torch app, moving closer and flashing the light inside. “Oh, fuck me.”
Brett’s torso lay on the table, his red-spattered face pointing her way. Blood covered his grey hoodie, and a portion of his neck was on view, a long slice decorated with scarlet flesh and a thin layer of yellow fat. His trackie bottoms and boxers concertinaed in a material puddle on the floor, and trails of scarlet coated his inner thighs. He’d maybe gripped the table edge at some point, one arm stretched up, the other bent at the elbow, and some of the crap that must have been on the cluttered surface had fallen to the floor.
Jason breathed heavily beside her. “Christ Almighty. It’s got to have been him, hasn’t it?”
“Keep your bloody voice down,” she whispered, so irritated she wanted to punch him one. She glanced either side of the garden to check in case someone had come outside into theirs—the fences were five foot, and anyone could peer over. “Maybe whoever he did the Jade job for killed him because he didn’t nick the drugs. That’d be the whole point of the operation, wouldn’t it? Li Jun said they asked about the fridge, so someone in the know has definitely blabbed. Shite.” She turned away and switched the torch off.
Darkness huddled around her, Jason still breathing too loudly, and she forced her mind to work, to stop homing in on the residual images of Brett that lingered at the forefront. This was a tricky situation. If she left him there, eventually, the police would be involved, and no matter how much she paid a few of them, who was to say one who wasn’t in her employ arrived and treated it as they were supposed to, not informing her first. If his clothes from the Jade were found, that’d bring questions, especially the balaclava. Thank God she had the machete in the boot of her car. She wouldn’t need to contact a copper about getting prints off it now, so that was handy, but there was still the job of getting rid of it.
She came to a decision and messaged the head of her cleaning crew.
Cassie: House needs emptying. Give it an hour before arrival—needs to be done fast. Then tomorrow, clean it.
She typed in the address and sent the text. Sought Jason out in the dark beyond the light of her screen. “You keep two body bags in your boot, you said?”
“Yep.”
“Then we’re going to need the other one. We’ll take him to the factory. Fire Marlene up ourselves. Ted and Felix don’t need to know owt about it.”
Jason coughed. “They already know something’s up because of Jiang.”
She was on the verge of braining him. Had he told them what had happened? “What did you say to them?”
“Just that he’d had a machete slice, and they could see that for themselves anyroad.”
She rolled her shoulders to ease the tension building there. “Good. They’ll keep quiet, but with Brett… He’s the bloody grandson of the landlord at The Donny, isn’t he. Geoff talks to Ted and Felix a lot. I don’t want the risk of them letting something slip.” Not that she thought they really would, but she’d cover all bases.
Shitting hell. Geoff would report Brett missing, despite his grandson being a druggy skank. He was still family no matter what he sniffed up his nose and injected in his veins.
She listed in her head what she’d have to do. Luckily, Brett rented the house from Mam, one of many she now owned, so it was easy enough to say he’d given notice last month and said he was moving to Yorkshire tonight. A fresh start to get off the gear. Plausible, something to palm Geoff off with. The removal van being here in a bit and into the early hours would be explained away by saying Brett had left all his shit inside and they needed it cleared for the next tenant. Tomorrow, the cleaners could whip through it, removing any evidence, like Jiang’s blood transference, if that had even occurred.
But what if it wasn’t Brett?
She’d still get rid of the body and empty the place, and if she heard owt about someone else doing the Jade job, she’d sort them then. But for now, it was obvious to her that Brett had failed in his task and someone had taken umbrage. The question was, who the fuck was it?
Whoever it might be, when she got her hands on them, they wouldn’t be breathing for much longer. They had gall, sending Brett into the Jade like that, and she wasn’t about to let them get away with it.
Chapter Seven
Jason had fed Brett’s feet and legs into the chute on top of Marlene the Mincer, something Lenny had arranged to be fitted back in the day, and currently pushed his head slowly so Marlene didn’t get her blades in a tizzy with too much flesh and bones going in too soon. He shuddered at the feel of Brett’s manky hair beneath his palm and wished he’d put gloves on.
Cassie stuffed the druggy’s hoodie into a black bag—she’d scooped up the trackies and boxers back at the house, then they’d walked around it, touching nowt, on the lookout for the black stuff he’d had on in the Jade. Of course, Jason couldn’t tell her he’d already swiped them, and he’d had to continue as if nowt was amiss, making a show of searching with her, laughing inside at the fool’s errand and Cassie getting more uptight by the second.
She’d really dogged him off tonight. There was her barking at him in the lift at Jimmy’s flat—unnecessary, he was only making it clear to the bloke he meant business—and she’d also snarked about it being stupid to use kids to warn people off from going in the Jade.
He’d thought it was a grand idea, hence him doing it, approaching the little fuckers at the park earlier on, his fake beard and eyebrows disguising him well enough. He’d said Cassie wanted the street clear, something he’d have to feign innocence on as well. She’d got right arsey at the thought of someone using her name.
The thing was, he’d told her the scenario, not thinking she’d believe it had happened that way. He’d gained satisfaction at knowing what had gone on, feeding it to her to see what she’d say, see whether she thought it was a genius idea. But no, she’d said it was stupid or whatever.
Li Jun must have harped on about it being a quiet night for the lack of customers and people on the street to register with her. Brett was meant to nick the drugs while Jason was in The Donny with Cassie, so Jason wasn’t suspected. Brett had gone in too early, and look what had happened: Cassie had walked in on it just after he’d scarpered, and shit had gone tits up.
She was a tenacious bitch and wouldn’t stop until she’d found out who’d sent Brett there. Even if it took her years, she’d work it out eventually. If he left her to it.
No, he’d have to plant seeds in her head. Starting now.
Over the sound of Marlene grinding bones and flesh, Jason shouted, “Whoever it is won’t try again.”
She tied the top of the black bag, creating bunny ears that stuck up. “How so?”
“If they know you’re looking for them, they’ll go into hiding.”
“I doubt it. They knew I’d be after them, and they wanted those drugs badly enough, so they’ll want them again. Okay, maybe they’ll hide out for a bit, but they’ll be back. Wouldn’t you if you knew there was a shedload inside a fridge, ready for the taking?”
Jason pushed Brett’s head harder, and Marlene sucked the rest of him inside. Thank God his gaping neck had disappeared. Congealed blood from it smeared the edge of the chute, and he cringed at the thought of cleaning Marlene. To keep his mind off it, he moved to the left, staring at the human mince dropping out of the tube at the other end into one of the large plastic tubs they used for this job. Christ, they had to go to Handel Farm next, getting Joe out of bed most likely. The night was going on forever.
The mince stopped coming out—it had filled the tall box to the top. Sometimes, they had to use extra boxes if the person was bigger. He pressed the button to power Marlene down. She quieted, and it seemed so silent in the little side room off the main factory. Those who worked here, other than Ted and Felix, thought Marlene was just stored in here, an old mincer Lenny hadn’t been able to part with for sentimental
reasons.
He stuck the lid on the box and dragged it over to the door, thinking he’d never eat a chilli or spaghetti bolognaise again—or owt with mince in it. Then he took the hose off the wall and unravelled it ready for cleaning the mess. Cassie helped him by producing a bottle of Fairy from beneath the cupboard under the sink, then grabbed a couple of brooms with extending handles. Together, they took the chute off and opened Marlene up, working opposite sides to scrub, rinse, and dry the machine with an old towel ripped in two.
Jason didn’t strike up a conversation. It looked like Cassie was inside her head, possibly chewing over what he’d said. He had to stop her searching for…for him, the man who’d set this whole thing up. Create another distraction to take her mind off it. Ditch the SIM he’d used to contact Brett. He’d have to nick the drugs himself at a later date. Break in the Jade in the middle of the night and get Li Jun and Nuwa to fill a holdall for him. At gunpoint. They’d come down from their flat to investigate the alarm going off—it was a false one to scare would-be thieves which didn’t alert the police, the wires going nowhere, the bleeps coming from a speaker in their living room.
Yeah, he’d do that. Force them to take the bags out to a van he’d nick. He’d be safe from CCTV capture, because Cassie paid the blokes who did shifts for the private company who ran them, and the street the Jade was on wasn’t connected to the system. Too many people going in and out of the takeaway might be seen as suspicious, see, should a pig not in the know pass by.
Lenny had thought of everything.
Cassie sprayed bleach solution all over Marlene’s innards, then they put her back together. She stuffed the towels into another black bag. Floor mopped, they left the side room, Jason dragging the mince box down the corridor to the back door. Outside, they both lifted it into the boot, put a black bag of clothes at each end, and while Jason got in the driver’s side, Cassie took her phone out. He kept the door open to listen to her conversation.
“Hi. I know it’s late, but we have a delivery for the pigs.”