Crossing the Line (Kerry Wilkinson) (21 page)

had done that in an alley. This time he spoke almost clearly. ‘It’s so cold.’

‘Why don’t you let me take you home, Tony? I’ve got the car. I could take you there, or to my house

if you like. I could even take you back to your parents’ if you really want?’

‘No.’

‘You can’t stay out here all the time. I can get you help.’

The man sitting next to Tony picked up a bottle of strong-smelling alcohol and drank deeply but

didn’t seem to be aware of the conversation going on around him.

‘Tony?’

The sound of footsteps made Jessica glance up, peering towards the opposite end of the alley from

where she’d entered. Each step was heavy, echoing loudly around the tight walls. The closer he came,

the larger he seemed until the outline morphed into the tightly cut suit, slim-fitting woollen jacket and bald head that made Scott Dewhurst so recognisable.

21

Scott stood still for a few moments, breath disappearing into the atmosphere, eyes scanning across

Jessica, Tony and the other homeless man.

‘Scarper,’ he said sternly.

The man she didn’t know slid across the cobbles and then dashed past Scott into the night. Jessica

didn’t move. From where he was, Scott couldn’t have known she was female; her heavy coat shielded

her slender figure and her long hair was bundled up inside her hat.

‘You fuckin’ deaf?’

Jessica slumped to the side, head resting on Tony’s shoulder. He tried to shake her off but she clung

on.

‘Fuck’s sake.’

Scott stepped towards her but Jessica spoke softly, making it clear she was female. ‘Who is it,

Tony?’

The bald man quickly backed away from them. ‘Christ, you didn’t say you had a fuckin’ tart on the

go. Get her out of the way – I’ll be back soon and you better be around.’

Tony mumbled something but Scott had turned and was striding back to the end of the alley where

Jessica could see the outline of a sports car. She tried to hold him down but Tony was on his feet,

groaning something she couldn’t make out. He tried to run after Scott but tripped, falling into the wall with a smack.

Jessica scrambled across the floor until she was by his side. Tony’s coat had taken the brunt of the

blow but she could smell the booze as he turned to face her.

At the end of the alley, the car roared away in a choked cough of diesel. ‘Who was that?’ Jessica

asked, helping Tony to straighten up.

‘No one.’

‘Tony—’

She tried to make sure that his face wasn’t bleeding but Tony pulled away, stumbling to his feet.

Jessica tried to go with him but he was surprisingly nimble, shaking her off and breaking into a run.

As she reached out, Jessica could only hang onto his pocket, pulling the material and feeling a solid

thump as something fell out, hitting the floor. Tony spun, but Jessica got to it first, grabbing the brown package from the ground and holding it up into the light. The paper of the folded envelope had frayed

but the top was open and the contents clear: money.

Lots of it.

Jessica ran her finger across the notes, a mixture of tens and twenties – thousands of pounds. She

didn’t have a chance to count anything before Tony snatched the bundle back, pushing her in the chest

with his forearm. He might have done it by accident but Jessica stumbled backwards, more in

surprise than from the force, feeling the cold damp of the frosty cobbles through her trousers again. By the time she had picked herself up, Tony had turned on his heels and dashed at full speed into the

night.

At the station the next day, Jessica was struggling with a sore arse and elbow from the fall. She’d told Dave that she hadn’t seen Tony, not wanting to mention Scott and the information she wasn’t supposed

to have. Josh had forwarded her the files but they only expanded on what he had already told her.

Scott Dewhurst was quite the piece of work and Jessica wasn’t sure she wanted to know the reason

why Tony had a bundle of money apparently meant for him.

That didn’t mean she wouldn’t keep digging.

In the morning meeting, Izzy told them that Victor Todd’s blood test had come back negative for

HIV, hepatitis A and B, plus anything else that he could have been infected with. He did, however,

have herpes, which wasn’t a surprise given his apparent promiscuity. Izzy had spoken to him and he

was shaken up but generally okay. He’d probably have another child to celebrate if he could find

someone who wasn’t too bothered about the whole genital warts thing.

Everything else was going nowhere: they still didn’t have a link from Luke to Alan to Victor;

Michael Cowell was a dead end; all five of the women who had given birth to Victor’s children had

been interviewed and eliminated; and there was little else to go on. All they had found out was that

Victor’s chicken factory wages unsurprisingly didn’t stretch too far in terms of child maintenance.

What a credit to society he was.

Jessica had ranted about how every scroat and his mother had a camera phone nowadays and yet

none of them had bothered to use it when someone was being attacked in broad daylight. The moan

hadn’t even made her feel better. Niggling at the back of her mind was Niall’s warning about a public

panic and things getting out of hand. Another attack and it would get to the point where they couldn’t

keep things under wraps and away from the media any longer.

The only link Jessica could see between the three victims was that, in their own way, they were all

total shits: a thief and a wife-abuser; someone who tried to extort sexual favours and who made his

tenants live in squalor; and a person who could make good use of the condoms which kept being left

on Jessica’s desk.

When she thought of it like that, it all seemed so low-level. Jessica had dealt with a vigilante in the

past – someone who went after murderers and drug-dealers. This felt entirely different, less

dangerous in one way but more vicious in another because it was so public. She wondered if that was

the key – was this meant to be a shaming for their apparent sins and, if so, who connected them?

No one, least of all her, had a clue.

Jessica sat in DCI Cole’s office talking him through the non-progress. He nodded wearily, as ever,

and then stopped mid-sentence when his desk phone rang. His eyes flickered towards her, saying

silently that something had happened. When he hung up, his message was short but it at least gave her

something to do: Anarky’s founder, Thomas McKinney, had been attacked with a crowbar.

22

Jessica sat next to Thomas McKinney’s hospital bed eating from a plastic tub filled with grapes.

‘Want one?’ she asked, offering them towards him.

The reply was gruff and coarse. ‘I hate fruit.’

‘Really? I got seedless just for you.’

‘Sod off.’

‘Well that’s gratitude, isn’t it, Thomas? I go out of my way, nip to Tesco, pick up a few clubcard

points, get you some grapes and that’s all you can say to me.’

‘Thomas now, is it? I thought it was McKenny, Mackie and McKay.’

‘I figured we were on first-name terms now we’ve met more than once.’

The Anarky founder wasn’t even attempting to hide his local accent any longer. His hair that had

been neatly parted when she first met him was now almost entirely buried under a bandage, with a

few damp and floppy dark strands sticking out. His jewellery had been removed and his designer

clothes replaced by the latest range in hospital gowns, complete with a tie-at-the-back opening and

straight, unflattering lines. With his over-the-top tan, he looked like a squished pumpkin crammed into

a torn napkin.

Jessica peered more closely at his bandage. ‘Either that’s part of the latest spring collection, or

you’ve not had a good morning.’

‘Piss off. I’m not pressing charges.’

‘What an odd thing to say. I’ve seen the CCTV and it’s pretty brutal – you’re walking along the

pavement around the corner from your house having a cheeky smoke. Then along comes some guy on a

moped, mounts the kerb, out comes a crowbar and down you go. If it had been a few centimetres

lower and caught you at the top of the spine, you could be paralysed. A tiny bit either way and it

would have missed the harder part of your skull and you’d be dead. Surely you want the person

responsible charged?’

‘No comment.’

Jessica bit into a grape, chewing it slowly. ‘Not even an “ouch”? It must be hurting? Still, I

suppose they’ve got you hopped up on all sorts on painkillers.’

‘No comment.’

‘You really don’t have to say that to everything, I wasn’t even asking for a comment. Anyway, my

point is that there have been a few public attacks recently – you might have read about them. When I

first heard you’d been smashed in the back of the head with a crowbar, I thought it was another but it’s not that at all, is it?’

‘No—’

‘Yeah, yeah, I know, “no comment”. The fact is, it doesn’t matter what you want to do because

we’ve got the camera footage and we’ve got a number plate from the moped. Your attacker was

clever enough to cover the plate on the roads close to your house but as we followed him on the street

cameras, he stopped to remove the bag and then merrily carried on through the streets. He’s what we

call in the trade “a moron”.’

Silence.

Jessica offered the tub of grapes again and this time Thomas took a small handful.

‘I thought you didn’t eat fruit?’

‘Changed my mind.’

‘So are you going to say something, or do you want me to keep telling you what you already

know?’

‘I guess I sound like a bit of a tit now, don’t I?’ Jessica didn’t mean to laugh but it was the resigned way he said it with a mouthful of grape that set her off. Even Thomas joined in with a knowing smile.

‘You got him, then? He never was the sharpest match in the box.’

‘I think you mean knife in the drawer but, yes, we got him. He left the moped in a lock-up garage

where we didn’t have a camera but then walked onto the street where we did. We matched his face to

the one on your own website: George O’Reilly, moped-riding, crowbar-wielding, Anarky Secretary.

By the time he got off his bus, we already had someone waiting outside his house.’

‘Wanker.’

‘Not quite a god to them after all, then?’

Thomas sighed. ‘It was that bloody newspaper headline. “Gang War?” What gang war? That idiot

took it as a call to arms.’

‘So when you disagreed, he decided to take things into his own hands by attacking you and blaming

one of your rival groups. Don’t worry, we’ve already got an email he sent about it, plus his mobile

records, the crowbar, the bike, the CCTV. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.’

‘Why
are
you here?’

Jessica offered him the grapes again. ‘Probably my world-famous bedside manner. Well, that and

to tell you that we’re not going to let anything like this go any further. If you clowns want to batter the shite out of each other in private, then knock yourselves out. Literally. Your protests, your marches,

your meetings – they’re all things we can manage but this crosses a line.’

‘It wasn’t—’

Jessica didn’t miss a beat. ‘I’m talking, you listen. I don’t care if it’s him attacking you, you

attacking him, one group on your group, yours on them, or if you all give each other one giant reach-

around – keep it off the streets. You might be fine but your idiot mate’s going to be up for GBH or

attempted murder and all he’s done is bring attention to your petty little battles. You might bang on

about being anarchists but it’s still us who cleans up the mess when you get in over your heads.’

Thomas didn’t reply, chewing another grape.

‘Got it?’ Jessica added.

‘Whatever.’

‘Good. In the meantime you can help me with something else.’

He laughed again, humourlessly, peering over the top of Jessica towards the wall. ‘As if. Why do

you think I’m going to help you?’

Jessica held up the tub. ‘Free grapes.’

‘You’re the maddest copper I’ve ever met.’

‘Flattery will get you everywhere. Anyway, I’ve got two words for you: Scott Dewhurst.’

23

‘Who?’

It wasn’t exactly the reply Jessica expected, considering what she’d read in the Dewhurst file Josh

had sent her. Not that she could tell him that.

‘C’mon, Thomas, let’s not be shy. Big bald guy, smart suits, looks a bit like an egg. Perhaps you

know him as “Scotty” or “Dewey”? Something unimaginative with the letter Y on the end.’

Thomas shuffled into a sitting position on the bed. ‘I don’t know what you’re trying to stitch me up

for but it ain’t gonna work. I don’t know no Scott Dewhurst.’

‘Sure?’

‘Listen, sweetheart, I’ve never heard of anyone called Scott and even if I had, why would I tell

you?’

‘Remember the community service you did four years ago after you were done for dealing speed?

Sixty hours picking up litter, cleaning kerbs, cottaging in the parks, that sort of stuff. I’ve seen your record and guess who you were arrested with?’

‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’

Jessica took an envelope out of her bag and slipped out a mugshot of Scott Dewhurst. She held it

up, watching the recognition on Thomas’ face.

‘How do you know him?’ she asked.

He shook his head, reaching for a grape. ‘What’s in it for me?’

Jessica put the photo back in her bag and took a grape herself, squashing it between her teeth as she

stood and moved to the bottom of the bed, resting on the bedframe.