Dead Man's Gift 02 - Last Night (2 page)

He showed his ID to a uniformed copper and changed into protective overalls before entering the house through the open front door, wheezing as he headed up the staircase to the first-floor flat. God knows what had gone on in there, but the first reports had talked of gunfire. Frank knew Phil kept a gun – a cheap .22 he’d picked up from an ex-soldier – but had no idea why he’d brought it with him. The girl was always going to have to die, but the plan had been to make her death look natural.

After what they had planned for tomorrow, there was going to be the biggest police investigation the country had ever seen, and the girl would be one of their first ports of call. So Frank had supplied Phil with a syringe and four grams of unusually pure heroin and told him to turn up, spike her drink with enough Rohypnol to keep her quiet, then heat up the heroin and inject her with a lethal dose, leaving a couple more wraps in the flat to make her look like a regular user. By the time the police turned up and found the corpse, the Rohypnol would be out of her system and it would look like a standard OD. But now that clown Vermont had announced the whole thing to the world.

Still, Frank consoled himself, at least she was dead now.

The door to the flat was open and he went straight in, as befitted an officer of his seniority. The place was already a hive of activity with scenes-of-crime officers making a fingertip search of the flat. Frank stepped round them and walked into the bedroom where a group of four men were gathered in one corner.

Hearing his approach, one of them turned round. It was DS Alan Arnold, an old colleague from Harlesden nick. ‘Hello Frank, what are you doing here?’ asked Arnold as they shook hands. ‘They haven’t handed this one over to you lot already, have they?’

‘Not yet, but I was in the area so I thought I’d stop by and take a look,’ he said, keeping as close to the truth as possible. ‘I heard there was shooting involved. That usually means we end up getting it at some point.’

Arnold nodded. ‘There were reports of three shots being fired about twenty seconds apart, but it looks like the victim actually died from a single stab wound.’

Christ, thought Frank, how many times had Vermont tried to kill the bitch before he’d actually managed it? ‘Can I have a look at her?’ he asked.

‘It’s not a “her”,’ said Arnold, stepping out the way. ‘What made you think that?’

‘That’s what the copper outside told me,’ said Frank smoothly, as he processed this new information and silently cursed his mistake. ‘He obviously got it wrong.’

‘Well, I don’t think anyone’s going to mistake this one for a woman, do you?’

Frank stared down at a very dead-looking Phil Vermont, his ridiculous fake tan now turned a fish-scale grey. The knife wound in his jacket was only just visible and the bloodstain on his white shirt wasn’t that large, making it clear he’d died very quickly. ‘Any idea who he is?’ he asked, working hard to keep a lid on the tension running through him as the full extent of Vermont’s fuck-up became apparent.

Arnold shook his head. ‘Not yet. There’s no ID on him, and according to the neighbours a girl lived here on her own, and there’s no sign of her either. So it’s possible she killed him.’

Except Frank knew she hadn’t because he’d spoken to a man he thought had been Vermont, who’d told him that the girl was dead. Thinking about it now, the man hadn’t sounded much like Vermont at all, and Frank would have bet his last pound that this man – whoever he was – had been the one who’d killed him.

Which could only mean one thing. Tim Horton had called in help to find his son.

Orla lived in a small terraced cottage on a street in Edgware that looked like it might have had character once, but was now just tatty. Scope had finally persuaded her to allow him to come back with her, having shown her the pistol in his jacket pocket while explaining calmly that if he’d wanted her dead, then that was exactly what she’d be.

He followed her through the front door, waiting while she switched on the lights, revealing a surprisingly tidy living room with half-decent furniture and modern art prints lining the walls. She asked him if he wanted a drink.

‘What have you got?’ he asked, noticing that his hands were still shaking a little from the earlier adrenalin rush.

‘White wine. Vodka. Scotch. No beer, though.’

Scope knew he needed to keep his wits about him, but he also figured he’d earned a break. ‘Scotch, please. Large. No ice.’ He watched as she went through to the kitchen. She was wearing a tight white shirt and figure-hugging jeans that had found exactly the right kind of figure to hug, and Scope felt sorry for her because she could have done a hell of a lot better than the perma-tanned thug who’d tried to kill her tonight. Or Tim Horton, for that matter.

He thought of Tim then. A stuck-up social climber who couldn’t fight his own battles. He remembered a conversation he’d once had with him a couple of Christmases before Mary Ann had died. Tim had been drunk and uncharacteristically friendly as he’d told Scope about some of the goings-on in the House of Commons: the drunkenness, the sexual shenanigans, the rife use of coke by MPs. ‘You wouldn’t believe it,’ he’d slurred. ‘It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah in there sometimes. If the public had any idea what went on, they’d be apoplectic.’

Scope had believed it easily enough. He knew what self-serving, hypocritical arseholes most politicians were, but it disappointed him that pygmies like these were the political descendants of the likes of Churchill and Atlee. And it disappointed him even more that he was risking his life for a man like Tim Horton.

Taking a deep breath, he reminded himself that he was doing this for a young, innocent kid. No one else. And now that he’d killed one of the people involved in his kidnap, Max was suddenly in real danger.

Frank – the man he’d answered the phone to – was a cop, Scope was sure of that. He had to be. There couldn’t have been more than three minutes tops from when the gun had gone off in Orla’s bedroom to when Frank had called Phil Vermont’s phone. Only a cop would have got the information that fast. And he had to be pretty local too. Which meant he could be ID’d if you knew what you were doing.

And Scope knew just the man for the job. When he’d been hunting the various individuals involved in the supply of the drugs that had killed his daughter, he’d crossed paths with a computer hacker with the online moniker ‘T Rex’. He had no idea of the guy’s real name – nor did he care – but on several occasions he’d used him to gather confidential information, and he’d always come up with the goods. Scope called his number now and waited while the call was redirected several times before an electronic voice asked him to leave a message.

‘It’s Scope. I need your help urgently. I’ll pay what it takes.’

‘Who are you calling?’ asked Orla, coming back in the room with a big glass of white wine in one hand and a Scotch in the other.

‘A contact of mine,’ he said, taking a hit of the Scotch. ‘A man called Frank called your boyfriend’s phone and thought I was him. He wanted to check you were dead. I told him you were, and he said the police were on their way, which means he’s a cop. Are you sure you’ve never heard of him?’

Orla shook her head. ‘Phil was always boasting about all these great contacts he had, but he never mentioned names.’

‘What did Phil do for a living?’

She pulled a face. ‘Not a lot. He used to be part owner of a club in the West End, but it went bust before I met him. I know he’s got some dodgy friends, and I’ve heard rumours that he killed someone once in a hit for some gangsters. To be honest, it was always hard to separate the truth from the bullshit.’

Scope asked for Phil’s address, and as he was scribbling down the details his phone rang. It was a blocked number, but he had a good idea who it would be. He excused himself and went into the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

‘Scope. Long time no speak,’ said T Rex. Hi voice sounded wheezy, as if it was something of an effort to talk.

‘I’ve got a job for you. And I need it done fast.’

‘The last time I did work for you, people ended up dead.’

Scope was surprised T Rex knew about that, but then it wouldn’t have been too difficult to find out. He’d asked the hacker to find two different men, both of whom he’d later killed. ‘I don’t know anything about that. And no one’s going to die today. I just need you to ID someone for me. He’s a police officer called Frank, and he’s going to be based within a three-mile radius of Harlesden. He sounds middle-aged, and he’s likely to be reasonably senior. My guess is he’ll be plainclothes rather than uniform. Try DS rank and above and see what comes up.’

‘I’m good at what I do, Scope, but I’m not a miracle worker. How many coppers named Frank do you think work out of that stretch of north London? I’ll tell you. A lot. I need more than that. A lot more.’

‘He’s corrupt, so he may have been investigated before, and he’s also linked to a man called Phil Vermont, who’s some kind of petty criminal.’ Scope gave him Vermont’s address. ‘And this is urgent. I need results by 6 a.m. tomorrow at the absolute latest.’

T Rex sighed loudly down the other end of the phone. ‘I can’t guarantee a thing, but I’ll do my best. And it’ll cost you, Scope. For something like this I’m going to need to charge three hundred an hour. More if things get risky.’

‘You know I’m good for it,’ Scope told him, hoping he wouldn’t insist on a down payment. ‘And if you get me the goods by six, I’ll throw in a grand in as bonus,’ he added, knowing that Tim would pay anything to get his son back and save his own skin.

‘Don’t take this as an insult, but I was hoping never to hear from you again.’

‘Sort this out for me and you won’t,’ said Scope, ending the call.

Orla was sitting on the sofa, having already finished most of her wine, when Scope came back in. He finished his whisky in one gulp, wincing at the cheap burn as it rushed down his throat.

‘You look different,’ she said, staring at him. ‘Better.’

‘I was wearing make-up. I’ve taken it off.’

‘You don’t look the make-up-wearing sort.’

‘Appearances can be deceptive.’

‘So I see. Did you have any joy finding out who Frank is?’

‘Nothing yet.’ He yawned. ‘If you don’t mind, I’m going to grab a couple of hours’ sleep. It’s been a long day.’

‘I’ve only got the one bed, but you’re welcome to share it,’ she said with the kind of coy smile that probably worked wonders with most men between sixteen and sixty.

Scope, however, wasn’t one of them. ‘No, thanks. I’ll take the sofa.’ He motioned towards where she was sitting. ‘When you’re ready, of course.’

She stood up, a flash of anger in her blue eyes. ‘You don’t think I’m good enough for you? Is that it?’

He faced her down. ‘On the evidence I’ve seen so far, no. I don’t.’

‘Arsehole,’ she said, stalking past him and slamming the door behind her.

Scope lay down on the sofa, staring at the ceiling. He couldn’t help feeling sorry for Orla, even though she’d behaved with total callousness towards Tim, and it seemed a few other men as well. She was clearly an intelligent woman, and from her accent it sounded like she’d come from a good home. It made him wonder when it had all gone wrong for her to end up in this sort of life, hanging out with lowlifes and hustling love-struck men twice her age. He wondered too when it had all gone wrong for his own daughter, Mary Ann, and how much he and his wife had been to blame.

And then he stopped thinking about any of it because he knew it would just hurt. Instead he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to come.

The sound of the landline roused Tim Horton from an uneasy slumber.

He sat up and for a couple of seconds wondered what he was doing in the dining room in the middle of the night with the lights on and Diane sat across the table opposite him. Then reality hit him like a single hard punch to the gut as he remembered everything.

Diane was the first to pick up the handset. She listened for a couple of seconds – a stiff, blank expression on her face – before putting the phone on loudspeaker and placing the handset in the middle of the table.

The kidnapper’s disguised voice immediately came on the line. ‘You fucked us up, Horton!’ he yelled, his words tearing round the room. ‘Now your son pays. Listen to this.’

There was a two-second pause, then Max’s voice came on the line. ‘I’m scared!’ he was crying. ‘Please don’t hurt me. Please … Mummy!’

Diane let out an animal howl and grabbed wildly at the handset, putting it to her ear. ‘I’m here, baby, it’s going to be all right. Mummy’s here!’

‘Put the phone back on the table now!’ yelled the kidnapper.

She slammed it back down as if it were burning her hand.

‘You’d better start telling the truth, Horton, otherwise your boy’s going to get very badly hurt. We know for a fact you’ve sent someone to find your son, because he killed an associate of ours, which was a very, very bad move on his part, and an even worse one on yours. Now who the fuck is he? Tell me right now or I instruct another associate to cut one of your son’s thumbs off. I’ll then send you the video of it, and I’ll make you fucking watch it as well, every last second, and if you don’t, we’ll start on his fingers. Do you understand me?’

Panic reeled through Tim’s head. What the hell had Scope done? Was Orla dead? And did he admit the truth when, by doing so, he might well be sentencing his son to death?

Diane was staring at him with a combination of shock and pure animal rage. There’d be no support from her here. Right now, he was totally and utterly on his own.

‘Talk, Horton. Who did you call?’

The moment of truth.

Tim ran a hand down his face. It was moist with sweat. ‘All right, all right. I did call someone. I thought he might be able to help.’ He twisted in his seat, avoiding the condemnation in his wife’s eyes. ‘But I had no choice. I don’t want to die.’

‘You bastard!’ screamed Diane. ‘You cowardly fucking bastard!’

She was across the table in seconds, her hands outstretched like claws.

He felt nails raking down his face as his wife attacked him with all her strength, knocking him to the floor in her rage. He managed to grab her wrists and keep them away, but her force and anger surprised him. She spat in his face, screaming abuse, the tears running down her face, and in those terrible moments the love he’d once felt for her suddenly returned, and he wished there was something he could say to take her fear away.