Double Cross (29 page)

'But that's just my point,' said Dan. 'You did blame me.
Not just me, but me included. And you were prepared to
use me to get what you wanted. It was all about you and
your revenge.'

Not true. This had nothing to do with me and everything
to do with what had happened to Callie Rose. She
was the one I cared about. She was the one I was doing
this for . . .

'So because I didn't act the way you would've, I don't
care about Callie and my sister? Is that it?' I said angrily.
'You're talking bollocks.'

Dan shook his head. 'You just don't get it, do you?
You're getting too much . . . satisfaction out of all this.
You've developed a taste for being the puppet-master and
we're all – what's the word? – expendable. That's why
you're so dangerous.' He gave a bitter laugh. 'McAuley
doesn't know what he's in for.'

'Dan, you're wrong—' I began, but for the life of me,
I couldn't think of anything else to say.

'Are we even now, Tobey?' asked Dan quietly. ''Cause
if anyone but you had done this to me, I'd be back at my
lockup getting ready to do some damage.'

'So what should I expect, Dan?'

Dan gave me a look. He opened his mouth to speak.

'Could you guys hurry up?' Mum called to us. 'I would
like to try and get at least five minutes sleep before work
today. Dan, I'll drop you home first.'

'There really is no need,' Dan replied. 'I can get the bus
home.'

'Nonsense,' said Mum. 'Besides, I told the police I'd
make sure you got home safely.'

Dan and I sat in the back of the car. Mum didn't even
start the engine until she'd made sure we'd put on our
seatbelts. Then we were on our way. And the entire
journey back was achieved without Dan and I saying a
single word to each other. I stared out of the window
whilst Dan's words played round and round in my head
like a song on repeat.

This wasn't about me. This was about Callie.

It was . . .

'Mum, can we stop off at our house first?' I asked as we
got close to our road. 'I have something of Dan's that I
need to give to him.'

'What?'

'Something,' I replied, reluctant to elaborate.

'As long as you hurry up,' said Mum.

When Mum stopped in front of our house, I was in and
out in less than a minute. But now what? I didn't want to
hand over what I'd retrieved in front of her. I got back in
the car, doing up my seatbelt.

'Mum, could you drop both of us off at Dan's house?' I
asked. 'And I promise I'll be home within fifteen minutes.'

I caught Mum's look in the driver's mirror. She didn't
need to speak, her expression said it all. If I wasn't home
in fifteen minutes, she'd come looking for me and if she
had to do that . . . I got the message. Less than five minutes
later we were outside Dan's.

'Dan, you are going to stay out of trouble, aren't you?'
asked Mum.

'I'll do my best.' Dan smiled faintly.

After one last warning look cast in my direction, Mum
turned the car around and headed home.

The moment she was out of sight, I took out the
envelope that Byron had given me, the one full of money,
and placed it in Dan's hand. 'This is yours,' I said.

Dan's eyes narrowed. 'What's this?'

'McAuley gave it to me, but . . . but it's yours.'

Dan's fingers folded slowly around the envelope.

'OK?' I said.

'OK.' He turned abruptly and walked away, straight
past his own front door.

Where was he going? To his lockup? What was he
going to do?

'Dan,' I called after him.

He stopped, but he didn't turn round.

After a moment's thought, I said, 'We're even now.'

Dan carried on walking.

Back at home, I had to wait till Mum went back to bed
before I could get down to what I really wanted to do. I
connected up McAuley's memory stick and started scanning
it. And what did it contain? Letters of complaint to
the Inland Revenue and other government bodies about a
shipment of rugs imported nearly a year ago and still being
held by Customs. A spreadsheet comparing the price of
rugs from around the world. More letters of complaint.
An inventory of the contents of McAuley's warehouse.
Godsake! The files contained stale, boring stuff that was of
absolutely no use to me at all. And each file I checked after
that was more of the same. They all contained
import/export details of artefacts and luxury knick-knacks
and other rubbish. It was beginning to look like swapping
the memory sticks had been a complete waste of time.
When I thought of the risk I'd taken, I felt sick. There
were only three more files to check and from the file
names, I didn't hold out much hope that they'd be useful.

The next file I opened was called Schedule. Only one
problem – it was completely empty. Why on earth would
McAuley keep an empty file? What a waste of disk space.
I opened up the last two files. The first was more twaddle
about misshapen figurines and sculptures. The second file
contained the bank account details of McAuley's
lieutenant, Byron Sweet. I couldn't believe that Byron,
Mr Pit-bull himself, had the surname of Sweet. That was
about the only interesting thing in the last file. I learned
Byron's bank, his branch code and his bank account
number – which were all worse than useless.

And that was it.

I slumped back in my chair. Now what? There was
nothing in any of the files that was the least bit illegal, unless
I was missing something. I listed all the files, in case there was
one I'd missed and hadn't read yet. But there wasn't. I read
them all again, every word, but there was nothing remotely
worthwhile. I held my head in my hands and tried to think.
There was no way I'd get another crack at McAuley's
computer. I looked at the list of files on my screen, desperately
willing them to turn into something I could use.

Something I could . . .

Something
. . .

I leaned closer to the screen.
Schedule
, the file with
nothing in it, was almost one hundred kilobytes big. Why
would a file with nothing in it be so large? I opened the
file again. It consisted of eight blank pages. I scrolled all
the way down then back up again. The file was definitely
empty. Or was it? A light bulb started flashing in my
head. Mouth dry, heart thumping, I clicked the option to
select everything in the file, then changed its colour
to black. The file was immediately filled to overflowing
with text and a grid that must've been from a spreadsheet.

Oh, yes!

'Very clever, McAuley,' I muttered.

I mean, credit where credit was due. The colour of the
words in the file had been changed to white. White words
on a white background. No wonder the file looked blank.
I tried not to get too excited, but this looked far more
promising. I settled down in my chair and started reading.
I read the file from top to bottom, then read it again to
make sure I hadn't misread any of it.

According to the spreadsheet in the file, McAuley had
invested every penny he had in three shipments coming
into the country within the next few days. He'd
euphemistically referred to his shipments as 'X'. The first
shipment was due the day after tomorrow. Two more shipments
were scheduled to arrive after that, each at intervals
of three days. Each shipment was going to a different
address, where they would be stored until McAuley
arranged collection. He wasn't taking any chances. From
the look of it, it seemed the Dowds had taken away more
of McAuley's business than anyone suspected and he wasn't
quite as loaded as we'd all assumed.

Why on earth hadn't he quit when he was ahead?

And then I realized. He couldn't quit. It wasn't just the
money that McAuley craved, it was the sense of control and
power it gave him. He was like a pathetic despot, looking
out over the portion of his kingdom called 'half of Meadowview'
and longing for it all. And the Dowds were exactly the
same, two wings of the same bird. They targeted those who
had little and made sure they ended up with less. And Dan's
attitude to McAuley was 'at least he's one of our own'. I
shook my head, wondering if he still felt the same way.

The file contained details of delivery addresses, times,
the initials of a number of people who were going to pay
for 'X' and the amounts of money involved. And I mean,
large, eye-boggling amounts of money. I finally had something
I could use. The question was, how? I could just tell
the police, but there was no way to link the shipments to
McAuley unless he was found with the stuff and McAuley
was much too smart for that. After it was delivered, he'd
have his minions do his dirty work for him. And even if
there was some way to link the shipments to him, a smart
lawyer could claim that McAuley didn't know what was
being imported in his name or that it wasn't even his
property. I could tell the police and they'd confiscate his
shipments, but that wasn't enough. I admit it. It wasn't
anywhere near enough. I wanted McAuley's world to
unravel slowly but irrevocably. So I'd have to find some
other way to use this information to his disadvantage.

It was time to make a phone call.

Phone call concluded, the next thing I had to do was
protect the information I had. I printed off all the sheets,
then placed them in an A5 envelope, which I addressed to
Callie Rose. I took a second-class stamp from Mum's
handbag and stuck that on the letter. This letter would be
my insurance policy – just in case. I knew Sephy would
never open her daughter's letters, and once Callie was out
of hospital the letter would be easy enough to retrieve – if
I got through this.

Once that was done, I tried to figure out my next move.
I finally decided on a course of action. It wasn't smart and
it sure as hell wasn't foolproof, but it was all I had.

I headed for my local library, memory stick hidden in the
cuff of my jacket – just in case McAuley or the police
decided they couldn't do without my company. At the
library, I booked a computer for an hour and started working
on my first letter. It would probably be the most significant
one of my life. I decided to use a handwriting font that I
didn't have on my computer at home. I couldn't take any
chances. If the letter was ever traced back to me . . .

To the Dowds,

This letter contains information about Alex McAuley and his
business interests that you will hopefully find useful. McAuley is
expecting a shipment to be delivered to 3 Londridge Street,
Meadowview on 14th August at 4.30 p.m. The shipment will
arrive in a home food shopping delivery van. I don't know the
route the van will take before it arrives at the above address. This
delivery, one of the smaller ones scheduled to arrive in the next
couple of weeks, is worth over three-quarters of a million pounds.
How you decide to use this information is of course entirely up to
you. If you do decide to act upon the information in this letter, I
will supply you with the times, dates and venues of all McAuley's
other consignments for the rest of the month – but only if you
decide to act on the information contained herein.

I thought my use of the words 'consignment' and
'herein' was a good touch. No one ever used those kinds
of words in real life. Hopefully those words and the way
I'd phrased certain other sentences would make it seem
like someone much older than me had written the letter.
And possibly a woman? After a lot of deleting and
rewriting, I decided the letter was ready – except for one
thing. The Dowds would never believe the information
I was giving them was genuine if I didn't ask for some
kind of reward. As far as they were concerned, altruism –
especially criminal altruism – didn't exist. So I added:

Once the above shipment is yours, I would expect payment of
10% of the gross worth of the product before I part with any further
information about other future deliveries. I feel 10% is fair. I would
expect this money in cash. I shall provide further instructions
regarding the payment of my money once McAuley's goods are in
your hands.

I had no intention of taking a penny from the Dowds,
but they needed to believe I was just as avaricious as they
were. I printed off the letter, making sure to hold it with
a tissue so that my fingerprints wouldn't get on it. Folding
it, I placed it in the envelope I'd brought with me. The
question was, should I post it to Gideon Dowd at TFTM
or should I post it to Vanessa Dowd? Thanks to Rebecca,
I now had her home address. But I suspected I was one of
a mere handful of people who knew it. If I posted the
letter to Rebecca's mum, it might be easier to trace.
Giving it to Owen wasn't part of the plan. Besides, I
wanted as little as possible to do with him. TFTM it was
then. I would just have to hope that Gideon Dowd would
be at the Club the following day to receive the letter. I
could've sent it as an email, but Gideon could trace the
email back to this library and it was in my neighbourhood,
plus it had twenty-four-hour CCTV. With Gideon's
connections, he could easily get hold of the footage and
discover that I'd been in the library around the time he
received the email. No, far better to send it via snail mail.
Slower but safer.

My second letter was far easier to write. I used the same
font and took the same precautions to make sure that my
fingerprints didn't appear anywhere on it. This letter was
much simpler, though. This one gave details of McAuley's
second shipment. What should I do about the third
scheduled delivery? Tell the police? Tell the Dowds?

Tell no one?

I took the latter path. It would take expert timing, but
maybe I could move the shipment, or at least part of it, to
some place where no one but me would ever find it.

I mean, why not me?

Why not?

It's not that I fancied myself as another McAuley. Far
from it. But I had to think ahead. I had to think. I had to
look out for myself. No one else would.

I'd make no snap decisions about the third shipment.
The answer would come to me. But one way or another,
all this should start to hit McAuley where he would feel it
the most. I wasn't finished with him yet.

Not even close.