Hope Road (30 page)

“Everybody was in love with her. That was her bloody problem, always was.”

“It might have been an accident. I don’t think they’ll ever know for sure. But she was completely innocent. Just in the wrong place…”

“Yeah, I know. At the wrong time.” She laughs sarcastically. “That’s a real comfort. In the wrong place at the wrong time.”

He lets her anger subside.

“That money?”

“What about it?”

“Can I have a look?”

She pulls back a fraction.

“Why?”

“I can tell you in a second whether they’re duds. Do you know who I am?”

“Go on. Impress me.”

“Ever heard of Tony Ray? Racketeer, had a place down on Hope Road, big trial for counterfeiting money in the eighties?”

She squints as her memory cranks into action.

“Yeah, I remember. I’d just left school. It was in all the papers. Old Bailey, wasn’t it?”

“Tony Ray’s my dad.”

“But, hold on, didn’t his son…”

“Get shot? Yes, that was my brother Joe. Remember, I told you about him? I’m the
other
son, the boring one. And I can tell you whether that money’s fake or not.”

She exhales long and hard, the sour smell of tobacco heavy on her breath. This is a blast from the past she could have done without.

“Ten thousand,” she says, moving over to the TV in the corner. She reaches down behind a pile of magazines and pulls out a video case.

“Old tech,” he says, as she takes her time getting back up again.

“Haven’t watched these in years,” she says. “Here.”

She hands him the box.
Gone with the Wind
.

“It was one of her favourites when she was a kid. That’s why I kept it all this time.”

John opens it. It’s crammed full of crisp twenty pound notes. He knows in an instant. The holograms look a bit off, watermarks are printed, security strips embossed not woven… Bilyk’s notes.

His phone rings again. He leaves it in his pocket.

“Somebody wants to talk to you!”

“I’ll ring back. You told the coppers about these?”

“What do you think?”

He hands her the box.

“If they come around again, tell ’em the truth. Hand this lot over, tell ’em exactly where it all came from.”

“It’s all there is,” she says, her voice wispy, as if it’s about to stop working altogether. “I don’t have anything else. This was going to…”

“They’re fakes. Not especially good ones. Most places are gonna refuse ’em. Let the police take the lot. Here.”

He hands her the plastic bag.

“We had a whip-round.”

“Who’s we?” she asks, poking a hand slowly into the bag.

“People she knew. Sugar for one. Those friends I mentioned?”

“How much is there here?” she says, staring down at the contents of the bag.

“Forty grand, thereabouts. Get yourself on a cruise, or on a beach somewhere. I mean, it’s your money, but if you want my advice, get out of this flat, go somewhere to take your mind off things. Don’t be alone.”

She laughs.

“Any suggestions?”

“How about Spain? I’ve got friends out there. They’ll take care of you, no questions asked.”

She looks at the money some more, fingering the wads of banknotes cautiously, as if they might sting her.

“Have a think about it,” he says. “You know where I am, right?
Tony Ray’s Motors
?”

Tears roll down her cheeks.

“She earned that money,” she says, “in the worst way a girl could. Then the bastards tricked her out of it?”

“There’s nothing else I can do.”

And it’s true.

It’s time to go.

“Oh,” he says, as she opens the door for him, “you won’t tell the police about
this
money, will you?”

She manages a strained smile.

“I’m not a bloody idiot.”

“Give me a ring. Get yourself off to sunny Spain.”

“Might just do that. And, thanks.”

H
e comes out of the block of flats. Phones Den. She’s not picking up.

Saab’s in the far corner of the car park. Walks across, trying Den’s mobile. Nothing.

Gets to the Saab.

Then he’s on the floor. Face pushed into the tarmac. Breathless.

Someone’s got their foot on his neck. He twists his head to the side, sees the Saab’s blue and red badge in the middle of the wheel hub.

“What were you doing in there?”

Lanny’s voice. But it’s not his normal voice.

“Visiting a bereaved mother,” John says, trying to spit grit from his mouth.

“What about the bereaved dad? Talked to him, did you?”

Pause.

Is Lanny
crying
?

“He’s not around, as far as I know.”

“Sit,” Lanny says, giving his neck a final jab with his heel.

John moans at the sudden jab of pain. He pulls himself off the ground and slumps against the door of his car.

“How’s the head?” asks Lanny, who’s looking awful, his face pasty and bloated, as if he’s just been sick.

“I’ll live.”

“Accuse me of killing your brother again, you fuckin’ won’t.”

John says nothing, tries to get his breath back, feeling the cold of the ground beneath him.

“That was always Joe’s problem,” Lanny says, his hands shaking, his eyes unsteady. “Big mouth, pissing people off. Heart like an ox, he had. But not your brains.
John’s the clever one
, he’d always say.
The prodigal son
.”

“
Me
the prodigal son? Ha!”

“
Our kid’s got A’ levels
…
our kid’s got a degree
… Always
our kid
this,
our kid
that. Dead proud of you, he was. Turns out you’re a bigger fuck-wit than him.”

He stops, coughs up some phlegm and lets it drop between his feet.

“After he was killed,” Lanny continues through short, asthmatic breaths, “I promised your dad I’d try and find who did it. A lot of time and money it took, asking around, calling in favours. Nothing. Nobody knew a thing. Neither did that lanky DI down Millgarth, y’know, the one that got kicked out of bed for you.”

“What? Baron?”

Lanny emits a burst of giddy, wheezing laughter. “Fuckin’ hell, John. She must be good at lying. You never worked that one out?”

John shakes his head, confused.

“Anyway,” Lanny says, wiping sweat from his white forehead, “not fuckin’ interested.” He holds a finger to one side of his nose and exhales hard, a thick plug of yellow mucus coming out of his other nostril and hitting the ground. “Two things. One, Bilyk just told me the notes in that car were your dad’s. Tell your dad I’m sorry. I’d never’ve told ’em to come to Leeds if I’d known.”

Baron? And Den?

“Right,” John hears himself saying.

“Two.” Lanny pauses. There are tears welling up in his eyes, and suddenly he’s holding a gun. “Tell me who the fuck killed Donna.” He raises the gun until it points at John’s head. There’s something unstable in his tone now, something pathetic and strangely innocent. Lanny Bride at his worst. “Just a name.”

“It might have been an accident. If you…”

“A
name
.”

“We’ve got no idea what happened in that room.”

“So tell me what you know.”

“Then what? Another Fedir? How many people are you gonna kill because you’re angry?”

“Wanna find out?”

“It’s pointless. The police are already onto it.”

Lanny’s shaking his head, as if it’s suddenly too much for him. Then, without warning, he kicks hard John in the side of the head. Once, twice, and already he’s screaming, the toe of his shoe now slamming into John’s ribs, again and again, his voice hoarse, cracked through with madness.

John curls, knowing that it’s all for show, a ritual. If Lanny really wanted to hurt him he’d be unconscious by now. Or worse.

He waits for the kicking to stop.

Then there’s silence.

John finds himself tilted to one side, supported by his arm. He can see the blood dripping from his nose onto the black tarmac.

“You’re not God, Lanny,” he says, hardly hearing his own voice below the heavy thud of his heartbeat. “You don’t have the right. Let the police sort it out.”

He pulls himself back to a sitting position, gasping for air.

Lanny, meanwhile, has put the gun away.

“All right,” he says, pulling out a cell phone. “Give your girlfriend a ring. She’s a copper. See what she thinks.”

He dials, whispers something into the phone, hands it over.

John takes it, holds it to his hear.

“John?” Den says. “John, is that you? There’s a man here. It’s okay, don’t panic, he’s just sitting here…”

Lanny starts to smile.

“Den,” John says, scrambling up off the ground. “Are you at home? Stay there. Den. Den?”

But she’s gone.

“Lanny, this is fucking ridiculous.”

Lanny shrugs. “Give me a name, then.”

John’s already in the Saab.

“Not a copper, Lanny. You wouldn’t, even you, not a copper…”

He’s fumbling with his iPhone as he tries to get the keys in the ignition.

“Fifty!” Lanny says, like it’s a joke, like the whole thing’s a massive joke.

The Saab’s engine roars into life.

“
Fifty!
You hear, John? The bloke with her has an envelope. He’s not gonna
kill
her!”

“What the fu…”

“A list. Porsches, Mercs, Jags, the odd Lexus… Dates, numberplates, the lot. Remember ’em all? Who do you think you’ve been working for, you fuckin’ idiot.”

“No, no…”

“A name, John, or she’ll get that list. You wanna go down for two million quids’ worth of motors? That’s a ten-stretch, easy. And wait til the jury finds out who your dad is! Fuck me, I’m gonna enjoy reading about this, you stupid cunt.”

“Den!” John shouts into the phone and floors the accelerator.

S
he only lives a couple of miles away.

It’s only a minute. I’ll be there in a minute…

He’s doing sixty in third, flying along the ring road one-handed, phone in the other hand, trying to get through to her.

Screaming into the phone, willing her to pick up.

Got no hands to change gear. The engine whines, starts to knock.

Then he’s pulling off the ring road. There’s a bus up ahead. He holds the phone with his chin, swerves out, accelerates as he overtakes. Moves up to fourth. Only two streets to go.

Nearly misses the turning. Brakes hard. Left.

Old terraces, red brick, neat. Halfway up, slams on the brakes. The Saab rocks to a halt and he’s out.

Got his own set of keys. In through the front door.

“Den!”

“Kitchen,” she calls out.

Down the hall, footsteps booming on the varnished floorboards, the ones he helped her to strip and varnish.

She’s at the table. Her skin is white, her eyes wide open.

He looks around. To his left a young man in a dark blue Addidas jogging suit. About John’s height. Sees John, doesn’t move, no expression on his face.

“Who the fuck are you?” John says, and doesn’t wait for an answer.

He grabs the guy by the throat, smashes him in the nose with the other hand. The delicate crack of cartilage. Punches him again. Moves in close, their heads smacking together. He’s out of control now, no idea what the fuck’s going on, head down, fighting on instinct, letting it all come out.

Then his arm twists. The room spins as his feet give way and he sees what looks like a wall approaching. He crashes down, shoulder and head thumping into the wall as his body flops to the floor.

When he looks up, Den is kneeling beside him, shouting something. The guy in the jogging suit is standing back where he was, looking down at John with an expression somewhere between incomprehension and pity.

She gets John to a sitting position, then helps him up and eases him into a chair.

“He’s called Umar,” she says. “Not much English, but his Chechnyan is great. You fucking maniac.”

She sits down.

“So, are you going to tell me what this is all about?”

Before John can say anything, the Chechnyan hands him a cell phone.

He stares at it, then looks up at Den.

She nods.

He takes it, puts it to his ear.

“You gonna play or not, Johnny boy?”

“A game, is it?”

“It’s all a fuckin’ game,” says Lanny, his voice shaky, wracked with exhaustion. “What else is there?”

“I don’t know, Lanny. I really don’t know.”

“Is your copper girlfriend there, in the room?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. Do you know who killed Donna?”

“Yes.”

“It wasn’t either of the Ukrainians, was it?”

“No.”

“But somebody at the hotel?”

“Yes.”

“Fuller? Pearce?”

“No.”

“Who’s left. That skinny kid with ginger hair? Craig?”

John says nothing.

“Right. Give Umar the phone.”

Umar listens to new instructions from Lanny, then snaps the phone shut. He takes a white envelope from his pocket and hands it to John.

“What’s that?” asks Den.

Before John can answer Umar is halfway down the hall. A second later he’s out through the front door, gone.

“All right,” she says, “was that Lanny Bride on the phone, right?”

“Look, Den, I’m sorry…”

“And is this from Lanny?” she says, taking the envelope.

John nods.

“Looks a bit like he was trying to blackmail you.”

“Yep. It’s a list. I steal cars, Den. The details are all in here.”

“What, cars
and
fake money?”

“It’s all part of the same story. You want to hear it?”

She takes a moment.

“No, I want you to get out.”

It hurts when he breathes. He feels as if there’s no energy left in his body. He can hardly move.

“John,” she whispers, “I said get out.”

He manages to stand up.

“She was his daughter,” he says.

“Who?”

“The dead girl. Donna, Donna Macken. She was Lanny Bride’s daughter.”

“Jesus, you’re joking…”

“No. And keep that to yourself,
please
. Lanny wanted to know who killed her.”