Kill Me Twice: Rosie Gilmour 7 (16 page)

‘There has to be a way to get to her,’ Rosie said.

‘What do you mean? Go in and see her?’

Rosie sighed. ‘Well, yes. But . . .’

‘You mean to get her out of there?’

Rosie felt a little embarrassed, and Matt, arms folded, was shaking his head. ‘I suppose I do.’

‘But that would be breaking the law! She’s been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, so it’s illegal for her to leave, and obviously illegal for anyone to aid and abet that.’

‘I know, I know,’ Rosie conceded, her heart sinking a little.

They sat in awkward silence.

Then Bridget pushed her chair back. ‘But, tell you what, I’m game if you are!’

From the corner of her eye, Rosie could see Matt puffing his cheeks and blowing out an exaggerated sigh. ‘Then let’s talk about it,’ she said.

Chapter Sixteen

Larry Sutton
was raging. Mervyn fucking Bates! How in the name of fuck could he have known him for ten years and not twigged he was a nonce? Granted, Bates had only been on the edge of his radar most of the time, in the way that these rich showbiz cunts were. Larry knew pricks like Bates would never willingly associate with a gangster like him, someone he’d view as a lowlife thug. But he wouldn’t be the first former public-schoolboy to call on guys like him when he needed a bit of muscle or someone taken out of the equation. And it happened more than people probably imagined. Rich, privileged wankers didn’t do their own dirty work. Never had. They always turned to the great unwashed to pick up the pieces if they fucked up and some big problem needed sorting.

Not that it was ever an issue for Larry, the way he worked. His empire in the corner of east London had been built on terror and violence, and everyone knew Larry Sutton didn’t
shrink from a challenge. He wouldn’t flinch if he was approached to do a hit on someone – anyone. Obviously, if it was some bastard’s grandmother, he’d draw the line. But basically he was up for hire, if the price was right.

He’d only met that cokehead model Bella Mason once at a party. Sure, his troops supplied coke to her and the other girls Bates had on his books, but Larry didn’t want to know the nitty-gritty of their stupid lives. Fuck that. Bates paid the money up front and supplied the coke. Supply and demand, Larry told his troops. It was just like any other business, from the chip shop to the grocery store. But this information changed everything. He reflected on his meeting yesterday.

*

Larry had very little patience with that polecat Marty Brown at the best of times. He was like a fucking fishwife, with his gossip and stories, and half the time you could take anything he told you with a big pinch of salt. But when he’d called yesterday to ask for a meet, saying he had some very big information to impart about Merv Bates, Larry reluctantly agreed to see him. You never knew what it might be.

They’d met in one of Marty’s bars in Bethnal Green, and as they’d sat in the empty back room in the late-afternoon gloom, Marty had poured him a whisky. ‘Larry,’ he’d said. ‘That Mervyn Bates. I’ve been told something about him.’

‘Yeah? What?’ Larry didn’t want to spend all day on this, but given that he’d just bumped off one of the world’s
biggest models at the behest of Bates, he felt he had to listen. He knew how the grapevine worked, and suspected that perhaps Matty had got wind that Larry was behind the death of the model, that maybe it was a hit and he’d been asked to do it. But if he did suspect that, he wouldn’t be stupid enough to mention it at this table. Nobody would ever mention it, not if they wanted to see their next birthday. But somebody like Marty, even though he was a bit of a tit sometimes, was useful and picked things up on the quiet.

‘Did you know that cunt’s a nonce? A fucking kiddy-fiddler?’

Larry kept his expression impassive, but it wasn’t easy. He sipped his drink and put the glass on the table, feeling the whisky burn all the way down his gut. Of all the people he despised in the whole world, it was anyone who could look at or touch a kid in any kind of sexual way. They deserved to die, was Larry’s view – and not in a quick way. If he had his way, he would round up all the fucking child abusers and take a flame-thrower to the lot of them. He’d be doing the world a favour – no doubt about it. With every pervy bastard who died, it would be justice and payback for the memory of his best mate, Spider Willard, who’d taken his own life four years ago because he couldn’t escape the nightmare of what those monsters had done to him as a skinny little kid. Larry had met Spider in Borstal when they were doing their first detention at fifteen, and
even then he could see there was something not right about him. There was a rage inside him, a real fucked-up rage that he couldn’t control. His temper was on such a short fuse that the slightest insult could send him into a frenzy of violence. Yet beneath it all was this really solid, lovable bloke, who would die rather than betray you. They’d become the best of mates and that had continued right through jail till they were eighteen. Later, when they were released, they were the young thrusters pushing their way round London, winning turf and getting respect.

One night when Spider had been blind drunk he’d broken down in tears and told him what had happened. He’d been serially abused from the age of ten by people in charge of his children’s home and others they’d passed him around to. He’d said he couldn’t get over it and that for years he’d wanted to die each morning when he woke up. By the time he was around sixteen, he’d decided to get on with his life, or what was left of it. Spider was heavily into uppers and downers. He needed them to sleep, he’d said, and then to wake up. Only Larry knew his secret. Then, one day, he didn’t wake up.

When Larry had broken into his flat late that afternoon, he’d found his best pal in a pool of blood, a handgun in his mouth. He’d shot himself and left a note. To say Larry was heartbroken couldn’t cover it. Spider was all he had and he loved him like a brother. Of course, life had to go on, but he never really got over it. With every deal Larry made, he
used to go to Spider’s graveside and tell him how well they were doing. So he was always happy to take a hit on a pervert, and every time one got sent to prison, he’d get word to his mates inside, and justice was dealt out in the cells or the canteen. He instigated most of the brutal attacks on sex offenders in the Scrubs. It was one of the things he’d have put on his CV if he could. Mervyn fucking Bates.

‘Who told you this, Marty?’ Larry asked calmly.

‘Somebody very much in the know, Larry,’ Marty replied. ‘Listen, mate, you know I wouldn’t come to you with this if I didn’t know it was true. I’m only telling you because I know you deal with the cunt.’

‘You know fuck-all, Marty.’ Larry leaned across the table. ‘And you’d be wise to keep your fucking mouth shut about what you think you know.’

Marty put his hands up defensively and his face went suddenly pale. ‘Larry, man. For fuck sake! Do you think I’m going to be shouting about anything I been told about anybody? I only got told about it yesterday and my first thought was to let you know. Give you the chance to cut the fucker loose. Everyone knows how much you hate nonces.’

‘Who told you?’

‘It was a bird I’ve been shagging for a couple of weeks. Her cousin is in the showbiz side of things. Public relations or whatever crap they call it, but she knows Merv. She told him she’d heard things about him. That he was a pervert who used young girls, and has done for years. Pays for it all
the time, and no cunt’s ever exposed it. Not even the papers.’

Larry said nothing, but inside he was shaking with rage. He’d only ever done one hit for Bates, and that was Bella Mason. He’d done it because the money was great, and plus the fact she was a wasted junkie, who would be dead before she was twenty-five anyway. If he hadn’t done it, someone else would have taken the job, knowing he’d knocked it back, and he couldn’t afford to have that kind of thing getting out. But the bigger problem was that he’d been supplying Mervyn Bates with coke for years. So much money had changed hands. Bates used to invite him to dinner and for nights out, but Larry had always kept his distance as he didn’t want to be going around with the pricks who surrounded showbiz. But this changed everything. He swallowed his whisky and put his hand over the glass when Marty offered a refill. Then he stood up.

‘Well, cheers for that, mate. It’s good to know who to watch your back for. I never liked that Merv anyway.’ He shook Marty’s hand, pulled on his Crombie and walked away, feeling Marty’s eyes burning his back all the way out of the bar.

*

Now Larry sat staring out of the window of his office three floors up, overlooking Brick Lane market. He had to get this into perspective. He didn’t have to like the people who hired him for a contract. Business was business. He couldn’t
afford to get personal on every job. But this gave him the creeps. He had to do something.

He got up and left his office, coming down the stairs and out of the fire door into the side street where his driver had parked the Jag. As he got into the back, he punched in a phone number on his mobile.

*

Mitch had told Dan it’d take him an hour tops to nip across to Shettleston and pick up some more kit from the dealer. He knew Dan wasn’t happy about being left on his own, especially as Rosie had told them not to go out. But they were running low on smack and it was best to have some hash back-up. Sitting about, watching television, he and Dan had been in and out of a drug-induced stupor, feeling out of sorts at the loss of their usual routine: foraging to make enough cash. Dan hadn’t taken very much heroin, and said he was trying to to cut things back a bit. But Mitch knew that was easier said than done, and they didn’t want to wake in the morning, then have to go searching for gear. He made his way along the Shettleston Road and headed for the tenement block where his dealer was on the top floor.

There was a queue of the usual suspects in various stages of desperation. A couple of them were fighting on the stairway, and one skinny, grey-faced girl sat shivering on a step. Most of them would be pushing heroin themselves to pay their debts, so it was impossible for them to get out of the
vicious circle. Mitch wanted to be in and out of the place quickly before it got dark. He had money in his pocket, so he pushed past everyone to the top of the stairs and eased his way in.

His dealer was busy in the kitchen sorting one of the junkies out with some tenner bags, and Mitch stood in the hallway. He saw Tam, the wee junkie from Govan, glance at him from across the kitchen, but he didn’t speak. It was Tam who’d told him some blokes were looking for Dan, but that was two days ago. Mitch nodded to him, but Tam turned away, then disappeared. He might have been on first-name terms with every smackhead in this place, but none of them were friends. That wasn’t how it worked.

Eventually Mitch caught his dealer’s eye and he motioned him over. The dealer sorted him out with three tenner bags and some hash and he handed over the money.

‘What’s this? Money? You not been on the rob this morning, Mitch?’ the dealer said, a fag dangling from between his lips as he spoke.

‘Nah, man. Did a wee bit of work for someone and made a couple of quid.’

His dealer gave him a sly look, then turned away. Their business was done.

Mitch went downstairs, past the two who were still brawling, and wove his way to the front door. Outside, it was already getting grey and he would have to step on it to get back to the flat quickly. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks.
He hadn’t noticed the big black jeep as he was going into the tenement and it wasn’t the kind of motor you saw in these parts. He spotted Tam, leaning in the window, then looking furtively over his shoulder and walking briskly away. Mitch felt the hairs on his neck stand on end.

The driver’s door opened. It was the bleached-blond hair he saw first, and a chill ran through him. The passenger door opened and another guy, built like a bull, got out and looked straight at Mitch as he moved quickly around the car towards him. The blond bloke opened the back door of the car.

‘C’mere, son! In you get!’ He took a step towards Mitch and the other bloke closed in from his left. ‘Don’t even think about trying to run on your junkie legs. Get in!’

‘What for?’ Mitch felt jittery.

‘Just get in, before I fucking snap you in half to make you fit.’

‘But I haven’t done anything. Listen, man. I need to go. I’m in a hurry.’

The blond guy’s lips curled into a snarl. In one seamless movement he took a step, reached out an arm and grabbed Mitch by the hair. He dragged him the two feet to the car and threw him into the back. Then he and his mate got in, the blond on the driver’s side, and they drove off, wheels screeching, as he closed the passenger door.

‘What the fuck, man? What’s this about? I promise you, I’ve no idea what this is about. I don’t want any trouble.’

‘Shut your fucking mouth and listen, you prick.’

Mitch
could hear himself whimpering. He felt sick with terror. As they drove out of Shettleston Road and towards the city centre, the blond guy spoke, and Mitch met his eyes in the rear-view mirror.

‘Dan Mason,’ the blond guy said. ‘Where is he?’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘And don’t even think about trying to ask, who he is, because we know he’s your junkie mate and we know you’ve been with him for the past few days. What are you, a couple of bent shots?’

‘Naw,’ Mitch said.

‘Shut it. Where’s Mason?’

‘I don’t know, man. I haven’t seen him for a week.’

The car braked quickly and Mitch was almost thrown against the back of driver’s seat.

‘Listen, you wee prick, have I got to drag you out of here and beat the shit out of you? Because that’s no problem.’

‘I don’t know. I hardly know him at all. What’s he done? He’s just a wee smackhead and, yeah, I helped him a couple of times, but I haven’t seen him for ages. Honest.’

He could hear the big man sigh as he gave a sideways glance to the gorilla sitting next to him. They said nothing and kept driving, Mitch looking out of the window as they drove across the bridge towards Kinning Park. He wanted to ask where they were going and his stomach churned as they drove under the arches below the bridge and into a used-car parts workshop. The blond parked and both men got out quickly.