Numb: A Dark Thriller (19 page)

27

Ten minutes later, Riley crossed the Thirn Bridge into the north side of the city for the second time that night – possibly only the second time in a year or so.

He made sure he kept to the speed limit and indicated whenever necessary as the last thing he needed was to be pulled over and have the car searched when the package and his balaclava were both tucked into the spare tyre compartment in the boot. He even noticed that his hands were gripping the steering wheel in the ten-and-two positions when he usually drove with one hand on the wheel and the other resting casually on the gear stick. But it was best to give the old bill as little reason as possible to pull him over and if you weren’t driving a taxi or ambulance or fire engine then you were likely to be stopped as a suspected drink-driver at this time in the morning. Not being a drinker, Riley often went for an early morning drive to wind down after his shifts on the doors and had been stopped and breathalysed on more than one occasion. The scary thing was that on each of those occasions he hadn’t done anything wrong. The stops had been ‘routine’. So had the breath tests. So had the car searches.

He double-checked his speed as he cruised along the near-deserted road. Seconds later, a car came zooming up behind him and Riley’s heart began to beat faster. He didn’t want things to end with him being stopped for a driving offence and being caught with a suspicious package on him. If they did, he’d have no option but to tell all he knew about Nash and McCabe and the others and hope they’d have the book thrown at them. But hope wasn’t a certainty. Imprisonment wasn’t necessarily a life sentence. Riley wanted to know that if he went down, Nash and the others would never get out.

He checked the rear view mirror again.

The vehicle was white but there were no blue lights on its roof. He relaxed a little, and when it overtook him without indicating Riley saw that it was a taxi, probably hurrying to its next pick up. Two more taxis sped past in the opposite direction. Then, as he turned left down the tree-lined road that led to Quayside Manor, it was suddenly deserted ahead once more, as if he were the only person out at such an ungodly hour.

He knew exactly where Dainton lived (as did most people in the city – local gangsters were minor celebrities after all) and knew he would have to park the car a hundred yards or so from the property to avoid the security cameras.

He flicked on his fog-lights as the road narrowed and the streetlights stopped. The trees either side grew denser, blocking out what little light the moon and stars offered and he killed his speed to twenty miles an hour, concentrating on where his headlights illuminated the tarmac road, watching for rabbits or hedgehogs or any other nocturnal animals with a death wish that might run out in front of him.

Then, a few hundred yards ahead of him on the right, he saw the grey slate roof of Dainton’s mansion poke out from behind the foliage, looking foreboding and ominous, like a haunted house in a horror movie.

Riley flicked back to dipped headlights and visibility became close to zero. But he was better off killing his speed rather than lighting himself up for anyone looking out of an upstairs window to catch sight of.

He pulled over about a hundred yards from the gates of the mansion and did a three point turn so that the Mercedes was facing the way he’d come. This would be better if he had to make a quick getaway, maybe with bodyguards shooting at him or guard dogs after the scent of his blood.

Once out of the car and having retrieved the package from the boot, he pulled on his balaclava and hugged the trees and bushes on the right hand side of the road as he hurried towards the perimeter gates. He had to do this. Refusing would make Nash suspicious. He had no choice but to do as ordered.

Halfway there and more of the house came into view. The security lights above the front door and to the sides of the building were on, bathing the grounds within ten feet of the house in strong yellow light. It seemed to be locked tight, the occupants asleep. The guest house beyond the building was in total darkness. So were most of the grounds. On the side of the main gates farthest from him, Riley saw the post box fitted to the wall. Confidence filled his veins.

He should have known there would be post box outside the main house! A postman or delivery boy wouldn’t be expected to have to walk all of the way up to the front door to deliver something. He didn’t have to go anywhere near the front door. Just a little dash to the post box and then back to the car. Easy.

When Riley reached the edge of the gates, he stopped and looked up at the cameras fixed on the pillars either side of them. They were pointing at the road and not the narrow grass verge he was traversing. He could sneak under them no problem. The cameras
inside
the grounds, however, may catch him as he ran by the gates but he doubted Dainton had twenty-four hour staff manning them. He could drop off the package and probably not be noticed until the recordings were checked later –
if
Dainton even bothered to check them. Once the package was opened, he would surely know Nash was behind this anyway.

Riley gripped the package under his arm, counted to three and dashed under the cameras to the post box. He pulled the small, metal door open, tossed the package inside like it was a bomb ready to go off and hurried back the way he came.

Once back inside his car, he looked back at the house.

There was no sign of movement. No other security lights or internal lights had gone on, no one was shouting and no dogs were barking. He hadn’t been seen.

Riley started the engine and floored the accelerator. Headlights on and going twenty miles more then the speed limit, he couldn’t care less about being pulled over or making road-kill out of numerous cute and cuddly nocturnal species. He just wanted to get home. What he’d just done had sealed everyone’s fate. If the initial attack on Nash had been the start of this, then the delivery of the package, far from being a conclusion, was merely an added footnote.

Things were about to get a whole lot worse.

28

Six o’clock in the morning.

Three hours after Riley had delivered the package, two hours after he’d climbed into bed, and an hour after he’d managed to drift into an unsettled sleep, the sun was beginning to rise, lighting up what looked to be a perfect day with not a rain cloud in sight.

On the North side of the river, a gentle cool breeze stirred the newly blossomed leaves on the trees standing in the grounds of Lenny Dainton’s mansion and the birds that sat perched in the branches chirped and sang, the noise adding to the picture perfect setting of English Springtime.

Dainton rose from his bed and strolled to the window to look out on his land. He opened the shutter and drew in a few deep breaths of clean air, savouring the smell of the drying grass and the sound of the sparrows and starlings hidden amongst the leaves in sycamores and beeches at the far end of the main garden. All was peaceful. Relaxing. The way it should be.

By seven, he was finishing his final lap in the indoor pool. Twenty laps before breakfast to keep him in shape. Sundays were no different to any other morning. Up early to exercise and eat a healthy breakfast. It prepared you for the day, both mentally and physically.

He climbed out, dried himself and pulled on his dressing gown and sandals. Breakfast was at seven-thirty, which gave him enough time to collect his newspaper. The delivery boy made sure it was delivered by seven each morning as the fifty pound tip he’d received last Christmas had made this delivery the first and most important one on his round.

After a four minute stroll down the drive to the gates, Dainton used the remote he carried in his pocket to unlock them and step out onto the road.

He looked in both directions, not for anything in particular, but just to check the coast was clear. This was a paranoia that had developed over the years when you made enemies rather than friends. He’d never had an attack at this property, but then again he’d only lived here eight years. He’d owned eleven properties in the last thirty years and all of them had either been firebombed or shot at. Not this one though. This was his retirement home, and he hadn’t stepped on anyone’s toes lately to warrant an attack. Despite what the police thought, Mike Nash meant nothing to him. He neither wished the man harm nor good will and he
certainly
hadn’t wished the death of his son in such violent circumstances. He had never been that sort of... ‘businessman’. If he had a problem with someone then that person was dealt with, not their wives or children or elderly parents. That wasn’t his style. As much as it sounded old fashioned, Dainton considered himself old-school through and through and despite having been on the wrong side of the law for the vast majority of his life he still had his values. No innocent people got hurt. No coppers got hurt. That’s how it should be. That’s how it used to be.

But times change.

He reached for the newspaper sticking out of the post box, knowing full well that the shooting he was being linked with would be headline news and that his name might even be printed in the story. Now, journalists he
could
kill. They weren’t innocent. They were paid grasses who didn’t even check the facts before they wrote a story.

When he pulled the newspaper free he caught a glimpse of a package at the bottom of the box.

Dainton stepped back, his brow furrowing. He looked both ways along the road again, this time confused. There was no post on a Sunday. Maybe he’d missed it when he collected the mail yesterday. No, couldn’t have. It was too large to miss.

Before he could stop himself he snatched the package from the post box and looked at the handwriting on the side. When he saw that there was no address and that the one word on there was written in black marker pen, his blood froze.

DAINTON

He made a note to check the CCTV recordings later. Find out who delivered it. Then, studying the weight of the package, he soon realised it wasn’t heavy enough to warrant any immediate panic. He had enough experience of explosives over the years (safecracking in his younger days and bomb-planting to get rid of his enemies in later ones) to know that the package was too light to be a bomb of some kind. So what was inside...?
A warning from Nash
, he told himself.
What else could it be?

Dainton tore the package open. Frowned as he pulled out the piece of paper and a small object, round in shape and wrapped in what looked like cling film or a food bag that was stained red.

Dainton held it close to his face to get a better look.

What the...?

When it dawned on him just what it was he held, he gasped and dropped it to the floor as though an electric current had passed from it into his hands.

He stumbled, his stomach turning as he grasped the post box to stop from collapsing.

After several deep breaths and a hard time keeping down the bile that was rising up into his windpipe, he looked at what was written on the piece of paper he still held.

AN EYE FOR AN EYE

A second later, Dainton’s rage-filled scream cut through the stillness of the spring morning, and the birds scrambled from the branches of the trees in one huge flock, soaring upward into the clear blue sky in search of safety.

PART TWO

8 YEARS AGO

The music pumping from the speakers beneath the DJ stand didn’t hide the sound of trouble flaring up.

Someone shouted. A chair overturned. A bottle smashed. Then a woman screamed, and so Riley turned away from his post overlooking the dance-floor and hurried over to the fight, quickly assessing the situation as he pushed his way through the crowded club.

He could see two skinny men, both barely out of their teens, pulling at each other’s shirts whilst bouncing off tables and spilling drinks. A group of women were hurrying out the way. A group of older men were sat at a nearby table, laughing at them whilst shaking their heads. There were three lads standing behind one of the grapplers and two lads and three young women behind the other. One of the women was shouting whilst one of her companions held her back from the fight which, in actual fact, was pathetic. In the five or six seconds it took Riley to reach it, neither man had even attempted to land a decent punch. If they were going to fight in a crowded place then at least offer the people whose night they were spoiling a little entertainment.

“Hey, break it up, lads!” Riley said and pulled them apart.

He was about to try and calm the situation down and see what had caused the bother when one of them (the wide-eyed one, the one that looked like he’d snorted a few lines of something) tried to continue the brawl and dove for the other lad who was busy counting his missing shirt buttons.

Riley grabbed the lad round the neck and put him in a choke hold. The lad tried to shout something but all that came out was “Aaiieekk!” before he calmed down. But it was too late for him. Riley had been willing to listen to their reasons for fighting. Give them a chance to apologise or take it outside. There would be no second chances, though.

He nodded for the two bouncers on the door to come over.

Riley handed the wide-eyed crazy over to them and told them to get him out. Then he looked at the three lads who he assumed were his friends. He didn’t have to say anything for them to put their drinks down and leave with an escort from the doormen. They knew when they were outnumbered.

Then Riley turned to the other lad that had been fighting.

“What was that about?”

The lad shrugged as he tucked in his shirt, looking pissed off about the three missing buttons and the fact that most of his chest was showing. Pity it wasn’t seventies night. He’d look right at home.

“I honestly haven’t a clue,” he said. He sounded sober. That was good sign. “I was just sitting here with my friends and caught him staring over at me. Before I knew it he jumped up and came at me.”

“So you don’t know him?” Riley asked.

“Never seen him before.”

“And you did nothing to piss him off?”

“No.” The lad put his arm around the girl who’d been shouting earlier. She was crying. The other two couples were sitting back down, looking nervous and embarrassed. “I’m with my girlfriend and two other couples. We’ve been out for a meal and decided to come here for a few drinks. Why would I want to cause any trouble? That bloke was on something. I could tell. He was just looking for a fight with anyone.”

It made sense to Riley. In most fights one person was the aggressor and the other an unwilling participant. The lad who had been thrown out (who, hopefully, hadn’t given the doormen any mouth and therefore an excuse to pummel him) had indeed appeared the aggressor. Plus, three couples would hardly start a fight with four lads. Yes, the story sounded true.             

“Sit down and enjoy your night,” Riley told him. “Let the arseholes fight each other.”

The lad looked down at his ripped shirt, then back up at Riley. He smiled.

“Thanks, but I don’t feel comfortable with my nipples showing.”

Riley smiled back and said, “Well at least finish your drinks before you go. Give the dickheads outside time to move on. They might hang around for you.”

“Oh.” The lad sounded shocked, as if he hadn’t even thought of that.

“How you getting home?” Riley asked.

“Taxi, probably.”

“Tell you what. Finish you’re drinks and
then
call a taxi. Tell it to pick you up directly outside. When you’re ready to leave I’ll walk you out and see you get in it safely.”

The lad looked surprised. What, a doorman acting like a doorman should? What’s going on?

“You sure?”

“Just give me a shout when you’re ready,” Riley said and walked back to his spot overlooking the dance floor, looking for signs of more trouble. It was often the case that after one fight several others would start soon after, as if all the pricks in the place were working on a rota.

The second he got there, the manager’s voice crackled out of the radio clipped to his belt.

Riley unclipped it. Raised it to his mouth.

“Yeah?”

“Got a minute?”the manager asked.

“What’s up?”

“Come to the office.”

After taking another look at the dance floor, and seeing that everyone seemed nicely drunk or off their heads on pills and powder, Riley made his way to the office.

The door was already open when he arrived and Martin Price, the manager, waved him inside where two other men were sitting on either side of the desk. One, he knew, was Mike Nash, the owner of the club and instantly recognisable by the sharp suit, gold jewellery and big bald head.

The other, he didn’t know.

“Right,” Price said. “I’ll leave you to it.”

He winked at Riley as he left and closed the office door behind him.

“Take a seat, son,” Nash said and Riley sat down opposite him, beside the man he was yet to be introduced to. “It’s Riley, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“You got a first name?” Nash asked.

“Riley is my first name.”

Nash smiled. “Okay, then. This is Pete Turner.”

Riley turned to the man next to him. Shook his hand. Wondered what all of this was about.

He didn’t have to wonder long.

“I’ve heard good things about you,” Nash said.

“Thanks.”

“How long have you worked on the doors now?”

“A couple of years,” Riley said.

“You got another job?” Turner asked.

“I did have,” Riley told him. “I worked at a factory that closed down earlier this year. Tech-world – made televisions.”

“That’s a pisser,” Nash said, lighting a cigar.

“It was,” said Riley.

“Well, like I said, I’ve heard good things about you, Riley,” Nash said, exhaling a plume of thick smoke. “I’ve heard that you’re tough but fair. That you get respect because you can beat the shit out of people but choose not to if it can be helped.”

“I’m here to protect the customers not hurt them.” Riley didn’t know where this was going. He just wanted to get back to work. He had to walk that lad and his friends to the taxi soon. Not only did he not want them to leave alone in case they were jumped, he also didn’t want them to think he was lying about his offer.

“Do you like working here?” Nash asked.

“It pays the bills.”No, he didn’t like working here. But beggars couldn’t be choosers. He had a shitty one-bedroom flat to pay rent on. He needed the money.

“You want something a bit more challenging?” Turner asked.

“Like what?”

“You heard about Decka?” Nash said and Riley nodded. Decka Bates was head doorman. He’d been off work ill with a virus for the last month. Hospital tests had recently revealed the virus to be stomach cancer. He’d been given three months max. “It’s a shame about him but life has to go on. You want his job?”

“Head doorman?” Riley asked, shocked.

“It pays a full time wage. It has a bit variety. Means you aren’t stuck in one place all night and you don’t have to get your hands dirty as often.”

Riley didn’t know what to say. This job had initially just been to earn a little extra money when the overtime had ceased at the factory. Now, it was the only job he had.

“What about some of the other lads,” he asked. “I mean, some of them have been here a lot longer than I have.”

Nash clamped the cigar between his teeth and said, “But they’re not as good as you.”

“So, what do you say?” asked Turner.

What
could
he say? Work was work and money was money.

“Yeah, alright. Thanks.”

“Good.”Nash stood up and pulled on his overcoat. He then pulled out a card from his inside pocket and handed it to Riley. “Give me a call in the morning. We’ll go over your knew duties.”

Riley looked at the card. It had Nash’s name and mobile number. No business address or job title.

Nash tapped Riley on the shoulder as he and Turner both headed for the door. Riley sat still for a few seconds, dumbstruck. Then he tucked the card in his back pocket and went back to work.

Five minutes later, he was escorting the three couples into the waiting taxi and, as expected, their friends from earlier were waiting on the corner of the block. The wide-eyed crazy and his buddies remained where they were when they saw Riley.

When the taxi pulled away, the three couple safely on their way home, Riley turned to face them.

A few seconds later, the scumbags walked away.

Good boys
, Riley thought as he headed back inside the club.

The last thing they wanted to do was fuck with Mike Nash’s head doorman!