The Judas Sheep (5 page)

‘No, she sold it.’

‘What about you, Shawn? Any ideas?’

‘I’m thinking.’

‘Well, hurry up about it.’

They’d reached the junction. ‘Off ‘ere,’ Shawn ordered. ‘Towards town.’

‘Where are we heading?’ Frank Bell asked.

‘Just a friend’s. Where I get the phones. He’d prefer it if you didn’t know ‘is name.’

Frank Bell smiled with satisfaction. At last he was going to meet the mystery man who supplied them with an endless supply of portable telephones and ringed cars. He needed Shawn Parrott for his connections in the underworld, but he didn’t trust him any more. At one time, on the streets of Belfast, he had preferred to
have Shawn guarding his back rather than anyone else, but now he wasn’t so sure. There, the lines of authority were clearly defined, but now they were blurring at the edges. Shawn Parrott was growing cocky, and that meant dangerous.

They drove up the Chester Road, past Old Trafford and picked up the Stretford Road. Parrott’s directions were terse. ‘Straight on,’ or: ‘Right ‘ere,’ were the limits of his communications.

‘Maybe you should ring him,’ Bell suggested.

‘Yeah, lend me the phone.’

Bell removed it from an inner pocket and handed it over. The contact was at home.

‘Hi, it’s Shawn.’ The other two listened to half of the conversation. ‘Do you have a video-player?’ ‘We have a video we need to watch.’ ‘It’s important.’ ‘Fuckin’ important.’ ‘I don’t know what sort of video.’ ‘Thanks. I’ve got the Skipper with me. Do you mind?’ ‘Cheers. We’ll be there in five minutes.’

He closed the phone and handed it back. ‘He said it’s OK. Turn right ‘ere.’

Frank Bell swung the car round the corner, down a narrow street of workers’ cottages whose doors opened directly on to the pavement. The mill-owner obviously hadn’t expected his tenants to have the time or energy for even a minimal amount of gardening. He’d never dreamt that one day they’d all own cars, but now the streets were lined on both sides with parked vehicles of every size, colour and economic status. A good-looking
black girl was standing under a street-light. She was wearing hot pants over suspenders and stockings. Sprayed on a wall was the message: Welcome to Moss Side.

Parrott wasn’t sure of the house. They drove right round the block and up and down several similar streets, past the black girl again, before he said: ‘This is it.’

‘You stay in the car,’ Bell told Darren. ‘Any problems, drive off and come back in half an hour. And stay away from the tom.’ They stepped between the parked cars and pressed the doorbell.

It was answered by a man of mixed race, much younger than them. He was pale-skinned, but his curly hair and facial features revealed his family history. ‘Hi, man,’ he said, beaming, as he and Shawn exchanged a ‘gimme five’ handshake.

‘This is the Skipper,’ Shawn said.

‘Frank,’ said Bell. ‘Pleased to meet you.’

‘Hello, Frankie. Come in. Make yourselves at home.’

They went through into a sitting room. It was furnished with a big suite covered in flowered material, and a pair of massive hi-fi speakers, from which a drum rhythm thumped like an overdose. A peroxide-blonde girl was sitting on the settee.

‘Business, sweetheart,’ he said to her. ‘Can you find yourself something to do?’ She stood up and sulkily left the room. ‘Now, what’s this about a video?’

Shawn handed it to him. He examined it, as if
expecting its outside appearance to betray its message. ‘How are you getting on with the phones, Frankie?’ he asked.

‘OK. No problems. You do a good job for us.’

‘Which one are you using?’

Bell removed it from his pocket and showed it to him.

‘Oh, that one. Nice little job. How many times have you used it?’

‘Five, maybe six. Just short calls, though.’

‘Mmm. Better let me swap it for a re-programmed one. They’re getting better all the time at putting a stop on them.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I see you’re still using the Sierra.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Got a nice Cosworth in the pipeline, if you’re interested. Full set of paperwork. Belonged to a dentist in London.’

‘Not at the moment, thanks. Can we see the video?’

‘Sure. It’s part-way through. Do you want to watch it from the beginning?’

‘Er, no. From where it is now.’

‘OK. Here we go.’

He thumbed the remote control. There was the usual snowstorm of noise on the screen, then it cleared to show a stretch of pavement and road, wet with rain. Vehicles and pedestrians moved silently across the picture, and an occasional figure turned towards the
camera, looming large before disappearing beneath it. Frank Bell and Shawn Parrott leant forward, hypnotised by the flickering image.

A Rolls-Royce came from the right, and stopped in the centre of the screen. An old lady pulling a shopping basket on wheels was in the foreground. She turned, as if to speak to the chauffeur as he walked round the car to open the rear door, letting the elegant figure of Mrs Marina Norris out on to the pavement.

‘What shit’s this?’ Frank Bell cursed through his teeth.

Shawn Parrott sat like a statue, his ugly face slowly turning the colour of bird droppings. ‘You said there wasn’t no fuckin’ camera,’ he hissed at Bell.

There wasn’t. They must have put a new one in.’

They watched Harold the chauffeur get back into his seat, and a few seconds later a pair of legs appeared at the top of the screen. As they approached, the unmistakable figure of Parrott was slowly revealed. The camera zoomed in on his face.

‘Oh man! Oh man-oh-man!’ the owner of the video machine sniggered, slapping his knee. ‘Ha ha! If you could see your face. I don’t know what you’ve been doing, Shawn, old buddy, but I’d say someone has you bang to rights.’ He fell back into his chair clutching his sides with laughter.

Shawn wasn’t amused. He was aware that Mrs Norris would be able to give a description of him, but the rantings of an hysterical woman were worthless
compared to this. It was a picture of his face, in
close-up
. He’d be identified within hours.

Outside, the black girl had wandered across to talk to Darren in the car. He wound the window down and leered at her. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘I could make a nice white boy like you very happy. Asda prices.’

She’d been beautiful, once, but now had a livid scar from her left ear to the corner of her mouth. Darren shuddered at the sight – he’d heard scars like that called Jamaican telephones. ‘Sorry, love. I’m just the driver,’ he said.

‘Some other time, maybe?’

‘Yeah. Definitely.’

They were exchanging good-natured banter when the other two spilt out of the house. ‘I said leave the tom alone,’ Frank Bell snapped at him as he climbed into the front passenger seat and slammed the door. Darren shrugged his shoulder at the girl and wound up the window. As they drove away she saw the pale face of Parrott, in the back seat, turn and watch her until it was lost in the reflections of the street-lamps. There was something in his look that she recognised, and she pulled her thin jacket tighter around herself, as if it would keep out the fear, as well as the cold.

There were about twenty of us at Tuesday morning’s big meeting. Superintendent Gilbert Wood outlined the strategy and progress so far, leaving Acting DI Newly to fill in the details. I think my chief purpose was to keep the Assistant Chief Constable off his back.

The body was now positively identified as Harold James Hurst, aged thirty-nine. He’d been shot at close range with a single bullet to the back of the head, and little attempt had been made to conceal the body. A retired couple out for a walk in the woods had heard what sounded like a shot at about three o’clock on the Friday afternoon, and that tied in with the pathologist’s estimate of ToD.

The tyre tracks and the bullet, found in the mud
underneath him, proved that he’d been brought to Heckley in the Rolls, alive, and killed where he lay. It was a long way to come, and somebody obviously had local knowledge. Straws like that can be important. I told everybody about my little talk with Mr Norris and my visit to the Royal Cheshire Hotel. We agreed that finding his wife, and her boyfriend, was a priority.

I didn’t feel terribly well, probably due to overeating on an empty stomach. After the meeting, Nigel dispatched the troops and I wrote the reports that I’d intended doing before Annabelle rang. I tagged them for the computer and concentrated on reading the
printouts
to see if anything leapt off the page in a blaze of clarity. Nope, just the usual spelling mistakes.

Gilbert came up behind me and put his hands round my throat.

‘Aargh! The Profiterole Strangler strikes again!’ I croaked.

He gave me a shake and moved round to sit next to me. ‘So what did the doc say?’ he asked.

I shoved the print-out away and downed my last drop of coffee. ‘Nothing. I couldn’t get through.’

‘Did you try picking the phone up?’

‘OK, so I haven’t tried. Shove it over.’ I looked up the number in my diary and two minutes later I had an appointment to see Sam Evans at his
Wednesday-evening
surgery.

‘Bet you feel better already,’ Gilbert said.

Bradley Norris was watching CNN news at home when the next call came, more or less as he’d expected it. He’d guessed that they would take all night to digest his message, and smiled with grim satisfaction. He was beginning to read their minds, know what they’d do before they did. It was a technique that had served him well in thirty-five years of business.

He waited until an item analysing the fiscal situation amongst the Pacific rim countries had concluded – it took twelve seconds from start to finish – and picked up the phone.

‘Norris here,’ he said benignly.

‘What do you want?’

‘Ah, hi there. I’m so glad you called. I want to do business.’

‘What sort of business?’

‘Big-money business – what other sort is there? The goods I left you were a gesture of good faith – I could have you in the can by tomorrow, if I wanted. I think we ought to meet.’

‘Where?’

‘That’s up to you. You’re calling the shots.’ The smile returned. No, they weren’t – he was calling the shots.

‘We’ll ring you back.’

He’d expected it to be a short phone-call, if they were smart. It’s possible, by triangulation techniques, to trace the approximate location of a mobile phone. They might think he was setting them up.

An hour later they were back on. ‘We meet in
Liverpool. Cunard Road, near the back of your store. There’s a big pub on the corner, called the Empress of Canada. Be in there about three o’clock. Should be quiet then.’

‘Good. You don’t waste time. I like that.’

‘See you then.’

‘Bye.’

Norris chuckled. Already they were saying polite farewells to each other. He watched an item about the movements of players between baseball teams, then wandered down to the kitchen to tell his housekeeper that he would be in for lunch.

At exactly three o’clock the Rolls-Royce slid to a standstill in a sidestreet off Cunard Road. ‘Wait here, please, er, Ron. I don’t think I’ll be too long,’ Norris said.

‘It’s Rod, sir,’ said his new chauffeur, sent by the agency. He had lank greasy hair and an earring. Norris was determined that their relationship would be a short one.

‘Rod, right,’ he said.

As before, he was in the wrong place. It wasn’t the sort of establishment he would have dreamt of entering normally, and he didn’t feel safe, even though it was nearly empty. He’d ordered a pint from the unshaven landlord when the phone behind the bar rang.

‘Norris? I’ll ask,’ he heard the landlord say into it.

That’s me,’ Norris told him, and the landlord passed the phone across.

‘Make it the Blackamoor,’ said the voice. Turn left out of the door, it’s about a quarter of a mile. The beer’s better there.’

Norris paid for the pint and apologised to the barman for being unable to stay to drink it. ‘You have it,’ he suggested.

‘Cheers,’ the barman said to his retreating back, and downed it in one long draught.

The Blackamoor was more intimate. Lunchtime drinkers had staggered back to their employment and only a couple of heavy-session regulars leant on the ornate Victorian bar. An old man in a flat cap sat at a table near the window, studying the racing page of a tabloid, a hardly touched glass of Guinness in front of him.

Norris gazed round in a mixture of appreciation and disdain as the landlord pulled him another drink. He registered the contrast between the gleaming glass, copper and brass of the bar, and the shabby brown and green of the public areas. This was what he regarded as a typical English pub: quaint and interesting, but also inefficient, unhygienic and a waste of a prime site near the city centre. He carried his beer to a table in a corner and sat facing the room.

A man in an Army surplus jacket came in and ordered an orange juice, leaning on the bar. He looked familiar. After five minutes, when his glass was not quite empty, he walked over and sat at Norris’s table.

‘Mr Norris?’ the man asked.

Norris thought that a man this ugly should be capable of anything. Anything out of step with the norms of society was what he meant, and he was a good judge of character.

‘Yes,’ he replied. ‘Who are you?’

The man shook his head and drained the dregs of his orange juice. ‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said.

‘Would you like another drink?’

‘No.’

‘Right. So are you interested in this job I have for you?’

‘Save it.’

‘Pardon?’

‘Save it.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Save it for the Skipper. I’m just a piece of cheese.’

‘A piece of cheese? I’m afraid I’m still no wiser.’

‘Bait in the trap. In case this is a set-up.’

Realisation dawned on Norris. ‘Oh, I see. No, it’s not a trap. I’m totally alone.’

The man in the Army jacket, Shawn Parrott, sat in sullen silence. Norris said: ‘You must be very loyal to the Skipper, taking a risk like this.’

‘He’s a good bloke.’

Norris examined the insignias on the ex-Army jacket and pondered on the wearer’s conflicting loyalties. He looked for a common denominator, and after a few seconds he found it. Violence.

‘Were you a soldier?’ he asked.

‘Yeah.’

Norris’s own military service consisted of two years in the National Guard, marching up and down a schoolyard in Richmond, Virginia, at weekends, courtesy of having a grandpa in the Senate. ‘I was in Korea,’ he lied. ‘Fighter pilot. Flew fifty-seven missions.’ He briefly wondered if fifty-seven had been a convincing choice.

Parrott showed a flicker of interest, but didn’t follow it up with conversation. Norris dived in with a question: ‘So which regiment were you with?’

Parrott stiffened, his head erect and shoulders clicking back. ‘The SAS,’ he boasted.

‘Wowee!’ Norris sounded impressed. The tough guys. Boy, they’re the crack regiment of the British Army. Were you with them when they did the Iranian Embassy Siege? That was really something.’

Parrott looked embarrassed. ‘No, I, er, wasn’t with them long. They wanted me. Came top of my selection group, but my mob wouldn’t release me. I qualified for them, though.’

He’s a bigger liar than I am, Norris thought. He had the measure of his man now: he was a turkey, a turkey with the scruples of an alligator.

‘Oh, what a shame,’ Norris sympathised. That doesn’t seem fair. Your own mob must have needed you pretty bad.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Who were you with?’

‘The Paras.’

‘The Parachute Regiment! Well, they’ve got to be some of the finest soldiers in the world. Did you see the siege on TV?’

Parrott was grinning now. ‘Yeah! And seen it on video. They were crap. Did it all wrong. I’d have been in twice as quick,’ he enthused. ‘In and out, no survivors. Got what they deserved.’

‘What do they call that,’ Norris asked, ‘when they come swinging down the buildings?’

‘Abseiling,’ Parrott blurted out, eager to impress. ‘Anyone can do that, it’s dead easy.’

‘Jeez, I couldn’t do it. Would you believe it—’ he leant over and tapped Parrott on the arm ‘– I’m an
ex-jet
jockey and I’m scared of heights?’

They laughed, like two old buddies sharing a joke.

Norris had noticed two new customers come into the bar. One of them was big, and had a military bearing about him, with neatly cropped hair. The newcomer had slowly consumed a pint of beer, while possibly surveying them through the ornate mirrors that decorated the wall behind the bar.

Parrott got to his feet and said: ‘I’m going now.’ As he walked away Norris noted that he had a slight limp.

The newcomer came over and sat with Norris. Norris said: ‘You don’t take chances. I like that.’

‘Can’t afford to. You said you wanted to talk business.’

‘That’s right. First of all, do you have a name?’

‘Frank.’

‘OK, Frank. Your buddy thought that I might be setting you up. How do I know that you aren’t doing the same to me?’

‘You don’t, so let’s cut the crap. We’ve got your wife; you’ve got a video showing Shawn in all his glory. Let’s call it stalemate.’

Norris gestured with his thumb after the vanished figure of Parrott. ‘Is that your buddy’s name, Shawn?’

‘That’s what he calls himself.’

‘He looks some mean hombre.’

‘He is. So what’s this business you need doing?’

Norris finished his beer and placed the glass back on the table. He studied it for a few seconds, adjusting its position so that it fitted neatly into the pattern of the tiles. ‘Was Shawn really in the SAS?’ he asked.

Frank Bell shook his head. ‘No, they wouldn’t have him.’

‘Why?’

Bell smiled for the first time. ‘Too violent for them,’ he replied.

‘I can believe it. What happened to his face?’

‘That? Oh, he was mixed up in a riot in Belfast. Silly prat was off-duty. He’d infiltrated the other side and was right there with them, confronting the troops. We let go with a few baton rounds – plastic bullets – and Shawn caught one, full in the face. It should have killed him; blinded him at least. He just shook his head, grabbed
two of the ringleaders by the throat, and dragged them across to our lines.’

‘Jeez. Did they give him a medal?’

‘No. Thirty days in the cooler.’

‘Now ain’t that just typical of you Brits. So I’d be correct in saying that Shawn has a chip on his shoulder?’

‘Yep. A bloody big one. Shawn has a dream. Do you know what it is?’

‘Go on.’

‘One day, he says he’s going to do something so bad that they’ll lock him up and bury the key. He’ll spend his declining years in jail, watching TV and basking in his reputation. He calls it his pension plan.’

‘Wow! But he’d follow you through thick and thin?’

‘He’s saved my life, more than once.’

Norris nodded his approval. ‘So what’s your main line of business, Frank?’

‘Import and export. Mainly import.’

‘Bit like me, eh?’

‘More than you’d imagine, Mr Norris.’

‘Ah ah! I know what you mean. People want a little fun, a little … stimulation. We fill the need. That’s what I call good business.’

‘Except that you operate within the law.’

‘So far, Frank. So far. But times are changing.’ He leant forward and lowered his voice. ‘I want someone removing, Frank. You know – permanently.’

‘I guessed you might. Anyone we know?’

‘A politician. A famous politician. How do you think we should go about it?’

Bell pursed his lips and whistled softly with concentration. This was the kind of big-league contract he’d always wanted. He’d spent many a sleepless hour planning such a thing. ‘First of all,’ he said, ‘I’d create a smokescreen.’

‘A smokescreen? Why?’

‘Remember Kennedy?’

‘Sure, I remember JFK.’

‘Oswald was unlucky. Or betrayed. With all this shit that’s been created about a conspiracy, he could have got clean away with it. Another few hours and he would have done. The FBI would have been chasing Cubans, the KGB, the mafia, the …’ Bell waved his arm in the air, thinking of likely suspects ‘… the Teamsters, everybody and his dog, while the lone gunman sat at home watching it on TV, sipping a Budweiser.’

Norris was impressed. ‘That’s an interesting theory, Frank. What about doing the actual deed?’

‘Ah, that’s the hard bit. Somehow, you’ve got to know where he’s going to be at a certain time. That means surveillance, which can be dangerous. And expensive,’ he added as an afterthought.

‘Not necessarily so, Frank,’ Norris told him. ‘Mightn’t it be possible to control his movements, call the shots, get him where you wanted him?’

‘How could you do that?’

‘I’ve a few ideas. So far you haven’t asked what’s in it for you. I like that in a man, Frank, but I want it to be worth your while.’

‘So, what’s in it for us?’

‘I’m glad you asked. First of all, Shawn gets to show the SAS that anything they can do, he can do better. Something really spectacular. For you, Frank, how about a million pounds cash – payment on delivery?’

Bell inhaled audibly. ‘Jesus. I’d say you had a deal, Mr Norris.’

‘Good. Good. We all need a pension plan, y’know. You and me also. This could be ours. With a million pounds, minus a few expenses, you could set yourself up nicely. Either live fairly modestly for the rest of your life, or go for the big one. I can’t really see you settling down, Frank. What’s the profit margin in your line of importing? About five thousand per cent? With your enterprise you could soon make that million into fifty million.’