No Time to Die_a thrilling CSI mystery Page 33

  But not good enough.

  And that’s why Slade turned to the front. ‘Drive,’ he said. ‘Hunslet.’ Because he was going to smile and that would give it away. Didn’t want that to happen. Not yet, anyway.

  ‘What’s happening in Hunslet?’

  ‘Just drive!’

  There were a lot of things spinning around in Slade’s mind as the journey progressed. How he’d lost his wife to a stupid drunken road accident more years ago than he cared to think about; how he’d lost his daughter when she grew old enough to realise how Slade paid for the fancy cars, and the house extensions, and the jewellery. But worse, she’d seen how Slade behaved with people who weren’t on his team. How he’d come home with bleeding knuckles and always seemed to smell of cordite, vomit or shit, or cheap perfume.

  And then he’d lost Blake who couldn’t control himself around women who didn’t work for the firm. He had big problems fitting into a society that didn’t revolve around the Crosbys – he was spoilt, thought Slade bitterly; couldn’t handle the word no. Ever. And one day, it bit him in the arse.

  And the arse biter, so to speak, was his other son, Tyler. Tyler fit in very well with society – to the extent that he hated the way Blake treated the world as his personal playground, that he smudged consideration and consequence until neither meant anything to him. Of course, out of the two boys, Slade had always thought Blake was the insecure one, the one that needed most guidance. But he’d been wrong there, big fucking time. Turned out Tyler was the insecure one; couldn’t handle his brother’s blasé attitude and the possibility that he’d inherit the family firm. Or maybe Tyler just couldn’t abide a rapist, even if it was his own brother.

  Suddenly, Slade felt like crying. Indeed, if he’d been an employee, he would have resigned. Today would have been the day Slade Crosby walked away from it all. He’d had enough. And for this lifestyle, he’d given enough – in fact, he’d given far too much.

  And as the gates to Woodhead’s Scrapyard approached, he thought only of this one last task of killing Jagger and the other coppers, and then…who knew. Maybe he’d hand the keys over to Shack or even Shylock. And then just leave town. Leave England, maybe.

  Jagger drove the car into the yard. The gates closed behind them.

  ‘What are we doing here, boss?’ he said.

  Slade detected a bit of nervousness in the man’s voice, and he liked it. ‘Got a surprise for you.’

  From a breeze-block cabin, Monty walked out into the grey light of another shitty day. He didn’t smile, though, which Slade found surprising; he was sure he’d be happy at bagging all three of the slimy bastards. Jagger opened the door and stepped out while Slade grabbed his stick and went to meet Monty.

  Behind Monty strode the new leader of Tymo’s mob: Shack. Slade recognised several of Shack’s men, but there was a new guy. They all stopped, facing each other in a rough circle.

  ‘Slade.’ Shack nodded.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Slade looked at the new man.

  ‘I’m Phil.’

  ‘Phil who?’

  ‘Mind your own fucking business.’

  Slade stared at him. ‘Cocky bastard, eh?’

  ‘I took over in Harehills when Shylock passed away.’ Phil made the sign of the cross and smiled widely.

  ‘Shylock’s dead?’

  ‘He tripped,’ Phil said. ‘Fell on a gun.’

  Slade looked at Phil, didn’t much like him. To Monty, he said, ‘You have a present for me?’

  And as though it was some kind of password worked out in advance, Shack and his crew, and this new guy, Phil, drew weapons and pointed them at Jagger.

  ‘Whoa,’ Jagger raised his hands and stepped back, ‘what’s going on?’

  Slade laughed and walked over to him. Jagger eyed him, looked at the weapons pointing at him, took another timid step back. Slade slapped his face. ‘You fucker. I sussed you out, you twat. And we sussed out your two buddies as well. Didn’t we, Monty?’

  Monty stayed silent.

  ‘I’m so going to enjoy ripping you into tiny pieces. I always wondered how much pain one man could take before his heart packed in. I always meant to find that out but never really had the time. I’m going to spend some time on you, boy.’

  ‘You’re gonna have more time on your hands than you’ll know what to do with.’ Shack laughed hard, and Slade looked his way as the weapons swivelled to point directly at Slade.

  ‘The fuck’s going on?’ Slade shouted.

  Jagger slapped him back, and Slade almost fell, catching himself on the bonnet of the Mercedes. Monty took a step forward, and Shack shook his head at him. ‘Don’t forget where your loyalties lie, Monty. There’s a good lad.’

  ‘Monty? What’s he talking about? What the hell’s going on?’

  ‘Slade, Slade, Slade,’ Jagger smiled widely. ‘You’ve no idea, have you?’ He took out a pair of blue nitrile gloves from his jeans pocket, put them on and delved into Slade’s jacket pocket. With his fingertips, he brought out Slade’s gun and passed it to a man also wearing gloves who then disappeared inside the breeze-block hut.

  Slade stared from one to the other, lingered on Monty and settled finally on Jagger.

  Jagger said, ‘Him there,’ he nodded at Shack, ‘he’s taken over the Middleton operations. The Middleton crew have been permanently disbanded. His real name’s Dom. And Phil over there is head honcho in Harehills. He has a crew of three. All of them work for Crime Division, and all of them are winding down operations in that area, collecting data, sifting contacts. I am the new head of the Chapeltown gang. I am a detective sergeant – hopefully inspector, this time next year. And my real name’s Jimmy. Jimmy Akhtar, at your service.’

  ‘You–’

  ‘Shut up. No need for melodrama, Slade. I have a team right now of 167 police officers and staff. They are dismantling everything you’ve worked for. They are uncovering everything you’ve ever fucking touched. Welcome to Operation Domino, Slade Crosby.’

  ‘Bastard!’

  ‘Monty is being of great value to us. Aren’t you, Monty?’

  Monty’s head bowed, and he whispered, ‘Sorry, chief. I knew that–’

  ‘Shut the fuck up, you piece of shit! I’ll fucking have you, man. If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll fucking have your head on a spike!’ Slade spat at Monty. His lower lip trembled with fury; the big veins in his neck stood proud and throbbed, and his eyes were dampened with a red rage. And then he looked back at Jagger. ‘You ain’t got nothing on me, anyhow. And when my lawyer–’

  ‘Well,’ Jagger pointed a stern finger, ‘I think we got that one covered too.’ He nodded at Shack. Shack went to the breeze-block hut. ‘We needed a start, see. Something that gave us authority to blitz the fuck out of you,’ he grinned. ‘Came up with this.’

  From the breeze-block hut, Shack gently escorted a young lady. The left side of her face was Post Office red; she wore a gauze across her left eye, and a bandage over a shaved part of her head. Shack whispered something to her.

  She squinted, then she nodded. Then she screamed, ‘That heem, that heem!’ Her hand went to her mouth, and Shack had to hold her up as she broke in fits of tears.

  Slade looked on shocked. ‘The Polish whore,’ he whispered.

  ‘We got her underwear,’ Jagger said. ‘So, we got you for rape. And we had the Pooh Bear mug, the one you broke over this girl’s fucking head, fingerprinted. So, we got you on a Section 18 assault. And then, not an hour ago, we got you for murder.’

  ‘What?’ Slade was getting hyper, chugging shallow breaths, feeling pins and needles in his fingertips, and watching as his field of vision seemed to shrink.

  Jagger was in no hurry. ‘I’m going to tell you something now, Slade. But you have to promise me you won’t have a fucking coronary and croak.’ He clapped his hands together in glee. ‘I’ve just got to see you on the stand! I have to!’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  ‘Remember when Blake and Tyler came back from killing Ton
y Lambert and his wife, Shelly?’

  ‘I ain’t saying nothing.’

  ‘Don’t have to. Anyway, remember how Tony gave Tyler a bust nose? Blood everywhere. Turns out that Tony did us all a favour; he actually killed the guy who murdered him and his wife.’

  Slade stared hatred.

  ‘Tyler mopped all the blood from his nose with tissues. Like a scruffy bastard, he just left them on the back seat.’ Jagger pointed through the screen of the Mercedes. ‘You can probably still see one or two there now. Anyway, I took a few of them, kept them. And when Monty told me that Blake had lined up a new woman, it didn’t take Einstein to work out where he’d take her. Trouble was, I was a bit late getting there.

  ‘He’d already raped the poor woman; she was nowhere to be found when I arrived. And anyway, someone else seemed to know him pretty well too, because when I got there, they’d already dropped the rock on your boy’s swede and put a round into his back. When I got near the tree, I saw someone running away.’

  ‘You’re full of shit, boy–’

  ‘Listen, Slade, you’ll like this bit. This is where I win my inspector pips.’ And then he looked around at his colleagues. ‘Nobody except these fine gentlemen knows about it,’ and he laughed at Slade’s perplexed face. ‘I worked out the rock thing, that it’d been dropped from the tree, and so I took the tissues with Tyler’s blood on them, I dampened them in the stream, and I smeared his blood all over that fucking tree branch.’

  ‘You lying piece of–’

  ‘Shut up!’ Jagger screamed. ‘I’m just getting to the really good part.’ He smiled. ‘So, you shot poor, poor Tyler for doing nothing wrong except having a nose bleed.’

  Slade’s eyes filled with water.

  ‘Want to know who actually killed Blake?’

  Slade blubbed, the spittle from his lower lip let go and splashed onto his shoes.

  ‘If I remember rightly, she had pink hair. I saw her running into the woods.’ Jagger blinked, watched Slade’s expression turn to despair. ‘Pretty sure your daughter, Rachel, has pink hair.’ He tapped his lower lip, looked to the clouds. ‘I wonder if they’re one and the same person. What do you think, Slade?’

  Slade collapsed to the muddy concrete and sobbed like a wronged child.

  Jagger squatted by his side and whispered, ‘So tell me; how much pain can one man take before his heart packs in?’

  41

  He wandered through the back door and the kitchen and into the lounge.

  ‘You should whack her.’

  ‘No, no. I couldn’t hit a woman unless it was in self-defence. What kind of man do you think I am?’

  ‘Well I don’t bleedin’ know, do I? I can barely remember you!’

  ‘Okay, look I’m coming over tonight–’

  ‘Bring some Stella.’

  He laughed meekly. ‘Right. Stella, yes.’

  ‘And don’t be long.’

  ‘I won’t…Kirsty? Kirsty, you there?’ He listened, but she’d hung up already. Brian dropped the phone back into its charger and paced the floor again, nibbling on his thumbnail. And through the lounge window, he saw a car draw up outside. He peered, squinting into the late afternoon brightness that almost passed for sunlight, pulled back the net curtains and saw the sad bitch climbing gingerly out of the passenger seat of some old car as though she were a ninety-year-old woman.

  Brian cracked his knuckles and smiled to himself as he went and opened the front door. He watched as she staggered closer, wondering what the bloody hell was wrong with her now. ‘Stupid cow,’ he whispered and went outside. Then he saw someone else getting out of the car, and he broke into a trot. ‘Rosaline, what’s happened, honey?’

  He supported her by the elbow and wrapped his arms around her, cooing until the driver appeared at their side.

  ‘I think she’ll be alright,’ said the young woman.

  ‘What on earth’s happened to her?’ Brian asked in his best voice of concern.

  ‘She’s upset; a colleague of ours passed away today.’

  ‘Oh, you poor thing,’ he said to Ros, and to the young woman. ‘I’ve got her, thank you very much for bringing her home. It was very kind of you.’

  ‘No problem. You alright now, Ros?’

  Ros whimpered, closed her eyes and allowed Brian to escort her inside.

  As soon as the hallway gloom hit them, he kicked the door shut. ‘Who died?’

  She shook herself free of his uncaring embrace and walked through into the lounge where she continued to sob quietly into a tissue.

  ‘Don’t ignore me, Rosaline. You know I don’t like to be ignored.’

  ‘Eddie,’ she croaked.

  ‘Collins? The man you went out with?’

  She nodded, peered at him over her trembling hand.

  ‘Christmas and birthday all in one.’ The smile he wore eventually drifted away as he considered this. She was crying full on now, and by the looks of her puffy eyes, the eyelashes stuck together and the disgusting trail of snot hanging from her nose, she’d been crying all fucking day! And that thought prompted another, one that made his chest glow hot with anger. ‘I wonder,’ he whispered, ‘if you’d cry like that for me.’

  ‘Please, Brian; not now.’

  ‘Not now? Not now? Not now what?’

  ‘I don’t want to get into a battle with you. I just want to go–’

  ‘Ha! A battle? Why would we get into a battle? It was a simple question. I just wondered if you’d be this upset for me if I passed away. That’s all. A simple question.’

  ‘Of course I would.’

  But she was lying. He could see it! Plain as day. Hollow. Words that meant nothing. Words so he’d be happy and leave the selfish bitch alone to go to bed and weep tears for a man she barely knew.

  Barely knew?

  His eyes squinted in thought. How did he know she barely knew him? She could’ve been…of course, she was. It made sense now! Ever since he started work in her office, she’d been like a lovelorn teenager. And how often had she spoken of him? All the time! Never stopped! Eddie this and Eddie that.

  Yes, of course, that’s where she went last night with him. Out with him.

  ‘Come upstairs.’

  ‘Oh, Brian–’

  ‘I said upstairs! Now!’ He left the room and mounted the stairs with a determination in his face; a gruesome determination. Brian was nobody’s fool. He wouldn’t tolerate his wife sleeping around like some common whore, laughing behind his back, making a fool of him. He could imagine the young woman who’d dropped her off, laughing her tits off on the way back to the office or home or wherever she was going. Laughing her tits off because she knows Rosaline is shagging someone behind my back – and like a dumb idiot, I knew nothing about it; I welcome her home, help her inside, treat her well, trust her, and she makes a mockery of me. A mockery!

  Ros looked at the front door through stinging eyes. He’d locked it, taken the key out. And so, she took the phone from the handset, sneaked back into the lounge and dialled 999. She listened to the handset, and all she could hear was nothing.

  Ros turned slowly around. Brian stood in the doorway with the lead in his hand.

  ‘Who were you ringing?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘I’ve had about all I can take from you.’

  ‘Brian, I–’

  ‘Get up those fucking stairs now!’

  Before she could move he was in front of her and had her by the hair, pulling her out of the lounge and up the stairs as she screamed a futile protest.

  There was a certain foundation to all of this emotion. Of course, it had begun a couple of days ago with her night-long immersion in three inches of cold water, fully clothed. That was the start; it had brought her down to earth with a spine-jarring thud. She hadn’t recovered from it, the aches and the shivers that had spread through to her bones had persisted since then. But then, the news that underpinned that foundation, that Eddie had been shot and was in some shallow grave up in North Yorkshi
re, had warped her mind so out of true that she couldn’t think straight anymore.

  At first, she thought it was a crazy, morbid prank that Eddie had played to get back at her. And, of course, she’d deserved it – she’d done exactly the same thing to him for almost two whole years. She could see why he’d want a little retribution: Taste your own medicine, Ros, and see how the hell you like it! This is what you put me through. But if it was a joke, a lesson, it was extremely elaborate – and it involved the whole office. There was no way Jeffery would allow that to happen. It was way off the morbid scale.

  And so, it was real. Had to be. And that’s when things became a little blurred for her, fuzzy round the edges like an old photo, sepia toned and scratched and beaten. Just when she’d become used to having him back in her life, just when she’d stopped chastising herself for leaving him out in the cold for so long, and most painfully of all, just as she’d come to terms with hooking up with last-chance-Brian when she really ought to have checked on Eddie’s marital status before jumping to conclusions, he’d been cruelly and stupidly taken from her.

  What a waste.

  Why go to the Crosbys in the first place? Did Eddie really think he would leave there with his legs intact, let alone his life?

  And that set her off into fresh wails again.

  Brian was filling the bath.

  ‘No, Brian, not that–’

  ‘Take your clothes off, Rosaline.’

  He said it in such a blasé way, as though he’d offered a cup of tea and a digestive. Take your clothes off, Rosaline, and would you like a McVitie’s with it?

  ‘No, Brian, please–’

  ‘Why d’ya always test me? Huh? That’s what teenagers do to see how much power they got; they test their parents by being obstinate, by asking questions and refusing to obey commands. Why do you do it?’

  She stared at him.