Death Message

PART TWO. ‘SHOW’

Je

He toyed with getting bolshie, maybe asking to see warrant cards, but there was really no need. He knew the Old Bill when he saw them, and these two had the look. Had the chat.

It was lunchtime and there weren’t too many other customers about. They sat around a large wooden table next to the gents’ toilets; the smell of piss and bleach-blocks wafting out whenever the door was opened. Je

‘Keeping busy, Marcus?’

‘You know…’

‘Yeah, course we know. Nice little racket you and your old woman have got going.’

It was nice, had been working out a treat, as a matter of fact. He’d been looking for something ever since he’d got out of the game. Had tried and failed to hold down any number of ordinary jobs, but he wasn’t cut out for life on the up and up. Then Angie had started doing some cleaning work, making a decent job of it, doing more houses on word of mouth and what have you. Bigger houses, where people were that much better off and didn’t seem bothered about the cleaner having a set of keys; letting herself in while the owners were out having long lunches and getting their nails done.

It had been Angie’s idea and it had worked out right from the off.

Once she was in there, trusted enough, and knowing all the family’s comings and goings, he’d turn the place over. Go in with the keys, put a window through when he was finished, maybe kick a back door in or whatever to make it look kosher. Usually Angie would leave a few weeks afterwards, start in a new area, although there were a couple of houses he’d robbed where she was still cleaning. Because she liked the people, and the money was so bloody good…

‘Very nice,’ Je

Squire threw a fistful of peanuts into his fat mouth. ‘You’ve got a job to do, and so have we.’

‘Livings to make.’

‘Not sure how good Angie’s going to look after a few months in Holloway.’

‘Tasty enough for most of the slags in there, mind you…’

He wasn’t stupid. He’d come across plenty of coppers like these two before, when he was working with other people. The sort who’d tip you the wink about a raid; come in and help themselves to a bundle of twenties when a take was being divvied up.

‘How much are we talking?’ he asked.

Squire finished the nuts, wiped his palms against his jeans. ‘It’s not about money. We just need a favour.’

‘Something up your street,’ Je

‘Be a real shame if things went tits-up for you now. Especially with a kid and all that.’

Then they explained about the job, Je

He asked them whose place it was and they told him that he didn’t need to know. That it was just a favour. That they really didn’t like to ask, but they hoped he might see his way clear. They gave him a phone number and told him to think about it, and that was about the lot.

He didn’t have a great deal to think about, and a week later he was stepping across broken glass into a darkened kitchen. The place smelled strange. Oily. The house wasn’t overlooked from the back and they’d assured him that the man of the house would be away, so he wasn’t too worried about being seen or making a lot of noise.

He turned on the light. Stared at the stripped-down engine on the kitchen table…

Then he heard voices, and was about to head straight out the way he’d come in when the music told him there was a television on somewhere. It still wasn’t right: the place should have been empty. He’d only done somewhere that was occupied once before, and he wasn’t thrilled about doing it again. But it wasn’t like he had a lot of choice.

Even then, creeping towards the front, there was no way of knowing there was anything wrong. There was no sign of a struggle until he slowly opened the door to the lounge, where they’d told him all the papers would be.

That was when he started to panic.

There was blood, just fucking everywhere. The armchair was on its back, and there was crap scattered about, and the bloke who wasn’t supposed to be there at all was dead as mutton. Lying on his face in front of Coronation Street. The back of his head all wet and shapeless.

He didn’t see any papers; guessed that whoever had done the bloke in had taken them. He didn’t see an empty glass on the floor behind the settee. But then he didn’t see too much of anything; he was far more bothered about getting the hell out of there.

In retrospect, it was probably thick of him, but he didn’t grasp it all straight away. Quite how dodgy it was. He tried calling the number they’d given him, but couldn’t get hold of Je

The glass he’d been drinking water from in the pub…

Brooks was amazed how much of the detail he could still remember from that night: what was on the television; the design on the back of the dead man’s leather jacket; the material of the armchair and the blood on one of its castors. It was odd, because the idea of revenge had faded during the years he’d spent inside. At first he’d been obsessed with it, with making them pay for fitting him up, but eventually he’d let it go. There had been other things to think about. Angie and Rob. Stuff that made him feel better.

The two men who’d taken six years of his life had as good as got away with it. But then the Black Dogs had gone after his family. And now, all bets were off.

Je

He’d thought a fair bit about Thorne, asking himself why Nicklin should have had such a thing about him. He was a bloke to be taken seriously, that’s what Nicklin had said. Had to be, if he’d managed to put Nicklin away.

Now the copper they’d lined up to be on the receiving end was sending messages of his own. Like an invitation.

Exhausted, he watched the sky begi