The man was sweating; a fine film of perspiration was covering his ruddy face and his thin sandy hair was also dampening nicely. They could smell his odour of fear and anger.
‘You are a right bastard, Burrows. I’ve done the Old Bill some favours in the past and you would do this to me?’
Jenny sipped her drink then replied, ‘Yes, we would. Because we want a big favour. One that will make you the enemy of everyone you have ever dealt with. And you’ll do it. Otherwise we will have to start hassling you. This is a bit of personal, you see. Not police business.’
She let the words sink in before saying brightly, ‘By the way, does Jacky Gunner know you are a grass? Only you work for him as well, don’t you?’ At his silence she shook her head knowingly. ‘No. I didn’t think so.’
‘Who the fuck are you anyway?’
Jenny looked at him closely and smiled. ‘I, Mr McMann, am your worst enemy.’
‘What do you two want?’
‘We want to know about a man called Boris. A Russian. We want to know everything you can find out about him.’
‘I don’t know any fucking Russians . . .’
Kate interrupted him. ‘No, but Jacky Gunner does - or so I understand. He has been bragging about his Russian connection - I heard that from another grass earlier today. Now you and Jacky are practically joined at the hip, so you were the natural choice to ask. You being a paid police informant, a grass.’ She spoke deliberately loudly, to rattle him.
Michael licked dry lips and looked surreptitiously around the pub. ‘I thought you was after the nonces. What’s this, a side line?’
‘As my friend said, it’s a bit of personal.’ She laughed at his outraged countenance. ‘Where is Jacky these days, and what’s his latest scam?’
Michael shook his head slowly. ‘This is one time when you can lock me up, but I ain’t saying a fucking dicky bird. This is way too heavy for the likes of me. I appreciate your man has been shot. I sympathise. But that, Miss Burrows, is as far as it goes.’ He sat back as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
Kate’s voice was low and clear as she spoke. ‘I will find out where Jacky is, and if it means shouting out all your past deeds in this packed public house then that is just what I will do.’
Michael knew she meant it. ‘I am a paid informer, you can’t do that to me. You would not only endanger my life but also a couple of ongoing investigations.’ He sat back again, pleased with himself.
Kate leaned forward and growled, ‘Like I give a toss. Now listen to me, Michael. I am going to get this out of you one way or another. I am Patrick’s other half as you pointed out yourself. Remember that, because I am not playing games here.’
She leaned even closer to him. ‘Fuck ongoing investigations, fuck it all. As I said, this is personal. I want to know now.’
‘If I was you, Mr McMann, I would seriously consider telling her what she wants to know.’ Jenny’s voice was gentle, friendly and Michael looked from one of them to the other in obvious confusion.
‘Are you two really coming the heavy with me?’
‘Looks like it.’ Kate stood and called across the bar loudly, ‘Another round here, please. And whatever my friend Mr McMann is drinking.’
Everyone turned to look at him.
She glanced at her watch and said slowly, ‘You have exactly two minutes before my trap goes louder than an air-raid warning. Are this lot aware of how many faces you have put in the frame over the last seven years?’
‘He’s in a safe house near Rettenden. Staying with Joey Partridge.’
Kate smiled. ‘See, that wasn’t too difficult, was it?’
Patrick’s house looked deserted. As she opened the front door, and stepped inside, Kate heard her own footsteps ring in the silence.
Jenny followed her in, hardly able to contain her awe. ‘Bloody hell, this is some drum!’
‘It is a nice house, isn’t it? Patrick loved it. It stood for everything he’d worked for over the years.’
They walked through the entrance hall and into the drawing room.
Jenny stared around her without a word. From here they looked over the tennis court and the summerhouse outside. Inside there were heavy glass chandeliers and oil paintings on the walls, velvet-upholstered sofas and blue brocade curtains.
Kate opened a small locked cabinet and turned off the alarm.
‘Jesus Christ, Kate, this is serious money,’ breathed Jenny.
‘Villainy pays well, that’s what we learn at Hendon.’
Jenny blew out her lips and said seriously, ‘I am in the wrong job, love.’
Kate smiled at her. ‘This is legal enough, Jen. It just isn’t what we would class as earned money. This lot came off massage parlours - places like that. Pat knew his market and he exploited it. Come on, let’s see what we can find.’
It took them two hours to go through the place and Kate knew they would have to leave soon. The housekeeper would be back by 4.30 and Kate didn’t want to see her. They’d found nothing that didn’t pertain to Patrick’s known business interests. There was nothing at all to do with Girlie Girls.
As they walked down the garden towards the summerhouse and pool room, Jenny exclaimed over and over at the beauty of the grounds.
‘Jesus, Kate, I never guessed you’d been living like this for all that time. It’s a fairy tale. A dream. You know, if you win the pools or something.’
Kate had stopped answering her over an hour before. She knew how Jenny was feeling, had felt like that herself at times, even when she lived here.
Lizzy had adored the place and had moved in without a second thought, enjoying it for what it was, inviting friends round and generally showing off. Unlike Mandy Kelly, who had been brought up to it, Kate’s daughter had embraced her new lifestyle with an open enthusiasm that had looked out of place sometimes. She had even changed her accent to match her upmarket surroundings and that had grated on Kate at first. She had seen it as further proof of Lizzy’s shallowness.
But as Patrick had said at the time, the girl had more than a trace of Dan in her under the voluptuous exterior, and blood will always out in the end.
Today, remembering the past while she had run her hands over his things, breathed in his special scent, Kate had felt an urge to cry.
Patrick was everywhere around here.
His dressing gown looked forlorn, hanging alone in the bathroom. Their bed looked huge and empty, with its unruffled covers and perfectly smooth pillow-cases. Every trace of her was gone from the room and it hurt her. Hurt her deeply.
Her mobile rang and she answered it curtly. Sitting on a padded wicker chair in the summerhouse she said calmly, ‘Fuck you too, mate.’
She turned the phone off and smiled at Jenny’s blatant curiosity. ‘Michael McMann didn’t lose any time in telling the world what had befallen him. That was DI Thomas over in Harbridge. Not a happy bunny.’
Jenny shrugged. ‘We’d better make our way to Rettenden, Kate. They might already have had a call from him.’
Kate shook her head and said gently, ‘He can’t afford to tell them anything, he knows we’ll catch up with them eventually.’
‘This Russian sounds intriguing, don’t you think?’
Kate nodded. ‘This place is clean. Patrick’s too shrewd to leave anything incriminating around his home. Quite frankly I can’t think where the rest of his stuff could be. His yard was blown, so anything there would be gone by now. Willy would know, but he’s out of the ball game for some reason. So it looks like all we have at the moment is Rettenden.’
‘We’d better get going, Kate. Can you imagine Ratchette’s face if he knew what we were doing?’
Kate didn’t answer. She looked out over the grounds and wondered if the Russian was having the place watched. She had assumed he was and wanted him to see her here. It might just bring him out of the woodwork.
‘We’ll drop by my house on the way and see how my mother’s faring.’
The two officers strolled nonchalantly back, both enjoying the beauty of their surroundings. Kate asked herself if she missed the house itself and knew that she did and she didn’t. Without Patrick it was empty. With him it had been a home.
Jacky Gunner looked at Joey Partridge. ‘That’s a hundred thousand pounds you owe me now, mate.’
Joey lit a cigar and blew smoke across the table. ‘Business, ain’t it?’ He picked up the Monopoly board and emptied everything on it back into the box. ‘Fancy a cup of tea?’
‘Why not?’ Jacky Gunner started to roll himself a joint. ‘Did you hear about Laurie Simons? Caught with sixteen lumps of black. He tried to con the Old Bill it was bars of chocolate.’
The two men laughed.
‘He’s off his trolley,’ Joey said. ‘I heard he was being questioned by the Drugs Squad and when they showed him the stuff they’d found in his car, he opened the bag and blew into it. Fucking coke everywhere. All over the table, the floor - he really blew and all. The Filth went mental and he was licking it off his face, ’cos it had gone everywhere like, and he told them, “That’s good stuff, ain’t been cut yet. Just what the doctor ordered.” They went ballistic by all accounts.’
They laughed again.
‘You ever seen his bird Big Lucy?’ Joey sniggered.
Jacky shook his head. ‘I’ve heard about her.’
‘One fucking ugly fat bird she is, but she’s so funny she should be a stand-up comedian. There’s something about her you can’t help liking and she is well stacked and all. When they raided the house she got up out of bed stark naked, bent over and pulled the cheeks of her arse apart. She said to the Old Bill, “It’s your choice - you can go in singly or in twos.” Laurie said he was busting so much they couldn’t cuff him. Their faces were a fucking picture. He’ll be here later anyway, he’s dropping some stuff off for me.’
Jacky lit his joint and took a deep toke on it. ‘How much longer do you reckon we’ll have to sit it out here?’
Joey shrugged. ‘Fuck knows. Kelly should have died, the wanker. But he’s on his way out by all accounts so we’ve that to look forward to at least.’ He grinned cheerfully. ‘I’ll have to go to the funeral, won’t I?’
Laughing, Jacky Gunner pushed his hair from his eyes. He was good-looking and he knew it. Even on his own he was always conscious of what he looked like. A lady’s man, he liked to keep himself smart. Even now, locked up in a safe house with only men for company, he had dressed casually but well.
He watched Joey pouring out the tea and puffed once more on his joint. ‘Can’t we get a bit of skirt here tonight, Joe? I need a shag, mate.’
Joey gave a dirty chuckle. ‘Fucking wear it out, you will, boy. I’ll see what we can drum up.’
Just then the door opened and they stared in utter disbelief as a large black man walked into the room.
‘Who the fucking hell are you?’ Joey said, surprise cracking his voice.
The man’s massive shoulders and heavy neck seemed to strain against his shiny skin. He was the biggest bloke that Jacky and Joey had ever seen in their lives.
Kate stepped into the room behind him.
‘Afternoon, gentlemen. Any more of that tea going?’
‘You’re having a fucking tin bath, ain’t you?’
She walked over to where they were standing and glanced around the room. ‘This place is a bit of a dump, isn’t it?’
The two men were silent, still in shock.
She smiled at their expressions and introduced herself. ‘DI Kate Burrows. Or, as I am also known, Pat Kelly’s bird the Filth.’
She was pleased to see the two faces before her pale.
‘And this is my friend, Benjamin Boarder. He isn’t a policeman, but I think you might have guessed that much already.’
She rubbed her hands together. ‘Now then, where’s that tea we were talking about?’
Chapter Fourteen
Benjamin Boarder was thirty-nine years old. An East End boy born and bred, to a white mother and Jamaican father, he was the epitome of the New Man. Well-dressed, good-looking, well-groomed and the father of seven children, he was a thoroughly nice bloke.
Provided you didn’t upset him, of course.
As he stood sentinel in the small bungalow in Rettenden he knew that his reputation had as usual preceded him. Jacky Gunner looked decidedly green around the gills, but then he would. They’d had a run-in many moons ago.
Benjamin was wearing the regulation enforcer’s coat: leather, expensive and with a long pocket. He saw the two men’s eyes trained on it and had to force himself not to smile. They both thought their number was up. If it was left to him, it soon would be.
He watched as Kate sipped her tea and chatted to them without any reference to her reason for being here. He could smell the fear in the air. The whole situation amused him.
Boarder liked Kate Burrows, always had. When Patrick had first taken up with her, Benjamin had agreed with a lot of the criminal fraternity that Pat’s daughter’s murder had turned his head. On meeting her though, he had soon come to like and respect her.
In fairness, as Pat had pointed out, everything he did these days was legal anyway, so he had no worries about being cuffed late at night, unless it was a sex game. Everyone had finally accepted her. Most people wondered if she was bent, and Pat never denied that. He only laughed. So eventually a lot of faces had just assumed it and Pat’s rep had risen overnight.
‘Sleeping with the enemy’ has been one joke out of hundreds.
As he watched her now, fighting for her man’s rights, Benjamin decided he would do anything to help her even if it meant falling out with mad Boris the Russian. A ponce of the first water and a foreign wanker they could all do without.
‘All right, Gunner, stop trying to wind me up. You and I both know that you’re due a final capture. It’s the law, if you’ll excuse the pun. So basically, I can pull you in now, or you can do me a favour. It’s entirely up to you,’ Kate was saying.
‘You’d better pull me in then because I ain’t got nothing to say to you, lady. Nothing whatsoever.’