The thirst for revenge does not diminish with time. There is no statute of limitations. For Fabron to go to extremes, to plot and scheme, to play cat and mouse with her primary victims, with all the associated mental torture, she must have had a close association with Billy. Fabron, a ghost in the eyes of GCHQ and MI5, had outwitted us all. So far, her luck had held. That was about to change. Everyone had a weakness. Drugs, debts, an important relationship, whatever – I needed to know what hers was. It wouldn’t be easy. I’d been intimately involved with her and yet hadn’t known her at all.
But I had a head start.
Knowing the enemy is key to survival. If you know how they think, you can stand tall in the winner’s enclosure. I knew that Simone was cunning and clever, a mistress of deception, as cruel as she was patient. She liked the long game and she enjoyed the art of manipulation. I knew all this because I was the same animal. Where we differed was that she enjoyed mental and physical torture. This had never turned me on.
I took my usual cut-through on the way back home. A nursing home overlooked the alley with a wall running alongside its boundary, rising in height after a couple of metres. Shrubbery and dead leaves spilt over the lower section almost covering a chalk mark in the brick. Directly beyond this were a couple of parked cars and a large plane tree, the earth beneath a repository for all kinds of junk, tin cans, discarded plastic water bottles and general detritus. The way ahead clear, I glanced over my shoulder to ensure I was not seen, reached over, my hand touching what appeared to be a food carton half submerged in the undergrowth. I pulled out the reinforced box and tucked it inside my jacket and walked on.
Home again, I opened my treasure trove. A loaded Glock, identical to the gun I’d stolen, nestled inside.
I called Jat once more. Where the combined forces of the security services had failed, Jat might yet succeed. It was worth a punt anyway.
‘Forget everything I asked you to do,’ I told him, ‘and see if you can dig up anything on Simone Fabron. It’s not her real name. She’s a French national with an English mother, allegedly dead, and has a connection to the late William Franke. She runs a number of businesses.’ I gave him the rough spec. ‘I also need you to find out who owns a property in Cheltenham.’ I gave the address where McCallen had been held.
Jat doesn’t curse – it’s not his style – he whinges. Two minutes of moaning later, he hung up.
By the time, I finally set off for Chobham, Billy’s former family home, it was after four. Due to heavy traffic and a road closure, a journey that should have taken me the best part of two hours took almost double that. It gave me plenty of time to think about the woman I’d willingly allowed to dupe me.
I have never underestimated the female of the species. In my opinion, and based on fifteen years of dealing with horrible people, a ruthless woman has the edge on a ruthless man any day. Their capacity for cruelty is epic. Their ability to discern emotional vulnerability and manipulate it to advantage spellbinding. When women are bad they are very bad: more scheming, more reckless, more creative. When they hate, they make it entirely personal. I had met women like this before: Mafia women, Russian wives who allow their crime lord husbands to believe that their more dastardly plans are their own creation, and Lady Macbeths of the Orient. Simone and her ambitions exceeded anyone’s I’d ever met. She was off the scale.
I pulled up outside the wrought iron electronic gates of the Franke residence a little before eight. I’d been working on how I was going to lie to gain access. Should I say I was an old friend of Billy’s? How would that play? And if, by whatever means, I blagged my way in, would they read death in my eyes, see the blood on my hands, spot that the man standing in their living room asking questions was the same man who’d pushed a husband and father under a moving train? I needn’t have bothered. A sign outside stated that the property was sold.
Dejected, I cut the engine, climbed out, stretched my legs and arched my back. The air temperature had dropped several degrees, a thin rime of frost already on the ground. At the end of a long drive, the black and white farmhouse was impossible to see from the entrance. That was the way Billy liked things. No trace and no connection between Billy landowner and family man and Billy vicious gangland boss. I thought about his widow, the revelations that must have rocked their world.
Unless she’d known all along.
I climbed back into the car and drove to the nearest pub. Old English in style, with lots of brass, highly polished beer pumps and gleaming glasses, it was a decent, honest-to-God local. I bet the beer was good and asked for a pint of the most popular, along with a menu. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d eaten. Adrenalin has a deadening effect on my appetite. With the pressure eased off, I was suddenly ravenous.
Tall, lean, bald-headed with a moustache and an authoritative manner, the guy behind the bar wore a tie with a tiepin. I had him figured for the landlord. I also had him down for ex-army. It’s difficult to shake off the vestiges of years serving in the military.
I ordered and paid for local sausages with onion gravy and mash.
‘Where do you want to eat?’ he said. ‘You can either sit here at the bar, or at one of the tables.’
‘Here’s fine.’ I sipped my beer, which was clean and with the right balance of hop and malt, and took a good slow look around the bar. A group of red-eyed regulars were gathered at one end, the rest of the customers were businessmen dining alone and couples out for a few mid-week drinks. It didn’t look the type of place where anything kicked off. The military landlord would never allow it.
‘Come far?’ he said.
‘Gloucestershire.’
‘Home of my old regiment.’ His eyes shone with fond memory.
He went off to serve a customer. My dinner arrived and I ate. Twenty minutes later, I pushed my clean plate away and thanked the waitress who appeared delighted. Maybe people didn’t express their gratitude often in this neck of the woods. Small and pretty with bright blue eyes, she had a ballet dancer’s walk.
‘Is there anywhere around here I could stay for the night?’ I asked her.
‘We’ve got a couple of rooms.’
‘How much do you charge?’
‘£90 with full English. Want me to check to see if one’s free?’ She spoke well. I reckoned she was a sixth-former, working the odd night to earn a few quid.
‘That would be good – thanks.’
My army friend returned. ‘Anything else I can get you?’
‘That depends on whether you have any accommodation.’
A wide smile cracked his face. ‘A Coke if we’re full. A pint if we’ve got room.’
‘Yeah, that’s about right.’
The girl returned and said something to the landlord. He winked at me. ‘I’ll pull a pint then. Amy will sort out the paperwork later.’
I smiled thanks, paid for my bed and beer. ‘The big house that sold up the road?’
‘What of it?’
‘Happen to know where the Frankes went?’
‘You’re a friend of the Frankes?’ He did his best to sound casual. The change of light in his eyes gave him away.
‘Of Justine’s. I heard what happened.’
He looked through me. I didn’t blame him. With the story about Billy out, I could be a guy eager to call in an old debt. ‘No idea,’ he said, shut down.
After that, he avoided me until I picked up the keys to my room.
‘Travelling light?’ Suspicion etched his voice.
‘I am.’
The room was fine. For me, it was too much like the old days: strange beds, strange hotels and strange towns. Consequently, I slept badly, my mind seared with thoughts of Simone. Having seduced me, she’d done an excellent job of maintaining my interest. Had it all been for show, an act designed to distract me while she engaged in a rampage of murder? Had there ever been chemistry between us? Was I that dumb? I guess a part of the attraction for me was that I could identify with her free spirit. Looking back, and though I pretended otherwise, the signs were all there, her actions designed to throw me off the scent, my absences giving her the requisite time she needed to step up her plan. I’d been like an ardent cinemagoer viewing a foreign film. So busy watching the acting, I’d forgotten to read the subtitles. That she’d modelled the vicious part of herself on me did not escape my attention. On the last occasion I’d spoken to Billy, he told me how impressed he was with my killing abilities, that he admired my methods. I hadn’t realised he’d been studying them to pass on to someone else.
The next morning it was me and Amy and a plate of bacon, sausage and egg. Not normally one for talk in the morning, I struck up a conversation. ‘No school?’
‘Half-term.’
‘Local?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re a sixth-former?’
‘Studying for my baccalaureate.’
‘Smart young lady.’
She smiled shyly. ‘I’m not that smart. You should see some of my friends. We have a lot of kids who’ve lived abroad, kids from China, too. They’re the really clever ones.’
‘You must know the Franke girls.’
Her sunny face clouded. ‘Indie was never a close friend.’
‘I know Justine,’ I said.
‘Really? It’s sad what happened. They had to leave school.’
‘Leave?’
‘Couldn’t afford to stay.’
I quickly recalibrated my thinking. ‘Do you stay in touch?’
‘Indie never went away.’ The bridge of Amy’s nose creased. ‘Her mum and sisters moved – abroad, I think, to Mrs Franke’s parents in Spain. I see Indie from time to time. She works at the racing stables down the road, has lodgings there.’