Porter was about to call it a day when the call came in. He and Styles bolted for the door along with four other detectives who happened to be sitting at desks nearby. With lights and sirens, they made good time and screeched to a halt twenty yards from the Taylor Fisheries building. The first officers to respond had already set up a cordon around the door and a section of the road outside. Porter glanced over to the left, where a young constable stood next to a crumpled form of a man. There was no mistaking him for anything other than deceased. His head was tilted to face Porter, his eyes wide in surprise, in denial right to the end.
Porter dismissed him for now. He could wait; he wasn’t going anywhere. An ambulance was blocking his view of the front door. Its rear door was open, and he could see there was nobody inside it yet. He sprinted around it and into the building, stopping so abruptly that Styles nearly ran into the back of him. Paramedics were making their way carefully down the stairs, carrying a stretcher.
‘Evie!’
The lead paramedic looked up at him. ‘Look out, gents, coming through.’
Porter and Styles retreated through the door and the paramedics bustled past them. Porter looked down and felt his stomach lurch when he saw her face. Her eyes were closed, the right side of her face was an angry palette of purples and blues, ballooning up to an alarming size. They had dressed what looked like a deep gash on her face. It ran from halfway down her forehead to her eyebrow, and continued another two inches from beneath her right eye down her cheekbone. There was no movement; she lay deathly still on the stretcher as they prepared to lift her into the ambulance.
Jesus, is she dead?
His stomach did another flip until he noticed the misting of condensation on the inside of the oxygen mask that waxed and waned with each breath. He turned to Styles.
‘She’s alive.’ He looked up at the paramedic who was stepping out to close the doors and head to the driver’s seat. ‘How bad is she?’
‘Could be worse,’ he said, hustling past them. ‘Vitals are strong, but she’s been out since we got here. Hard to say much for sure till we get her back to base.’
‘Where you headed?’
‘Darent Valley A & E, if you want to follow?’
Porter nodded. He knew the way, but he also knew they’d not let anyone near her while they assessed her injuries. He wanted to have a look inside first, and he’d head straight there afterwards. He motioned for Styles to follow him. They heard footsteps up on the floor above them and headed straight up to examine the scene.
Porter was moving at pace as he reached the first-floor landing, and almost walked head first into a man coming the other way. He pulled up short of a collision and saw Anderson with a startled look on his face.
‘Jesus, Porter, watch where you’re going.’
Whittaker was right behind Anderson, and put his hand out to stop himself becoming part of the pile-up. Porter ignored Anderson’s comment and looked through the doorway. Mike Gibson’s body lay just beyond the frame, his feet no more than twelve inches past the threshold. He had fallen with his head turned away from them so Porter couldn’t see his face. A crimson halo surrounded his head, his hair, greying but still with a sprinkling of the dark brown it used to be, now had a liberal splash of red at the base of his skull. One arm lay flat against his body, the other tucked underneath. Porter looked back at Anderson, who just shook his head.
They stood like that for a moment, not meeting each other’s eye.
‘What happened?’ said Porter finally.
Anderson gave them a rough and ready account of what had happened at the warehouse, and how they had ended up here. He explained how they had been waiting in their cars when they heard Gibson shouting, and how he and Simmons had already disappeared inside the building by the time they rounded the corner.
‘By the time we got inside it was all over. Bolton was gone, the other guy, Stenner, had already shot off in the car, and Carter was roadkill. We heard a car start up somewhere out back, but it was gone before we got out there. Found Gibson exactly where you see him. The paramedics checked him for a pulse but …’ His voice tailed off.
‘What about Simmons? Where was she?’
Anderson pointed to the floor just shy of the doorway. ‘She was in a heap on the floor. From the looks of it she’d cracked her head on the doorway’ – Porter saw the dark red stain on the frame where she must have connected with it – ‘and she fell backwards out onto the landing. Think she might even have tripped up on Gibson.’
‘What makes you say that?’ asked Styles, finding his voice for the first time since entering the building. It would be embarrassing for Simmons if that was how it had gone down. Whether it would have made a difference to the outcome for Gibson was debatable, but had her clumsiness meant that a suspect in the death of a police officer had been able to flee the scene?
‘Her foot.’ Anderson gestured with his hand towards where Gibson lay. ‘It was in between where his legs are now, slightly under the material on his trousers by the ankle. She was lying back here, mainly on the landing.’ He gestured back through the door towards the stairs. ‘I’m thinking she heard whatever happened to him, came up fast and came a-cropper.’ He pointed at the door frame. ‘Position of the mark on the frame is consistent with her height.’
‘And what exactly happened to him?’ asked Porter.
Anderson shrugged. ‘Other than the fact the back of his head is caved in, your guess is as good as mine. Bolton and Stenner are nowhere to be seen. There’s a fire escape leading down the side,’ he said, pointing at a door in the far wall, ‘but by the time we checked for signs of life with these two, and cleared each floor, there was no sign of anyone else. We’re fairly sure Bolton came in here with Carter, but he didn’t come out the front, I know that much, so that’s our best guess for now.’
Porter looked down at Gibson again. His thoughts immediately went to the picture on Gibson’s desk at work, a family shot with his arms around his wife, and their sons like bookends to their left and right. They would have to be told.
Pity the poor bugger who pulls that duty.
‘What about the building?’ asked Styles. ‘Why here?’
‘No idea,’ said Whittaker, speaking at long last. His face was pale, and a sheen of sweat on his brow hinted that he was still struggling with what they had stumbled into. ‘We’ve not come across it before, but we can check it out at Companies House when we get back.’
‘Any idea what they used on Gibson?’ asked Porter.
‘Over there.’
Anderson pointed a few feet past where Gibson’s body lay, to a piece of wood around four feet long. Even from where he stood, Porter could see the wispy strands that clung to it where a jagged edge had torn a clump from Gibson’s scalp when it had connected. The hairs of the light grey clump were bound to the wood by a congealing streak of blood. The contrast of the colours and the way the tuft stuck out reminded Porter of a fly-fishing lure.
Porter stared for a few more seconds, soaking in the scene. His eyes lingered once more on Gibson, then the door frame, feeling his anger rising. He clenched and unclenched his fists.
‘Come on, then,’ he said, addressing the three of them. ‘Every extra minute that bastard is left to strut around town is an insult to Mike and Evie.’ His use of the officers’ first names somehow made it even more personal to them than it already was. ‘A man his size can’t be too hard to find, even in this city. Let’s bring him in.’
They left one of the uniformed officers from downstairs to guard the scene on the first floor. Anderson and Whittaker had been working the Locke case for six months solid and had a good handle on Bolton’s usual haunts. He gave Porter and Styles addresses for Bolton’s office, as well as for the few businesses they knew he owned. He split a further eleven possibilities between the other officers who were outside on the street, opting to keep Bolton’s home address for himself and his partner.
They agreed that whoever located Bolton would call for backup before attempting any arrest. After what had happened to Gibson and Simmons, nobody wanted to take any chances. Course of action agreed, each pair of detectives peeled away towards their own cars.
Porter slid into the driver’s seat and had the engine growling impatiently, already in first gear and ready to pull away, before Styles had even reached the handle. He glanced through the windscreen to where Carter lay on a carpet of broken glass and splinters. Someone had covered his body with a sheet now, but his outstretched hands still peeped over the top edge, like a child playing hide-and-seek. The second his partner’s door closed, Porter hit the accelerator and the car jerked forward.
Simmons had been hunting for a way to put Bolton, amongst others, behind bars for drug trafficking, and had been willing to put herself in harm’s way to do it. The irony dawned on Porter, as he drove, that it would be the harm she had been willing to risk that would see him arrested. He just prayed that she would pull through to see it happen with her own eyes.
The hunt for Bolton bordered on anticlimax. Detectives Booth and Thomas found him in Oyster Bay, a Chinese restaurant that he owned, and the first on their list of three addresses. His car was parked outside, and he and Stenner were sitting there bold as brass at the table in the centre of the restaurant. He was halfway through a plate of Singapore chow mein that could feed a family of four when the delegation of six officers walked in. Anderson and Whittaker took point, with Booth and Thomas bringing up the rear, sandwiching Porter and Styles in between them. Porter was straining at the leash to lead the charge, to be the one to confront Bolton, read him his rights, but he held back. It was more Anderson’s right to claim the collar. Bolton was part of his case, Simmons part of his team.
Bolton didn’t look up or acknowledge their presence as they wound their way between the tables towards him, even when Anderson moved close, practically touching the cloth on Bolton’s table.
‘James Bolton?’
Bolton stabbed his fork into the centre of his mountain of food and twirled it, his fork accumulating noodles like a stick gathering candyfloss. Only after he had heaved it into his mouth and started to chew did he look up. He smiled and tapped his lips with the fork, grunting as he worked his way through his mouthful.
‘Sorry, Officer, my mum always told me it’s rude to talk with your mouth full,’ he said once he had finished. ‘Apologies, but if you’re after a table we’re booked solid. You’ll have to come back another night.’ He gave a smile that had all the warmth of a ventriloquist’s dummy.
Porter glanced involuntarily around the room. There were several dozen tables, all bar two of them empty. A young couple sat at the table by the window, oblivious to the scene that was unfolding, eyes only for each other. Four young men occupied a table in the far corner, suit jackets slung across the backs of their chairs, top buttons undone on their shirts and ties with knots that had relaxed a few inches below the collar.
Anderson nodded and returned the smile with an equally cold one of his own. ‘Business is booming, Jimmy. We’ll call ahead next time and book. In the meantime, why not get them to pack up your food to go, and you can finish it down the station while we have a chat.’
‘Sounds like he’s asking me out on a date, Mr Stenner, not very politely I might add. I preferred it when he called me James. What do you think, should I play hard to get?’
‘Don’t flatter yourself, Jimmy, you’re not my type. I’m not in the mood to fuck around today, though. James Bolton, you’re under arrest for the murders of Owen Carter and Michael Gibson, and the attempted murder of Eve Simmons.’
Bolton sat back and looked impassively up at Anderson as he recited the rest of the statement. When Anderson was finished, Bolton plucked the napkin from his lap and dabbed his lips before laying it on top of the remnants of his meal. Porter looked on, reminded of the sheet he had seen draped over Carter.
‘You’re making a big mistake,’ he said, his eyes moving slowly, deliberately, from one officer to the next. ‘In every sense of the word. However, never let it be said that I don’t cooperate with our fine boys in blue.’
Bolton put his hands up in mock surrender and stood up slowly, before extending his wrists towards Anderson, who grabbed them as roughly as he could, trying to pull Bolton away from his table. He might as well have been tugging on a towrope anchored to a vehicle for all it moved Bolton. The big man just smirked and watched with a bored expression as Anderson cuffed him.
They repeated the process with Stenner, and Booth stepped forward and did the honours with his cuffs. He and Thomas manoeuvred Stenner towards the door. Whittaker, in the meantime, came to the opposite side of Bolton and put a hand on his left arm, while Anderson took the other. As they steered him out past the silent stares of the restaurant staff, Bolton spoke over his shoulder to the restaurant manager.
‘Make the call, please, Mr Lau.’
A smartly dressed Asian man moved away from the kitchen door at the back of the room and picked up the phone that sat behind the bar. Porter and Styles brought up the rear as the convoy of officers herded their suspects out into the street, looking left and right as they pushed them down into the waiting cars. It looked an impossible task to squeeze Bolton through the door frame and into the back seat, but they managed. Porter glanced back through the window. Beneath the reflection of the street, he could still make out the manager, more animated now that his call had clearly connected. His free hand gestured towards where Porter stood.
Porter wondered who was on the other end of the phone. He doubted it was Locke. The manager wouldn’t be quite so animated and demonstrative with the man himself. Whoever it was, he had no doubt that the message would filter through to Locke quickly enough.
Let’s see how he reacts now that we’ve got his big Dobermann locked up.
Bolton sat opposite Porter, looking as calm and unhurried as a man waiting for his main course at a restaurant. It wasn’t the first time he had seen the inside of a police interrogation room and it showed. His relaxed posture oozed apathy. Next to him sat Charles Jasper, who had arrived at the station minutes after them. The lawyer, or an associate of his, had clearly been the target of the call that the restaurant manager had made, and Jasper had ushered Porter and Styles out of the room for twenty minutes while he conferred with his client. With Jasper as his shield, Bolton had yet to utter a word since arriving at the station.
Styles pushed a button to start the recording, and nodded at Porter, who walked them though the standard opening, his eyes never leaving Bolton, who stared back blankly.
‘So, Jimmy, let’s dive in head first. You were in the Taylor Fisheries building down by the river earlier today. What brought you to that neck of the woods?’
‘Business, and Mr Bolton will do just fine.’
‘What kind of business, Jimmy?’ said Porter, sticking with the informal version of his name in the hope of needling him.
Bolton shook his head softly at the weak attempt to antagonise. ‘Manners cost nothing, Detective. My business there is property. I own the building and wanted Mr Carter to gut the place for me so I could develop it.’
‘So you agree that you were there with Owen Carter and Daniel Stenner at approximately 5.30 p.m.?’
‘Mr Stenner drove me and Mr Carter there, yes.’
‘How do you know Mr Carter?’
‘He’s an employee at Atlas. I run security for Locke & Winwood. Atlas is part of Locke & Winwood. It’s my job to know who we employ.’
Porter changed tack. ‘So now we’ve established the three of you were there, how about you tell us what you were doing when Owen Carter decided to do a swan dive through the top-floor window.’
Bolton just smiled and Jasper jumped in. ‘Detectives, we are willing to stipulate that my client and his associate had arrived at the scene with Mr Carter, but that is as far as we go. Neither Mr Bolton nor Mr Stenner entered the premises, and had left the scene before the incident you are referring to took place.’
Porter snorted a laugh. ‘You’re trying to tell me that Owen Carter was just having a bad day and threw himself out of that window?’
No, Detective, I’m telling you that your own officers at the scene have confirmed that my client’s car was no longer parked outside when they entered the building. They have in fact confirmed that it left some ten to fifteen minutes before the incident occurred, ergo there is no evidence to suggest that either of them were at the scene at the time of the incident.’
It always bothered Porter how trivial a state a lawyer could reduce a situation to. Calling it an incident made it sound like a minor fender bender, or shoplifting. Two men had lost their lives and Simmons was fighting for hers, or at least he hoped she still was. The thought that she might lose that fight, while he sat here unaware, squatted in his mind front and centre, and he had to struggle to concentrate. Jasper’s casual offhand references were starting to get a rise from him, and he felt a dull thud in his temples. He took a deep breath to even himself out, and fixed Bolton with a steely glare, even though he was addressing Jasper.
‘So what you’re asking us to believe is that your clients’ presence at a murder scene mere minutes before two people were killed, and a third seriously injured, is a simple case of coincidence and nothing more?’
‘I believe the term you’re looking for is circumstantial evidence, but essentially, yes, that’s exactly what I’m saying, Detective. We are confident you will find no physical evidence linking either of my clients to the scene. In addition, Mr Lau, the manager of the restaurant you arrested my clients in, can confirm their time of arrival, which is consistent with having left the Taylor building ten minutes before these events took place.’
‘That’s bullshit and you know it,’ snapped Porter. ‘Ten minutes is a small enough margin of error that they could have left after killing Carter and Gibson and floored it to get there. Hell, for all we know, Mr Lau is just earning his keep by saying they arrived when they did.’
Jasper shrugged. ‘I’m just recapping the facts, Detective. There’s no speculation or conjecture in what I’ve just said. It’s supported by your own officers’ eyewitness accounts. You can’t place my clients inside that building, let alone laying a hand on Owen Carter or your officers. Nobody actually saw them enter. Now please tell me, do you have anything else to substantiate these charges?’
Porter let out a loud sigh and sat back from the table. He hated to admit it to himself, but Jasper was right. They had nothing solid yet linking Bolton to either of the murders, or the attack on Simmons, apart from his gut instinct screaming that the big man was guilty as sin.
‘Well, Detective, anything else to share with us?’ said Jasper, raising his eyebrows.
Porter wanted to ask Bolton about Carter and Patchett, about the drugs that they knew and could prove were moving through the company. That was off limits for now, though. They couldn’t prove Bolton’s involvement in that any more than they could prove he was a murderer, not yet anyway. All that would do was confirm any suspicions that both Bolton and Locke might have, that they had been compromised. There was a chance they already knew about the leak. Perhaps Bolton had killed Carter to cut the flow of information to the police. That would definitely be motive enough, but they needed something more concrete to make a case, and avoid the Crown Prosecution Service getting jittery about going after him on circumstantial evidence alone.
Finally, Porter spoke. ‘We have nothing further to ask at this point, Mr Jasper, although we will most likely want to speak to both of your clients again once we’ve completed a thorough examination of the crime scene and the bodies. We’ll be taking statements from Mr Lau and the other officers at the scene, so if there’re any discrepancies you can rest assured we’ll be in touch. We’re also hopeful that Detective Simmons will be able to give her account of what happened soon.’ He looked at Bolton as he said her name.
‘If that’s all, then, Detectives’ – Jasper looked from Porter to Styles – ‘I’d ask that my clients be released without charge, and allowed to leave until such time as you uncover any evidence actually linking them to any of these events.’
Porter terminated the interview and nodded at Styles, who ended the recording.
Bolton and Jasper got up to leave, and Porter reached for the door handle to let them out, but stopped before turning it.
‘Don’t you be going too far now, Jimmy. I have a feeling we’ll be speaking again soon.’
‘Always a pleasure, Detective,’ said Bolton, moving close so that Porter had to tilt his neck a few more degrees to maintain eye contact. ‘Do give my regards to your colleague if she wakes up.’ There was the tiniest emphasis on the ‘if’, just enough to make Porter dig his nails into his palms to control the anger he felt rising.
It was Bolton who broke away from the stare, and Jasper filed out after him. Porter followed them out into the corridor. He and Styles watched as the diminutive Jasper scurried after Bolton, the difference in their sizes almost comical.
‘Well, what now?’ asked Styles.
‘Now?’ Porter turned to face him. ‘Now we go and see Simmons. Until we know what the crime scene techs found at the scene, she’s our number one play. There’s a good chance she knows what happened in there. Let’s go and see if she’s awake yet.’
Bolton’s words echoed in his mind.
If she wakes up. If …
Sometimes the smallest words carried the heaviest of weights.
Porter stared through the window on the intensive care ward. Simmons looked so small in the midst of the machines that surrounded the bed, tubes and wires swarming around on all sides. Her hair, usually pulled back in a ponytail, made a dark frame for her eggshell-white face. A plastic tube snaked along her arm and in through her mouth, chest rising and falling courtesy of the nearby ventilator. He hated hospitals. Their scents and sounds. Squeaky rubber floors and lemon-scented hand sanitizer.
He had no idea how long he had been staring for when he felt a tap on his shoulder and saw Styles gesturing towards a doctor coming towards them.
‘Detectives, I’m Doctor Rose.’ He was a tall thin man in his early fifties, with short-cropped grey hair, and bony shoulders that made it seem the hanger was still stuck down the back of his white hospital coat.
‘DI Porter, and this is my partner, DS Styles.’ Doctor Rose smiled warmly and shook hands with them both. ‘How is she doing, Doctor?’ asked Porter.
Rose sucked air in through his teeth while he decided how candid to be. ‘She’s sustained a serious head injury, and we found some bleeding on her brain so we had to take her straight into theatre.’ He saw the grave look on Porter’s face and held up a hand. ‘We’ve managed to stop the bleeding, but we won’t know for sure how serious the damage is until she wakes up.’
‘When is that likely to be?’ asked Styles.
‘Hard to say.’ Rose shrugged. ‘It’s an inexact science, I’m afraid. She has swelling around the area of impact, internally and externally, that will take at least a few days to go down. I know you’re keen to speak to her, but I wouldn’t count on doing that for a few days at least.’
Porter felt disappointed and elated at the same time. On one hand he desperately needed the help she could give him. He wanted to be out there chasing down his man, but at the same time, the thought that she could be sat up in bed talking in the next forty-eight hours gave him hope.
Rose continued with his diagnosis. ‘There’s a chance with head trauma that her memory of the event may be fuzzy, or even not there at all. She also has a depressed fracture of the cheekbone and orbital socket. She’ll most likely need surgery for that, but that’s relatively straightforward and can wait until the swelling has subsided. Has anyone contacted her family?’
Porter nodded. ‘Her parents are on their way back from a holiday in Spain. They should be here first thing in the morning.’ He glanced over Rose’s shoulder and saw Anderson and Whittaker walking towards them, carrying cups of canteen coffee. Rose made his excuses and left to carry on his rounds, nodding to the other two detectives as they joined Porter and Styles. They all stared through the window as Porter summarised the doctor’s comments for them.
When he finished, none of them spoke for a moment. Through the glass, the muted ping of the ECG echoed on endless repeat, punctuating the background hum of the ward. Porter felt an uncomfortable dose of déjà vu wash over him. The machine Holly had been hooked up to had kept the same rhythm, all the way to the end. The same sense of irony struck him now as it had then, that the very noise that signified a heartbeat, and confirmed life itself, could also be a countdown to the inevitable, depending on whether you were glass half empty or half full.
‘This is so fucked up,’ muttered Anderson. ‘They didn’t have this coming, either of them.’
His sympathy clearly didn’t extend to Carter. Porter glanced at him and saw a thin veil of pink overlaying the white of his pupils; had he been crying?
‘What’s our play, guv?’ asked Whittaker.
Porter tore his eyes away from Anderson and rubbed a hand on the back of his neck. All the tension of the day seemed crammed into a spot just above the base of his skull that throbbed with all the signs of a legendary headache to follow.
‘Our play …’ His voice tailed off as his mind teemed with a hundred unanswered questions. ‘Our play is we hit these bastards with everything we’ve got.’ But his words rang hollow in his own ears. The fact that they had released Bolton and Stenner told him what they had wasn’t enough. He saw that reflected in the eyes of the three men looking back at him.
‘I say we speak to Superintendent Campbell tomorrow. We ask to lead on Mike’s murder, and Evie’s assault. We ask him to pool resources and share what we have across the two cases, this one and the drugs angle.’ He half expected Anderson or Whittaker to object; at the very least, to stake their claim to lead on it. Simmons was one of theirs, after all, but they stayed quiet for now.
‘First thing is to see what they find at the scene. We should have that tomorrow, right?’ He looked at Styles, who nodded confirmation. ‘Maybe that puts one of them in the same room as any of the three victims. In the meantime, we hit them all where it hurts, in the pocket.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Whittaker, looking puzzled.
‘I mean we get in their faces, make it hard for them to do business.’
‘We can’t do that yet, guv,’ said Anderson, shaking his head. ‘They don’t know we’re on to them. If we start hanging round for no good reason they’re going to suspect and just shut up shop.’
‘You really think they don’t know we’re looking at them?’ Porter asked incredulously. ‘Why kill Carter if they didn’t think he’d crossed them? Why were we on the scene that quickly if we hadn’t already been watching? They aren’t stupid, more’s the pity. Besides, we’d not be investigating trafficking, we’d be looking for a murderer. We’d be looking for a cop killer.’ He paused to let his words sink in. ‘We have every right to be in every one of their buildings, speaking to anyone we damn well please to find who did this. Who mentioned drugs? If we happen to stumble upon something in the course of that then so be it.’
Whittaker chipped in. ‘And in the meantime they’ll shift little or no product, with us sniffing around.’
‘Exactly,’ said Porter. He could feel his pulse quickening as a plan started to form. ‘Styles, first thing in the morning I want you looking at everything Locke owns or has ever owned. I don’t care how low-profile this bastard has been. Nobody can operate for this length of time without making a single mistake; it’s just that no one has been looking in the right place, that’s all.’
Styles nodded. ‘What about our case with Barclay? We putting that on hold for now?’
Porter shook his head. ‘I can’t put my finger on it yet, but Barclay selling out to Locke doesn’t feel right. Whether that sent Barclay over the edge and he hurt Natasha, or whether she got caught up in the middle of whatever was going on between them, I don’t know. Either way, I say we work both cases. There’s too many roads leading to Locke for them to be just coincidence. We can pick up where we left off tomorrow on that one too.’ He checked his watch: ten-thirty. ‘Go on, all of you get some sleep and we hit this full steam ahead in the morning.’
Pep talk done, he looked back at Simmons. He saw from the corner of his eye that the others had started to wander towards the exit. He watched her for a moment longer, the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. For a second he was back at Holly’s bedside, waiting for the flicker of an eyelid that never came. His eyes started to mist around the edges, and he blinked tears away before anyone could see. The lack of arrest, the absence of someone to blame, still festered in a dark corner inside like an unlanced boil. Her death had left a blank space in his life, and no direction in which to channel his anger.
Blink.
His mind snapped back to the present. This was not Holly. This time, things would be different. This time there was a face to funnel that rage towards. He turned and trotted to catch up with Styles.
I’m coming for you, Jimmy.
‘You’ve got to believe me, boss. I had no idea he was peddling bad gear, let alone talking to the coppers.’ Andrew Patchett’s usual low grumble of a voice had snuck up an octave in protest.
‘I don’t have to do anything, Mr Patchett. I do, however, believe you. If I didn’t, you’d have been booked on the same one-way trip as Mr Carter. What about that lanky streak of piss he hung round with? What’s his name again? Thick as thieves, those two. You found him yet?’
‘Jono Murray? Yep, picked him up this morning. Daft bastard went round to Carter’s place to pick up what was left of that shite they were selling. Useless fuckers had been cutting it with anything and everything they could find in the bathroom cabinet.’
‘Where is he now?’ Bolton squeezed his knuckles, popping them like bubble wrap.
Patchett jerked his head towards the far wall. ‘Through there. Think he’s lost a stone in sweat since we brought him in. He’s bricking it.’
‘Let’s go and have a little chat, then, shall we?’
Bolton let Patchett lead the way. He knew his way around the Atlas warehouse well enough, but he wanted Murray to see Patchett first. To think he had a reprieve, that it was just to check he was still there. Patchett led him down a long corridor, stopping at the last door on the left, and pulled a small key ring from his pocket.
This mess with Carter didn’t worry Bolton. He could do without the hassle, but he was fairly sure Locke would buy a line about Carter having a go at him. He ran through the worst-case scenario. He would never willingly move against Locke out of loyalty for what the man had done for him over the years. But by the same token, he had always imagined his boss would have drifted off into a retirement villa somewhere tropical, and left him to run the show. Was it so wrong for him to want a bigger piece of the pie while he waited? The only person he’d seen play second fiddle for a longer stint was Prince Charles. He would have been tempted to leave a roller skate neat the stairs at Buckingham Palace long before now if it was him.
Patchett was his man, not Locke’s, and he trusted him as much as he did anyone. Never completely, but enough. Brainless fools like Carter and Murray were another matter. Disposable but dishonest. The irony of what they had done wasn’t lost on him. To skim from him, the way he was skimming from Locke. It was just plain greed to cut other shit in with the product, though. Greed that brought Carter to the attention of the police. Greed that put Murray in the chair in which he now sat.
Bolton smelt him before he saw him. The kind of ripe sweat it took days to cultivate, and a half-dozen washes to get out. Jono Murray had always reminded Bolton of a sulky teenager, even now in his thirties. Face permanently set in a scowl, as if the world owed him a living. Always had an answer for everything. Bolton looked down at where Murray sat tied to a plastic chair. Not so fucking cocky now, was he?
Murray tried to put a brave face on when he saw who had entered the room. He looked up at Bolton, smile as fake as the knock-off Armani jeans that hung off his spindly legs. Add those to a Nike T-shirt two sizes too big, and he could make for a cracking scarecrow. Bolton nodded to Patchett, who closed the door, and moved to stand in front of it.
‘Mr Bolton,’ Jono Murray said with a forced lilt. ‘This is all a mix-up. I didn’t have nuffin to do with whatever Owen had going on.’
Everything about him repulsed Bolton. The faint brown sweat-rings under his armpits. The way that everything he said came out half-sniggered. The fact that he had the balls to try and get one over on him. He ignored the double negative in what Murray said, and bent down so he was in the younger man’s face, inches away.
‘Of course you didn’t, Mr Murray. That’s why you went back to clear out the stash as soon as you heard what happened to your little pal.’
‘Nah, nah, you’ve got it all wrong, boss. I was gonna bring that to you, see. I heard him talking. Knew he was up to something, so I guess he got what was coming. I’m your boy, though. I was gonna come straight to you with it.’
‘Of course you were, son. Course you were.’ Murray flinched as Bolton patted him on the knee, then stood up. ‘That’s why you’d packed yourself a bag isn’t it. You were going to come to see me, then pop off for a little break somewhere for a bit of R & R?’
‘I was just gonna pop and stay with my mum for a few days. She’s not getting any younger, you know, bless her.’
‘And she’s lucky to have a son like you,’ said Bolton, wandering over to a desk by the far wall. He took his jacket off, settling it on the back of the chair as carefully as if he was dressing a mannequin in Harvey Nics’ window. He unbuttoned both cuffs with his back still to Murray.
‘So I was wondering, when can I get back to work, boss?’ said Murray, aiming for chirpy, but sounding pleading.
‘What about visiting your poor old mum?’ said Bolton. ‘You’ve forgotten about using her to try and talk your way out of this one, haven’t you?’ He turned round, shook his head, sighing as he approached Murray. ‘I wish it was that simple, son,’ he said, rolling his sleeves back to just below the elbow. ‘You see, Mr Carter had been talking to the wrong people. Who’s to say you won’t do the same given half the chance? Maybe you have already?’
Murray’s head started to shake side to side, like he was watching tennis on fast forward. ‘No, no, no. Not me, boss, I wouldn’t. I would never—’ The open-handed slap caught him across the cheek, toppling him like a bowling pin.
It boiled down to fear and respect. People respected Locke. They feared men like Bolton. They didn’t make an enemy of him. That’s the difference between him and Locke, he thought to himself. He’d take fear over respect any day.
‘Just like you would never mix in baby milk or fucking talcum powder into my perfectly good cocaine?’ Bolton growled. ‘More to sell. More to line your grubby little pockets with.’
The side of Murray’s face glowed pink, eyes watering. A trickle of blood mingling with snot snaked out of his nose and down his face. ‘That was Owen. That was all Owen,’ he whimpered. ‘If you’re worried I would say anything to Mr Locke, you needn’t. I—’
Bolton’s foot shot out and connected with Murray’s chin, snapping his head back. ‘You’ll be lucky if you can manage a confession to your fucking priest by the time I’m finished with you, son.’
Murray’s eyes rolled back, mouth opening, blood lining the gaps between his teeth. Whatever sound he was trying to make, it was stuck halfway down his throat and all he could manage was a choking rattle.
‘Boss?’ Patchett spoke for the first time since they’d entered the room. ‘Hate to stop you in full flow, but he can’t talk if you break his jaw. How else will we find out who he’s talked to?’
Bolton stood over Murray now, one leg planted either side of his chest, watching it heave up and down like a bellows. He didn’t bother turning round as he spoke to Patchett. ‘This isn’t about whether he’s talked or not. He stole from me. Where would I be if I let that kind of thing slide? I’d be on the floor underneath somebody’s boot like this little shit here.’ Bolton placed the sole of his shoe on Murray’s neck. ‘Now I suggest you don’t interrupt me again.’
Bolton looked down at Murray, at his eyes, pupils dilated to the size of five pence pieces. He drew his knee up to chest height, put all his weight into it, and drove it down with a sickening crack on the bridge of Murray’s nose. He stepped back, admiring his work. He noticed a splash of blood on his shoe, and wiped it against Murray’s T-shirt. What had started out as a white top was now speckled with red like a Jackson Pollock painting. Fear trumps respect every time.