Time to Go

by Time to Go (retail) (epub)

  ‘What else do we know?’ Penrith opened a desk drawer, took out a pad of paper and a pen and began to scribble.

  ‘Reuben Nash and Stefan Harris can’t stand each other. Harris wanted to buy the club Reuben now owns but the bloke who sold it wouldn’t accept his bid because he also hates Harris.’ Caelan paused, collecting her thoughts. ‘We should probably track down whoever sold it to Reuben.’ She watched Penrith make another note. ‘And Harris says the club can’t be making much of a profit so he wants to know where Reuben’s money is coming from.’

  ‘Don’t we all.’ Penrith tapped his pen against his front teeth. ‘Maybe Reuben Nash is the one Mulligan was trying to point you towards.’

  ‘Could be. Anyway, I’m seeing Nash again later,’ Caelan said.

  Penrith glanced at Ewan. ‘Don’t you mean “we are”?’

  ‘I’m not invited,’ Ewan told him.

  Penrith focused on Caelan instead. ‘Is that wise?’ he asked.

  ‘If we want him to talk, I think it probably is. Believe me, I’m not looking forward to it.’ Caelan touched her jaw with her fingertips. It was tender, aching.

  ‘Let Nash see what Harris did to you,’ Penrith advised.

  ‘He can hardly miss it,’ Ewan said, anger clear in his voice. Penrith looked at him but didn’t comment.

  ‘What about Jolene Townsend?’ he said.

  ‘She admits to having a casual relationship with Reuben. Mulligan hinted she’s a con artist, but she also works in a newsagent’s, owned by her uncle. She knows Harris is a major dealer but backed away when Mulligan said he owed Harris money.’ Caelan shook her head. ‘I don’t know, maybe she’s afraid of Harris. She knows everyone Mulligan has introduced us to, but he seems protective of her.’

  ‘Protective of her, yet he also told you she’s a confidence trickster. Interesting,’ said Penrith.

  ‘You think it was a hint?’ Caelan gritted her teeth. ‘Why did he have to be so bloody cryptic? And when I spoke to him this morning, just when he seemed to be about to trust me and possibly tell me more, he—’ She gave Penrith a sharp look. He gazed back at her.

  ‘He…?’

  ‘He was smacked around the head with a baseball bat.’

  Penrith gave a slow nod. ‘And I was the only person who knew what he’d said to you. Did I sneak out and do it myself, or send someone else after him? I see your dilemma.’

  ‘Oh shut up, Ian. I’m wondering whether Mulligan contacted anyone while he was being taken back to Greenford. The officers with him would have noticed a phone call, but he could have sent a text without them realising.’

  ‘We don’t have his mobile, and it’ll take a while to find anything out without it,’ Penrith reminded her.

  ‘I know.’ Caelan covered her mouth as she yawned. ‘This is hopeless. Could you ask Jen and Tim to give us time to get some rest before they show up, please?’

  ‘You have four hours.’ Penrith checked his watch. ‘Starting now.’

  Caelan pushed back her chair. ‘You’re a shit, you know that?’

  He grinned. ‘It’s been mentioned. I want to speak to you after you see Reuben Nash.’

  Ignoring him, Caelan headed out into the corridor with Ewan at her heels. As they made their way back onto the street and towards the Underground station, Ewan said, ‘Likes to keep us on our toes, doesn’t he?’

  ‘Dancing to his tune, you mean,’ Caelan said.

  ‘I don’t have any other clean clothes, or a toothbrush or razor.’

  She nudged him. ‘Use your credit card. We have them for a reason, you know.’

  His smile was uncertain. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Definitely. I need stuff too, but just the essentials. At the moment, sleep is my priority.’

  ‘Mine too.’

  All at once, Caelan wanted to be alone. ‘Then I’ll see you at the hotel. There are probably rooms reserved for Jen and Tim too, so they look like guests rather than visitors.’ She checked the time on her phone. ‘See you soon.’

  She walked away without looking back.

  * * *

  Ninety minutes later, Caelan was in her hotel room. She ran a bath, making sure the water was as hot as she could stand it. Lying back in the bubbles, she felt herself relax for the first time since she’d been at her parents’ house. While she’d been doing the hurried shop for clothes and toiletries, she’d bought a flannel, and now she soaked it in the scalding water and held it to her bruised face and then her throat. She closed her eyes, knowing she couldn’t linger for long. Two and a half hours’ sleep wasn’t going to be nearly enough, but she had learnt early in her career to make the most of a chance to rest whenever the opportunity arose, however brief.

  She shampooed her hair and soaped her body, wincing again as she washed her face and throat. Once dry, she went through into the main bedroom, made herself a coffee and climbed into bed. Being reminded of her injuries had given her an idea, but she wouldn’t be able to act on it until she had spoken to Achebe and Somerville.

  Settling back on the pillow, she scrolled through the news on her phone while she drank her coffee. Though exhausted, she knew she was going to find it difficult to sleep. Now that she was alone and there were no distractions, Lucy Mulligan’s face appeared again in her mind. Where was she? What was she going through? With Mulligan himself lying helpless in hospital, Caelan felt even more of an obligation to find his sister.

  She didn’t want to look too closely at what her motivations might be, knowing that despite everything she knew Mulligan had done, all he stood for, she felt responsible for the attack on him. At the end of their last conversation, in the cell at Acton, he had shown glimpses of conscience, of vulnerability. Something had shifted between them, especially when he had begged Caelan for help and agreed they should trust each other. How much more might he have said had they had the opportunity to talk again? She knew Mulligan was wily, but at that moment, he had appeared sincere. He had volunteered the information about the man who had provided him with the phone in Belmarsh, and Caelan knew it was because he was becoming increasingly concerned about his sister, whatever he said and however hard he tried to convince them that he couldn’t care less.

  She turned off the lamp, put the phone on the bed beside her. As usual, there was plenty of room. Hers was a lonely life, not compatible with having a partner or family. Seeing her parents and their comfortable, loving, familiar relationship had reminded her again how alone she was – her job had seen to that. Some might say her commitment to her work was the problem rather than the job itself, as Nicky had told her more than once, but undercover work was all or nothing. It had to be.

  Now, though, as she had reminded herself, she no longer worked directly for the Met. Her time could be her own, if she wanted it to be. She would still need to work, but allowing herself more time to relax, to enjoy herself, to see her family was now possible.

  Closing her eyes, she rolled onto her side. Less than two hours to sleep.

  23

  The people he passed shone and shifted, their voices loud and musical. Ryan paused outside a takeaway, the scent of meat and onions so intense he felt he could taste them, though he had no need of food. He grinned at his reflection in the window, knowing he was untouchable.

  A young woman glanced at him, stared. He winked at her, certain she liked what she saw. He was well dressed, clean, his hair trimmed, his shoes new. All thanks to the stupid bastard who’d had five hundred quid in his wallet to impress the bloke he’d hired to be his toy for the night. The young woman turned away, said something to her friend, and they laughed together. Ryan’s smiled widened. He would have liked to stay and talk to them, but there wasn’t the time. He had to keep moving, earn more cash. Five hundred didn’t go far these days.

  Further down the road he saw an elderly man waiting at a bus stop, standing apart from the rest of the queue. He wore a brown raincoat, had a bald head and crumpled skin. Ryan started at him, seeing his grandfather. The man took out a wallet
, began fumbling through it. Ryan smirked. Big mistake. The wallet already had his name on it. There was an Underground station down the road, and if he could make it before someone grabbed him, he would be away. And he knew he would make it. They wouldn’t catch him, couldn’t stop him.

  He increased his pace, seeing a bus lumbering down the road and the people in the queue start shuffling in anticipation. Jostling, pushing, like sheep in a pen. Ryan hated them. Not the man with the wallet, though – he was a friend, and a generous one.

  The bus slowed, almost at the stop. The man took a hesitant step towards the kerb, and as he did so, Ryan reached him, grabbed the wallet and ran. There were shouts behind him, but he didn’t care. They couldn’t catch him, wouldn’t even try when they saw it was pointless. He was away on his toes and cruising, in control, the station and his escape route just ahead.

  He dodged a group of laughing teenagers, weaved around a wheelchair and a man carrying a little girl on his shoulders. So slow, they were all so fucking slow. There was no one behind him, though. No reaching hands, no shouts of abuse.

  The station was across the road now, and he felt a laugh escape him as he jogged towards it. It had been so easy. By the time anyone had realised what was happening, especially the doddering old sod he’d robbed, he’d vanished. Too clever, too quick.

  Too late.

  He never saw the car, but he felt the impact.

  24

  The first knock was more of a tap, but as Caelan struggled to force her eyes open, it quickly became more insistent. She rubbed at her face with both hands, feeling worse than when she had got into bed. Checking her phone, she realised Achebe and Somerville had allowed her an extra half an hour’s rest.

  ‘Five minutes,’ she called as she rolled out of bed and reached for her clothes. She hadn’t bothered with her usual jogging bottoms and T-shirt. Sleeping naked had felt almost as though she was doing something wrong, that she wasn’t taking the job seriously, turning her back on protocol. In the hotel, behind a locked door and with the security of knowing she was no longer entirely under the Met’s thumb, she found she didn’t care.

  She showered quickly, brushed her teeth, washed her face again with cold water before dressing. As she pushed her feet into her trainers, there was another knock. There was a security chain on the door, and Caelan slipped it on, more out of habit than anything else before stepping to one side and turning the handle. Somerville, Achebe and Ewan were waiting in the corridor.

  ‘Hello, sleepyhead,’ Jen Somerville said. Wordlessly Caelan stared back at them. All three gave her wary smiles, as though expecting a mouthful of abuse.

  ‘Can we come in?’ Achebe asked. He had two paper cups in his hands, and he held one out to Caelan. ‘We have coffee.’

  She opened the door wide. ‘The coffee’s welcome. I’m not sure about you three.’ Taking the cup, she grinned as she opened the lid and sniffed. ‘Thank you.’

  Achebe smiled. ‘Jen’s idea.’

  Somerville held up her own cup. ‘Cheers. Thought you might need it.’

  Caelan sat on the bed, her back against the headboard, as the others found places to park themselves. Somerville took the chair at the tiny desk, Achebe the sofa and Ewan the small armchair by the window. Caelan smiled at him.

  ‘Did you sleep?’ she asked.

  Ewan pulled a face. ‘For about forty minutes.’ He held up his own coffee. ‘Could do with a few litres of this stuff.’ He glanced at Achebe, who was clearly ready to start. ‘Sorry.’

  ‘No worries. I know the two of you haven’t had much chance to rest.’ Achebe sat back, crossing his legs. ‘Okay. Can we talk about Nathan Nash first?’

  ‘Have they done the post-mortem?’ Caelan asked. Achebe nodded. ‘And what can you tell us?

  ‘As expected, cause of death was a massive bleed on the brain. But,’ Achebe exchanged a glance with Jen Somerville, ‘it’s what’s happened to him before that’s thrown us.’

  ‘Before? What do you mean?’ Caelan remembered what Brady had said about the possibility of Nash having a broken jaw. She hadn’t noticed when they’d found his body, but then she hadn’t examined him closely.

  Somerville got to her feet, pulling her phone from her bag. She took a few seconds to scroll to whatever it was they wanted Caelan to see and held the handset out to her without a word, then leant against the wall beside the bed and folded her arms. The atmosphere in the room had changed. When Achebe and Somerville had arrived, they’d been smiling, handing over coffee, seeming relaxed. Now, ready to get down to business, their faces were grim.

  Caelan looked at the image displayed on the phone’s screen. Immediately she saw what Achebe was talking about. The photograph had been taken during – most likely at the beginning of – the post-mortem. The body lay face down on a steel table. Caelan stared, then forced herself to study the screen, but it was an effort. Nathan Nash’s back looked like raw meat. The area between his shoulder blades and his buttocks was a mess of deep cuts, torn flesh and bruising.

  Horrified, she looked up at Somerville, then at Achebe. ‘What the hell happened to him? He was… whipped? Flogged?’

  ‘We think so,’ Achebe said. ‘The pathologist found healing wounds on his wrists and ankles too. It’s looking like he was bound to something with cable ties, maybe a table or post, and then…’ He waved a hand, looking as sick as Caelan felt. Sometimes, however long you’d been in the job, however much you’d seen, something would happen that stopped you in your tracks.

  Caelan stared at Nash’s tortured body for another second, then turned to Ewan and held up the phone.

  ‘You need to see this too.’

  He crossed the room, had a look. Caelan saw him swallow, perhaps reminded of things he had seen during his time in the army that he wanted to forget.

  ‘Poor bastard,’ was all he said. Somerville reached out and took back her phone.

  ‘Pretty much covers it,’ she said as she sat back down.

  Achebe leant forward on the sofa. ‘You don’t need me to tell you that this changes things. We don’t know who did this to Nash, or why. It could have been to extract information from him, or as some kind of punishment.’

  ‘Or a warning to his brother,’ Ewan said.

  Achebe nodded. ‘Or to Nathan himself.’

  Caelan took a breath and let it out slowly, trying to erase the image of Nash’s ruined flesh from her mind. The photograph had affected her more than finding the body had. ‘Did the pathologist have any idea what might have been used to… do this to him?’

  ‘Probably some kind of plastic-coated cable, but it’s difficult to be sure. There were no traces of rope in the wounds, for example.’ Achebe spoke without emotion, but Caelan knew that didn’t mean he wasn’t feeling it. The beating Nash had suffered had been calculated, inflicted by a person apparently undisturbed by the cruelty and brutality of what they were doing. This assault had been deliberate and prolonged, meted out by someone who had the stomach to watch the injuries they were causing deepen and worsen as they brought the cable down on Nash’s back over and over again. Someone able to ignore his cries of agony.

  Someone like…

  ‘James Mulligan has been accused of torturing people for information before,’ said Somerville, as though reading Caelan’s mind.

  ‘You think Mulligan ordered this?’ Caelan considered it. ‘Why would he? Who would he have asked to do it? The two men he employed are in jail, and we don’t know of anyone else he trusted.’

  ‘Doesn’t mean they aren’t out there, though,’ Somerville said.

  Caelan glanced at the other woman, saw no animosity on her face. ‘True.’

  ‘There’s something else,’ said Achebe. ‘Nathan Nash’s jaw was definitely broken, but not by a fist.’

  ‘Considering the bruising, the pathologist guessed at a blunt instrument, possibly a baseball bat,’ Somerville added.

  ‘And Mulligan was hit with a baseball bat too. The same one?’ Caelan asked.

&nb
sp; Achebe’s shoulders twitched. ‘We don’t know, maybe never will. We didn’t find anything at either scene or on the victims we could compare. No splinters, no shards of wood.’

  ‘Bit of a coincidence if it wasn’t the same bat, though,’ said Somerville.

  There was a silence.

  ‘To me, this adds weight to the idea that Mulligan didn’t order the beating Nathan was given. I think someone else is behind the attacks on them both.’ Caelan screwed up her face, thinking about it.

  ‘My money would be on Stefan Harris,’ Achebe put in. ‘Nathan made him look a twat and Mulligan owed him money.’

  ‘Makes sense,’ Somerville said with a nod.

  ‘What about Nathan’s back, though? Harris has the muscle men to inflict the damage, but why? Nathan didn’t hesitate when he had a go at Harris in the club. He wouldn’t have taken a thrashing like that without fighting back, even days later.’

  ‘Maybe that’s why he ended up with a knife at Harris’s throat,’ Ewan said.

  ‘But wouldn’t he have said so? “This is for what you did to me”, or whatever?’ Achebe rubbed his eyes. ‘I don’t know. This whole thing is tying me in knots.’

  ‘I’m surprised Nathan was able to walk around, much less throw himself at Harris like he did, considering the pain he must have been in.’ Caelan hadn’t thought about it before, but the wounds must have been causing agony, yet Nathan Nash had shown no sign of being in pain when she’d seen him.

  ‘The results haven’t come back from the lab yet, but the pathologist is guessing some heavy-duty painkillers and stimulants, both legal and otherwise, will show up in his system,’ Achebe said. ‘You told the chief super that Nathan seemed drunk, or high? Maybe that’s why. He’d swallowed a shit ton of stuff to take the edge off.’

  Caelan nodded. ‘It doesn’t help us explain anything, though. I need to ask Reuben Nash about his brother’s injuries.’