Back in the Game

by Caz Finlay

  Despite Michael’s firm coming out on top, the fracas had not been good for business and had caused the plod to start asking questions and poking their nose where they weren’t wanted. If Jake hadn’t had a couple of police officers and some members of the licensing board in his pocket, The Blue Rooms would have been closed down on the spot. With that in mind, they’d decided that the ongoing feud was not good for business and had arranged to meet Karl to negotiate a truce of sorts.

  Karl was flanked by two of his heavies – Benji and Maurice. They both sat stony-faced while Michael and Karl discussed the terms of their new agreement. Jake watched all of them intently, looking for any sign that things were about to kick off. He and Michael were searched before they entered the grim little office, to make sure they had no weapons. It was a sign of Jake and Michael’s reputations, and the fear they instilled, that they could go to Karl’s turf with only each other as backup. The recent bloodshed had caused havoc for Karl. He’d lost some good lads, and, more importantly, he’d lost face. He needed the truce more than Jake and Michael did, but mass brawls with guns and blades didn’t fit well with the type of club that Jake wanted to run. The Blue Rooms was becoming the new place to be in Liverpool on Friday and Saturday nights, but no matter how popular a club was, trouble like that would start to scare the punters off. Jake’s mum had promoted Siobhan to manager and Jake had to admit that she was doing a great job at it. It gave her something to focus on other than him, and that was one of the many reasons he wanted the place to remain a success.

  ‘So I’ll warn my lads off, if you’ll agree to the do the same, Michael?’ Karl asked.

  Michael nodded his agreement. ‘I’ll see to it personally.’

  Karl broke into a grin; it took over his large face. ‘Sort us some drinks, Maurice,’ he ordered.

  The five of them sat in the sticky office drinking cheap whisky and making small talk. It wasn’t long before the conversation turned to women. Maurice told them about his wife, Bernie, who’d recently given birth to their sixth child.

  ‘She just pops them out now. No pain relief or anything.’

  ‘And what about you, Jake?’ Karl sneered. ‘You still knocking off that sexy little redhead from your club? Siobhan, isn’t it? Is she still your type?’

  Jake’s whole body tensed as soon as Siobhan’s name was mentioned. And what did Karl mean about her still being his type? ‘Fuck off,’ he snapped.

  ‘All right, lad. Calm down,’ Karl said with a laugh. ‘Hit a nerve there, have I?’ He looked directly at Jake, challenging him.

  In an instant, Jake was filled with rage. He wanted to smash the glass he was holding right into Karl’s smarmy face and wipe that smug grin off it permanently. But Michael’s hand was on his shoulder before he could move. Michael gave him a light squeeze. It was a subtle gesture, possibly even unnoticed by anyone else in the room, but Jake knew it was loaded with meaning. Down, boy! Not now!

  Clenching his jaw shut, he forced his mouth into a smile.

  Michael put his glass on the table and started to rise from his chair; his eyes did not leave Karl’s.

  ‘The Blue Rooms and anyone associated with it are out of bounds, Karl! Make sure your boys know it too.’

  Fear flashed momentarily across Karl’s face, but his cool facade quickly returned. Showing fear was not a good trait in their line of work. He nodded his agreement and Michael signalled it was time to leave.

  ‘You did good holding your temper in there, lad,’ Michael told Jake as they walked towards his car. ‘Pricks like Karl will always try and push your buttons. The trick is not to let them. Always better to give them what’s owing when they’re least expecting it. It’s more fun that way.’ He winked.

  Michael was right, Jake thought. Kicking off in there would have only led to a massive brawl. One he was sure that he and Michael would have won, but it wouldn’t have done anything to end the feud with Trident Securities. Sometimes it was hard to control his temper lately, particularly where Siobhan was concerned. He wondered if it was a result of the guilt he felt whenever he looked at her. Whatever it was, he hated the thought that any harm might come to her because of him.

  ‘Let’s go and get ourselves a quick drink at the club then. I think we deserve it after not punching Karl in the mouth,’ Jake said.

  Michael shook his head. ‘Another time, Jake. I’m hoping to go and see Belle for an hour before she goes to bed. If your mum will speak to me, that is. Have you spoken to her yet?’

  Jake shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘You need to. Before she goes back to Harewood. Don’t make me drag you to her house myself, Jake.’

  ‘All right, I’ll go and see her tomorrow,’ said Jake, relenting.

  Michael nodded as they reached his car. ‘Good. Now get in. I’m fucking freezing.’

  They’d spent longer than expected in Karl’s dingy little office and it was late evening when they left. The streetlights overhead had been broken, no doubt by some bored teenagers with nothing better to do, and had yet to be repaired. The result was that it was so dark neither Jake nor Michael noticed the men in balaclavas approaching them. The first thing Jake knew about it was when he felt the searing pain in his skull and heard the sickening thud as he was hit over the head by something hard and blunt.

  His ears started ringing. Then everything went black.

  Chapter 69

  Grace could hear her mobile phone vibrating in her handbag as she sat in the doctor’s office holding a squirming Belle on her lap.

  ‘Can you hold her still?’ said the grey-haired GP as he tried to look inside Belle’s ear.

  ‘I’m trying,’ Grace snapped. Maybe if you weren’t such a grumpy old bastard, she wouldn’t be so terrified of you.

  ‘Come on, darling,’ she soothed to Belle as she smoothed her curls away from her face. ‘Mummy won’t let the nasty man hurt you.’

  As she walked out of the surgery a few minutes later, with a screaming baby and a prescription for antibiotics for Belle’s ear infection, she heard the familiar vibration of her phone again.

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ she muttered. It was just after ten and she was supposed to be on the M62 by now. Scrabbling around in her bag with her free hand, she found the phone. Siobhan’s name was flashing impatiently on the screen.

  ‘What’s so bleeding urgent, Siobhan?’

  ‘Grace,’ Siobhan cried. ‘Jake and Michael are missing.’

  Grace felt as though all of the blood had drained from her body. Even Belle seemed to sense the impending doom, becoming quiet and still.

  ‘What do you mean, missing? For how long?’ Grace asked, trying to remain calm, if only for her daughter’s sake.

  ‘Since yesterday. They left to go to a meeting at four. I haven’t heard from Jake since. I assumed they’d gone for a drink, but then Jake didn’t come home, and he’s not at your place. He’s not with Paul Carter. No one at the club has heard from either of them. What do we do, Grace?’ she wailed.

  ‘I’m on my way there, Siobhan. Phone all of the bouncers – their contacts are in the address book in Michael’s office – and anyone else you can think of. See if they’ve heard from them. Can you do that?’ she asked, unsure if Siobhan was up to such a task given the state she seemed to be in.

  ‘Yes. Yes. Of course,’ she said, sounding relieved that she had something practical to do.

  ‘Phone me if you hear anything. Straightaway, Siobhan!’

  ‘I will,’ she said and Grace hung up.

  She phoned Marcus and asked if he could meet her at The Blue Rooms and take Belle home. Then, as she drove to Jake’s club, she wondered whether Michael’s family knew where he was. Had anyone else noticed that they were missing?

  Why had Siobhan mentioned that Jake wasn’t with Paul?

  Grace needed to think.

  Fast.

  Most of the Carter family, with the exception of Paul and Connor, were annoyed with her for keeping Belle a secret. But Sean was by far the most leve
l-headed of them all, and the one with the most contacts. If she had to choose, he was the one she would want to go into battle with. Besides, if she spoke with him first, he would mobilise the rest of them.

  Her heart pounded as she dialled his number. She hoped he would laugh at her and tell her Michael and Jake were sleeping off hangovers somewhere or had even gone home with a couple of strippers. God, anything was better than the alternative.

  ‘Hello, Grace,’ Sean said brusquely when he answered the phone.

  ‘Sean, have you heard from Michael? Or Jake?’

  ‘Not for a few days. Why?’

  ‘Apparently they’re missing,’ she said, although it almost tore her heart from her chest to even say the words out loud.

  ‘What? What makes you think that?’

  ‘Neither of them have been seen or heard from since yesterday afternoon when they went out to a meeting.’

  ‘I’ll see if the twins know where they are. Hopefully they’ve just had a heavy night,’ Sean said, but Grace didn’t believe that and she knew he didn’t either. Michael and Jake didn’t really do heavy nights for a start. When people like Jake and Michael went missing, it was usually because someone had made them disappear.

  ‘Where are you?’ Sean asked.

  ‘I’m on my way to the club.’

  ‘I’ll meet you there in half an hour. I’ll phone the twins now.’

  ‘Bring everyone, Sean.’

  ‘Of course. You too, Grace.’

  As she drove to The Blue Rooms, Grace phoned every single person she could think of. Anyone who had ever worked for her. Anyone she had ever helped out. Anyone who owed her even the smallest of favours. If they didn’t know where Jake or Michael were, then they would damn sure help her to find them.

  ***

  Sean Carter burst into Grace’s former office at The Blue Rooms. Over a dozen men had already assembled there and dozens more were on their way. He made his way over to Grace and sat on the desk beside her, giving her hand a light squeeze as he did.

  ‘The twins are on their way. They’re picking up my dad en route,’ he said to her before turning his attention to the room.

  ‘Does anyone know anything yet?’ he barked.

  He was met with a chorus of ‘Nope. Not yet.’

  ‘I’ve sent a few of the lads out to start making some enquiries,’ Grace told him. ‘No one seems to know who they were meeting with yesterday, although Jimmy seems to think they were headed to the north of the city, don’t you, Jim?’ Grace indicated the tall, bearded Yorkshireman who was standing near the doorway.

  ‘That’s right. Jake phoned me when they were stuck in traffic because there’d been a crash on Queens Drive.’

  ‘He didn’t mention where they were going though?’ Sean asked. ‘Or why Michael was with him?’

  ‘He didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. If the boss doesn’t tell me, then he doesn’t think I need to know.’

  ‘Any idea what it was about?’ Sean asked Grace.

  She shook her head. ‘Could be anything where Jake is concerned. Maybe he took Michael along for backup?’

  ‘Is that all we know?’ Sean asked.

  ‘So far, unfortunately,’ Grace sighed as Patrick and his twin grandsons came almost running into the room.

  ‘Grace,’ Pat said as he walked over and pulled her into a hug. ‘We’ll find them both. I promise you that, girl.’

  ‘I know, Pat,’ she said, wishing she felt as confident as she sounded.

  As more people started filing into the room, Grace realised that everyone was looking to her to tell them what to do next. It was like being back on top again. Except that she wasn’t on top, and she didn’t know whether she ever would be again. What if she didn’t find her son? Or Michael? God, what if …?

  It was Patrick’s voice that brought her back to the present. ‘So what now, boss?’ he asked.

  Yes, what now, Grace?

  ‘Connor, Paul, take a couple of lads with you and knock on the door of every lowlife you know. Nudge, go and see Ivan Golding. See if he can put some feelers out. Everyone else, scour every drug den, knocking shop, and shithole you can think of. Where were they taken to? It must be somewhere quiet and out of the way. Find someone who knows something. Pat, why don’t you pay our old mate Sol a visit? He usually knows what’s going on round here. Sean, you and I are going to find that little ratbag Eddie Redman. I doubt he’s got the nous or the balls to be involved in this, but we’ll see. Keep your mobile phones switched on. As soon as anyone knows anything, no matter how small, phone me, immediately!’

  As they all started to file out of her office to follow their orders, Sean handed Grace her coat. ‘Come on then. Let’s find these fuckers,’ he said.

  She nodded. They would find who was responsible for Jake and Michael’s disappearance, she was sure of that. But would they find Jake and Michael in time?

  Chapter 70

  Grace stood back as Sean knocked on the door of Eddie Redman’s flat. She wondered why he bothered knocking when, five seconds later, he kicked the thing almost clean off its hinges. She followed him down the hall, trying not to gag as the sweet, sickly smell of weed filled her lungs and burned the back of her throat. She stayed behind Sean as he barged into the living room, where a topless Eddie sat on a mouldy sofa, in a cloud of smoke, with two of his crackhead mates.

  ‘What the fuck?’ he shouted as he bounced off the sofa.

  Sean took hold of Eddie’s face in the palm of his large hand and pushed him back down. ‘Sit the fuck down, you piece of shit,’ he barked.

  The two other men tried to get up too and Sean gave them the same treatment.

  ‘The three of you aren’t going to move another fucking inch until you tell me what I want to know,’ he growled at them, his jaw set like concrete and his eyes as cold as ice. Grace had never seen him look quite so terrifying. Sean Carter had a reputation as one of the most ruthless bastards Liverpool had ever seen, but Grace had only ever known him as her business partner in the restaurants. He’d left his other life behind before she met him, telling her it had almost destroyed him, and now she knew why.

  Eddie and his two associates visibly shook as Sean began to ask them questions about Jake and Michael’s whereabouts. Grace stood back and watched the master at work. Even his tone of voice had changed: it was terrifying, yet mesmerising to watch.

  ‘Where are Jake and my brother, Eddie?’ he growled. ‘Don’t make me ask you again.’

  Eddie shook his head furiously from side to side. ‘I don’t fucking know what you’re on about,’ he wailed.

  ‘So you go into Jake’s club less than a week ago, you demand money and you threaten him, and you expect me to believe you had nothing to do with their disappearance?’

  ‘It’s true,’ Eddie stammered.

  ‘Do you think I’m stupid, Eddie? Do I look fucking stupid to you?’

  Eddie shook his head again, barely able to look Sean in the face as his two mates cowered beside him.

  Sean slapped Eddie across the back of the head. ‘Fucking look at me when I’m talking to you, you useless piece of shit,’ he shouted.

  Eddie raised his head and looked up at his tormentor and Sean rewarded him by smashing his fist into his face, causing Eddie to howl in pain as blood began to pour from his now obviously broken nose.

  ‘What about you two little fuckwits?’ Sean asked as he slapped Eddie’s two companions across the head.

  They both shook their heads too, mumbling apologies to ‘Mr Carter’.

  Grace had seen enough. These three were off their faces on who knew what. They could barely stand and, judging by the debris around them, looked like they’d been holed away in that grotty little flat for at least two days. They didn’t know anything about Jake or Michael’s whereabouts. Just as Sean seemed to be starting to enjoy himself, she placed her hand on his arm and whispered in his ear. ‘We haven’t got time for this. They don’t know anything.’

  He looked at her and nodded.
He gave Eddie a kick in the balls for his trouble as a parting gift. ‘Don’t you ever threaten anyone I care about ever again, you useless waste of fucking space,’ he spat, then he followed Grace outside.

  ‘That went well,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘Useless crackheads,’ Sean snarled. ‘So where to next?’

  ‘Let’s head back to the club and see if anyone else has turned up there with some information.’

  Grace glanced at her phone to see if there had been any missed calls or messages as Sean drove away from Eddie’s flat in Bootle.

  ‘Nothing yet.’

  ‘We’ll hear something soon,’ he said reassuringly. ‘Someone must know something.’

  As though he’d made it happen by some psychic power, Grace’s phone started to vibrate in her hand. Looking at the screen, she saw Ivan Golding’s name. Swiping right, she answered the call and put him onto loudspeaker.

  ‘Grace. I’ve got Steven Porter here with me. He thinks he has some information that might be of use,’ he said.

  Grace nodded. She’d done Steven Porter a massive favour months earlier. Nevertheless, if he was going to come though now for her then she would owe him. ‘Put him on, Ivan. You’re on loudspeaker.’

  ‘Hi, Grace,’ Steven mumbled.

  ‘Steven. What do you have for me?

  ‘It could be nothing, but an alarm went off at one of my properties last night. I get an automatic notification. I phoned the alarm company and they told me it was a fault and they’d sorted it.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Well, something about it seemed a bit off. It’s an old warehouse off Long Lane. The one at the back of Tasker’s. No one’s used the place for years. I’ve never had an alarm notification from there before. The alarms have to be reset onsite so how could they have already checked and sorted it when I’d only just had the notification? Anyway, it was late and I didn’t want to get into it with them. I was going to check the place myself sometime next week. I thought no more of it until Ivan spoke to me today. It could be nothing, of course.’