The New Friend

by Alex Kane

Jez held out his hand and Billy took it in his, gave it a shake and turned. He headed for the door and didn’t look back. Jez wouldn’t tell Billy what he was going to do with Cole unless he asked. It was hard enough living with what he’d done to Cole’s brother; he didn’t want a second kill on his conscience. It didn’t matter how many killers Billy caught and put behind bars, no amount would ease that guilt.

  None.

  Chapter Sixty-Eight

  Jake opened the door and allowed Arabella and Eddie to walk through to where Roxanne was waiting. Arabella’s mind swirled with what was about to happen, but she kept her composure.

  ‘You signed those papers yet?’ Arabella said, standing in the middle of the living room, staring down at Roxanne. Her stomach was churning with excitement but she didn’t allow that to show on her face.

  ‘Aye, I’ve signed them. Didn’t hang about really, signed them when you gave them to me. So all that’s left to do now is to hand over the keys,’ Roxanne said, getting to her feet and reaching down the side of the sofa. She produced the envelope and passed it to Arabella.

  Arabella took the papers and read the last page. Roxanne was telling the truth; she’d signed the papers. She’d signed a confession to murder, and it was clear that she had no idea she’d done so. Clearly, she hadn’t read all of it.

  ‘Keys? Now?’ Roxanne said.

  Arabella glared at her and burst into hysterical laughter. Roxanne frowned and glanced at Jake and Eddie before resting her eyes back on Arabella.

  ‘What the fuck’s funny?’

  Arabella had to take a few deep breaths and compose herself. ‘You’re what’s funny, Rox. You know, for a businesswoman of the criminal underworld, you’re not that fucking smart. Did you really think I was just going to hand over my business to you? Really? It just goes to show that you didn’t read all of this.’

  Roxanne’s expression was furious and Arabella was loving it.

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Jake asked, stepping in between them.

  ‘Mate, don’t.’ Eddie put his hand up.

  Jake batted his hand away.

  ‘Roxanne, even though you have signed this confession to murder, I won’t have to use it. It wouldn’t stand up in court anyway, but now that we have actual evidence, I can—’

  Everyone stopped then, turning their attention to the front door. Someone was banging on it loudly. Arabella kept her eyes on Roxanne. She wanted to see her expression when this all kicked off.

  * * *

  Jake moved through to the hall and pulled the door open. Footsteps followed silence and Arabella nodded at DS Billy Drysdale as he entered the room. He had two uniformed officers with him.

  ‘Roxanne McPhail?’ DS Drysdale said.

  Arabella watched as Roxanne glared at the officers through narrowed eyes.

  ‘We’re arresting you in connection with the deaths of Keiran Mitchell and Scarlett Kent. In terms of section fourteen of the Criminal Procedure Scotland Act nineteen ninety-five, I have reasonable cause to suspect you have committed the crime of murder. The reasons for my suspicions are that you have been identified via video footage from a mobile phone. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if—’

  ‘Are you fucking kidding? I didn’t kill anyone and I don’t even know who you’re talking about,’ Roxanne said. Arabella noticed how she kept her arms by her side, her hands perfectly still as she spoke. She was trying to plead innocence through her body language.

  Keiran Mitchell. Now that the man had a name, Arabella felt sick. He was a real person and Roxanne had killed him purely so she would have a hold over her. And Scarlett? Arabella felt the emotion catch in her throat.

  DS Drysdale continued. ‘You’re not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say will be noted and may be given as evidence.’

  Roxanne exploded into a rage that Arabella hadn’t even seen when they’d shared a cell in prison. She lashed out, went straight for Drysdale but the two uniformed officers were too quick for her. They were on her, restraining her.

  ‘Hang on a minute, you’re a cop?’ Jake said, staring at Drysdale. ‘But you were at Cole’s flat.’

  Drysdale shot him a glance and turned to him. ‘Jake Cairney, you are under arrest for the murder of Mark Robertson…’

  Arabella stopped listening. She didn’t care about Jake, or what he’d done. But she was shocked and hadn’t expected this. Instead of mirroring Roxanne’s actions, Jake simply stood still, listened to Drysdale and complied.

  Roxanne continued to kick and judder under the restraint of the officers.

  ‘You can’t just come in here and arrest us for murder without any evidence.’

  Eddie smirked. ‘Did you not just listen to what he said? They got their evidence direct from your phone, Roxanne. Thanks to your ex’s wife after she beat seven shades of shit out of you at the salon.’

  Roxanne sneered at Eddie, then a sadistic smile formed on her face. ‘I take it Arabella knows you were sleeping with Scarlett? Maybe it was you who killed her?’

  Arabella frowned and shot a look at Eddie. ‘What?’

  Roxanne gave a sarcastic gasp. ‘Oh, you didn’t know? Yeah, he was sleeping with her. I can’t be sure how long for, but don’t you think it’s weird that he bought you the salon she worked in? Maybe he wanted to have you both around, maybe he liked the danger of knowing you would find out.’

  Arabella felt her jaw tense but she refused to look at Eddie. She wouldn’t give Roxanne the satisfaction. She’d been through hell in her life because of other people. Roxanne was going to be the last one to make things hard for her.

  The police dragged Roxanne out of the flat as she kicked and screamed about being innocent. Jake turned to face Eddie and shook his head.

  ‘What are you, a fucking super grass or something? Or are you undercover?’

  Drysdale slapped cuffs across Jake’s wrists and began guiding him out. Eddie didn’t reply and when Arabella glanced at him, she saw the real Eddie for the first time. A cheat and a liar. Yes, he’d got her out of a situation that could have seen her back in jail, but what Roxanne said had made sense. When she’d met Eddie, he’d had a girlfriend. Arabella had turned his head and she’d certainly been taken in by him. He’d made her feel things she didn’t know existed. He was kind, caring, passionate with her. He took care of her, listened to her story of going into care at a young age. He’d bought her a business for Christ’s sake. So what had happened? Why did he change? Maybe he hadn’t changed: they say once a cheat, always a cheat. That was how they’d started off.

  Drysdale turned and gave Eddie a nod before leading Jake out to the police van. Arabella followed Eddie down to the street and watched as the van took them away. All the time she could hear Roxanne banging on the sides, shouting and screaming.

  She stood a few meters away from Eddie and felt tears threaten, but she held them back. There was no way she was going to break down in the middle of the street.

  ‘Is it true?’ she asked, tucking a stray hair behind her ear.

  Eddie didn’t answer. He couldn’t even look at her. That was all the confirmation she needed. Pulling the salon and flat keys from her pocket, Arabella threw them at Eddie’s face.

  Chapter Sixty-Nine

  The sounds of Cole’s screams were muffled against the rag that Jez had forced inside his mouth. The tape that had been wrapped across his face and around the back of his head pulled at his hair. No amount of struggling could free his hands that were bound behind his back, because he was lying on top of them inside the wooden box.

  Jez had been sick enough to tell Cole the details of how his brother had met his death out in Spain. He’d been a cheeky bastard with the wrong person and it had resulted in him taking a beating. Jez had said that he’d tried to stop the guy from doing it, but it was too late so he’d had to get rid of the body. It wasn’t personal, it wasn’t planned. It had just happened. But then twenty years later, Cole had come along and stolen a substantia
l amount of Jez’s money.

  ‘It’s funny when you think about it, really. Such a small world. You come out to find your brother, start working for me and decide that you want to take my cash to hire a private investigator to find out what happened to him, when the whole time you were working for the guy who did it. Well, the guy who helped get rid of him. I told you I’d find you, Cole. I always achieve my goals,’ Jez had said as he’d dug out the grave for Cole. ‘You know the thing that gets me the most, Woods? It’s not the money. It’s the ring. Why did you take it? What possible need would you have with a dead woman’s ring? To pawn it for money? I tell you, it’s a good thing I got it back, otherwise your death wouldn’t be so fucking kind.’

  Tears streamed down the sides of Cole’s face as he listened to the grit and soil thundering down on top of his coffin. There was no point in fighting, no point in hoping. This was it. He was going to die at the hands of the same man who killed his brother twenty years ago.

  He’d been inside the box for what felt like an eternity. He was tired, sore and broken, barely able to breathe. The sound of soil packing him deep into the ground stopped after a while.

  Maybe this was karma for all the things Cole had done over the years. The drugs he’d dealt, the deaths, the blackmail. Maybe this was his punishment for those crimes.

  Cole closed his eyes and slowed his breathing. If he was going to die like this, then he wanted it to feel like he was falling asleep. But it didn’t matter what he thought, how he tried to calm himself.

  Cole Woods couldn’t stop himself from screaming his way into death.

  Chapter Seventy

  Billy signed his resignation letter and put it inside the envelope. After everything that had happened, he couldn’t continue to serve as a DS. His life as a cop had been a lie. How was he supposed to protect the public when he himself was a killer? He knew that Jez was going to kill Cole Woods and he stood back and did nothing because it would keep him out of prison.

  He’d promised himself that if Roxanne and Jake pleaded not guilty, he’d see through the trial. But they’d pleaded guilty because the evidence was stacked against them. Thankfully, he didn’t have to go through that.

  He picked up his helmet and keys and headed outside to his bike. He needed to cycle to clear his head. It was how he’d always been. When he’d come back from Majorca, he’d cycled for miles. Not that it had helped.

  Climbing onto his bike, he decided to head to one of the old haunts he and the boys used to hang around at when they were teenagers. It was a steep climb but worth it for the views. It wouldn’t take long.

  As he climbed Dunmuir Hill, his thigh and calf muscles burning, Billy thought about what he would do with his life once he resigned as a DS. Maybe he could retrain as something else? Maybe start his own business? If Jez could do it, so could he.

  He hadn’t heard from Jez since that day he left him with Cole. He’d managed to tell a convincing lie to his bosses that Cole had done a runner. That he must have caught wind that the police were on to him. They’d seized millions of pounds worth of drugs from his flat and Billy hadn’t slept since, worried that he’d be caught and sent to prison himself.

  He reached the top of Dunmuir Hill and just over the brow was the reservoir. The sunlight glinted off the water as he took in the view. He could see for miles, and out there in the vast space Billy wondered if Cole’s brother’s body would ever be found. The world was a big place, and twenty years had gone by and so far, there had been no news from Majorca about remains being found. Maybe they’d wasted away.

  He thought about Jez and how he’d got away with so much in his criminal career. Before they’d gone off to Majorca, Jez had gone to pay off some of their recreational drug debt with Diggo, the local down-and-out drug dealer. He’d confided in Billy when they were abroad that he’d dealt with their debt without having to pay up. Billy hadn’t been surprised when Jez had told him that Diggo and his shitty little Vauxhall Nova were at the bottom of a reservoir. When it was on the news all those years ago that they’d found Diggo and the car, Billy had known the truth of what happened and kept it to himself.

  As Billy stood at the edge of the reservoir, staring down at the water, he knew that it was likely Cole Woods’s remains would be up at the reservoir somewhere too.

  He swallowed hard and realised that he was just like Jez. His friend had supported him in his desire to become a police officer, but he’d always said that he didn’t think it would suit Billy. He’d been right. Billy used his police career to hide what he truly was. A boy from the schemes, a killer.

  Chapter Seventy-One

  Roxanne sat down on the bed of her new cell and took in her surroundings. Cold, clinical white walls. That was what she would look at every single day for the rest of her life. Or at least for the next thirty-seven years. She’d have put herself through a trial if she’d thought it would be worth it when she got out. But there was no point. After everything that had happened, she had nothing left to get out for.

  Finding out about Jake, his secret sexuality and the fact that he’d murdered his lover so that he could keep it a secret had shocked her. Roxanne had expected to feel more hurt but instead, she was just angry for not having noticed the signs herself.

  ‘You’re back then?’ one of the prison officers asked, popping her head around the door. ‘I’d hoped you’d have sorted yourself out, made a life for yourself.’

  Roxanne gritted her teeth. ‘What can I say? I missed the food.’

  The prison officer smiled wryly and went on her way.

  She lay down and thought about what the judge had said when she’d handed Roxanne’s sentence down. She’d described Roxanne as a dangerous, trophy killer. She’d said that it was clear Roxanne liked to film or capture her victims on camera and replay the incident as though she were watching it for entertainment purposes. The judge hadn’t been wrong, Roxanne supposed.

  ‘A’right, Rox. Good tae huv ye back, hen.’ The voice came from the doorway. The prisoner’s name was Helena. A woman in for murder. She’d arrived around the same time as Roxanne had the first time. ‘If yer needing anythin’ to help ye sleep, just give us a shout. Got a stash in ma cell.’

  Roxanne smiled and nodded at Helena. ‘Cheers.’

  Sighing, Roxanne placed her hands behind her head and stared up at the ceiling. It was going to be a long sentence this time round. She’d get out, and when she did she’d find Arabella MacQueen. When she did, she’d fucking kill her.

  Chapter Seventy-Two

  Martini Beach Club Club was in full party mode, the sun shining down on the holiday-makers as they danced and drank their way through the day.

  Getting his money and the ring back from Cole Woods had been a matter of principle for Jez. He’d had to end Cole’s life, there was no other way. How would it have made Jez look, if he’d allowed him to walk away unpunished? Jez was the biggest, most powerful gangster on the island, he had to live up to that reputation. Well, he was on a par with the Albanians. He’d had no real contact with them until Cole disappeared. When they’d come to see him, they were angry. A lot angrier than Jez had been and for the first time in his life, he had feared for his safety. The Albanian drug gang had made him an offer. Find Cole Woods, retrieve the money he stole from them and he’d be rewarded. Having the barrel of a gun shoved into his mouth had swayed him to agree. Of course, killing Cole was always going to be Jez’s choice, but the Albanians had made it clear. Make sure his body is never found.

  ‘You did a good job, Jez. I didn’t think you’d be able to pull it off,’ Zamir, the top man, said. ‘You proved me wrong. Cole Woods got what was fucking coming to him and I salute you for wiping him off the face of the earth.’

  Jez nodded. ‘One less thieving bastard walking around.’

  ‘Yes,’ Zamir replied. He unzipped a large holdall that he’d placed on Jez’s desk and tipped it forward. Jez peered inside. ‘It’s all there. You followed through on your word, Jez and for that I reward you.
’

  Five hundred grand. That was how much they’d offered him to take Cole out. As if that wasn’t incentive enough.

  ‘Cheers, Zamir.’

  Zamir nodded. ‘I hope now that things are sorted here, we can come to a business arrangement to start supplying your clubs once again. And just for you,’ he pulled a small bag from his inside pocket and placed it on the desk. ‘See it as a “try before you buy” scheme.’

  Jez knew by the look on Zamir’s face that there was no option to say “thanks but no thanks”. He would be going into business with Zamir and his brothers to supply the clubs and that was that.

  Charlene entered the office and Zamir stepped back and excused himself and left. Charlene stood and glared at Jez for a few seconds and he glared back.

  ‘Are you seriously not going to sign these papers?’ Charlene asked, shoving the divorce papers under his nose.

  Jez set up a line from the bag Zamir had handed him on the desk and snorted it loudly. He wasn’t an addict, not by any means. But sometimes he needed a little pick up, especially being tied to Charlene. Zamir was right, it was good shit.

  ‘No, I don’t need a divorce. It’s you who wants one. You really think I’m going to sign that and give you half of everything I fucking own? I’m not a fucking idiot.’

  ‘That’s debateable,’ Charlene said, shaking her head and glaring at him with that judgemental look on her face. That was the expression she’d always looked upon him with and he was sick to the back teeth of it.

  ‘Oh fuck off, Charlene.’

  ‘Okay, fine,’ she said. ‘But you’ll regret this. I promise.’

  Jez watched as she stormed out of the office, barely able to walk in her designer heels. He laughed, the coke going straight to his head.

  He was going to enjoy this season on the island, revel in the fact that all these holiday-makers’ money would be sitting in his account, making him wealthier by the day.