Motive

by Alan McDermott

  She dug into her purse and handed him a card. “If you ever feel like talking, give me a call. My hours are flexible, so I’m available any time.”

  Scott looked at the card, then put it in his back pocket. “Will do,” he said, though he knew the chances of contacting her were slim. Under different circumstances he would have stayed with her all day, but right now he needed his space.

  He walked away, still reluctant to put his full weight on his new knees. He reckoned that with another four weeks of twice-daily exercise, his gait would be back to normal, but only if he pushed himself. Until then, he’d rely on the cane to get him about.

  Scott sneaked a look back at the café and instantly regretted it. Kelly was looking at him, her elbow leaning on the table and her chin cradled in her palm. She wiggled a few fingers in his direction, and he returned the gesture with a feeble wave. She had a longing look in her eyes, and he asked himself what the hell he was doing. She was harmless, just a young woman looking for some company on a gorgeous day in a beautiful setting, and he’d blown her off for no good reason.

  Scott turned and hobbled to the end of the street, her eyes burning into his back all the way. Once he was out of sight, he relaxed a little. It was a ten-minute walk to the Place des Cordeliers where he’d parked his three-year-old Citroen, then a fifteen-minute drive home.

  His two-bedroom bungalow was owned not by his parents, but his old employer. They’d given him use of it until he was mended, both physically and mentally, with no set timeframe for recovery. They’d made the gesture with the hope that one day he would return to work, but Scott knew that wasn’t going to happen.

  He tossed the keys on the kitchen table, then went into the bedroom to change into his workout gear. With his shorts and t-shirt on, he went into the other bedroom, which had been kitted out as a gym. He did half an hour on the bike, then did fifty pull-ups and fifty sit-ups.

  Scott was drenched by the time he finished, and after taking a shower, he took three bottles of beer from the fridge and dumped himself in front of the TV, where he searched for a suitable box set to watch. He’d tried Game of Thrones, about as far from real life as he could wish to get, but some of the scenes brought back too many memories. Cop shows were also out, so he tended to binge on comedies.

  He was halfway through an episode of the American version of The Office when one phrase catapulted him back to that fateful day months earlier. His body shivered involuntarily as a ball of ice gathered in his chest and spread down to his abdomen. He was tempted to turn off the television, but that would have left him alone with his thoughts. Instead, he turned up the volume and sank his first beer in one go.

  Get a grip, you soft twat!

  He couldn’t get back into it. The memory refused to leave him, so he tried to picture something less traumatic.

  Kelly popped into his head unannounced, and he once again asked himself why he’d behaved in such an offhand manner. All she’d wanted was a little conversation, and it wasn’t as if he had been pressed for time.

  Scott hobbled through to the bedroom and found her card in the back pocket of his trousers. It was far too soon to call her; he’d look desperate. Instead, he took it through to the living room, opened his laptop and did a search for the company she worked for.

  Chapter 4

  The Vine looked a lot different in daylight. The twelve-foot neon sign was off, and in the bright summer sunshine, Ryan Anderson could see that it was covered in a couple of years’ worth of soot from a billion passing vehicles. The garish bruise-coloured façade, normally illuminated with a black light, looked like it hadn’t seen a paintbrush in a decade.

  Curriculum vitae in hand, Ryan walked around the back via an alleyway piled high with black bin liners and empty boxes that once held a variety of spirits. There was no name over the door, just a buzzer attached to the frame. He ran his finger through his short, dark hair, then pressed the bell and waited.

  He still couldn’t believe he was here. It might be a genuine job offer, or it could be a way of isolating him so that the two goons he’d floored the night before could exact their revenge. He regretted not tooling up, but before he could change his mind, the metal door creaked open on squeaky hinges.

  The man facing him was Ryan’s height, with dark brown hair cut close to his scalp. A tattoo of a red rose clung to his thick neck, but it was his eyes that caught Ryan’s attention. They were a little too close together, and they seemed to look right through him. He was wearing dark slacks and a white Hugo Boss jumper.

  “I was told to be here at six,” Ryan said. “For a job.”

  The man said nothing. He stared at Ryan for a few seconds, then stepped aside, holding the door open. Ryan walked into the building and found himself in a kitchen. Not restaurant standard, but large enough to provide pizza and burgers for the night crowd.

  “Stand still, arms out by your side.”

  Ryan stopped and turned around, then put his arms out. Rough hands patted him down, from his neck down to his ankles. Rose Neck took his mobile phone and placed it on a countertop, then directed Ryan through a door and along a dimly lit corridor.

  “I want that phone back. I only got it today.”

  At the end of the hallway was a set of double doors that led onto the dance floor. Ryan had never been inside the club during normal hours, when it would have been wall to wall with youngsters strutting their stuff while spaced out on whatever synthetic drug was in fashion these days. Maybe it was still ecstasy, or perhaps something new had come along.

  The guy with the rose tattoo gestured to a seating area consisting of round tables and chairs, where two men were sipping from coffee mugs. One was the suit from the previous night, the other the blond he’d beaten up. There was no sign of the bulldog. Ryan walked over, Rose Neck not far behind.

  “Have a seat,” the suit said, pointing at a comfortable armchair.

  Ryan would have preferred to stand, but the words were a command, not an offer. He undid the buttons on his jacket, rucked up his trousers and sat down. The suit he was wearing cost just under two hundred pounds, a fraction of the price of the one opposite him.

  “My name’s Franklin Marsh,” the older man said, smoothing his already immaculate hair. Even in the dim light of the nightclub, his eyes shone green. “This is George, that’s Paul.”

  George was the one Ryan had fought with the previous evening. Paul had the rose tattoo.

  Ryan nodded at George and was met with a malevolent stare. He clearly hadn’t forgotten his humiliation when they’d last met.

  Marsh picked up a clipboard from the table in front of him and held it up. Paul took it from his hand and gave it to Ryan.

  “Fill that out,” Marsh said. “George, fetch some more coffee.”

  Ryan unhooked the pen from the top of the clipboard and looked at the document. It appeared to be a standard application form, and he started filling in the blanks. Name, date of birth, address and national insurance number were all expected, but the form asked for his family history as well as his last five addresses, which seemed a bit extreme. It also wanted details of his last five employments. Ryan referred to his CV for that information, then handed the form back to Paul, who had been hovering by his side.

  “Where did you learn to fight like that?” Marsh asked, sipping the coffee George had made.

  Ryan dropped a sugar cube into his own cup and stirred it. “A combination of growing up on a council estate in Leeds and five years in Two Para.”

  “Whereabouts in Leeds?”

  “Halton Moor. I lived on Kendal Drive.”

  Marsh nodded slowly. “I know Halton Moor. Did some business there a few years ago. It was the arse-end of the world, rough as fuck.”

  Ryan smiled. “My thoughts exactly. I got into a few scrapes, but back then, you didn’t call the police, you handled things yourself. Most times, you have an argument with one guy, you had to take on his whole family. If you live there, you have to know how to look after yourself.�
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  “What about Two Para?”

  “I lived in Halton Moor for four years until I was fourteen,” Ryan said, “then moved to Colchester. My old man was in the army, so we moved around a lot. He wanted me to join up as soon as I left school, so I did. Pissed him off that I chose Two Para, though. He was REME—Royal Electrical and Mechanical engineers—and wanted me to follow in his footsteps, but I joined the army to fight, not sit behind the lines fixing tractors.

  “Why’d you leave?”

  “Got shit-canned for fighting. I’d made corporal and was up for sergeant, but so was this other guy. He knew I’d get it, so he took a pop at me one day. I beat the shit out of him and he told the brass I started it. The lying bastard even got a couple of his mates to say they saw the whole thing.”

  “So they kicked you out.”

  “No. After the court-martial, they said they were going to demote me back to private, but that didn’t matter. What really hurt was when they blocked my application to join the SAS. That was the only reason I chose the paras, as a stepping stone. After that, there was no point staying in. I asked for a discharge instead, and they gave me one. That was a year ago.”

  “You reckon you could have made the SAS?” Marsh asked.

  “Hard to tell. Maybe I could, maybe I couldn’t, but I wanted to find out. Now I’ll never know.”

  Marsh chewed on that for a few seconds.

  “What have you been up to since you left?”

  “This and that,” Ryan said. “I worked a building site for a couple of months, labouring. I also worked in a packaging factory, but that only lasted a couple of days.”

  “How come?”

  “My supervisor was a dick. He was only about twenty-two, but thought that because he earned twenty pence an hour more than me, he was some kind of god. Told me he wasn’t taking any shit from me, but it turns out he did. On the second day, I asked for a toilet break and went to the staff room instead. I took a dump in his lunchbox. You should have seen his face at lunchtime. Priceless.”

  “Why not just slap him about a bit?”

  It was Paul with the red rose who’d spoken, and Marsh didn’t seem to mind the interruption.

  “I did consider it,” Ryan said, “but it wasn’t the best way to deal with him. Instead of everyone sympathising with poor Johnny for getting his head kicked in, they’re all laughing about him and his turd sandwiches.”

  That brought a smile to Marsh’s face, but only briefly.

  “If you work for me, I’ll expect more than just shitting on peoples’ dinners. I have a reputation to uphold, and that means sometimes you have to show your nasty side. I don’t want people who over-think, I need people who do what the fuck they’re told.”

  “I spent five years in the army doing as I was told. I’m sure it won’t be a problem.”

  “Even if what you’re told to do isn’t strictly legit?”

  “What are my alternatives? Work for Johnny shit-box or carry bricks for minimum wage? No thanks. I left the army with these”—he held up his fists—“and nothing else. Might as well make good use of them.”

  Marsh drank the last of his coffee and swirled it around his mouth for a few moments. He swallowed as he came to a decision. “I’ll call you in a couple of days.” He pointed towards the exit, and Paul stood over Ryan, ushering him to his feet.

  Ryan took the hint: interview terminated. He got up and walked back the way he’d come, with Paul always a couple of steps behind him. His phone was where he’d left it.

  At the back door, Paul grabbed Ryan’s elbow in a powerful grip. “The boss is gonna check you out. If you’re not who you say you are, I’ll come for you.”

  He let go, and Ryan resisted the urge to rub his arm. “No worries. It’s all kosher.”

  “It better be. You’ll be working under me, and I don’t like fuck-ups.”

  Ryan thought about answering, but simply nodded and walked away.

  Everything he’d told Marsh had been the truth, so he had no concerns on that score.

  He just hoped he knew what he was getting himself into.

  * * *

  When Ryan left, Franklin Marsh picked up his coffee and walked through a door marked Staff Only. His office was the first door on the right, and once he was settled behind his desk he turned on the CCTV monitors. He saw Ryan walking down the alley, and when he disappeared out of sight, Marsh switched to another camera and watched him make his way down the main road. Ryan had his hands in his pockets.

  “What d’ya reckon?” Paul asked. He’d followed Marsh into the office and was sitting on the leather sofa.

  “Hard to be sure. His story seems plausible.”

  “And you say he didn’t smell of booze last night?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Marsh said. “So why was he walking the streets of Manchester at two in the morning?”

  “I can’t answer that one, Franklin, but I’ll tell you one thing: he’s trouble.”

  On the screen, Ryan crossed the road and turned a corner. Marsh turned the monitor off. Ryan hadn’t used his phone to call anyone, which fit in with his story that he didn’t have family to speak of. According to the application form, Ryan was an only child, his mother was in a nursing home, and his father had died of cancer five years earlier.

  “I’ll get Billy to look into him,” Marsh said.

  Billy Marsden was a police sergeant with a passion for the bookmakers. Marsh funded Billy’s gambling habit, and the copper paid him back with information

  Marsh took a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and popped one in his mouth. Paul got up from his seat and lit it.

  “You think he’s plod?”

  “Maybe,” Marsh conceded.

  The police had tried before to infiltrate his organisation, and it hadn’t ended well. At least, not for the undercover officer. The police never did find his body, but the episode had forced Marsh to pare back his operations for a while. He was, after all, the prime suspect in the undercover officer’s disappearance, and though nobody ever questioned him about his involvement, Marsh knew the cops would be keeping him under intense scrutiny.

  Not that it would have done them any good. There were always three layers of separation between Marsh and the goods he dealt in. He never got close to the money, either, which was laundered by a Greek accountant and hidden in offshore holdings so complex that not even Marsh knew how they worked. He’d told Paul many times that he was looking forward to the day he could quit England’s shores, retire to the Caribbean and enjoy his millions. He was fifty-seven now, and Paul reckoned on three more years. By that time Marsh’s youngest would be seventeen and Marsh senior would have spent thirty years as one of Manchester’s most notorious criminals.

  Paul assumed Marsh had enough to retire on already—close to seventy million sterling accruing interest at a decent rate, apparently—but the boss wanted his son to finish his education first. There was no point sending him to university, though. Degrees are pointless if you use them to work for someone else. Marsh believed that the only way to make money was to have people work for you, and he planned to teach his kids his business acumen, though not his villainy. Charlie was fourteen and Debbie was seventeen, and Marsh made a point of not spoiling them. They knew that they had to work hard if they wanted something, and that would stand them in good stead for adulthood.

  “I’ll send Billy a text, get him to meet me in the pub,” Paul said.

  “Okay. And give him a copy of Ryan’s application form. I want every detail checked and double-checked.”

  Paul tapped out a message on a phone he used solely for communicating with the policeman in Marsh’s pocket and hit Send. He got a reply less than a minute later.

  “He’s heading to the Pig and Whistle now. I’ll be back soon.”

  Marsh stubbed out his cigarette and picked up the till receipts from the previous night, signalling the end of the meeting.

  Paul left, his mind focused on Ryan Anderson. Was he a cop, hoping to dest
roy everything Marsh had built up over the last thirty years, or just a kid out to make some money?

  He hoped the lad was everything he claimed to be.

  For his own sake.

  Chapter 5

  Detective Inspector John Latimer stopped on the stairwell between the third and fourth floors of the police station and stared out over a sun-washed Lewisham High Street.

  The pub across the road looked awfully inviting.

  As ever, the thought was fleeting. After his scare three years earlier, he’d gone from drinking every day to just twice a month, and only when he went out with his wife.

  He could do with a drink right now.

  The Higson case had been one of the worst he’d worked on, and he was glad to have wrapped it up. In his fifteen years in the force, five with Murder Investigation Team 14, he had never been so haunted by a crime scene. It was always harder when a child was the victim, but this one had been especially disturbing. Now that the suspect had been charged, he could take down the photos from the briefing room wall, but the innocent face would stay with him for a long time.

  It was at times like this that Latimer was almost thankful that he didn’t have children of his own. He couldn’t imagine the anguish Carrie Higson’s parents had gone through, or how they would ever get their lives back on track. They were victims just as much as the little girl, but their pain would last a lifetime.

  Two punters left the pub and lit cigarettes. Yet another vice Latimer had kicked since the result of his echocardiogram. Being diagnosed with coronary artery disease had felt like a death sentence when the doctor had sat him down to explain the results, but he’d been assured that with a change in lifestyle he could live a long and fruitful life. That meant an end to his nightly visits to the boozer and no more fags. The new diet was just as hard.

  “You okay, boss?” DS Paul Benson joined Latimer on the stairs. At six-one, he was a couple of inches taller than Latimer. He was also ten years younger.