Motive

by Alan McDermott

  “It’s Mr Marsh to you,” Paul said, “and he’ll offer you the job when he’s ready, not before.”

  “Fair enough. Didn’t mean to offend anyone, just wanted to know if I should carry on waiting or look for something else.”

  “It’s up to you. If the boss wants to take you on, it’ll be worth the wait. If you want to try your luck elsewhere, be my guest. No skin off my nose.”

  They reached the BMW and got in. Paul drove them back toward the city centre.

  “You want me to drop you home, or do you wanna go buy some decent threads?”

  Ryan compared his worn jeans, dirty trainers and cheap t-shirt to Paul’s Lacoste polo and light brown chinos. He had a point.

  “Home will do. Cheaper to get them off the internet.”

  They’d gone just a couple of streets when Paul swore quietly.

  “What is it?”

  “Behind us.”

  Ryan turned to face the rear window and saw the police car on their tail. Its blue lights were flashing.

  “Shit! You think Mickey called them?”

  “No chance,” Paul said. “He’s dumb, but he’s not stupid. Just stay calm and don’t piss them off. We’ll be out of here in no time.”

  Paul pulled over and wound his window down, and the marked police car stopped behind them. Ryan adjusted his position so that he could see what was happening in the mirrors.

  “Turn the engine off, please,” the officer said as he approached the driver’s side.

  Paul did as he was told. “What’s the problem?”

  “You’re not wearing your seat belt.”

  Paul checked, and swore under his breath. “Sorry about that. I wear it religiously. Can’t understand why I didn’t put it on today.”

  The copper, unmoved, had a notebook in his hand, and he started writing. He moved to the front of the BMW to note the licence plate, then back to the side. “Where are you coming from?”

  “Just visiting a mate,” Paul said.

  The policeman leaned closer to the car and sniffed. “When was the last time you had a drink?”

  “Last night.”

  “Anything in the vehicle that shouldn’t be here? Drugs? Weapons?”

  “Nothing,” Paul told him.

  The officer finished writing, then put his notepad away. “Step out of the vehicle, please. Both of you.”

  They got out, and Ryan noticed that a second cop had left the marked car and was standing at the rear of the BMW.

  Both men were told to assume the position and the cops patted them down. It was becoming a regular occurrence for Ryan, but he held his tongue. They found his wallet and put it on the roof of the car. Paul’s pockets contained just cash, his driving licence and his phone.

  The cop with sergeant’s stripes looked through Ryan’s wallet and took out his driver’s licence. “Long way from home, aren’t you?”

  “Just moved up here a couple of weeks ago,” he replied. His licence had his old address in Colchester. “Looking for work.”

  The sergeant noted their names on his pad, while the other gave the inside a cursory search.

  Satisfied that there was no contraband to be found, Paul was given a breathalyser test. He passed.

  “It’s a hundred pound fine for not wearing your seatbelt,” the sergeant said to Paul as he handed him a fixed penalty notice. He explained how it could be paid, then walked back to his car.

  Ryan and Paul got back in the BMW, and both made sure their seatbelts were fastened.

  “Bastards,” Paul swore as he pulled away slowly. “They only pulled me because I drive a nice motor. He’s just jealous ’cos he’s got to drive home tonight in a Fiat or some other piece of shit.”

  Ryan was just relieved that the stop hadn’t been anything to do with their visit to Mickey’s place.

  “On second thoughts, drop me in town. I need a drink.”

  * * *

  After dropping Ryan Anderson off on Princess Street, Paul Gardner drove to Hale Barns, one of the most exclusive areas in the north of England. Carrwood was home to a number of Premier League footballers and other multi-millionaires, among them Franklin Marsh.

  His home boasted seven bedrooms, five bathrooms, four reception rooms and an indoor swimming pool, though it was one of the more modest properties in the area.

  Paul pulled up to the gate that led to Marsh’s home. He knew that a sensor in the road would have picked up the weight of his vehicle and sent an alert to the house, and he just had to wait until one of Marsh’s staff checked him out through the CCTV camera mounted on the perimeter wall.

  The gate eventually swung open, and Paul drove up the gravel-lined drive to the front of the house. It was a huge place, with white walls and grey roof tiles. The entrance was shaped like an arch, with two heavy wooden doors painted black. They opened as Paul got out of the car, and Marsh’s Filipino housekeeper greeted him with a smile.

  “Hello, sir, good afternoon.”

  “Hi, Camille. Where’s Franklin?”

  “In the garden, sir.”

  “I keep telling you, call me Paul.”

  Camille simply smiled, and Paul knew she would never agree to the arrangement. He’d been trying for two years now, but she was relentless.

  He walked into the hallway, a space larger than his own apartment. Stairways curved up the walls on either side, meeting at the first-floor landing. The flooring was marble, and the walls were lined with oak panels.

  Paul didn’t care much for the décor. It reminded him of a stately home he’d once visited as a school boy. The old portraits on the wall had creeped him out, and the memory of the wax polish smell hit him every time he stepped inside Marsh’s home Still, Franklin seemed to like it, and he was the one paying for it.

  Paul walked through the drawing room to the kitchen, where floor to ceiling glass doors gave access to the rear garden, an area of tightly-mown grass the size of a football pitch. Marsh was sitting at a table reading a newspaper, a coffee mug and half-full ashtray in front of him.

  Sonny and Cher, Marsh’s golden retrievers, jumped up and ran over to Paul, their tails wagging with delight. He rubbed their heads, then walked over and took a seat next to his employer.

  “How’d it go?” Marsh asked, folding his paper and putting it on the table.

  “He had four hundred. I gave Ryan two, just like you said.”

  “I meant Ryan. How did he do?”

  Paul shrugged. “He didn’t hesitate when I told him to mess Mickey up. He asked how far to go, I said it was up to him, and he laid into Mickey like a good ’un. Smacked him with a right, kicked him in the back and stamped on his fingers. Might have broken a couple.”

  “That’s it?” Marsh asked.

  “No. Mickey suddenly remembered where he’d hidden his money, but after we counted it, I let Ryan have another go. He snapped Mickey’s ankle like a twig. Even joked about it.”

  Marsh lit a cigarette and blew the smoke to one side, away from Paul. “What do you think?”

  Paul sighed. “I have to admit, he didn’t act like a copper. They have all that PACE bullshit to stick to. They wouldn’t let him beat the crap out of anyone, not even a lowlife like Mickey Orton. Ryan didn’t hesitate. He was like ‘wham, bam, fuck you, man’.”

  The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 dictated what police officers—even those undercover—were allowed to do, and kicking the shit out of druggies was a big no-no.

  “When they’re after someone like me, they’ll use any tactics. I wanna wait to hear what Billy Marsden has to say.”

  “That’s gonna be a couple of days. Billy pulled us over after we left Mickey’s place. He got Ryan’s name, so now he has a reason to look him up in the PNC.”

  The move had been Marsden’s idea. Any searches done on the police national computer were logged, so whenever there was a need to do a background check for Marsh, Billy would pull the suspect over for some minor infraction and record the stop. If anyone questioned him, he would si
mply say he had a bad feeling about the person and wanted to check them out.

  “Well, I hope he hurries the fuck up. In the meantime, I want you and Ryan to do the Dover run.”

  “Sure. Tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, the sooner the better.”

  Charlie Marsh walked into the garden, his school bag over his shoulder. He went straight for Sonny and Cher and laughed as they licked his face.

  “Hey, how about a hug for your old dad?”

  Charlie pulled himself away from the dogs and ran to his father’s waiting arms.

  “I missed you. How was school?”

  “Okay,” the boy shrugged, pulling himself away from Marsh. The dogs continued to jump on him, and he knelt down to give them the attention they craved. “I made the rugby team. And don’t forget, next term we’re going skiing in Italy.”

  “It’s all paid up, don’t worry.”

  “Good. I’m gonna need spending money, though. Lots of it.”

  “You’ll get five hundred quid, and that’s it, you cheeky scamp!”

  Charlie stood and scowled, but the smile on his father’s face meant he couldn’t hold it for long. “How about six?”

  “You’re worse than your mother. Go on, scoot. Unpack, put your dirty stuff in the laundry and get changed. We’re going out to eat just as soon as your sister gets home.”

  Charlie took his bag inside, followed by the two hyper retrievers.

  “The trip’s costing me an arm and a leg, and that’s on top of the astronomical boarding school fees. I wanted him to go to a local high school, but the wife won’t have it. Says she doesn’t want the kids growing up to be like me.”

  Paul waved a casual hand at the house. “I’d say you’ve done pretty well.”

  “Yeah, but she’s got a point. I fell into this lark because it was all I knew. Growing up, we had nothing but what we could nick for ourselves. Most of the time me and me mates got caught, and back then, the cops gave you a kicking before they took you in. Never put me off, though. The others kept doing the same stupid shit, but I got smart. Instead of doing the nicking, I got the weak kids from the estate to do it for me. If they got caught, they knew not to mention my name. I was a real hard bastard, even back then, and if the cops came to question me about a job, I found the grass and made my displeasure known.”

  Paul had heard the speech a couple of times before, but wouldn’t dream of interrupting.

  “We moved on to cars,” Marsh continued, “then houses. If my men got caught, they went down and did their time. While they were inside I looked after their families, and when they got out we’d have a big party for them. The best part was, inside they learned the tricks of the trade from the old lags and came out with fresh ideas. That’s how I got into drugs.”

  Marsh’s wife appeared with a tall glass of gin and tonic. “What are you two plotting?”

  Anita Marsh was fifteen years Franklin’s junior, and the body that had attracted him to her was the same as the day they’d met. She’d been a young model who was already making in-roads in the fashion industry, but Marsh turned her head with his smooth talk and bad-boy reputation. The shy 18-year-old had married Marsh within a year, and in all the time Paul had been working for Marsh, he hadn’t heard a cross word between them.

  “Nothing, Princess. Just reminiscing.”

  She looked at Gardner. “Poor Paul, he must have heard that ‘I came from nothing’ speech a thousand times.”

  “Rubbish! I hardly ever mention my past.”

  “Well, don’t bend his ear too much. Young lad like him needs to be out with the girls, not babysitting an old man like you.”

  Marsh slapped her backside, and she leaned in and kissed him passionately before sauntering back into the house, her hips swaying for Marsh’s benefit.

  “She likes to play the dumb blonde sometimes, but she’s a helluva smart woman, Anita is.”

  “I know,” Paul agreed. He’d worked for the Marshes for ten years, and knew that she was the real brains behind the operation. Anita had been the one to suggest fronting his business empire with legitimate operations like the Vine and a series of restaurants and takeaways. The club wasn’t a money maker on its own, but it did provide Marsh with a way to launder some of the cash he made from his other projects. Drugs were the main earners, and supplying arms made him a decent profit, too. He used to be into prostitution, but after the birth of his daughter, he’d had a change of heart. Perhaps it was becoming a father that had softened him, but Paul suspected Anita had been the one to make the decision. He’d sold the operation to the Turks and concentrated on his other two enterprises. His service empire had made him enough to buy the beautiful house and send his kids to boarding school, all under the watchful gaze of the police who were powerless to do anything about it.

  “I don’t want my kids growing up like me,” Marsh said once more, lighting another cigarette.

  Paul couldn’t understand why not, but it wasn’t his place to say it. Marsh was a great father, and kept his business and private lives separate. His reputation as a hard man was well-founded, but at home, with his family, he was a different person. He doted on his kids and loved his wife with a passion. Marsh had told him more than once how he disdained men who hit their wives. “They're asking for trouble. A wife who has reason to hate her husband will turn on him. But if he treats her well, she'll be happy to enjoy the benefits of his profession.”

  On the flip side, it would work out well for Paul. He was Marsh’s right-hand man, and once the old man retired, someone needed to step up and assume command of the empire Marsh had built. Paul knew he’d be the one to take the reins.

  Like his boss, he’d come from humble beginnings. He’d also grown up in a rough area, but unlike Marsh, Paul never got in trouble with the police. He wasn’t into stealing or drugs, but being an only child, he had no-one to look out for him. He’d had to take care of himself, and when everyone in the neighbourhood was a hard man, that meant being willing and able to use his fists. He pretty much kept himself to himself, though, but the school bully singled him out for it.

  Only once.

  Paul had messed the kid up so much, the poor bastard had spent a month in hospital. With his reputation cemented, no one ever bothered him again until he left school. He began hitting the pubs at sixteen, getting into a few scrapes, until one of his friends mentioned that there was work available for someone with his particular skills. Paul had assumed it was bouncer work, but he was introduced to Franklin Marsh and hadn’t looked back.

  “You’ve taught them well,” Paul said. “I’m sure they’ll turn out great.”

  “That they will,” Marsh agreed. “Now, go get things ready for tomorrow. If he does well in Dover, you can take him over to meet the Albanians.”

  “So soon? You don’t want to dig a little more?”

  “If all goes well tomorrow and Billy gives him a clean bill of health, that’s good enough for me.”

  Paul wasn’t going to argue his point any further. Jovial as Franklin Marsh was at that moment, Paul knew he could change in an instant, and second-guessing him was always a good way to provoke that reaction.

  “I’ll get everything set up and call you the moment we get back.”

  Paul got up and left, saying his goodbyes to the Marsh family on his way out. He needed to make a few phone calls to set up the Dover run, and then he’d see what Ryan Anderson was really all about.

  Chapter 9

  Ten minutes after taking the atenolol, Karen tied up her blonde hair and sat down at her workbench before checking her pulse. Thanks to the beta blocker, her heart rate was down to thirty beats per minute, and it would stay that way while she worked through the night. She placed her right forearm on the padded wooden block that had been screwed to the desk, then pulled the leather straps over it and pulled tight, securing the other end on the hooks under the table. She could now only move her fingers, but that was all she needed.

  Karen hunched over the Kern OZC-5 microsco
pe—a real bargain at three grand—and through the eyepiece, she could see the state of her current work in progress. It was a 24-carat gold ring, and on the inside of the band she was carving a scene from Cheltenham racecourse.

  The piece had been commissioned by the wife of Toby Fordham, the owner of Dancing Folly. The horse had won the most prestigious race on the calendar, the Cheltenham Gold Cup, and to celebrate both the win and their thirtieth wedding anniversary, Celia Fordham had asked Karen to recreate the scene inside the gold ring. She’d given Karen a series of photographs taken on the day, some head-on shots, others taken from the stands. They’d settled on one showing Dancing Folly in mid-air as it leapt over the last fence to land two lengths clear of its nearest rival. The shot had been taken from right up against the far rail, the photographer obviously kneeling to get the perfect angle.

  It was one of the easier pieces Karen had been asked to create, but she was still charging handsomely for it. Celia had initially baulked at the asking price of seventy thousand, but once Karen had explained that it would take several months to make, and that she was one of the cheapest and best on the market, they agreed to the deal. As soon as Celia signed the contract, Karen started work.

  Seven weeks in, and she was still working on the fence. She’d completed the stand in the background, and the final addition would be the horse and jockey suspended in the air. That was where it would get tricky. One mistake, one muscle spasm at the wrong moment, and weeks of hard work would be gone, wasted.

  Fortunately, that had only happened to her twice. Once when the power had tripped, plunging the workshop into darkness, and the other time when some pissed-up pranksters had rung her doorbell at three in the morning. She always worked late at night as there was less ambient noise and fewer vehicles on the street, but there was no accounting for drunken idiots.

  Karen had to time her cuts to match her heartbeat, and could often wait minutes for the right moment to shift the graver less than a millimetre, which made for slow progress. After an hour and only seven strokes, she stopped and took a break. She walked past the piles of newspapers and through the door that led from her workshop annex to the kitchen of her detached house, where she took a bottle of water from the fridge. What she really wanted was a coffee, but the caffeine would interfere with her work. She didn’t even trust decaf these days. She’d had one once and it had either been mislabelled or the manufacturer had tried to pass regular grounds off as decaffeinated. She’d lost a whole night’s work because of that.