by Anna Smith
Kerry waited a couple of beats. ‘Doesn’t have to be like that. You don’t go anywhere near it – I mean the cops’ involvement.’
Sharon looked confused.
‘What do you mean? How they going to know?’
‘A tip-off. Anonymous.’
‘What’s the point?’
‘Knuckles gets dragged kicking and screaming into custody to await trial. And while he’s doing that, the cops uncover all the details of his dealings over the years. Everything. Bank accounts, businesses his name is attached to.’
‘Well, who the fuck do you think that’s going to come from, apart from me? Are you kidding me?’ She glanced over her shoulder, even though there was nobody there.
‘No. Not you.’
‘What?’
‘I’ll sort it.’
‘What the fuck? You’ll grass him up?’
‘You call it that. I call it working with the cops. I scratch their back, they scratch mine. They get what they want, and you get to disappear off the scene completely so they’re not looking for you. Because you can guarantee when they get Knuckles, the first thing he’ll do is blame you. But if it’s played right, then the cops won’t even listen to that. They’ll go totally on him.’
They sat in silence for a moment, only the clinks of the cups across the room and the whisper of the quiet family enjoying an afternoon in the comfort of the hotel. Kerry waited while Sharon digested it.
‘And what do you get – apart from all Knuckles’ drugs haul?’
‘I want out of this business – away from the drugs. My father was an old-fashioned criminal. He didn’t want to deal drugs – he’ll be spinning in his grave because of the road Mickey took us on. I’m going to make that different. I’m going to build a proper, legit, respected business. You name your price what you want from it. Then I do what I want.’
They sat again in silence. Sharon liked this Kerry. From the first moment she met her, and she was coming across all hardass, Sharon could feel her nerves. But she sensed she could punch above her weight all right. Kerry may be new to the game, but it looked like she was learning fast. And above all, she took her in when she was desperate and had nowhere else to go. She owed some loyalty to that, no doubt. But grassing up and getting in bed with the cops? She knew once the accounts and books were out, her own fingerprints would be all over it. Sure, the cops could say they wouldn’t pursue her, but how could she trust them? Yet the idea of a fresh start, a way out, that she could begin a new life for her and Tony was tantalising. Finally, Sharon leaned forward and kept her voice a whisper.
‘Okay.’ She nodded. ‘But here’s my price.’ She looked Kerry in the eye. ‘You make me a partner in your business.’
Kerry kept her face impassive. This didn’t come as any real surprise to her, and she had turned over the pitfalls of it in her mind during a sleepless night. Sharon was an unknown quantity who had just bumped off her two would-be assassins and made off with the fate of one of the UK’s biggest hoodlums in her handbag. She could do anything she wanted when it came down to it. She was different from Kerry – and yet she could see that they both had something in common. They were driven and determined, and above all, they wanted revenge.
Chapter Thirty-One
Knuckles woke up with Mel gently running her fingertips across his face, then he could feel her hand drift down his stomach and massage between his legs. Christ! Was there no end to this bird’s fucking sexual appetite? They’d both been coked out of their heads last night, and he’d banged her all over the place from the kitchen table to the bedroom floor, yet the horny bitch was still shouting for more. Now, as his eyes flickered in the morning light streaming in the bedroom window, he could feel himself getting hard as she climbed on top of him, tossing back her long blonde hair as she sat astride him, her muscular thighs gripping him.
‘Jesus, Mel! I’m knackered, babe! You’ll need to do all the work, darlin’.’
‘Just you lie there and enjoy it, tiger,’ Mel cooed as she slipped him inside her.
Knuckles lay back, his eyes closed, enjoying Mel’s expert work. Whatever else she was, this bird was a fucking good shag. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d lain in bed like this with Sharon climbing all over his bones. Way back, in the early days, their sex had been explosive, but Sharon was getting older, and there just wasn’t the same buzz from her. It was like she accommodated him whenever he asked for sex, unlike this little bitch who was jumping on him at every turn. Sharon just wasn’t switched on like this. Sure, she’d supported him over the years, made a home for him and the boy, and looked after a substantial part of his crooked empire on his behalf. But a man is a man, and he has different needs. He needed what Mel was doing right now. And as soon as it was over, she would be getting her butt out of here because he had work to do. She wouldn’t even moan about not getting to stay for breakfast. She knew her place.
An hour later, Knuckles was showered and in his office when the boys knocked on the back door. He’d asked Terry and the boys to come in for another brainstorming session, and to see if they had picked up any intel on where the fuck Sharon was. He knew that wherever she was hiding out, this was never going to have a happy ending. She’d be plotting against him big time. In fact, he’d already discovered she must have been, when he’d got Johnny to take a look at the accounts. Something was missing. Like most of his fucking money. It had to be somewhere, Johnny had consoled him. They’d find it. It’s not as though she could have spent it all. She’ll have put it somewhere, Johnny said, for safekeeping. Hence the meet this morning.
*
‘Fine day out there,’ Harry said as he came in the back door. ‘It’s like spring.’
Knuckles glared at him, then at the others.
‘Well, thanks for the fucking weather report, Harry, but I hope you’ve got more to tell me today than the fact that the sun is fucking shining.’
Harry sniggered. ‘Just saying, boss.’
Knuckles motioned all of them to the chairs around the table.
‘Sit down, boys.’ He sniffed a little and touched his nose. ‘I’ve had a blinder of a night last night, so I’m a bit rough. I really need some good fucking news to cheer me up a bit.’ He turned to Johnny. ‘So, mate. What’s new?’
Johnny cleared his throat, looking a bit edgy.
‘Well, Knuckles,’ he began, ‘I’ve had someone going through every single email on your computer and business transaction online banking. The boy is a fucking legend when it comes to breaking out information. So . . .’ he hesitated. ‘I’m afraid what he’s found is that she has moved nearly all of your money.’
Knuckles glowered at him. ‘What is this, dejà fucking vu? We already know the bitch has moved the cunting money, Johnny. We’ve been through all this. But where the fuck is it? Christ all-fucking-mighty, man! That’s what you were supposed to find out.’
Johnny flushed and put his hands up.
‘I’m coming to that, Knuckles. Just let me finish.’
Knuckles shook his head and sighed. Johnny went on. ‘So, my boy has found that there is an account in the Cayman Islands with her name on it. And another one in Jersey . . . And one in Liechtenstein.’
‘Liechtenstein? Where the fuck is that?’ Knuckles asked.
The boys looked from one to the other.
‘Deepest Europe,’ Harry said. ‘It’s a tax haven.’
‘Right,’ Knuckles said, looking at Johnny. ‘Go on then. Tell me more.’
‘Well, the money. It seems small amounts have been getting transferred there over the past six months – then there was a big transfer recently. The Cayman Islands one has been on the go for years. Same name. But it has a lot of money in it. The Bank of Ireland has a couple of hundred thousand in it as well, and it’s a different name. But it all came in over the past eighteen months from your account.’
Knuckles sat staring at the table. Fucking Jesus wept! She’d been siphoning his money all this time. Bitch. Right under his nose.
When he tracked her down, he’d fucking hang her by the fingernails over a bonfire. Bastard!
‘Right. Good work. Tell the boy he did good. So. How do we get it back?’
Johnny shifted in his seat.
‘Well, boss. That’s the problem. The big problem. My boy said we can go to your own bank and tell them there’s been a major fraud, and that Sharon has moved your money. And they’ll be able to see from the accounts where she has made transfers and to where. But the problem is, she’s had authority all the time she has been organising the accounts in your name for years. It’s not as if they could stop her. She was a signatory to the accounts.’
‘Yeah. I know that. Because I fucking gave her the authority. I don’t know nothing about this shit. I trusted her.’
There was a stony silence in the room as everyone looked at Knuckles then at the floor.
‘Yeah. And I can see that you fuckers are all looking at me like I’ve got “stupid prick” stamped on my forehead.’
Nobody spoke. Knuckles felt his face redden and he tried to take a breath but couldn’t. His mouth was dry. He tried to compose himself.
‘What else? How do we get it back?’
‘It’s a problem. And here’s why . . . If you start raising a fraud enquiry with your bank, and making a lot of noise, and then they start asking the other banks where the money has gone to, this will start alarm bells ringing, according to my man. I mean police. The National Crime Agency are all over things like this, and over the years, your accounts have always been organised so they are below the radar. But if you start raising hell, then anything could happen. They could start looking at you seriously. The cops, I mean.’
The room began to swim in front of him, and Knuckles felt a pain in his chest. Probably overdid the coke last night, he told himself. Calm down. You didn’t get where you are today by panicking. He saw them look at him.
‘You all right, boss?’ Harry said. ‘You ain’t half gone a funny colour. Want a cup of tea or something?’
Knuckles gripped the desk and managed to control his breathing a little.
‘Thank you, Nurse fucking Nancy.’ He shot Harry an irritated glance. ‘No, I don’t want tea. I want my fucking money. And I want this bitch found.’ He turned to Pete.
‘Pete. What about the shipment? Are you sure it’s all on course? I talked to that creepy Dutch prick Jan the other day and he said it’s all ready to roll in a few days. But keep tabs on him. Give him another call tomorrow, make sure it’s all okay. I need to get that shit over here. Especially right now or I’m going to have a serious cash flow problem in the next couple of months.’
‘It’s all sorted, Knuckles. It won’t be a problem.’
‘Good. Right. Let’s talk about other ideas how to find her. Do you think she might be in Spain?’
Harry shrugged. ‘Possibility. But if she is, then she’ll not be raising her head above the parapet. We’ve already made enquiries, but nobody’s seen or heard of her over there in a month.’
Knuckles linked his hands together and pressed them tight, feeling the strain.
‘Well, we need to keep looking. We need to look further. There’s something we’re not doing. Maybe it’s staring us in the fucking face.’ He looked at Harry. ‘Go and make that cup of tea, Harry. We need to start thinking hard here.’
Chapter Thirty-Two
Kerry had butterflies in her stomach as she got dressed for dinner. Whatever it had been the last time she sat across a table from Vinny Burns, this was definitely a date. It felt like a date. Even when she was choosing the dress she was going to wear, she was thinking how it would look to him. She chastised herself for allowing her mind to indulge in the notion that she could be anything more to Vinny Burns than what she was – an old girlfriend who happened to be in the right place right now. If she struck up a rapport with him, maybe she could be useful to him on his job. But this was a guy whose job was to bring criminal organisations like hers down. It was stupid to think that he had any other designs on her, or that she had any similar thoughts about him. She didn’t even know what she was to him, as he’d clearly wiped out of his mind their teenage love story. But she knew what she was planning to do. Talking to him about his offer that they work together was on the cards, but she wanted to see how the evening went before she would even go down that road. And she had to make sure Sharon was on board with anything that involved bringing in the cops, as she was crucial to it. Danny and Jack had to be convinced too.
It was Kerry who had made the call to him a couple of days ago, suggesting they meet. But what she didn’t expect was the little dig of excitement she used to get when she was going out on a date with a man she fancied. But this was not what dinner with Vinny was going to be. If she said it enough, she’d convince herself. She checked her dress, her long legs in the full-length mirror, pulled on her cashmere coat and looked out of the window as her driver came in the yard.
*
She clocked Vinny noticing her when she came in and he stood up, smart in his black jeans and pale blue open-neck shirt. And she saw the look on his face as he stole a glance at her.
‘Looking great, Kerry,’ he said softly, as his lips brushed her cheek. ‘You look like you’re going out on a date.’
Kerry smiled as she sat down.
‘I don’t get out much these days, so it’s good to feel as though I’m on a night out. Not sure about the date part though.’
‘Well,’ Vinny said, shaking the napkin out and placing it on his lap, ‘I’m out on a date anyway.’ He poured her a glass of wine. ‘I took the liberty of getting the best Rioja they had to offer – given your Spanish lifestyle.’
She raised her glass and they clinked, and she took a sip. ‘And very good it is too.’
She felt relaxed in his company. There was no awkwardness in their conversation as they waited for the food to arrive; they reminisced about growing up in the housing scheme, of the characters – some who went on to become notorious criminals or the few who made good. Others of their own age had either stayed or got out, and both of them admitted they had lost contact with their old schoolmates. Kerry thought about Maria, and decided there would be no harm in telling him that they were back in touch. When she did, he nodded.
‘I wondered about that. I saw she had Marty Kane representing her boy, and thought she might have got him through you.’ He paused. ‘I’m not fishing, because it’s not my case, but did she come to you out of the blue?’
‘No,’ Kerry said. ‘She came up to me at my mum’s funeral and it was great to see her. We were such good friends at school, but you know what it’s like – you just lose touch. You know, me being away and all that.’ She stopped mid-sentence, as Vinny’s eyes met hers and for a moment she thought she saw a little hurt there. She sipped her wine and continued. ‘Maria came back to the wake for a drink and we had a good chat. It was then she told me about her daughter, Jennifer, and the heroin. Cal, as far as Maria knew, was a good lad, keeping out of trouble. Then she came to me when Cal got arrested. What else could I do? There’s no way I would turn her away. Our lives turned out differently for reasons beyond our control. It’s not her fault she’s in the mess she is in. That moneylender toerag – Tam Dolan. You know him?’
‘Nah.’ He shook his head. ‘Wouldn’t be my concern. He’s only one of a dozen scumbags like him who will live off other people’s poverty. If I’d my way I’d take them all out and shoot them.’
Kerry smiled. ‘And you an officer of the law too.’
He shrugged. ‘I know. But it’s the truth. Sometimes I don’t see it as black and white as I should. I’m a cop, and a good one, I think. I know what has to be done. But working undercover as I did for a long time, I saw such a lot of shit going down that it does make you wonder who has got it right. Sometimes the good people don’t get justice when they put their trust in guys like me. The system lets them down. But we can’t just abandon the law to let guys like . . .’ he hesitated. ‘Well, guys like your mob and oth
ers run the show.’
Kerry said nothing, taking his words to heart. She knew he was right, but when she heard it said out loud like that, it pulled her up a little. She was part of the ‘your mob’ he was talking about. But even he was admitting the cops were sometimes powerless to do the right thing.
‘Sorry, Kerry. I don’t mean to offend you, but . . .’
‘I’m not offended, Vinny. I know what I am.’
He poured some more wine into their glasses.
‘Is it who you are though?’
She waited a moment.
‘As I told you before: it is now.’
Kerry was thinking that now would be a good time to sound him out about her proposal. No doubt it would surprise him, but she’d know by the look on his face as soon as she put it to him if he was up for it.
But it was him who suddenly changed the subject.
‘So,’ he sat back, ‘no wedding ring? Hard to believe that a beautiful hotshot lawyer like you didn’t have dozens of guys pursuing you. Are you married?’
Kerry looked at him, sarcastic, and leaned forward, lowering her voice.
‘Come on, officer. I’m sure you know enough about my history by now to know that I’ve never married.’
He half smiled.
‘Well, yes. I know you didn’t marry. But I don’t know anything else. Is there a man in your life?’
Kerry fiddled with her glass and looked at the table then at him.
‘Not any more.’ She took a breath and let it out slowly. ‘Not for the past eight months or so. We broke up. After three years.’
‘Sorry to hear that.’
She shook her head. ‘I’m well out of it. He wasn’t the one, if you get my drift.’ She turned the conversation around in case the wine made her reveal any more. ‘What about you?’
For a moment he said nothing, as though he was reflecting on an image.
‘Widower. My wife died. Cancer. Four years ago.’
‘Jesus. I’m sorry, Vinny. That must have been really tough.’
