The George Elms Trilogy Box Set

by Charlie Gallagher

  ‘I said, get on your fucking knees.’ The voice was a suppressed growl, full of strength and menace.

  Jenny dropped to her knees. She raised her arms, pushing her palms out towards the figure, fighting with herself to speak.

  ‘Put your hands on your head. And face away.’

  Jenny took a few moments. The instructions weren’t sinking in straight away. She turned round and dropped to her knees. She faced the window. The sunlight was strong in her face. ‘Put your hands on your head.’ She could feel her own pulse pounding in her ears. She lifted her hands to the back of her head. She heard the man step closer and felt something solid on the back of her head, pushing firmly enough to nudge her head forward.

  ‘Please . . .’ she managed. There was so much more she wanted to say: how unfair this was; how she knew nothing at all about how she had got there; about how she had a daughter that she wanted to hold tight. Oh God, Isobel! What she wouldn’t do to hold her just one more time.

  ‘Please . . .’ she uttered again. Her chest was so tight that she struggled to take a breath. The object was pushed firmer into the back of her head. She knew it was the barrel of a gun. She hadn’t seen it; she had been too busy staring at the dark eyes peering out from the balaclava. But she knew.

  ‘Begging isn’t going to be enough, Jenny.’ His voice was closer to her ear. His mouth was so close she felt her hair move as he spoke. She screwed her eyes tightly shut and held in her breath. This was it. This was how it ended. She didn’t think it would hurt, she felt almost thankful for that.

  ‘Are you ready to die?’ The voice was a little further away; the barrel was now pressed hard enough to hurt. She rocked forward on her knees. He kept the pressure on her head. She felt a warmth and a dampness between her legs.

  ‘You remember how scared you feel. You remember that, you understand?’ The voice was back in her ear. She heard footfalls, they were moving away. She heard something bump against the wooden unit. She still leant forward, her eyes clamped shut. She didn’t know what was going on, she didn’t want to antagonise him.

  ‘You can get up.’

  The same man’s voice. He was much further away. Jenny dared to open her eyes. She stared down at the carpet and moved her head slightly to one side. She couldn’t see the man, couldn’t see anyone. She took in a rushed breath where it had been held for so long. ‘Why?’ It was all she could manage.

  ‘Why aren’t you dead?’ The man called out. ‘Because I don’t want you dead. You remember that. You do as you’re told and that might not change. Step out of line and I won’t hesitate. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’ She sobbed the word, her body slumped forward as the tension ran out of her.

  ‘Now, get up.’

  Jenny took her hands off her head. She put a palm flat on the ground and shifted her weight to stand. Her legs were numb and shaky, and she struggled to get to her feet, but then she stood straight, still facing away from where the man was.

  ‘You can turn around.’

  She turned slowly. The man sat back on the television unit. His hands were in his lap, his right hand held an evil-looking black pistol pointing casually towards the floor. He swung his legs like a sixth former in a common room. He’d taken his face covering off. She immediately snatched her head away.

  ‘I don’t want to! I don’t want to know who you are. I don’t care.’

  ‘Too late for that, Jenny. Now you’ve seen me.’

  ‘I haven’t — I mean, I didn’t.’

  ‘Come on, Jenny. Let’s not be silly. I need to know that you understand your position. I know you’ve had a rough couple of days. That wasn’t supposed to happen. You were supposed to be dead a long time ago. But you’re not. Unfortunately your death was in the hands of a bunch of amateurs who somehow thought real life should be more like a spaghetti western. You can’t roll up into a town and start shooting off guns — or, if you do, you need to make it count quickly and you need to get out. And yet, here you are.’

  ‘So you’re here to do it?’

  ‘I was. Plans change. Seems you’ve had yet another escape, Jenny. Seems you have another job besides dying.’

  ‘What? What could you possibly need from me?’

  ‘I don’t know too much, Jenny. I get paid to kill people. Taking people is not really my thing.’

  ‘So you’re kidnapping me?’

  ‘No. But you are coming with me and if you don’t then I will kill you. If you make a noise or a scene, I will kill you. If you try to escape from me, I will kill you. If you make me run, I will kill you twice. But you can change out of those wet trousers, use your shower, take what you want of your things. I assume that’s why you came back?’

  Jenny shrugged.

  ‘You came back for something.’

  ‘I had nowhere else to go.’

  ‘I’m very good at working out when people are lying, Jenny — no, that’s not right . . . I’m very good at making people bad at lying. I think it’s the gun, Jenny. What do you think? Do you think you could lie to this?’ He lifted the gun, pointed it directly down her line of sight. She stared back. The eyes beyond were cold.

  ‘No.’ She was aware she sounded weak. She didn’t care.

  ‘Get your shit together. You can shower and change. I don’t want to take you out like that. You’ll draw too much attention. You don’t have long.’

  The man lowered the gun. Jenny found she could breathe again. He moved to the bed and picked up the television remote. The television switched on. He suddenly turned to look at her.

  ‘Tick-tock,’ he said.

  Chapter 15

  ‘Andy, thanks for coming out,’ George said.

  ‘I don’t recall you giving me much of a choice, George.’ Andy McGuiness looked slimmer than George remembered. Slim enough to verge on unwell perhaps. His face was gaunt, his cheeks more sucked in, tighter against his cheekbones. He had bags under his eyes — eyes that looked red and tired.

  ‘There’s always a choice, Andy.’

  ‘I’ll definitely be remembering that the next time Emily Ryker phones me up and asks me to do her a favour.’

  ‘Ryker? She’s one of the best, Andy. If this force was full of Rykers I reckon the criminals would all up and leave.’

  ‘I get a source compromised — or worse — killed, George, and all our snouts will get up and leave. You have any idea how damaging that might be?’ Andy’s voice was a whisper but it was forceful and it carried genuine anger. He leaned back suddenly as someone walked past their table. It was a short man with slick, dark hair. He was gliding a mop over the tiled floor and he greeted both men with a smile and a ‘good morning’ in a heavy Eastern European accent.

  George had called Andy and asked to meet him. He had given him a choice: meet him at a motorway services on the outskirts of Canterbury or George’s next call would be to Andy’s sergeant, when he would request the information he needed via formal channels. The sergeant would know that Andy was giving out information against their strict protocols and he would immediately lose his place on the team — maybe worse. It wasn’t much of a choice, if George was honest, and Andy was right too: ultimately the protocols were in place to stop people getting killed.

  George had ordered them both a strong coffee. They sat at a table that was far enough from the counter. The rest were empty. There was a trickle of foot traffic already, but they were generally tradesmen joining the queue for McDonalds. All of them had their heads down, as was to be expected at 6 a.m. The cheerful man with the mop had moved far enough away.

  ‘The only dead person I’m concerned about is some pensioner lying in her own kitchen who answered her door to help somebody and got a shotgun emptied into her stomach for her trouble. I want the bastards that did that, Andy. I want them bad enough to fall out with Emily Ryker and to fall out with you too. But I don’t need to. I came here to explain why you should help. This is why you’re in the source unit. You and I both know there are plenty of serious crimes ou
t there — murders, rapes, robberies — that would go nowhere if it weren’t for you and your team. This is your opportunity to be the key part in putting another job to bed. I’ve been up and met the husband, Andy. Let me tell you, mate . . . this fella deserves us to bend a few rules.’

  Andy was already shaking his head. ‘I joined this unit because the hours are eight to four, Monday to Friday. Most weeks, at least. I joined this unit because I got serious health problems — serious enough that I couldn’t be doing the shift work no more. I couldn’t be out rolling around on the floor outside the nightclubs at 1 a.m. This job is perfect for me. I’ve really picked up. And I still get to do the job . . . I still get to work. I can’t lose my place on this team, George. Please don’t be a part of that.’

  ‘Andy, I need your help. Just a few words. I’m sensible, one thing I do know is how to keep people out of trouble—’

  ‘With respect, George, your reputation says different.’

  George laughed; he couldn’t help it. ‘Yeah, I suppose it might. So you’re just going to have to trust me on face value, Andy, and hope I don’t fuck it up.’

  ‘What do you need?’

  ‘The name of your source — so I can go and talk to him.’

  ‘No chance! I can’t be telling you who we’re talking to. You know that just as well as I do. And don’t think rank plays any part either. I’ve seen higher-ranking officers than you get smacked down trying to circumnavigate our processes. It doesn’t happen.’

  ‘I’m not here to pull rank, Andy. I know how far that would get me. Just hear me out. You can’t go and talk to this bloke because they want you focussed on this other job. So you give me the name and I go and talk to him. But, where you can just call him up and arrange a meet, I need to be a bit more creative. I’ll bump him on the street, get him to talk to me about what he knows without him knowing that I’ve spoken to you.’

  ‘How are you going to do that?’

  George didn’t know. He hadn’t thought that bit through yet. ‘It depends on who our friend is, Andy. There’s always an in. You can tell me a bit about him and we can come up with an idea from there.’

  Andy was back to shaking his head. ‘It won’t work, George. There’s no way. What are you suggesting? You start a casual conversation on the street and then suddenly ask if he knows anything about some shooting in the arse-end of nowhere that no one else knows a thing about? He’d see through that in a heartbeat.’

  George stroked his chin. ‘It will be tricky, Andy, I agree. But you have to trust that I can do it. I know you can’t visit him, because you’re tasked elsewhere and you couldn’t justify being out talking with him rather than where you should be. You could pick up the phone and ask him direct. That wouldn’t look out of place coming from you, would it?’

  ‘I told you . . . I can’t do that. There’s risks with asking too much over the phone. You never know who’s in the background, who he’s with or even if the voice is your source. We don’t conduct our business over the phone.’

  ‘You’re right. So all that’s left is for me to bump him in the street. Tell me his name and we can talk about a plan.’

  ‘I know what you’re doing, George. You’re backing me into a corner. You think I’ll decide the only option is for me to visit him. I can’t do that.’

  George took a few seconds to swig at his coffee. It was strong and bitter. ‘That is the only option though, right? I mean, when you think about it?’

  ‘Fuck’s sake, George! Look, I’ll see what I can do, okay? I’ve got your number now. I’ll let you know if I can get the time to call on him later.’

  ‘Now.’ George said. He gestured at Andy’s phone that was laid out on the table.

  ‘What do you mean now? It’s six in the morning!’

  ‘And you got a call at what? Half four? My guess is this guy’s a crackhead, or hard on the heroin for sure. So he wakes up with the sun in some hovel and he’s clucking for his score. He’s had your call and he knows a bit. Just enough that you might give him the twenty quid he needs for his hit. We both know he’s up now, probably waiting for a shop to open so he can go out with his foil-lined bag and start grafting for the day. Call him now.’

  ‘And offer him what? These people want their payment. Especially if he’s who you just described. He won’t give me anything unless I’m sat opposite with a wallet.’

  ‘I’ll drop the money in.’

  ‘This again! I told you, he can’t know I’ve spoken to anyone else! If he knows I’m telling people he’s a grass, even other coppers, he’ll walk. He gives good information. We’ve had results off the back of his intel. And if I lose him it’s a butterfly effect, he’s got at least two people linked to him who are in the same business, George, and who knows who else. Suddenly we lose a lot of snouts that are doing good work. They’re gonna know it started with me — the other handlers, I mean — and I’m back on nights. Or worse, I’m out of a job.’

  ‘Think, Andy! I don’t have to meet with someone to give them money. Be creative. I just need a door number and an envelope, right?’

  Andy downed his coffee. His face creased like he hadn’t exactly enjoyed the taste. ‘I don’t appreciate being put in this position, George. I don’t appreciate it at all.’

  ‘I don’t appreciate promising an elderly man that I will find the bastards who ended his sixty-two-year marriage by pulling a trigger, who sucked every ounce of joy out of his life in that one action, and then having to go back to him and tell him that I wasn’t able to do it because one of the other lads in the force is shit scared of having to buy a torch. I know you, Andy, I know you well enough to remember what you were like when you were uniform. You were my sort of bloke, a thief-taker. You hate these bastards just as much as I do. You might have forgotten it but, I promise, a minute with what’s left of Stanley Wingmore and it will all come rushing back. I’ve got to speak to Stan later today. I want to tell him that we’ve got some idea, because right now I’ve got none — none at all. Get on the phone to your snout. I need to know what he knows about who did this. I’ll be clever with the information. I’m getting good at making it look like I’ve stumbled over something I knew was there. You have to trust me, Andy.’

  ‘You’re still not giving me much of a choice, are you?’

  George did nothing to hide his frustration, it came out in a sort of growl. ‘Fine! You want a choice, Andy? I’ll give you a choice. I will walk out of here and I will crack on with my investigation as best I can. While the rest of the county’s resources are out looking for a gang who shot up a car in Dover, I will do what I can to find the people who went to Stan’s house and left his kitchen covered in his wife’s blood. I will look Stan in the eye and I will tell him that I’m doing all I can. And I will not make any trouble for you with your sergeant, with your team. No one will know that you offered some information to Emily outside of your processes. So that’s your first option. Your second option is that you make a phone call to your source. You find out what he knows by asking all the questions that you were saving for your face-to-face in a few days’ time. Then you call me. You give me an update and you tell me his address. I’ll drop off his payment — whatever you agree. I’ll handle that so it’s off the books. The choice is yours, Andy.’

  George stood up. He dropped a fiver on the table. Andy had been staring at his phone, as if hoping it might provide inspiration. He looked up at George. ‘I’m not being difficult, you know. I want to help.’

  ‘I believe that, Andy. I know you’re one of the good ones. And you can help. Right now, you’re all I’ve got. You have my number.’

  George made his way to the exit. He started his car and moved away. He turned off the main road into a housing estate as soon as he could and parked up. He didn’t want to risk Andy driving past him. He looked at the clock on the dash. The time was 06:40 hours. He would give it until 07:00. If he hadn’t heard anything by then he would have to start moving towards the police office where he knew the sour
ce team was based. He knew they started at 8 a.m. but that the sergeant was often there at least half an hour earlier. George could be there at the same time. He was going to threaten him the same way as he had hinted with Andy: that his whole team would be exposed if he didn’t allow Andy to make that visit. If all went well he would be away before the team arrived and the job could still be done under the radar. Who was he kidding? Once he entered that building, none of it would be under the radar — that much was for certain.

  George peered out of the window. The distant thump of a car door drew his attention. A man in a suit got into a saloon car over the road. Starting his daily commute, George thought. His phone pinged with a message. It was surely too soon to be from Andy. It was from Paul Bearn. I’ve picked up the daughter from the airport. We’re not far from the address. She’s keen to talk to you. Call me when you’re up. Sorry if this woke you!

  George went to staring back out of the window as the car with the suit moved off. ‘Woke me!’ George scoffed. It was good news though. Paul had done some sound work tracking down the daughter, who lived in Italy with her husband. She’d dropped everything to come home. If the daughter was sensible she could be a good conduit; they could start getting things done. George would try and get to see her this morning. This afternoon was his daughter’s birthday and nothing was important enough to get in the way of that.

  Three minutes to seven and George’s phone rang. George recognised the code — it was local.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘George.’

  ‘Andy? Thanks for calling.’

  ‘Don’t be too quick to thank me.’

  George grimaced. The call came through the speakers on George’s phone. He moved his hand to the car keys that hung from the ignition. ‘Okay, then. Andy, what are you thinking?’

  ‘We’ve got taskings on our email already. I’ve just checked on my secure phone. They’ve got us out on meetings from the off — they’re all for this other job. I can’t get to talk to your man.’