Black by Rose

by Andrew Barrett

  She nodded, “It’s true.”

  Slade bit down hard on his lower lip. “You saying he killed his own brother?”

  She looked at him, not daring to speak.

  “Why would he kill his own brother?” Slade’s eyes left her and they stared out of the windscreen into nothing at first, just drifted as though searching for an answer. And then they settled on Tyler standing by the entrance smoking a cigarette, keeping an eye on the traffic. “This is true?”

  “Yes.”

  “No way it could be falsified, like you did with the bedroom carpet blood?”

  “It hasn’t been tampered with. And I’ve nothing to gain by lying to you.”

  Slade closed his dampened eyes, and eventually he said, “Go.” The car rocked slightly as she got out and there was a muffled thud as she gently closed the door. Then he heard her drive away. When he opened his eyes again, the tears fell.

  But the sorrow didn’t last long. The anger came pretty quickly.

  * * *

  Sophie used her elbow to smash one of the small panes in the rear door. Most of the glass fell onto a bristle mat just inside the door, and the back garden was secluded, shielded from view by a six-foot fence, sounds well muffled by the shrubs and the trees that grew nearby. She waited for a minute or two just to make sure no one had overheard.

  No one had, it seemed, so she pulled the cuff of her woollen sweater from beneath the leather jacket, and down over her fingers, then reached inside and unlatched the Yale lock.

  * * *

  Five minutes after Slade left the house, Jagger opened the gates and the police rolled in. They came in vans. Nine of them. Forty police officers, sniffer dogs, OSU search teams, CSIs and divisional detectives all commandeered by Crime Division to conduct a thorough and detailed search of The Grange, the staff quarters and the surrounding outbuildings, and any vehicles found on site. Armed officers gave initial protection to method of entry officers and when the house was cleared, they took up position at the gates.

  X99 floated overhead, and spotters circulated the neighbourhood, keeping an eye out for erratic behaviour and signs of impending trouble.

  Jagger didn’t anticipate Slade being back any time soon. And that was good, because war would break out if he did. All this had begun with a hurried phone call to the Divisional Commander this morning at 0430 hours from Cooper – shortly after Eddie Collins woke up in a Harrogate hospital and began talking to Jagger. And then there was a face-to-face meeting at 0700 at Killingbeck Police Station.

  It had been hurriedly concocted, hastily brought together, and all those gathered under the operational name Domino had been on standby two miles away for the last three hours.

  Units had been placed at the ends of the road which ran past Slade’s house, and at all junctions in between. Each unit had pictures of all nominals connected with the Crosbys, and all the units were allotted an operational channel to communicate with each other directly, or exclusively with a control room staffed by three, and watched over by a Silver Commander.

  From a shaded balcony across the street, a young woman took pictures of all the activity and made audio notes into a recorder. Her name was Kelly Moran, and a man called Eddie Collins had rung her earlier with an address that, he said, might be of very great interest to her, providing she could secure a decent vantage point.

  Other units were also deployed to a café called Fat Sam’s, known to be owned by Crosby, and fourteen tenement flats in some of the newer apartment blocks in the city centre. Over the course of the day, eleven disused properties were raided; six of them turned out to be fully-fledged cannabis farms, two were crack houses producing methamphetamines, and a further two were inhabited by women and girls of all nationalities in makeshift brothels. Another address in south Leeds yielded Slade’s fraudulent passport business, complete with the 150 superbly forged passports that Jagger had collected from Scarborough.

  Further, smaller scale raids occurred simultaneously at sixteen addresses through Leeds and Bradford, but this was the biggy, this was the kingpin. When Slade Crosby fell – they would all fall.

  They hadn’t found them yet, but over the course of the next two days, search teams would find detailed records of his protection rackets, contacts at various ports around the UK; names and interests of junior and senior politicians, even references to police officers.

  * * *

  “Can’t you drive any fucking faster?”

  Benson scowled at him. “I could, but what’s the point in rushing?”

  “What’s the point? The point is, dipshit, Lisa Westmoreland ruined evidence against the son of a Leeds gang lord. Until you have that evidence, you can’t charge him with killing one of your men! Oh, and his wife. But if you’re—”

  “I know that, but the lab’ll be closing soon, and he ain’t going anywhere is he?”

  “—not interested then just drop me at the nearest bingo hall.”

  “Very fucking funny.”

  “I put my neck on the line for you lot; I was inches away from being dead, and you’re worried about a speeding ticket. And would you rather he was charged just for killing his brother, or for killing a police officer?”

  “Okay, okay.”

  “Pity we can’t hang him twice really.”

  Eddie said, “And there’s something more important, too.”

  “What?”

  “You buried the poor bastard with everyone still thinking he killed his wife and topped himself. You need to put that right urgently. Think of his family.”

  The car went quiet for a few minutes following that little revelation. Of course it was something that each of them knew, but it was good to have it refreshed, and said out loud.

  From the back seat, Cooper said, “He’s right, Tom, get your foot down. If Eddie can get anything from Tony’s scene, I want it dealt with now, the lab techs and scientists can work overnight if needs be. Domino is running and the last thing I want is loose ends flapping in the breeze. I should be in the control room now, not fucking about with you.”

  “Boss,” sighed Benson.

  “And when we get to MCU, I want you to find Westmoreland.”

  “I thought you lot always swabbed everything anyway. You said there was only one spot of blood.”

  Eddie ignored him, took out his phone and searched for Ros’s number, then pressed ‘dial’. All he got was five rings and then a recorded message. He searched for her house number and tried that. All he got was constant ringing, not even an answerphone.

  “Who you ringing?”

  “Trying to get hold of Ros. She still thinks I’m dead, remember?”

  “I’ll let her know,” Benson said. “She’ll be in the office.”

  They arrived at MCU and the gate rolled slowly, achingly slowly, back. Eddie noticed a wing mirror near the gatepost and chuckled to himself. No sooner had Benson stopped the car, than Eddie climbed out, wincing at the pain in his ribs from the kicking Crosby’s crew had given him.

  He limped to his van, and was back at the gate before it had time to begin closing. Cooper followed in his car.

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  — One —

  “Where to?”

  Slade stared across at Tyler as the car moved along. He said nothing for a long time, he just stared. He was thinking about his son as a boy. Not so long ago really. And what tugged at his mind in the way an often used memory will, was a time when Slade and Maureen, Tyler and Blake were in Cornwall on one of the very few family holidays they’d ever had – Rachel had elected to stay at a friend’s house.

  Part of the reason it stuck in his mind was because it was the first time Tyler had ever sworn at him. He’d be about twelve or thirteen years old. Maureen wouldn’t permit the kids to swear, not until they were sixteen, she said – and even then, never in front of her. It was a stupid rule, because he and Maureen frequently swore. They can know the words, she’d said, but while ever they’re under my roof or under my care, or in my company, the
y will not use them.

  But Tyler had. And this was his first time.

  Slade had bought Blake and Tyler a mobile phone each. Funny how when you go on holiday you have to browse the same shops as you would back home. And even funnier is the mentality that you can spend more while on holiday. Anyway, he’d bought them a phone each. Nokias, he thought they were. Except Tyler’s didn’t work. Blake’s was fine, but Tyler’s wouldn’t even switch on.

  They had a fight and Slade had got between them and given them both a good clout around the ear. Blake had cried, as he always did – and really, he hadn’t deserved it – but Tyler had flown into a rage and screamed at Blake and his dad, called him a bastard and one or two other choice words. So Slade thumped him on the chin, nothing too hard, just a reminder of who was boss. That had made Tyler cry. And it made him furious too, shouting and screaming that he always got worse treatment than Blake, that Blake was the favourite, that he could do no wrong, while Tyler always had the shit kicked out of him. Soon after that, Tyler called his brother Blake-the-Snake. And that name stuck for months.

  “What you grinning at?”

  Slade looked at his son. And he found that he was indeed smiling. Memories did that to you too. “Head out to Garforth.”

  “Garforth? What’s in Garforth?”

  “I was remembering Blake-the-Snake,” he said. “You remember that?”

  Tyler nodded, saw the beam on his dad’s face and smiled too. “Yeah, he was though,” and he laughed.

  “And then—” Slade’s phone rang, spoiling the moment, and it brought him back to now. Not a pleasant place to be, especially after the memories he’d allowed himself to see. First time in a long time. He took out the phone, “Where the fuck have you been?”

  “Chief, it’s me.”

  Slade sighed. “I know it’s you, Monty. Where are you?”

  “I’m with Shack, chief. Remember the names we got off that copper fella, Pearson; the undercover coppers? They’re here! We found ’em, chief!”

  “What, all three of them?”

  “Nah. Two of ’em, though.”

  Slade thought about this. They have two of them; I can make that a flush. “Where are you now?”

  “Woodhead’s scrapyard. Off Pontefract Lane in Hunslet.”

  “Right. Gimme an hour.” Slade pressed end and put the phone away. And then he said to Tyler, “Take a left here, here now!”

  “Okay!” Tyler swung the car off the road, and it bounced onto a rutted track, still slick from the earlier rain. The track appeared to go nowhere, disappeared around a bend. “What we doing here?”

  “Just drive. Slowly!” And then he was back in Cornwall, being called a bastard by Tyler. Good days. But they got worse. Tyler had swapped phones with Blake and World War Three had broken out. Slade took his belt off and gave Tyler’s bare legs three of the finest wallops he’d ever handed out. They’d left marks so vivid you’d have thought he’d sat on a freshly painted bench. The boy had screamed for hours, and then the screaming died down a bit and the ranting began, the pleading of innocence, the blame, the finger pointing at Blake, and then the tears. ‘Why won’t you believe me?’ It went on for hours. “Here,” Slade said, “Pull up here.”

  Tyler rolled the car to a gentle stop. They were half a mile away, maybe more, from the road. The place was immersed in silence; only an occasional bubble of birdsong interrupted it. Perhaps it didn’t interrupt it, merely added to it, an enhancement, Maureen would have said.

  “Dad, what the hell are we doing here?”

  “Turn the engine off and get out. I want to show you something.”

  Once outside the car, Slade said, “You ever been told you never had time to stop and smell the roses?”

  “I’ve heard it before. But I’m not interested in flowers.”

  Slade looked at him for a moment, and then it dawned on him; Tyler hadn’t a fucking clue what he was talking about. “We’re having five minutes,” he said. “Five minutes of father-son time; five minutes out of the rat race just to … chill out.”

  “Cool.”

  “Come on, wanna show you the stream.”

  It took them almost ten minutes to walk the 200 yards away from the car. They stood at the top of the banking, Slade favouring his bad leg, and breathing heavily. The stream ran, heavy with recent rainfall, twenty-five yards away. Its sound was hypnotic enough to induce a trance-like state, and Slade allowed himself a moment of clear meditation. That’s what he called it anyway. He closed his eyes and the rippling water reminded him of Cornwall again. Absently, he wondered why he couldn’t get Cornwall out of his damned mind. And that brought his trance to an abrupt end.

  To the right, another thirty or forty yards away, was a great old oak tree. “Recognise this place?”

  Tyler shrugged. “Nope.”

  “Not even that tree?”

  “Should I?”

  “I thought you would, yes. This is where Blake brings his… used to bring his ‘girlfriends’.”

  “Where he raped women, you mean.”

  “Precisely. To my knowledge he brought two of them here. The first he managed to walk away from; we even got him off the charge when she got the police involved.”

  “Yeah, the copper woman.”

  “That’s right. The copper woman.” Slade shifted his stick to his other hand and reached inside his jacket for a folded sheet of paper. “The second one though, he didn’t walk away from.”

  Tyler stared blankly at his father.

  “That’s where he died,” he nodded to a spot below the oak tree, “just down there.”

  “This place gives me the creeps.”

  “Still don’t recognise it?”

  “I already said.”

  “Alright, alright.” He held out the paper. “Read this then.”

  Tyler reached out and took the paper, but his eyes stayed on his father, a confused look in them. “What’s this?”

  “Read the fucker and find out.”

  Tyler unfolded it, turned it the right way up and began reading. The bewilderment grew on his face.

  “Check out the line that begins with ‘Exhibit EC8’.”

  Slade watched Tyler’s face change from incomprehension, to understanding, stopping off at fear and disbelief on the way.

  “What is this shit?”

  “That shit is proof that you killed your brother.”

  “Are you serious?”

  Slade didn’t answer.

  “Come on, Dad. It’s a fucking lie. It’s a piece of paper, means shit.”

  “You look me in the eye and tell me you didn’t drop a rock on your brother’s head from that fucking tree over there.”

  “I didn’t… what’s it mean, ‘swab of red stain’?”

  “Red stain. Red stain – that’s blood, you prick! Your blood! They found it on a branch up that bastard tree!” Spittle flew from Slade’s screaming mouth.

  “I didn’t! Dad, you have to believe me, I never killed Blake! I can’t believe you think I killed my own brother!”

  “You wanted my empire. You hated him rapin’ women; you always thought he was a danger to your future.”

  “Bollocks!”

  Slade calmly took the gun from his inside jacket pocket.

  “Dad. Wait, wait, Dad. Don’t do anything stupid.”

  Slade looked up at that.

  “Wait, I didn’t mean… I can’t believe you’d take their fucking word over mine!” The veins on the side of his neck stood out, and his face glowed red; desperation now hunched him over in a submissive posture towards his father, hands out, pleading. “Dad you have to believe me I wouldn’t kill Blake I loved him Dad don’t do this!”

  Slade aimed and pulled the trigger.

  The echo took but a fraction of a second to disperse. Tyler still stood even after it had. But not for long, and then, momentum slowly won the battle and it toppled him backwards onto the banking. He collided with a tree root and landed with half of his face in a bunch of net
tles. And the peacefulness came back. No birdsong however, just trickling water from the stream and a clear silence.

  Slade bent and retrieved the paper, took Tyler’s wallet and the car keys. He slid the gun inside his jacket pocket, took hold of his stick and began walking back to the car.

  Ten minutes later, he rested against the still warm bonnet of Tyler’s BMW and smoked a cigarette. “Now who gets your empire, Slade?” he whispered.

  After he smoked the cigarette, he flicked it away and lit another, and then he took out his phone and called Jagger. “Come pick me up,” then gave directions and hung up.

  It was almost over now. Just one crooked piece of the jigsaw remained, and its name was Jagger. Soon, the puzzle would be complete. Slade smiled to himself as again his mind wandered back to Cornwall, and how, as it turned out, Blake had swapped the phones over just so Tyler would get the belt. All Tyler’s pleading and crying had been genuine after all. Slade suddenly stopped smiling.

  — Two —

  Eddie wasn’t sure, but he thought Tyler had done a pretty decent job up till now of evading the ‘thou shalt not’ parts of English Law. He’d done a pretty thorough job of getting others to do the risky things for him, the things that would see them caught. He also seemed to have done a reasonable job of leaving no fingerprints or DNA at any of the robberies or beatings Eddie had heard about. Except Charlie’s of course. But what was that? Burglary. Whoopee.

  He pulled into the cul-de-sac up in Alwoodley fourteen-and-a-half minutes after setting off from MCU, closely followed by Cooper, thankful not to have been stopped for speeding. Cooper met him at the side of the van. “Did you bring the house keys?”

  “Still in the van from last time,” he winked, “I forgot to put them back.”

  “We still need to follow protocol, Eddie. No point if—”

  “Stop whining and grab the camera.”

  * * *

  Eddie turned off the CPS alarm and turned on the lights. It was cold in here; had a weird atmosphere that he refused to put down to anything other than the house now being empty; no one opening windows, letting in fresh air. That’s all it was.