You Think You Know Someone

by J B Holman

  SO15 Books

  First published in Great Britain by SO15 Books

  Copyright © 2019 J.B. Holman

  This paperback edition 2019

  1

  J. B. Holman asserts the moral right to

  be identified as the author of this work.

  A catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 9781916064515 (E-book format)

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

  The names, characters, and incidents portrayed in it are the work of author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  For more information visit www.so15books.co.uk

  CHAPTER ZERO

  Two bullets whistled through the air.

  Darkness had fallen. The rain was light, the breeze negligible, he lay on the roof, fifteen storeys up, motionless. Intent. Ten seconds earlier, he had focused on the back door of London’s top five-star hotel, just visible between the tall buildings, 1,247 metres away.

  He aimed and he waited.

  The door opened, the security light clicked on, the target was illuminated. He squinted through the telescope; sniper and gun became one.

  The Prime Minister had avoided the front door - no time for demonstrators or photo-journalists tonight. He strode out onto the wide marble step and stood vulnerable to the night.

  Sheltering from the drizzle, he waited for the car door to be opened and breathed in the fresh cold air.

  Target locked, aim secured, the highly trained finger pressed firmly against the precision-engineered trigger. Two bullets whistled through the air.

  Job done.

  Two years earlier, in a small provincial town, Julie Connor sat alone on her sofa and cried. Her book fell limp in her hands, tears blurred the words. She felt the hurt.

  ‘Why do you do that?’ she said quietly to the men in her book.

  ‘Why?’ she said to the men in her life.

  Her sighs filled the emptiness. She read on, sobbing painful raw emotion across Thomas Hardy’s penultimate page. Tess of the d’Urbervilles had been a bad choice. She rested her eyes remorsefully on the unrepentant words, as ever, a reluctant victim, before flicking to the final page. ‘I’m through with men.’ Her thoughts mingled with her reading. ‘I don’t need you, any of you, not now, not ever. Not again.’ Hardy’s final words flowed hesitantly across her eyes. Heartbreak flowed unceasingly across her mind.

  She looked up; her gaze resting on his picture. He was smiling. She was not.

  It was quiet, deathly quiet.

  The flat felt uncommonly silent, eerily empty. She wondered if empty was better than hurt. She rubbed her bruises, nursed her cuts and winced. Her eyes slid down the last page, cautiously, slowly, delaying the inevitable end. That had too often been her habit: cautiously and slowly delaying the inevitable end. She read on until there were no more words to read.

  Her exhalation was as deep as her sorrow as she closed the book as gently as she would the lid of a coffin. She placed Tess carefully on the floor beside her, dropped her head in her hands and wept.

  ‘I can do this,’ she said, with all the conviction she wished she had. ‘I can do this.’

  ‘Can’t I?’

  1

  Brighton Lanes

  ‘I’m Peter Jones’

  ‘And I’m Amanda May Hewitt.’

  ‘We will be presenting News Today at the top of the hour. Stay with us to hear the latest on the Prime Minister Shooting – we have new developments.’

  ‘Brexit – negotiations continue as we look at a profile of the Deputy Prime Minister as leader of the country.’

  ‘And how what your grandparents did in World War II affects this year’s population census.’

  ‘All that and much more’

  ‘Join us in fifteen minutes.’

  The television in the Ploughman’s Bar on Saltash Street spoke quietly, as students shared earnest conversation about the way the world should be, elderly tourists dithered over crumpled maps in dog-eared guide books and the locals hunkered down at their favoured tables in their favourite corners and let the world spin by.

  Half a mile away, Sam Stone stood in the shadows of a disused doorway, watching the world wind its way through the bustling historic Brighton Lanes. Passers-by twisted and turned down the cobbled paths, past trendy cafés that emitted smells of coffee and all things organic, and past bars that exuded jazz and bearded men. This was the centre of Brighton’s old town.

  Brighton Lanes was bohemian, a haven from the world outside, a place to lose yourself in creative shops and quaint coffee corners, designer jewellery and contemporary art, alternative therapies, independent boutiques, buskers, bric-a-brac, burlesque, embroidery and bars. It was night, but the darkness was dazed by a rainbow of mellow lights from shop windows, candle-lit tables and street performers. He stood in the doorway and watched. It was time.

  Slipping his six foot four frame into the gentle flow of passing people, he melded in, unobtrusive, unobserved - just as he had been trained. He walked and watched. He liked Brighton. It was eclectic. Young couples on first dates snuggling past pairs of senior citizens holding hands as they strolled through the night air. Men walked along hand in hand, women kissed each other romantically in the corners of bars. It was a world of mixed cultures, mixed race, mixed ages, and a mix of a myriad proclivities mingling harmoniously in a microcosm of a perfect Britain. This is what he’d fought for. This is what his friends had died for - the right to have a country of simplicity and peace, where old mixed with young, straight with gay, affluence with alternative, money with mad-eyed moon-shadow dream catchers: all safe, happy, harmonious. And that is how he needed to keep it.

  He was no longer Special Forces, not even military, but his values lived on. Justice was what mattered more than anything. Anyone who threatened that was an enemy of the State and by definition, an enemy of his.

  He made his way along alleys, through twisting twittens and cut through cobbled cat-creeps, across the uneven paving of eighteenth-century pavements. He stuck to the dark side of the street. A posse of laughing students passed him by; two boys, three girls, two with too much make up and one with glasses. One boy was five foot ten, the other six foot, but harmless, all intent on enjoying the night. The lane split ahead of him. At the end of the left fork, two policemen stood talking. Two policemen so close together was a rare sight in Brighton. He took the right fork, passed a man with a well-trimmed moustache and a lady dressed in Chanel and a hurry. He weaved his way past a pub that over-spilled its walls with happy cackling customers; he smelt Benson and Hedges Light and a menthol brand he didn’t recognise. He took a left down Lovett’s Lane and a right up Market Meddles, the crowds thinning now as he headed for the main road and the edge of the Lanes.

  He spun round, ahead of him he saw the silhouette of an armed policeman, gun clearly visible, a sight never seen in Brighton. He retraced his steps. Tonight was not a night for fronting out an officer of the law. He kept his profile low, as he sloped his way up the slopes of Moran’s Rise towards the top of the Lanes. He passed Finnegan’s Whiskey World and took a left down Little Lane. There was no one now. Ten seconds later, he emerged onto the main road.

  He stopped on the corner, leant against the wall as
if checking his phone and peered nonchalantly to his right and left. To his left, there was a police car fifty yards down the road, the occupants pre-occupied by a bevy of mini-skirts filled with smiles and bosoms; to his right, nothing but darkness, street lights and parked cars. He put his phone in his pocket ready to cross the road, but froze into the darkness as he heard the clicking clacking of high heeled shoes to his left. A lady had come from nowhere and was walking up the road towards him. He snuck back into the shadows, waited and watched. She was elegant and tall, statuesque as she strode towards his place of hiding. Her blonde hair, a wig maybe, glinted as it swayed in the reflection of shop lights. Green ruffled dress, false nails on long fingers gripping a large holdall bag; stockings, high heels and confidence strutted past him as she walked on up the hill towards the darkness, round the corner and out of sight. He checked again. He was alone.

  He crossed the road, invisible to the world, left the Lanes and lightly sprang up the long steps that headed to the south end of Saltash Street.

  He could see his Vauxhall Astra, but hesitated: the lights of the Ploughman’s Bar beckoned him in. He needed a drink, another drink; not to calm his nerves, but to steel them. He took a stool at the end of the bar.

  ‘Now it’s time to join Peter Jones and Amanda May Hewitt in the Newsroom.’ As the familiar theme tune played, he caught the barman’s eye.

  ‘Whiskey, a double. That one, the Finnegan’s. And a beer, please mate.’

  ‘Tonight’s top story. The London sniper and the shooting dead of . . .’

  ‘And can you change the channel, mate? I think we’re all sick of the Prime Minister story. They don’t know anything and haven’t got anything new to say.’

  ‘No,’ piped up one of the students, ‘they say there are new developments. We want to listen.’ Sam Stone let it pass, shook his head and sipped the head off his beer.

  ‘We heard an hour ago that the police have the name of a man they want to interview in connection with yesterday’s shooting. An inside source said they know the identity of the suspect, but are not in a position to release it to the public. However, the focus of the search has turned to Brighton, where they believe the suspect is in hiding. The public are asked to be cautious and not to approach anyone suspicious, but to come forward if they have any information.’

  ‘See!’ said the student as he turned to speak to the man at the end of the bar. ‘I told you there were new developments.’ But, all he saw was a solitary bar stool, an undrunk beer and an empty whiskey glass.

  The man had gone.

  Sam Stone turned the key in the ignition, put the Vauxhall Astra into gear and gently pressed the throttle. His foot was steady, but his head was light. The whiskey, on top of the earlier ones, told him that driving was not a good idea. He took a left at the top of the road, drove another hundred yards, caught a glimpse, stopped by the kerb just before Five Ways Circus and smiled.

  The blonde with the green ruffled dress and the confident stride was walking down the other side of the road, less confident now, less sure-footed, less strident. He waited and watched as she approached, hobbling, heel broken. He turned to look. Her whole gait had changed. Hip-swinging had been abandoned for a clunky clumping sexless stomp. Was it shadow of the night or was that mud up the length of her dress? Was she alright? The tall one-shoed figure drew closer. The walk was solid, the walk was unmistakable - the walk was a man. She was a he and he was struggling in a single high heel. Brighton, god bless you.

  She approached a lamp post and leant on it, took off her blonde wig and stashed it in the holdall she was carrying. She had definitely fallen - or been pushed. Even Brighton had bigots. She stomped on, up to Five Ways Circus, ignored the sarcastic wolf whistles from the pub opposite and crossed the road, temporarily out of sight.

  A man, mean faced, muscular and tattooed, put down his drink on the pavement and nudged the reprobate next to him. Nods of covert hostility and the malice of shared glances indicated immoral intention. Sam read the situation, stood behind his open car door and looked directly at the roughage of men. His six foot four was a warning of caution.

  A short sharp whistle summoned a third man with similar tattoos and short, shaven hair. He looked across the road, saw the transvestite stumbling in a dress, then turned to see Sam standing by his car. He caught Sam’s eye, almost deliberately. His face said, ‘Not your business, back down.’ Sam stood there. He was a warning; a warning that was being ignored.

  The transvestite came into view across the Circus. She had not turned left, as Sam thought she might, nor had she gone straight, along North Brighton Road. She was heading for the fifth way, the alley, the lane. It was Raper’s Hide, a wide cobbled walkway, a spur that had grown north out of the Lanes, but there were no shops, no bars, no cafés, no anything. It was bordered on one side by the bleak black back of a big hotel and on the other by the hill and the tall walls of various warehouses and council storage buildings. It was wide enough for a horse and cart and lit by the original gas lights. It slowly swung its way round through twists and curves to duck down under the North Brighton Road and eventually to join the top end of the Lanes. It was a shortcut to nowhere and made little or no sense as a route to anywhere. The transvestite entered blindly to be enveloped by the gas-lit darkness.

  The third man ducked into a pub-side alleyway and emerged a moment later with a shaft of wood. He joined the other two, heading with increasing hostility across the road. They looked around, straight at the Astra. A taunting, single digit was raised to Sam in defiance, before they dived headlong into the darkness. Sam’s whiskey head gave him a spin. He made a long slow blink and sat back into the Astra. Leave it, he said to himself. Walk away. Keep a low profile, keep out of trouble, especially tonight. But he couldn’t. He knew it was a bad decision; Fuck it! Not on my watch. It was the look the guy had given him, it was the finger; he was hooked into it. He clicked the engine into life, drove across Five Ways Circus, heading for the darkness of Raper’s Hide, but pillars prevented vehicular access. He yanked the car up on the pavement, leapt out and ran into the dimly lit alley. There was no one.

  Then he heard it, the sounds of menace. He ran full tilt ahead of him, down the alley, past the dim streetlights, past the railings high to his left, past the smell of hotel detritus to the right and round the first bend. It was about to kick off. The three guys, heavy, menacing and muscular formed a semi-circle of aggression in a stance of impending attack. The transvestite did not run away, she was running towards them, arms flailing. A whack of the stick just missed her, a warning of what was to come. She tripped over her own heel and slithered across the cobbles.

  ‘We’re taking you down, Lady-boy,’ said one. Two fists and a fence post approached the petrified transvestite who was scrabbling to her feet. It was now or never. The guys were tough, they were serious. Sam sensed the danger.

  ‘Hello darling,’ he shouted, raised to his full six foot four. ‘Are these men friends of yours?’

  ‘Fuck off, mate! Not your business,’ spat one of them.

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘Your choice,’ said the man with the pickaxe handle, as he swung it violently at Sam’s head.

  Sam was fast and agile. He grabbed the wooden shaft, moved into the attack and the man was down. Two punches later, he was out. Sam advanced on the two threats remaining. Fists flew. Sam’s knuckles connected hard and fast on the face of one, as the fist of the other caught Sam’s lip. Blood spattered the nearby wall. Sam went in hard. More punches added to the mess of blood and teeth that teetered backwards in front of him. A body blow and a final punch and the second man went down.

  The third stood and faced him. A knife, glinting in the half-light was thrust hard towards Sam’s abdomen. Sam’s instincts kicked in, martial arts took over. The knife flew free, the man’s arm snapped, his body flew through the air, then landed crumpled and broken against the wall. He groaned, slipped down and moaned, motionless.

  Sam span round to check for thre
at. There was none. He had won.

  ‘You don’t mess, with the SAS!’ he said, more to himself than anyone else. He turned to the quaking victim, ‘You alright?’

  ‘Umm. I . . . you . . . er . . .’

  ‘Get your bag. We gotta go. Where you heading?’

  ‘The station. London.’

  ‘I’ll give you a lift.’ She just stood there. ‘Come. Quick. Get your bag. We’ve got to get out of here before these gay-bashing bastards wake up.’

  ‘Yes, sorry,’ she said, retuning into reality. ‘I’m with you.’ She turned her back on Sam as she rounded the corner, to emerge twenty seconds later with her bag. Sam was walking away, towards the car, looking for the knife. He found it, picked it up and kept on walking, When he turned, he saw the transvestite way back, standing by the motionless bashed up gay-bashing bastards. She saw her saviour look back and she spat on her assailants.

  ‘Coming,’ she said, as she hurriedly hobbled awkwardly, heel broken, in apparent shock. Sam waited. The two of them faced each other, but before either could speak, a voice broke out above their heads.

  ‘I saw what you did.’ It was the benign and croaking voice of an elderly, dog-walking lady. Her face peered over the railings twelve feet above them and the head of a Scottish Terrier peered out by her feet.

  ‘Scruffy! Get back here, I don’t want you to fall,’ she commanded. ‘You were very brave. If you need a witness, just ask. I live round the corner, 64 Primrose Hill Road. I’m always in, except twice a day out with Scruffy and church on Sunday, asking for forgiveness. People like that don’t deserve forgiveness. If anyone asks, I’ll tell them.’

  ‘Er yes, thank you madam, very kind. Thank you.’