by Dave Lacey
“You have a very low opinion of me, my friend. So, he didn’t have it with him, and it wasn’t anywhere we could see in the flat.”
“No. Could the watcher have taken it?”
“Maybe, but why?”
“Hmm, possibly because their identity was contained within it?”
“Well if that was the case, who called his main number from the payphone just before he croaked?”
“I don’t know, I’m just throwing my out thoughts here. I’m going to head back to the office now. Be a good boy and put some coffee on.”
Chapter 9
The phone rang three times before it was answered. “Hello?” The familiar, but still out of place, accent.
“It’s Clarence. I’m at the house.”
“Good. Is she there?”
“Yes. How do you want this to happen?”
“It needs to be an accident – no mistakes. We still have to be careful how we go about all this.” The accent leant an air of respectability to what was otherwise a callous conversation.
“I understand, but please remember I wasn’t part of the other one.”
“I do remember. I am just making a point.”
“Do you need to know how it will happen?”
“Not at all, as long as it is done well.”
“You’ve made your point, sir. I’ve been asked to come in and help tidy things up. That’s what I do well.”
“Very good. Please call me again when it is done.”
“Certainly.” Clarence hung up.
He didn’t know why the woman was going to have an untimely accident, and, if he was honest, he didn’t care. He hardly ever knew the reason he was called in to carry out a job, and it was one of the reasons he always had work. He wasn’t curious, so he never learned things that could get him into trouble. It was a simple rule, but it stood him in good stead.
The rain, which seemed to have been falling for all time, continued to hammer the leaves all around him and soak into his dark clothing. He was in an oak tree behind the woman’s property, and had been there for the last six hours. His training had taught him the importance of patience, to wait and be still. It had been dark when he had climbed the tree, still early in the morning with nobody to see him do it.
The woman had risen early, made breakfast for her husband and herself, and had then seen the husband off to work with a kiss. She started to clean the house, working her way down from the upstairs, until she finished with the kitchen. Then another man had called round, her lover it seemed, under some pretext. They had had sex for around one hour, and then the man had left.
She had made herself some tea. Clarence had considered waiting until she went out for a trip to the shops. An ‘accident’ in which he had to swerve, and in so doing mount the pavement and hit her. That had been his first plan, but it didn’t sit right. He would have to think of something else. And he had been considering something else, when it struck him.
At some point before her husband got home, she would need to take a shower. That was it – she was going to have a fall in the shower. Bingo. If he was really lucky, the woman would wait until it was dark before having her shower; that way it would be easier for him to remain unseen. The husband would not be home until well after dark, so the chances were good. Any guilt he might have felt, and hand on heart he didn’t identify with that emotion very much, was assuaged by the fact that she was a whore and was cheating on her husband. Clarence was not an avenging angel by any means; he knew exactly why he felt the way he did.
It was for no reason other than the fact that his mother had done the same the thing thirty years ago to his father and little Clarence. He was fully aware of the fact that he was no longer little Clarence, and that as such his feelings on the subject were not entirely normal. But he really didn’t care. He was, and had been for some time, a ruthless killer, whether clothed in the uniform of his country or swathed in the black outfit he now wore in his new role. That was the reason he was here, and that was the reason the woman was going to die, not because of what his mother had done. Still, here he was, and it was just a matter of time before she gave him his opportunity. One hour and thirty minutes later, she did just that.
Chapter 10
“You make terrible coffee,” Jack observed drily.
“You’ve said that before, yet you still ask me to make it. That’s really close to the definition of insanity, doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.” Smithy sipped his coffee, closing his eyes with a hint of superiority.
“Okay, so what next?”
“We need to establish if Ngwenye has another phone don’t we?”
“I believe we do, yes, and if all else fails we can call all of the providers and get a search done on his name. I can’t imagine there are too many Alphonse Ngwenye’s in the country.”
“Okay, but it would be better to find the phone so we have the names and numbers connected up.”
“Agreed, so…” A thought struck him. “Wait. Bastard! His car.”
“What?”
“His car, Alphonse’s car. We haven’t checked out whether he has a car. And if he does, I bet the phone will be in the car!”
Smithy already had his phone in his hand. After ten minutes and three phone calls, he discovered that Alphonse Ngwenye did indeed have a car, a BMW 3 series convertible.
“His keys will have been with his body. I can’t believe we never saw them before!” Jack lamented. “Some coppers we are.”
“Doesn’t matter now. Let’s just get over there and find it. I would think, and hope, that it’s still in the apartment car parking space. Assuming he has one.”
They gathered their coats and headed for the lift. On the way out of the building they swung by to check out Alphonse’s effects. The keys were there, and there was a very new BMW key fob there too.
Twenty minutes later, Jack and Smithy arrived at the relatively new Beetham Tower apartment block on Deansgate. They flashed badges and soon gained access to the underground car park. It was a big space, but at this time of the day it was only a third full. Beetham Tower was one of the most prestigious developments in Manchester, and as such the car park was equally impressive. There was no shortage of Maserati’s, Ferraris, Lamborghinis, Bentleys and of course BMWs and Mercedes Benz. The second BMW convertible they came across turned out to be the one that fit the glass slipper. Smithy hit the unlock button and the alarm disabled to a symphony of hazard lights and horn chirping. It didn’t take very long to find the phone; it was in the glove compartment.
“Well, here goes.” Smithy held down the home button on the front of the iPhone. Nothing.
“Try the button on the top. Hold it in for a few seconds until the apple appears on the screen.”
“Yup, that’s got it. There isn’t much charge on it, though,” Smithy mused.
It had only been switched on for seconds before text messages started to land.
Were r u?
Then:
I will w8 up till I know u r ok?
Then:
Getting worried now?
Different number:
Ur a prick alfie, im glad we not together n e more
“Okay,” said Smithy. “The first three are from someone called Paul; the next one is from Sean. That’s the unpleasant one.”
“Are there more conversations in there? Text conversations?”
“Hey I’m down with the kids, I know how these things work.” He fumbled for a few more minutes before he handed the phone to Jack, muttering “Stupid, piece of shit phone.”
Jack went through the contacts, message conversations, emails and phone call sections of the phone.
“He didn’t use this phone a great deal, and certainly not with too many people. It actually only has five people listed in it, so it’s definitely for private use only.” Jack then went on to describe the full message conversation between the contact named Paul and Alphonse that had taken place before the unread messages ha
d landed.
“They liked each other, for certain, and from reading this Paul does indeed seem like a shy boy. Sean, on the other hand, doesn’t come across as very shy. I would think our next step is to call them and go visit them. Do you agree?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, that seems like the logical path. On first impression, does it seem to you that any of these contacts would have had anything to do with Alphonse’s death?” Smithy responded.
“Dunno. If either Sean or Robert are anything like they’ve been described, and it looks like they might be from what we’ve seen here, then it’s always possible they’d have been petty enough to exact revenge. But this all seems very extreme.”
“I agree. But there’s always the chance that they may have been aware of somebody who held a grudge against him.”
“Let’s call them and find out.”
To say that Sean was freaked out when he received a call from his dead former partner’s mobile phone number would be an understatement. When he had recovered sufficiently from the shock, he agreed to the detectives calling round to his apartment for a chat. They then called Robert, the other former partner mentioned by Kathy Clancy who also was in the list of contacts in the phone. He was also surprised, and cagey.
“Oh, you’re ringing about Alhphonse are you? Well, some might say he got what he deserved. I'm not one of those people of course, but you know what I'm saying.”
“Of course. What can you tell us about his private life?” Smithy asked him.
“That he was a selfish arrogant prick?”
“Yeah, that’s not exactly what we’re looking for, Robert.”
“Well, I'm afraid that’s what most people are going to tell you. Look, I'm really busy, so if there’s nothing else?”
They had to threaten him with arrest and detainment before he would agree to them calling to see him. Finally, they called Paul’s number. There was no answer, so they tried a further four times before leaving a message for him to call them back. By the time Jack and Smithy had been to see both Sean and Robert, then headed back to the office to type up their findings, Paul had still not been in touch.
Chapter 11
Clarence lay back in the driver’s seat of his four by four, listening peacefully to the two sopranos reach for the swirling, dizzying heights of the aria as it drew to a climactic close. The rain still drummed on the roof of the vehicle. It was dark, and the combination of rain, music and the pleasant warmth left him on the edge of sleep. He always felt like this after a job. As if it allowed him to empty his body of any feelings of tension or stress. As though he had exorcised his demons…for now. He had found the back door open, as he assumed it would be, and already knew that she was in the shower. He had crept soundlessly through the house, leaving his shoes at the back door.
As hoped, it was dark by the time she had decided to take her shower, which made all the difference. Climbing the stairs, he did not feel the need to be too careful. The sound of the shower masked any sounds the old timbers made. Standing on the landing listening to the woman bathing, he savoured the moment, knowing that it would soon be over. The bathroom door was open. The shower curtain was not one of those silly opaque ones that allowed in the light, so she did not see his silhouette in the doorway. Leaning against the doorjamb, Clarence pondered his next move. The problem with doing the job in this way was that he would only have one attempt at getting it right.
There would only be one chance to smash her head against the wall or the floor, because nobody who slipped in the shower was likely to bang their head more than once. It simply didn’t fit. So, when he dashed her head against a surface, it would have to be with maximum force. Fortunately, he smiled to himself, this wasn’t his first time. Moving from the doorway to the side of the enclosure, staying against the wall, Clarence took up his position. As the woman drew aside the shower curtain, he stepped into view. Ignoring the terrified look of shock on her face, he put his hand on her forehead and, sweeping her legs out from under with his left foot, drove her head backwards and down onto the shower tray.
A dull thud signified the end for the whore. Immediately, Clarence cursed himself inwardly. He had been very, very lucky. He should have waited for her to step out of the shower altogether, onto the tiled bathroom floor. The shower tray could have been fibreglass, and so his first attempt would likely have failed, then he would have been in big trouble. Fortunately, it had been porcelain, and her head had connected with the very edge of it, which compounded the injury. Relief and anger washed over him in equal measure. Sloppy work, very sloppy. After two minutes, the killer checked the woman’s pulse to confirm she was dead.
Scanning the room, Clarence looked for oddities that would indicate that what had occurred was anything other than an accident. He took his time, but there was nothing. As an afterthought, he took hold of the shower curtain and pulled it so that it broke free of its rings, then took a fold of it and placed it in the dead woman’s outstretched hand. A nice touch. Still making an attempt to be quiet, though he didn’t know why, he traced his steps to the back door, pulled down the handle and let himself out. Once again, he was the recipient of an enormous stroke of good fortune. The woman’s husband opened the front door as Clarence was closing the back one.
He chuckled to himself as he moved from the rear of the house and donned his footwear. Skill was a huge part of his work, but sometimes luck was every bit as important. Nothing further had happened after that, other than the police arriving twenty minutes later, along with an ambulance, which of course was a waste of resources. The four by four was parked a hundred yards or so from the woman’s house, so he had watched the little drama unfold. While he did so, he listened to some opera. Then he called the man who had requested his services.
“Hello?”
“It’s done”
“It was an accident of course?”
“Of course, of course.” He smiled in the dark.
“You have used the technique before?”
“Yes, to great effect.”
“Very good, very good. If this goes well I shall have more work for you I think.”
“There won’t be any problems, and I look forward to working with you again.” He realised this sounded a little creepy, but he didn’t care.
“Do not call me again. If I need your services, I shall call you. Do you understand?”
“I do. I shall await your call.” The man hung up.
There was really no need for his employer to be so snippy. They had called him to do the job, not the other way around. Still, it was done now. He put the four by four into gear and set off down the street, passing the emergency service vehicles and gawking like an ordinary member of the public. The thought made him smile; he was anything but ordinary.
Chapter 12
The contact named Paul had still not returned Jack’s call by the day after the discovery of Alphonse Ngwenye’s private phone. Jack and Smithy had spent the entire morning doing anything but think about it. Instead, they had paced the halls of Greater Manchester Police’s headquarters, making such a nuisance of themselves that in the end they had decided to go out for brunch. It was Saturday morning, and, as it was not a full working day, the office was only a quarter full. Even so, the staff in attendance stood and applauded when they got up to leave.
It wasn’t their fault. It was the only lead they had, that was presuming it was a lead, so they were desperate for contact. Having referred to the midmorning meal as brunch, the pair felt slightly chagrined as they pulled up outside the greasy spoon café at the bottom end of Deansgate. They ordered a full breakfast apiece, with builder’s tea. While they waited for their food, they discussed what they knew so far.
“If he doesn’t call, what do we do next?”
“We trace the number and track him down that way,” Jack replied.
“You think it’s worth the effort?”
“It’s not much effort, let’s be honest. The phone companies do all the work.”
“
You know what I mean.” He looked askance at Jack.
“Yes, I think it’s worth the effort, and I do know what you mean. It may not seem like much, but he’s our only avenue currently that doesn’t add up. Nobody knows anything about this lad. Hardly anybody’s seen him, and nobody seems to have met him. Secretive as Alphonse normally was, he was even more so with this particular partner, and there must be a reason why. The other stuff seems too obvious, and I know, before you protest, that the obvious usually turns out to be that way for good reason, but in this case it doesn’t sit right with me. If it turns out I’m wrong, then we can go back to sifting through the scrotes that were outed in that newspaper article and see where that leads.”
“Finished? Feel better for getting that off your chest?”
“Yes, I do.”
“Good. I happen to agree with you. I just wanted to see what your thoughts were on the subject. I don’t particularly want to go back to sifting through shit, and they really are shit those people. So, I think we get the search done now.”
Before the food arrived, Jack made a call to HQ and started the ball rolling. He asked for the name and address of the person, named Paul as far as they knew, who held the telephone number stored within Alphonse’s phone. That done, they tucked into their cholesterol laden food.
***
At three fifteen that same afternoon, the call came through from operations support to advise them that they had tracked down the owner of the telephone number.
“Go ahead, ops, give it to me,” Smithy smirked.
“The customer is with the O2 network, name Alphonse Ngwenye, address…”
The rest of the call played out. Smithy could barely contain his frustration.
“Shit!”
“What?” Jack asked.
