The Pearl King

by Sarah Painter

  Fleet’s eyes widened and he nodded. ‘Fair enough. I can provide police protection, though. Short-term at least. And I’ve got some holiday accrued. I could take that and be your own personal guard.’

  ‘Don’t need it, mate,’ Paul said. ‘Got all the man-power we need.’ To Lydia he said” ‘We’ve got this. Nobody will get near you.’

  ‘You’re trusting him, now?’ Fleet said. ‘This is the man who sold you out. That police station you hate? He’s the man who put you there.’

  ‘I seem to remember you were there, too,’ Lydia said mildly. ‘And Paul didn’t set me up.’

  ‘I suppose he told you that?’

  Lydia’s patience snapped. ‘Don’t question my judgement on who I trust or I will reassess all of my connections, starting with you. If you want to help me, you’re going to have to accept that Paul is on my side. I need your help. I need both your help. But I can’t spend all my time refereeing. I’m tired and I’m scared and I need all my attention on fixing this. Are you in or are you out? Decide now.’

  ‘I’m in,’ Fleet said immediately.

  Paul nodded, his lips tight.

  ‘Good.’ Lydia wanted to sit down. Truthfully, she wanted to lie down and sleep for twelve hours straight, but above the exhaustion was terror. And that made her jumpy with adrenaline. She paced up and down, trying to think. ‘Charlie doesn’t know this place so I’m safe here for the time being. Long term, I don’t know. I don’t know what to do.’

  ‘You want us to move on him?’ Paul said.

  ‘No. Don’t do anything. I just need to work out how to play this.’ Lydia took a breath. ‘Malcolm Ferris, goes by “Malc”. Know him?’

  ‘Nope.’

  Paul was an excellent liar, Lydia had no doubt, but she also thought he looked genuinely blank. She was studying him for any flicker of recognition and caught none. ‘Someone commissioned him to kill a couple of Crows,’ Lydia said, deciding to just come out with it. ‘They were all in the same block in Wandsworth. Emphasis on the word ‘were’.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Paul said. ‘That was not a sensible move.’

  Lydia caught something else in his tone. Relief. ‘What did you think I was going to say? You sound almost happy.’

  ‘No, no. It’s just…’ He took an audible breath. ‘I’m glad my father is in Japan. Otherwise I would have put him top of the list of suspects and that would cause more problems for you and me.’

  Lydia ignored the romantic connotations of ‘you and me’, deciding he intended the phrase to indicate professional friendship. Family alliance. Wholesome stuff. ‘Can you ask around?’

  ‘I can send people out and about, see what we can dig up. There might be some whispers.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Take this,’ Paul reached inside his jacket and produced a burner phone. ‘Use this if you need me. I can hide you.’

  ‘I seem to remember Lydia found Maddie when you were hiding her,’ Fleet said. ‘What makes you so sure Lydia will be safe with you?’

  Paul flashed Fleet a dead-eye look. ‘I wasn’t trying to hide Maddie. I wanted shot of the psycho.’

  ‘Did Maddie know that?’ Fleet asked pointedly.

  ‘Stop it,’ Lydia said. ‘Charlie Crow is unstable and my neck hurts and I need you both to stop bickering.’

  Paul and Fleet called a halt to their staring match and Paul looked, instead, at Lydia’s neck. ‘I’ll kill him,’ he said. ‘Say the word.’

  ‘I’m trying to avoid war, not set it off,’ Lydia said. ‘But I appreciate the offer. What I really need is information. Charlie isn’t wrong to be worried. Someone is gunning for us.’

  Paul nodded. ‘I’ll do the rounds. Someone has got to know who commissioned the hits.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lydia said, opening the door. ‘

  When Lydia turned back to Fleet, his face had a strained look and she knew he was trying, very hard, not to comment. After a moment more of silent struggle, he offered to run her a bath.

  ‘Shower would be great, actually,’ Lydia said, suddenly viscerally wanting to sluice the last few hours from her skin. And to have some privacy.

  Lydia had a long hot shower in which she allowed herself a good cry. She could still feel Charlie’s hands grasping, his breath on her neck, and she lathered and scrubbed her skin. When she emerged from the warm steam, wrapped in one of Fleet’s soft and fresh-smelling towels, she felt halfway human again.

  Fleet had made pasta and poured two large glasses of red wine. The smell of garlic and basil made her mouth water instantly and Lydia realised that she hadn’t eaten all day. Fleet sat at his table, work spread out around him. He had passed Lydia the remote control and a bowl of pasta and left her to consume carbohydrate and some mindless television. Lydia was grateful for his understanding. She wasn’t up to any more talking and definitely not big questions.

  When it got late, Fleet began to set up a makeshift bed on the sofa. ‘You take my room,’ he said. ‘I’ve put clean sheets on the bed.’

  Lydia hovered in the doorway. ‘I know it’s a lot to ask, but can we put pause on our personal situation and be friends? Just for tonight.’

  Fleet stopped moving. He abandoned the sheets and straightened to look at her. ‘What does that involve?’

  Lydia thought he was making a comment on the fact that he had already given her a place of safety and fed her dinner. She tried to explain. ‘This distance between us. I asked for it and I know it’s the right thing in the long run, but tonight… I can’t…’ She took a breath. ‘I need you with me.’

  Fleet crossed the room and folded her into a hug. Lydia leaned against his chest, breathing in the smell of Fleet, which had always meant safety and, as she did so, she realised that it still did. Something small and hard she had been holding onto dissolved and she wrapped her arms around Fleet’s back, letting one hand drift up to the nape of his neck.

  He looked down just as Lydia looked up, their mouths meeting in an easy movement. The relief to be kissing Fleet again was like the first taste of whisky and, despite everything, her heavy heart soared.

  When they broke for a moment, breathing heavily, hands everywhere, and Fleet’s bed miraculously closer than before, having stumbled their way into the bedroom, Fleet smiled and the sweet joy in it almost made Lydia cry. He had his hands on his T-shirt, ready to rip it over his head, when he hesitated. ‘I thought maybe you and Paul…’

  ‘Paul?’ Lydia tried to shake the emotion and lust from her head long enough to formulate a proper response. Instead she opted to peel off her jeans and socks and step forward to help Fleet with his clothes-removal. ‘No,’ she said and kissed him. ‘Just you.’

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The next day, Lydia woke up in Fleet’s comfortable bed. Fleet was asleep on his front, his head turned to one side on the pillow. She looked at his beautiful face for a moment before quietly getting up. He stirred as she was putting her jeans on.

  ‘Don’t get up,’ Lydia said. ‘It’s still early.’

  Fleet blinked and rolled over, pushing himself up on one elbow. ‘You’re leaving?’

  ‘I’m going home,’ Lydia said, ignoring the sudden spurt of fear. ‘I was wrong last night. I can’t run away from Charlie. And I won’t run away from my home.’ Or desert Jason.

  ‘What if he attacks you again?’

  Lydia shrugged, feigning nonchalance. ‘He can try. He won’t catch me off guard again.’

  Fleet pressed his lips together and Lydia could tell he was trying, very hard, not to say something.

  ‘What?’ Lydia sat on the bed to lace up her boots.

  ‘I’m just worried.’

  ‘Look. He’s still my uncle. He crossed a line yesterday but I’m sure he regrets it. He’s under a lot of stress.’ As she heard the words, Lydia felt sick. They were the kinds of excuses abused spouses made.

  ‘What can I do?’

  Lydia leaned over and kissed him lightly on the lips. ‘I’ll check in with
you every few hours. And I’ll call if there’s trouble.’

  ‘What if you can’t speak?’

  ‘If I say everything is ‘hunky dory’ then you know I’m in trouble.’

  ‘I’m being serious,’ Fleet said.

  ‘I’ll leave the GPS working on my phone, and if I go more than six hours without texting or phoning, you can call the cavalry.’

  ‘Four hours.’

  ‘Five. And you text first.’

  Stepping back into The Fork, Lydia half-expected Charlie to be waiting for her and was both relieved and a little disappointed to find that he wasn’t. She was tensed and ready for a confrontation and it felt like a waste of adrenaline to not see him right away. And, if she was honest, there was a small part of her that had hoped he might be waiting for her to apologise in person. It would make things so much easier if he was contrite. The whole incident could be put away in a box marked ‘one off’ and they could both pretend it had never happened at all.

  It wouldn’t work, of course. Charlie Crow would find it difficult to pull off contrite convincingly, and nothing could erase the image of the real man that Lydia had glimpsed. She just wanted to know what the next move would be. In his mind, Charlie was undoubtedly the injured party, and she was the ungrateful child. The only question was, how was he going to deal with her insubordination? And did he still view her as a potential weapon that he could control or a personal threat?

  When Lydia had finished updating Jason on the previous day’s activity, she finished by asking him if there was a way of finding the person who had sent the text instructing Malc to murder Terrence and Richard. She didn’t have any particular hope, but since Jason’s new hacking skills seemed close to magic she thought it was worth asking.

  ‘Not without the other phone,’ Jason said. ‘I don’t think, anyway. I will ask around, though, see if we’re missing something.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Lydia said.

  ‘But what are you going to do about Charlie? That’s… Bad. I can’t believe he attacked you.’

  ‘He probably thought it was for my own good,’ Lydia said, keeping her voice steady with a force of will. ‘But, yes. It’s a problem.’

  ‘Stop downplaying it,’ Jason was shimmering a little at the edges. ‘You don’t have to pretend to be okay. What if he does it again? And what does it mean that his tattoos stopped moving? Did you hurt him?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Lydia said, blinking away tears. ‘I can’t think about it too much. It’s too much. I’m just carrying on like it didn’t happen because I can’t afford to do otherwise. I can’t fall apart.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be here,’ Jason said, wrapping his arms around himself. ‘It’s not safe.’

  ‘Crows don’t run,’ Lydia said, looking him dead in the eye. ‘And this is my home.’

  Jason shook his head, his outline rippling. ‘It’s because of me, isn’t it?’

  Lydia forced a smile. ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘You’ve come back for me.’ Jason took a step toward Lydia and she felt the air cool around her.

  ‘Well don’t make a big deal out of it,’ Lydia said. ‘It’s a good flat, too. Now, please can we get back to work. Distract me.’

  Jason hesitated, and Lydia could see that he was torn between his desire to hug her or carry on arguing.

  ‘Please,’ she said. ‘Help me to keep going.’

  He nodded and picked up his laptop. ‘You got the phone number?’

  ‘Yep,’ Lydia had written it into her little flip notebook and she opened the relevant page and read it out.

  Jason’s fingers flew over the keyboard. ‘Numbers are linked to specific phones and every phone has a serial number. An ID. I reckon police can probably get phone records from relevant network. They’ll be able to find out where it was bought, too. And when.’

  ‘Any way to find out where it is now?’

  ‘Not if it’s switched off. If it’s on, it pings the nearest mobile tower, gives a general location. The phone records will show which tower it was near when the text was sent. I think.’ He carried on reading for a few seconds and then looked up. ‘Unless they’ve left the GPS on, then we’d get a much more accurate location.’

  ‘Don’t think we’ll get that lucky,’ Lydia said.

  ‘Yeah, if they know enough to use a burner…’

  Jason was hunched over the computer, his body curved toward the screen. Lydia touched him lightly on the shoulder. ‘How do you know so much about this already?’

  He didn’t look away and his fingers didn’t slow. ‘Google.’

  Lydia put on her jacket and hat and ventured out onto the roof terrace. It was a flat grey day with a bite to the air. A siren wailed somewhere in the distance and Lydia could feel dampness on her skin within seconds of being outside. She called Emma, trying not to think about how the records could still be found. No wonder Paul and Charlie were so hot on meeting in person.

  ‘Sorry I haven’t been in touch.’ Lydia wondered how many times she had said that in the course of their friendship.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘Nothing. I’m fine.’

  Emma blew out a sigh. ‘Don’t phone me to lie at me.’

  ‘I’m not-’ Lydia began before stopping herself. ‘Sorry. I’m sorry.’ She felt tears in her eyes and told herself it was the cold air. ‘Things are bad, here. Charlie has lost the plot.’

  ‘What did he do?’

  Lydia told Emma as briefly and unemotionally as she could. ‘I discovered I have a couple of aged relatives in jail. Or, I did. They were killed.’

  ‘Oh God,’ Emma said. ‘That’s awful. Are you coming home?’

  When Emma said ‘home’ she meant the suburbs they had grown up in together. For a second Lydia felt its pull but then remembered that her childhood home now housed the shell of her father. And that her presence made his condition worse. She was a curse. ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You need to get out of London, then. Put some distance between you and this mess. It doesn’t sound safe.’

  ‘I’m not running away,’ Lydia said. ‘I’m a Crow.’

  ‘Come and stay with us, then.’

  ‘Thank you, but no.’ The idea of Charlie anywhere near Emma and her family made Lydia go cold all over.

  ‘You’re doing what you always do,’ Emma was saying. ‘Isolating yourself in the mistaken belief that it makes you stronger.’

  ‘I don’t think it makes me stronger,’ Lydia replied. ‘But I don’t want anybody getting hurt on my account. I can’t stand the thought that I will hurt people without even trying.’

  ‘And there’s the irony,’ Emma said, her voice tight. ‘The further you push us away the more hurt we get. Everybody loses.’

  ‘You get to stay alive, though,’ Lydia said.

  Lydia made toasted cheese sandwiches, tidied her desk, and watched Jason work while trying to concentrate on a novel. She had checked the locks and stacked tins from the kitchen behind the front door, balancing a variety of utensils on top. It wouldn’t stop Charlie from getting inside the flat, but it would make a hell of a noise. And inside her bedroom, she had dragged a chest of drawers in front of the door which led to the roof terrace. Her eyes kept straying to the hallway and the makeshift intruder-alert, a visual reminder that things were not okay. The words in the novel kept jumping around and her eyes felt gritty, so she went to bed, piling blankets on the bed and drinking a whisky nightcap to ward against the chill. The room was even colder when she woke up several hours later.

  ‘I’ve made some progress.’

  Lydia opened her eyes to find a ghost hovering next to the bed. ‘Boundaries, Jason,’ she said, rubbing her eyes and sitting up. He knocked over an empty whisky bottle from next to the bed as he came closer, and Lydia shifted so that he could sit down. ‘What time is it?’ She was rubbing sleep out of her eyes and trying to focus.

  ‘Dunno. Early. It’s not important.’

  ‘Not to you,’ Lydia said. ‘You don’t need to sleep.’ />
  ‘You need to stop downing a bottle of whisky as a night cap.’

  ‘It’s been a stressful time,’ Lydia said. ‘Did you not even bring me a coffee?’

  Jason put his laptop down between them. ‘Will you listen?’

  ‘Sorry,’ Lydia knew that Jason wouldn’t have woken her up without good reason. He looked tense and excited in the blue wash of the screen. ‘I’m awake. I’m listening. Is it Malc’s phone records?’

  ‘No, nothing on those, yet. I went back to JRB.’

  ‘Oh. That’s good. Thank you.’ Having an assistant that didn’t need sleep was proving to be a real bonus.

  ‘You know JRB is a shell company?’

  ‘Yeah. I think so. I don’t really understand how it all works.’

  ‘Basically, it’s registered as a business services company, but not in this country. The offices that you found are more like a PO Box, they evade all the UK listings and regulations by not being registered here. Anything that needs UK registration to operate, like trading, uses a subsidiary company which is owned by JRB.’

  ‘Okay,’ Lydia said, still not sure she fully understood. ‘You said something about following the money?’

  ‘I did,’ Jason said. ‘And I got a bit of help.’

  ‘From SkullFace?’

  ‘And others,’ Jason nodded. ‘There is a lot of money. It goes to offshore accounts for tax avoidance, as you would imagine. Everything is neatly squared away. But they weren’t quite as slick when they first started.’

  ‘When did they start?’

  ‘A company called J.R.B. and Sons Ltd was registered with Companies House in 1887. Original registered address was a shop in Peckham and company director was a member of the Coster Guild.’

  Lydia was awake, now. ‘That sounds like Pearl business. They’ve always been more open to outside influences, though. Mixing up their Family. Dad used to say it was because they had always moved all over London as street traders, and dealt with people from around the world at the docks. Less parochial and closed than the Crows or Silvers or Foxes.’

  ‘That sounds healthy,’ Jason said. ‘In-breeding is not a good look.’