The Killer Shadow Thieves (DI Tom Blake, #1)

by J. F. Burgess

  ‘“Rise, Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who hate thee be driven from thy face.”’

  The pair spent the next half an hour discreetly surveying the room and surrounding area, looking for exit and entry points, cameras, alarms and assessing the locks on the Hoard display cabinets, keeping in mind the Collector’s ten-point blueprint for museum heists: a plan used in several successful robberies from the world’s richest museums. He’d even included video footage of an infamous painting haul, captured by one of his operatives wearing a body-cam.

  This was their third visit in two months, but to avoid suspicion Ibrahim sent his cousin Stellio to take discreet tourist photographs on his phone. That, combined with a floor plan and architectural plans downloaded from the Internet, and now with the caretaker onside, they’d just about got the measure of the place.

  Charlie itched his silver, eighties style moustache. ‘You reckon we can do it then?’

  ‘Why not? Imagine what you could do with a million quid?’ Ibrahim enthused.

  ‘That’s a lot of poke!’ Charlie said, not wanting to consider the prospect of going back inside if it went tits up.

  ‘As long as we stick to the plan everything will be OK. Anyway, don’t worry about that now; the others aren’t on board yet and there’s still shit loads to organize.’

  Charlie gave him a suspicious agreeing look. ’OK.’

  ‘The main thing is we need to be ready by the nineteenth of June, because the other half of the Hoard is being transferred from Birmingham Museum, for a three-week exhibition here. That’s the only time the collection will be complete. All three-point-three million of it.’

  ‘So, this is only half?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Phew! This might sound a stupid question, but how can we get a million each if it’s only worth three-point-three?’

  ‘Best if you don’t ask too many questions. Safe to say our benefactor is minted.’

  On the way back out of the museum, Ibrahim veered into the visitors’ shop, which stocked a curious mix of handmade pottery, nineteenth-century black-and-white postcards of industrial Stoke, reissue Arnold Bennett books, Spitfire memorabilia and an entire stand dedicated to the Staffordshire Hoard, including replicas of the key pieces. In the end he purchased the official Hoard guide for a fiver.

  He winked at Charlie as they parted outside on the block paved bridge way. ‘Bedtime homework.’

  CHAPTER 6

  Ibrahim’s mobile rang; it was his brother Yusuf.

  ‘You won’t fucking believe this. That dumb bastard Dean Taylor’s been arrested and lost our shipment. Pig scum!’

  ‘How many times? Not over the phone!’

  ‘We need to meet now.’

  ‘In an hour. I’m busy.’

  ‘Are you crazy, bro?’

  ‘Think, before you say another word? One hour, I’ll call you,’ he said, stabbing the call end button.

  Yusuf was such a bloody liability. His coke habit had escalated over the last twelve months and it was cutting into the profits. He was only still breathing because they were brothers, otherwise he’d have eradicated him months ago.

  Regaining his composure, he continued climbing the winding slate staircases leading to the second floor of City Central Library.

  Inside the Reference Library he sat at a large table circled by floor-to-ceiling shelves of telephone directories, trade directories and local maps. The windows above the bookshelves were narrow slots, designed to maximize storage space. Being a muggy summer’s day several were open. Peering out he saw the massive roofs of the newly completed council buildings stretch out behind the Library.

  A helpful librarian provided him with three map resources, including an A4 Street Atlas of Staffordshire, which looked the most promising with its comprehensive coverage, but more importantly large text street and road names of the city centre and surrounding areas. The main buildings were colour-coded. Having lived in Stoke-on-Trent most of his adult life, he recognized the street names, but this map of the city gave him an entirely new perspective.

  CHAPTER 7

  Nathan Dukes had been buying gear from his supplier Yusuf Benzar for a couple of years. The brickie’s labourer and part-time bouncer had developed an unhealthy weekend coke addiction. Unfortunately, due to work drying up he was laid off-site for two months, leaving him four weeks adrift on his rent money, and owing Benzar four hundred quid. The money he got from working the door at the White Horse paid for the shopping, and his missus’ part-time hours at the Bargains Galore discount store in town just about covered the bills, but they struggled. Their landline had been cut off, and his car tax was due in a week; leaving him no option but to do some debt collecting for the dealer.

  People who owed money were usually scared by big guys turning up on their doorstep unannounced. And, if he was honest he enjoyed intimidating them. It was the only time he was in control. Besides, Benzar promised him a couple of grand to settle outstanding debts, and he wasn’t fussy how he collected the money.

  Dukes had already come down heavily on a middle-aged bloke who owed five hundred quid, battered a youth who borrowed money to buy a moped, and confiscated a woman’s new TV.

  Today, he was off around the Heath Hayes estate with a telescopic police baton in his combat trouser pocket. He was pissed off at visiting the same people more than three times and someone was having it. If any one really needed scaring he’d flash his blade.

  He sat in his car fired up; eagerly waiting for the addresses to be texted through to him. After five minutes he had his first house call, a couple living in flat 23 in the row of maisonettes on Creswell Road. He recognised the address, a pair of scruffy twats in dirty tracksuits he remembered from his last call two weeks ago. They’d better have at least three hundred quid, or there’d be mither.

  Dukes parked his BMW in the street just behind Creswell Road. He didn’t want to alert them. He knocked on number 23 lightly, within a few seconds he heard a man’s voice, ‘Hang on I’m coming.’ Great, they were expecting someone. A scrawny thin youth in his late twenties eased the door open about twelve inches and peered through the gap with a fag hanging out of his mouth. The moment he saw Dukes he panicked and tried to slam it shut. Dukes jammed his boot in the gap and barged in, knocking his fag out of his mouth.

  ‘What do you want?’

  ‘Don't play the stupid twat. You know what I want, at least three hundred today, or I'm taking stuff.’

  ‘Is Dave back with the draw, I’m dying for a spliff,’ a female voice shouted from another room.

  ‘Babe get here! It's that debt collector! He’s threatening to take stuff if we don't give him three hundred today.’

  ‘For fucks sake! I told him last time, come at the end of the month, when the housing benefit comes through,’ she moaned standing in the hallway looking at her partner on his arse.

  ‘I tell you what, how about I take your new TV and stereo and a hundred quid?’ Dukes said giving them the chance to avoid the inevitable.’

  ‘No chance! We only just got them about a month ago.’

  ‘You won’t miss them then, will you?’ Dukes replied.

  The youth reared up into his face. ‘Piss off!’

  Dukes belted him hard on the side of the head. Disorientated, he stumbled and fell back onto the carpet.

  Realising they had to pay something, the woman grabbed her partner by the neck of his hoody and dragged him into the living room. She shut the door on her way back into the hallway to confront Dukes.

  ‘Listen, come in here,’ she motioned Dukes towards another door. It was a small bedroom with the wallpaper stripped off.

  ‘Sit down Mr; I'm sure we can come to some arrangement?’ she said, rubbing his crotch.

  ‘You filthy bitch.’

  ‘I’ll suck you off if you’d accept forty quid today? That’s all I've got.’

  Dukes stared at her. Thinking – yeah and you’d bite my dick off as well you mad cow; although, she was
n’t bad looking. ‘Make it a shag and fifty quid, and the stereo to call the dogs off?’ The young woman thought about it for a few minutes, then stripped down to her knickers and lay provocatively across the bed. Dukes undid his belt and dropped his trousers to his ankles, as she reached under the mattress and pulled out a condom.

  Shagging her, he looked around the barren room realising these poor sods hadn’t got a pot to piss in.

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘Carl, what the bloody hell are you doing?’ screamed Katrina Osborne down the stairs of her boyfriend’s terraced house in Cooper Street, Milton. At once she realised there’d be consequences for her outburst. Their relationship was toxic at the best of times, an addictive communion neither of them had the guts to break apart.

  Without warning Carl burst out of the kitchen, flew through the sparse living room, and launched his fist into the nicotine-stained door leading to the stairs. Hand throbbing, he stormed up the steps, and grabbed her chiffon blouse, pulling them face-to-face.

  ‘Piss off, you’re hurting me! What you banging at?’ she grimaced.

  ‘I’ll bang you in a minute, bitch. I’ve told you not to interrupt me when I’m working on me scooter.’

  ‘OK! It’s my night out. Just don’t start, please; I’m begging you?’

  With reluctance he let go of her and retreated downstairs without another word. She padded back into their bedroom. He loved that frigging scooter more than her, she thought, putting the finishing touches to her blusher.

  Turning to the side she studied herself in the full-length mirror on the wardrobe door. Considering she was forty-two, she still had it. A nice set of pins, a great arse, a blonde bob with no grey roots, and pert breasts that had yet to droop south.

  She glanced at her outrageously high cork wedges, and felt horny. Hitching up her knee-length leather skirt, she thought, sod him, I’ll go commando, and wriggled her tiny G-string knickers over the shoes. She slipped them into her shoulder bag next to a loaded coke bullet and a joint she’d nicked earlier from Carl’s secret stash in the bottom of his bedside cabinet drawer. Tonight she needed to forget the arrogant bastard.

  Suddenly, her phone vibrated on the bed.

  ‘Hello.’

  ‘Hi, babe.’ It was Luna, her best friend and drinking buddy. ‘I’ll pick you up at half past seven.’

  ‘See you then,’ Kat said sharply.

  ‘What’s the matter? You OK?’ Luna asked, detecting despondency in her friend’s voice.

  ‘Just had a row with that bastard.’

  ‘You’ll be OK with a few glasses of wine inside you. Did you get that gear?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘Forget him. He’s not worth it. Let’s party?’

  ‘Ta ra.’

  ‘Ta ra.’

  She took a last look in the mirror before tackling the steep stairs, gripping onto the flaking handrail as she waddled down.

  In the living room she perched on the tired, black, leather sofa, and balled through to the kitchen, ‘Carl, can you lend me twenty quid for the taxi? I’ll pay you back tomorrow, promise.’

  He poked his head through the kitchen doorframe and ranted, ‘Are you taking the piss?

  ‘I need to get home. Can’t walk very far in these shoes.’

  ‘Wear your pumps then,’ he mocked.

  ‘Real sexy, don’t be stupid.’

  ‘How you going to pay for drinks with no money?’ he snapped. ‘You daft cow.’

  ‘I’m going to the cashpoint.’

  With a surprise change of attitude he said, ‘There’s eighty quid in my coat on the back of the chair. Take one of the twenty notes, but I want it back in the morning.’

  ‘Thanks, will do.’ What had come over him; generosity, without questions? She fished in the pockets of his black coat locating his mobile first. Standing with it in her hand, curiosity got the better of her. Tapping the screen she saw two new text messages. One from his mate, and another from his boss.

  Meet us at the Millrace at 8.00.

  Pick me up at the Slipware Tankard 12pm tomorrow.

  She fumbled it back inside his pocket and then found the eighty quid in the other inside pocket. Why was he lending her cash? Seriously out of character, she thought. But, it was Friday night so she ignored it. The twenty quid would do for taxis, but the credit card she’d taken from his drawer earlier would pay for drinks.

  She was about to sit when the taxi’s horn beeped. She trotted into the front room, opened the door, grabbed the tarnished brass knocker and slammed the tatty green door of number twenty Cooper Street.

  Katrina had met Luna at Club Golden in the mid-nineteen nineties. She looked stunning in her new Primarni PU leather dress, with daringly low cleavage and waistline peep holes.

  ‘You look hot!’ she pouted, closing the taxi door behind her. ‘Are those new heels?’ She stared at Luna’s black vamp cut-out platforms as the taxi turned right heading along Leek Road towards the city.

  ‘Got them today.’

  ‘They’re lush.’

  ‘So, what you been rowing about?’

  ‘Not in here, babe, I’ll tell you in the pub.

  They left the taxi in Old Hall Street at 7.45 p.m., and crossed the road linking arms. Heading for the nearest cashpoint, they passed the Reginald Mitchell pub across the pedestrianised space opposite McDonald’s, to a chorus of wolf whistles from a group of young blokes sat smoking on the granite street furniture.

  Kat lit the joint and inhaled. Glancing at each other they giggled like teenagers. Shit, that felt good, she thought, exhaling the warm ganja smoke.

  ‘We’re old enough to be their mothers.’

  ‘Nice to know you can still turn heads though, Kat.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, passing the spliff over to Luna.’

  ‘How much you brought out? Kat asked her.’

  ‘Seventy quid.’

  ‘You won’t need that.’

  ‘Depends, if we latch onto any blokes.’

  ‘I’d better get the same.’

  ‘Whose card you using? Carl’s? Does he know you’ve got it?

  ‘What do you think?’

  ‘He’ll go sodding ballistic!’

  Kat sniggered as she passed over the spliff. ‘To be honest, Lune, I couldn’t give a shit any more. He never buys me anything or takes me anywhere. This is payback.

  ‘Where we going first?’

  ‘Auctioneers, OK?’

  ‘Fine by me, babe.’

  She knelt and ground the spliff out under her wedge.

  ‘You dirty cow,’ Luna said, surprised. ‘I’ve just seen your arse!’

  ‘Let’s hope there’s no wind tonight then!’

  ‘Where’re your knickers?’

  ‘In my bag.’

  They turned onto Percy Street and hobbled towards the pub. Two chubby bouncers stood on the stone steps leading up to the Auctioneers, one of the oldest pubs in Hanley.

  Like so many of the city’s pubs, it was a chameleon, attracting different age groups depending on which day of the week it was. Monday to Friday cheap ale and wall-to-wall horse racing attracted the punters. Fortunately, the Friday night clientele was a mixed-age party crowd. And it filled up with a more discerning crowd later; revellers into Northern Soul and Disco.

  ‘What you drinking, Lune? I’ll get these, Carl’s treat.’ She laughed as the effects of the spliff mellowed her.

  ‘Get me a double Jack Daniels and Coke.’

  ‘Ice?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I’ll have the same.’

  The lanky greasy-haired student behind the bar was so fixated with Luna’s breasts he almost tripped over himself.

  They sat on the comfy settees under the front windows, away from the high chairs near the bar. Although they both liked male attention, they could do without pervy stares from beer-bellied middle-aged blokes with too many tats.

  Katrina downed her first JD and Coke in one gulp, her cheeks flushed, and Luna could see the tension
begin to drain from her.

  ‘Slow down, you mad cow. We’ve got all night. You’ll be pissed within the hour knocking it back like that?’

  ‘Don’t worry, duck, I’m feeling much better,’ she said with a warm glow.’

  ‘What’s that bastard done now?’

  ‘The usual crap: he explodes like a pissing bomb, for no reason. He’s a bloody nutter. Grabbed me on the stairs, just because I asked him what he was banging at in the kitchen.’

  ‘Why do you put up with him?’

  ‘Got nowhere else to go; he owns the house.’

  ‘You can stay with me until you find somewhere else, but it’s not ideal, with just one bedroom. It’d be like the old days when we shared that flat in Shelton.’

  ‘That’s good of you, Lune, but I can’t afford to live on my own,’ she said, disheartened. ‘I suppose he has good points. The bills are paid, and there’s always food in. Besides, we’d end up falling out. No offence, babe, friendship is one thing but living together, you know we’d argue.’

  ‘Remember that big scrap we had because you gave my ex a blow job in the old flat?’

  ‘Embarrassing wrestling on that shitty lino like kids. You bit a chunk of my hair out.’

  ‘Yeah. It cost me forty quid to get that filling fixed.’

  They both laughed at how ridiculous and immature they had been back then.

  ‘If I had a decent job I’d consider it, but not at the moment.’

  ‘OK, the offer’s there if you need it.’

  ‘Where are we going next? There’s not enough talent in here. Fancy the Slipware Tankard?’

  ‘Bit of a hike in these shoes.’ Luna glanced at her heels with a smirk.

  Feeling a touch stoned and up for anything, Kat grinned. ‘I know, babe, but they’ve got an outside terrace, and it’s a lovely night. We can sink a bottle of Pinot G?’

  Luna downed her drink. ‘OK, you’ve convinced me. Let’s go.’

  She pushed through a group of leering blokes who’d be single to the grave, Kat thought, by the looks of them.