by Seb Kirby
“One of those is me?”
“Yes. You’re there as TM. Eight times over a three-week period. Every one of those occasions, I have no doubt, will be shown to be connected with interviews you carried out with her about what she knew about the finance story you’re investigating.”
“And the other TM?”
“That would be Tyrone Montague. He’s the best thing in her life until they split up and he takes up with a younger model. The whole messy end of that relationship is all in the diary, blow by blow.”
“No surprise he’s in there.”
“No surprise. But there’s a darker side. ”
“How dark?”
“There’s this from April 4th.”
Threatened by TM again. Isn’t breaking up enough for him? Why doesn’t he trust me that I’ll keep quiet about all those girls and what he’s been doing with them. He only has to look after me. See me right. That’s all I’m asking.”
I understand. “Sounds like she’s blackmailing Montague and not just on what she knows about his financial wrongdoing.”
“Yes. But what exactly has he got to hide? What’s he been doing to all those girls? And what girls does she mean?”
“There has to be a way of discovering more. Otherwise, if Ives gets hold of the diary all this is going to point to me. He’ll be quick to infer that I’m the one Della is writing about.”
Janet held my hand. “You can’t let yourself think that way, Tom.”
I was close to the edge once more. Close to believing I was TM, the one doing the killing. “You see, Jan, I can’t stop thinking it must be me. I’ve seen the girls. I’ve seen how they die. Nothing you’ve found in the diary says it couldn’t be me.”
She held my hand. “Except I know you, Tom Markland. It’s not you. Believe me, that’s the truth.”
“You’re that sure?”
“I’m that sure.”
I wished I could tell her that I’d been linking up with the girls on a dating site. I couldn’t understand why I wanted to keep this from her.
I knew at this moment she was the only one who had the confidence in my innocence that I lacked myself. I had to fight back the feeling that I was deceiving her. There was nothing I could bring to mind to say that she was right in having this much faith in me.
I tried to move on. “So, if it’s not me, then who?”
She smiled. “That’s better. You could go to the police.”
“And trust Ives? He’s got just one thing on his mind and that’s making sure he puts me away.”
“Then give him the evidence that it’s not you.”
“There is no evidence.”
“So we find it.”
“Where do we start?”
Janet returned to her tablet and scrolled to the place in the diary that she wanted to point to. “This is mentioned more than once. The Dragon Bar. Della is saying that’s where TM picks up young women.”
I couldn’t let Janet know what I now realized I knew.
A stream of memories was coming flooding back at the mention of the name. I knew where the bar was. It was on Lexington Street in Soho. I’d been there. I had a clear picture in my mind of what the place looked like. It was gaudy, packed with young things seeking older men with money.
I looked away from Janet. “OK, let’s find where it is.”
I played along as Janet made the map search that located the Dragon Bar in central Soho.
I needed to move the conversation on again.
“You said there may be other TMs in the diary?”
“I’m still not sure. There are references to others with the same initials and it’s just not altogether possible to make what Della is saying about them fit Montague.”
“Show me.”
Janet reopened the journal and began scrolling through it to find what she wanted.
“Here, look at this from April 19th.”
Waiting for TM. Why is he this late? Doesn’t he care that I’m left out here on the wire?
I tried to remain skeptical. “She could still be writing about Montague.”
“Agreed. But, later on the same day, she has more to say.”
Still no sign of TM. Doesn’t he know I can get someone else to supply me if he insists on being as unreliable as this. Cold turkey.
She looked up. “That’s not so much like Montague. More like this TM is her dealer.”
“We know someone must have been supplying her with heroin. That’s how she died.”
“So, there could be this other person in Della’s life with the initials TM.”
“You said there could be more?”
She returned to her list. “I thought at first this could be you. There are references to an investigator of some kind – she doesn’t say which - asking for meetings with her, then getting close to her. He has the initials TM, but I know it’s not you, Tom.”
“Why are you so sure?”
“Because they became lovers, and not in a good way.”
She showed me another section from the diary.
TM calls me his bitch, lays it on mean and dirty, has no shame in what he does and wants me to do. But for all that I need him, I really do.
“I know my husband, Tom. That’s not you. Could never be you.”
“So, there are three or even four possibles, if I count myself.”
“That’s not going to happen. But there is a problem. It’s not clear in all that Della has written if the dealer and the lover are one and the same or not or whether all three are in fact different sides of Montague’s dark personality.”
I looked deep into her eyes. “There’s one way to find out. I’ll go the Dragon Bar tonight and see if he’s there.”
CHAPTER 69
I travelled to Soho by underground. The fear that Ives would find me soon passed as I blended in with the multitude crisscrossing London.
I bought a cap and kept my head down as I passed the arrays of security cameras that populated my route. I used to feel secure knowing that London has one of the highest levels of round the clock surveillance of any city in the world. But my life had changed. Now I behaved as if this was a threat.
When I reached the Dragon Bar, I feared I wouldn’t be let in. Most people here were dressed to the nines. Men in business suits straight from work in the City. But I removed the cap as I arrived and pretended to be one of that elite with real wealth who had license to dress in chinos and open necked shirt, those whom the men in suits, no mater how high their station, served. The bouncer at the door waved me through without comment.
Inside the evening was unfolding along a predictable path. There was little that was subtle about the rationale of the place. Despite the pretense at elegance, it was a pick-up spot and the undeniable inference was that while the men present were required to pass a wealth test to gain admittance, any attractive woman was welcome here, no questions asked.
The women were young and thin in dresses too short and with eyes that called for someone with wealth to change their lives for the better. The kind of girls whose details were available on the Orion dating site.
I took a seat at the bar and ordered a whisky with ice.
A dark haired girl with green brown-flecked eyes came over and sat on the stool next to me. When I didn’t speak, she began. “Too early for whisky.”
I could feel her sexual attraction drawing me in. “What makes you say that.”
She smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. Slows a man down, they say.”
I could feel myself beginning to become lost in the world of my visions. Was this me after all? The real me. The one who’d been like this all along, deceiving Janet and searching bars like this for women like the one next to me?
I was trying to say to myself that this is not me. Could not be me. But the magnetism of her eyes, so wide open and appealing, kept drawing me in.
Then I saw him.
On the other side of the room, talking with a girl half his age.
Tyrone Montague.<
br />
I turned back to the girl beside me. “What’s your name?”
She gave a smile that said about time you asked. “It’s Maggie.”
I looked right at her. “Listen Maggie. Take my advice. Go home. No good is going to come from a place like this.”
CHAPTER 70
Capturing Marshall Brogan using what Terry Morgan knew was simple. Brogan came home alone from the night shift at Canada One, walking along the quiet, early morning streets. Quinn sent Morgan and three of his own men to pick up Brogan. They pulled up alongside him, thrust a gun in his face and bundled him inside their BMW. And here he was in the old East End warehouse, blindfolded and trussed up, awaiting Quinn’s attention.
There were leaders like Quinn who, once they’d risen in the ranks, used others to take on the heavy work of roughing up men like Brogan. But Quinn was proud that he wasn’t like that. It wasn’t that he took pleasure in hurting men, though he knew there were plenty who thought that of him. No, it was more that he knew that he needed to keep in close contact with the men around him. Not one of them should have reason to think he’d somehow become softened by the high life in the City he’d attached himself to with such success. He’d do this himself and he’d make sure everyone here, including Morgan, watched him doing it.
Quinn pulled Brogan’s head up by the hair and smashed a massive ringed fist into the Irishman’s face. “I want to hear it again, Brogan. Where’s the diary?”
Blood oozed from Brogan’s nose. “I tried to tell you. It’s not a diary. It’s a journal, an online journal.”
“And where is this journal?”
“I told you. It’s online.”
Quinn aimed a sickening punch at Brogan’s stomach and watched as the man doubled over. “And what use is that?”
Brogan’s voice was faint as once more his head was lifted up by the hair. “There’s a password.”
“And you know this how?”
“Because I’ve seen it used. To open the journal.”
“So tell us the password.”
“I don’t have it. I’d tell you if I knew.”
Quinn took the iron bar and crashed it across Brogan’s right hand, tied to the arm of the chair. There was the unmistakable crack of breaking bones. He waited for Brogan’s screams to die down. “You’ve seen it. You must remember it.”
“I don’t. It was something like DaSilva999 and Bashtree999 but that’s all I can tell you.”
“So who else knows?”
“Markland. Tom Markland.”
Brogan passed out and did not revive even when he was doused with ice-cold water. Quinn turned to his driver, Malcolm. “Take him to the storeroom out back and lock him in. I’ll have another talk to him later.”
As Malcolm and two others dragged Brogan away, Delaney came up close and whispered. “Leave this to me, Mr. Quinn. Ives is looking for Markland. I told you I had contacts in his team didn’t I?”
“What of it?”
“Well, I hear that Markland’s missing. His wife too. Their place in Lichfield is deserted. They say they may be somewhere here in London but no one knows where.”
“So what are you saying?”
“That if Ives can’t find Markland and his wife, how will you? But you can let me earn that one-eighty thou. I can track Ives’ every move. I can get to Markland first, before Ives makes it. And I can get you the diary.”
Quinn knew he had little to lose. If Morgan could deliver the goods before Quinn received permission to gut him, so much the better. “Very well, Terry. Very well.”
CHAPTER 71
I didn’t attempt to speak to Tyrone Montague.
I’d seen him there in the Dragon Bar searching for girls, just as Della Brogan had indicated.
It was inescapable. He was the TM her diary had warned about.
The need now was to leave, making sure he hadn’t seen me.
I left the whisky at the bar and made my way to the exit.
The bouncer at the door stood in my way, keeping me there.
He pressed his face close up to mine. “Leaving so soon?”
“It’s not a crime.”
“We’ve had a lot of petty theft. Pickpockets. I’m going to have to search you.”
I tried to protest but he would have none of it.
Why did I get the distinct impression that he was doing this to delay me?
The time he took to make me turn out my pockets and then frisk me was too long.
When he’d finished, he told me to sit while he made a call.
I protested again. “Why can’t I go?”
He towered over me. “Just checking with management that nothing’s been reported stolen. Won’t take more than a few minutes.”
His call took much longer than that. More delay. And again I was sure it was deliberate.
I stood to leave.
He shook his head. “Better not to do that.”
“You have no reason to stop me.”
He received some kind of reply to his call. He smiled. “OK. Nothing’s wrong. You can go.”
It had all been about delaying me from leaving the bar. I was sure of it.
Someone must have had a reason for this but I didn’t know who that was.
I left the bar trying to put this behind me. Perhaps I’d been mistaken. Ham-fisted though it was, the bouncer had been doing his job in protecting the interests of those who went there.
I didn’t reach the end of the street.
A white van that I thought would go sailing past, slowed and pulled up beside me. Three hooded men jumped out. Two of them bundled me into the back of the van. There was no time to fight back. In just thirty seconds, I was lifted from the street and the white van sped on.
One of them wound a bandage round my eyes, tied my arms behind my back and bound my feet together with plastic tie cuffs. A cotton rag was stuffed into my mouth.
No matter how hard I struggled I couldn’t move or raise a voice to shout out.
I had no idea where they were taking me.
When the van pulled to a halt, I was certain we were still somewhere in London. But this was only a stop on the way to somewhere else.
They hadn’t spoken at all during the abduction. Now, I could hear two of them muttering goodbyes as they stepped out of the vehicle with the driver saying something in reply that I couldn’t quite catch. Something about where they could pick up the other half of the money they’d been promised for the job.
As the van pulled away I realized it was only the driver who remained. He was the one who’d lifted me off the street. The one who had come for me. The others had been his paid helpers, mere casual employees of his.
We travelled on for no longer than five minutes before the sounds of traffic altered. We had pulled into an enclosed space of some kind, a courtyard perhaps away from the surrounding streets.
The van drew to a halt and the driver’s door slid open.
Footsteps approaching on cobblestones.
The sound of the sliding open of the door to the rear of the van where I was lying.
Then, the sharp pain in my right leg as something was injected into me.
I was falling.
Falling away into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 72
I opened my eyes.
It felt like someone else had opened them.
Where was I?
I’m seeing it, living it. It’s me, looking on, seeing myself doing all this.
I’m with a woman.
She’s young, pretty.
Cathy.
Smart, sexy. Younger than me.
We’re talking about our meeting in a pub and how I brought her to this place.
This dark room with wood paneled walls covered with books.
Making love to her.
My hands round her throat, squeezing the life out of her. Watching her body go limp.
But it’s not me.
I know this can’t be me.
I strain to move my head o
r close my eyes but to no effect.
The image changes.
I’m with another girl. She’s telling me her name is Rebecca.
Long, slim, raven haired.
We’re talking about our night out on the river, on one of those boats that cruise the Thames at night. The way the moon shines, making silver rivulets on the water.
We’re happy together. She laughs. She smiles.
We’re in that dark library space.
We’re making love.
I see the death mask of her face as I squeeze the life out of her, my hands tight around her throat. Just as with Cathy.
Watching the life leave her.
I’m bound at hands and feet. I’m upright. Looking out.
The drug. The drug he gave me makes this all seem so real.
But I’m me. Here inside myself. And what I’m seeing is not part of me. It’s out there. On a screen placed inches from my eyes. A screen I’m being forced to look at because my neck is constrained in a brace, meaning I can’t turn my head to look away. And he’s done something to my eyelids so I can’t close them and I have to look.
Another bolt-lightning stream of images. Vivid. Seeing myself doing these things.
Margot.
Athletic. Twenty. An illustrator.
We’re looking at one of her drawings for a children’s book. Her first real commission.
It’s good.
We’re in that room again, the one with the books lining the wood paneled walls.
I’m forcing Margot back down onto the couch, gripping her by the neck, squeezing the life out of her, listening to her last gasps.
I can see the hands gripping Margot’s neck, the same hands that gripped Cathy’s neck, that gripped Rebecca’s neck. And now I see the forearms, reaching forward, struggling to exert the power to complete the act.
On the left forearm I see the tattoo.
A single red rose.
I struggle to look away but my head is still clamped tight and my eyelids won’t close.
I try to roll my eyes to the right or to the left but I can still see the screen.
