by Robert White
All this was well and good, but James Dunn knew he couldn’t use those pictures without the arrest. Dunn knew his only way of gaining access to the room was by finding a cop that would play ball.
He wanted the money shots. He wanted Verdi, balls deep in this fifteen-year-old schoolgirl. Frankie Verdi, gangster of this parish, who had groomed this poor vulnerable child for his own sexual pleasure.
Dunn was already writing the headlines.
At exactly 0300 hrs, Frankie Verdi parked his Jaguar not three spaces from the Daily Mirror’s finest and strolled into the foyer.
Dunn followed a moment later, found the payphone, and dialled Det Ch Supt Alan Crocker’s personal number.
Crocker was not a bad policeman. Indeed, he’d served twenty-six years without a blemish on his record, receiving two commendations for good policework. He was a man averse to breaking even the smallest of rules. As careful and consistent a performer as you could wish for.
Nevertheless, Alan Crocker had never been under so much pressure to solve a crime, or in this case, five grisly murders. And Frankie and crew had embarrassed him, and his inquiry team.
Crocker was in no doubt that Verdi was behind the four Blackburn killings, and maybe the stabbing over in Merseyside. Yet there was nowhere near enough evidence to arrest him, let alone charge him, or any of The Three Dogs for that matter.
Even so, despite the pressure, it was with some reluctance that he agreed to work with a reporter.
Dunn assured Crocker, that he could deliver Verdi on a plate, so long as he could be present at the arrest and take photographs.
The deal was struck.
At 0315 Alan Crocker walked into the reception of the Tickled Trout, flanked by two burly uniforms.
Dunn and Brown, kept their distance in the car park awaiting the nod.
Crocker slid his warrant card across the desk to the night porter. “Do you have a duty manager on call son?” he asked curtly.
The porter was still coming to terms with the bribe he had just taken from some reporter and instantly figured he was in the shit.
His eyes darted between the obviously senior man, and the two massive uniformed officers. Whoever the cops wanted, they were expecting trouble.
“Erm… yes sir. Mr… Mr Wallace, but he’ll be asleep.”
“Then wake him,” barked Crocker. “Tell him that there is a Detective Chief Superintendent Crocker standing in his lobby and that a serious crime is currently being committed in room one oh three of his motel.”
The night porter went a funny shade of white. “One oh three you say?”
“I did. Also inform Mr Wallace, that unless we can gain access to the said room PDQ, then he, and this establishment could be considered to be aiding and abetting this said crime.”
The porter was almost green. The twenty-pound note given to him by Dunn earlier, burning a hole in his pocket for a very different reason than an hour ago.
He lifted the receiver and dialled.
Crocker could just about make out a very sleepy voice at the other end of the line. As the porter relayed Crocker’s information, the voice awoke and became instantly agitated.
“Tell him we want the master key, and we want it now,” said Crocker, turning up the heat. “Or these two lads here will just make a mess of his door.”
Mr Wallace was now shouting so loudly down the phone, that Crocker could hear him just fine.
“Give him the fucking key you idiot!”
The porter locked a set of watery eyes on the detective. “Mr Wallace… erm… well he said…”
Crocker held out a large hand. “To give me the fucking key.”
The party had got started in room 103. Frankie had brought more champagne and more cocaine to help it go with a bang. Maisy had brought a black satin basque, silk stockings and five-inch stilettos.
Both were so deep in their own throes of passion, they never noticed the hotel room door swing open.
Crocker kept his part of the bargain and let Jeff Brown into the room first. He had two cameras around his neck, one set for high speed multiple exposures, the other for single shot flash.
Frankie had insisted on leaving the lights on as he pounded Maisy on the bed.
Jeff Brown didn’t need the flash. He had a field day.
Frankie was so stoned, that he kept on thrusting even as the three cops entered the room. It was actually Maisy who noticed their presence first.
She let out a scream and pushed Verdi from her. Frankie rolled off the bed and hit the floor with a bump. Maisy tried to find the sheets and cover her modesty.
The two uniforms were around the bed in an instant. Verdi tried to kick out at them as he lay on his back on the floor, but he was too far gone and the two cops too experienced and strong. He was unceremoniously rolled on his front and handcuffed.
Both Verdi and Maisy began to hurl insults at Crocker and the two uniforms. It was water off a duck’s back. One of the huge uniformed cops took a quick look at Verdi’s now flaccid member as he stood naked and whining in the corner.
He gave his partner a nudge. “Don’t know why she bothered with that eh Fred?”
Fred sniggered.
Verdi’s eyes burned into the first cop. “I know where you fucking live,” he spat.
The cop grabbed Frankie by the throat and slammed him up against the wall. “And I know where you live too you piece of shit. I also know what happens to nonces inside. That little pecker of yours won’t be of any use to you in there son.”
The cop released Frankie, who fell to the floor gasping for breath.
Crocker stepped over. He was waving an evidence bag under Verdi’s nose. It had three single gram bags of white powder in it.
“Frank Verdi, I’m arresting you for unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor and possession of a class-A drug, with the intent to supply. You are not obliged to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence. Do you understand?”
“No comment,” said Frankie.
Crocker turned to the uniforms. “Right lads, get a WPC down to deal with Maisy here. She’ll be going straight to the police surgeon for examination. Then wake up the SOCO lot. I want this room sealed off until they have done a full sweep.” He turned to Jeff Brown.
“You get what you wanted?”
“Oh yeah,” he said, and turned to Frankie. “His arse will be more famous that his face by tomorrow night.”
* * *
Detective Jim Hacker
The arrest of Frankie Verdi, in itself, did nothing to move the murder investigations forward. Although, purely on a personal note, it did put a spring in my step as I walked into my office. There was little doubt, Crocker hoped, that as Verdi would be charged with not one, but two serious offences, he may be held in custody until his trial.
With Frankie off the streets, maybe, just maybe, a witness could find the courage to come forward.
In 1984, the offence of unlawful sexual intercourse had a statutory defence. That being, that the male party had no way of knowing that the girl in question was under the age of consent. This proviso was put in place for the benefit of young men, who, for example, had met a girl in a nightclub, presumed she was over eighteen and found themselves in trouble the next morning when the parents found out their dear fifteen-year-old daughter had been sexually active. This proviso also came with its own condition. The male in question must be under the age of twenty-four.
Presumably, the lawmakers considered an older man should know better.
Frankie Verdi was twenty-three, but as he had already been photographed with Maisy in her school uniform, he would find this defence difficult to employ.
On the other hand, Crocker would undoubtedly find Maisy to be a difficult witness, and it was obvious she was a willing participant in the matter. Therefore, the second charg
e was a far more serious matter and the one Crocker would hope to make stick. Again, in the early eighties, even possession of cocaine was a very serious matter.
Selling at around £80 a gram and with the average weekly wage in the north of England being just £30 more, you could see how expensive a commodity it was. It was also viewed by the courts as a dangerous substance, ranking alongside heroin. If the prosecution could prove Frankie had supplied the drug to Maisy Thomas, a minor, then he would undoubtedly receive a lengthy custodial sentence.
There were many ifs, buts and maybes for Crocker to overcome, but this was the closest anyone had been to bringing any of The Three Dogs to justice.
As a matter of course, directly after his arrest, Frankie Verdi’s home, car and the nightclub, Toast were thoroughly searched. No further drugs were found, but it was noted that a large quantity of cash, exceeding thirty thousand pounds, was held in the safe at the club. Crocker would undoubtedly inform the Inland Revenue about the find.
Sometimes, there is more than one way to skin a cat.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Eddie Williams sat in The Soup Kitchen, a greasy spoon café just off New Hall Lane. Sitting opposite him was Cyril Norman, ex-detective and now solicitor’s runner for Dundonald and Partners, The Three Dogs’ chosen legal representatives. He was demolishing a full English with extra toast. Eddie stuck to coffee, his cocaine hangover ruining his appetite.
Norman had run the full scenario of Frankie’s arrest by Eddie, and what needed to be done in order to ensure Frankie’s release from custody.
Cyril may have been an ex-cop, but there was no such thing as fair in Cyril’s book, just who paid the highest price. And Frankie was a very rich boy indeed. No one liked dealing with Cyril, cops or villains. A bent cop is a bent cop, but today Eddie had no choice. Needs must.
* * *
Eddie left the café feeling like he needed a shower and drove to Moor Nook council estate, the place of his birth, the place where he, Tony and Frank had grown up. He pulled up behind Fat Les’ ice cream van. Frank had given Les one of the old models as a golden handshake when they had sold the 3D Ice business.
Les had quickly restored himself as the local cannabis supplier using the van. Of course, he now bought his drugs from Joe Madden, and therefore, essentially, The Three Dogs.
However, it wasn’t Les that Eddie wanted to see, it was his sister, Margaret Thomas, mother of Maisy, who lived next door.
Eddie strode up the path to the front door. The garden was overgrown, almost concealing a rusting old washer that had been dumped there sometime in the last ten years. Weeds poked through the cracks in the concrete, a dustbin overflowed under the front window.
Nice.
Eddie knocked and got nothing.
He knocked again, harder. Finally, the door was opened.
Margaret Thomas was in her late thirties but looked nearer fifty. You could see that at one time she had been a looker, just like Maisy, but time had not been good to Margaret.
She took one derisory look at Eddie and turned back into the house, shuffling along the linoleum-clad hallway in grubby slippers and dressing gown.
Eddie reluctantly followed, and they stopped in her small kitchen. A whole week of plates, pots and pans were stacked, festering in the sink. Margaret flicked fag ash into the mountain of crockery.
“What the fuck do you want?” she croaked. The forty Bensons a day giving a guttural edge to her voice.
There was a funny smell coming from somewhere that Eddie couldn’t or didn’t want to identify. He had no desire to spend a moment longer in Margaret’s filthy stinking house than was necessary.
“Now, that’s not polite, is it Marg?”
“I don’t give a fuck for polite Eddie. I know what’s happened. The pigs rang me in the middle of the fucking night to tell me. Our Maisy’s banged up alongside that dirty bastard Frankie Verdi. He’s been fucking her again. I told him the last time, when he came round wanting me to keep my mouth shut. I told him, ‘All right Frank,’ I says, ‘I’ll do it this time, but you leave my girl be from now on.’ And has he? Has he fuck.”
“How much did Frank give you the last time Marg?”
Margaret either didn’t hear Eddie or chose to ignore the question.
“Now they want me to go down and sit in on the interview, ’cept, not yet as she’s so fucking high, they can’t talk to her till she’s straight. He’s been giving her drugs Eddie, drugs, so she’ll do things for him. Fucking kinky stuff I’ll bet, dirty bastard he is.”
“How much?” pressed Eddie, his infamously short temper not helped by his banging headache.
Margaret threw her fag in the sink and lit another.
“Hundred,” she said flatly.
Eddie looked about him. “You didn’t spend it on bleach did you Marg?”
“If you’ve come to take the piss Eddie, you can fuck right off now. I don’t need it, okay?”
Eddie managed to control himself. “How would you like to get out of here Marg?”
“What you mean?”
“I mean, how would you like to leave this shithole behind, live in a nice new flat down the docks, even take a holiday in the sunshine, Benidorm maybe?”
Margaret’s ears pricked up. She fucking heard that, thought Eddie.
“Benidorm? That’s abroad ain’t it?”
“Spain, last time I looked Marg. Why not take a couple of weeks away, pick a nice hotel out the brochure, all five-star luxury, get a tan, there’d be plenty of cash to spend too. And when you get back, your nice new, clean flat, will be ready for you, rent free.”
Margaret looked at Eddie, eyes full of suspicion.
“You are talking a lot of money there Eddie… hundreds.”
“Not hundreds Marg… thousands. New everything; furniture, carpets, clothes… even get your hair done all nice for a change. What you say Marg, come on, you’re still a good-looking woman.”
Margaret touched her hair absently, a flicker of a smile crossed her lips, before it disappeared and she fell back to reality.
“What you want me to do for all this money Eddie? Top someone?”
Eddie managed a smile of his own. “Don’t be silly Marg, we ain’t like that. Don’t believe all the gossip about us three. We’re just businessmen these days. Look, Frank has been a silly boy, and he knows it. He just can’t keep his hands off your Maisy, and from what I’ve seen, the feeling’s mutual. And she’ll be sixteen in a few months, won’t she? Come on Marg, I bet you had some fun before you were of age eh?”
“Might’ve done. But not with a grown man… with a boy me own age.”
“Marg, like it or not, your Maisy loves Frank, she wants to be with him, wants what Frank can give her too. A better life, better than this. Why don’t you have a slice of the cake too eh?”
Margaret dropped her second stub into the pile of dirty plates and pursed her lips.
“What you want me to do?” she said.
* * *
Maisy Thomas sat alongside her mother in the interview room. Mother and daughter had been allowed a short visit prior to the start of proceedings, affording the appropriate adult the same rights as a legal representative.
A surly looking detective sat opposite, together with a uniformed WPC. A tape recorder whirred on the table.
The detective began the introductions, and after everyone had spoken for the benefit of the tape, he asked his first question.
“Maisy, how old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
“And when are you sixteen?”
“Six weeks.”
“On the tenth September, right?”
“Right.”
“Are you aware, that it is illegal to have sex before your sixteenth birthday?”
“Yes.”
“She’s been brought up right,” but
ted in Margaret.
“Quite,” said the detective, acknowledging Margaret’s input. “But Maisy, you have been having sexual intercourse with a man called Frankie Verdi have you not?”
“Only the once,” said Maisy, all sweetness and light.
“Once?”
“Yes, just last night. See, I told Frank it was me birthday, so he booked that posh hotel and brought champagne to make it special. We love each other see. I mean, Frank said we would have to wait till I was sixteen before we could do it, you know, sex like, but I wanted it sooner, so I lied to him. I told him my birthday was yesterday… sorry.”
“You lied to him?”
“Yes, I told him I was of age.”
“She did,” added Margaret.
The detective ignored the obvious collusion.
“So, Maisy. Did you lie to Frankie Verdi because you were under the influence of cocaine?”
“I’ve never taken drugs.”
“Is it not true, that Frankie Verdi gave you cocaine last night, before and during sexual intercourse?”
“No sir.”
“Then how do you explain the three packets of cocaine found by police officers on the bedside table? Cocaine residue found on the surface of the same table, and residue on a five-pound note, found in your handbag, young lady?”
Maisy took a deep breath and began her rehearsed speech.
“My little brother found those three packets of powder outside our house yesterday, dropped on the pavement.”
“Your little brother?”
“Yes, our Terry, he’s four. He came in with them. I took them off him and put them in me bag. I was going to hand them into the police station, ’cos I figured they looked a bit dodgy, but I forgot in all the excitement of meeting Frankie.”
The detective was losing patience. “Maisy, don’t lie to the police. It will only be worse for you in the end. We know that Frankie Verdi gave you the cocaine and we know that you took some last night.”
Maisy shook her head.
