by Robert White
He locked eyes with Verdi.
“Rot in hell Frank,” he said.
And pushed him over.
* * *
Detective Jim Hacker
Harry Strange was arrested by the first officers who arrived at the scene of the arson attack on his house.
On his arrival at the police station, he requested his lawyer, Montague Kane.
Kane argued that Harry, a decorated, retired soldier, had fallen victim to an arson attack by a known gangster.
And even though this cowardly attack on a law-abiding citizen was obviously a serious case of mistaken identity on the said criminal’s behalf, what was Harry to do?
Harry openly admitted striking Tony Thompson with a hammer, as he strode into his house and set fire to it.
He had no intention to kill the lad. Just stop him in his tracks. It was an act of self-defence, pure and simple.
Harry was released without charge.
The murder of Eddie Williams by two masked raiders at Toast nightclub was instantly connected with the ongoing warfare between Liverpudlian and Lancashire drug gangs.
It was, however, a mystery why Frankie Verdi was not killed alongside his partner in crime in the VIP room at the club, and how he ended up smashed beyond recognition at the bottom of the same cliff where his girlfriend Laurie Holland had met her end only weeks earlier.
Ironic wouldn’t you say?
* * *
Connections.
As a policeman, you are often party to connections. Some of these associations are gained via your duties, some from personal experiences.
Of course, had the investigating officers realised that Harry, Jamie, Laurie and Frankie had such binding connections, their inquiry might have taken a far different course.
But then, that would have entailed yours truly giving them that line of inquiry to follow.
Something I was not inclined to do.
* * *
I last saw Harry Strange in the winter of 1985. We met in the Old Black Bull tap room for a quiet pint. He’d decided to move house.
Bad memories he said.
I wished him the best, and sadly, never saw him again.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Cheryl Greenwood sat on her sofa in her small council flat, watching breakfast TV. Her baby boy, Anthony, lay quiet in his cot.
She heard the postman at her door.
Cursing the arrival of more bills, she plodded to collect the pile of mostly brown envelopes from her mat.
One in particular took her eye. It had an American postmark. She examined it closely.
Atlanta, Georgia.
She shrugged and tore it open. Inside there was a typed note. It simply said, “It’s what she would have wanted.”
Cheryl turned the paper over to check for a name, but there was none. She looked in the envelope again and removed a second item.
It was a cheque for thirty-five thousand pounds.
END
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