by Ken McCoy
‘Does the roof still leak?’ He asked.
‘Nope. The only thing that leaks around here is me,’ Eli said. ‘Don’t let the look of the place fool you. It’s as watertight as a duck’s arse and draught proof. You told me to make it look uninhabitable.’
‘Well, you’ve certainly done a good job with that. I just hope it’s habitable inside.’
‘Of course it is. I inhabit the place myself. Who’s this you’ve brought to see me?’
‘Ah, sorry. This is Winnie O’Toole.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Winnie O’Toole. I’m Elijah McMurphy, but you can call me Eli.’
Winnie held out a hand of greeting that Eli shook.
Winnie laughed. ‘We have a right collection of names between us, Septimus, Elijah and Winnie O’Toole.’
Eli saw the funny side and gave a loud cackle that displayed a mouthful of teeth that were too white and even to be the originals. He was a small, bow-legged man with pink cheeks, twinkling blue eyes, a purple nose and long hair which was wild and white and uncombed. Winnie took an instant liking to him.
‘Eli,’ said Sep, ‘I’ll need you to fix me a ramp up to the front door.’
Eli was ahead of him. ‘I’ve got a sheet of half-inch ply that’ll get you in and out. How long ’re yer stayin’?’
‘Depends … days, weeks, maybe months if things get nasty.’
‘Somebody after you?’
‘Yes.’
He looked at the wheelchair. ‘Looks like somebody caught up with you.’
‘Somebody did. But I’m hoping they won’t find this place.’
‘If they do, that somebody’ll get a warm reception.’
‘I’ll need to sleep downstairs,’ Sep said. ‘That OK?’
‘Yeah. I got a room upstairs that I can sleep in.’
‘Is there a room for me?’ Winnie asked.
Eli looked from one to the other and said nothing.
‘In my state I probably need you with me,’ said Sep. ‘Eli, could you put another bed in my room?’
‘Well, if you need another bed, I’ve got one.’
‘That’ll do. I’m not safe to be left on my own.’
‘What’s new?’ said Winnie.
Within minutes Eli had rigged up a ramp that enabled Sep to drive into the house. Winnie was in before him, intent on investigating the home they’d share for the immediate future. Sep took a glance around the living room that was as a tidy as could be expected of an elderly man living on his own.
‘Well, you’ve kept it spick and span,’ remarked Winnie, ‘I’ll give you that. Can you show me where we’ll be sleeping?’
Eli led them to a short hallway and opened a door at the end. Sep steered his chair inside. It was a large room, the largest of the three bedrooms and it was tidy but tired. It had a double bed which was still unmade, a large old-fashioned wooden wardrobe, a dressing table, a three-tier chest of drawers and two chairs.
‘Where’s the bathroom?’ Sep asked.
Eli pointed to a door in the corner. ‘I made one of them en-suite bogs, with me needing to pee during the night. Saved me many a trip upstairs that has.’
Sep took a look inside and almost gasped with amazement. ‘Eli, you’ve put a bidet in there.’
‘I know, it came with the set. There was plenty of room for it, so I stuck it in. Great for washing me feet. I sometimes fill it with warm water and sit with me feet in it and yes I do know what it’s for, only I don’t find the need ter wash meself downstairs as often as some.’
Winnie was now standing behind them, looking around with equal amazement. ‘Bath,’ she said, ‘shower, washbasin, WC and a bidet.’
‘That’s for soaking his feet,’ said Sep.
‘What else?’ said Winnie.
‘Do you think there’s room for another bed in the room?’ Sep said.
‘It’ll be a squeeze,’ said Eli.
‘I’m forced to agree,’ said Sep.
‘You’ll have to make room,’ said Winnie, ‘and we need to fix Sep up with some handrails.’
‘I can do that,’ said Eli, but yer might have to make do with sleepin’ with yer man ternight.’ Before she could complain he added, ‘Let me show yer me office.’
The room next door might have belonged to another building. It had new carpet wall-to-wall, Venetian blinds at the window, two smart, modern desks and two equally smart office chairs. On the desks were three computer monitors, two telephones, two computers, three keyboards and an expensive printer. On one wall was what might have been another monitor or a large screen television.
‘I’m seriously impressed,’ Sep said. ‘At least I might be once you’ve explained it all to me.’
‘Inside each machine,’ said Eli, ‘I’ve overclocked Intel eighteen core processors, all running a hundred and twenty-eight megabytes. There’s not much commercially available that can beat these in benchmark tests.’
‘Am I supposed to understand all that?’
‘All you need to understand is that in this room we can hack into any computer in the world, including police computers and, combined with my expertise, I can hack into military-grade computers no matter what the strength of their security encryption and firewalls. I’ve rerouted our IP addresses through a loop of dummy servers in Finland. Nobody can trace us here.’
Sep turned to Winnie. ‘Is he speaking English?’
‘He sure is. I’d love to mess with this stuff.’
‘She’s a computer nut like you,’ Sep explained to a bemused Eli, ‘only she’s actually studying it properly.’
‘I studied it properly.’ He pointed to a fully-laden book case. ‘See all them books? They’re all about computers. I’ve read and studied every one of ’em.’
Eli flicked a switch that brought the wall-mounted TV to life. The screen was split into four quadrants, each one showing a different CCTV view of the track from the main road to the house; the last one gave a picture of the path leading up to the house, including the front door. Eli pressed a key that zoomed the camera in to a point where the face of any visitor would be easily recognized.
‘We can take stills of any picture we want,’ Eli told them. ‘No one can get near this house without us knowing. There are sensors that beep when anything bigger than a fox goes by and at night I have an infrared switch so we can see in the dark.’
‘I’m impressed,’ said Sep, ‘but I’d be more impressed if we knew how you’d come about all this equipment.’
‘It was all bought as a security system for a big-time villain, only it did him no good with him doing life on Dartmoor right now and not expected out any time soon.’
‘Does he know you’ve got it?’
‘Actually, Sep, no one knows I’ve got it. It’s all bought and paid for, but by him not me. I doubt if he knows he even bought it.’
Sep stared at him as a dozen questions came to mind but he decided to ask only one. ‘How long have you had it all?’
‘It came into my possession about four years ago. I was working legit for the computer firm that sold it to him, which is why I know how it all works. It was an order paid for in cash and waiting to be delivered, so when he got banged up I had it delivered to my house for safekeeping. It’s not stolen or anything, just being looked after until your man comes out.’
‘How long’s he in for?’
‘Thirty-five years.’
‘How old is he?’
‘Seventy-three and he’s got real bad emphysema.’
Sep gave the matter more thought and cast his mind back four years. Such a major villain he’d surely have heard of. ‘Eli, are we talking about a gypsy gangster from Doncaster called Jack Scully?’
‘Er, yes. I thinks that’s him.’
‘Jesus, Eli! He’s a real bad man. He’s doing major time on the block in Wakefield prison. He’s already killed a prison officer which has added a life sentence to his tariff.’
‘Well, I’m not in there so why would I worry? I never met him so he wo
uldn’t know me from a cow’s arse. I worked for the same computer place for six months after he got sent down and no one came asking after the stuff. The shop will have thought it had been delivered but they’d never know by who. The bloke who paid the cash over went down as well. Ten stretch, I think. He’s up in Durham Prison.’
In a hotel room in Leeds three men sat at a table: Carl Redman, Roscoe Briggs and Stanley Butterbowl, Stanley preferred his street name – Wolf. All wore expensive suits and mean faces.
The boss, Carl Redman spoke: ‘Black has to be eliminated. I don’t know how much he knows and that’s a major fucking problem.’
‘Maybe we should just fix the feller yer workin’ for,’ said Roscoe Briggs, who was completely bald. ‘At least you know where he is.’
‘No, we need him. This whole scam came from him. He’s got one of them computer brains. He can do stuff a normal brain wouldn’t think possible, which is why it’s never been done before.’
‘I bet Santiago wished he’d never brought us in on the deal,’ said Roscoe.
‘He brought us in so he’d have a scapegoat if things went wrong. Santiago’d still be dead whether or not we were part of it.’
‘Who killed him then?’ asked Wolf.
‘Not us and that’s also a problem,’ said Redman. ‘According to my source, they’ve tied it in with another two murders. A bloke called Boswell and an old woman who worked at the dump where he was killed.
‘So we’re bein’ chased by the pigs for three murders we didn’t do? Not sure I like that.’
‘What’s not to like? It’ll throw the pigs off our track. They can’t tie us in for any for them three jobs.’
‘Bollocks! I done bird for stuff I ain’t done before now,’ said Roscoe.’ Anyway, what about this guy yer workin’ for? Will he have killed Santiago?’
‘Nah, that don’t make sense. Santiago was obviously killed by someone who knew the scam and wanted in on it. My man was already in on it.’
‘Yeah, but he don’t have ter share with Santiago anymore.’
‘He needed Santiago’s business ter work from and I’ll tell yer somethin’. We don’t need Santiago’s business. I can set up a business what’ll do us nicely and we can work the scam ourselves, along with my man.’
‘Whose name you won’t tell us.’
‘Not yet. I spent a long time building up contacts all over the place – contacts what trust me and I’m not gonna to give any of ’em ter you, unless I have to. And if yer want out, yer can fuck off right now!’ Having delivered this ultimatum he cast them all a challenging glare.
‘OK, OK,’ muttered Wolf. ‘So, what do we do? Now that Black’s left town? Do we leave him where he is? He’s prob’ly too shit-scared ter come back.’
‘No, we track the bastard down and blow him away. He’s in a wheelchair so he’ll most likely be in some kind of mobility vehicle. Where would he go for one of those? With all his interfering in police affairs Black ain’t the most popular man down at his nick. I’ve got a pig in me pocket who can take a look at CCTV to see which way he went. My information is that he left the cop shop in a video van. We find out where that went and take it from there. He’ll think he’s in the clear but we can track him down. My guess is he won’t have left Yorkshire. Pigs like him don’t like to be too far away from the action. With my contacts he should be easy ter track down.’
‘This seems all very complicated,’ said Wolf. ‘Why don’t we just forget him and carry on as if he knows nuthin’ – which is a fairly strong possibility.’
Redman shook his head. ‘Nah, I’m not interested in possibilities, I deal in certainties. If Black knows anythin’ at all, we could walk straight into a police trap. Don’t forget we’ll be wanted for murders various, some of which we ain’t even done. Life without parole for all of us.’
‘OK,’ said Roscoe, ‘you’re the boss. We track Black down and eliminate the fuck out of him.’
NINETEEN
Winnie climbed into bed next to Sep. He’d already been there twenty minutes while she took a shower. He had his back to her when he said, ‘I don’t want you taking advantage of me, young lady. It’s a serious crime taking sexual advantage of a disabled policeman.’
‘If you weren’t disabled, I’d be sleeping on the floor. I was supposed to have a bed of my own.’
‘I can’t turn over to kiss you goodnight, this is the only side I can sleep on,’ said Sep. ‘Even then it’ll be bloody painful every time you turn over.’
‘I’ll try and keep still.’
‘Thank you. By the way, I’d like to inform you that I’ve just acquired my first erection since the accident, which is good news in its own way but, right now, it’s of no use to me whatsoever. Still, it bodes well for the future, eh?’
‘Have you had any thoughts about the people who are after you?’
‘Yes, with it being to do with stocks and shares and I think there’s someone really big behind all this.’
‘Well, there’s nothing bigger in the world than the stock market. Sep, if it’s that dangerous shouldn’t the Cold Case Unit just take the whole thing to the West Yorkshire Police Organized Crime Unit? Or this new lot—the NCA or whatever they’re called?’
‘Maybe, maybe not. Trouble is, right now these villains are targeting me and if we bring in the NCA their first interest won’t be to protect me. They’ll be viewing the bigger picture, of which I form an insignificant but irritating part – Woody’ll make sure of that.’
‘Surely he won’t be involved in it?’
‘I think it’s a strong possibility he will. If not him, someone else at least as senior. He’s a senior officer and if he’s bent and I think that’s a strong possibility, the bad guys will have bought him and will definitely use him.’
‘And he’ll blacken your name and leave you as a sitting duck.’
‘Something like that,’ said Sep. ‘I need to work this on my own for a while before I hand it over to the big boys. The trouble is that Santiago had no record for criminality. Clean as a whistle. The cops keep records of everyone suspected of anything. They’ll definitely have one on me – and one on you for assisting me.’
‘What? They can’t do that.’
‘Winnie, there’s no law against keeping records. I have records of hundreds of people I have reservations about. If one of their names crops up in an investigation, it quite often gives me a head start – known associates and all that.’
‘I’d like to know what they think they’ve got on me. Can you find out from Fiona?’
‘I don’t need Fiona. You do have a fair old sheet, you know.’
‘I know and you’re responsible for most of it.’
‘It’ll also say that you’re the lover of DI Black and that won’t be my doing.’
‘Lover? How would they know that?’
‘It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, but I hope you don’t go around broadcasting it.’
‘Of course not, but going back to the mystery of why Santiago was murdered, it’s unlikely that he’d be willingly mixed up with a criminal gang who resort to wholesale murder. There’s a lot more to this than we know.’
‘Maybe he didn’t realize who he was mixed up with. If what he was doing was so profitable it’d attract the attention of major gangsters, would it not?’
‘It would,’ said Sep, ‘and like you say, Santiago might well have been a relative innocent among serious villains – it happens.’
‘And these serious villains are after you because they think you might be on to them?’
‘Yeah, which means the quicker I do get on to them the better.’
‘I need to get onto this ASAP,’ Winnie suggested. ‘I think this is as much to do with computers as the stock market and I’m the only expert we know.’
‘Apart from Eli.’
‘I think Eli’s more of an expert in putting the hardware together. What to do with it all is more my area of expertise. I should have a field day with the
stuff in the room next door. Is there anything else I should know?’
‘Yes, you’ve missed your chance. My erection’s gone down.’
‘They don’t last long at your age. You might get another one next week.’
‘If I do I’ll smuggle it down to the village rather than trouble you.’
‘Thank you. I was thinking more about our safety here. Are you absolutely sure no one other than us three knows about you owning this cottage? What about the person you bought the place from?’
‘That was years ago. I’ve no idea who the previous owner was and I don’t imagine he knows who bought it. It was all done through an estate agency.’
DCI Wood opened the door of the Cold Case Unit office and stood there long enough to alert them to the presence of a senior officer, but his presence didn’t impress anyone. No one in the room took any notice; none of them liked him. He knew that and thought he’d open with a joke.
‘Is Ironside in today?’
‘If you mean DI Black, no, he’s not,’ said Fiona without looking up from a file she was examining.
‘Any idea where he is?’
‘Right now he’s on sick leave and wants to keep his whereabouts a secret and who can blame him, sir?’
‘Quite right. It’s just that I heard he was back at work and using a wheelchair.’
‘Well, he’s using a wheelchair but he’s not back at work yet.’
‘So he’s lying low, is he?’
‘Something like that.’
‘Right. The next time you speak to him, would you tell him I’d like a word?’
‘Yes, sir.’
Wood stood there, perhaps hoping someone else might decide to be more helpful than the Burnside woman. Everyone carried on with what they were doing, including conversing with each other as if he didn’t exist. He went back to his office in a dark mood, enraged by the dismissive way his subordinates in the Cold Case Unit had treated him – no doubt influenced by that bastard DI Black.
Back in his office, Wood was trying to think of a way of tracking Sep down. Out of the blue a thought struck him and brought a smile to his face. He picked up the phone and dialled the switchboard.
