A Duty of Revenge

by Quentin Dowse

  ‘Heavy, isn’t it?’

  Grantmore almost pulled the trigger; he was that startled. Frame hadn’t even turned round but was standing looking out onto Spring Bank while buttoning up his shirt, Grantmore’s reflection visible in the window.

  ‘Very noisy too and actually not that accurate even at this range… unless of course you’re trained.’ He bent to pull on his jeans.

  Grantmore’s resolve evaporated and he gently placed the gun back on the sofa. ‘I … I was… I was just feeling its weight. I’ve never used a gun.’

  ‘Then you definitely shouldn’t point one at someone’s back’.

  Frame fastened his belt, picked up his shoes and socks and walked over to the sofa. He picked up the gun and handed it back to Grantmore, before sitting next to him and starting to put on his socks and shoes.

  Grantmore let the gun lie in his lap, his hands useless. The realisation that Frame, by this bizarre intimidation, now held full sway over him chilled him to the core. Used to being the intimidator himself, the truth of his situation was all the more frightening. The ruined socket of his missing eye began to itch uncontrollably and he tenderly rubbed his knuckle into it, trying to lessen the feeling but at the same time giving himself something to do. He didn’t know how to react to Frame, what to say or do.

  His shoes tied, Frame again stood up, picked up the gun from Grantmore’s lap and pushed it into the rear of his trousers beneath the hem of his smart tweed jacket.

  ‘Five grand, Sean. For the last job, like I promised. And we’ll forget the rest of your loan. Now let’s go get a drink and discuss what you’re going to do to earn it.’

  He opened the door and walked into the reception area, where Pauline and Cheryl had just had time to get sat back on the sofa. He gave them a jaunty salute of goodbye. ‘Ladies. Come on, Sean. Look sharp.’

  As Frame trotted lightly down the stairs, Grantmore pushed himself out of the couch, across the landing, past his two employees and without a word followed him. He could only think of the expression “dead man walking”.

  Eighteen

  13:35, Two Hours Later

  As Darnley and Wilde Talk in Bainton

  Sean Grantmore was not a man used to feeling afraid. He was accustomed to stirring up that emotion in others – and enjoying the power it gave him.

  When he’d first met Frame, he’d regarded the public schoolboy turned criminal as a toffee-nosed joke but inexplicably grew to be more and more proud to share his criminal know-how with him. Little by little, as he revealed his army background and own expertise, Frame had exerted subtle intimidation until their respective positions were reversed. Grantmore grew to feel like the hired hand of a professional criminal. He found himself following Frame’s orders and getting involved in a type of crime that, even before the murder of Emmerson, could attract a life sentence. Owing Frame a large amount of money freaked him out further, and the threats he had made today were no longer even veiled.

  Then there was Holland. Initially, his acquittal of the rape had boosted his confidence and enhanced his local reputation, but he knew that it must have been his victim’s father that had disfigured and blinded him. Having Russ Holland still walking the streets of Hull was terrifying – the man was bloody deranged. What might he do next? He had resolved to strike back against Russ Holland and had even contemplated involving Frame but realised that would put him even deeper in his debt.

  Now he had Darnley threatening to expose him as a grass.

  Upon leaving the massage parlour, Frame had walked him casually along Spring Bank to the Polar Bear where over a pint he had explained the type of job he wanted Grantmore to set up next. To further complicate matters, Frame had instructed him to find them a driver for the job. Someone who would follow orders, keep their hands to themselves and keep their mouths shut – unlike Emmerson. Frame left him in no doubt as to what would happen to him if he refused to cooperate by referring to Emmerson in his usual calm manner, which made the implied threat all the more menacing. He told him that this was to be his last crime, after which he would leave the country. He knew Frame’s purpose in disclosing his intention to quit was to reassure him that after this last job his debt was paid and he was off the hook. What it actually did was convince him that he’d be dead before Frame had even packed his bags. He doubted that any driver he supplied would live to tell the tale either.

  Frame left the pub after an hour, telling Grantmore he wanted to move things forward and he had ten days to find a new target and a driver. After he’d left, Sean sat and seethed. Terrified but angry. Frustrated and ashamed. Was Darnley his only way out? How could he use him to free himself from Frame and not end up looking over his shoulder for the rest of his life?

  He knew he needed to transfer his gut-wrenching fear onto someone else. He needed a woman. He stood, drained his pint and strode from the pub, meeting the gaze of those lunchtime drinkers who knew who he was and were keen to nod their acknowledgments to one of Hull’s hard men. Just being recognised in this manner boosted his self-esteem a notch and spurred him on to boost it further, in the way he so often did.

  He hailed a taxi and three or four minutes later, opposite Nicole’s, he peeled a twenty-pound note off his usual wedge of cash and shoved it into the cabby’s hand, telling him to keep the change. He was now buzzing with anticipation. Only yesterday, Janine had brought in a young girl from Withernsea, needing to work in one of his parlours to feed her heroin habit – bit skinny because of the drugs but pretty enough to keep the middle-aged punters happy. He planned to use her to replace Marilyn, who was well past her sell-by date. Well, she certainly would be by the time he’d finished with her. No point taking his anger out on the fresh stock; plenty of time for the new girl when she’d settled in. He laughed to himself, proud of his business sense and with his fear now submerged beneath a thin veneer of anger and lust.

  As he stepped out of the taxi, a strange noise intruded into his reverie. It stopped but then started again as he strode across the road towards Nicole’s. Reaching the footpath outside his premises, he glanced back to where the taxi was just pulling away and caught a brief glimpse of a figure retreating rapidly into the mouth of an alleyway, close to where he had alighted from the taxi. The person disappeared but pointing towards him and clearly visible was the large zoom lens of a camera. Someone was taking photos of him – that’s what he’d heard. He checked the road and strode rapidly across towards the alleyway. The camera lens withdrew slowly into the shadows as he drew closer.

  Behind the camera, Graham Morley began to shake, and backed further into the gloom of the alleyway. Still viewing the world through his Canon, he unthinkingly continued to capture the unfolding events.

  Grantmore’s fear, frustration, anger and shame also clouded his judgement. All thoughts of taking it out on Marilyn were instantly forgotten. His emotions funnelled towards the bastard who was taking photographs of him. Adrenaline ruled his actions. No pause to think and reason; he just knew it must be connected to the arrogant bastard who had put him into this state of high anxiety. Anger gained supremacy over his other emotions. He’d show Frame. No one pushes Sean Grantmore around. Fear was forgotten and retribution was due.

  Through the camera, Morley saw Grantmore enter the alley and move towards him with that sense of purpose displayed in his face and his movements. He kept firing off shots as he retreated but made no attempt to try and escape. It was as if he’d always known this moment had to come and he wished only to record it. His mind was as blank as Grantmore’s. As his back came up against a wall where the alley turned at right angles, he stopped and lowered the camera.

  His pursuer also stopped and looked at the insignificant weasel of a man that he knew Frame must have sent to try and spook him further. With a bellow of rage, he rushed at the much smaller man and with a sideswipe knocked the camera out of his hands. It swung on its strap over Morley’s left shoulder and clat
tered against the alley wall. He then thumped a petrified Morley hard in the stomach and as he doubled over in pain, he drove his right knee up into his face, grabbing him at the same time and flinging him to the left, deeper into the alley behind the shops and thus out of sight of potential witnesses.

  Morley landed hard on all fours, his camera swinging and scraping on the ground. Grantmore kicked him forward, flat onto the floor and Morley’s chest collided solidly with the camera, breaking a couple of his ribs on his left side. He instinctively rolled onto his undamaged right side and came to rest leaning with his back against the wall of the alley, looking up at the man who had for so long haunted his thoughts.

  Grantmore kicked him hard in the stomach and when he curled to protect himself, he stamped down on him, inflicting further damage to his chest, and followed with a vicious kick to his face. Still wedged against the wall, Morley watched as Grantmore bent his knees and leaned in close.

  ‘Tell Frame he can fuck off. No one pushes Sean Grantmore around. Did you get that, you puny little runt.’

  He rose and again kicked out into the bloody pulp of Morley’s face and gave a final stamp on his head before spitting between his eyes. ‘Got it? Tell the bastard to fuck off.’

  He roughly pulled the expensive camera from around Morley’s neck and then walked off, swinging it by his side.

  Morley’s bitter last thought before he passed out was that Grantmore didn’t even know who he was.

  Still seething with rage, Grantmore strode across to his business. He was buzzed inside by Marilyn and gained the sanctity of his office. By sheer fluke, there were no witnesses to what had just occurred, and Marilyn was too busy painting her nails to spot his bloodstained boots and shirt. She never even looked up, oblivious to his flushed face, agitation, still pulsing anger and the camera – blissfully unaware of how close she had been to falling foul of his violence that she had suffered so often in the past.

  He fell into his office chair, chest heaving with emotion as adrenaline coursed through his body. He pulled a bottle of Jim Beam from his desk drawer and with a shaking hand swallowed straight from the bottle. The alcohol calmed him, and his judgement slowly ebbed back into his consciousness. What the fuck had he done? Two hours ago, he had thought he was a dead man walking – now he’d just dug his own grave.

  Remorse never entered his head. The possibility that the attack may have been witnessed was not considered. His total focus was on his deepening predicament as the realisation slowly dawned that as soon as Frame knew he’d attacked his hired hand, he’d come for him. Further slugs of whisky followed, slowly dulling his rampant fear until he realised what he had to do. The man must not report back. Then Frame would have no reason to think he had crossed him – just another unreliable gang member going missing.

  He had to finish the bloke off.

  He knew that he’d left him unconscious and badly injured. Only about ten minutes had passed. He had to act quickly. No time to think. He shoved Morley’s Canon into the back of a filing cabinet – he’d get rid of it later. Then he entered the small cloakroom that adjoined his office, washed his face and hands, wiped his boots with the towel and changed his shirt. He shoved the bloodstained shirt and soiled towel into the same cabinet. He breathed deeply to calm himself while staring at his reflection in the mirror, telling himself to act and take the initiative. Just minutes later, fully psyched-up, he was back in the alley, this time taking more effort to slip in unnoticed. Marilyn had hardly glanced up from her manicure. He stood over Morley’s inert form and prodded him in the chest with his foot to confirm that he was still unconscious and unlikely to rouse. Where the hell could he hide him? There was no way he could move him far in the middle of the day. He moved further into the alley and pushed through a six-foot-high gate that opened into the back yard of a kebab shop that only opened in the evenings. A large green industrial-sized waste skip was all that occupied a surprisingly clean and tidy yard. He pushed back the lid and was dismayed to find it almost full, until he realised there’d be enough room to hide the body beneath the rubbish. He could return that night and sort out a more permanent disposal. Returning to the alley, he grabbed Morley’s ankles and dragged him into the yard, closing the gate behind him while confirming he was not overlooked.

  His confidence returning, he looked down at what he now regarded as little more than a nuisance. If Grantmore would ever have recognised Graham Morley from their school days, he certainly couldn’t now. His face was just a distorted bloodstained mush. He stepped close to Morley’s head and raised his right leg above his face, ready to stamp and finish him off. He paused and considered finding another weapon, as this would clearly mean having to get rid of an expensive and fairly new pair of boots. Then he saw that both boots were already stained with smeared blood, despite his efforts with the towel. He shrugged and started stamping.

  Grantmore had committed many acts of violence and it was more by luck than judgement that he had never killed anyone before. He had given people worse beatings than he had given Morley in the alleyway, and they’d lived. So he had never considered that Morley was already dead before this final onslaught. He was just wasting energy.

  Nineteen

  The Following Monday

  08:30 Monday, 8th February 1999

  Marjorie Priestley was a very fastidious woman and expected her husband Noel to comply with the house rules she had imposed during their thirty-eight-year marriage. So when she awoke that morning at 8.30am and went downstairs for her breakfast, she expected, as usual, to find her husband’s breakfast pots neatly stacked next to the sink, not still on the table. Marjorie stood in the kitchen doorway surveying a half-eaten bowl of cereal and an almost full mug of tea on the table, sitting on the placemats she insisted Noel always use. She tutted her displeasure and surveyed the kitchen for other transgressions. Noel’s failures to follow her rules were rare and although she never even acknowledged it to herself, this was a disappointment. Noel acting out of character was something she could get her teeth into. Something to berate and belittle him about. A minor frisson of excitement in her dull and dry-as-dust marriage. When she spotted the cereal packet on the worktop instead of in the cupboard and the tea towel alongside it, not neatly spread on the towel rail, she tutted again and started to plan her errant husband’s reception when he returned home after work from the building society.

  Sweeping up the bowl and mug as she strode into her domain, she felt a draught from the back door and to her absolute amazement saw that it was slightly ajar. She pulled her quilted pale blue nylon housecoat more tightly across her skinny frame, pulled the door fully open and peered out into the back garden, which was covered in a thick white frost. Surely Noel had left for work? It was his first day back after a minor heart attack brought on by stress after the robbery at the building society in December. He was always gone by 8.00am, convinced of the absolute necessity of him being at his office desk by 8.30am so that as the staff at the building society arrived for work they would see him there and recognise he was in charge; keener and more dedicated than them and thus indispensable. Marjorie never ever got up when he did, nor prepared his breakfast nor joined him for the first meal of the day. She would lie awake in bed, listening to him shower and shave in the en-suite and dream of the day she would wake up and he’d be gone. She’d long ago worked out that him leaving her, or vice versa, was no good, as along that route there was no life insurance payout, no half of his generous pension and the big detached house would have to be sold and shared. Why, oh why did his recent heart attack have to be minor? Just her bloody luck. But he had gone back to work today despite his doctor’s advice. Maybe he’d drop dead at his desk – this week if at all possible! Each and every morning, she dreamed about how wonderful life would be without the pompous little bastard.

  How dare he leave the door open in the winter? That was one of his rules. How often did he rattle on about the energy bills? Telling he
r to wear a jumper when she asked for the heating on. As his retirement approached, he would endlessly reiterate how they would need to tighten their belts and she should get used to it now. She knew he would receive a handsome pension, and his shrewd investments and years of his parsimony meant they were already very comfortable and would continue to be so. The only luxuries allowed in the Priestley household were those required for show. A new car – for him – every year. An annual holiday – chosen by him – selected to allow him to lord it over his staff.

  ‘Noel. Noel. What are you doing?’ she shouted out into the garden.

  She assumed that there was a problem with the new Volvo and he had left the door open while in and out to the garage. She realised she had the opportunity to admonish him now – why wait until tonight?

  ‘Noel. You’ve left the back door wide open.’

  She pulled her anorak on over her housecoat, slipped her feet into her gardening shoes and still tutting, trotted round the back of the house to the double detached garage. She expected to see the Volvo on the drive and Noel defrosting the windows or something and, although very cold, she was burning with the thrill of berating him for his tardiness in the kitchen, and especially for the open door.

  As she opened the side gate alongside the garage, which gave access to the front drive, she could hear the idling engine of the car. Ensuring her face bore a suitable scowl of indignation, she burst onto the drive ready to start her day with points scored over her pious, penny-pinching, pompous pillock of a husband.

  But the car wasn’t there and neither was Noel. The double garage doors were closed and when she tried them, locked. She could, however, hear the car engine from inside. She walked back through the gate and tried the side door of the garage, finding it unlocked. The garage was in darkness so she turned on the fluorescent strip light and quickly took in the scene. Her husband was sitting slumped in the driver’s seat of his two-month-old metallic gold Volvo, which was full of thick white clouds of exhaust fumes. A hosepipe ran from the exhaust pipe into the front passenger side window.