“Certain. Let him go and let’s see what he’s made of.”
“I frisked him earlier. He doesn’t have a weapon.”
“Oh dear. That’s hardly fair. Here, give him this.”
Kaine pulled the butterfly knife he’d taken from Coulthard, and rotated and flicked it open in much the same, flashy way the Frenchman had done before hurting his hand, only faster, slicker. With a rapid flick of the fingers, he reversed the grip, leaned forwards, and stabbed the blade deep into the desk’s faux leather insert. He released the knife and the handle halves flopped down, thumping into the leather.
“That’s a little dramatic,” Freeman said, shaking his head in rebuke. “Good job this table’s a reproduction, not a genuine antique.”
“And a cheap one, too,” Kaine agreed.
“This whole room is like a film set. Nothing’s real. All for show.”
Darwin looked from Kaine to the knife and back again. The fear in his eyes was reinforced by his trembling chin.
“Don’t want to play, Darwin?”
He shook his head.
“You’re a soldier, a killer. I wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Neither did your grandfather. And by the way, I’m a sailor, doofus.”
Darwin frowned. “Same difference.”
“Not quite, idiot, but I’ll let it go for now. What happened? Did your grandfather find out about your little side-line? Did you kill him to shut him up?”
“I’m saying nothing. You don’t have proof of anything. Pops fell down the stairs. It was an accident. An accident, you hear!”
“How did he manage to climb the stairs in the first place? I thought he couldn’t leave his wheelchair.”
“Yeah, me too. I didn’t know it at the time, but his doctor gave him some new medication. Made him feel better, but he took too many. Way I see it, he was delirious, took it into his head to go upstairs and sleep in a proper bed, or something.”
“Is that how he found out?” Kaine pressed. “Did you store some merchandise in your room? A good place to hide stuff. After all, who’d suspect an old man in a wheelchair and his college student grandson?”
Freeman moved far enough to his left for Darwin to see him without having to crane his neck.
“Listen, TM. We aren’t the police and this isn’t a courtroom. We want answers and we have all night. Hell, with that security door and all those surveillance monitors, we have all bloody week. No one’s coming to save you. Might as well answer our questions. Save yourself a great deal of pain. What do you say?” He smiled and waited.
“Fuck o—”
Freeman jabbed him in the left eye with a finger so fast, Kaine almost missed it as a blur. Darwin didn’t. He screamed, pulled his head as far away as he could, given his neck restraint, and kept screaming.
“I didn’t see that coming,” Kaine said.
“Neither did he,” Freeman said, smiling. “The arsehole deserved it. I’ve seen the misery this creature is responsible for.” He nodded to the corpse on the floor. “And that one.”
“Care to elaborate? You still owe me a full explanation. No way you’re just here to help me. You’re too well-prepared and highly motivated.”
Freeman waggled his head a little before nodding. “In a sec. Let me just finish with this gentle interrogation.”
Darwin stopped screaming and started crying, begging. His left eye streamed more than the right.
“I can’t see … I can’t see. Please don’t.”
Freeman leaned close again and placed a hand on Darwin’s forehead. He forced the man’s head into the back of the chair, and held it still.
“Darwin, open your eyes.”
“No, I can’t,” he said as best he could through clenched teeth. “Can’t see. I can’t see!”
Still holding Darwin’s head in place, Freeman reached into the desk tidy, rattled the pens loudly, and selected a fat, old-fashioned fountain pen. A Montblanc. A real one. Expensive. With finger and thumb, he unscrewed the top and let it fall. The heavy top hit the desk, bounced twice, rolled off, and was lost in the deep undergrowth masquerading as carpet.
The noise it made when hitting the desk made Darwin open his remaining good eye. As he found focus on the pen’s sharp nib, less than three centimetres away, the former gang leader whimpered. He squeezed the eye closed and tried pulling his head away.
Freeman held the head steady and used his thumb to pry and hold the eyelid open.
“Good, good. Now I have your full attention we can begin.”
“W-What you g-going to do?” Spittle flew as Darwin spoke.
“Ask a few questions. If I don’t like an answer, I find out how well your eyeball stands in for a piece of paper.”
Freeman spoke slowly and quietly. As he did so, he moved the Montblanc’s golden nib closer to Darwin’s eyeball.
It was masterful. Kaine couldn’t have done it better himself.
“No, no. Please. Ask your questions, but don’t hurt me.”
Freeman twisted his lips. “Nah, sorry. Don’t believe you.”
The pen moved closer and the nib touched an eyelash on the lower lid. The captive squealed again.
“Please. Please don’t,” he screeched, sounding remarkably similar to his electronically modulated alter ego.
Kaine hid a smile behind his hand.
Freeman pulled the pen away, but not far. Keeping the gang leader pinned and his good eye open, he turned to look at Kaine.
“What do you reckon, Ryan? Can we trust him to tell the truth?”
“Nah, start writing,” Kaine answered. “After the evening we’ve had, I really don’t mind watching him suffer.”
“Okay, will do. Doesn’t matter if he’s blind. He has a pair of testicles, a todger, and all those fingers and toes we can work on. Think you can find something to slice things open with?”
Kaine didn’t have to search hard. He pointed to the butterfly knife sticking into the desk.
“Will that do? Looks sturdy and sharp enough to me.”
Darwin squealed again. “Oh God. No. Please, don’t.”
Freeman frowned. “Okay, okay. Stop your wailing. You’re giving me a headache. First question. Did you kill your grandfather?”
“Yes, yes. Well, sort of. It happened pretty much the way Mr Kaine said. Pops found some papers in my bedroom, the one time I left the door unlocked.”
“You use to lock your bedroom door?” Kaine asked.
“Y-Yeah. Fucking Primula Johnson. Nosey bitch had a key to the front door … didn’t want her messing with my shit.”
“Keep going,” Freeman insisted, waggling the Montblanc once more.
“Yes, yes. Okay. So, Pops found some stuff I’d left out by mistake. Papers, not p-product. I’d never bring drugs into the house. N-Never touch the stuff. That poison’s for morons. I … tried to bluff it out with Pops. Said it was part of my college studies. Research, you know. But he … didn’t believe me.”
“So you pushed him down the stairs?” Kaine asked.
“No, no. It was an accident. He turned too fast, fell from the top step. I-I tried to catch him. Save him. Honest, I did but … but … I’m sorry. Couldn’t.”
“I’ve seen your grandfather’s house,” Kaine said. “Rundown, messy, broken central heating system, but you live most of the time like this.” He swept an arm to encompass the room.
Darwin paused. He swallowed and took a moment to breathe deeply before continuing.
“Camouflage. The old house had to look the part. Anyhow, you didn’t know the old man. If I’d have tried to help him out, he’d have asked how I could afford it. Pops thought I was at university all week, studying hard, ramping up the student loans. How could I do anything for him?”
“That leads to a question,” Freeman said. “If you were here all the time, playing TM, how come you’re registered as attending every one of your classes and acing all your exams?”
“How d’you know that?”
Freeman touched
the nib of the pen to Darwin’s upper cheek and drew a small line. “We’re asking the questions, idiot. Answer them.”
“Sorry. Sorry. I-I hired a double. A kid who looks a bit like me and needed a free ride. In college, they almost never check IDs or take registration. It’s not like at school.”
Freeman turned to Kaine again. “That’s something Corky should have known. I’ll mention it next time I visit.”
“You know where he lives?”
“’Course I do,” Freeman said, grinning. “Look for the biggest toadstool in the forest, and you’ll find Corky sitting cross-legged underneath it, playing a penny whistle.”
Kaine smiled. He could easily grow to really like the amiable thief.
“You say it was an accident,” Freeman said, lifting his thumb to release Darwin’s eyelid, but still holding his head against the back of the chair, “but I’m sure the police could make a case for manslaughter. Now, moving on. Tell me about Southend.”
“Huh?”
Freeman twiddled the Montblanc, dabbed the tip of his index finger to the point, and sucked air between his teeth.
Kaine had no idea where Freeman was headed with this change of direction, but was happy to let him continue while he was on such a good a roll.
“Southend-on-Sea, Essex. More specifically, 124 St Helen’s Park Road.”
Darwin gasped. Renewed fear lit his good eye. The other was too bloodshot and tear-filled to tell.
“What about it?” he asked, his voice hushed.
Freeman turned to Kaine. “You’ve heard of drug gangs running cuckoo’s nests?”
Kaine nodded. “Yep. A coward’s trick.”
Freeman tested the sharpness of the Montblanc’s nib with his fingertip again. He winced. Apparently, it hadn’t grown any blunter since the first test.
Darwin, without doubt a fast learner, snapped his mouth shut, and kept it shut. He didn’t lose sight of the pen, though.
“124 St Helen’s Park Road was the Tribe’s first attempt at running a cuckoo’s nest. Darwin, here, sent in one of his prettiest girls to befriend the tenant. A young man with special needs. A gentle man with the IQ of a teenager. An easy mark. She moved in with him and brought a few friends along for the ride.”
“And they set up shop, dealing drugs?”
“Yep, that’s exactly what happened,” Freeman said, turning his attention back to the captive. “Isn’t that right, Darwin?”
The gang leader formerly known as Top Man, closed his eyes, squeezing out more tears in the process. It looked as though he finally understood the real reason for Freeman’s presence, and the reason he’d played such a big part in the destruction of his business empire. Kaine still had no idea, but was certain he’d soon find out.
Freeman’s hand slid up from Darwin’s forehead and grabbed hold of his wiry mop, pulling hard.
“I asked you a question, arsehole!” he shouted, his voice spitting venom.
“Yes, yes. We did. But it wasn’t supposed to go down like that. We had a good thing going. Barney wasn’t being hurt. Alethia was keeping him sweet. The dummy never had it so good. Things were going great. Why would we want to mess that up?”
“Barney?” Kaine asked, although reluctant to interrupt the confession.
“Barney was the tenant with the special needs. Turns out he wasn’t as slow as TM and Alethia originally thought. He worked out what was happening and threatened to call the police. Poor man didn’t stand a chance. TM sent that animal”—Freeman jerked his head towards the corpse on the floor—“to make sure Barney couldn’t tell anyone anything.”
“What happened?”
“A week after Williams’ surprise visit, Barney’s only living relative, his cousin, found his body in the bath with a belly full of sleeping tablets and his wrists slashed. The Coroner concluded the poor lad committed suicide. Apparently, Barney became distraught when his new girlfriend left him unexpectedly. Case closed.”
“But?”
“The cousin knew better. Barney could never swallow tablets and wouldn’t have ended his life without talking to the cousin first.”
“You were the cousin?” Kaine asked.
Freeman turned to face Kaine and shook his head. “No, Ryan. Not me. An old school friend. She contacted me through Corky, and the two of us decided to investigate.
“Corky and I put the bones of it together fairly quickly, but struggled to identify TM. I’ve been planning this little intervention for a few weeks now, which is why I built the disruptor. Then you received your 83.com message from Primula Johnston, which Corky intercepted. Couldn’t have worked out better. The rest, as they say, is mystery.”
“You mean ‘history’?”
“Nope, not a fan of history. Prefer a good mystery thriller, me,” Freeman said and double-hitched his eyebrows.
“Oh dear.”
“Sorry, but it’s been a long night and they can’t all be gems. Jewel thief … ‘gems’ … get it?”
Kaine groaned and briefly closed his eyes. “Please stop doing that.”
“Can’t promise anything of the sort,” Freeman said, still smiling brightly in spite of the bruises mottling his face.
“Changing the subject slightly,” Kaine said, “I’ve just thought of something. Mind if I ask your prisoner a couple more questions?”
Freeman stepped away and rolled a hand in front of the captive. “Be my guest.”
“You are so kind.”
“I try.”
Kaine perched on the edge of the desk and faced Darwin full on. He narrowed his eyes and leaned closer to the hapless former gang leader, who simpered and jerked his head as far away as his restraints would allow.
“I asked you about this a couple of days ago, but I have a feeling you weren’t being entirely truthful. Now that we’ve come to a better understanding, I’ll ask the question again. Ready?”
“Yes. I-I’ll answer anything, but please don’t hurt me.”
“What happened to that bank draft? Did you find it?”
“Y-Yes. Found it after Pops … passed.”
“Did you cash it in?”
Darwin tucked his chin into his chest in an action Kaine read as a nod.
Kaine rested a hand on Darwin’s shoulder. “That gives me a bit of a problem, Darwin, old chum. The money is meant for those who deserve it, not lying, thieving scumbags like you. Where is it?”
Darwin flicked a sly glance at a bookcase on the opposite wall to the fire before lowering his eyes to focus on the top of the desk.
Freeman clearly caught the look, too. He raised a finger. “Hold it right there a moment, will you Ryan?”
Kaine shrugged, said, “Happy to,” and squeezed Darwin’s bony shoulder a little harder.
Freeman waded through the carpet and studied the bookcase for a moment before turning to Darwin.
“Oh dear,” he said, “you’ve been holding out on us. Naughty fellow.”
He pressed something on the side of the cabinet and a row of false books popped open like a door. Freeman swung the “door” fully ajar to reveal a brushed steel safe with a digital keypad. He rubbed his hands together. “Lovely stuff. A 2015 Chumley Passive. Haven’t opened one of these before. Let me get my bag.”
Kaine sighed. “No need, Sean, my friend. We have the key right here.” He squeezed Darwin’s shoulder again, digging his thumb into one of a few pressure points he could have chosen.
Before he needed to ask, Darwin rattled off a five-digit number, which Freeman dialled into the keypad, looking a little disappointed. The safe clicked open. He peered inside and whistled, but his broad shoulders hid the contents from Kaine.
“Anything interesting?” Kaine asked.
“Only if you consider banknotes interesting.” Freeman turned away to reveal a small safe neatly stuffed with bundles of cash.
Kaine nodded. “I do. How much?” He aimed the question at Darwin, to speed up the process.
“Half a million pounds,” the prisoner mumbled without l
ooking up.
The jewel thief stopped counting. “A quarter mil’ each. Not bad for one night’s work. It’ll go a long way to help ease the pain from these bruises.” He touched the side of his damaged face and winced.
Kaine shook his head. “Nope. All I need is the ten grand to cover the banker’s draft. You can help yourself to the rest.”
“You sure?”
“Well,” Kaine said, after considering the issue a little further. “I did incur some costs during this mission, courtesy of the Tribe, but I’m sure you’ll give the rest a good home.”
“Oh yes,” Freeman said, grinning. “I’ll find something nice to spend it on. I am a thief, after all.” He added a wink and threw Kaine a couple of bundles of the crisp, unused notes.
Kaine caught the money and stuffed it into his jacket pocket while Freeman loaded the rest into his backpack. After he’d finished, he returned to the desk, dropped the backpack on top, and patted it lovingly. “I know a couple of drug rehab charities who will appreciate a sizeable donation.”
“Really?” Kaine asked, allowing incredulity to seep into his tone.
“You thought I was going to keep it? Shame on you.”
Kaine tilted his head. “You did say you were a thief.”
After delivering another wink, Sean said, “Don’t believe everything you’re told, Ryan. Especially if you hear it from a dishonest man.”
“I’ll take that on board for future reference, my friend,” Kaine said. He pressed his hands against his thighs and used them to lever himself from the desk and into a standing position. “That only leaves us with one question.”
“Only one?”
“One major question.”
“Which is?”
“What do we do with this creature?” Kaine nodded at Darwin. “I’m not a big fan of killing a helpless man—”
“Yes, I could tell that from the way you treated the Goons.”
Darwin’s chin trembled and his shoulders slumped even further.
Kaine straightened his jacket and cleared his throat. “If you’ll let me continue, I was going to say, I’m not a big fan of killing a helpless man, but in this case, I’m happy to make an exception.”
On the Money Page 36
