Brick: An unputdownable gritty thriller...

by Conrad Jones

  “She’s a bit shaken up so they’ve taken her to the hospital. She’s not in the best of health,” he paused. “There’s more, I’m afraid, Guv.”

  “Go on.” Braddick kicked at the floor with his boot while he listened.

  “Someone has traced Bryn Evans to the hospital. They threw a house brick through the window of his room.”

  “They couldn’t have traced him, Google,” Braddick said with a sigh. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his free hand. “Someone told them he was there.”

  “That is what I thought.”

  “Was anyone hurt?”

  “Yes, Guv, it hit his brief, square in the face; he’s in a right state.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Erm, hold on a second I have his name written down somewhere, Jacob Graff,” Google read from his notes.

  “Jacob Graff?” Braddick said surprised. “I know of him. He’s a very big hitter in these parts.”

  “Maybe the Evans family have money, Guv.”

  “They will need it if they’re employing Jacob Graff’s services,” Braddick said. “The thing is Jacob Graff bats for the opposition.”

  “I can look into who is paying the bills, Guv.”

  “Yes, do that. Where there any witnesses?”

  “No, Guv. The wreath was ordered locally and the buyer paid with cash, no CCTV in the shop. We’ve got a couple of grainy images of the hospital car park but nothing we can use to identify whoever threw the brick.”

  “So the Farrells are on the warpath,” Braddick shook his head and continued to kick at the floor with the toe of his boot. “Have we managed to track down Eddie Farrell?”

  “He’s travelling abroad, somewhere in South East Asia apparently.”

  “So he’s out of the country and we still have a backlash?”

  “They’re a big family, Guv.”

  “Doesn’t bode well, does it?”

  “No, Guv. They’ve got the Evans family together in a secure area and armed response is there. There’s an older brother not accounted for but he’s on his way apparently.”

  “Okay, good work thanks, Google. Let them know that we’ll be there shortly.”

  “No problem.”

  Braddick mulled things over. A reaction from the Farrells was anticipated but it was quicker than he expected. If Eddie Farrell was away then someone else was orchestrating it. “Sorry,” Braddick turned back to Cain. “It appears that the Farrells are already on the warpath.”

  “Really?” she frowned. “What’s happened?”

  “Someone threw a brick through the window at the hospital,” Braddick explained. “The fact that it was a house brick can’t be a coincidence.”

  “Oh dear,” Cain said with a shake of her head. “I feel sorry for that kid.”

  “Have you ever come across the Johnson family?” Braddick asked.

  “The men found in the alley?” she shook he head again. “They’re new to me. I don’t think they’re connected to the Farrells.”

  “You need to see this, Guv,” Ade called from behind a garden gate, just his eyes and forehead showing above the wood. He struggled with the bolt and the gate rattled open. Braddick and Cain walked towards him. Ade looked surprised when he saw her and they acknowledged each other with the slightest of nods. “You okay, Guv?” he asked Braddick.

  “We’ve got mither at the hospital,” Braddick shrugged. “I’ve just had a call from the Royal. Someone is after Evans already. They chucked a brick through the window and hit his brief in the face.”

  “That will be the Farrells, eh?”

  “Good work, detective,” Cain quipped. Ade looked at her, his eyes narrowed slightly. There appeared to be no love lost between them. “Nothing gets past Ade.” She joked but Adrian Burns didn’t see the funny side.

  “They also sent a wreath to his mother,” Braddick added as an afterthought. “She’s been taken to the hospital.”

  “Bloody hell, subtle if nothing else,” Ade grunted. “Are you thinking of putting them into protective custody?”

  “That’s the problem,” Braddick frowned. “Evans is a murder suspect not a witness. We can’t put his family into protection and if we put him in custody, he’s a sitting duck.”

  “He would be.”

  “It would take the Farrells five minutes to get to him inside.”

  “What can we do?”

  “Nothing much,” Braddick shrugged. “Ultimately, it will be down to the Crown Prosecution Service and Social Services.” His confidence in both agencies was low. They were short staffed, swamped with cases and he had lost touch with all his contacts there. There would be no favours coming his way. He sighed and pulled his leather jacket together tightly against the wind. “I’ll call at the Royal on the way back and speak to Evans. Anyway, what have you found?”

  “You were right about the drains but it’s not what I expected. You’ll be surprised.”

  “Not Shergar is it?” Braddick mumbled. He stepped through the gate and peered into an inspection hatch, the cover removed by the CSI’s. Paulie or his associates had fitted a wire mesh trap across the pipe to catch anything that they had to flush down the toilet. Lumps of tissue paper and excrement clung to the wire, the stench eye-watering. “Didn’t he think that we would check if they had a trap?”

  “It’s a bit of a giveaway that you’re up to no good, unless you’re in the habit of flushing your valuables down the lavvy.” Cain agreed with a grin. Her face became serious again. “No sign of any drugs?”

  “No.”

  “Money?”

  “Not quite.” Ade held up a clear evidence bag. Inside was a bundle of passports, dark green in colour with gold writing embossed on the front. “There are eighteen in total, all Russian, all female.”

  “Good. Paulie Williams is up shit creek,” Braddick said. He looked around the garden area frustrated. “Where are the drugs?” he asked no one in particular.

  “They were moved recently. The dogs reacted all over the house but there’s nothing there, Guv,” Ade shrugged. “Maybe he unwrapped it all and flushed the powder down the drains?”

  “Would you flush Eddie Farrell’s drugs down the toilet?” Cain scoffed. “They would cut his legs off and feed them to him.”

  “The search team have combed the house.” Ade shrugged.

  “Let’s have another look,” Braddick said. He turned and headed into the house through the back door. The kitchen was immaculate, floors and worktops gleaming, cupboards tidy and organised. He opened the lid on a pedal bin, a large empty bottle of Fanta its only content. A single unwashed glass in the sink was the only blemish on perfection. “Do you think this bloke has got OCD, a cleaning obsession?”

  “Maybe, Guv,” Ade nodded opening the tin cupboard. “Anyone who lines up their beans and peas has either got issues or too much time on their hands, or both.”

  They moved through the hallway into the living room, the same story faced them. His books were colour coordinated, surfaces dusted, carpets and rugs vacuumed. There wasn’t a thing out of place. The search team was busy moving things and putting them back where they belonged. Braddick left the room and walked upstairs. A small bathroom tiled and converted with a walk-in shower and over sized toilet, showed no signs of drug dealing. A small cabinet had a mascara stick and a box of tampons, the only trace of a female. It had been adapted for the morbidly obese. The main bedroom smelled of stale sweat and despite Paulie’s obsessive cleaning, he couldn’t remove his own odour. Braddick wrinkled his nose and moved on to the spare rooms.

  “There have been women up here,” Cain commented.

  “Yes. The first thing they noticed were the mortice locks fitted to these two rooms,” Braddick pointed to the doors.

  Cain nodded. “They can only be unlocked from the landing?”

  “Yep. The windows are sealed units so unless they’re smashed the occupants are trapped. I think they let them out to work then lock them up.”

  “Poor buggers can’t run,�
� Ade said holding up the passports. “Their families in Russia would be punished; makes me puke.”

  They looked inside the bedroom. “It looks like something from a sixties porn film,” Cain commented, looking at the leopard print covers and satin sheets.

  “Sixties porn,” Braddick said sarcastically. “If you were eighteen in the sixties, you would be over sixty.” He looked at Cain. “You’re not over sixty.” She grinned and carried on looking. Braddick opened a wardrobe and flicked through a number of ‘costumes’, nurse, policewoman, naughty maid and a selection of tight Lycra dresses. Ade walked in and stood in the doorway. “Either Paulie rents out fancy dress costumes or he lets them bring punters back here.”

  “It would explain the passports, Guv,” Ade said.

  “Definitely,” Braddick nodded. “The house is in the ideal position for a brothel. It’s a corner plot so it’s easy to drive to and the park at the rear offers great cover for punters on foot.”

  “Plus the owner of the house is huge. If there is trouble Paulie would sort it out and he takes all the risks,” Cain added. “Punters could come and go through the backdoor without alerting the neighbours. Then if you hired a few young villains from the estate to sell smack in the park at night it would be a little goldmine.”

  “You know that Paulie is selling smack?” Braddick asked surprised.

  “Our Matrix officer says that it’s the Farrells’ product of choice,” Cain said matter of factly. “The Russians import it from Afghanistan and ship it across Europe. No one else in the area sells smack and the Farrells don’t sell coke. That keeps a fragile peace.”

  “That’s what I don’t get,” Braddick said scratching the bristles on his chin. “Why attack the Evans kid and attract attention?”

  “You wouldn’t unless he owed money or was a threat.”

  “Maybe this kid isn’t as innocent as we’re being led to believe.” Ade shrugged.

  “Big Paulie Williams is going to give us the answer to that,” Braddick walked to the window. “He knows why Farrell attacked Bryn Evans.”

  “And if we lean on him he might give up that he’s fronting for the Farrells.”

  “There are a couple of things missing there, Guv,” Ade frowned, “women and drugs.”

  “He had plenty of time to pack the women off through the back door, give them some money and an address to get to and then...”

  “And then stash the drugs.”

  “Yes but where?”

  Braddick closed the wardrobe door. He looked up at the loft access hatch in the ceiling. It had been painted with white gloss paint years ago and never opened since. He could see the paint still formed a seal around the lid. They headed down the stairs to the hallway. To the left was a sitting room, which was an elongated L-shape. He walked behind a patterned settee into a dining room. The walls were magnolia, black and white prints of the mountains of Snowdonia hung next to prints of the Lake District. The condition and decoration of the house was not compatible with a single male of Paulie’s profile. It was tasteful and subtle, not what Braddick expected from a thirty stone pimp. He glanced over the room once more, his eyes settling on a mark on the oak dining table. It was the only thing that looked out of place. He walked over to it and bent down to see it in the light, which was filtering in through beige vertical blinds, two sticky circles, one bigger than the other.

  “Look at this,” Braddick turned to Ade. Ade bent to look at the marks. “There was an unwashed glass in the sink.”

  “You’ve lost me, Guv.”

  “Look at this place. It’s bloody spotless.” Braddick waved his hand. He looked around the room and found what he was looking for. “He wouldn’t leave a glass in the sink unwashed and he wouldn’t leave sticky marks like this on his table unless he was in a rush.”

  “He would have used a coaster or something,” Cain said catching up with them.

  “There look, next to you on the window sill.”

  Ade picked up a set of six coasters. “Am I missing something?”

  “He didn’t use a coaster,” Braddick pointed to the sticky marks. “That’s a glass mark and that’s a bottle mark. The empty bottle is in the kitchen bin. It was a two-litre bottle of Fanta. He didn’t use a coaster and he didn’t wash his glass because he was in a rush. We were coming.”

  “So he drank a bottle of Fanta in a rush?” Ade asked, confused.

  “I think that he was washing something down with a bottle of Fanta,” Braddick pointed his finger to his head. “I think our fat friend has swallowed his stash.”

  “It would make sense,” Cain agreed. She flushed red which Braddick thought was odd. Was she pissed off that she had missed the collar or was there something else? “I’d be interested to sit in on that interview.”

  “I want to speak to Bryn Evans at the hospital before I speak to Paulie.” Braddick said watching her reaction. There was a twitch at the corner of her mouth when she was annoyed. He patted Ade on the back. “I want you to go back to the nick and make sure Williams doesn’t go to the loo. Why don’t you both interview him?” Cain and Ade exchanged glances, neither looked excited by the prospect of working together. “Put some pressure on him, Ade, see what comes out. You know what I mean.”

  Ade nodded, not quite understanding exactly what he did mean, rumours about why the new DI had returned from his secondment early echoed around his mind. “I will do, Guv. I’ll see you back at the station,” he added turning to Cain.

  “Great. See you there,” she mumbled to Ade as he left; a forced smile on her lips. “I’ll keep you posted,” she said to Braddick. She half smiled and headed for the door.

  “You do that,” Braddick said to himself as she closed the door behind her. Something about Steff Cain didn’t sit right with him but keeping her close to the investigation couldn’t hurt and might pay dividend.

  CHAPTER 12

  As he hit the glass, Liam covered his head and face with his arms. The force of the impact shattered the window and his momentum carried him through. He felt glass slice his forearms, hands and legs, stinging pain fizzled through his brain. Suddenly he was falling through the air, his eyes closed, his muscles tensed for impact. Visions of landing impaled on a trolley jack flashed through his mind. Fear gripped him. He heard glass shattering as it hit the garage floor beneath, voices shouting, angry voices, aggressive and threatening but he paid them no heed. His only concern as he fell was when he was going to stop falling. Time seemed to stop as he dropped. The impact came with a thunderous clang and a bone shaking jolt. His head bounced off something hard and metallic. White lights like a giant camera flash went off in his brain and he felt the breath knocked from his lungs. Liam opened his eyes and looked up, unsure where he had landed, waiting for the first hand to grab him, the first punch to land but none came.

  His vision was filled with the sight of the sloping moulded roof, open girders and bare fluorescent tubes that bathed the unit in a harsh white light. Watery daylight glimmered through skylights far above him. Looking around he realised that he had landed on top of the container. The men below couldn’t reach him but the men in the office could follow him if they were brave enough to jump and they could certainly shoot him. He saw Nicolai and his men staring through the broken window, pointing, shouting and gesturing wildly to the top of the truck. He could hear the men below running around the lorry trying desperately to find a way to reach him. Liam knew that it wouldn’t take them long to fathom a way up. Without thinking, he jumped up onto one of the girders that supported the roof and shimmied up towards a skylight in the moulded panels. The men below shouted abuse and a stainless steel spanner bounced off the girder with a clang, followed by a hail of makeshift missiles. Nuts, bolts and tools whistled past his head as they tried to make him fall.

  Liam climbed faster. His foot slipped and kicked a fluorescent light and the bulb exploded, showering those below with tiny shards of glass. The light fitting broke loose and swung like a pendulum from its chain, threatening to d
rop at any minute. The men below scrambled for cover as its fastening snapped. It dropped, clattering to the floor with a deafening crash. A chorus of expletives echoed through the unit, spurring Liam to climb faster towards the skylight. He shimmied up the girder, his progress slow and painful. As he neared, he realised that the skylight was open. He followed the winding mechanism with his eyes. It could be opened and closed from below with a winding system and he knew someone would realise where he was going and run for the handle, closing the skylight and trapping him. As his eyes followed the winder across the roof and down the wall, he saw one of the men running towards the handle. His heart was in his mouth as he scrambled upwards. Liam reached up and grabbed at another girder but his blood had made his fingers slippy. He couldn’t find purchase and slid backwards a few yards, his back slamming into a metal stanchion. Without daring to look down he tried again. He jumped, reached out and gripped the edge of the skylight; his legs dangled and kicked in thin air. Swinging upwards, the muscles in his shoulders felt as if they would snap. He grunted and gave one massive effort, pulling himself through; within seconds he was crouched on the roof with the breeze on his face. He slammed the skylight closed, sucked clean air into his lungs and sighed with relief. Blood was running freely from several nasty cuts, some deeper than others. He watched as droplets dripped onto the roof forming a sticky crimson puddle. It was at that moment that he thought about his brother. Ray was inside, handcuffed and hurt. His guts twisted with anguish and tears of frustration filled his eyes. How could he leave Ray behind?

  The options raced through his mind, stay and die or run and live to fight another day. Being a dead hero wouldn’t save Ray. He had to run, hide and recover his composure. If he could summon help, he may be able to mount some kind of rescue attempt although it was a stretch. His last resort was the police. He couldn’t leave Ray in the hands of the Karpov family. With his mind made up, Liam began to run along the apex of the roof. The chop-shop was part of an estate of long low buildings and moving across the roof, Liam put some distance between himself and his pursuers, who had to go around. Thankfully no one followed him across the rooftops and he kept on running up and over each one until his muscles burned. Only when he felt that his lungs would burst did he slow down.