Dark Side

by Margaret Duffy

  Oh, yes, his winge-ship, Paul Mallory.

  ‘Shut up and let me worry about it.’

  ‘And when Nick or Raptor, or what the friggin’ hell he’s calling himself, comes back with his own private army, what are you going to say then, eh?’

  ‘Nick does not have an army,’ said Cooper grimly. ‘Just a few handy blokes.’

  ‘Yes, ex-squaddies with form and attitude. That’s an army. Where is he, by the way?’

  ‘Visiting his poor old mum, what else? Don’t ask.’

  There were heavy footsteps and a new, deep and robotic sort of voice said, ‘I’ve lost her.’

  ‘Lost her?’ Cooper said. ‘And what the hell were you going to do with her when you’d found her, Kev?’

  ‘Well … I thought you’d want to scare her off like. Give her a smack or two … or something better.’ A dirty snigger.

  ‘You great shithead, that woman works for the Serious Organised Crime Agency!’ Cooper bawled. ‘Her husband, who was here with her tonight, is a one-man private army. I told you to make sure she was off the premises. You do not take it into your pin brain to do anything else unless I say so. Is that understood?’

  There was a grunt.

  ‘If there’s any need to get rid of them it’s going to be a proper job with Nick’s permission.’

  The curtain had been muffling any slight sounds behind me and I suddenly became aware that I was not alone on the steps.

  Patrick kissed my ear.

  ‘Did you hear any of that?’ I breathed, holding the edge of the curtain tightly against the wall and trying to act cool, even though he had scared the living daylights out of me.

  ‘I’ll rely on you to relate every word to me later,’ he whispered back.

  ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘The inner door was unlocked.’

  I have known Patrick for a very long time now and had an idea what he was likely to do next. The form of it gave me another surprise as he flung the curtain aside and blew several very loud and juicy raspberries.

  There were instant shouts and associated obscenities, and the bouncer came through the door on the far side of the office with more speed than one might have imagined possible.

  I knew my role – to run like crazy. I skittered down the short flight of steps, unlocked the door and burst into the alley. It was not a moment too soon, for the hapless Kev came rolling head over heels down the stairs like a pole-axed bullock and slammed into the wall on the other side of the passageway, the impact dislodging an avalanche of rubbish from the shelves that cascaded down on him in a huge cloud of dust. Somehow, he righted himself and leapt at his tormentor, who was now tantalizingly just out of range at the bottom of the stairs. The manhole cover that he must have landed on then gave way under his weight and he travelled abruptly south, coming to a sudden stop at waist height. A dreadful stench belched upwards as a tidal wave of raw sewage flowed up past him and across the floor.

  ‘Poor chap tripped,’ said Patrick as he joined me outside, carefully closing the door.

  The next morning Patrick received an email from Strathclyde Police to inform him that they had broken into the flat in the Broomielaw. The decision had been made as they had asked around among the other tenants of the block of flats, one of whom, who lived one floor above, had mentioned an unpleasant smell. There had been no furniture – nothing in the way of possessions at all, just a corpse that had been identified as that of a local mobster known as Jack ‘The Pits’ MacDonald, the nickname apparently a comment on his one-time job as a coal miner and general demeanour. He had been killed by a single shot to the head and reckoned to have been dead for around three weeks. This man was no loss to the community, added the author of the email with a Scot’s characteristic realism, but they were very keen to find his killer.

  ‘As he too has to be a serious criminal so it would mean two of them would be out of circulation,’ Patrick said after I had read it. ‘And talking of Scots …’

  He did not mean the Scot-in-residence at Manvers Street. I rang Joanna.

  ‘He’s gone to see his father,’ Joanna reported in answer to my question.

  ‘What, in Scotland?’ I asked.

  ‘No, Robert’s living in London now, with a woman he met on the internet. I don’t mind, honestly, as I know everything was getting to him, especially with him getting hardly any sleep and being attacked like that. And I do understand about the girl in the night club and it was just that little bastard Cooper trying to put pressure on him.’

  ‘Come over tonight and we’ll have a meal at the pub,’ I said. ‘Carrie won’t mind another one to keep an eye on for a couple of hours.’

  Joyously, Joanna said she would and I resolved to give our nanny an extra day off as a thank-you for that and helping me cope with the previous day’s domestic mayhem.

  James Carrick, whose mother was not married when she gave birth to him and changed her name after Robert Kennedy was lost at sea from a private yacht and for years presumed dead, has only been able to make contact with his father recently. Before he retired Robert, a cousin of a one-time Earl of Carrick, worked for F9, an undercover police unit based at an ostensibly private house on the edge of Epping Forest, east of London. Anonymity was vital and it was only now that the man was living what could be regarded as a normal life. He had not even known that he had a son.

  One of the addresses held by Records for a suspect in the assault on Patrick and James turned out to be very much out of date as the house, together with several others nearby, had been demolished in connection with a road scheme, which meant that the man had lied when asked to confirm where he lived. We had only one other possible source of information – the address for Nathan Forrester, the one who had no previous convictions. This turned out to be a flat over a hairdresser’s in Combe Down, to the south of Bath.

  A smartly dressed middle-aged woman opened the door. ‘You have him in custody,’ she snapped, having given our IDs the briefest of glances and been informed of the reason for the visit.

  ‘He gave the police this address,’ Patrick said. ‘Are you a relation of his?’

  ‘I’m his aunt.’

  ‘Then, if we may, we’d like to talk to you about him.’

  ‘I know nothing about my nephew and his activities. He came to Bath to study for a degree at the university, got in with the wrong crowd and started taking drugs.’

  ‘Nevertheless, if we could come in for a few minutes …’ Patrick cajoled.

  With ill grace she let us in.

  ‘You must understand that he wasn’t living with me,’ the woman went on when we had seated ourselves in a bright and tidy living room and she had grumpily turned off the TV. ‘I just allowed him to use the place as somewhere he could pop in for a chat and store a few of his things. But when it all started to go wrong …’ She broke off with an angry shrug.

  ‘And your name?’ I requested, finding my notebook in my bag. Was it my imagination or could I detect the scented hot air smell of hairdressers coming in through the open window?

  ‘Oh, Denise Blackwood. Mrs. My husband died last year. Nathan’s my sister Joan’s son. They live in Lancaster. I promised them I would keep an eye on him and provide him with some kind of base. But he didn’t want to stay with me – found a flat or a bedsit after his first year in residence that he’s sharing with someone. I don’t know who. Frankly, after he started asking for money for drugs I ceased to take much interest.’

  ‘D’you know where his digs are?’ Patrick wanted to know.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Did he have a part-time job to pay the rent?’

  ‘His parents send him an allowance but he does, or did, have a job. In a night club, I believe. I’m not really sure as it might be a restaurant. He did mention the name to me once but I can’t remember it now.’

  ‘Jingles?’

  ‘That’s it! How on earth did you know?’

  ‘Because I’m a genius,’ Patrick said with a big smile.

&nbs
p; She did not smile in return. ‘And now he’s done something stupid and got himself into real trouble. Will whoever it was they attacked press charges, do you know?’

  ‘There’s a complication in that the victims were two police officers working undercover,’ Patrick informed her soberly. ‘How well do you know your nephew? Before he started going wrong, I mean.’

  ‘Not very well at all. They’ve always stayed up north and I’ve always lived in the West Country. There were various visits when Nathan and his sister were young, Christmas and so forth when our parents were alive, but that gradually stopped and I can’t put them up here. And travel is so expensive these days, isn’t it?’

  ‘Did he ever mention any friends or acquaintances at the club? Or undertaking other jobs for them?’

  Mrs Blackwood shook her head. ‘No. You’re thinking then that he agreed to take part in this crime for extra pay. That makes me feel very guilty after I’d refused to help him pay for drugs.’

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. Did he actually say that he wanted the money for drugs?’

  ‘Yes, he said he was desperate. Perhaps he thought that might tug at my heart strings. It didn’t but I did give him fifty pounds the first time he asked me as he promised he’d get some kind of treatment.’

  ‘Would you say that Nathan is easily led?’

  ‘Oh, yes, a real child in a way. His parents never prepared him for living independently.’

  ‘So he’s not exactly experienced in beating people up.’

  ‘Not at all! Although of course I’ve no real idea what he’s been getting up to lately.’

  ‘What is he studying?’

  ‘Engineering. But that’s almost certainly gone right out of the window now.’

  I asked her when she had last seen him.

  ‘Quite recently. Around ten days ago, probably. He was listless and miserable and when I asked him what was wrong he said he couldn’t tell me. I just assumed he wasn’t enjoying his course – or it was the drugs.’

  Patrick leaned forward and spoke intently. ‘Mrs Blackwood, are you quite sure the drugs money he asked for was for him?’

  She appeared taken aback. ‘Who else could it have been for? He gave every appearance of being extremely ill at ease but I’ve absolutely no experience of things like that. I don’t come from that kind of background.’ For some reason she accompanied this remark with a ‘dear-oh-dear-the-very-idea’ look in my direction.

  ‘Has he been neglecting his appearance? Looking dirty, his clothes unwashed, his face gaunt, hands shaky?’ Patrick went on.

  ‘Well, no, but he looked untidy; his hair needing cutting. Quite scruffy, really.’

  Patrick shook his head impatiently. ‘Most male university students look like that. Can you describe him to me? I’m asking because although I was involved before the official arrests it’s not actually my case so I can’t match names to people.’

  She thought for longer than might be expected, then said, ‘He’s twenty years old, tall and thin with brown eyes and fair hair that’s had highlights put in it. Quite silly for a man, don’t you think?’

  Patrick didn’t, I knew but, being a man of the world, he refrained from getting into an argument, saying instead, ‘I know who he is now. Thank you.’

  ‘Do you think he’ll be sent to prison?’

  ‘I can’t answer that question. Are you sure you don’t know the name or anything at all about the person he’s sharing the flat with?’

  ‘Only that he’s crazy about some kind of experimental orchestral music that he plays very loudly. It drives Nathan mad as he’s a jazz fan.’

  ‘It has to be Paul Mallory,’ I said heatedly when we were walking back to where we had left the car. ‘He took in Nathan as a lodger for the rent money.’

  ‘I agree it sounds possible.’

  ‘Was Nathan one of those kicking James?’

  ‘No, he was the one going through the motions of attacking me,’ Patrick said reflectively. ‘I didn’t think his heart was in it and after I’d given him a hard smack around the head that wouldn’t have really hurt him he flopped down on the pavement and played dead.’

  ‘Surely the drugs must have been for Mallory and they were bought from Cooper. Mallory has no money and Cooper won’t give him credit so he’s forcing Nathan to buy them for him.’

  ‘Whoa! You can’t jump to conclusions like that. Nathan might be an addict and that’s the hold they have over him. Damn the rules; I shall interview him at the remand centre. Tomorrow. Without asking Campbell’s permission.’

  We were not upset to learn that evening that Jingles was closed and would be for the foreseeable future due to what the media described as a ‘sewage leak’. In reality the whole of the basement club was flooded as the blockage had been there for some time, backing up on Lansdown Hill.

  NINE

  The remand centre was on the outskirts of Bristol, a modern building of the brutish abandon-hope-all-ye-who-enter-here school of architecture, enough to make any approaching inmate’s heart sink.

  We had to wait for twenty minutes and then were shown into the interview room where Forrester was already seated. He eyed us both for a second or two and then dropped his gaze, having clearly not recognized Patrick. As Denise Blackwood, his aunt, had said, he was scruffy and his hair could do with a trim, although to my eye it had previously been well-cut professionally and the highlights had not been done at home. His clothes were grubby, as might be expected in the circumstances, but not cheap. His sullen expression, I felt, was to hide the fact that he was very nervous.

  Having showed him our IDs Patrick explained who we were and then added, ‘I’m not working on the assault case for which you’ve already been arrested and charged. I’m not arresting you for anything else either and you’re not under caution – this is merely a chat.’

  ‘About what?’ Forrester said.

  ‘Jingles, for a start.’

  ‘Who told you I work there?’

  ‘I just know.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about that.’

  ‘It’s closed for the foreseeable future, by the way. The bouncer fell through a manhole in the cellar and the place was flooded with sewage.’

  ‘Who, Kev?’

  ‘Umm.’

  Nathan could not prevent a smile creeping over his face.

  ‘What were your duties there?’ Patrick asked.

  ‘I said I don’t want to talk about it.’

  ‘Look, I’m in the position of knowing more about the club than you do and have to tell you, if you didn’t know already, that it’s not on the level. Please answer the question.’

  After a few mulish moments, Forrester said, ‘I do just ordinary things. Clearing the tables, washing the glasses, serving behind the bar, but not the cocktails – Kit does that – a bit of behind-the-scenes cleaning. That’s all really.’

  ‘What’s Kit’s surname?’

  ‘I don’t know. He was just Kit.’

  ‘Have you been asked to beat up people before?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Sure?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘Yet you’re knocking around with people with criminal records and that doesn’t bode well for your career in engineering.’

  ‘That’s my business, isn’t it? Besides, it’s all gone now. I’ve got a criminal record.’

  ‘Only if the victims of the assault continue to press charges and you’re found guilty.’

  ‘Fat chance of them changing their minds.’

  ‘The men you attacked were cops working undercover.’

  Forrester closed his eyes and mouthed something along the lines of ‘Bloody hell.’ Then he said, ‘That would explain it.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why they didn’t react like down-and-outs; one of them thumped the hell out of four of us and we got arrested.’

  ‘Hadn’t it occurred to you that seven, or even eight, against two was rather overkill if the opposition were a couple of drifters?’
r />   ‘Yes, but basically I’m a coward because I’ve never been involved with rough stuff before and we didn’t find out who we were supposed to sort out until we got there.’

  ‘Sort out as in put in hospital, you mean. Or worse.’

  The youth – and I could only think of him thus – flushed and mumbled, ‘Kev just said they were bad boys.’

  I wrote KEV in block letters in my notebook and underlined it but Patrick did not query about the doorman further, saying, ‘It must have been the promise of money or threats that got you out on to the streets that night. Or both. By the way, how are you coping with being off drugs?’

  ‘I’m not a drug addict.’

  ‘That was the impression you gave your aunt when you asked her for money.’

  ‘I didn’t think she’d give me any unless I said I was desperate.’

  ‘That’s the stupidest bit of thinking I’ve heard for years. Aunts are far more likely to hand over money if you tell them that you’re hungry. This bloke you’re sharing the flat with … is his name Paul?’

  A look of extreme wariness came over the other’s face. ‘No.’

  ‘You’re not a very good liar either.’

  The thought that ‘a chat’ with the man in front of him might turn into something getting on for nasty, far worse than being arrested again for another crime, visibly flitted across Forrester’s mobile features. I could not see Patrick’s expression from where I was sitting but knew that the pressure, which so far had actually been just about non-existent, had gone up a notch, perhaps the hint of something darker showed in his eyes. I have been present during many such interviews and still do not know how he does it.

  Patrick continued, ‘As I said just now, there are several people connected with the club where you’re working who have criminal records, including the registered owner. So was it money or threats?’

  ‘I don’t want to say any more.’

  I said, ‘It’s always sad when young people get caught up in serious crime. If you go to prison you may well emerge a hardened criminal. All you have to do is tell the truth and we’ll try to help you.’