“There’s always some going spare.”
Yeah, there was. She still cooked enough for two every day, just in case he popped round, she’d said. He imagined how many wasted meals there’d been over the past few years as his visits here had dwindled. How lonely was she without him living with her?
“How do you fancy moving away from here when I find myself a new gaff?” he asked.
“I’m not sure I could ever leave here, Robber, you know that. The walls hold all my memories.”
He knew what she meant. Every time he came home he was reminded of something or other, as though the place whispered to him, not wanting him to forget who he really was.
He sighed.
Morals. They were a bastard.
They sat in silence for a while, then a rapping at the front door brought him back to the present. His ma got up, mumbling about people always knocking when Robby was round, interrupting her time with him. He smiled because it was true. Someone did always want her attention while he was here.
She disappeared down the hallway, and he lowered his hands to hide them beneath the table. The last thing he needed was Vera or some other neighbor seeing the bandages and spreading gossip around the estate. The change of position brought on another sweat, and he clamped his lips tightly, holding his breath.
“Mrs. Zeus?” a man asked.
Robby tilted back in his chair to peer down the hallway at the front door. A bloke stood there on the doorstep in a suit, a second fella beside him.
Bloody canvassers.
“Yes?” his ma said.
“Detective Inspector Blacksmith, and this is Detective Sergeant Thaxter.”
What the fuck?
Robby wanted to bolt, but there was no way out of the house in this room except for the window, and he didn’t fancy climbing through that. The patio doors were in the back of the lounge, and he’d have to walk down the hallway to get there. Those coppers would see him.
Shit.
“Robby’s all right. He’s not missing like you thought,” Ma said.
“Is he here? If so, we’d like to see for ourselves,” the copper said.
Robby let out a long breath. He might as well get this over with. Give them the cock and bull story Starky had drilled into him when they’d talked ‘proper business’. He just had to hope his ma didn’t put her foot in it by announcing he worked as a painter for him now.
The hassle of that, he didn’t need.
Chapter Five
Matt studied Mrs. Zeus for signs of deception. She’d rung in not twenty minutes ago to say Robby was here. He waited for her to step aside and hold her arm out to indicate they were welcome in her home. The relief that Robby Zeus was still alive and well meant he wouldn’t have a second murder inquiry on his plate, but he felt bad for this woman here. She’d have a shock coming to her soon, finding out her son was in a gang.
Unless she already knew.
He walked inside, immediately smelling this wasn’t the usual type of house on this estate. The aroma of beeswax polish and some kind of disinfectant wafted up his nose, and he glanced through the doorway to his right to see an orderly living room with not a thing out of place. Other residences around here stank of cat’s piss, boiled cabbage—did everyone eat that stuff or what?—and mold. This was a refreshing change.
Mrs. Zeus ambled down the hall, as though age had attacked her legs with a vengeance, yet she wasn’t that old as far as he could tell. Matt followed, knowing Aaron would close the front door behind them. Once in the kitchen, Matt eyed the back of Robby Zeus, whose shoulders were slumped. Matt could take that one of two ways—that the bloke was relaxed and had nothing to hide, or he was full of resignation. Or maybe there was a third reason—his hands hurt so much he didn’t have the energy to tense his muscles? And those hands had to bloody hurt.
“Robby, these detectives here are the ones who called to ask if I’d seen you lately.” Mrs. Zeus shuffled round the table then sat. She picked up a potato and began taking off the skin as though a visit from the police was neither here nor there. As though her son wasn’t sitting there with bandages covering his hands.
Matt moved closer to the table, standing at the narrow end so he could see Robby’s face. Blimey, he was pale. Those hands of his must be giving him one hell of a hard time—or the police being here had brought on a rush of adrenaline that had resulted in the sheen of sweat now covering his forehead.
“Robby,” Matt said.
Robby dipped his head once in a nod.
“I won’t ask what happened to your hands because I already know,” Matt said.
Robby lifted his head, his eyes going wide.
“We’ve seen some of your fingertips over the last few days. Gave us a bit of a scare.” Matt stared at him.
Robby wasn’t fast enough to stop a frown forming. Maybe whatever painkillers he was on had dulled his ability to control his reactions—or maybe he hadn’t been aware his fingers had been on an adventure without him.
“Well, as you can see, I’m not dead.” Robby’s laugh was shaky. False.
“Want to tell us what happened?” Matt asked, expecting an answer bloated with a load of old bollocks.
Robby shrugged. “I was walking home the other night, minding my own business, and got nabbed, didn’t I. Some blokes punched me in the face. I had a sack put over my head and I was taken somewhere. No idea where. They asked me questions about some people I know and—”
“What people?” Matt said.
“The Jugulars.” His gaze flitted to his mother then back to Matt.
Mrs. Zeus winced.
So she really doesn’t approve of gangs.
“And you didn’t answer their questions, I take it?” Matt asked.
“No, obviously not.” If eyes could roll, that was what Robby made his do. “Six questions, six fingertips.” He frowned. “Hang on a minute. How come you’ve seen them, my fingers?”
“They’ve been left in various public places. Do you know why?”
His frown deepened. “No fucking—sorry, Ma—no idea.”
“We’d like you to come down to the station and have a little chat. Informal, nothing too heavy. You’re not in any trouble.” As far as I know, but if you are… Matt braced himself for Robby’s refusal. It was standard procedure for blokes like him to say no to being questioned. Once in a gang, you avoided the police at all costs. “And besides, you’ll need those hands looking at.”
“My hands’ll be all right. Ma’s sorted them. But yeah, I’ll come down to the station.”
Like Robby earlier, Matt didn’t catch himself in time. His eyebrows rose. Robby was prepared to go with them? Wonders would never cease. “Now would be best.”
“Okay. Will I be back in time for me tea?” he asked. “Only as you can see, Ma’s going to a bit of trouble here.”
“I don’t see why you wouldn’t be back in time.” Unless you know something about why one of your fingertips was put inside Katrina Parky.
“Fair enough.” Robby stood, teetered a little, and his cheeks paled even more.
“Um, I think we’ll get you down to A & E first.” Matt rested a hand on Robby’s shoulder. “Just so they can check you over.”
Robby sighed. “I told you, Ma sorted it.”
“It’s not just your hands I’m concerned about, Robby. You’ve had a shock. It can do all kinds of damage.”
Matt glanced at Mrs. Zeus. She was on her third potato. Then he diverted his gaze to Aaron, who shrugged, clearly as perplexed by Robby’s agreement to accompany them as Matt was. Gang members would usually rather go on the run than open their mouths. Maybe Robby wasn’t such a bad bloke after all. He’d obviously been brought up well, so he might not have allowed himself to be as ingrained in The Jugulars as some of the others had.
There might even be a chance of getting him out, helping him lead a better life.
Matt held in a chuff of sour laughter. Who was he bloody kidding?
“Right, hospital it is
, then,” Matt said in his no-nonsense tone. “The sooner we get this over with, the sooner you can eat what I’m thinking will be a damn fine stew.”
He smiled at Mrs. Zeus. She smiled back.
Either she’s oblivious to what Robby’s been up to or she’s a bloody fine actress.
Time would tell.
“What’s the prognosis you’ve been given?” Matt asked.
Robby frowned, like he didn’t know what that word meant.
“Your hands,” Matt said. “What’s going on with them?”
Robby leaned back on the white pillows of his hospital bed. Matt should have known an operation was likely. He’d already asked one of the nurses what had been done. Some of Robby’s finger bones had been removed in order to create flaps of skin that had been sewn to craft new tips of sorts. The other, shorter fingers had had grafts, and Matt had drawn the line at knowing where the skin had come from for that. Splints had been applied, as had fresh bandages, and he’d received tetanus and antibiotic jabs, and, of course, strong painkillers. He didn’t envy the bloke when the effects of those started to wear off.
“Should be all right in a few weeks,” Robby said. “They reckon I can go home tomorrow.”
Matt nodded. “Not surprising. They like to free up the beds as soon as possible, don’t they?”
Robby nodded, too, his eyes heavy-lidded.
“Get a good sleep while you were under, did you?”
Silly question. Of course he’s had a good sleep.
Matt got himself more comfortable in the chair beside Robby’s bed to cover his embarrassment at asking such a thing. He gazed around the room—a private one thanks to Matt insisting on it. What with the gang involvement, he didn’t need Robby exposed to that type of ‘visitor’. Robby would be receiving more than the usual bunch of grapes and flowers if someone from the shady parts of the city came to sit beside his bed. He’d more likely get threats and menacing looks instead. Not the kind of get-well gift people wanted, but if you played a dangerous game you had to expect dangerous outcomes.
He sighed, wishing Aaron would hurry up. He was off somewhere getting them all a coffee, so Matt wanted to keep the conversation light until he came back. He didn’t fancy a his-word-against-mine scenario should Robby say something without Matt having a colleague present. Mind you, this wasn’t really an official interview, more like a chat for information. Robby was too doped up on painkillers for anything he said to be taken down as evidence.
“They reckon I’ll get used to the shorter fingers and I’ll be able to use them like before. Well, not exactly like before, but you know what I mean.” Robby’s voice was slurred. “A bit of physiotherapy and they’ll be right as rain, so the doctor told me.”
“That’s good, then.”
Aaron’s face finally appeared in the small rectangle of glass in the top of the door and Matt rose to let him in. What a beauty—he’d managed to find a Costa on one of the hospital levels, unless he’d nipped out and bought them elsewhere. Matt took the gray cup holder from him and placed it on the table over Robby’s bed. Then he removed the lid of one coffee so it could cool down and he popped a straw into it. He sat, putting his own drink on the cabinet next to his chair, while Aaron remained standing by the door.
“I’ll help you with yours when the heat’s gone out of it a bit,” Matt said, seeing Robby eyeing up the steam rising from the open cup.
“Ta.”
“So, down to business, then. As we can’t do this at the station… Where were you between the hours of seven and nine this morning, Robby?”
“That’s easy enough to answer. I was in some house or other. No idea where it was because, like I said, I’d been taken there with a hood thing over my head.”
“Where were you when they picked you up?”
“What?” Robby’s skin took on a green tinge.
“I said, where were you when they picked you up? It’s a simple question.”
“I was walking home.” Robby’s eyelid twitched. “Don’t remember the street I was on. It was dark. They took me sudden, like. I’ve forgotten things. Maybe because I was scared.”
“Let’s see if you remember this. How did you get out of the house? Run, did you?”
“Nope. They put the hood back on and took me out and put me in a van.”
“How did you know it was a van if you couldn’t see?”
Robby’s eyelids drifted up and down, their motion slow. “Because there were no seats. I was on what felt like a metal floor, same as what’s in them transits.”
“What happened afterwards? Can you recall that?”
“We drove for a bit. I tried to keep track of how many turns we took, how many lefts and rights, but I lost it, thinking about where I was going next. Then the van stopped and I was hauled out. I was standing somewhere, and they buggered off after telling me to count to one hundred before I took the hood off, and to keep my trap shut and all that crap. The usual guff. I waited until I couldn’t hear the engine no more then took the hood off. Sack thing. Whatever.”
“Where were you?”
“You know that road by them warehouses? The ones where there’s also a storage place? Big orange building. There.”
Matt nodded, pissed off that CCTV probably wasn’t in action, except for in the immediate vicinity of the buildings. He wouldn’t be able to corroborate what Robby had said if he’d been dumped on the road. Convenient, that. “What did you do then?”
“I walked to me ma’s.”
Not too much of a stretch of the imagination. The warehouse location was only a mile or so outside the city. CCTV didn’t kick in on the streets until the city center, and Robby probably hadn’t gone that way, considering where Mrs. Zeus lived.
“Did you walk past any shops or petrol stations before you got to your mum’s? Just so we can check CCTV to verify what you’ve told us.”
“Nah.”
“Anyone see you?”
“Dunno, do I. I’m not them. I can only see what I can see. Maybe someone saw me through their windows or something. Ask that bloody Vera next door. She knows the ins and outs of every single cat’s arsehole, that woman. All I know is I’m telling the truth and that I want to go back to sleep.” He laughed quietly. “Except if I go to sleep, I might dream about what they did.”
Matt sighed. He couldn’t work out whether he was being strung a line or if Robby was telling the truth. He glanced at Aaron, who shrugged. That meant Aaron wasn’t sure, either. Matt raised his eyebrows and Aaron shrugged again.
Fuck’s sake, are we going to catch a break here or not?
Matt sensed that if he didn’t keep up the tempo of the interview, Robby would fall asleep. “What were they questioning you for? The people who took you?”
“What do you think? About drugs. They wanted to know if The Jugulars were selling on Gingham Road. It’s a prime spot—The Hardarms have control over it. If The Jugulars step foot on those pavements, they’re fucked.”
“And are they selling on Gingham?”
“How the hell should I know? I don’t have nothing to do with no drugs. Yeah, I’m in The Jugulars, but I don’t deal. Don’t do anything much except collect money, to be honest.”
I’ve always been under the impression he’s part of their drug-running team. The way he walks around, it’s like he’s some top dog or other. Bravado? Is that all it’s ever been with him?
“So why are you with them?” Matt asked.
Robby let out a stream of air. “I don’t know that, either.”
Ah. Interesting.
“Do you want out, Robby?”
A good minute or two went by without an answer. Expressions flitted over Robby’s face, from confusion to something Matt couldn’t define. He imagined how things would have been if he hadn’t joined the police force. Would he have ended up in a gang? Maybe. Would he have ended up working for Starky’s legitimate business? More than likely. The bloke offered good wages in his legal work and even better ones for his other ven
tures, so Matt had heard. The lure of a decent pay packet tended to sway most of the young lads around here, what with them wanting to afford a nice flat, nights out clubbing, and decent clothes on their backs—name brands, something that showed they’d made it in life. Minimum wage didn’t cover that type of stuff.
Robby released another breath, ragged this time. “I always thought I wanted to be in either gang, but I dunno, something’s different now. I wouldn’t mind getting out, to be fair, but you must know how getting out goes. I’d have to do something for them before they’d let me go.”
“What sort of thing?” Matt knew, he just wanted to hear it from Robby.
“A task. Called a freedom job, it is. Mind you, that might not be so bad for me, seeing as I’m a low member. You know, just someone who belongs but doesn’t do much for them.”
“It begs the question why you’re even in The Jugulars.”
Robby shrugged and winced. “Didn’t do too well at school. I kind of lost heart when my old man fucked off. Didn’t have many mates. Being part of a gang meant I belonged. I wasn’t comfy with hurting anyone, and they wanted me to hurt people, but I said I’d just be eyes and ears, if you get me. And they let me. They give me a hundred quid a week for it so it tops up my Jobseeker’s allowance. I reckon they did that—let me join up— because it meant they had one more member. And it meant I wasn’t with The Hardarms.”
Twisted logic, but Matt could see the sense in that from The Jugulars’ point of view. The Hardarms were, for want of better words, a vast army, so The Jugulars wanting to swell their own ranks was a good move. “So you have to do a job to get out that relates to your position, do you?” Matt half-stood so he could reach over to get Robby’s coffee. It still felt a bit hot through the cup, but if it was sipped from the top half, he didn’t reckon Robby would burn his tongue. “Here, have a bit of this.”
Robby lifted his head off the pillow. He grimaced then sucked a mouthful through the straw. “That’s nice, that is.” He took another draw then flopped back down, seemingly exhausted. Anesthetics were a sod for wearing a body out. “Yeah, about the freedom job. I’d probably just have to rob some old granny. Get a bit of cash off her, that kind of thing.”
Like Father, Like Son Page 6
