One Last Hit

by Linda Coles

  But the change in behaviour raised a flag in my mind and Rochelle had voiced her opinion about that too – the status quo was about to change, she said.

  And from where I’m sitting, it already has.

  He pretended to be asleep while he thought it through, not willing to give Sam up to his colleagues yet. He could be wildly off track. No, better to let them do their jobs and follow other leads, and if that didn’t pan out, he’d perhaps say something.

  But not until then.

  Chapter Seventy-Four

  Rick Black sat back in his desk chair, deep in thought. If Sam had taken a loan out and used some of it for a down payment, there could be trouble brewing – Duncan was still alive, thank God, but that left loose ends. For instance, was there a professional hit man roaming around out there with unfinished business? That could mean another attempt on Duncan’s life. Or at the very least, an angry customer – Sam.

  But if Sam was behind all this, how had she got involved so deep, and who had she got to do the necessary?

  He had to find out, and while it went against everything he stood for, he knew just the person who could help him shed some light on it.

  Wilfred Day.

  While Day wasn’t exactly on his speed dial, it wasn’t hard to get in touch with the man. He’d interviewed him many times in the past for various things. Rick looked up his contact number, dialled, and waited to be connected. He could almost hear the smile in Day’s voice when he answered.

  “And a grand afternoon it is. How may I help you, DS Black – or is it DI yet?”

  If nothing else, the man had manners. Rick smiled despite himself.

  “Not quite. I’m working on it.”

  “And I’ve no doubt that’ll be soon.”

  Duncan came to the point. “I’d like to buy you a G&T if I may, Wilfred. I could do with your help with a particular matter.”

  “How positively delightful and totally unexpected.” He sounded like a delighted aunt, not a criminal yet to be caught and prosecuted. “Of course. When would you like to partake in this little get-together?”

  “How about right now? Name the place, and I’ll meet you there – if you’re free, of course.”

  A moment ticked by, presumably while Wilfred checked his social calendar and thought of a venue.

  “Meet me at The Washhouse; you know where it is. I’ll see you there shortly, and I shall be in eager anticipation of how I might serve you, Detective Sergeant. It could be an interesting meeting.” He chuckled.

  “I’m on my way,” Rick said, and hung up before Wilfred told him to have a fantastic day. It was time for a favour to be returned. Wilfred Day owed him. Years ago, Wilfred’s twelve-year-old nephew had got himself tied up with a hit-and-run that had left a sleazy local drug dealer badly injured, and Day had persuaded Rick not to lay charges. The boy had been a decent kid at heart, though a bit of a tearaway. He shouldn’t have even known how to drive, never mind actually been driving, but living the life he had been at the time, it was no surprise. Rick knew the lad would be better off learning a life lesson from Wilfred rather than being swallowed up by the system of corrections. Mr. Day had been grateful, and today Rick was going to capitalize on that.

  Duncan pulled up near the bar, one of Manchester’s secret though legal drinking places hidden in the back of a laundromat. Moments later, he saw Day’s distinctive Bentley pull up. Day, clad in a diamond-patterned sweater, climbed out, pushed his fingers lazily through his tousled blond hair, and then set his sunglasses back on top of his head. On a cloudy Manchester afternoon, they really were obsolete but he wore them rain or shine. Rick fell into step alongside Wilfred as they headed towards the door, which immediately opened. They went inside.

  At four in the afternoon, the place was deserted, which was probably why Wilfred had chosen it. They could talk without being overheard or seen together. When they were seated in a private booth with their drinks, Rick began to speak.

  “DS Duncan Riley has been shot. He’s stable but I need to know who might want him dead. Have you heard anything?”

  Rick watched Day closely as he delivered the news. To his credit, the man actually looked shocked, which told Rick he wasn’t anywhere near it.

  “I’m not aware of anyone holding a grudge, and I’m sure you’ll have looked at those fellows he’s helped put away in the past who now have a bit of freedom again?”

  “There is one person whose activities I’m hoping you can trace,” he said.

  Day smiled wolfishly. “Ah, and so we get to the real reason you called. You want me to find out how it was organized and with whom. And I’m assuming you can’t go to your own cyber team for some reason, even though they’d throw everything they could at it since he’s one of you.”

  Rick nodded.

  Day went on. “And this is the favour you wish returned, I presume?”

  Rick nodded. He could feel himself going red in the semi-darkness of the bar and was glad it couldn’t be seen. There really was nothing more to be said. He took a sip of his drink and waited.

  “So who is he? Who do you want me to snoop on?” Day tasted his gin and reached for a bowl of spicy cereal nibbles in the middle of the table. He tipped half of the bowl into his paw-like hand and took tiny amounts out with his other paw. Rick wondered how much pain those hands had inflicted on his enemies in the past and watched the nibbles slowly disappear.

  “Come on, then – who hurt your friend? What’s his name?”

  Rick was silent for a moment. Once he’d spoken the words, there was no going back. Did he really want to do this?

  “It’s not a he, it’s a she,” he said finally.

  “Oh.” Day looked nonplussed. “I didn’t think DS Riley was the type for a side piece.” He nibbled some more snacks, smiling at his own double meaning. Then he stopped chewing as the name of Rick’s suspect dawned on him.

  “You think Mrs. Riley is behind it? Ah. Now I see why the cagey-ness. You want me to see whom she organized it with, so to speak. Am I correct? You’d like me to do some digging?”

  Rick nodded. “Can you? She has never seemed the type to move in such circles, so I’m wondering …” He let the sentence hang in the air.

  “You want me to trace her online activities. I get it. But it’s not that easy if you don’t know where to start looking. Can you get her laptop for me? And give me a list of her regular movements and the places she goes? If she’s been a buzzy little bee, she may have left me some breadcrumbs.”

  Rick ignored the mixed metaphor. “How long will it take you if I can?”

  “That depends on the trail and whether she took precautions on public Wi-Fi or not. And of course, who’s behind the operation when I get there, if anyone. Often, they shut up shop and move to another squat before the next customer comes along – helps keeps things secure. That’s why there are still so many kiddie-peddlers still walking the street. If you lot could clean that up, you would, wouldn’t you?”

  He had a point there, Rick knew. It made him think of Duncan’s two and their recent brush with Mrs. Skeen. Thank God she’d called it in before making an alternative decision.

  “I’ll get you the laptop and recent places of interest tonight. She’ll be waiting for an update so I’ll pop round and get what you need then. I need to move fast on this, though, Wilfred.”

  “I understand, my friend. Call my number later when you have what I need and we can arrange the drop-off. Now drink up, for tomorrow you’ll know who shot JR.” He threw his head back and laughed at his own joke. “Get it? Remember JR Ewing?”

  “I’ve heard the story, though I’m surprised you know it. That TV show ended before you were born, almost.” Rick wasn’t in the mood for games. He tossed the remainder of his drink back and stood to leave.

  “I’ll call you when I have what you need,” he said, then walked away, leaving Wilfred to finish the rest of the spicy nibbles alone.

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  “Still no bloody reply. W
hat the fuck?”

  Sam was getting more and more irritated as the evening wore on. Since sending her earlier message demanding to know what was going on, she’d heard nothing back, not a whisper, and she was fast losing patience. Draining the wine glass beside her, she poured another large one from the bottle of red on the coffee table and sat back to nurse it – and think. This was not what was supposed to have happened – her sitting there wondering. No, she should be making plans for herself and the girls and arranging a funeral for their father. Instead, she was worrying about whether her tracks had been covered enough to keep her out of trouble, keep her safe.

  And keep her out of prison.

  She slammed the lid shut and plugged the laptop in to charge the battery, deciding instead to watch TV and finish the rest of her bottle before bed. Her head was buzzing from the alcohol on an empty stomach and she knew if she didn’t soak it up with something, her head would feel like someone had split it open with an axe the following morning. Padding into the kitchen, she turned on the oven, unwrapped a readymade pizza from the freezer, and placed it inside. There was time for a quick shower, so she headed up the stairs. Halfway up, she heard a knock at the front door and, mumbling to herself that it was a bit late for visitors, she went to answer it.

  It was Rick again.

  “I was passing by and thought I’d see how you and the girls were doing.”

  His smile was bright, and he was unapologetic for the hour. He picked up on her disapproval. “I’ll only stay a minute.”

  She opened the door wide and let him through.

  “I was headed for the shower, actually, but how kind of you to drop by.”

  He noticed her forced smile and added it to his observations of her behaviour.

  “Then you go ahead. I’ll make a cuppa quickly. Would you like one?” He could smell wine on her breath but asked anyway, and he was already on his way through to the kitchen.

  “No, thanks,” she called after him, annoyed at his intrusion but not wanting to say so.

  “You carry on. I’ll make myself at home,” he called.

  Still annoyed, she carried on with her plan. It wasn’t long before Rick could hear the shower running overhead as he stood in the little kitchen. He hadn’t got long to act. He quickly moved back to the living room and scanned the surfaces looking for her laptop, then noticed it plugged in by the window. It was there for the taking. But would it be too obvious – him turning up and her laptop vanishing? Surely, she’d know he was investigating her, and that wasn’t what he wanted – not yet. But it was tempting. The sooner he got it to Wilfred, the better.

  He thought of Duncan lying alone in his hospital bed, an officer stationed on his door as a precaution, and suddenly he didn’t give a rat’s ass about whether he showed Sam his hand so soon or not. If she had set someone up to kill Duncan, Rick wanted to know about it now so he could do something about it. And he needed more evidence.

  His phone rang, but he let it go to voicemail then called upstairs to Sam. Whether she heard him or not didn’t matter.

  “Sorry, got to go. Duty calls,” he shouted, then quickly grabbed the laptop and cable and stuffed them inside his jacket. Out on the front step, he gently closed the door behind him and slipped down the path towards his car. He chanced a glance at the front bedroom window before driving off. The light was off. He assumed Sam was still in the bathroom.

  Sam watched from behind a crack in the bedroom curtain, her hair wet and dripping onto her bare shoulders. What had he wanted so late? she wondered. Regardless, she was pleased to see him leave so early: there would be no awkward questions about Duncan, questions she might have tripped herself up on. The investigation would already be in full swing, she knew, with all possible resources engaged to find the attempted cop killer. Law enforcement stuck together, protecting one another, and Manchester was no different.

  The smell of pizza cooking returned her thoughts to herself, and she quickly towel-dried her hair and slipped into her robe. The tension of his surprise visit was making her nerves jangle and she knew she needed something to soothe them. Wine alone was clearly not strong enough for the task. Tomorrow, she had to show her face at Duncan’s bedside as the dutiful, loving and distraught wife, and that meant an early start getting the girls to Anika’s – she would take them to school for her. The rest of the day? Well, driving down would be as boring as hell but it would give her time to rehearse her act. Convincing was going to be her new middle name.

  Back downstairs, she found her bag and the rest of the bottle of wine and swilled down a couple of pills before starting on the pizza. It wasn’t long before the potent concoction in her stomach started to take effect and a pleasantly drowsy state enveloped her as she dropped off in front of the TV. A couple of hours later, she groggily climbed the stairs and finally crawled into her bed.

  Rick called the number he’d rung earlier and told Wilfred he had the laptop. A drop-off point was agreed to, and Rick thanked him again for helping him out with a delicate situation. Wilfred assured him that it had been no problem, that it was nice to be working with him instead of against him for a change. He’d take a look a little later and fill him in first thing. Rick detected the boyish excitement mixed with amusement in the man’s voice but said nothing. They’d speak in the morning.

  Rick hoped with all his heart he was wrong about Sam. A spouse organizing their partner’s demise wouldn’t do much for anyone’s relationship. How do you move forward from there?

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  As Rick handed the laptop over, he said, “It would be great if you could return it before the morning so she doesn’t suspect anything.”

  Anyone would think Rick had never dealt with Wilfred Day before; he was as nervous as a kitten in his company, but that was more likely the subject matter – a woman he knew, his partner’s wife. He wasn’t enjoying what he was doing.

  “Not a problem. For speed, jot the address down and consider it done. She’ll be none the wiser by morning.”

  Rick looked at Wilfred squarely and said, “I’m not stupid. I’m sure you can remember it.”

  Wilfred gave him a mock hurt look as Rick recited the address to him, storing it in one of his deep memory banks, no doubt. Rick hoped he went to the right address – not that Wilfred himself would be going, of course. Most likely he’d send a minion. Wilfred Day kept out of trouble himself; that was part of the problem, and the reason he was still operating like he was.

  “Let’s hope there’s a trail of breadcrumbs for you to follow, eh?” said Rick.

  “Most novices leave a trail. I’ll be more surprised if there isn’t one.”

  And that was the end of their conversation. Wilfred slipped back into the driver’s seat of the ostentatious Bentley and waved like the Queen Mother as he pulled away.

  Rick stood uneasily, watching him go. “This better bloody work,” he said to the cold night. Not a star nor a sliver of moon was visible; there was just the hazy amber glow of the city lights above Manchester. Rick got back in his own car and headed home. It had been a long and stressful day, and he knew there were probably more to come.

  It didn’t take Wilfred long to get back to his place and start working on Sam’s computer. Breaking in without her password was a stumbling block that took him mere seconds to overcome. He rubbed his giant hands together in glee like a child about to tuck into a banana split all to himself.

  “Let’s see what you’ve been up to, then, Sam. Are you a clever girl or a buffoon?”

  It didn’t take him long to find the first of the breadcrumbs as he worked, shaking his blond head occasionally at her mistakes. At least she’d had the good sense to use a Tor browser, but she hadn’t the knowledge to use a secure connection. It seemed the public Wi-Fi in the café she frequented could have been the start of her downfall. From there, it was easy enough for a talented hacker such as himself to find out what she’d been up to and, as he was beginning to discover, it wasn’t pretty.

  Th
e site she’d contacted for the job had since been removed, but again, that wasn’t a problem to a man with his particular talents. Deleted files still left a footprint, one that he could follow, but he’d do that later. Right now, he concentrated on loading the cloning software so he could watch any further keystrokes she made from the privacy of his own system. He sniggered as he thought of privacy – privacy was on life support, almost like the man he was trying to help, in his own roundabout kind of way.

  It wasn’t long before he’d done what he needed but for good measure, he decided to check her regular web browsing history.

  “Well, well, well, Sam, what have we here? I can only imagine what you’ve been buying from such places.” He took a closer look and then sat back thoughtfully, tapping his fingers as he considered his findings. Depending on what DS Rick Black had in mind when he reported back, Wilfred could make use of this information to solve the problem of a naughty spouse. She’d never make the same mistake again, that was for sure.

  He checked his watch. It was getting close to midnight. No matter – she’d be fast asleep now, tucked up in the marital bed more than likely. He turned his attention to the deleted files and the trail they’d left. Novices really should be more careful when dealing in areas they don’t know much about, he mused. A few more keystrokes and he had another set of information he could use later on if it suited.