Best Served Cold

by Limey Lady

  Alfie was filled with loathing before he even set eyes on the twat. It was a basic, gut reaction that was only strengthened when he heard how heavy he went on the humiliation. Apparently Spenny had reduced some of the younger hard men to tears. The way Alfie saw it there was no need for that. Most of the guys he picked on weren’t out for a fight; they were kids being systematically isolated by a bigger, older bully.

  Nothing clever or tough in that, was there?

  Then again, Spenny had beaten and humiliated a fair few older lads too. No doubt about it, he was a force to be reckoned with.

  ‘He tells you you’re either with him or against him,’ Roby confided in a hoarse, nervous whisper. ‘And it costs, whichever side you end up on.’

  ‘Not me,’ Alfie countered. ‘I don’t do intimidated. Not anymore.’

  ‘Yeah, well he hasn’t got round to you yet, has he?’

  ‘He probably won’t waste his breath on me.’

  ‘Trust me, mate. He will.’

  Alfie scoffed at that but, sure enough, his turn came around, and soon. In fact just before dinnertime, on the way out of an RE class.

  A freaking RE class!

  Still, along with all the other bad news about him, he’d been told Spenny had no respect for man or beast. Why should any sort of lesson be an exception?

  ‘Now then, Runner,’ said the self-appointed terrorist, his henchmen gurning in the background. ‘You're meant to be quite handy. Why haven't you joined up yet?’

  Alfie wasn’t particularly scared but kept it civil. He was outnumbered and didn't want to be grabbed and held while Spenny got his knife out.

  ‘Dunno where you get “Runner” from,’ he said mildly.

  ‘Word is you keep running from home. Don't like your stepdad or something. That makes you a bit of a runner, dunnit, Runner?’

  ‘Whatever,’ Alfie said as the henchmen chortled.

  ‘What about it then, Runner? Ten quid a week gets you a job as a collector. You get half what you collect, less the tenner. You can't lose unless you're a lazy bastard.’

  ‘Sorry. That's not for me.’

  ‘Better think about it. If you're not collecting you're gonna need protecting. And protection to you is gonna cost a packet, for being a cheeky bastard.’

  Chapter Forty-Four

  (Monday 12th January 2009)

  When the grumpiest detective of all stormed into the interview room and told him to fuck off Trevor Lockwood had thought his troubles were over.

  Not!

  Turned out they’d hardly started. In a space of half an hour he’d been hit by one bit of bad news after another.

  The real serial killer had massacred his dog (quite possibly his last remaining friend in the whole, wide world).

  Leatherjacket clearly knew who he was and might possibly have a score to settle.

  Judith had left him, taking Adele with her. The divorce papers were in the post. She’d taken out an injunction and if he tried to find her he’d be instantly arrested.

  Talking about arrests . . . he’d been copped fair and square in possession of a prohibited firearm.

  And he’d blown three times the limit on his breathalyser.

  At first he’d tried to cope through rationalization. Fuck Leatherjacket: he’d move a zillion miles away from Shipley. And fuck Judith and Adele: they would be at his father-in-law’s timeshare, safely away from Dwyer’s murderers and out of his hair.

  As for drinking and driving . . . that was the one they really did rush through. They’d kept him in again overnight, in the same cell, although at least they’d finally let him sleep. Then they’d hauled him in front of the beak next morning: banned for thirty-six months and a two grand fine. He had filled in a statement of means form, offered a quid a month and they’d said all right, subject to verification.

  The arrest for possession hadn’t really registered with him . . . until he’d found out that the minimum sentence was five years. And that the law seemed to class “possession” as to have merely seen a photo of the fucking weapon, never mind having actually used it.

  That court case had been even more open and shut than the drink/driving. To make matters worse, he had refused to name names and got additionally clattered for contempt . . . a month in Wakefield that had cost him. A fucking month!

  Still, it had been safer there than home in Bingley.

  Amazingly enough, prison had been pleasant. He didn’t have Judith nagging at him for one thing. And all the horror stories about being gang-raped in the showers turned out to be myth. Most of the guys he’d rubbed shoulders with were just regular guys. Okay, some of them were habitual thieves and vagabonds, but at heart they weren’t any different to some of the lads he had been with at school. In fact some of the lads at his school had been a whole lot worse.

  A month was a month though. Not five years.

  And five years was the minimum. Because of his ongoing contempt he was likely to get much longer. He’d been warned time and again but he hadn’t heeded . . . hadn’t been able to heed. His solicitor kept saying he couldn’t understand him. There again, he probably hadn’t been arse-fucked up against his own Audi on a dozen different occasions.

  Sentencing was tomorrow, after the judge had had opportunity to consider all aspects: past record (better than spotless), recent behaviour (admittedly not so good), intentions (presumed bad) and remorse (apparently non-existent).

  The solicitor had said he was worried they might be looking at a ten stretch, seeing as he’d as good as declared he’d bought the gun to commit murder. And, in the absence of telling who’d sold it to him or why he really needed it . . .

  Well, maybe they’d get to ten then keep him until he changed his mind. Forget about all that publicity surrounding lack of cells; they’d squeeze him in somewhere.

  Lockwood thought this was terribly unfair. The police couldn’t protect him against the likes of Sean Dwyer yet they dropped on him like a ton of bricks when in desperation he tried to protect himself. Then the courts multiplied his sentence because he daren’t implicate the real villains.

  Fucking madness! If he’d gone out and raped and murdered a pensioner he’d have got a slap on the wrists.

  He only wondered how he had got off so lightly on the drinking and driving lark. Didn’t they have a clause that made smelling of alcohol a hundred times worse than all other crimes?

  Or maybe that was their pleasant surprise for tomorrow. Five years for the gun, times it by ten for the alcohol and double it for good luck. Ask about parole sometime next century.

  Suicide had been considered.

  Considered and rejected. Lockwood was a losing gambler but not one of life’s losers. Or rather, there was no way he would admit he was a loser. Perhaps that was why he’d always kept on losing and losing, but he was fucked if he would ever give in. Something would come up the way it had always come up in the past. The judge would have a splendid meal tonight, accompanied by twenty obliging dancing girls; he would consequently wake up all benevolent and forgiving . . .

  The reports would all show what a decent, wronged man he was . . .

  Judith would fly home, stand up in court and beg for leniency . . .

  No. Scrap that last one. Judith was more likely to beg for them to bring back hanging.

  The main thing bugging Lockwood now (apart from the dread of a heavy metal door slamming him away for minimally five years) was the lure of money. Forget everything else; he was a man who’d been very publically wronged. Suddenly all those papers that had named and shamed him as the Shipley Serial Killer wanted to pay him mega bucks to tell his story . . . except he wasn’t allowed to profit from his non-existent crime. The same arseholes who made ridiculous laws against accidentally glancing at an illegal weapon also wanted to protect the boys in blue . . . obviously to spare their delicate sensitivities.

  If it wasn’t really happening to him, he would have laughed.

  *****

  Jack Carlisle didn’t really care if t
he locals in The Fleece knew he was a copper. He guessed Briggs didn’t give a toss either. They had both been in the Job long enough to know when and where things like that mattered. And right now, stood yapping at their usual end of the bar, wasn’t a time when it made any sort of a difference.

  He drained his glass and handed over a tenner when the landlord set up two more Tetley’s, wincing when he only got back a handful of change.

  ‘It’s more than two and a half quid a pint,’ he grouched, ‘daylight robbery.’

  The landlord had gone to serve someone else and Briggs only grunted.

  ‘No, really,’ Carlisle persisted. ‘I was in a pub in The Smoke last week, a smart one, right opposite to Hyde Park, and even that was cheaper than flaming Bingley.’

  ‘Can’t say I noticed,’ Briggs replied. ‘Everywhere has got as bad nowadays. At least the ale in here is okay. It’s not London bloody Pride.’

  Carlisle nodded reluctantly and had a big swig. He’d known the other man for many years. They had been drinking together since you could get half a dozen pints for a fiver. Meaning back in the days when they had both been proud of their respective football teams.

  ‘How’d City do last Saturday?’ he wondered maliciously.

  ‘They came second again; same as Leeds.’

  ‘Yeah, but fucking Macclesfield . . .’

  ‘Shit isn’t it?’ Briggs dropped some coins onto the bar. ‘Get them in when he comes back. I’m off to point Percy.’

  Carlisle got more drinks then, momentarily at a loose end, studied a notice board on the wall nearby. Featuring the usual pub snapshots of pissed-up customers during recent lock-ins, some of them in fancy dress (or so he sincerely hoped), it also was home to plenty of small adverts: mobile hairdressers, carpet cleaners, that sort of crap. There were a couple of lost-and-founds and . . .

  ‘He used to come in here.’

  The plainclothes copper spun round from the curled and yellowing wanted poster that was pinned in the dead centre of the board.

  ‘What?’ he snapped.

  The guy standing next to him could have been any age over seventy. He probably had as many as four teeth and had certainly had more than four beers. But his rheumy eyes still had some sharpness to them.

  ‘Him,’ the old guy said, nodding at the poster. ‘He used to drop in from time to time.’

  ‘Are you saying you’ve seen him in here?’

  ‘Aye, I have that; loads of times.’

  In spite of himself Carlisle felt a flutter of excitement. He’d been involved in the hunt for the Shipley Serial Killer from day one but, quite honestly, hadn’t a clue what the bastard looked like. The artist’s impression on the wanted poster was very much a best guess, based more on Isla’s distant memories than Amber’s noncommittal shrugs.

  ‘Okay,’ he said carefully. ‘Is he a man you’d talk to yourself?’

  ‘Oh aye, all the time . . . he’s a good lad, him.’

  ‘You come in here a lot then?’

  ‘I’m in every night,’ the old guy chuckled, ‘without fail.’

  ‘So when did you last see this . . . this good lad?’

  ‘Now you’re asking. It was probably a month ago, maybe two.’

  Briggs arrived back, smelling of carbolic soap and bringing a wave of icy air in with him.

  ‘Brassy out there,’ he declared. Then, addressing the older man: ‘Hey up, Donald. How are you doing?’

  ‘Just talking to your mate,’ Donald replied, ‘pointing him in the right direction.’

  Briggs grinned. ‘Not towards your old boozing buddy, I hope.’

  ‘It is him,’ Donald said firmly. ‘I keep telling thee.’

  ‘And I keep telling you it isn’t.’

  The landlord had drifted back down to their end of the bar. Before Carlisle could ask who, for fuck’s sake it could or could not be, he put in his two-pennyworth.

  ‘It can’t be Trev, Donald. They’ve eliminated him from their enquiries. ‘Then, addressing the coppers: ‘Are we having the same again, gents?’

  Briggs hadn’t even touched his new pint but nodded enthusiastically. ‘Go for it. Get your hand in your pocket, Jack.’

  While Donald ambled off, muttering to himself, Carlisle produced another tenner. ‘Trev?’ he echoed. ‘Please tell me you’re not talking about the Trev I think you’re talking about.’

  ‘Have another look at that poster,’ Briggs said.

  He did and groaned inwardly. The resemblance wasn’t huge but it was undoubtedly there, no matter how hard he denied it. Viewed with an open mind, the best guess impression looked a little bit like Trevor Lockwood. And it had been circulated (against his better judgment) months ago, long before they’d nicked Lockwood.

  ‘Can’t say I see any likeness,’ he lied.

  ‘Bollocks.’

  ‘Honestly, Ralph. It’s never occurred to me before.’

  ‘Must depend on how you look at it.’ Briggs snorted. ‘Donald’s seen it all along. He’s been trying to finger his mate, Trev, ever since you nabbed him. He never mentioned it until he had his fifteen minutes of fame, though.’

  ‘Neither did any bastard else,’ Carlisle grunted.

  Briggs waited until they could talk in more or less privacy.

  ‘I suppose you are convinced Lockwood is out of the frame?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’ Carlisle drained his glass in readiness for the next . . . and several more after it. Drinking sessions with Briggs alternated between home patches and pubs, but always followed the same general pattern, ending in late.

  ‘What was that business yesterday?’

  ‘Do you mean the car fire? Not sure yet. Looks like a bit of friction between dealers.’

  They were both still chuckling when the Bingley-based policeman’s mobile rang.

  ‘What now?’ he said into it rudely. ‘Don’t you know I’m in a high-profile meeting?’

  Carlisle was about to wave for more beers when he saw the sudden change in Briggs’ expression.

  ‘I have to take this outside,’ Briggs said, heading for the exit.

  *****

  Lockwood had spent the last month putting his affairs in order. Work hadn’t taken much time. They had sacked him when he had been sent down for contempt. The good news was that they’d honoured their severance obligations and paid him the best part of twenty grand. The bad news was that they’d paid it straight into his bank, and good old WYB had immediately slashed his overdraft back to nil.

  Still, that was about par for the course in this modern, dog-eat-dog age. He hadn’t really expected loyalty or support from anyone, especially not his bankers. He’d only been paying their ruinous charges and interest for twenty-five years. What right had he to expect loyalty?

  Stuff them, anyway. Even with a removed overdraft he was suddenly cash-rich. Not enough to flee on, naturally, but he’d come out of prison and immediately closed his account, collecting almost five thousand pounds cash in the process.

  Five thousand could have bought off Dwyer but the thought hardly even occurred to him. Neither had the idea of chipping into the million other bills piled up on his doormat. No, his sole motivation had been to preserve what he had while he schemed his way out of this mess . . . impossible or not.

  So far he had avoided the temptation of a big gamble (the old black-or-red, winner takes all), not least because simple money wasn’t the way out of this one. This time he was in deeper than ever. This time he would need to think lucky rather than merely fall lucky . . . although fuck knew what he meant by that.

  Lockwood had been living in the family home ever since he’d been released from prison. And he had been doing it furtively, never turning on any lights, entering and leaving through the back door; that sort of thing. He had no worries that Judith would drop by because Judith was living off “Daddy’s” bottomless pit of goodwill now. She wouldn’t abandon Daddy again for a no-hoper like him. But some of Dwyer’s so very scary goons might drop by . . . hence the lack of illuminatio
n and evidence of coming and going.

  So far he’d been lucky; was maybe even thinking lucky. Time was running tight, however.

  In fact it was fucking throttling him.