by Zoe Sharp
Sean was looking at her, surprised. “Didn’t you know?” he said. “Good old Ian Garton-Jones is up to his non-existent bull neck in this whole thing.”
Pauline’s confusion and disbelief were plain. “But that’s ridiculous,” she said faintly. “He’s here to protect us.”
Sean tried to let her down gently, but there wasn’t an easy glide path open to him. “He was on to a winner either way, Mrs Jamieson,” he said. “You were all paying him to keep the estate clear of crime, but we now think he was probably behind the crimewave in the first place. Drumming up business.”
“Oh no, it was Mr O’Bryan who was doing that.”
We all of us froze, then turned very slowly to stare at Aqueel, sitting swinging his heels on the sill of the Range Rover. It was like our heads were suddenly made of steel and he had just become an eight-year-old electromagnet.
The boy himself appeared not to notice the sudden attention his words had gained. The clear cellophane sweet wrapping had ripped, and he was carefully making sure it was all peeled away before he gave the sticky lime to his sister.
It was only when Sean crouched alongside him, brought his eyes down to Aqueel’s level, that the boy tore his gaze away from his task.
“Aqueel, this is important,” he said gently. “Are you sure you mean Mr O’Bryan?”
Aqueel regarded him gravely while he chewed the remainder of his own sweet, mindful of his manners. We held our collective breath until he’d swallowed. Then he said, “Oh yes. My brother told me. Mr O’Bryan was trying to make Nasir do things for him that were wrong, stealing things for him.” His big liquid-dark eyes rested on each of us, serious. “Nasir didn’t want to do that any more. He was going to be a daddy.”
“Was that why you damaged Mr O’Bryan’s car?” I asked, thinking of the group of kids I’d seen running away from the Mercedes.
Aqueel looked a bit sheepish. “We found some things in the boot that had been stolen. Nasir was very pleased. He said he was going to show them to Mr O’Bryan. He said they would make Mr O’Bryan stop bothering him, and leave Ursula alone. I like her,” he admitted shyly, “She’s pretty.”
But Nasir’s amateur attempts at blackmail hadn’t stopped O’Bryan, I realised with a growing sense of horror, they’d made thing ten times worse.
They’d upped the stakes to murder.
I hadn’t considered for a moment that O’Bryan was a player in all this. In fact, I was the one who’d tipped him off at the beginning that Nasir had been making vague threats that day at Fariman and Shahida’s house.
Cold all over, I shut my eyes for a moment, unable to believe how stupid, how gullible I’d been. It wasn’t a surprise now that the CBR had been run off the road and Roger grabbed. After all, I’d told O’Bryan exactly what to look for.
Whatever else he was, the man was efficient. O’Bryan must have set Garton-Jones on the trail of the Honda as soon as he’d walked out of the gym after our last meeting.
Sean was staring at me with the same dismay reflected on his face. “That’s why Roger ran from us at the house,” he murmured. “It wasn’t us he was scared of at all, it was O’Bryan.”
“And it would explain why Nasir thought I was involved,” I said, “if he knew O’Bryan had been to see me.”
“So why was the man trying to get Roger off with a caution for injuring Fariman?” Madeleine wanted to know.
“The reason Roger and the others were in Fariman’s shed in the first place was because O’Bryan had sent them there to rob the place,” Sean told her. His mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “He was just looking after his own, wasn’t he?”
“Where is he now, your brother?” Pauline asked.
Sean jerked his head towards the estate, just as a traffic car came howling past. “They’ve dumped him somewhere in the middle of that lot and they’re going to make damned sure he burns,” he said bitterly.
Mrs Gadatra hurried up at that point saying she was good to go. We began squeezing them all into the Range Rover, piling up children on the back seat.
“We’ll put Friday in the back,” Jacob said, but Pauline shook her head.
“He’s staying,” she said. She handed me his lead. “I think you might need him.”
I opened my mouth to object, but she held up a finger.
“Friday’s a good guard dog,” she said, “but he’s a better tracker, and Rhodesian Ridgebacks were originally bred to fight lions. Take him.”
She glanced in Sean’s direction and lowered her voice. “I know you told me your young man didn’t have anything to do with Nasir’s death, dear,” she added, troubled, “and you’re probably right, but I’d watch him now, if I were you. He’s got blood in his eyes.”
I turned to skim mine over Sean where he stood talking quickly to Madeleine by the Patrol.
“Don’t worry,” I said, dragging up a smile. “I’ll keep a close eye on him. And on Friday, too.”
She gave us both a quick hug, although I didn’t try and lick her face by way of a thank you, then she turned and trotted back to the Range Rover. I watched the four-by-four rumble out of the car park with a sense of relief that they, at least, were out of harm’s way.
The road outside was a mass of vehicles with flashing lights. More police cars arrived in the Black Lion car park, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.
Instead, I walked back over to the Nissan with Friday, who had now transferred his attention firmly to me, treading on my feet all the way. His eyes were anxiously fixed on my face as if looking for some sign that I was going to abandon him, too. I scratched the back of his neck by way of reassurance, and he butted against my legs.
Madeleine glanced at me, her face fearful as her eyes slid to her boss. Sean had moved away to stand near the front of the Patrol and from the back his body was stiff with rage. At his sides, his hands spasmed briefly, once, as though he could already feel his fingers tightening round O’Bryan’s neck.
“Out of the mouths of babes, eh?” he said, not turning round as I closed in. “That little lad knew, all the time, and we never thought to ask him. He could have told us all about O’Bryan right at the start. Dammit!”
“Sean,” I said quietly. “Don’t do it. Leave O’Bryan alone.”
He still spoke without meeting my eyes. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill him?” he said, and it was his conversational tone that scared me most, as though he was discussing washing the car.
“Have you ever killed anyone, Sean?” I asked. He turned then, and as he started to make an impatient gesture I added quickly, “No, I mean really, actually killed someone? Deliberately? Face to face?”
There was a long pause, and I realised I wasn’t going to get an answer. I pressed on doggedly, anyway.
“If you haven’t then you have no idea what it will do to you,” I said, my voice low with feeling. “What it will take away from you. Even if you managed to get away with it, the consequences will stay with you forever. Think about that, Sean. You’re not in the army any more.”
He offered a half smile that gave up trying almost before it formed. “And here was I thinking you were going to give me a lecture about the moral rights and wrongs of it.”
I shook my head. “There was a time when I’d have been first in the queue to help you plan the hit,” I said. “The man’s a shit of the lowest order and he probably deserves to die, but not at your hands, Sean. Not if I can help it.”
“What really happened to you, Charlie?” he asked, and must have seen my face close up. He held up his hand. “OK, OK, you don’t want to tell me, and I think I can understand that, but one day I hope you’ll feel you can trust me enough to tell me about it, because that sounds like the voice of experience talking.”
With that, he moved past me, and for a moment I didn’t follow him. I did trust Sean, I realised, but I didn’t think I’d ever be ready to bare my soul to him.
I didn’t much like looking in there myself.
“So,” Madelei
ne said, pale and nervous, “what do we do now?”
“We have to get to Roger – if he isn’t dead already,” Sean said. “We’ll worry about how to deal with everything else later—”
“I would say,” said a measured voice behind us, “that you’ve got far more important things to worry about right now.”
We spun round, to find Superintendent MacMillan and a pair of uniforms large enough to have been Streetwise men themselves were looming behind us.
“Charlie,” MacMillan nodded sharply in my direction, then turned that flat gaze onto Sean’s suddenly tense figure. “And you must be Sean Meyer, whom I’ve heard so much about. Well, much as I hate to break up the party, I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”
Twenty-six
Just for a moment there was silence. Not that any of the people who thronged the car park stopped talking or crying. Not that the distant sirens stopped blaring. But for the six of us there was utter silence, nonetheless.
It was Sean who broke it.
“What’s the charge?” he said, with that slight lift of his chin I knew so well. The one that issued a challenge you’d be foolish to ignore.
“Murder.”
“Whose murder?”
“Harvey Langford’s – for now,” MacMillan said, composed, “but I’m sure we can add to that later, if need be.”
One of the coppers standing behind him reached for his cuffs, shook them loose, and took a step towards Sean.
Without clearly recalling doing it, I found I’d shifted my feet halfway into a stance. When I looked, I found we all had. Even the Superintendent looked poised and Friday was standing motionless but alert.
Sean turned his head slightly, stared straight into the approaching policeman’s eyes. “Come near me with those now, and I’ll break both your arms,” he said. His voice was light, pleasant, but I’d never heard anyone mean a threat more.
He looked back to the Superintendent. “Give me until tomorrow morning,” he said, “and I’ll turn myself in.”
“What happens tomorrow morning?”
“Because by then I’ll either have found you the real killer, or my brother will be dead,” Sean said evenly. “Either way, it won’t matter much any more.”
The copper with the cuffs took another step. His mate unhooked the baton from his belt. Madeleine and I closed in on either side of Sean, and I slipped Friday’s lead.
The Ridgeback moved smoothly in front of us, showing every incisor in his considerable array and making noise in his chest like the continuous droning of a light aircraft engine. It was enough to stop all three policemen in their tracks.
I took advantage of the breathing space. “Don’t you want to know what’s going on round here?” I asked MacMillan quickly, trying to keep the note of desperation out of my voice. “Don’t you want to find out not just who really did kill Langford, but why he died? Don’t you want to know who’s been organising the crimewave, masterminding the burglaries, fencing the gear?”
The Superintendent tore his eyes away from the dog’s teeth.
“What makes you think that we don’t know already?”
“Because if you could prove it you wouldn’t be here, going through the motions of arresting a man you know isn’t the one you really want.”
MacMillan eyed me without speaking for a long moment. I could almost hear the gears in that calculating mind engaging. I don’t know what conclusions he came to, but maybe he remembered back to another time when we hadn’t trusted each other, and someone had died because of it.
“Come on, MacMillan,” I said, unable to stand the waiting any longer. “I got you the proof you needed last time. Don’t do this again.”
Eventually, he sighed and his hand went out, stilling the advance of his men. “OK,” he said cautiously. “Tell me what you know and maybe we can talk about this. Just don’t let me down, Charlie, or we’ll both swing for it.”
I acknowledged the enormity of the concession he’d just made. “So,” I said, “you don’t have anything solid to go on, then?”
“Nothing that would stand up in court, no,” he admitted at last.
The balance shifted. I felt the tension began to unwind out of my shoulders. I glanced at the others, but their faces didn’t give me any encouragement to collaborate with the enemy. “We think the person who’s been running the burglary ring on the local estates is your Community Juvenile man, Eric O’Bryan,” I began.
“Why?” MacMillan rapped out, but there was no real surprise there.
“Because he’s got the perfect access to all the local teenage criminals,” I said. “We think he and Garton-Jones’s mob have had a deal going where O’Bryan revs up the crime rate, and then takes a cut when the private security men are called in.”
“You think, or you know?” MacMillan asked sharply now. “We’ve suspected the same for a while. O’Bryan’s got expensive tastes in classic cars that he couldn’t finance from his official earnings, but he’s been clever, and it’s been extremely difficult to prove it. He tells a good story about buying them as wrecks and doing them up himself, and witnesses have been singularly reluctant to come forwards.”
“Your proof’s in there,” Sean said tightly, indicating Lavender Gardens. “O’Bryan’s arranged for my brother to be killed in there tonight, because of what he knows. Unless you get to him first.”
“Where?” MacMillan asked.
I told him about the derelict houses with cellars, omitting to mention how we’d obtained the information.
Once he’d pinpointed the exact location, MacMillan gave a frustrated grimace and shook his head. “We can’t do it,” he said.
“What the fuck do you mean, you can’t do it?” Sean flared. “We’re talking about saving the life of a fourteen-year-old boy. Don’t you give a damn about that?”
“Yes, but there’s no way I can get my men in there,” the Superintendent said, keeping his own anger in check. “It’s the middle of a war zone, the way the gangs are fighting. They’ll treat it as an invasion. I haven’t got the manpower to cope as it is. The best we can do at the moment is contain the trouble within the estates. Let them slug it out and pick up the pieces afterwards.”
He cocked an eye upwards. “The only thing you can do now is pray for rain. Nothing quells a riot like a good downpour.”
“So let us go in and get him,” I said urgently. “If you can’t, then for God’s sake let us do it.”
MacMillan’s gaze was even as he considered the implications and the consequences. “No,” he said. “I don’t want your deaths on my conscience, Charlie. I can’t allow it.”
Sean gave him a thin smile. “What makes you think you’re going to get the opportunity to stop us?”
And suddenly we were back to a stand-off again, half a beat away from violence.
It was Madeleine who spoke then. “Look, Superintendent,” she said, calm and reasonable as though breaking up squabbling children, “you’ve just said you haven’t got men to waste. Why waste these two trying to arrest us?”
MacMillan did his best to hold back a smile, but it escaped across the corner of his mouth, even so. He glanced back at me, and in that brief connection I saw the struggle, the tightrope he was walking between the result he so badly wanted to obtain, and utter, bleak disaster. He sighed again, more heavily this time, and gave in.
“What do you need?” he said.
Beside me, I felt Sean loosen. “Body armour would be good,” he said. “It’ll have to be covert stuff, though, or they’ll think we’re with your lot.” He cracked a tired smile of his own. “And I wouldn’t say no to a couple of MP5s.”
MacMillan threw him an old-fashioned look. “Body armour I can manage,” he said grimly. “Firearms are quite another matter.”
I thought of the Glock, still in the glovebox of the Patrol.
“We’ll manage,” I said.
MacMillan jerked his head back towards one of the Sherpa vans on the other side of the car park. “Come on,” he
said. “We’ll get you kitted out.” As we started to follow him across the wet tarmac, he added, “Are you sure you realise the dangers of what you’re doing?”
Sean paused at that, met the Superintendent’s eyes and said simply, “I realise the dangers of doing nothing. Roger’s my little brother. What else can I do?”
***
In the back of the Sherpa was a pile of spare body armour like thin black nylon life jackets. MacMillan’s sidekicks started sorting through it and dragging out appropriate sizes for the three of us.
Sean looked at the one he was handed, clearly unimpressed.
“Where are the plates?” he demanded.
MacMillan favoured him with a pointed stare. “This is all I can supply at short notice,” he said. “Take it or leave it.”
“What plates?” Madeleine wanted to know, as Sean helped her strap on her vest.
“Thick ceramic plates that fit into these pockets on the front and back,” he explained. “As they are, these wouldn’t stop anything heavy.”
Madeleine looked down at the vest as she shrugged her jumper back over the top of it. “You mean that without them they’re not bullet-proof?” she asked faintly.
Sean gave her a savage grin. “Nothing’s ever bullet-proof,” he said. “It’s just bullet-resistant. It’s like a rain jacket. Even if it’s supposed to be waterproof, if you stand out in the rain for long enough, you will get wet.”
There was a short, pregnant silence.
“Thank you,” I said tartly, “That’s very reassuring . . .”
We quickly discovered, though, that Sean couldn’t stand having the straps of the armour anywhere near his injured shoulder. Trying to work round the wound just exacerbated the problem.
Eventually, he gave it up, threw the armour back on the pile in frustration. “I’ll just have to risk it,” he said, sweat standing out on his forehead. “But I’ll take a spare one for Roger. The smallest you’ve got.”
