by Hannah Howe
With an angry snarl, Frankie waved the shotgun at me. He said, “If you cross me, I’ll do you.”
“I won’t cross you,” I said.
Frankie lapsed into deep thought. Again, only the tick-tock of the grandfather clock disturbed the silence, a noise that seemed to grow louder with every passing second. And those seconds drifted into long, tense minutes.
Eventually, Frankie offered me a reluctant nod. “Okay,” he said, “I’ll meet Gawain.”
With Frankie’s gaze fixed on my back, I climbed into my Mini; my blouse clung to my skin while my clothing dripped with perspiration. It had been an uncomfortable encounter; nevertheless, our meeting had achieved the desired result. Frankie Quinn was indeed trapped between a rock and a hard place; he had little option, other than to trust me. Now, I had to square all that with my father. Next stop, Porthcawl and my dad.
Chapter Twelve
After a detour to my office to catch up with Faye and day-to-day business, I drove home to shower and change my clothing. I was in desperate need of a cool shower, to combat the heat and humidity, and to relieve the stress from my encounter with Frankie Quinn. Then I drove twenty-eight miles west along the coast, to the seaside town of Porthcawl.
Gawain Morgan lived in a smart house overlooking Rest Bay. The house contained three bedrooms and an attic conversion. When I arrived at the house, the sun was sinking into the sea. Looking out to sea, I noticed that one section of the sky was black while another was pink. The pink sky hinted at sunshine in the morning, while the black clouds suggested a storm, which stubbornly refused to break.
I rang the doorbell, listened to the door chimes, then saw Gawain’s outline in the frosted glass of the door panel. He opened the door to greet me wearing jeans, an open-necked tee-shirt and comfortable slippers. Given his roguish reputation, the slippers seemed an incongruous touch, proof positive that even hard men enjoyed their creature comforts.
“Princess,” he said while guiding me into the living room, “any news?”
I nodded, “I found Frankie.”
“Tell me all,” Gawain enthused. While I eased myself into an armchair, he walked over to a cocktail cabinet, one of many standard pieces of furniture in the living room. On balance, Gawain kept a neat house, dominated by pastel shades. Indeed, as a budding housewife, I’d do well to take tips. “A drink?” he asked, holding up a bottle of whisky.
“No thanks.”
“I’ll have a little one,” Gawain grinned. “My regular nightcap.” With two fingers of whisky nestling in his glass, Gawain sat beside me, in a second armchair. “Tell me about Frankie,” he said.
“He’s in Brecon,” I explained, “in an old longhouse. I have no idea who owns the house or its connection to Frankie, but he seems at home there.”
“Brecon?” Gawain frowned. He sipped his whisky, then swirled the amber liquid around in his glass. “That’s a new one on me. Must belong to a mate of a mate, someone away on their summer holidays, perhaps, and Frankie’s squatting. Will he meet me?”
“Reluctantly, yes.”
“Well done, Princess.” Gawain placed his glass on a side table. He clapped his hands together in glee. “I knew you’d do it.”
“But you give me your word,” I said, “no violence.”
“Scouts’ honour,” Gawain grinned and saluted.
“You won’t lose your rag with him?”
“I only want to talk, make him see sense.”
“No threats, no violence?”
“Just a civilised chat, I promise.”
“What will you say?” I asked.
“I’ll remind Frankie of the old times, of the occasions when I pulled him out of the mire, of the laughs we shared; I’ll appeal to his better nature. I can be very persuasive, without using my fists.”
“He has a girlfriend,” I said.
“Who?” Gawain asked, retrieving his glass, sipping his whisky.
“Gina McBride. She’s nine months pregnant. She lives in an attic, an unfinished attic, and she’s young enough to be Frankie’s granddaughter.”
Gawain nodded. He offered me a rueful smile. “Frankie always did like them fresh.”
“I think he’s holding something back; he’s looking to grass on someone, apart from you.”
“Who?” Gawain repeated.
I shrugged, “I don’t know; do you have any idea?”
Gawain glanced at his whisky then he stared at the wall. Maybe he was running a series of mental images on that wall, the film of his life. For some reason, a picture of Stanley Baker in Robbery came to mind, though my dad looked nothing like that splendid actor.
“I could toss some names around,” Gawain said, “but I’d only be guessing. As far as I know, I’m the biggest fish in Frankie’s pond; he’d get more value out of shopping me than anyone else.”
I reflected on that statement. If true, then who was Frankie frightened of? If he planned to land a bigger fish than my father, who could that be?
As I tossed a few names around in my mind – Vincent Vanzetti, Rudy Valentine, Maria de Costa – Gawain stood and walked over to me. He gave me a parental look, a mixture of solemnity and satisfaction.
He said, “I’m proud of you, Princess, real proud. Your mother would be proud of you too. If I could turn back the clock, I’d do many things different. Forget all that ‘no regrets’ malarkey, I don’t buy into any of that. I wish I could turn back the clock to the day you were born. I should have quit the thieving and married your mother. Maybe then, she wouldn’t have gone on the booze. She would have married me, I’m sure of that. But I was too busy playing Jack the Lad, wasn’t I. And where did it land me? In prison, away from you. I should have been there for you as you grew, should have guided you away from the pitfalls.”
Gawain placed a hand on my shoulder. He gazed through the window, to the pink and black sky, to the sun dipping below the horizon, to the somnolent sea. He sighed, “Easy to be wise after the event. You make a decision, thinking it’s for the best, and it affects so many lives. Take me back to the day you were born and things would be different. We’d be different people, leading different lives.”
I reached up and placed a hand over my father’s fingers, an act that dragged his thoughts back into the room. He smiled at me, a broad smile that touched his eyes.
“So, you’ll take me to Frankie then?” Gawain said, his voice eager, his look keen.
“First thing in the morning,” I promised.
“I’ve been a fool,” he said. “In all my years, you’re the best thing that’s happened in my life. Yet I’ve neglected you most of my life.”
“So, from now, we start anew.”
Decisively, my father nodded, “We do.”
Chapter Thirteen
In the morning, we drove to Brecon, yours truly at the wheel.
I’m not at my most communicative in the mornings, so I drove in silence while my father wittered on about sport, the state of the economy, global warming; interspersed with titbits about his misspent youth.
At one point, near Merthyr Tydfil, he turned to me and said, “I can see through that blouse, you know that.”
“Dad,” I sighed, “the blouse offers a suggestion; it’s not see-through. Besides, I’m in my thirties and getting married next week; I know how to dress. Also, it’s stifling hot and most sensible people are walking around nearly nude.”
“Yeah, but that’s for them,” Gawain said. “I want to see my daughter looking smart at all times. Even though you were born a backstreet urchin, you have class. Money doesn’t equal class; some of the biggest slappers I’ve seen have been titled gentry loaded down with cash. Class comes from your deportment, from the way you conduct yourself, from the way you dress.”
“So,” I said, “you don’t like the blouse.”
“It could do with an extra button and with being a bit thicker, that’s all I’m saying.”
I turned to my father and smiled. He really was one of a kind.
Bre
con beckoned and we fell silent, mulling over our thoughts, our words for Frankie Quinn. I resolved to hold my tongue, to intervene only if the conversation heated up, or went pear-shaped.
At 10.49 a.m., we arrived at the longhouse. I parked in the lane again, and we approached with cautious tread.
We walked in an arc, wary of Frankie’s itchy trigger finger, through a small copse, taking shelter in the trees. At one point, I paused to examine the bark and a series of scratches, possibly bullet scars. The scars faced the building, which suggested that someone, probably Frankie, had fired a gun from the house.
“They’re fresh,” I said.
“And these,” Gawain said, noting the pockmarks on the stone wall.
“They’re from yesterday,” I said.
Gawain scowled. He turned to face me, his complexion a raging shade of puce. “Frankie took a shot at you?”
“Several,” I admitted.
Gawain’s scowl deepened and, with purposeful tread, he walked towards the longhouse. “I’m going to ring his neck.”
“Dad...,” I stretched out an arm and pulled him back, “you promised.”
Gawain glanced at the longhouse; he glanced at me. He stared at the pockmarks, at the bullet scars and sighed, “Okay. But I’ll have a word with Frankie. No one takes potshots at my daughter and gets away with it.”
With light feet and our senses on red alert, we approached the longhouse.
The door was ajar. The air was still. Nothing moved inside. The grandfather clock ticked then chimed, eleven o’clock. In a corner of the room, I spied broken crockery.
My eyes scanned the room, noted the willow-pattern plates, shattered and scattered over the floor; and the brass utensils, made into colanders through a series of bullet holes; and the mutilated corpse of Frankie Quinn, shot several times in the body and head. Blood covered the walls, the floor, the furniture. The scene reminded me of a photograph, a black-and-white image of Bugsy Siegel’s murder, times ten. Frankie Quinn was dead, and maybe to relieve the horror of my surroundings, I thought about Gina McBride and wondered what she would do next.
I turned to look at Gawain, only to discover that he’d left the building. I found him outside, leaning on Frankie’s Volkswagen, throwing up.
“You okay?” I asked, running a soothing hand over his back.
“Long car journeys,” he said, “always troubled me, since I was a kid.”
We both smiled, albeit painfully, at his gallows humour, then we took a moment to compose ourselves.
When Gawain had recovered his equilibrium, I asked, “Any idea who did this?”
He shook his head in rueful fashion. “None at all. But, whoever pulled the trigger, he must be a sicko.”
While gazing at the trees, the rolling hills, the beautiful countryside, I experienced a flashback, which took me into the longhouse. I could picture myself, standing, staring at the gruesome scene. The murder of Frankie Quinn went beyond the act of homicide. The person, or persons, who’d pulled the trigger had done so in an orgy of violence.
Then a question popped into my head, a question that sent shivers down my spine. Nevertheless, I felt compelled to ask, “Is this the first time you’ve been to this longhouse?”
Gawain looked at me in disbelief. “You think I did this?”
“No,” I said, “but I had to ask the question.”
He nodded, then took a sip of water, from a bottle he’d retrieved from my car. “I understand, Princess. But I promise you, I’ve never been here before.”
I sighed then shuddered, tried to free the grisly image from my mind. Experience told me that these images faded with time. They faded, but never disappeared; the sight of Frankie Quinn’s bullet-ridden body would stay with me forever.
“I’ll have to report this,” I said.
Furtively, Gawain scoured the landscape. We were alone. Apart from the birds singing in the trees and nature’s creatures scurrying about their business, no one could hear us. Indeed, in all probability, no one had heard the gunshots. And if they had, they might have dismissed them as the army or the SAS conducting their training.
“Maybe we should just keep stum,” Gawain suggested, “and scarper.”
“You get out,” I said, “get away; take my car.”
“What about you?” he frowned. “How will you explain yourself, how you got here?”
“A lift. Mac dropped me off, didn’t he; I’ll fabricate a story with him.”
“Sounds flimsy,” Gawain complained. “I don’t like it. I don’t want to land you in any trouble.”
Although it took some effort, I conjured up a smile of reassurance. “I’m good at tiptoeing my way around trouble,” I said. “I’ll report this. Leave it to me.”
Reluctantly, Gawain accepted my offer of the car keys and drove away. He’d driven from his home in Porthcawl to my flat in Grangetown. He could leave my car there, pick up his car, and drive home. Problem solved. Now all I had to do was phone my friend and mentor, Detective Inspector ‘Sweets’ MacArthur, and hope that he was in a good mood.
Chapter Fourteen
Sweets arrived with a small army of assistants. Quickly, efficiently, they cordoned off the crime scene and within half an hour, a mobile incident room rolled into place.
As the detectives, pathologist and police photographers set about their tasks, I sat in the shade of a nearby oak tree and fanned myself with my sun hat.
I was still fanning myself when Sweets approached, looking glum. He crooked a finger, indicated that I should stand, so I leapt to my feet. As we talked we walked along a riverbank, beside a stream, a stream reduced to a trickle by the long days of summer sunshine.
“Any idea who did this?” Sweets asked, jerking a thumb over his shoulder, easing his trilby on to the crown of his head. Habitually, Sweets wore a trilby, along with a suit, shirt and tie, items that invariably clashed. Today, in deference to the hot weather, he’d abandoned his jacket, though the polka-dot tie, striped shirt and finely checked trousers suggested that he’d dressed in the dark.
“No,” I said, “I have no idea who murdered that man.”
“You found the body?”
I nodded, “Yes.”
“How many bodies have you found during your career, Sam?”
“Too many,” I sighed.
“You seem to have a gift for it.”
I sighed again, “More like a curse akin to second sight.”
Sweets produced a notebook and pen from his trouser pocket. He proceeded to scribble a note in a hand that only he could decipher. In regard to Sweets’ handwriting, a medical man would have been proud of him.
“What are you doing here, Sam?”
“Looking for a missing person, on behalf of a client.”
“Is that your missing person?” Sweets asked, glancing towards the longhouse.
“It is,” I confessed.
“And your client?”
I turned to gaze at a clump of trees. Actually, I focused on a bare strip within those trees, presumably a forest, man-managed. My gaze was evasive, and it compelled Sweets to lose his cool.
“My client,” I said, “that’s privileged information.”
“No it’s not,” Sweets fumed; “it’s bullshit.” He removed his trilby to reveal a head of fine salt and pepper hair. His hair and balding crown glistened with sweat, which beaded over his temple. “How did you get here?” Sweets asked, returning the hat to his head, making a fine adjustment.
“A lift,” I said.
“The chauffeur?”
“Mac.”
Sweets scowled. He scribbled a note in his notepad. “Mac the Gun?”
I nodded.
“Did Mac have anything to do with this?”
“Definitely not,” I said, my tone indignant.
“Then who are you protecting, Sam?”
“No one,” I said.
“Bullshit,” Sweets scowled.
Onlookers had travelled from the isolated farmhouses, and probably from
Brecon as well, to gaze at the mobile incident room and the police as they went about their business. Some of Sweets’ colleagues interviewed the onlookers. Amazing to relate, many criminals, especially murderers, returned to the scene of the crime, unable to resist the furore and the inevitable media attention.
“We don’t seem to be getting very far,” I said, “so maybe I should ask the questions?”
“Fire away,” Sweets said without a hint of irony.
“Have you any idea who did this?”
“I have my suspicions.”
“Care to share them?” I asked.
Sweets turned to gaze at the longhouse. A television crew had arrived and were setting up their equipment. Meanwhile, a female reporter, plump with a severe haircut and an earnest expression searched for someone to interview, chatted with the onlookers.
“You know who he is, don’t you, Sam?”
“Yes,” I said, “Frankie Quinn.”
“You know why he was shot?”
I shrugged, “Probably because he was looking to cut a deal with you.”
Sweets loosened his tie. He ran a finger under his shirt collar. As he did so, a copper bracelet glinted in the sunlight, an aid, apparently, to his aching joints.
“You know who Frankie was going to finger for past misdeeds?”
“No,” I said, my face a mask of innocence.
“Gawain Morgan.”
“And you suspect Gawain Morgan of the murder?”
“Damn right I do,” Sweets replied, his tone hard-edged, loaded with feeling.
Okay, time to muddy the waters. Time to cross my fingers and hope for the best.
“He didn’t do it, Sweets.”
“How do you know?”
“Because we were together, Gawain Morgan and I.”
“All night?”
I nodded.
Sweets removed his trilby again. He waved the hat in front of his face, created a welcoming, cooling breeze. “You spent the night with Gawain Morgan?” he asked in disbelief.
“He’s my father,” I said, dropping the bombshell.
