‘OK, ladies, I’ve had a long flight. I want to get in my car, I want to visit Martin Lomax, I want to get what I came for, and I want to come straight back here and fly home.’
‘Well, Martin Lomax doesn’t have your diamonds,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I do.’
‘You got my diamonds?’
‘I have your diamonds, yes,’ says Elizabeth.
‘OK,’ says Frank Andrade. ‘And you think I won’t kill you because you’re an old woman?’
‘Oh, I’m sure you would, Frank,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I don’t doubt it for a moment. But, equally, I would kill you without hesitation. So shall we stop the grandstanding and get down to business?’
Frank Andrade laughs. ‘You would kill me?’
‘She would,’ confirms Joyce. ‘I don’t think she will, but she would.’
‘OK,’ says Andrade. ‘So where are my diamonds?’
‘They’re in Fairhaven,’ says Elizabeth. ‘At the end of the pier.’
‘And where is Fairhaven?’ asks Andrade.
‘Well, you see how useful we can be to you already?’ says Elizabeth.
Elizabeth sees that Mark has driven around to the front of the terminal building. He gives her a quick honk on the horn. You shouldn’t really honk at the mafia, but she supposes Mark is not to know that.
‘You come with us, you make up with Martin Lomax, and my representative will give you the diamonds. We’ll have you back here by nine p.m. at the latest,’ says Elizabeth.
‘With my diamonds?’ asks Andrade.
‘With your diamonds,’ says Elizabeth. She points out Mark’s car. ‘So shall we?’
‘And why am I trusting you?’
‘Well, just use your judgement,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And look at Joyce’s face. Who wouldn’t trust that face?’
Joyce smiles. ‘If you want, you can sit in the front. I was in the front on the way up, but I don’t mind going in the back. I’ll probably sleep anyway.’
Mark is out of the car and has the boot open. He holds out his hand to Frank Andrade.
‘That all you’ve got then? I’m Mark, nice to meet you. Are you really from the mafia?’
Frank Andrade hands over his bag. ‘Uh, yeah.’ He looks at the car and he looks at his three companions.
‘Now,’ says Joyce. ‘It’s at least a two-hour drive, so do you need the toilet before we set off?’
73
Donna and Chris are parked in a side street outside a shop selling candy floss, models of Tower Bridge and international phone cards. They are facing the sea, grey and unhappy like the sky, and have a clear view of the entrance to Fairhaven pier away to their left.
Donna has an ice cream. She offers some to Chris, but he declines, and looks down at his bag of sunflower seeds.
Connie Johnson is the first to arrive. Her Range Rover pulls over onto the broad pavement in front of the pier, and she steps out and looks around her. She is carrying a large holdall, and Donna hopes it has five kilos of coke in it. The five kilos of coke that will hopefully see Connie arrested before the afternoon is through.
Donna can’t see the driver behind the tinted windows, but she is looking forward to rearresting Ryan Baird too. She had to hand it to Joyce there.
Suddenly Bogdan appears, though Donna can’t figure out from where. They had been watching the pier for half an hour already and hadn’t caught a glimpse of the big man. The big, taciturn man with the deep blue eyes. Donna swears that her ice cream starts to melt faster. She watches him walking up the pier with Connie Johnson, carrying her bag of cocaine for her like a gentleman.
‘He’s a good guy,’ says Chris.
‘Mmm hmm,’ agrees Donna.
A black Lotus sports car pulls up next, and two men, one older and one younger, step out. Donna sees Chris look down at a picture on his phone.
‘That’s Martin Lomax,’ says Chris. ‘The other one must be the spy?’
‘Lance,’ says Donna. Joyce had told Donna she might like Lance, but he’s too old. And the hair? Not a bad try though, Joyce. Ten years ago maybe.
Lance James and Martin Lomax begin the walk along the pier, leaving the car where it is. Donna thinks it must be nice to work for MI5 and be able to park anywhere you want. Donna had once wrestled a man wielding a sword in the Streatham Lidl, only to find her car had been clamped outside for parking across two bays.
It is five minutes to three. People seem to be punctual where diamonds and cocaine are involved. A Toyota Avensis with ‘Robertsbridge Taxis’ stencilled onto the driver’s door arrives next, pulling up behind the Lotus.
The driver, whom Donna doesn’t recognize, steps out and makes his way to the boot. From the passenger seat steps a man who can only be Frank Andrade Jr.
Martin Lomax and Frank Andrade Jr are none of Donna and Chris’s business today, but it’s interesting to see them nonetheless. MI5 will be dealing with the two of them, while Kent Police deal with Connie Johnson and Ryan Baird. And no questions asked by either side. Elizabeth had brokered that deal.
And speak of the devil, here she is now. Elizabeth and Joyce exit the back seats. Joyce looks like she has just woken up.
The driver hands Frank Andrade a briefcase and the two men shake hands.
Bogdan has returned, and he motions to Frank Andrade to come with him. Andrade looks at Elizabeth, who nods. Elizabeth doesn’t shake Andrade’s hand and neither does Joyce. Which is very unlike both of them.
Bogdan gives Frank Andrade a small smile. Has Donna seen Bogdan smile before? She doesn’t think so, but she would like to see it again. ‘Climb your next mountain,’ Ibrahim had told her. As she watches him walking up the pier with Frank Andrade Jr, Donna wonders what it might be like to climb Bogdan? She eats her chocolate flake whole, then starts on the cornet.
‘So the gang’s all here,’ says Chris. ‘You ready?’
‘Ready,’ says Donna.
She sees Elizabeth walking along the promenade now, Joyce behind her, trying to brush creases out of her skirt after the journey. They pass the Lotus and they pass the Range Rover. Joyce looks over, spots them and gives them a big wave. It will be a while before Joyce makes an effective undercover officer. Donna waves back and Joyce looks thrilled.
Joyce and Elizabeth reach a nondescript white van, parked by the promenade railings, cordoned off by safety tape. On the side of the van it says ‘T. H. Hargreaves – Railings. All Jobs Considered’.
Elizabeth steps over the tape, followed by Joyce. Someone inside the van opens the back doors and they both climb in.
74
It is a nice enough office for one man, overseeing the day-to-day running of a slot-machine arcade on an award-winning pier.
It is a little cramped just at the moment, however. Connie Johnson sits behind a desk, with Martin Lomax opposite. Frank Andrade Jr is perched on a windowsill. Lance James leans against a wall and Bogdan stands in front of the door.
The introductions had been swift. Mainly ‘Who are you?’ and ‘None of your business.’ Frank Andrade Jr had greeted Martin Lomax with a handshake though. ‘Looks like I won’t have to kill you today, Martin!’ ‘Looks like it, Frank. How is your wife, did she get the muffins I sent?’
No one is quite sure how to begin. Because, of course, no one in this room has actually arranged this meeting. It has been arranged by a seventy-six-year-old woman currently sitting in a white van, four hundred metres away, listening to every word they are about to say.
And so it falls to the alpha character in the room to kick things off.
‘OK then,’ says Bogdan, ‘we start.’
OK then, says Bogdan, we start.
Inside the white van Sue Reardon is wearing headphones and watching the monitors relaying pictures from the cameras her team had installed in the office over the weekend.
Elizabeth and Joyce are having to share headphones, one ear each. Cutbacks.
‘You’re sure she’s still got the diamonds?’ asks Sue.
‘I left Bogdan in charge of
that,’ says Elizabeth. ‘So, yes, I’m sure.’
‘And what the hell’s in that bag she was carrying?’ asks Sue.
Elizabeth shrugs. The drugs are for Chris and Donna’s benefit, Sue doesn’t need to know about them. She looks back at the crowded office on her screen. The pictures are so much clearer than in her day.
Frank Andrade, sitting on his windowsill, addresses Connie Johnson.
So you got my diamonds?
I’ve got diamonds, says Connie. I’ll take your word they’re yours.
How’d you get ’em? asks Andrade.
Fell out of my Coco Pops, says Connie. Are you really from the mafia?
He’s a businessman, says Martin Lomax. Very well respected.
Yeah, I’m from the mafia, says Andrade. Now, show me the diamonds.
Well, here we go then, thinks Elizabeth. They are not going to like what happens next. Good luck one and all.
Connie reaches into her holdall. When are they going to talk about the drugs? She wants her fifty grand, and she wants to do more business with these people. She had been worried, she has to admit, about this whole thing. Cautious. But it was all going the way she’d been told. The way Vic Vincent had explained. There was a guy from the mafia, there was some old posh guy, there always is, and there was Bogdan. All very reassuring, and she is keen to make a good impression. There’s another guy, bored and balding, but he’s probably just a bodyguard. Bogdan knew him, and that was enough for her.
She puts the blue velvet bag down on the desk in front of her.
‘Well, hallelujah,’ says the old posh guy.
‘Show me,’ says Andrade. ‘Pour the diamonds out on the table. Don’t spill any.’
Don’t spill any? That’s a weird thing to say, thinks Connie, but this guy’s American, and they say weird things.
She loosens the drawstring, and carefully tips the diamonds onto the table.
‘There you go,’ says Connie. ‘Didn’t spill a thing. Both the diamonds, safe and sound.’
There is silence. Andrade, the old posh guy, even the bodyguard are staring at the diamonds on the table. Connie senses there is suddenly an atmosphere.
‘You got two diamonds?’ says Andrade.
‘Yeah,’ says Connie. ‘These are the diamonds. What were you expecting?’
What were you expecting? says Connie Johnson.
‘Where are the rest of the diamonds?’ says Sue Reardon, looking frantically at Elizabeth.
‘Oh, I only gave her the two,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Just enough to flush out the killer and liven things up a bit. Any news on whether your gang have spotted Poppy lurking about yet?’
‘Jesus Christ!’ says Sue. ‘Can’t you play anything straight?’
‘Only when it suits my purposes,’ says Elizabeth. ‘And it didn’t suit my purposes today.’
‘So where are the diamonds?’ asks Sue.
‘They’re safe,’ says Elizabeth. They are now in Joyce’s microwave, because she uses it far less than her kettle.
On screen they see Frank Andrade pull a gun.
‘Christ almighty!’ says Sue. ‘What the hell have you done, Elizabeth?’
Lance sees Frank Andrade pull his gun, and so pulls his own. Andrade’s is pointed at Connie Johnson and Lance’s is pointed at Andrade.
‘Where are my diamonds?’ asks Frank Andrade. ‘All of them.’ He sounds calm, but, in Lance’s estimation, he does not look it. Lance doesn’t blame him. What scam is being pulled here?
‘These are your diamonds,’ says Connie Johnson. ‘Put your gun down, you drama queen.’
‘Where are the rest?’ says Andrade. He doesn’t sound calm any more.
‘The rest?’ says Connie. ‘This is all I was given.’
‘Given?’ says Andrade. ‘Given by who?’
‘Some old guy, Vic Vincent,’ says Connie. ‘Don’t you dare shoot me for this. This guy gave me the diamonds, told me this posh guy wanted five kilos of coke and said meet you on the pier. This is between you and him.’
‘What coke?’ says Frank Andrade. ‘And who’s Vic Vincent?’
‘This coke,’ says Connie, reaching into her bag. But instead of pulling out cocaine, she pulls out her gun. She points it at Andrade.
‘This is a lot of guns in a small room,’ says Bogdan, and sighs.
‘That is such an English gun,’ says Andrade. ‘What did he look like? Vic Vincent?’
‘Old, like a boxer or something,’ says Connie. ‘Lots of tattoos, West Ham tattoos, all sorts.’
Martin Lomax slams his fist on the desk.
‘I know him,’ says Lomax.
‘I’ll bet you do,’ says Andrade, and points his gun at Lomax. ‘What have you set up here?’
Well, isn’t that just the question, thinks Lance. Connie Johnson’s gun is aimed at Andrade. Andrade’s is aimed at Lomax. Lance supposes he should aim at Connie Johnson, just for a sense of equilibrium. How does this play out now? It’s going to end badly for someone. He just needs to ensure it’s not him. What a place this would be to die. The seagulls calling overhead and the empty slot machines beeping down below. At least if he’s shot he won’t have to deal with the kitchen wall at his flat. All the same, try not to get shot, Lance.
‘I’m as baffled as you, Frank,’ says Lomax. ‘As I live and breathe. But there will be a perfectly simple –’
‘Enough,’ says Frank Andrade. He pulls the trigger and shoots Martin Lomax in the chest. Lomax doubles forward in his chair, blood spreading through his suit. Andrade aims the gun at Connie Johnson now, even though he was raised to shoot all the men first. He is too late, however. Connie Johnson squeezes off a single shot, which passes through Frank Andrade, through the window and out towards the grey sea.
Martin Lomax looks up, as if to comment on the noise. But whatever comment he has will have to go unsaid. He topples over to his left and hits the floor.
Frank Andrade slides off the windowsill, leaving a smear of thick, scarlet blood trailing down a plastic radiator. His feet end up in the crook of Martin Lomax’s arm. Two men sleeping. Dreaming of guns and drugs and money, of always taking and never giving.
What now? thinks Lance. There are two corpses on the floor, there are two diamonds on the table, and a bag full of cocaine under the desk. He and Connie have their guns pointed at one another, neither quite sure what to do.
Bogdan steps between the two guns.
‘Connie, you have no business with this guy and he has no business with you. He’s just here for dead guys and diamonds. Get your bag and run.’
Outside on the pier are members of the Special Boat Service, their eyes peeled for Poppy. They know not to touch Connie Johnson. Their orders are clear. She will reach her car.
Connie grabs the bag, slides over the desk and makes for the door. Bogdan opens the door for her. She reaches up to his face and kisses him.
‘Call me, yeah?’ she says, and then disappears at speed, holdall full of cocaine swinging as she goes.
Lance surveys the scene. The big Polish man next to him is blushing. The blood of the two corpses on the floor is starting to intermingle.
Sue had raced from the van as soon as the two shots had gone off. Elizabeth hadn’t felt the need to follow, and so Joyce has stayed where she is too.
‘Well, I never,’ says Joyce.
‘I don’t really like anyone being killed if one can avoid it,’ says Elizabeth. ‘But no great loss here.’
Joyce thinks about this. As soon as Elizabeth had decided to give Connie Johnson just the two diamonds, something like this had been inevitable. Elizabeth could be brutal sometimes. She was a very bad enemy to make.
The world was better off without Frank Andrade Jr, that was for certain. Mark from Robertsbridge Taxis had wanted to talk to him about baseball, but had been told to ‘shut the hell up’. Except Andrade hadn’t said ‘hell’. Mafia or no mafia, what a dreary, inadequate man Frank Andrade Jr is.
Was.
And Martin Lomax? With his house
and his millions, and his work. The things he had helped to fund. The weapons, the gangs, the warlords. The smell of honeysuckle covering the stench. She thinks about his cheque for Living With Dementia. Five pounds. She looks at the screen, sees his body and feels nothing.
Joyce has seen so many good people, innocent people, unlucky people, die over the years. Sometimes she would go home and cry, and Gerry would hold her, knowing there was nothing he could say.
But she would shed no tears for these two. ‘Good riddance,’ Gerry would say, and Joyce quite agrees. Still, to make it happen, as Elizabeth has just done? Was that worse? Or just more honest? A question for someone cleverer there. She would ask Ibrahim.
She watches the monitors and sees Lance approach each camera in turn and switch it off. The last thing she sees each time is her friendship bracelet. The final screen goes black.
‘What now?’ she says to Elizabeth. ‘I don’t suppose they found Poppy?’
‘Oh, Poppy’s dead, Joyce,’ says Elizabeth. ‘I worked it all out in the car on the way down here. It all clicked while the Jeremy Vine show was on.’
‘Oh,’ says Joyce. ‘So what now?’
‘Well,’ says Elizabeth, looking at her watch. ‘I’d give it half an hour or so, but then, I hope, a trip back to Godalming in a coroner’s van with the person who killed Douglas and Poppy.’
Connie is running at full pelt along the pier. She has shot a mafia boss, she has kissed Bogdan and she still has her cocaine, so it is hard to judge how that went. She needs to get back to the office. Regroup. It honestly feels like she might come out of it all pretty cleanly. She trusts Bogdan, and the other guy seemed to have no interest in her.
The Range Rover is up ahead. The driver, Ryan Baird, was deeply unimpressive. She remembered he had done a few jobs for her before, and not particularly well. He stunk of weed and didn’t know how the heated seating worked. And he tried to talk to her, which was unforgivable. When she sees Vic Vincent again she will have to tell him the truth about his nephew, family or no family.
Connie risks a look behind her, but no one is giving chase. No one is even looking in her direction, which is strange. A blonde woman in a business suit running down a pier with a sports bag? Surely someone would turn their head? But the pier was quiet, just a few couples in dark clothing walking arm in arm.
The Man Who Died Twice (The Thursday Murder Club) Page 27
