by Robert White
“Cop shop?” asked Mitch.
“Police station.”
He nodded.
“Mush?”
“Guy.”
“Okay…Monkey?”
“Five hundred pounds.”
He scratched his head. “Jeez, Rick. Does anyone speak English in the country?”
I smiled at him. “Wait ‘till you start having a deep and meaningful chat with our Des…Now that is a different language.”
Lauren North’s Story:
Of course, I wasn’t convinced that the computer I’d been given was in the slightest secure. Indeed, I wasn’t convinced by Mason Carver, or Mitch Collins, for that matter. Call me old fashioned, but most women can smell bullshit a mile away. It’s just that sometimes we choose to ignore it.
Secure laptop or not, everything I needed was the stuff of public record. If any hacking was required, I would leave that to Simon.
Which brought me to my main issue. To what was weighing on my mind. To what concerned me far more that the Americans obvious economy with the truth was the fact that I was going to have to visit Detective Chief Inspector Larry Simpson again.
Rick had found out about our last meeting by pure chance. He seemed to accept that it had been innocent enough.
It was…wasn’t it?
I mean, one kiss under those circumstances.
I did my best to push the whole thing to the back of my mind and concentrate on Senator Johnathan Eisenhower Blackman.
I started with Google Images. That way, I could get shots of him, his wife, and hopefully, Todd all in the same sweep.
There were hundreds.
Gala dinners, meetings with current and former Presidents, rallies, conferences, hustings, and baby kissing’s. All seemingly with his younger, loyal and very beautiful wife in tow.
Todd, however, seemed not to be around too often and when he was, did a fair impression of a bored, surly teen.
J.E. Blackman was fifty-two, young for a Presidential hopeful. He looked a tall man, of slim build. Just one scroll of the photographs, showed a youthful J.E. in various poses, wearing basketball gear during his college years. Then, there were dozens of him dressed in Army uniform. His meteoric rise within the military shown in all its glory, sporting more medals on his chest than it seemed possible to obtain in one lifetime. There was Major General J.E. Blackman in Iraq, in Somalia and in Afghanistan. It seemed our President-in-waiting had done a fair amount of front line command work. Certainly not an office bound animal.
He looked like he still kept fit, as did his raven-haired wife Ursula, who at thirty eight, yes, I know, my age, looked fabulous dutifully smiling for the cameras.
I selected one picture that depicted the whole family together and played around with it, zooming in here and there.
It was labelled, ‘Kentucky Derby 2006,’ so recent enough to get a fair impression of Todd, Mum and Dad. The family were surrounded by serious looking bodyguards, all dark suits and sunglasses, FBI standard uniform. J.E. and Ursula were looking front and centre smiling. J.E. with one arm raised to the crowd in acknowledgement of something or other.
Todd however, was in conversation with his closest minder and from his body language, you would suggest it wasn’t about the horse racing.
I cropped everyone from the shot except Todd and the bodyguard, enlarged it as best I could and printed it.
Todd Blackman was a good-looking boy. Tall, lithe, hair as jet black as his mother’s, cut conservatively and swept to one side. He had dark eyes, good clear skin and even though he wasn’t smiling, you just knew he had the perfect teeth to match.
The bodyguard was holding up a hand in his direction. It was a ‘I’m sorry but you can’t’ type of gesture. Todd’s brow was furrowed and he pointed towards some unseen destination out of shot.
If we needed any confirmation of what Mitch had told us earlier, that one picture communicated the whole story. Todd was a prisoner of his father’s political ambition.
Another fifteen minutes saw me with a dozen or so good clear shots of the boy and his parents printed out ready for Rick’s dossier.
I was about to move on to Wiki his Dad when I came across a scanned image from a local Louisville newspaper.
It was dated February 2006. The picture showed someone covered in a blanket being led from a building into a waiting car. Whoever was under the cover was flanked by dozens of uniformed police and plain clothes officers. I zoomed into the bottom of the shot. The text read, ‘Todd Blackman bailed by Louisville Police Dept.’
“Well, well, Todd,” I said to myself. “Have you been a naughty boy?”
I’d just minimised the page and begun to search for the newspaper’s website when in walked Sgt Willis. She was dressed as she had been on our first meeting and carried a sheaf of papers.
“Hello, Britney,” I said cheerily.
The Sergeant strode over, dropped the papers at the side of my printer, lifted a chair from under a nearby table, spun it around and sat legs apart, arms leaning on the back, bright blue eyes examining me.
“It’s Katelyn, Ma’am. My name is Katelyn.”
We locked eyes for a second before I offered my hand. “Lauren,” I said. “But of course, you know that.”
Katelyn shook her head. “Actually, no Ma’am, it’s one of the things I don’t know about you.”
“Really?... And what can I do for you, Katelyn?”
Willis shrugged. “Mr Carver asked me to look in on you, see if I could be of any service.”
I pursed my lips. “Did you know Todd Blackman?”
“No, Ma’am.”
“His father?”
“I know of his father, Ma’am.”
“Any idea why Todd was killed or who killed him?”
“No Ma’am.”
“Then I don’t see what possible help you can be.”
Willis put a palm on her forehead. “Yikes, sorry Ma’am, you sure are sharp with me. I only came…”
I suddenly felt a complete arse. “No Katelyn, you’re right, that was sharp. It’s me who should be sorry. But it’s not every day you get kidnapped by the CIA. It tends to make one a little tetchy.”
“I understand, Ma’am.”
“Do you?”
“Well, I’d be pissed.”
I smiled. “It’s wearing off. Large sums of money do that to a girl.”
“You guys are completely freelance then? I should have guessed when the files I was given referred to you all by codename. I really did not know your true name. Only Collins and Carver were privy to that information.”
I nodded, resigned to the truth. “You can’t belong if you don’t exist, Katelyn.”
Willis blew out her cheeks. “I don’t think I’d have the guts to do that, Ma’am. The army is my life. I mean, belonging to something, being part of the machine, knowing that your back is covered. Well, it’s kind of a given.”
“I know what you mean. When I was nursing it was just the same. Press a button and they all came running.”
For a moment, I felt very alone and I spoke to myself as much as to Willis. “I had some very good friends back then.”
“But not now?”
I shook my head. “What would I tell them I did for a living?”
Katelyn smiled. She was indeed a pretty girl. “Hit woman?”
I smiled back and suddenly realised I hadn’t been able to confide in another female for a very long time. “Oh yeah, that would go well. My old mate Jane would be on the phone to all and sundry in a heartbeat.”
Katelyn rested her chin on her hands. “I know this sounds crazy, Ma’am, but what about love, y’know? I mean you are a mighty fine looking woman, but how can you possibly hold down a relationship, when as you say, you don’t exist?”
I bit my lip at that one. Not wanting to answer, I turned the tab
les. “What about you, Katelyn? Here you are thousands of miles from home. I don’t see a ring.”
She smiled. “I have someone back in the States. He’s army… Cute too.”
I sat back in my seat. The thought of driving to Levenshulme to see Larry weighing heavy. “Well, I have someone too. Well, I have kind of two someone’s.”
“Two?”
“Complicated huh?”
Willis raised her brows. “Well, that wasn’t in your file, girl.”
We both laughed and it felt good.
Katelyn picked up the papers she’d walked in with and handed them to me.
“These are for you guys anyways. They are the reports from the surveillance operation Mitch promised you. You can scan them in with that printer if you want copies.”
“Thanks, Katelyn.”
She turned to leave, but I called after her. “Sgt Willis?”
“Yes, Ma’am?”
“Did you know that Todd Blackman got himself arrested before he came to the UK. Back home in Louisville? It was last February. It made the papers.”
Katelyn nodded. “I do recall that incident, Ma’am, but I understood that no charges were filed.”
“No charges?”
“No Ma’am.”
“So, what was young Mr Blackman arrested for Katelyn? Before these mysterious charges were subsequently dropped?”
The Sergeant examined her highly polished boots before giving me a very uncomfortable look. It was the same ants in the pants game Mitch had played earlier.
“I understand the allegation was that Todd was kerb crawling, Ma’am. The cops thought he was cruising for sex.”
The plot just got stickier.
Des Cogan’s Story:
A beanpole of a guy called Dwayne Ford found me a car. It was a grey Chevrolet four door saloon. Ford, being from Tennessee, called it a sedan, but then again, he’d call the boot a fuckin’ trunk and the bonnet a hood eh?
He’d asked me where I was from. When I’d finished explaining that Scotland was not a ‘State,’ of the United Kingdom, why I didnea wear my kilt every day, and that Mel Gibson was actually Australian, we got on okay.
I had no idea why Rick was so snooty about the Chevy. It was basic, but quiet and comfortable. I turned the radio to a 24 hour news channel and set off towards the M62, my mind full of questions.
Ancoats, once actually part of Lancashire, is a quarter of a mile from Salford as the crow flies. Once a thriving industrial area with dark satanic mills towering above the rows of terraces, no-one would have ever described the place as pretty or middle class. But from the early noughties, some people, people with pots of cash, had begun to have other notions. Ancoats was changing.
As SOCU had been so tight-lipped with the Yanks about the exact location of the murder, we had no idea where in the town Todd’s body had been found. So, I stopped at a newsagent, refilled my tobacco pouch and bought a map. Spreading it out on the passenger seat, I took a marker and carved up the area into quarters. Once I was happy, I began to crawl around each one in the Chevy.
I was working on the premise that the house would be cordoned off, a police presence would be outside and the venue would be obvious for all to see.
It was a boring, tedious job. No doubt. But lots of jobs, particularly in the Military and the Police are dreary. There’s always lots of standing around, lots of watching for people who never show, lots of waiting for it to kick off.
Of course, this is often followed by short bursts of shockingly terrifying action.
The reason we do the shit job in the first place.
Ancoats nestled alongside the already trendy up-and-coming Northern Quarter. It reminded me of some Glasgow suburbs that had undergone bad times, but someone somewhere had decided that those times were behind it. There were lots of older houses still evident, long terraces with doors straight out onto the street, the odd one in disrepair, but many either renovated or in the process. Other rows boasted small walled gardens where the new, upwardly mobile residents planted brightly coloured flowers in tubs and boxes. Larger detached properties that once housed the wealthy mill owners, were now home to new money and were split into apartments or small offices. What had been tight shopping areas, grocers, tyre shops, computer repairs, phone un-lockers, now gave way to coffee shops and boutique trades.
The residents would be sipping latte from a jam-jar at four quid a pop before they knew what hit them.
The sun shone and Ancoats went about its business with all the hustle and bustle of a once poor, but now thriving community.
I crawled the streets, one by one, checking them off my map looking for the scene of a gruesome murder.
Finally, I found it.
The street was a row of garden fronted post-war three storey terraces. All seemed to be the same mix of bare brick and painted render, and all appeared to be in the same state of repair, as in, newly renovated. I noted that the porches of each dwelling had been added to the properties, during the refurbishment, and that brushed steel, electronic door entry systems were fitted inside all of them.
The whole street was obviously owned by one company, maybe even one guy, and each house was divided by three. Sixty trendy apartments situated in an up and coming part of the city. Not bad eh?
However, as with many re-developments in inner city areas, there was nowhere to put your posh motor and a plethora of expensive parked cars sat nose to tail, on both sides of the street, two wheels on the pavement so as to allow just enough room for other posh vehicles to drive up and down and knock your fuckin’ wing mirrors off.
The cops were guarding number nine. The windows of the ground floor were covered over.
The pavement out front was taped off. A police van and a crime scene investigations unit prevented anyone from getting too close to the house. Two uniforms stood guard.
I noticed the gaff had a wooden sign in the garden.
It announced, ‘Lucas Estates,’ and a London telephone number. I wrote it down and cruised by. There was nothing to see, but at least we now had the address of the scene and the phone number of either the owner, or his estate agent.
More important than the address was what the locals knew about the murder. And now I had the right street I could start to make a nuisance of myself.
I did a right and right again and came across a corner boozer, The Prince O’ Wales. Miraculously, a hundred yards up from the pub was a space just big enough for me to park the Chevy in.
Well, Rick did say to check out the local pubs, eh. Mix with the locals. And I’m never one to disappoint the wee jobbie.
I stepped into the entrance of the place. A mosaic floor greeted me with the Prince O’ Wales feathers picked out in red green and gold at my feet.
I pushed open a heavy door with a frosted glass window and was instantly greeted by the wonderful aroma that only a wee back street boozer can provide.
Afternoon drinkin’. Ye cannea beat it, pal.
The lounge was no more than twice that of an average house. The intricate mosaic of the entrance hall gave way to a simpler pattern that would still have cost a fortune today. Dark mahogany pews lined three sides of the room, and I noticed that they still had service bells fitted on the walls behind. Ornate brass roses, each with a large ivory button in the centre, yellowed with hundreds of nicotine stained finger pushes, an enamel plate below announcing its purpose.
The early afternoon sun shone into the small room through one of the beautiful Victorian windows that ran along the street side of the pub. One had a horse drawn dray and the name of the brewery etched into the glass. A long lost art. A trim woman in her forties collected glasses from a table underneath it. Despite the presence of the barmaid at the table, I figured that waitress service had long since been discontinued, along with the disconnected bells.
However, on a positive note, the glass
collector was a trim wee thing, barely five feet, dark brown hair to her shoulders with a good figure. When she turned, I saw she had a pretty face, no make-up to mention and dark expressive eyes. She saw me and smiled.
“You all right, love?” She asked. Not Mancunian, Lancashire somewhere. “Let me get these an’ I’ll be with yer.”
“Ah ye right hen, ne bother.”
I sat at the highly polished bar, more ornate brass hand pumps, spotlessly clean, well-managed, but just… dying.
Dying along with the old Ancoats.
Trendy wine bars and the new found café culture were on the up. The Northern quarter was walking distance and the bright lights of the City just a short tram or bus ride away. All this meant a place like the Prince was on its last legs.
Shame, I liked it and the staff were none too shabby either.
I watched the wee girl fill the glass washer. I put her of a similar age to myself, maybe a tad younger, forty-two maybe? She switched it on, wiped her hands on a towel and gave me another smile. She was indeed a handsome woman.
“Now, what can I get you?”
“I’ll have a Guinness, love.”
“Guinness, it is,” she repeated, finding the right glass and starting the lengthy process that is the correct pouring of the fine brew.
“You’re not from here then?”
“Glasgow.”
“Ah yes, should have known with the accent. We have a couple of our regulars hail from that way.”
I nodded. “There’s a few of us, and we tend to get around, hen.”
She acknowledged my black suit and black tie I had yet to change out of.
“Funeral brings you this way then, is it?”
“Aye, kindae.”
She made a funny clicking noise with her mouth and pulled a ‘what a shame’ face.
“Aww…someone close?”
I almost told the truth. “Old army pal.”
“Right,” she managed handing me my pint. “My hubby was in the forces. Nine years he did…. That will be two fifty, love.”
Reasonable price, shame about the husband.
I sipped my brew and very nice it was too, just as well kept as the rest of the gaff.
